Fallout: New Vegas [split topic]

[Mister Six]

I haven't played the latest two DLC packs, but I really enjoyed the first one, Dead Money. I can understand why others didn't though - it's completely different from the main game, being half survival horror (counting your bullets, using a limited range of weapons) and half Metal-Gear-style stealth action. But the characters are great, the atmosphere is unparalleled and the new assets (enemies, locations, etc) are gorgeous. It's very linear, but by the time I played it I was rolling in bullets and had been talking my way out of everything, so being forced to use one route with limited resources and forced battles really felt like a change.

If you do decide to play Dead Money, though, please do check my (spoiler-texted, but not actually spoilery) tips further up the thread.

[Ignatius_S]

The thing about Fallout is that you invest as much time in it as you feel, and it's as complete as you want it. You can rattle off the main quest in less than 10 hours, or you can go through it multiple times investigating every nook and cranny, exhausting all possible outcomes, both can be as satisfying.

That's very true – I would like the main story to be longer, though. Probably my biggest gripe with F3 was the length of the main storyline. I went on a side-mission spree, thought I'd take a break, do a bit of the main storyline and then complete a few more side-mission, only to find out I was approaching the end of the game – cue reloading and doing all the side-missions that I wanted to finish.

New Vegas felt rather different (perhaps because of the amount of faction main missions you can do) and I was very pleased about that. However, for me, the main story hung together better in F3.

...I think what eventually put me off Fallout 3 was the lack of diversity in the locations.  It just seemed like I was constantly running around these fucking underground tunnels, whereas New Vegas has a ton of varied places to explore.  Always seems like there's somewhere new just around the corner...

Personally – and I'm sure I'm going to be in a considerable minority – I found it more enjoyable to explore the landscape in Fallout 3, than in New Vegas. Some of the locations with the latter were a little bit incongruous (

Spoiler alert

e.g. the snow-capped mountains just didn't feel right.

[close]

), whereas F3's environment felt like a consistent ecosystem to me.

Although in some ways I liked the bigger area of New Vegas, trudging through desert wastes wasn't overly exciting for me - for me, the compactness of F3's map and the way locations were distributed made it a lot more interesting to explore.

...I'm in hardcore more, and it made the first few skirmishes brilliantly tense.  The lack of instant healing with stimpacks is a very nice touch, but you soon work round it, or XP and armour lets you do so.  Hardcore mode with no fast travel would have been a giggle.

Absolutely. Overall, the hardcore mode was way too lenient – by the end of the game, the only impact on my game was me finding it tiresome that ammo contributing to weight allowance. If it had made surviving the desert harder (e.g. the need for food and drink) say, it would have provided an incentive pumping up the survival skill more – a skill that I liked the idea of, but there wasn't enough in the game to warrant heavy investment at the expense of others.

[Tokyo Sexwhale]

The encumbered status is the most annoying thing about "Hardcore" mode - but even that's overcome if you take the "Long Haul" perk, and the perk that lets you carry 40 more pounds.

Oh, and having to reload after accidentally killing ED-E with a pulse grenade.  TIP: Don't take him anywhere, where you'll be fighting securitrons and Mr Gutsys!

[Viero_Berlotti]

Yeah, I love F3 and New Vegas, but I wish they'd make scarcity of resources and survival become more central to the core gaming mechanics, rather than just being a slight inconvenience. I don't think it would be an easy thing for the developers to pull off though, because it would be difficult not to compromise the things that make these games such a joy to play.

[Custard]

I really need to get back to this game. Bought it on release day, and although the (many) glitches got on my nip-nips, I was still enjoying it a big load. Problem is, I can literally lose entire days to it, and then I feel a bit guilty afterwards when I have, well, nothing to show for it.

It's the best game for sitting back in your armchair and going through a few albums and podcasts as you play, though. That stuff is a must really innit, as that whole world makes me feel incredibly isolated and lonely at times, and the in-game radio gets boring after half-hour.

