back to article Fallout: New Vegas

Ever wanted to tangle with mutated creatures - and I'm not talking about the strippers - in a post-apocalyptic Las Vegas? The new Fallout installment now comes with added factions and pimped-out weapons, allowing you to wander the Mojave Desert in style before taking your rightful title as King of New Vegas. Fallout: New Vegas …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    I hope ...

    ... they get the PC version up to scratch sooner rather than later. It's full of bugs, crashes, script errors and performance issues - even on powerful computers.

    1. Stef 4
      Happy

      Hmmm

      I've put 35 hours into the game since its UK release on Friday. Admittedly that came with a patch via Steam. But I have yet to encounter a single crash or script error. The closest thing I have seen to a bug is a giant scorpion trying to navigate a very steep hill with comical effects.

      My PC was very powerful... 3 years ago. I have experienced a couple of performance issues (such as defending Goodsprings with all those NPCs on screen killing each other) which is rather disappointing because Fallout 3 handled it better.

      So far, I am much more engrossed in NV than I was in Fallout 3, which really surprised me given Obsidian's track record.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Go

      Not worth the hassle...

      go and buy a console, and experience gaming nerdvana - graphics maybe 90% of the PC version, but the 'stick in a disk and it works' well pays this back.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        based on the forums

        The few quirks of the pc version, usually caused by conflicts with specific setups, are nothing compared to some of the bugs in the console version.

        Unfortunately, once consoles rolled out the ability to update games at a later date, they lost the "stick it in and it works" reputation, and replaced it with "ship it anyway, we'll fix it later"

  2. Fizzl
    Thumb Up

    Go play the Hardcore Mode!

    There is much more to hardcore than just needing to eat and sleep, for a start you wont be able to just charge into a room full of bad guys and just chug stim packs to stay alive.

    To me compared to the last one it feels like a more balanced game, crafting is actually useful, perks, skills and stats are much rarer (so far) so decisions like armour and gun type matter more. The tweaks to the interface also make it a lot cleared what each item does. This is a much better game than Fallout 3, I don't care about the 2008 graphics.

    1. KYOCHIN
      Jobs Horns

      Will play it next year with all add-ons bundled version.

      I have not yet played but I agree that graphics are not that important in this game.

      Also I guess it's like Fallout 3.5 rather than a Fallout 4.

  3. James 51

    75%?

    That was quite a positive review to end up with 75%.

    1. E Haines

      What's wrong with 75%?

      75% is halfway between average and perfect, which sounds pretty good to me. I hope you're not part of the Review Score Inflation Posse, which seems to think that anything less than 90% is "bad" somehow, which makes percentage ratings nearly useless.

  4. John Sanders
    Heart

    Fans of the first two, go buy it now!

    This is a game for fans of the original Fallout 1 & 2 (Two of the best RPG games ever)

    Hardcore mode rocks (It is not about realism but game mechanics)

    I'm not surprised that the reviewer is into graphics, most kids nowadays are, but consider that I'm more than 30 hours in the game and I'm barely scratching the surface, so I wonder how much of the game the reviewer has experienced.

    Fallout 3 was a good and entertaining game. New Vegas is more of the same, if you did not like F3 you won't like F:NV no matter what reviews say. But if you liked the original games and felt that F3 had weak (bad) writing and quest that did not make sense at all (like Little Lamplight) and that player choices made no consequence whatsoever on the game (Daddy is grounding me with no dessert for blowing up the biggest settlement in the game) F:NV is quite the opposite.

    The writing is excellent, the quests make sense and go a little beyond go here and press a switch. Most if not all quests can be solved in two and even three different ways. And believe me this time there are consequences for your actions. (If you play hardcore and your companions die, that's it they're gone)

    Combat although not as good as a dedicated FPS is much improved from F3, there are less enemies wandering over the map overall (at the end of the day it is a desert) but the world never feels empty.

    If you like action RPG's I can not recommend this game enough. And if you're an old Fallout 1 & 2 die hard, you must run to the nearer shop and buy the game NOW!

    Note, I have played the 360 and the PC version, and the PC version is definitively much better because of the keyboard and mouse controls.

    1. Parkaboy

      Didn't like Fallout 3, but loving the New Vegas

      Well I got to disagree with you because although I loved Fallout 1 and 2 I really didn't think much of Fallout 3, but have been loving New Vegas. First up F3 was no longer a turns/action points based game and as I loved the old school format it was a little, "There aren't nearly enough games like Fallout 2 and Jagged Alliance games being made and there are so many FPS!"

