Backstage - OOC Forums
General Discussion => The Speakeasy: OOG/Off-topic Discussion => Topic started by: Mizhara on 01 Aug 2011, 00:16
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Well, I figured since I recently hit the 120 hours played mark in this game that it was about time I sat down and tried to gather my thoughts on it. Now, before continuing, allow me to clarify something...
I'm a Fallout Fanboi. That's right, I'll happily fall to my knees and proclaim the Fallout series as the greatest and most fantastic thing to have ever graced a computer this side of buttersticks-and-midgets porn. The first game blew my mind completely, introducing me to the glory of post-apocalyptic awesomeness, grimdark and humor along with fantastic writing and storytelling... in an RPG environment. Mad Max was great stuff, but it was just a movie. This was a game. Not just a game, it was a roleplaying game. I was enthralled, and the game just kept sucking hour by hour by hour out of my life. It was the best thing ever... until Fallout 2, where they surpassed everything in the original while keeping everything that was already great. Humor, grimdark, fantastic characters and top-notch writing.
Then came Fallout 3, a game that initially had me going 'eeeeeh...' as I kept wondering if the universe could handle the transition into a first-person game, and whether or not it'd just be Oblivion Post-Ap. Fortunately, it wasn't... it came through. I'll still consider FO1&2 superior in story and writing, but the game was by the Brotherhood... FALLOUT in all it's glory. And it survived the transition into first person very well. In fact, it made the whole thing more immersive and you and your faithful dog (which I named various things, depending on character, but default would be Dogmeat) really was stalking through the subway tunnels, killing ghouls and wresting small treasures out of the forgotten dust. You really were battling super mutants at great monuments of Washington DC. The game received criticism for playing a bit fast and loose with the iconic factions of the previous games, but I actually found it refreshing and interesting to see them evolve and change, like the Brotherhood of Steel. The DLCs were mostly in keeping with the Fallout feel and universe, and some were grimdark enough that I once stopped and said to myself... "Right, I just grabbed a baby from a crib, shot the mother in the face and I'll be handing it over to a grim and disillusioned freedom fighter for research purposes... and this is the best possible option available to me... This shouldn't be this enjoyable."
Then came Fallout: New Vegas. At first, I thought it was just a stand-alone expansion, really. The same engine and so on... boy, how wrong I was...
Let's try to segment this a bit and tackle bit by bit.
Graphics/Visuals/Physics:
Allright, the engine is a little dated. This isn't F.3.A.R, DNF or whatever game you're drooling over recently. However... it really does work well. For a giant sandbox world, you really do feel like you're really there. The art-style working so well with the graphics engine is something that you rarely see, but when you do see it, it'll make the whole much better than the sum of it's parts. There is however a problem with this engine. It's got bugs. That's right, BUGS! It's a patchwork of an engine having been updated and pieced together throughout several games now, and that means it's got some issues at times. You'll find weird physics glitches bound to the graphics and things sometimes react very oddly to your presence. Watching a model suddenly stretch and flail around, clipping into the world and so on isn't a too rare sight.
When entering a 'cell' (which you might be familiar with as a 'grid'), you can hear items splashing into water or bounce about as they have only been positioned there, frozen in time, until you entered the area and the physics kicked in. Sometimes you'll see a corpse launch itself into the air as you shoot it, a marvelous display of a physics engine not quite managing to restrain itself from showing off.
However... for a giant sandbox game? It's fabulous. Items are really there in the world, and you can pick them up and arrange them however you wish. For instance, I decided on a whim to kill everything in Caesars camp, then pile every last body I could find in a giant heap... on top of a lot of C4 explosives. The ensuing carnage had me laughing for fifteen minutes straight.
Funnily enough, you'd think you'd get tired of watching someone completely explode or their heads detach from their bodies just from a single punch or a bullet to the face... but it just doesn't get old. It works...
