Video game review: Fallout New Vegas (2010)

Disclaimers: I finished Fallout 3 as a teenager and did not finish this one, got bored just before the end, after a few quests on the strip and the round-trip to House's bunker in Caesar's camp. I also didn't play the DLCs.

I have very conflicting feelings about New Vegas, to the point this review deserves a pros/cons format.

Pros §

Its scope and detail is what I came for and what I mostly got. Simply exploring and discovering a cadaver with a written note in a dark cave or having fun reading coworker mails in long abandoned office spaces with the added tension of wandering ghouls or traps is exactly what I wanted from it.

The combat jank (incl. the misaligned iron sights), sluggish movement and inaccurate early arsenal actually made the first quarter/third of game decently challenging in a fun way; like sim racing with wheels made of wet soap.

I quite like the stat/skill/perk system! Not perfect in any way, but still well thought-out and not too unbalanced.

The writing/plot was engaging and some characters really interesting; for example, when I reached the NCR higher-up falsifying reports because of his belief that the clueless politics are waging a war they can't win, I was pleasantly surprised by the depth of the issue and its handling.

Sadly, this is where the good stops.

Cons §

BUGS BUGS BUGS!! Bugthesda (well, Obsidian, actually) didn't disappoint here, with crashes/freezes, corrupted saves, enemies clipping through mesh, janky physics and general low performance. One might rightly point out that Bethesda only gave Obsidian 18 months to make the whole game, but that doesn't excuse the existence and sheer breadth of such mods when Bethesda is still milking the game to this day without taking the time to give a bit of money to these volunteers and integrating their fixes.

tl;dr: don't give your money to such crooks, boycott their shameless asses.

Balance is very much absent. I opted for a gun (as opposed to energy weapons) build and once I got the sniper rifle (or scoped hunting rifle), I started walking over everything. Sneak is probably too powerful, same with enhancing drugs. Then I got the 12.7 mm SMG and… yeah. The only reason I didn't go full murderhobo and use it to tear through everything that breathes was that it would have been boring, not that I couldn't. People who want some challenge should consider the JSawyer mod, from what I understand.

Walking speed killed my enthusiasm at some points, especially noticeable in Freeside with all its "go talk to X" quests; I must have wandered through its boring streets a good 20 times. Simply upping that speed and diminishing the need for round-trips in quests would go a long way. Protip: I discovered quite late that holstering your weapon by holding "reload" improves it a bit.

While I did praise the exploring facet, it's not without major faults. The first is that New Vegas is still too empty. When you reach a few named places only to find a few Sunset Sasparilla bottle caps or some ammo, the boredom looms menacingly over your shoulder. It just needs a bit more fleshing out! Some written lore to connect those bits with the rest of the map, even some journal clippings and small secrets would do the trick.

Compounding that point is the almost complete lack of random enemy encounter. This really drags it down, in my opinion. Give me roving or squatting bands of bandits/ghouls with strong (possibly unique) leaders! Even non-random enemies are too sparse to my taste, outside of old vaults.

Karma is stupid and doesn't influence the story enough. Why would killing a ghoul improve it? Why would stealing from the Legion while siding with the NCR damage it?

Companions are way too strong, I'm playing without if there's a next time.

Probably a lot more to rant about, but let's stop here.

Conclusion §

I had a lot of fun before the jank, "emptiness" and lack of challenge caught up with it. If I ever decide to give it another chance, it'll be modded to hell!

One can't help but wonder what a better engine and an additional year or two could have brought…