After Fallout 3, I was convinced that this franchise is one of the best RPG to date. Only 2 years afterward, Bethesda released Fallout : New Vegas, what could look like an immersive open world turned out to be a bug ridden experience. It's in no way that bad, but it sure needs more unnecessary patient to enjoy.
Oh, no drawing this week, I'm trying to find info on digital drawing (photoshop) and better tools for traditional one, like better color pencils and such.
Fallout : New Vegas is actually pretty great game. The scale is vast and hundreds of places with hundreds of highly interactive NPC. It uses the same engine as Fallout 3 and quite frankly it feels outdated. Two years ago, it might looks okay and in some scenes, the environments are epic, but looking at the doll-like character expression feels awkward now. Okay maybe because my last game is FF13, so the gorgeous graph still lingers in my memory vividly, but there are numerous games that can top the graph easily.
The story opens up with a bang.. to your head, literally. You are a courier for Strip and midway you got ambushed by a checkered guy and some thugs. Then start the journey to find them with Mojave Wasteland as your setting. The world is large and can be daunting at first, it needs dozens of hours to see everything. Two main faction of New Vegas are NCR, the more nationality soldier type and Legion, practically a bunch of savage They are toe-to-toe on claiming Vegas territory and you'll find their members scatter across the wasteland.
For a game that depends on the size of the world, Fallout New Vegas doesn't disappoint. The game offers many diversity on choosing how you approach many situation. Tons of side quests to be had and multiple ways to complete them really give player a freedom for their actions. Choose carefully whether you want to help or attack someone, or a group. Every decision contribute on how well you are received by the community, this actually add depth and realistic behavior to the tone of the game.
Gameplay remains unchanged from Fallout 3. You either use first person view or third person (not recommended) and try to bring down your enemies with the aid of VATS which let you pause the game and aim a specific limb of your targets. The stats, skills and perks also make their returns. There is quiet deep customization of your character. Each stat contributes to many skills which then decide how good you are on a particular aspect. Speech skill might influence people easily, Guns skill provides better damage when you use handgun and such, while perks are additional bonus advantage that can be selected after a couple of level up or by special means.
There is also a Hardcore mode, which I chose, that give more detailed experience albeit it makes the game harder. You have to constantly check your food, sleep and water supply. Also there is limited ways to heal limb damage, stimpak won't heal it, only doctor can. This mode is not for the faint heart. I actually faltered a few times when going to more dangerous areas, although the main story line offers relatively safe path, at least nothing that can't be handle if you gain enough experience.
From the sound department, it's good. Not the usual epic OST like in many other RPG, but the ambient noise and creeping silent actually help the compelling atmosphere. If you want to hear some tunes, the radio has several tracks to listen to. They are the usual '60 something classic songs, but they are not many so expect them to be replay on some occasions. Dubbing for the game is very good, characters deliver their lines with amazing personality. This helps tremendously when the animation of some characters are a bit stiff.
Now come the bad parts. It lags, more than it should. I don't remember Fallout 3 frame rate stall as much as this. There are also plenty bugs to deal with, from the glitching hands, the hovering characters, sometimes the enemies fall into the ground straight to oblivion etc. Maybe the technical doesn't support the ambition of such large world. Then the stupidity of the AI, it's almost given that at some points in the game, you will see NPC running around in the circle, the NPC who you should protect is suddenly possessed by some Spartan ghosts and decides to run head first to a team of six foes with grenades. Needless to say, they are awful.
Aside from the weirdness of AI, the animation or the movement of the characters is not smooth. For some reason they feel weightless, more like a floating human rather than ones who actually have gravitational and weight effect. One time, I saw an NPC walk to a wall and didn't even know that he stuck. All these minor impractical bugs and glitches can lead to frustrating gameplay and take the immersion away. It appears any good things about this game is accompanied by at least some sort of malfunction.
Ultimately Fallout New Vegas can be daunting on the prospect of its size alone, not to mention the bugs that plagued it. For Fallout or Oblivion fans, it's certainly worth it, but other gamers might be put off by the aforementioned hindrance. It's a shame really, once you got past the swarming bugs, there is a great game to be found here. It just demands gamers to be forgiving of its shortcoming. Beautiful but flawed. 8/10
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