Story/Writing/Worldbuilding:
This is where the Fallout universe really shines. You are a (insert a past here) and shit has happened. It's the same in all the Fallout games. You are released into a grand wide world with a hint of a main storyline and it's entirely up to you what you want to do. In New Vegas, the introduction to the Mojave Wastelands is simple... you are on your knees and get shot in the head.
What do you do about this? Well, it's entirely up to you. You can just singlemindedly finish your assignment, hunting down the bastard who did it, get back the package and deliver it. Or, you can just not give a shit, and move on with your life, just randomly explore and do whatever you want... or side with any of the multitudes of factions in Mojave, working for them and gaining their support. It's entirely up to you...
You'll probably do a little bit of everything.
The real treat is in the fact that the world is there to explore and interact with. The factions are real, the world is gritty and won't allow for too sensitive stomachs and it's a dangerous enough world out there even if you don't piss everyone off. The characters range from meh to oh my God on the impression meters, and that's in both the positive and negative sides.
The important part is that you really feel like you're having an impact on the world, and that the world adapts and shapes itself to you, as well as you yourself adapting right back.
There is some fantastic storytelling and characters in this game, but I have to say that I preferred the three previous games in that regard. The main storylines and characters aren't quite as impressive in vanilla NV as in the former games, but there's one part that well and truly shines with NV... the DLCs.
Honest Hearts, Dead Money and Old World Blues. These three DLC packs completely and utterly blew my mind with some of the finest writing and best voice acting I have seen. Especially Old World Blues. It was beyond amazing. Between Dead Money and Old World Blues you will see the heights of everything Fallout can offer. Grim and depressing grimdark reality and 'no happy ending', and fantastic humor and mindblowing characters all voiced and acted superbly.
Conclusion:
Well, it should probably come as no surprise, considering the 120 hour mark I mentioned right at the beginning, but I'm enjoying this game. It's pretty much everything I could want in a computer game, short of strategy. It's got FPS action, RPG characterbuilding both with skills/stats and with affecting the world around you, great storytelling, a huge sandbox world to explore and interact with and last but not least... it's got staying power and massive replayability.
When purely comparing the vanilla games, I'd rate Fallout 3 over New Vegas, even if New Vegas has far superior gameplay mechanics and gunplay, simply because I liked the FO3 wastelands and factions better. However, when you add in the DLCs, New Vegas goes above and beyond FO3. It's overall the best of the two games, and I will recommend it to anyone. If you like Post-Apocalyptica, this series is easily the pinnacle of the genre. If you like RPGs, this will satisfy your itch. If you like FPS... well, it's not Quake 3, but it'll still challenge you at times.
I'll end the review here, and reading back through it, I realize it's lacking a lot of specifics and tidbits that might tempt you or clarify something, but I really wanted to avoid spoilers and pretty much all the details of the game would constitute a spoiler.
Either way... this game gets a 10/10 from me. Fallout 1&2 was better, but New Vegas and the DLCs really did try to give them a run for their money. I guess I might review the DLCs a bit separately, as they're vastly different gameplay experiences.
Honest Hearts
This is the first DLC for New Vegas, and it introduces you to a whole new 'zone', enemies, a few new weapons and quests. This is the DLC that made the least impact on me, but it's also the biggest in sheer landscape and territory. You join a caravan going to 'Zion' to the north of the Mojave, in order to trade with the New Caananites. Tits inevitably go up, and you find yourself alone amongst the canyons and vistas of Zion. There's various tribes in the area and most of them want you to perform various tasks and quests for them. There's two new companions and some new weapons to be found there, along with the mutant bears you might have missed in Vanilla NV. I enjoyed it, but not as much as Dead Money or Old World Blues.
Dead Money
Can you say grimdark? Dead Money certainly can. You are plopped in the middle of a dead city, wearing a jumpsuit, an explosive slave collar and a low damage energy rifle with a few crap ammo reserves. Your task, if you should choose to accept it instead of getting your head popped off, is to assemble a crew of misfits that also are wearing similar collars, then perform a heist at the Sierra Madre casino... also dead. Oh, and let's not forget the very hard to kill Ghost People who wander the dead city and the invulnerable hologram security guards that can still do a lot of damage to you. Every character you interact with is some shade of insane, greedy, murderous and generally horrible people... and they're marvelous to interact with.
