Fallout: New Vegas (2010)

Developed by: Obsidian Entertainment

Director/designer:  Josh Sawyer

Platform: Microsoft Windows (PC), PS3, Xbox 360

Story Time

In case there are any newcomers to my page or anybody who’s just passing by, I’d like to play Captain Obvious for a second and say that I am a huge fan of the Fallout games, especially New Vegas (which in case you haven’t noticed, it’s kind of the main reason why I started posting here in the first place).

But I didn’t always feel this way about the game. In fact, there was a time when naïve lil’ ol’ me thought that any game that seems like a spin-off of the original series is automatically lower in terms of quality. So in the end, buying this game taught me two valuable lessons: one, never judge a book (or in this case, game) by its cover. And two, just because a game isn’t labeled the 3^rd part in the series, doesn’t mean that it’s not part of that main series.

So for anybody who is not familiar with the story of the Fallout universe, the basic gist of it is that in 2077 a nuclear apocalypse erupted during a war between the Americans and the Chinese. An apocalypse so devastating that basically mutated the world into this retro 60s sci-fi wasteland full of weird tribes and dangerous monsters. And… that’s basically all you need to know about the story to play the game because that’s the beauty of the Fallout series – each game takes place in a different time period in a different area so you can jump into any of the games in the series without having to worry about not having played previous games. Because I sure wasn’t worried when I picked up Fallout: New Vegas, heck, it was my first Fallout game for crying out loud.

So what is Fallout: New Vegas about exactly? Well, you – the main character – are a courier who was tasked with delivering a very important package, but was unfortunately… “delayed” due to unfortunate circumstances which may – or may not – have caused your unfortunate death (wrong place, wrong time, pal). But then for some the planets started to align and suddenly out of nowhere gave you all the luck of every living Russian roulette player in the world and miraculously – let you live another day (this is just exaggeration for effect by the way, the planets didn’t really align, but I wasn’t lying when I said you were the luckiest son of a gun that day).

And thus… the story begins, and the best part about it is that it’s not a story – it’s your story!

Right off the bat, I can easily say that one of the best aspects of the game is sheer amount of freedom the game grants you to role-play your characters. And if you read my Planescape: Torment Review then you’ll know that I am a sucker for a good role-playing video game. I know a good RPG when I see one, and this is definitely it.

The freedom of role-playing in this game isn’t just focused on how your character physically look, but it expands to how much choices you have throughout the game and the consequences of those choices that will eventually affect your character in a meaningful way, even affecting what ending you’re going to get by the end of the game (which there are approximately a few hundred endings if you include all side quests and stories).

A quest that you have may present you with multiple options of how to go about solving the issue, should you use diplomacy? Bargaining? Or should you resort to violence? Or better yet, if you’re skilled or smart enough you can find third options hidden in the quest and solve it using your own way. The choices and role-playing options here is incredibly diverse, and nowhere that is expressed more clearly than in the game’s faction system.

The faction system is a major part of the gameplay of Fallout: New Vegas and it just blends in so well with the story as you will soon discover that there are many, many, many factions out there in the Mojave Wasteland for you to interact with. It is a good way to help you learn more of the culture and history of each tribes and factions which is pretty important to know if you don’t want to go around and pissing everybody off.

Of course some factions are never hostile to strangers (most of the time), some factions attack you on sight. And some tribes around the wasteland hate other tribes so much that they will hate you for interacting with the enemy. The faction system is just incredible in how it makes you intrigued and careful in interacting with each faction. In addition to this, a smart player can find a work around the tribes’ hostility by using disguises or faction armors and uniforms which could help you maintain your reputation between all factions if you play your cards right.

