Nerd Mentality

XBOX 360 REVIEW - Fallout: New Vegas

Posted November 7th 2010 by Frankie Aguilar.

When I first started hearing the rumbling about Fallout: New Vegas, one thing immediately came to my mind: Halo: ODST. I couldn't understand how, again, a company would try to package a trumped up expansion pack as a brand new fully priced game. Not that there was anything wrong with ODST, besides the price, but I was worried that short semi-sequel games were going to become a cash grab like 3D movies for the film industry. A game that takes place in the universe of Fallout has to be fully realized and fleshed to be truly successful. Fallout is synonymous with depth in the gaming world, and Bethesda did a wonderful job capturing the depth while modernizing the franchise well enough to garner numerous Game of the Year awards for Fallout 3. So how, less than two years later, can new developer Obsidian have even come close to recapturing the essence of Fallout with a brand new story in a whole new part of Post-Apocalyptia? I have no idea how, but they sure as hell did.

The first thing you should know about New Vegas is that it truly is a standalone game, taking place in the irradiated Mojave wastelands and with an entirely new cast of characters. This time around you take the guise of a desert courier caught up in a whole mess of trouble you didn't go asking for (read: a bullet in the head). From the get go your sense of freedom is wonderfully apparent. After you run through what amounts to one of the easiest and most satisfying character creation systems in gaming, you are free to do or go where you wish. This is different from Fallout 3 in two major ways. One, your are not impeded by the Vault, meaning that you can literally explore the entirety of the Mojave dessert immediately after deciding whether you want a green Mohawk or a Fu Manchu style mustache. And two, you're not chasing after Daddy anymore.

Besides trying to find the man who so poorly placed a bullet in your head to start the game, right off the bat there's not an overwhelming feeling of story. Sure, you can immediately chase after your murderer, but he "killed" you once already, why not just be happy to be alive? Why not explore this glorious wasteland you've been presented with another chance to see? The look and feel of New Vegas is very different from the capital wastes of D.C. from Fallout 3. The over passes and underground have been replaced by long stretches of highway dotted with rest stations and tourist traps. Even the hue of the game is different -- pale grays and blue replaced by oranges and yellows.

The phrase "the more things change, the more the stay the same" is shown in its most positive of lights in Fallout: New Vegas. Everything that was cool or interesting or innovative in Fallout 3 returns and gets a fresh new coat of polish to boot. All the retro futuristic humor is here, blending lingo and mentality from ‘50s with irradiated mutants and plasma weapons.

Love it or hate it the V.A.T.S. combat system returns in all its limb ripping glory. V.A.T.S. is a system by which the various parts of your enemies body is highlighted with percentage chances to hit them that fluctuate based on what kind of weapons you use, your distance and your stats. For people more fond of gun play or melee fighting, real time FPS and third person combat is available and navigating the menus and inventory is as intuitive and easy as ever through the use of the Pip-Boy. All in all the controls as responsive, and while you won't be running up any walls or double jumping, the controls are as responsive as you need them to be.

What totally sets New Vegas apart from Fallout 3 is New Vegas itself. A neon beacon of both prosperity and filth in the heart of the Mojave wastes, New Vegas is the fulcrum around which the entirety of the game pivots. It functions as a quest hub, a home base, and a warzone, houses numerous factions and gangs and seeks to try to bleed you in one way or another of every bottle cap in you pocket. New Vegas was rebuilt and is overseen by the shadowy Mr. House who, by way of the main story line, you will come to work for. Mr. House is a perfect example of what people have been calling "The Man" for decades: a oft spoken of but never seen autocrat whose phantom hand controls everything from the cost of living to the police force (in this case a contingent of angry robots). But more so than in Fallout 3, which allowed for very little deviation inside of the main storyline, New Vegas gives you a multitude of ways to progress towards the "end" of the game.

The most pressing and impressing addition to New Vegas is the emphasis on and importance of Factions. At the top of the irradiated food chain is the New California Republic, representing order and a democratic way of life, and Caesar's Legion, a group of raiding slavers hell bent on imperial rule over the Mojave. Those two forces fight for the hearts and minds of the Mojave and regularly try to impose their will over New Vegas. While the NCR and the Legion on the surface represent good and evil, they tend not to fit so perfectly into those roles. Underneath those two giants are the Great Khans, the Omertas, the Boomers and the ever present Brotherhood of Steel. New Vegas allows you to ally yourself and make enemies of any of the factions through the use of a revived Fallout 2 mechanic of reputation. Not only are the various factions' responses to you predicated on your reputation, but entire towns will champion of vilify you based on your actions towards them.

My favorite thing about Fallout in general is the ability to explore. Having this huge landscape laid out in front of you from the get go, you are encouraged to just wander. The ability to still find a ton of things to do while walking aimlessly around the desert is astounding. Obsidian wants you to explore the hell out of this gigantic game they've created, and they've filled it with plenty off goofy side quest, rare and powerful weapons, and cool as gear to keep you searching.

Every now and again, while I was traversing through the desert wasteland, I found myself pining for the capital wastes of Fallout 3. I missed the notable landmarks, the unmistakable howl of Three Dog or the sultry sounds of Billie Holiday coming from the radio in my Pip-Boy. But New Vegas has its share of sonic beauty, too. The "voice in the dark" this time around is Mr. New Vegas, voiced by none other than Mr. Las Vegas himself, Wayne Newton, and the music has a earthy country twang about it. The sad part about the radio is you don't feel the same kind of connection as you did with the music and the radio personality. This may be a symptom of your character not being as big a piece of the New Vegas puzzle as it was in Fallout 3, but it's a feeling that would have made traipsing across the desert much less lonely.

A few missteps keep New Vegas from being a great game, expansion, sequel or whatever. One of the greatest things about New Vegas is the factions, but throughout the various side quests and missions it is unclear how the multitude of factions will react. I'm all for trial and error -- that's why game allow for multiple save files -- but on a quest that can take up to an hour to complete, if you find that you've pissed off the wrong people there's really not a lot you can do. I would fail entire quest lines for a faction that I didn't even know existed by finishing up an innocuous fetch mission for another. And from a technical standpoint, the loading times and fairly consistent freezing of the game (atleast once every two hours) had me ready to punch puppies. You hate to say an entire game was rushed, especially from a franchise with as rabid and unforgiving fans as Fallout, but New Vegas could have used a bit more time in the oven.

When it comes down to it, Fallout: New Vegas will be loved or hated in the same way that Fallout 3 was loved and hated. Fallout is so much a genre bending-game that it has as much chance to alienate a player as it does to endear them. But as far as a gameplay experience goes it's something that has to be played. Fallout: New Vegas, for all its glaring technical glitches, is a wonderful game that will give you back as much as you put into it. And in a gaming world that seems to be constantly waiting for the next blockbuster first person shooter to come out, the irradiated Mojave desert is a breath of fresh air.

Tags: Xbox 360, Fallout: New Vegas

Posted in: Reviews, Gaming

Comments (3) | Permalink | Digg | Reddit