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Confused? Don't worry - it's not all that important. All you need to know is that Fallout New Vegas is a pretty entertaining romp through a post apocalyptic world which is better than Fallout 3 in some ways, and worse in others. The game begins with you, a courier, recovering from being shot in the head. Yeah, it doesn't sound like the kind of thing you'd recover from quickly but that's not a a big problem. What is a bit disappointing is how little backstory your character has, unlike your character in Fallout 3. In fact, your character's quest for revenge isn't nearly as compelling as the Fallout 3 character's quest to find their father.
So off you go, shooting and punching your way across the Mojave desert, action-RPG style. New Vegas's landscape doesn't come across as quite as desolate as Fallout 3's, probably because it was a desert to start off with, though there's still plenty of evidence of cities and towns having been hit hard by the bombs that dropped during Fallout's nuclear war.
You don't get to visit the town of New Vegas right away, though. The game is fairly clever in this respect - unlike GTA and it's ilk, it doesn't cut you off from the game's other locations for no good reason. Instead, the main route to New Vegas is filled with some really nasty creatures which are capable of kicking your backside. So you either need to take an alternate route which follows the game's main quest line or do some major leveling up to become hard enough to take on the monsters.
There are plenty of side quests to undertake - you could spend a good forty or fifty hours playing the game, though you can buzz through the main quest a little quicker - perhaps in fifteen hours or so. You can also play with a whole range of weapons and abilities, a few of which are new to New Vegas. Although you'll still find that by the time you reach the higher levels, you've been forced into spending your experience points on skills you don't want, making you into an all round badass rather than any kind of specialist.
Now, here's the bad news. Since New Vegas uses the same engine as Fallout 3, it's got problems. You'll likely run into crashes, and there are quite a few glitches. Bethesda/Oblivion issued a PS3 patch a couple of days after but that says to me that they knew about the bugs and just shoved it out anyway. There were about 200 bugs, apparently - and if anyone thinks about defending the company, saying that you're bound to hit bugs due to Fallout: New Vegas's complexity? Cobblers. Of all the PS3/360 games I've had, Fallout 3 and New Vegas are the only ones that have ever crashed the system.
So is New Vegas worth having? If you haven't played Fallout 3 then pick that up first - and by the time you've played it to death, New Vegas: Game of the Year edition will probably out. If, on other hand you've played and finished the original Fallout 3, then yes. It's a massive game, and a lot of fun to play, although the graphics are looking slightly dated now. But one of the game's best features is the way you're never entirely sure you're doing the right thing. Of all the factions you can join in the game, none are clearly the best for the wasteland, and this 'grey area' is a refreshing change from other games where everyone's either good or evil. Fallout New Vegas is a hugely entertaining game, and well worth buying.
Confused? Don't worry - it's not all that important. All you need to know is that Fallout New Vegas is a pretty entertaining romp through a post apocalyptic world which is better than Fallout 3 in some ways, and worse in others. The game begins with you, a courier, recovering from being shot in the head. Yeah, it doesn't sound like the kind of thing you'd recover from quickly but that's not a a big problem. What is a bit disappointing is how little backstory your character has, unlike your character in Fallout 3. In fact, your character's quest for revenge isn't nearly as compelling as the Fallout 3 character's quest to find their father.
So off you go, shooting and punching your way across the Mojave desert, action-RPG style. New Vegas's landscape doesn't come across as quite as desolate as Fallout 3's, probably because it was a desert to start off with, though there's still plenty of evidence of cities and towns having been hit hard by the bombs that dropped during Fallout's nuclear war.
You don't get to visit the town of New Vegas right away, though. The game is fairly clever in this respect - unlike GTA and it's ilk, it doesn't cut you off from the game's other locations for no good reason. Instead, the main route to New Vegas is filled with some really nasty creatures which are capable of kicking your backside. So you either need to take an alternate route which follows the game's main quest line or do some major leveling up to become hard enough to take on the monsters.
There are plenty of side quests to undertake - you could spend a good forty or fifty hours playing the game, though you can buzz through the main quest a little quicker - perhaps in fifteen hours or so. You can also play with a whole range of weapons and abilities, a few of which are new to New Vegas. Although you'll still find that by the time you reach the higher levels, you've been forced into spending your experience points on skills you don't want, making you into an all round badass rather than any kind of specialist.
Now, here's the bad news. Since New Vegas uses the same engine as Fallout 3, it's got problems. You'll likely run into crashes, and there are quite a few glitches. Bethesda/Oblivion issued a PS3 patch a couple of days after but that says to me that they knew about the bugs and just shoved it out anyway. There were about 200 bugs, apparently - and if anyone thinks about defending the company, saying that you're bound to hit bugs due to Fallout: New Vegas's complexity? Cobblers. Of all the PS3/360 games I've had, Fallout 3 and New Vegas are the only ones that have ever crashed the system.
So is New Vegas worth having? If you haven't played Fallout 3 then pick that up first - and by the time you've played it to death, New Vegas: Game of the Year edition will probably out. If, on other hand you've played and finished the original Fallout 3, then yes. It's a massive game, and a lot of fun to play, although the graphics are looking slightly dated now. But one of the game's best features is the way you're never entirely sure you're doing the right thing. Of all the factions you can join in the game, none are clearly the best for the wasteland, and this 'grey area' is a refreshing change from other games where everyone's either good or evil. Fallout New Vegas is a hugely entertaining game, and well worth buying.