      So it was huge and sandboxed and I played it quite a bit, but the combat sucked so much compared to pretty and fairly ok FPS and I just didn't enjoy the combat. New Vegas is cool and all but for me its all about New Ironsights! The combat isn't quite CoD, but its good enough to be enjoyable.

      I'd love to see it running on a rig that you could max out silly amount of graphics options. I'm running it on mid to high settings on a 3 year old gaming rig and she plays well and after getting the 2nd update I've not had many issues outside of vault 11's infinite XP terminal.

      I'd say this is one of those games where its good to have saved your pennies and got a gaming rig rather than a console though as it's just too hardcore for consoles. It's not Fallout 4, but it is a better game than Fallout 3

  5. Euchrid

    Fanciful expectations versus realistic ones

    “Fallout New Vegas was lots of fun, but isn’t really the major step up from Fallout 3 that I was expecting….but I think their main disappointment was that this didn’t seem like a standalone game. Has over-familiarity bred contempt?”

    The answer to your question is no. The real problem is that although that the developers made it clear that this would not be Fallout 4, but a game that uses the same system as Fallout 3 but with some neat, but minor enhancements (making it, at best, Fallout 3.5), people still seem to be expecting a major overhaul.

    By all means, people can want more from a game, but when it was perfectly clear from the many, many previews that this was going to be F3 with a few more bells and whistles, if they have sense they will temper their expectations for the game.

    “I would also like to add that I am gutted that all the DLC has been snapped up by Microsoft, leaving this Sony fan hot and bothered. Ah well, must be time for some cactus juice... “

    But this is exactly what happened with Fallout 3, why would you think it was different? Can’t say I’m happy to wait for the DLC because I don’t have the 360, but I can’t see them not porting it over to the other versions.

    “Some of you will make the point that this game is all about hardcore mode - which is all about food, water and sleep. I admit I didn’t play hardcore - I can imagine it being realistic but too long. It’s a fine line between stimulating realism and a grind. I would like to know what it unlocks, though.”

    This is one of the much trumpeted features, so yes, I would say that’s a fair point – especially as it doesn’t actually add that much.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    DLCs

    Microsoft buying up the DLCs was a time limited agreement for the PC and they later came out on Steam. I hope the same happens - I really dislike the MS Live thing, first for the awful integration with the original vanilla game, and second for just having a terribly shoddy marketplace which you only sign up to because they use their $$$ to buy up valuable DLCs like this to force you to sign up instead of developing it into a service you actually want to revisit.

    1. Trygve

      Games for Windows Live...

      ... is like storing the game disk in a jar of human excrement. Every time you feel like playing, you end up thinking "I really can't be bothered to deal with that shit, I'll just read a book or something".

      I passed up on getting New Vegas because it was a GFWL game - if the version that is on Steam is uninfected, then I'll grab it, because Fallout 3 was great. Otherwise, no chance.

  7. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    Happy

    Was excited...

    I got into Fallout3 in a very big way, spent hours and hours playing it. I bought a 360 just so I could play it on my big screen rather than the piddly PC one!

    I was very excited about NV, but 10 mins on the Bethesda forums has convinced me to stick NV on my Crimble list and wait for Santa to bring one that is not riddled with problems. It's not just just the odd glitch that bothes me, but severe trauma like entire sets of save games being corrupted and made unusuable.

    Looks really good, so maybe St Nick will kind this year!

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    The Author

    Is profanity in a Register game review really necessary?

    When I see that sort of unimaginative writing I just shake my head and the author loses all credibility in my mind.

    You are being paid as a professional. Please write professionally.

    1. Francis Boyle Silver badge

      Sir, sir

      Lucy said a bad word.

      Grow up. You're reading a review of a game about killing zombies and you're upset because you read the word 'shit'.

    2. LeBeourfCurtaine
      Paris Hilton

      IF it bothered you that much

      ...why not email the author? Being critical from behind the cloak of anonymity is like farting into a summer breeze.

      Paris, because she'd inherit the lease on Tenpenny Towers.

  9. charles paul

    non-linear?

    Is this game truly non-linear (like Fallout 1 or 2)? If not, I think I will pass... Fallout 3 turned to pure suck when it became apparent that the player character was being guide-railed towards completing some complicated "Final Quest".

    1. Fuzzysteve

      Non-linear

      Pretty much. There's 4 different ways to end it, Though once you start one, it locks out the others.

      But you can wander freely, until you do start one.