The entire DLC unveils a story to you, along with stories for each of the companions you'll recruit, that is through and through depressive, grim and masterfully told and acted. I personally have to say I really enjoyed the story and the characters, as they were masterfully written and acted. However, this is also the most infuriating of the three DLCs as the gameplay is the least enjoyable. To me, anyway. It's more trial and error than skillbased, it'll sometimes seem. It's punishing, it's enjoyable, it's sometimes scary, it's sometimes so bittersweet and heartstring thrumming that it's really impressive...
In short, it's the second best DLC so far, and I enjoyed it... even if even the best of endings to this DLC is so bittersweet and heartache inducing that you feel... spent, once it's done.
Old World Blues
... I can't stop geeking out about this DLC. It's by far the finest piece of writing, acting and laughter inducing piece of gaming I have encountered in ages. I absolutely loved and adored this DLC to bits. Imagine if you will, investigating a fallen satelite only to be whisked away to an unknown location. You wake up on a balcony overlooking the interior crater of a hollowed out mountain, wearing a patient's gown and noticing a lot of new surgery scars. Imagine then, if you will, that within the next fifteen minutes you'll find that your brain, heart and spine have been surgically removed and replaced with technology, and that you are the only hope left for a bunch of scientists that for certain interesting reasons no longer have access to things like hands, feet or genitalia.
I can't speak much of this DLC without spoiling some of the most fantastic conversations and characters I have ever seen in a game, but if you pile all the most fantastic characters you can imagine from a cheesy 50/60s Sci-Fi/Horror movie including the mad scientists, overly dramatic announcers and most hilarious sentient household appliances... what, you didn't have sentient household appliances in your 50s/60s Sci-fi universes? Then they sucked, because they're here and far beyond hilarious and awesome.
This DLC introduces all of those, some very excellent gameplay and also some of the most interesting and amusing weapons and armor in the game. I am particularly fond of the X-13 Stealth Suit which actually talks to you and injects you with Stimpaks and Med-X when necessary, while reassuring you that you can't technically overdose on painkillers. When she also tells you that there's probably no one that's ever been as unnoticed as her, you can't help but be charmed when she then tells you that you are her best friend forever.
From start to finish, this is by far the best money I've spent on a gaming experience in recent history.
Lonesome Road
I falloutgasm'd. This DLC is the 'last road' before the canon end at Hoover Dam. Lured to the Divide you and ED-E will be discovering a few very unpleasant truths about both your and his past. Does ignorance absolve you of responsibility when your actions turn out to mean the death of a burgeoning nation and it's populace? What will be the result of two Couriers facing each other underneath the flag of an older dead nation? What happens when the nuclear fire once more rises from the depths? As an experience, this particular DLC is quite linear and does not provide any grand landscapes to explore. There's very little freedom. On the other hand, it's a much tighter story-telling experience than pretty much all previous DLCs (and main game) and is gameplay-wise certainly something to desire. There's still exploration to do and all kinds of hidden nooks and crannies to find, along with some fairly spectacular loot. I loved this DLC and while it doesn't -quite- reach Old World Blues levels of awesome, it's easily just a Breather Mask behind.
This being the very last DLC that'll ever come for New Vegas, I can with confidence say that this game is absolutely amazing. Stunning. Glorious. It beats Skyrim, FO3 (when counting DLCs) and pretty much everything else I've been purchasing from Steam the last few years. Absolutely marvelous. I look at Steam's stats on how much I've played various games and it's no surprise that this is at the top by a very high margin. Several hundred hours have been sunk into this game and I don't regret a single minute of it.
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Fallout: New Vegas and it's DLCs are 50% off on Steam.
Fallout 3 and DLCs are 66% off on Steam.
Today only.
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Fallout: New Vegas and it's DLCs are 50% off on Steam.
