Review

Fallout: New Vegas

The Fallout series got a major face lift in 2008 with the release of Fallout 3. Fans everywhere thought that it lost its roots when it went from top-down view to the more common first and 3rd person views we see in games today. They were proven wrong once they got their hands on the game. Bethesda did an awesome job creating one of the best games of that year. For Fallout: New Vegas, the reigns were passed to Obsidian Entertainment. Again, there was fear that the new Fallout wouldn’t live up to legend the older games created. I am happy to say, we were wrong again.

It isn’t too shocking to see why Obsidian would be a good choice to develop the game. Many of Obsidian’s developers worked on the original Fallout games in the past. After playing New Vegas, I can see that they haven’t lost their touch. Fallout: New Vegas takes place four years after the events of Fallout 3. Although this isn’t a direct sequel, it does take place within the series timeline. Set in the Mojave Desert of a post-apocalyptic Las Vegas (New Vegas), Navada , gamers take on the role of a courier delivering an important package. Things apparently went sour as the opening cinematic shows our character being shot in the head by a thief right before stealing the package. We wake up confused and angry in a doctor’s office after being dug up by robots out in the desert. This begins the journey leading gamers all over Navada in hopes of finding answers. What was in the package I was carrying? Who was the guy that shot me? Why was I dug up? These questions are the driving force behind a very memorable experience. While the questions are doing the driving, the options presented to gamers in New Vegas is the gas in the vehicle.

After you deciding on whether or not the doc was able to recreate your face (a clever way to pick your character’s physical attributes), he will give you an evaluation to determine your starting perks. Perks are stats that tailor your character to your playing style. Throughout the course of the game, you gain experience which will allow you to allocate points to different stats. Barter, for instance, gives you more options in terms of making deals. The perks go a step further, like Ladykiller, which gives you more options when talking to women. Just like in earlier Fallouts, your stats play a big role in shaping your story. It also can lend a hand in affirming your moral standing in the world providing an alternative to solving problems with a gun. Certain stats will allow you to talk your way out of a conflict, which in turn will change the way the story unfolds and how people view your character. Again, this isn’t anything new for the series. What is new is the number of different factions in New Vegas. Helping one group of people might make you an enemy with another, successfully reshapping your experiences. Throughout the game you are given situations where you can be bad, good, or neutral and it directly affects the rest of the game, providing an incredible amount of options for the gamer. You can literally play this game over and over and still find new side quests just by saying something different to an important character. Awesome!

When you do decide to fight you are again given options. Obsidian has upgraded the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System (V.A.T.S). I’ll come back to their upgrade after explaining the system. V.A.T.S allows gamers to freeze the game while they pick the places on enemies that they want to attack. You are given points which are used with each selection (leveling certain attributes increases your VATS points). After you’ve used all the points, confirming the choices will have the game play out the scene in slow motion. The camera will zoom in and out and follow bullets to their marks. Your success depends on your skills, your relative location to the enemy, their armor level, and what weapon you’re using (meaning you can’t snipe someone 50 yards away with a close-ranged weapon). If you’re dead on, you can injure your adversary which gives varying results. Successfully injuring an enemy’s arm may cause them to drop their weapon (or you could just shoot the weapon itself). This adds strategic elements to the fights. Going back to the upgrade, Obsidian has added special attacks to the V.A.T.S system. Using certain weapons in the right combination in V.A.T.S will cause this special attack, which is more deadly than normal. Again, giving gamers more options to tackle situations they encounter. You can also make yourself proficient with melee weapons and carry a sledgehammer into battle, or you could place attributes in firearms, making it easier to target different limbs on an enemy before shooting. Obsidian has improved Fallout’s aim and shooting mechanics in both first and 3rd person views, so using conventional firearms (there are futuristic weapons as well) is a great option.

This is one of the few times that a series of games that doesn’t feature a plumber as its main character is great, despite reusing a lot of similar mechanics. There aren’t any new modes, multiplayer (which would have been awesome) or even a new setting. Yes, you are on the other side of the world this time but things aren’t that different. You will still talk to townsfolk to get quests, randomly encounter dangerous wildlife, and may still end up searching through a vault (a series staple). All that doesn’t matter when the material you’re given is as good as what New Vegas has to offer. On top of that, Obsidian has tweaked the gameplay for New Vegas making it more fun to play. There are just so many things to do while you’re completing the main story and none of it ever gets old. I’ve battled giant bugs, avenged a town that was ransacked by The Legion (one of the games many factions), and even made nice with a delusional mutant that took advice from a skull he found. As it stands, Fallout: New Vegas is an awesome game to get lost in. It’s a must buy for anyone who likes free-roaming action/rpg games!