The Mojave Wasteland, 2281. It’s like the DC Wasteland, but different, but the same. So about four years have passed by since the events of Fallout 3, but… well, the entire North American continent is still mostly a barren, irradiated wilderness, largely populated by grotesquely mutated moles and bad guys wearing bits of tyres. War never changes, and apparently neither does much else.
(Actually, it’s something that really nags at me about the Fallout series. It’s two hundred years or so since the bombs dropped, and nobody’s bothered to slop a soapy bucket over the walls and floors? It’s not like there’s a shortage of Abraxo Cleaner or anything. I get that it’s the post-apocalypse and all, but why would anyone want to live in such grimy squalor? Gross.)
Anyway. You’re a courier. You’re supposed to deliver a package from Primm to New Vegas, but that plan doesn’t quite work out as intended. Which, considering you’re subsequently dug up out of a shallow grave with a bullet in your head, is something of an understatement.
You get yourself fixed up, then you go stamping around the state, killing stuff, and finding stuff, and talking about stuff, and when you’ve done enough of that, the game ends. That’s my attempt at a completely objective review.
See, I’m kind of a Fallout fan. If you stuck a Fatman to my head and demanded it, I’d probably admit that Fallout 2 is my all-time favourite game. I even liked Fallout 3 – so much, in fact, that I invested 85 hours into a single playthrough. The trouble with Fallout: New Vegas, then, is that it’s just more of the same, and on top of 85 hours of Fallout 3 and I’ve no idea how many hours of Fallout 2 but I did sustain permanent nerve damage in my right hand after clocking one 36-hour session, it’s all starting to drag a bit. In fact, Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas are so mutually indistinguishable, they might as well be the same game.
Sure, Obsidian has chucked in a few new things here and there. There’s a sort of crafting system, for example – check in at a campfire, and you can cook up a bunch of foodstuffs and medical supplies with all that junk you’ve been collecting. Or stop by a workbench, and bash your unwanted ammo into wanted ammo.
There’s also a dynamic faction system, that works alongside a universal reputation system that’s rather similar to Fallout 2’s – run enough errands for the New California Republic, maybe, and Caesar’s Legion are going to take a hit out on you. Be nice to everyone in Novac, and they’ll idolise you. It’s ostensibly interesting enough, I suppose, but in the case of factions, working for any one of them doesn’t do much more than ultimately shut out all of the others and determine the ending of the game, and in the case of towns, you might receive the occasional present. So in one aspect, it’s a (frequently inscrutable or unpredictable) linear game mechanic, and in the other, it’s pretty inconsequential.
Perhaps the most significant innovation is a Hardcore mode, which can be toggled on and off at the player’s discretion. Very reminiscent of traditional roguelike RPGs, Hardcore mode imposes a more realistic survival imperative on players – among other things, you’ll have to eat, drink, and sleep or you’ll die. It won’t appeal to everyone, but I thought it added a genuinely engaging dimension to the gameplay.
Aside from these additions, however, it’s basically Fallout 3 with a muddled, barely-there story. Everything looks the same, and despite the developer’s claims to the contrary, it plays exactly the same too. Which means every character dialogue close-up resembles a recently exhumed corpse, and the real-time gunplay is an abomination. The AI pathfinding is absolutely appalling, and the animation is almost comically poor.
It’s hard to consider Fallout: New Vegas as anything much more than a full-priced Fallout 3 expansion, really. There’s simply not enough here to set it substantially apart from any of the other games in the series, and while that might – and not entirely unreasonably, at that – be a plus for some gamers, it’s likely to be a disappointment for everyone else. If you’re looking for more Fallout 3, just add another 20 to the score, and have your fun. If you’re looking for a different Fallout experience, I’d suggest rolling a new character in Fallout 2.
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