Fallout 3 and DLCs are 66% off on Steam.
Today only.
I bought it last week..... FUUUUUUUUUU..... :lol:
Damn good offer, anyway. and a good review. I've spent alot of time gaming NV so far, and I liked F3, despite all it's issues and shit with bugs. Fallout 1-2 were... Fallout 1-2. Nuff said.
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I Always rated FO:NV much higher than FO3 for several reasons:
In FO3 you were sort of stuck in a "be good" character as that was peoples initial expectation towards you due to your fathers past. You could be "bad", but no like "I do not give a damn about my father and his silly projects".
FO3 also felt too easy; getting a new powerful perk every level soon turned you into an unstoppable killing machine. The perks have been tuned down and you only get one every second level in FO:NV. I have only ever played FO:NV on 'hardcore' mode which I feel is a must to enjoy the Fallout experience.
EDIT: As far as I know Dead Money came before Honest Hearts.
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I beat NewVegas, but I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as FO3.
That's just me I guess. Everyone seems to disagree.
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I actually agree with you, Graelyn. Vanilla, it's simply a better experience and feels more right. Gameplay-wise NV is a bit better, and when counting the DLCs (particularly OWB) NV inches ahead just slightly. Either way, it doesn't really matter much since they're both enjoyable and the replayability is massive in both games.
Myyona: You are correct. Dead Money came before Honest Hearts. My mistake.
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I've got it on the Steam deal as a birthday present to myself. Generally, I put everything I want in the wishlist, then wait till discounts, unless I'm out of stuff to play. Being cheap works if you do the effort :P
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Most of the people I've talked too on my end have been unable to finish New Vegas because of all the bugs.
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Most of the people I've talked too on my end have been unable to finish New Vegas because of all the bugs.
That's a shame. Bugs and issues crippled F3 for me for nearly a year, until I managed ot get it to work - on an entierly new PC.
New Vegas has had one crash so far out of several dozen hours of play. That's not bad, for me.
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Almost 130 hours of playtime so far and I can only remember two particular bugs that denied me progression. Those two were fixable with console commands garnered from reading the Fallout Wiki. Sometimes I do get CTDs, but it's hardly a major problem. The game autosaves often, and I quicksave even more often. That means quite a few playthroughs without any major bugs, and one of them happened because I 'skipped ahead' in a questline, skipping one step which apparently borkd the questgiver. Easily fixed with a console command.
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The annoying thing, for me, is that the game just ends.
Let me explain.
I play through games like this twice, first with a goodguy character who looks at all of the sides and works towards helping out the other somewhat-good-guys (like NCR). Hooray, bad legion defeated, game over.
The second time through, I am evil, powerhungry, cannibalistic, and super-completionist. I visit most everything on the entire map. I am maxed in ability. I take out EVERY one of the factions in the game, turn on Mr. House, and wipe out both the NCR and Legion, attacking and EATING every base they have in the gameworld, and wiping out both armies at the hoover dam....
Do I get to return to the lucky 38 to reign over the mohave as it's king? NO.
Credits roll. Title screen. Start over?
Wanna play a DLC? Load a save way before you begin your final pushes and have your last levels. Storywise, you are literally saying "Hey Mr House is demandingmy presence, and the big battle is about to happen! However, I'm going to run around and do other stuff for a month or two in gametime and take care of stuff that otherwise I just don't get to see....the world and it's problems will sit in a holding pattern for perpetuity."
So many games today let you keep playing when you've finished the main story arc, but not Fallout. Your super-badass just wanders off into the wastes and everything ENDS.
Annoys the shit out of me.
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Fallout 3 did that... until the Broken Steel addon which allowed you to play indefinitely, which creates it's own continuity errors. The battle of the Dam in FO:NV is something they want to be chronologically 'last' in the legend of the Courier, and that means they have to make sure you do all the DLCs and so on before it happens.
It can be an annoyance, but it's been the case with these games, and the Elder Scroll sandbox games for quite some time. It's six up and half a dozen down either way you do it. This way at least, they get to say "this is how it happened." when they create the next installment in the series.