[Viero_Berlotti]

that whole world makes me feel incredibly isolated and lonely at times

That's what I love about it though, the way you can become so absorbed and immersed in this artificial world, it's an impressive creation. For something that markets itself (with tongue in cheek) as a 'post nuclear simulation' making you feel isolated and lonely is probably the desired effect, although it's all well balanced with an undercurrent of sly humour throughout. I hope they carry over some of the humour of the Fallout series into the next Oblivion game, as in general I find some fantasy RPG's can be a bit pompous and that hampers my enjoyment to a certain extent.

[Tokyo Sexwhale]

I'm about 70 hours into this now, and am bored.  It probably didn't help that I'd been playing Fallout 3 not long beforehand; but most of the quests seem tedious and repetitive - go there, do this, bring that back.  Collect 100 bloody tin cans!

Are there no weird quests like Tranquility Lane in this one?  I haven't even had any "Weird Wasteland" experiences.

Also, I've just got the Explorer perk and noticed there are hardly any locations on the western or eastern sides of the map.  Are these filled in by expansion packs?

[Ignatius_S]

Last bit of DLC won't be out this month - no ETA yet.

...Are there no weird quests like Tranquility Lane in this one?  I haven't even had any "Weird Wasteland" experiences.

Also, I've just got the Explorer perk and noticed there are hardly any locations on the western or eastern sides of the map.  Are these filled in by expansion packs?

None that I can think of. With the Weird Wasteland there are about 15 incidents that happen - some you need to stumble across, some you'll find on particular missions. I wasn't sure about taking the trait, as I thought thought it might make too many things wacky, so read up about it and after that, decided against it as the incidents seemed too few.

Not sure about where the DLC locations are, but have a feeling that they're not just along the sides.

[Ignatius_S]

The fourth DLC, Lonesome Road, has now been confirmed for 20 September.

Also, a week later, there are going to be two DLC item packs - one combines the four pre-order content  bundles and the other gives new unique weapons, mods and ammo types.

[Cohaagen]

So that's that then. The Gun Runner's Arsenal is now out, bringing things to a close almost a year after the initial release.

My feelings summed up:

Good: Improved on F3 in just about every way. This time it didn't sound like the voice budget had been impulsively spunked on Liam Neeson with out of work disc jockeys and homeless people filling in the rest.

Writing, whether plot or dialogue, was in an entirely different league. The attention to detail and care was perceptible. Nice occasional nods to Fallout 2 as well, while expanding the lore of the original games in a logical, consistent manner.

The companions were great. I felt genuine affection for Veronica as a character...Felicia Day is ace. Made me embarrassed to think about Jericho tediously banging on and on about "the action" in F3.

Playing as an evil character was a treat. Not only was it truly a pleasure to see Cass vaporised in a laser ambush after her constant bitching about my bad habits, but a quest where you could sell off a self-pitying fart like Boone so he could be cooked down into stock cubes as a cannibal delicacy counts as a deal-breaker in the game-of-the-year stakes.

To quote Barry Norman, "I liked the guns". The grenade machine-gun, M1 Garand, lever-action rifles to the arse, armour-piercing ammo, etc. Some brilliant releases from the modding community too, like Reload - realistic ammo crafting that totally satisfies the anal, humourless, pedantic gun nut in us all, and a fucking full-auto Glock 18 chucked in as a bonus. Doss.

Bad: For all the talk of factional ambiguity from Josh Sawyer and Chris Avellone, it's pretty clear which role a bunch of perverts in dress-up who rape women, keep slaves, and burn people alive occupy.

The first two DLC were shit. The gameworld of Dead Money was confusing, and so repetitive it looked like a Rise Of The Triad bonus level. They clearly hadn't even bothered to finish Honest Hearts. I could have done without the religious bullshit in the latter too.

With the exception of Lonesome Road, Fallout 3 was more atmospheric and just did a better job of creating a feel of post-nuclear blight generally.

Uglier than Ron Perlman's contorted O-Face: I've been playing PC games since about 1990, and I have never experienced a supposedly premium release that was as mechanically fucked up as this. Downloading an update which introduced the very bug it was intended to patch was a new one too. Terrible sound lag in certain map areas.

From Fallout 1 and 2, where we had the likes of Ian and Cassidy who simpy shot you in the back, we now have - as in the third - companions who unavoidably get a mag dumped into them as they stupidly and infuriatingly charge in a straight line at a level 30 Deathclaw while armed with only a rolling pin and shouting "'mon then!".

