Written by: Ian

 

 

 

Fallout 3 was a definite GOTY contender for 2008. Will "Fallout: New Vegas" reach the same heights, especially with a new developer? Obsidian’s last effort, Alpha Protocol, was fun, but very flawed, and in the past their games have been known to ship with plenty of bugs.

 

With an engine that shows up bugs like none other, New Vegas will either be brilliance or woeful- so which will it be?

 

 

You play a dead man (or woman), kind of. The first thing that happens in the game is you getting shot in the head, and then buried, only to be rescued. The rest of the game is then basically a hike across the Mojave desert to find, and take retribution on those that have wronged you.

 

Of course, this wouldn’t be a Fallout game without choices, so you could always side with your one-time enemies. Basically, without ruining the plot, this game has all the length and variations (if not more) than the Fallout 3 plot.

 

The main quest subtly keeps you moving on through the desert and into New Vegas without ever resorting to fetch quests, whilst side-quests come thick and fast- there is easily enough for anyone to spend 50 hours playing through, whilst the dedicated could go for the different endings and different choices, easily racking up a few hundred hours of playtime.

 

 

Fallout New Vegas has a few tricks up its sleeve when it comes to gameplay- it’s by no means just a carbon copy of Oblivion and Fallout 3. The main new addition is ‘hardcore’ mode. This is an interesting addition that basically makes the game harder, and harder to manage. Ammo has weight to it, and you need to eat, drink and sleep like any normal human being. Deprivation leads to some severe penalties before you eventually die. It’s pretty cool, and you get a nice achievement for playing to the end in this mode.

 

 

The main gameplay ‘improvement’ is the addition of iron sights to aim your weapons. In truth, it makes little difference, because everything is still dice based, although it might help your aiming marginally.

 

The karma system has been thrown out of the door, although annoyingly it still exists in the background. I couldn’t see anything that affected a negative karma, yet it still racked up points when I stole stuff, even if I’d just gained a load of karma by killing everyone in the room. It’s weird and unnecessary, because the system has basically been replaced by the factions system.

 

Each area or group now has a feelings based system towards you, which is based on your actions. It can also be affected by how you interact with other groups. So, if you help out a town, then they will like you more, which will lead to discounts, and maybe more quests. But, if you help out the NCR troops, then you’ll probably have Caesar’s legion hate you a bit more as a result. It’s an interesting system that works quite well in principle, although mid way through the game, I found that by helping out the NCR earlier, I had made Caesar hate me so much that all his troops attacked me on sight, making one quest extremely difficult. You can dress up as one of the factions as a disguise, but this could be a hindrance from time to time, because if you forget what you are wearing, you might find a group attacks you on sight.

 

Otherwise, the game plays exactly the same as Fallout 3. The usual VATS and SPECIAL system returns, and whilst there are new perks and traits, the levelling system works in the same way too, which is no bad thing in my opinion. New Vegas has its own different glitches and issue with various quests, and I found that loading times would vary wildly once I got deep into the game, but unless you hated the shooting in Fallout 3, there are no other major issues.

 

 

In fact, with the greater role followers have to play, you might find yourself doing comparatively much less shooting throughout the game.