Today, I finished Fallout: New Vegas, a game I started playing a few months back when it was on sale. It’s hard to pull out a review for something nearly 5 years old, but I’ll address my finishing thoughts of the game here.

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Fallout: New Vegas starts off simple. The game’s main quest is set up in that you begin taking revenge against the character that promptly shot you and left you for dead in the beginning of the game. However, how this revenge goes is sort-of up to the player. You can start the game going right at him and taking the Platinum Chip (Which was taken from you) back, but you have the option of backing off this immediately, because the game now sets you loose. In order to get to a endgame, you’ll have to side with factions, ranging from You/Yes Man, NCR, The Legion, or Mr. House. Depending on who you side (And your actions between various factions), your ending will actually have a very different outcome.

New Vegas has really stellar writing and there’s so many ways around problems and tasks the game throws at you. I spent the whole game being diplomatic, where I went as far as to help other factions so the relationship will allow for a truce/alliance between the two. It really did cater to me. While I’m normally brash in most video games, I like finding quicker, more peaceful ways around problems and the game reflected that. While the main quest arc (That’s basically the first few hours of the game) isn’t as large as the faction arcs that lead to the end, and those quests are dynamic and provide tons of ways to handle situations. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t allow you to continue after finishing, which while was a standard trope in most games around the time, hurts the game as a whole. I wanted to continue playing with all of the crazy gear I got from the final fight, but the game wants me to go back to where I last was instead. I leveled up twice during that time and I have to regrind that up if I continue to play again.

It’s gunplay is solid but my favorite camera view in these kind-of games, third person view, still feels botched. I haven’t played Fallout 3 to know how both perspectives play in that game, but I’ve noticed myself handling gunplay more poorly in third-person, and depending on V.A.T.S. more. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that horrendous and V.A.T.S. is probably one of the most liked features in combat, but it makes me hope that Fallout 4 improves the gunplay for both perspectives.

The game is really ugly at this time in age, it definitely looks and feels like a 5+ year old game. While mods did help make the game more nice, character models feel way too off and the gun textures look so muddy. Fallout: New Vegas came out in the same year Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and Just Cause 2 did, and those games still hold up in some areas to this day. Fallout: New Vegas, doesn’t. I guess it’s because of the large world and how dry deserts always look. I dunno.

The game is also quite the buggy mess, and while there’s been plenty of patches, I’ve went as far as to the point where I installed a mod to prevent the console from disabling achievements so I could get out of a area I was trapped in. Of course, nobody cares about achievements, but I kinda do, 😛

Despite these nitpicks and complains, I had a great time with Fallout: New Vegas. It’s a shame I’ve missed out a lot of the Fallout games, and with the 4th one coming, I’m actually pretty excited.

So here’s a recommendation for you, go play Fallout: New Vegas if you need a time-sinker during the summer. This sure sucked out about 3 weeks of my time.