So, did anyone else do all four DLC?

[Ignatius_S]

...So, did anyone else do all four DLC?

Not yet – I was waiting for the last one to come up, but will now probably wait till it's in a Steam sale before picking it up. I've been planning to play all the DLC as part of a new game, partly because I'm sure I would build my character slightly differently – did the same with Fallout 3, which I'm just finishing off again now.

[Zetetic]

Improved on F3 in just about every way.

I've been playing Fallout 3 again with a smallish number of mods (Fallout Wanderer's Edition, Fellout, Enhanced Weather, in short), and that's reminded me of one way in which New Vegas was a bit disappointing compared to 3 - 3 is packed to the gills with stuff to do. New Vegas' wasteland is so empty!

But on the other hand, lots of things are annoying me with F3, lots of the things you've mentioned. I'm already tempted to chuck it in and try New Vegas with Project Nevada (which looks even better integrated that Wanderer's Edition, and doesn't add pointless extra guns).

[Little Hoover]

- 3 is packed to the gills with stuff to do. New Vegas' wasteland is so empty!

Seriously? I honestly can't believe anyone could think this.. I got frustrated with 3, because I'd heard about all these places you can go but ended up mostly just wandering around for ages, just finding empty wastelands, sometimes there might be a deserted building but otherwise, little of interest. In New Vegas I was constantly tripping over new things to do. If you look at the maps, it's a simple fact that the overall New Vegas map is smaller than 3 but far more densely populated. There might be more things to do in 3 than I found, but the maps is so big, you can easily miss so much.

[Ignatius_S]

.... it's a simple fact that the overall New Vegas map is smaller than 3 but far more densely populated. There might be more things to do in 3 than I found, but the maps is so big, you can easily miss so much.

The developers said that the game worlds were roughly the same size. However, maps were shaped differently, which might partly explain why some folks thought one game was bigger and others thought the opposite.

Although there were more locations in New Vegas, some are essentially where there's nothing - maybe a bed and box, which isn't much to write home about.

When this was discussed previously, I seem to remember there were comments (and this was certainly was mentioned in some reviews) about F3's map being more compact, requiring less trudging about. That was reflected in my experience, and recently, when I went back to F3, I found it a shock just how quickly it took me walking to locations, compared to New Vegas. NV felt a lot bigger to me in terms of space (and more walking in the desert with nothing to do) and although I've read a lot of comments by people who said the same, I've also read plenty by who thought F3 was a lot bigger.

Bit of a discussion as an example here – bottom line is different people had different experiences.

[Zetetic]

If you look at the maps, it's a simple fact that the overall New Vegas map is smaller than 3 but far more densely populated.

As Ignatius_S points out though, there's a lot more nothingness in that population - many of the "locations" in NV wouldn't have been marked in Fallout 3 (that doesn't quite make sense, but I hope you understand what I mean). Conversely, I think 3 suffers a little from quest-itis; anywhere there is a marker, you'll find someone who'll start badgering you for help.

[Mister Six]

I can understand why people might prefer F3, which definitely seemed to be more dense than F3 in terms of things to find, but personally i like the bleak, epic scope of NV. I also liked the way that NV felt like a plausible, well-thought out world where everything was impacting everything else, and decisions made in one place might genuinely affect other communities. F3, on the other hand, felt like a bunch of non-sequiter setpieces bundled together rather than a(n even vaguely) convincing environment.

[Mister Six]

Bad: For all the talk of factional ambiguity from Josh Sawyer and Chris Avellone, it's pretty clear which role a bunch of perverts in dress-up who rape women, keep slaves, and burn people alive occupy.

Apparently once you cosy up to Caesar you discover that he does have a vaguely human side, and that he might well be the only one who can stop humanity from descending into self-destructive chaos, even if his methods are atrocious.

However, because you don't find that until you cosy up to him, you have to make the decision to pal up with a guy who commits genocide, has women raped and runs an empire on slavery. Even my evil characters aren't down with that shit - they just want to make as much money as possible and maybe knock back some chems on the way. Especially when you caninstall the player character as the new boss of New Vegas - who wouldn't take that option?