  10. Mr Marcus
    Flame

    75% - I'm not coming from an objective viewpoint

    A lot of the criticisms mentioned here were valid for Fallout 3; bugs caused it to crash from time to time and the character animation was awful, particularly given the generally great graphics of the landscaps and buildings. (Hopefully Bethesda's buy-out of ID will fix the animation quality for Fallout 4 or whatever they do next)

    The problems didn't stop me loving it though and I lost countless hours to the game. So I'm not coming at this at all from an objective point of view, or as someone who has followed Fallout from its inception. I just want to know whether New Vegas will appeal to someone who enjoyed Fallout 3 and is hungry for more of the same in a different setting with different characters. Going off the comments so far, this sounds like one for the Christmas list!

    Oh, and I didn't notice anything in the review about the soundtrack. The 40's sound track in Fallout 3 was surprising and surprisingly catchy. I had Cole Porter and Roy Brown songs going through my head for days afterwards.

    Flames for... well... nuclear apocalypse obviously (where's the mushroom cloud icon?)

    1. NB
      Happy

      well..

      If you enjoyed Fallout 3 then you'll love New Vegas, I'm about 25 hours in at the moment (360 version) and I can't get enough of it. Yes there are some performance bugs (play starts getting a little choppy after 5 - 6 hours straight gaming) but you can mitigate this by saving, quitting and reloading when you start to notice any performance degradation. Obviously one shouldn't necessarily _have_ to do that but so far the game itself is just too awesome to put down.

  11. Sean Kennedy

    Not buggy for me

    I don't have the latest or greatest system. I got NV off of steam. I have yet to experience a crash, although I did manage to glitch a story line point by shooting someone before they could shoot me ( it was only a matter of time ).

    I'm not sure 75% is fair given how much fun the game is. I've already wasted a ton of time on the game this week, and I've barely made it past the first town. I've been all over the map exploring though, so take that for what it's worth.

  12. Matt K

    First thoughts...

    ...after a day or two's play this weekend. I don't know how quick Obsidian were off the mark to address the complaints of bugs (the Gamespot review is particularly scathing) but an update downloaded when I started playing on Saturday night and I've had only one glitch in about nine hours' play (character got stuck 'falling' through rock and I had to reload the last save).

    It's definitely a game to take your time on or you'll blink-and-miss important points or end up having made a game-changing decision without thinking about it (like siding with the NCR over the Legion, betraying the NCR or the Powder Gangers, or in my case accidentally siding with the loony spacefaring ghoul cult and having to exterminate the folks in their basement who I could otherwise have sided with).

    The reviewer's comments on graphics are spot-on. Fallout 3 had that brilliant moment where you emerged from the vault into a blasted world, and while Washington's ruins did feel a bit mundane and linear the overall scenery felt more varied. So far NV is a bit more pleasant, a bit less varied, and the insides of buildings are identical to Fallout 3 (wander round a few houses and you'll know what to expect).

    Weapon modding is a nice touch, although mods are few and far between. The companions haven't thrilled me so far - there's no sense of Dragon Age-style interaction, they just become your silent shooting buddies (although they're a damn sight more useful and able to look after themselves than in Fallout 3). The quests have a nice variety and the plot is very, very dark in places (without spoiling it, Boone's back story and the quest for him, and the story of what happened to Nipton).

  13. Heff
    WTF?

    So, you didnt actually play the game, then?

    did you take a poll of friends that played, read a press packet, maybe ran around the starting area and make your verdict? I find it amusing that you list only one robotic companion, and not even the one you come across first, as your only choice.

    you didnt play on hardcore. good job. you missed out on a major texture layer to the game. did you play it on easy, too? wait. probably doesnt matter. you never left the starting area.

    FO:NV is, and always was pitched as FA3.5. it uses the same engine, heavily modified, and is rebranded by obsidian. fans of the genre/series are not and never were expecting FO4. what we were expecting was killer writing ; we got it. greater scope for moralist conclusions : got it in spades, I no longer have to be Praised Saint of All or Antichrist Incarnate, also back is the ability to play, and successfully finish the game from a diplomatic point of view, putting the combat, more fun as it is, in a minor role.

    Im sorry the graphics of a 3 year old engine didnt match the high expectations of a PS3 gonk. but then seeing as your review basically consists of press-pack screenshots and glib references to wasteland-cliche characters (ZOMG WHERES MAD MAX) rather than talking about actual play mechanics that you used (rather than ignoring, like hardcore mode), or specific storylines you enjoyed (no mention) it feels like you didnt play the game at all, gave it an ambivalently non-controversially positive review and then gouged it with a 75%.

