Journal RogueyWon's Journal: Fallout: New Vegas - first thoughts 1
I've had Fallout: New Vegas for about a week now and thought it worth typing up some early thoughts on the game. I say "early thoughts" as, despite having put about 16 hours into the game so far, I don't really feel like I've explored much of its content. I clocked up over 100 hours with Fallout 3, including time spend with its 5 downloadable content packs, and I can see that New Vegas has the potential to generate similar play-times. So this is not a review; I wouldn't want to try to put a score to the game until I've completed it. Rather, it's a summary of what you can expect to find in the early stages of the game. This is all based on the PC version.
On many levels, not much has changed since Fallout 3. The game is still running on the same (slightly dated) technology and the interface is almost entirely unchanged. If you played Fallout 3, then you'll be instantly familiar with the basic concepts of the game and will be able to move right on to exploring the new features. If Fallout 3 passed you by, then you've probably got a fairly steep learning curve, as not only do you have all of the systems and mechanics that gave the first game its depth to get used to, but you've also got the new reputation and crafting systems to pick up at the same time.
That said, in some respects, New Vegas is a much more newbie-friendly game than Fallout 3. My defining memory of my first 12 or so hours of Fallout 3 is of creeping around with a 9mm pistol with 3 rounds, a broken laser pistol and a single frag grenade. The game could be harsh in its early stages, until you managed to acquire some decent guns and enough caps (the game's currency) to keep yourself provided with ammunition and stimpacks. This situation could be avoided if you had the Operation: Anchorage downloadable content pack, which gave a nice easy method of acquiring a substantial arsenal almost as soon as you left Vault 101, but I suspect that most first-time players won't have had the benefit of that. New Vegas allows you to skip this stage entirely, which may disappoint a few hardcore players, but is probably a welcome relief to the majority. The game's tutorial stages give you a couple of decent starter guns and a fair-sized stock of ammunition. Coupled with an abundance of easy quests in the introductory areas, this should mean that most players will manage to bypass the subsistence phase and get cracking with the rest of the game.
I regard this as a good thing, on balance, because not having to think carefully before you use every single bullet or stimpack removes a huge barrier to exploration. At the same time, the increasing challenge presented by the threats you encounter as you move away from the starter down is a good incentive to hunt through every last ruin for supplies. One of the most enjoyable moments of my time with the game so far came when I carefully picked my way through a plot-unrelated building protected by potentially dangerous sentry robots, picking locks and hacking security systems, in the hope of finding some nice new gear. At the end of my exploration, I came across a unique gun that far exceeded anything I had hoped to find and which instantly became the centrepiece of my arsenal. It felt like the risks I'd taken in going off the beaten track had paid off extremely well. Not every such exploration is as profitable, which is also a positive; you don't go into every little detour with the expectation of epic loot. Inquisitiveness can sometimes backfire, but the risks still feel worth taking.
Going off-plot and exploring is by far the most enjoyable aspect of the game. It's great to stumble across a new town and spend a few hours helping the inhabitants with their problems (or, depending on your faction alignment, just killing them all and looting their homes). The Vegas Strip and the Mojave Desert are far more densely populated than Fallout 3's Capital Wasteland. In places, the world of New Vegas starts to feel almost civilised; this is a world which has started to pick itself up properly following a nuclear war that is fast fading into history. In some ways, it verges on being post-post-apocalypse fiction. That isn't to say that there isn't barbarity; some of the factions in the game have a brutal streak that surpasses anything we saw from the Enclave in Fallout 3.
Sadly, the main plot does not, so far, feel as though it's really doing justice to the game-world. It's lucky that the exploration and side-questing aspects of the game are so good, because I'm finding it very difficult to care about Courier Number 6 or the platinum poker chip he's hunting. I know that Fallout traditionalists objected to Fallout 3's plot, but I personally thought it carried itself off pretty well. It's hard to define where New Vegas falls short in this respect, but I think ultimately, it's missing some of the gravitas of its predecessor. It's not just that New Vegas doesn't go around quoting Revelations 21:6 at you. It's more that the game takes an awfully long time to reveal why your character's mission actually matters. Maybe it will do so eventually, but it hasn't done so yet.
There are other niggles as well. While the dialogue throws up occasional gems, a lot of it comes over extremely flat. With a few honorable exceptions, most of the NPCs you encounter just feel like ciphers for their faction. Don't go into this game expecting the kind of wit and flair you'd find in a Bioware game. Despite some attempts to tidy it up, the companion system still feels uncomfortable. The new "companion wheel" interface helps with orders a bit, but the AI for your companions is still shockingly bad. After a few hours, I dismissed my companion and went back to solo-exploration. Inventory management is still irritating, and is one of the few areas where the game gives away the fact that it was also developed for consoles.
It should be noted that the game has been plagued by bug reports since its launch. I've run into a couple of very minor bugs. A couple of enemies sank up to their knees into the ground at one point, although it didn't stop them from attacking me or me from being able to fight back. The game does occasionally throw up some unexplainable slow-down. My system is far in excess of the recommended specs and never had the slightest problem with Fallout 3, so I'm at a loss to explain this. It's rare, though, and seems to be quite random.
On the plus side, combat feels greatly improved since Fallout 3. The gap between normal combat and VATS combat seems to have been narrowed somewhat, so you don't get the same feeling of being completely ineffective when you don't have the AP to use VATS. Stealth feels better implemented and much more consistent. And the new range of weapons is great, as is the option to modify them.
In conclusion... so far so good. While I do have some minor criticisms, these are pretty thin when set against the sheer awesomeness of the game's exploration elements.
Companion issues (Score:2)