Poor writing from Avellone, there. Too on-the-nose, not enough balance. Especially as there are loads of characters who'll turn on you for siding with Caesar, but none who'll support you. Putting that one down to a chunk of the game getting chopped out to hit deadline targets.

[Little Hoover]

I can understand why people might prefer F3, which definitely seemed to be more dense than F3 in terms of things to find,

No it wasn't. I can accept other had a different experience to me, but the fact that I'm so shocked by this idea suggests it's not a definite thing.

[Sexton Brackets Drugbust]

Nope, I'm with Little Hoover. New Vegas was teeming with characters, quests and things to do. There were a few areas with beds for hardcore mode, but lots of those also have stories woven into the world too.

I'm astonished when people prefer 3 over NV. The delicate balance of the three way power struggle between House, The Legion and NCR is immediately more dramatically intriguing and filled with possibility than the simple Bad Guys Vs. Good Guys of F3.

Also, Caesar - or Rawls as I couldn't help but hear him as - does make some interesting points as a leader, but - indeed - a rapey, slavery and crucifixion fan isn't really going to win many friends in the long run. It's a shame they didn't at least hide those elements, to make the Legion seem more of a valid choice, then lay that shit on you - or not have it at all, to keep things more morally ambiguous.

I loved the characters of Dead Money, although the environment and Ghost People became wearing and repetative over time. Honest Hearts was a bit of a missed opportunity - The Burned Man should've been an unbelievable badass - instead we got a pretty park to wander around and Native Americans to help/kill. Old World Blues and Lonesome Road were both good and I loved how all the DLC tied together this time around -

Spoiler alert

although I found Ulysses revelation to be something of an anticlimax. I guess it's kind of meant to be.

[close]

[Zetetic]

I still think New Vegas is by far better as a whole, and in particular in terms of story. I just found it less fun to wander, and returning to F3 reminded me of that.

Nevertheless I'm still edging closer I think to packing F3 in again already, and I'm not quite sure why.
I might get NV (+Project Nevada) going, not least because I haven't touched any of the DLC, and there might be a sale sooner or later...

[Zetetic]

Fine, I'll play New Vegas. Whatever.

[Cohaagen]

One aspect I agree with Zetetic on is that the minor locations in F3 always seemed packed with little things that fleshed out the Capital Wasteland, "story loot" if you like - diary fragments, downloadable computer files, Pip-Boy logs, that sort of thing. You'd find the skeletal remains of a couple lying on an old four-poster bed in some shack or abandoned building, two blood stains on the wall, a teddy bear on the bedside dresser, and a pistol minus two shots from the clip next to them. Looking around you'd discover the last few pages of the man's diary and read up on their suicide pact...wonderful stuff. None of this had any bearing on the story of course, but it was very cool to just happen across these little human tragedies that gave life to the gameworld. This sort of thing did appear in New Vegas, but not nearly as often unfortunately. I could have done with more of the likes of

Spoiler alert

Trash, the death-obsessed goth chick who wants to become a ghoul but ends up carking it from radiation at the old A-bomb test site

[close]

.

I mentioned the Wanderers Edition a few pages back, and it is absolutely essential for anyone playing F3. I actually liked the guns - never enough of them, man! The 19th & 20th Century Weapons mod is another classic. Only thing that one got wrong was the Lee-Enfield, which became the beast it really is after I modded it in the GECK to reflect its insane real-life firing rate. Now that the Gun Runner's Arsenal is out (only about a quid, buy it), plus all the other fan-mad mods, I think Vegas trumps it though...a fully-modded semi-auto 25mm grenade launcher is truly a thing to behold. The switchable ammo system adds so much to combat gameplay, and I never go anywhere without a full load-out of high-explosive, plasma, pulse, and stun 25mm to 'nade the shit out of anyone from 100 yards plus +. A modded Riot Shotgun or SPAS-12 (Reload mod) with flechette ammo is a fucking beast too. Haven't tried Project Nevada yet, but I will since I just finished my first Caesar's Legion playthrough last night at level 50, after more than 170 hours of gameplay, and am now building a low intelligence, high strength/endurance, NCR-lovin' melee n' fisticuffs moron for the next run.