    If you're going to review something, Play the fucking game, Lucy. I dont care if you end up hating it, just do the job you're paid for, eh?

  14. Jay 2
    Flame

    OK but pretty buggy from the off

    Got this on Friday. I'm still (sort-of) playing F3, so it's a bit of a shock to go from a fully tooled up level 30 character (with death machine companion Fawkes) to a know nothing/have nothing level 1. So far as far as combat is concerned I've found it pretty tough going, so am s-l-o-w-l-y starting to try and pick my battles. Also as I never played F1/2 the repuation side of thimgs may be interesting. I'm not playing in hardcore mode as I don't want to make things too hard for myself.

    On the down side as someone above said this is more or less F3.5, so it does feel a bit samey. Also in the few hours I've been playing I've had one hang/crash and even a console reboot. Last night I started to see some severe slowdowns which in F3 really happened after the DLC and start to ruin my enjoyment of the game as you have to save every few mins and you never know if the slowmo effects in VATS are going to grind things to a halt (maybe I should turn them off?).

    Still I'm only just starting things really, so pleanty of time to get really dragged into things!

  15. hexx

    @ John Sanders

    thank you, that's all i needed to know that this game is closer to F1/F2 rather than to F3 which was utter crap and shouldn't carry Fallout name at all.

    1. Citizen Kaned
      Thumb Up

      wow...

      i loved fallout3 but never played the others. me and the mrs racked up 120+ hours on F3 then restarted and played as a bad guy! not bad considering i picked it up for £7 second hand!

    2. Haileris

      Uhh no...

      Unfortunately imho this is not the case, at least in my experience so far. I haven't see the wit nor the style of the first Fallout games captured within FNV, as was the case with Fallout 3. The same issues still pop up - for example the game still tells you that you need exactly NN% to pass a skill check, totally destroying any immersion one may have. My pet hate, the AI, is still as terrible as usual. The perks are still somewhat uninspired.

      On the other hand, I don't believe that Fallout 3 was utter crap, just not as good as it could have been.

      75% is about right in my book. :)

  16. Josh Holman
    Thumb Up

    I really enjoy this game

    Fallout 2 is my favorite game. That being said I am not an isometric Nazi or anything, and I enjoyed Fallout 3 as well. I found this game a rather enjoyable blend of the two. It has more of the character and soul of the first Fallout games, but is very much the same engine as Fallout 3 and I am fine with that. I enjoy tooling around the wasteland, laughing at the jokes and characters, and enjoying the writing as well. This game will entertain far beyond the average of most games released today. Enjoy your Stay!

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It needs Steam (on the PC)

    You need to register it through Steam - most of the reviews / adverts don't mention that. I believe that Steam also insists on downloading a sackload of stuff (FO:NV stuff that is) when you go through the install process.

    I believe you can then play the game with Steam offline if you so chose - I think you can also delete Steam after registering FO:NV but I think in these cases you may restrict access to patches and bug fixes - which it seems fair to say you will need for the foreseable future.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    re: It needs Steam (on the PC)

    "I believe you can then play the game with Steam offline if you so chose - I think you can also delete Steam after registering FO:NV but I think in these cases you may restrict access to patches and bug fixes - which it seems fair to say you will need for the foreseable future."

    Patches are available as automatic updates through the game, as well as Steam. There's no need to have Steam online to play.

    .

  19. Alex Connor
    Grenade

    new vegas rocks!

    i got this on the 360, finished it with about 35 hours played and i barely touched on the content this game has to offer.

    Yeah, it's graphically the same as fallout 3, just with much better writing and a coherent plot. Oh, and a new massive wasteland to go exploring in. Everything i was expecting from the game.

    Most people (including reviewers) don't mention that it's not like fallout 3 where enemies scale when you level, they don't appear to do that in new vegas, seems like they have set levels, so there are definate places you don't want to go (unless you're a psychopath, like my character!)

    I suffered 2 crashes in 35 hours, one was after playing for 13 hours straight, so probably was more the xbox complaining than the game, the other just happened, but luckliy i had saved a couple of minutes before, so no biggie. Definately impressed to say Obsidian was at the helm!

    So, what did i do when i finished the game?? watched the credits and immediately started a new game. This time i'll be taking it a lot slower, so i can explore the entire Mojave wasteland. I can see me having another 150+ hour save like i did in fallout 3. Guessing my GF is gonna be pretty annoyed at me again, huzzah!

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    It's time for a sing-along!

    "To the town of Agua Fria rode a strange one fine day..."

    Mines the one with That Gun in the pocket.

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