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I struggled to find anything I liked in Fallout 3, tbh. I was kinda sad because I'd had it on my wishlist for quite a while, having heard so many people wax lyrical about its antecedents, and it was bought for me as a gift.
I played it for hours, desperately wanting to like it. Because it should be the sort of thing I like.
From the outset, though, nothing about the story grabbed me at all. I found myself not even slightly caring about anything or anyone I encountered, and that included my own character. Then, the overall aesthetic of the game actively repelled me. Brown. Brown. Brown. Brown. Brown. It was a brown Oblivion with guns and less fun. Playing was a chore. In the end, I quietly uninstalled and went on with my life.
Now, I see lots of people raving over New Vegas, and the same impulses that led me to desire FO3 take hold from time to time. It seems like something I'd like. After FO3, I'd be extremely reluctant to take a punt on it, though.
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Wait til it's dirst-cheap and won't cost oyu anything you will miss, or evne until you get it for free. Then try it out and see if the pattern repeats; if so, uninstall and move on. Easy as that.
Millions of people love and breathe football/soccer, I don't. You are not in any way required to love this game.
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Well, I put about 170+ hours into FO3, and while I ran into the same problem that Wanoah did with the lack of empathy for other characters, I thought it was kind of an advantage. You really are a fish out of water with these stories, and it's funny how (in my opinion) unlike games like Mass Effect 2 where your 'alignment' choices can have an impact at the extremes, I never really found myself worrying about being a nice person or otherwise.
I guess what really was a draw for me in these games is the adventure aspect. There are all sorts of subterranean holes and areas to get lost in, and while the creatures aren't that varied the secrets and plot bits make me want to find everything. And yes, the brown does get depressing, but I enjoyed it. There's actually a patch you can get that removes the color filter that makes the world look alot more natural. The downside is that night is REALLY dark.
I haven't gotten too far in New Vegas yet, but it looks like more of the same, so if you don't like the FO3 you probably won't like this. Question for those of you who have played through this, is the hardcore mode (with water and making your own weapons) a worthwhile accessory to the game or more of just a pain in the ass?
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I didn't much care for FO3, infact I was one of the guys going "THERE IS NO FO3! ONLY OBLIVION WITH GUNZ". Was very disappointing after FO2 to me. It was an ok game, but not really a Fallout experience for me.
Then I was bored as shit one night and saw New Vegas had come out. Pirated it shamelessly since FO3 was a let down in many ways.
Decided to give it an hour test d rive to pass the time, and seven hours later - not noticing the passage of time as I wandered across the Mojave wasteland - I decided that I'd buy the game once I'd have the money to do so and I did.
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Well, I put about 170+ hours into FO3, and while I ran into the same problem that Wanoah did with the lack of empathy for other characters, I thought it was kind of an advantage. You really are a fish out of water with these stories, and it's funny how (in my opinion) unlike games like Mass Effect 2 where your 'alignment' choices can have an impact at the extremes, I never really found myself worrying about being a nice person or otherwise.
I guess what really was a draw for me in these games is the adventure aspect. There are all sorts of subterranean holes and areas to get lost in, and while the creatures aren't that varied the secrets and plot bits make me want to find everything. And yes, the brown does get depressing, but I enjoyed it. There's actually a patch you can get that removes the color filter that makes the world look alot more natural. The downside is that night is REALLY dark.
I haven't gotten too far in New Vegas yet, but it looks like more of the same, so if you don't like the FO3 you probably won't like this. Question for those of you who have played through this, is the hardcore mode (with water and making your own weapons) a worthwhile accessory to the game or more of just a pain in the ass?