Given the quality of writing for Caesar as a character, it's a real shame that the Legion quest path is so short and unsatisfying. As I've mentioned before, one of the things that worked really well was the way the soft-headed idealism of the Followers of the Apocalypse has unintended and often terrible ramifications...

Spoiler alert

Caesar himself is a former Follower, his knowledge of history and martial arts training helping him put together a revivalist Roman army and cult of personality

[close]

. The Great Khans use their medical know-how gained from the Followers to make and flood the wasteland with drugs, in turn supplying the Fiends who cause chem-induced havoc. All great stuff, but I wish they'd expanded on Caesar's relationship with the Followers a bit more. It's all sort of glossed over as it is.

Despite the universally awful companion combat AI, Veronica was so much fun to travel with. Well written, appealing, funny, and Felicia Day was a shrewd choice on the part of the devs. Moreover, it was great to finally see a gay/lesbian game character who wasn't defined solely by their sexual orientation for once. I'd say the same for Arcade Gannon. Boone was an asswipe, but similarly well-realised, and his quest is one of the more satisfying in the game. The companion quest for Cass was probably the best, requiring you to make potentially serious, game-altering decisions. Her backstory, with its nods to Fallout 2, managed to connect the two games in spirit without overpowering us with the sentimental reek of fan service. Not a good character to travel with if you're playing an Evil courier, so I really didn't have any choice other than see her emulsified by the Van Graffs. ED-E really came together as a character during the surprisingly good Lonesome Road. I haven't taken Raul or Lily out on the road yet, but will do in my new game.

Apart from the huge, near inexhaustible number of potential quest/character choices, the thriving and often hugely talented modding community is what really makes these games so replayable. Yes, there is the usual "make your character look like a blue-haired post-nuclear anime character" from the Jap-loving perverts, and the obligatory breast mods aimed at 15yr old sad acts, but plugging a .50 calibre semi-auto Barrett sniper rifle with armour-piercing-incendiary ammo into a dull savegame is going to enhance any playthrough (I see that Project Nevada gives you an FN FAL, so I am ON that shit right now). Josh Sawyer is a well-known gun nut and I think the fact is well reflected in New Vegas.

The aforementioned Reload mod really sorts ammo crafting out, bringing it up to real-world levels of accuracy and detail (load up with dozens of different bullet types, hollowpoint, softpoint, semi-jacketed, armour piercing, cast lead, incendiary, full metal jacket, jacketed softpoint, lead round-nose, lead flat point, etc. etc.). Armour-piercing ammo works both ways though, so be careful. Weapon Mod Expansion gives you about 100 new mod options, and the ability to trick out the unique weapons (stick a rapid-fire firmware module on the 40mm "Mercy" grenade machine-gun, for example). Tailor Maid lets you play dress up with dozens, hundreds maybe, of armoured shoulder pads, pauldrons, shin guards, boots, gloves, scarves, hats, backpacks, ammo belts, bandoliers, etc. so with a little customisation you can run around looking like a member of Immortal getting ready for a photoshoot reunion.

Quest modding is the only area where pickings are thin on the ground, for obvious reasons, but I recommend New Vegas Bounties 2 without hesitation. The original was great fun, but this manages to top it in almost every respect. For an amateur production the voice acting is pretty good too, and you are well rewarded with a mix of caps, loot, and unique weapons. A highly entertaining way of filling time between main quest missions, you really need to get this - simple as that.

[Zetetic]

Thanks for the list of mods! I'm currently only using Project Nevada and WMX. I might well add New Vegas Bounties 2.

[Cohaagen]

Quest modding is the only area where pickings are thin on the ground, for obvious reasons, but I recommend New Vegas Bounties 2 without hesitation.

I now retract my earlier recommendation. Having played into the later missions it's clear that this mod is a piece of silly shit. Every boss fight involves a painfully signposted and badly scripted ambush where the enemy literally teleports in - you know it's coming and can't avoid it - and it commits the unforgivable gaming sin of throwing stupid numbers of high-level bad guys at you instead of making fights interesting. It was fucking dumb when Doom 2 did it 20 years ago and still is today.

