Fallout: New Vegas - NMA's Impression

skavenhorde

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NMA gives their impression of Fallout: New Vegas. Worstusername, The Dutch Ghost, 13pm, Tagaziel and Brother None post their opinions on varying aspects of the game.
Overall, a positive impression of this latest edition to the Fallout Universe:
Story - The Dutch Ghost
Fallout: New Vegas recycles a lot of elements from Black Isle Studios' Van Buren project, but it is not Van Buren in a different form, telling that game's storyline. It does, however, follow up on the Fallout 1 and 2 storylines to an extent, and narratively is more of a sequel to those games than Fallout 3 was.
The basic premise of playing a courier trying to find out who shot you in the head and why might not sound that thrilling, but it's interesting that where Fallout 1 and 2 were all about saving a community, New Vegas feels a lot more personal. The player doesn't start out with a larger than life goal but rather on a personal one.
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Combat and gameplay - WorstUsernameEver

While I personally would have liked to see stats and skills matter more in the gameplay, I was pleasantly surprised by seeing the game favoring different builds - if only to a certain degree - as well as by how difficult it is for me to find a skill that I could call useless. The game's crafting system and the possibility of modifying your weapons are designed in such a way that they never really feel necessary but can be extremely satisfying if you decide to delve into them.
On the matter of the much advertised Hardcore Mode, two things must be said: first, it doesn't really feel 'hardcore', its survival elements are more akin to flavor than something challenging; second, the fact that - in Hardcore - stimpaks take time to heal you forces you to play a little bit more tactically, avoiding the typical 'rush to the enemy and then open Pip-boy and heal yourself' tactic.
New Vegas' primary gameplay element is combat. There's a certain basic degree of tactics to it, with enemies using different strategies, weapons (and weapon categories and ammo types) serving different tactical purposes (the main difference being that between high DPS and high DAM weapons), the control feel decently responsive and the enemies AI routines varied. Unfortunately, it's not always enough, the AI still feels rough around the edges and even with a maxed weapon skill and meeting the strength requirements, the 'feel' of the combat is somewhat off. Overall, provided that you can accept the departure from the original Fallout's design philosophy, Fallout: New Vegas' gameplay is fun.
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And Fallout 3 - Brother None
As a Fallout fan, you'll mostly notice New Vegas combines a less nonsensical take on Fallout lore with a kind of light-hearted post-post-apocalypse similar to Fallout 2. The writing is miles beyond Fallout 3 and that's a saving grace for many fans, as is its increased dedication to RPG mechanics. I feel the mechanics and engine's shortcomings keep it from being "the Fallout 3 that was supposed to be", but it's certainly a lot better than Fallout 3, and quite probably the best thing that could happen to the franchise after Bethesda purchased it.
More information.
 
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Even the NMA guys like it :)

And I agree. Given the 3D FPS engine. F-NV is probably the best thing that could be sucked out of that engine.

Huge kudos to Obsidian. And in my opinion worthy successor to original Fallout. As well as RPG of the year
 
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The player doesn't start out with a larger than life goal but rather on a personal one.

Yes! That's fantastic news. I haven't read much about this game, but I'm thrilled to hear this. I'm so sick of every game throwing you into a "save the world" cliché plot. I would love to see smaller more interesting stories in RPGs instead of the single bullet-point crap that's more for press releases and box art.
 
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Grudging approval by NMA is probably about the best possible outcome, post-Bethesda. I am happy for those guys that they get to play a Fallout game that at least in some ways gives them what they were waiting for all these years. Obsidian have their problems, but they do know what makes hardcore RPGers tick.
 
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I love starting out as a simple courier. Every week I play this game gets better and better. I now have 36 hours played (and haven't even reached New Vegas yet - although I am at the rest-top right outside town) and have had 1 freeze and 1 crash so far.

Of course now I am really interested in F2 and 3 ... but not sure how they will compare to FNV.
 
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Every inch of Fallout New Vegas feels alive - exploring is fun again. The only thing I'm missing from Fallout 1+2 is turn based combat. But Fallout's combat was always more of a fun thing in comparison to JA 2 - so I can live with it.
 
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Exploring in FO3 was fun, too - but often it feels more mechanical like the endless metro dungeons grind jobs.

FO NV = gourmet meal
FO3 = fast food

The combat balance is better in FO NV, too. In FO3 I was invincible too early.
 
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That was easy for them… it couldn't get much worse than (unmodded) FO3.

Yeah- it's almost like fallout 3 served as a beta-test for gamebryo-fallout combat.

Ditching the auto-leveled spawns (for the most part) helped too. I say "for the most part" because there are some things you don't encounter many of until you're further along in the plot- but these have plot reasons. For example- the elite veteran rangers in the cool black armor don't star appearing in numbers until you've reached a certain point in the main plot. This is not so much leveled spawning as a visible reaction to things coming to a head in the region. I actually liked it that when I heard on the radio "NCR is calling in elite troops" and heard people mention "elite rangers from Baja" and lo-and-behold I started seeing black-armored rangers at major NCR installations and ranger posts.

But yeah- tougher deathclaws and deadlier high-level enemies along with a greater diversity of weapons seems to have helped balanced combat a bit too. I do like it that deathclaws don't feel like really fast supermutants without guns. I haven't tested my limited edition bb gun against them yet though... must remember to do so.
 
