Have you ever been a long-time fan of something, gotten really excited when you heard it was coming back, only to be massively disappointed with the result- Fallout 3 had this effect on many fans of the Fallout series, myself included. Thankfully Fallout: New Vegas was developed under Obsidian Entertainment, a smaller company formed after the fall of Black Isle and Interplay, comprising of many of their ex-employees. The man in charge of this project was the same project lead for the original Fallout in 1997, Tim Cain. Fallout: New Vegas serves as a “return to form” for the Fallout series, bring it back to its roots in exploring the ethics of a post-apocalyptic world, not exploring the world itself.
Returning to Western USA, New Vegas is set in the Mojave Wasteland, directly adapted from the real world Mojave desert. Being a western the art direction of the game has changed from Fallout 3 but it should look familiar. The horrible green tint has been replaced by a much more subtle (yet still a bit annoying) orange tint, Buildings a much more suited to the environment (with much more varied interiors) and a good portion of the game world is actual desert. Despite being set on a desert, the sheer amount of content in New Vegas is densely packed in a logically designed world that is easy to navigate without a map, thanks to cleverly located landmarks. Gone are the days of trying to distinguish between this pile and rubble and that pile of rubble. The Mojave also features a number of areas that are very dangerous to lower level players, while level scaling does exist, it only ensures that enemies aren’t just cannon fodder at later levels.
Moving from Fallout 3 to New Vegas won’t feel too different gameplay wise. While the two are very similar, New Vegas is improved in every way. Iron sights have been added to make first person shooting a viable tactic, VATS has been reworked to be less unfair for enemies, Guns skill no longer increases bullet damage, etc. Character creation has had a few smaller changes but the ways your point allocation works in the world has been greatly improved. Perks are only gained once per two levels making you still human by level 30. Traits make a welcome comeback from Fallout and Fallout 2 where you can choose a nice little perk but at the cost of something else. Fallout: New Vegas allows great flexibility in what kind of character you want to play as, and all character build are perfectly viable. Want to be a gunslinger who kills and instils fear in all who oppose him- Go Ahead. Want to be a pacifist- Using your words to solve issues- Sure, New Vegas allows you to. Being able to shape the game, rather than just play it, is what makes Fallout: New Vegas stand out among modern RPGs. It’s surprising how not many Role Playing Games actually let you Role Play. While at launch the game was buggy beyond being playable, the game has been shaped by developers post launch to be the most stable Gamebryo game in existence, not a hard title to achieve but a good one nonetheless.
You play as “The Courier” and while delivering a very important package you are shot in the head and buried in a shallow grave. Miraculously you survive and being your quest for vengeance. And that’s not even half the story. Where Fallout 3 made the mistake of keeping the quest personal throughout, New Vegas’ quest is only personal during Act I. The remainder of the game has you determining the fate of the Mojave Wasteland and it’s many factions. The two main factions, the New California Republic and Caesar’s Legion are battling for control of Hoover dam and the conflict between the two flags is apparent throughout the whole game, and by the time you finish Act I you should be near a decision on who you want to side with. Because the game predominantly features factions with unique motives, it makes sense to include a Faction Reputation System, as opposed to a heavily flawed Karma System. With various factions reputations, players can complete quests in a variety of different ways, and in favour of different people. Whether it be through distribution of electricity, or destroying the NCRs monorail; the variety of ways to play the game makes it unrivalled in terms of replayability.
Interacting with the seemingly infinite number of NPCs is a joy. Dialogue is excellently written and everyone has lots to say. The Skill checks the feature are well varied in the skills they use and expertly written to be believable. “Your predisposition towards anger suggests unresolved issues in your past” sounds like a credible thing someone trained in Medicine would say. While the number of voice actors is only a small improvement over Fallout 3, the quality of the voice acting is a massive improvement, characters personalities are greatly enhanced by the brilliant voice work done. Facial animation still leaves a lot to be desired but it’s still an improvement.
Because Obsidian Entertainment consists of many ex-Black Isle employees, including the series creator Tim Cain, New Vegas is very faithful to the canon established by the first two games. The game also plays a lot like a first person version of the old-school RPGs. A lot of NPC interaction is involved making the game more about interacting with the world than exploring it.
Fallout: New Vegas does well to capture the atmosphere of Fallout, a world rebuilding after a nuclear holocaust. Adding to this is the soundtrack, which is largely comprised of the atmospheric music from the first two games. While it’s disappointing that very little new score was composed for New Vegas, it’s still infinitely better than the action movie soundtrack of Fallout 3. Radio stations make a return and play appropriate music from the era, with radio hosts that actually make sense in the world of Fallout.
The Ultimate Edition of the game includes all 4 pieces of pre-order DLC, giving various weapons and armour to players upon character creation, a weapon expansion DLC, giving lots and lots of new and unique weapons to play around with. The main attraction of the Ultimate Edition is the 4 story expansions bundled. Dead Money puts players in a stressful Casino Heist situation against their will. It is the best written of the collection and has some of the most memorable characters and best dialogue in all of New Vegas. Honest Hearts, which is very similar to the base game but provided some very interesting back story to the Legion and more great characters. However Honest Heart is the shortest and arguably weakest of the bunch. Old World Blues is a hilarious piece of B-movie sci-fi action. It has some of the best writing in all of New Vegas, a substantial amount of content and a brilliant set up to the finale. Lonesome Road, my personal favourite, is the pseudo Act IV of New Vegas. Despite taking place before the 3rd Act it concludes the story of the Courier. Like Fallout before it, it takes the player back to their character’s roots. During the extremely long journey of New Vegas, it’s easy to forget that before you were shot in the head you were just a simple Courier. But like the end of Fallout 1 the writers wait until the very end of the game to bring you back 'home’ and to see what you have become in relation to it. And the final confrontation between the two Couriers under the flag of the Old World is the highlight in all the Fallout: New Vegas.
If you enjoy RPG experiences with deep lore, plenty of replayability then Fallout: New Vegas is for you. If you just want a simple minded shoot and loot then it may not be for you, but I still highly recommend it. It does a fantastic job and bring Fallout back to being… Fallout.