[Mister Six]

No it wasn't. I can accept other had a different experience to me, but the fact that I'm so shocked by this idea suggests it's not a definite thing.

New Vegas has more big areas, but they're spaced out with not much more than the odd cave or outpost between them, and some of the map markers (such as the NCR's sharecropper area outside The Strip, or the racetrack in the desert) are utterly huge but without much of note in them. F3 may have had less, but I was always stumbling over random factories, underground bases, old supermarkets full of raiders, etc, and the areas were usually small and full of interesting details.

I generally favour NV's method - it's more plausible, and the attention to detail (like bothering to create the sharecroppers' fields just to explain how The Strip was getting its food) is appreciated. But I can see why people might prefer F3's more OTT elements.

[bitpunk]

Just pre-ordered Fallout NV Ultimate Edition, and having previously completed all four endings of the game last year, looking forward to revisiting this with all the DLC included.  Does anyone know whether they patched the freezing bugs (PS3) or will this be a continued problem with this edition?

[jutl]

Just pre-ordered Fallout NV Ultimate Edition, and having previously completed all four endings of the game last year, looking forward to revisiting this with all the DLC included.  Does anyone know whether they patched the freezing bugs (PS3) or will this be a continued problem with this edition?

I have no direct knowledge, but the discussion of the PS3 Skyrim issues here seems to indicate that it never got sorted.

[Paaaaul]

I've played 3 of the 4 DLC packs so far and haven't thought much of any of them. Fingers crossed for Lonesome Road (or whatever it's called)
The again, most of the DLC for Fallout 3 was a bit duff, bar the one that extended the main story and the swamp one.

[Mister Six]

Haven't finished Lonesome Road yet - Skyrim kind of got in the way of that - but I thought the others scored a solid two out of three. 'Dead Money' is more of a survival horror game (and, in the second half, a stealth game) than an RPG, but after rumbling through 70+ hours of NV I was ready for the change. The tension is high, the characters superb and the setting is pleasingly different from the rest of NV. Locking you out of the area once the DLC is wrapped up is a bit annoying (something they fixed for the others), and the new perks and weapons are a bit cack, but I was happy with the experience on the whole.

'Old-World Blues' is awesome, though. The setting is completely unique, the script is sharp as knives, half the cast are from Adult Swim cartoons (Yes! Even Dr Venture's in there!), the new weapons and armour are great, and it's bursting with fantastic ideas (like the automated battle suits that are supposed to rescue the injured from the battlefield, but have gone haywire, leading to a bunch of skeletons running around with guns). If you liked the goofier elements of Fallout 2 then this'll be right up your alley.

'Honest Hearts' was the only stinker, really, and it's not so much terrible as just incredibly bland. The map is small, yet seems to have hardly anything of interest in it; the central conflict is strictly low-stakes and not very well defined; the characters are forgettable (even the Burned Man, who's supposed to be this legendary badass, but is just some guy in bandages) and it's utterly humourless. Some of this stuff, including the Burned Man, was originally written and designed for the original, terminated Fallout 3 (aka Van Buren) created by Black Isle, and certainly feels like a small subplot of a bigger and more interesting story that hasn't been fleshed out enough to justify becoming its own game.

So yeah - two really good DLCs, one crap one and Lonesome Road, which I've only played a little bit of but seems nicely atmospheric. Plus the weapon packs and things that they threw out between the big DLCs. Ultimate Edition sounds like a solid purchase to me.

[Famous Mortimer]

'Old-World Blues' is awesome, though. The setting is completely unique, the script is sharp as knives, half the cast are from Adult Swim cartoons (Yes! Even Dr Venture's in there!), the new weapons and armour are great, and it's bursting with fantastic ideas (like the automated battle suits that are supposed to rescue the injured from the battlefield, but have gone haywire, leading to a bunch of skeletons running around with guns). If you liked the goofier elements of Fallout 2 then this'll be right up your alley.

That's the one I've just started, and I thought I recognised the Big Bad's voice. I'm a few levels too low to take it on, I think, but I'm still having a heck of a time doing it.