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Exploring in FO3 was fun, too - but often it feels more mechanical like the endless metro dungeons grind jobs.

FO NV = gourmet meal
FO3 = fast food

The combat balance is better in FO NV, too. In FO3 I was invincible too early.

Exactly, you hit the nail on the head. FO3 was mechanical ticking boxes exploring. When will people realise that large areas WITHOUT monsters is okay. Really, ITS OKAY. We are grown up. We can handle it. Less is more. It's not all pew pew pew.

Combat balance in FO3 was terrible, I stopped playing after I could one shot everything. Granted, Boone is probably descended from Jason Bourne or something, but I still die regularly in one hit as I run round in Naughty Nightwear.
 
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The strongest advantage with FONV over FO3 for me are the items. The item system in FO3 was really bad, but in FONV it's almost like everything you find can be used in some way.

Weapons and armor have much greater diversity and you aren't continuously mouthfed great weapons and ammo. I have updated Energy Weapons with +5 every level but I am forced to use a regular rifle thanks to ammo use. I have found a plasma rifle which I used all repairkits i found to repair, but thanks to Microfusion Cells being so very rare I only use it for special occasions. I also have a fully repaired plasma pistol that I stack up energy cells for, also to be used on special occasions.

And the crafting system in FONV is actually useful and rewarding! I actually feel ashamed that I do not put more points in survival but hey, that's not my character build to be a survivalist this time right? Also I chug down a lot of radiated food all the time, watching my rad slowly go up. In FO3 there was no reason to consume radiated stuff EVER.

In an era where a good inventory system seems to be rare (I am looking at you Mass Effect 2), FONV is a breath of freshness.
 
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The more I play the game, the more I like it.
It feels all very balanced.
I am pretty much always slightly irradiated! Anti rad meds are hard to come by!

I dunno. Its just keeps pressing all the right buttons!
Also no crashes so am having a really great time. Plus, with SSD as my main drive, loading areas is a breeze.

Probably my GOTY .... what else is there? Minecraft?
 
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Also I chug down a lot of radiated food all the time, watching my rad slowly go up. In FO3 there was no reason to consume radiated stuff EVER.

In an era where a good inventory system seems to be rare (I am looking at you Mass Effect 2), FONV is a breath of freshness.

Agreed with everything you said except for rads. They still climb far too slowly for my liking. I've never been in any danger of of reaching medium ration level, even when I was in a vault that constantly bombarded me with radiation on top of glowing ghouls who took every opportunity to blast me.

Their use of radiated places was spot on though. Add to that the different kinds of radiated water out there and you start to see a world that is suffering, but in a way that makes some sort of sense. Now you no longer need to go to the penthouse with the shiny toilets to find water with 0 radiation like in Fallout 3.
 
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Even though I'm a Bethesda fanboi, I have to agree with most of what is said here. Fallout 3 laid the groundwork for an expansion that is much, much better. F3 is almost like an introductory course to FNV. It is much easier, quite a bit bigger but not as well focused, and the writing is sub-par in comparison. I'm not sure if Beth dabbled their hand in FNV at all, but I'm grateful that they didn't intrude too much. This is really the best that Fallout 1/2 fans could expect.

I'd love to see Obsidian get another expansion, perhaps this time on the Texas/Mexico border. It'd be cool to see Mexico, (who didn't get nuked much at all), trying to recapture Texas and the southern part of the US. Houston would be as irradiated as the Capital Wasteland, but other parts of Texas should have been nuke-free.
 
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Agreed with everything you said except for rads. They still climb far too slowly for my liking. I've never been in any danger of of reaching medium ration level, even when I was in a vault that constantly bombarded me with radiation on top of glowing ghouls who took every opportunity to blast me

What difficulty/setting you playing at? Hardcore, with its non-immediate use of RadAway, is a lot tougher. I was wandering around Searchlight in Hardcore/Hard and (honestly kind of not paying attention/didn't put on my spacesuit) hit 400 rads in a heartbeat.

Normal/non-hardcore is a breeze in every way. Hardcore doesn't add much challenge-wise except the non-immediate impact of RadAway/Stimpaks, and upped difficulty as per usual just ups DT and HPs and DPS, but combined they make a better gameplay experience.

Probably my GOTY …. what else is there? Minecraft?

Avernum 6.
 
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Very hard + hardcore. Searchlight was an area I visited briefly then ran like hell ;) So maybe, I'm being too harsh on it, but with all the rad-x and radaway I have stored it'll never be a problem unless they start dosing me with tons of radiation.

Come to think of it because I have so much rad-x and radaway it never even crosses my mind just how much radiation I'm taking in. Once I get that minor rad poison light and see that I'm taking on more than +4 rads a second, I'll down a radaway and pop a rad-x pill. Maybe, it's just I have so much of that stuff that it seems like less of a problem.
 
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Clark Field and Searchlight both get me popping pills. The nuclear test site is another area that would irradiate me to death, but I haven't been able to take on all the ghouls and survive yet, so I die before ever worrying about the radiation. Something about 20-30 glowing ones that makes me want to run away quickly. To be honest, survival would be a welcome addition to F3 with all the heavily irradiated areas. Rad Away and Rad-X would have to be priced much higher to meet the supply and demand criteria.
 
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