Now all of this would be pretty much pointless without great cohesive story for you to play. And luckily for you, the writers of Obsidian have those in spares. And just like I said earlier, this story is your story, and the writing and script made for each story and path taken by the player is just simply top-notch. The amount of detail and thought put into the story of the factions, the side characters is just incredibly mind-boggling (which isn’t at all surprising considering that many developers were originally from Black Isle Studio which as we all know is essentially the king of classic RPG writing, with guys like Chris Avellone for example). The main storyline is also excellently executed, with the power struggle between three main factions in the game that all presents some pretty good arguments to why they should be the one in charged. It sparks discussion, it forces the player to think because most of the time it is morally grey, mainly asking the question does the end justify the means?

There is just so much depth put into the characters and the side quests that just make you feel invested and intrigued. And the best part about the writing? It’s that the world building for Fallout: New Vegas is absolutely 100 percent excellent. The world of the Mojave Wasteland makes sense from an economic, political standpoint to a geographical standpoint. The world is intriguing and makes sense. Each faction occupy a specific area as their headquarters, and the factions aren’t just randomly placed there just for laughs, there are reasons behind their settlement, whether it is convenient supply route or a strategic vantage point military speaking. There is a reason behind everything from each factions’ food supplies to how they’ve built these settlements.

Now the combat system – we can’t talk about Fallout without this – the combat system is mostly great. It is a first person (third person is optional) shooter type of game, therefore the primarily way to slaughter your enemies would be with guns (sometimes melee weapons). The shooting of the game is mostly fine (although it is not on the level of FPS games like counter strike it is serviceable). One thing that differentiates the game from a typical FPS is the return of the V.A.T.S feature (aka Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System) where the game basically allows you to stop time to strategically aim at specific body parts of the enemy and fire at your leisure – and it bonus as a cool cinematic blood bath.

However there are a few additions to the combat system from the previous Fallout game. First being the obvious addition of iron sights. Second being much more interesting is the improvement in modding weapons, crafting and just the sheer amount of diversity in the weapons and armors which enhances the role-playing experience even more as you can craft ammo (for killing those who look at you funny), food (for health), medicines (for health and radiation), mod upgrades (for being a better badass), and much, much more. Coupling with the fact that the game also includes statistics such as Strength, Agility (S.P.E.C.I.A.L stats for short) and many other enhancements such as implants and perks – this truly feels like an incredible role-playing game as oppose to a generic shooter.

In addition, the game also added a new feature called Hardcore Mode where you basically need to eat, sleep and drink otherwise you’re going to die. Mainly for those who want to further challenge themselves. So all in all, there is a little bit of something for everybody to enjoy here.

Now just like every game that exists, there are some flaws in Fallout: New Vegas, no exception. And it mostly surrounds the performance of the game’s engine. Because although the engine is serviceable for its time, by modern standards the character models and environment is slightly outdated if you play it vanilla. On medium to low settings, many characters seem to be made out of plastic and there have been some frame drop issues (although it is mostly because of my crappy PC). Coupling that with some quests having bugs and some crashes while playing, I can safely say that it can be somewhat frustrating.

However, with that being said, I will make an exception for this game and not give it too much crap for being “unfinished” or “buggy” and it’s mainly because you have to keep in mind that the game was only in development for a total of 18 freaking months. And considering the massive amount of content we got, I’d say that Obsidian did an amazing job with what they had.

Besides, Fallout: New Vegas isn’t a new game, there have been countless patches and bug fix mods released to fix the various glitches in the game, not to mention the Gamebryo engine used by the game makes modding quite easy and versatile.

VERDICT:

Fallout: New Vegas is a fantastic game that has a mind boggling amount of role-playing options, an incredibly well written story, plenty of factions to interact with, plenty of weapons and armor for you to play with – essentially, everything a person would ever want in a role-playing video game. And that’s not even mentioning the also equally epic DLC expansion that is also very well written all while adding much, much more role-playing options and even more weapons and toys to play with. And to reiterate what I said early on in this review: just because a game isn’t labeled the 3^rd part in the series, doesn’t mean that it’s not part of that main series – as a matter of fact, I few very strongly that Fallout: New Vegas is the true Fallout 3 of the Fallout franchise.

SCORE: 9.7/10