Tried to play FO3 again today, and I noticed that, beyond all the other issues I had with it, the LACK of weapon modding, proper iron-sighting and hardcore-mode was a major let-down. In my oppinion being able to enjoy those 3 things alone makes this a different experience entierly, not just more of the same from FO3. Also, the fact that NV is made by many of the folks on the original FO1-2 game develop teams made the experience much more fallout-ish than FO3 - that game really did feel more like oblivion with gunz, as Vincent put it, but with a slight fallout-ish feel. NV enhanced that considerably and made it the true follow-up from the older ones - the music score, the enemies in the game (just the return of Gechos and other old foes missing from FO3 made it alot better.) and the return of some factions and the stories they can tell, the history etc. enhanced it. I loved helping the NCR for instance, because I recall their evolution from Fallout 1 through Fallout 2 and now seeing how it's gone. since then.
It was great seeing Marcus again too.
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Indeed. I think I would have a really hard time to play Fallout 3 again simply due to the lack of 'hardcore' mode in that game. I also forgot to mention how I enjoy the Repair skill has changed in effect between the two games. In FO3 it was pretty essential to max the Repair skill as it would strongly determine the maximal condition level of your weapon. In FO:NV you can repair to maximal condition regardles of Repair skill. Instead, having higher skill results in a better condition improvement when fixing one gun with another.
I also prefer the way that items have a condition threshold from where any increase will not efffect the damage output or armor level of the item, while a reducement below threshold will decrease damage and armor protection.
The only thing I miss is being able to wield a pistol in one hand and a knife in the other.
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Hardcore mode itself... eeeeh. I just don't really like it. If it had actually added some challenge to the game (beyond the Dead Money DLC), then I would have approved of it. As it is, it's just a kind of annoyance to be honest. A little more inventory management. Wooptiedoo. So challenging. If it had added enough that it'd really turn the game 'real', then yes I'd like it, but it just doesn't make it any less of a game. Just more tedious.
It's just too obviously just a bundle of game-mechanics pretending to be more immersive and challenging, and doesn't really add to either. Thus, I'll drop Hardcore mode after I get bored with it and then just start enjoying the game a bit more.
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I liked hardcore mode.
Until the stupid AI started getting my companions perma-killed.
That prompted an immediate start over from the beginning....
A great idea, crippled by reliance on a lacking mechanic.
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I actually downloaded a mod to retain the permakill aspect, without Hardcore mode. I very much liked that aspect of having to protect my companions too. Added some challenge.
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I never bothered with regard to keeping all the companions alive. The way I always figured with NV, some of them were just *meant* to die. Boone's story, for example. I didn't mind when he bit it because he's already dead inside.
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There's actually a patch you can get that removes the color filter that makes the world look alot more natural. The downside is that night is REALLY dark.
That sounds like it has potential. I don't necessarily mind it being properly dark at night...although some kind of flashlight might be nice. :)
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Thing that bugged me and eventually drove me out of Fallout 3 is the fact that I kept getting stuck on a quest that stopped me from advancing the story. I don't even remember which it was now, but I spent hours on trying to figure out what the fuck to do and eventually just gave up and moved on. Haven't booted the game back up since. Enjoyed it up until that point too, but I had the same issue with Fallout 1/2--I'd get stuck somewhere or on a quest or something and waste hours upon hours trying to get out. Getting lost in DC in the last Fallout almost made me give up on the entire series because it was so frustrating to be lost with no ammo, no supplies, and lots of bad guys between me and where I needed to be but no saves that I could easily revert back to without setting myself back hours in the story.
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Without the hardcore mod, there is no point for water in the whole game.
Nor blood packs.
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Without the hardcore mod, there is no point for water in the whole game.
Nor blood packs.
Clarification; without hardcode mode, any food and water you find is vendor-trash to be sold, or glorfied, low-end healing items. Without hardcode mode, doctor's bags are entierly pointless as you can heal crippled limbs with stimpacks, that don't weight anything. Ergo, the only two healing items you ever need are rad-away to get rid of radiation poisoning and stims to heal/patch up limbs.
Far more simplistic, and far easier as you can easily sell whatever food you find for extra caps making you a richer toon too.
As for Miz's annoyance with inventory management, I see where that argument comes from too but I persoanlly had no issue with that; you get 8 hot-keys, 1-8. Assign stims to 8, water to 7, low-end but noumerous food to 6 and high-end but a bit more rare food to 5. Can still use 1,3 and 4 for 3 different weapons. (2 is hard-coded to be ammo-swap button).
Personally, the actual need for eating, drinking and the occational nap enhanced the enjoyment for me - being able to go forever with no sleep drink or food in FO3 was a bit bizzare... Is my toon an unstoppable killer-cyborg or something?
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Food/Water actually becomes extremely powerful without hardcore mode too, if you have high survival. Stack different foodsorts together at once, and you have a ridiculous heal over time effect going. Sure, Doctor's bags get useless, and so does Hydra for the most part, but the rest still retain high usefulness if you have the right build.
And when I speak of inventory management, I'm mostly talking about weight. It's simply not fun for me to play this game with hardcore mode on, having to micromanage the inventory so much. I do like the concept, but the execution was a bit sub-par, since it just didn't add any challenge to me. Just tedium. It wasn't harder to dedicate a certain amount of carrying capacity to water and food. It wasn't hard to keep H2O, Food and Sleep meters zeroed out. It didn't cost me any more caps, or lose me any income, since I wouldn't be picking those things up anyway if I wasn't in Hardcore mode. All it did was add more trips to the vendors since I couldn't bring quite as much loot at once besides my 'need' items, and add some more buttons to push every once in a while.
I can definitely see why people like it... I just don't like it myself.
Now, if there'd been a challenge mode which removed two thirds of the water and food sources, and made beds/sleeping places much much more rare... then I'd turn it on and enjoy it immensely. I guess what I'm saying is that I expected the game to get harder with hardcore mode. It didn't, for the most part. Just made it more work.
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So there I was. 4400ish USD spent on a stationary computer. Skyrim open, HD textures installed, all the unofficial mods and such allowing for graphics and such to be completely maxed out (unlike what the gimped console versions can do) and I was gaping. Beautiful. Absolutely fantastic. The sights, the scenes, the enemies and allies... gorgeous. Absolutely stunning. Then I closed Skyrim and booted New Vegas so I could run yet another character through Lonesome Road for completion's sake. Skyrim and such just can't compare to this gem.
Since the Ultimate Edition is now out I guess it's time for me to 'finish' this review and add Lonesome Road to the OP. If you've read this review once already you can save your time and just look up superlatives in a dictionary. Lonesome Road follows the same pattern as the rest of the awesomeness of NV. If you haven't read it, well get going. Once you're done, read the following:
Have you been holding off on New Vegas so far? Been having more 'urgent' games to play or possibly couldn't be arsed with the DLC bustle and so on? Well, Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition has just been released on Steam. The game, latest patches and all DLCs/Official Addons in one single package. It's cheap, it's very simple to get and it's just not aged at all. Fairly old graphics engine so far and yet it's making Skyrim look like crap as far as games go, proving once more that graphics just isn't the most important thing at all.
Guess those 4400ish USD weren't too good an investment. Then again, gamer hardware cred might be worth it.
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Yup.
Big fan of the Fallout IP and have always been really interested in what was to be Van Buren, so all of New Vegas was a real treat for me.
Honest Hearts in particular though. I only wish it were longer and bigger, as I would have happily continued playing in the direction of the ruined New Canaan and New Jerusalem. Furthermore, I'd also love to actually see what a Legion controlled Arizona looks like.
Joshua Graham's voice actor was excellent too. "I don't enjoy killing, but when done righteously, it's just a chore, like any other."
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Pretty sure Myrhial found a mod that updates all the texture qualities to F:NV, not sure if it brings it to Skyrim level but it looked pretty damn gorgeous in the screenshots I saw.
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Those exist for every Bethesda game since Morrowind and, while some of them look quite nice, they tend to be uncompressed 1024x or 2048x textures that will rock your performance down unless your system is ready for that, especially if you use AA and AF too. Worth looking into if you're into that but approach with caution.
But really, New Vegas is far from being a bad looking game.