There was a lot to like about Fallout 3, Bethesda Softworks’ take on the post-apocalyptic franchise. There was the excellent quest design, the flexible character progression system, the massive game world and the sheer depth of the content on offer.
But the title’s humourless storytelling and sterile world made it feel like a ghost of the classic role-playing games (RPGs) that preceded it. Thankfully, those flaws have been remedied in Fallout: New Vegas, a new take on the Fallout universe that Bethesda outsourced to developer Obsidian Entertainment.
Obsidian rose from the ashes of Black Isle Studios, the creator of Fallout, and its love for the universe oozes out of every pore of New Vegas. This game brings back the dark, satirical humour and twisted personality that made Fallout 1 and 2 so compelling, while keeping everything that impressed about Fallout 3 intact.
As before, the player is cast as a wanderer in the wastelands of the US after a nuclear war has wiped out most of the human race. This time the action takes place in the deserts around Vegas and the Hoover Dam rather than on the East Coast.
Your character is a courier who is gunned down and left for dead during what appeared to be a routine delivery. The initial quest is to hunt down the men who tried to kill you, but a more complex story populated by a range of colourful characters soon starts to unfold.
Fallout: New Vegas is based on the same proprietary engine that powered Fallout 3 and the core gameplay remains much the same. But that’s fine since there wasn’t much wrong with Bethesda’s implementation of Fallout’s roleplaying framework in a real-time, first-person game. An abundance of new weapons, enemies and item recipes, as well as the fresh setting, help to renew Fallout’s appeal.
At the outset of the game, your character is a blank slate that you can fill in using the Fallout character progression system Special (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck). You’ll also work on developing a range of abilities, from sneaking, picking locks and hacking terminals to using guns, melee weapons and explosives.
Combat is once again a blend of turn-based and real-time fighting. Although you can simply fire off shoots or swing a club or blade around in real-time, you need to master the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System (Vats) to be effective in combat. Vats — developed for Fallout 3 — allows you to slow time down and target specific parts of an enemy’s body to deal maximum damage.
Fallout: New Vegas isn’t just about combat. It’s also about character interaction and exploration. Dozens of hours, deep into the game, you’ll still be encountering secrets, new locations and characters that you haven’t met before. Though there’s plenty of combat, you also have the option to resolve many quests though dialogue rather than violence. When you’re tired of fighting, you can dabble in some gambling on the Vegas strip.
It’s the quality of Obsidian’s writing, paired with dramatic improvements in the voice acting, that really sets the game apart from Fallout 3. Even some of the minor characters have memorable dialogue and personalities, and there are plenty of humorous details to pick up from interactions with people you’ll encounter or by reading documents you find lying around.
You can even tune into some radio stations with the Pipboy, the handheld computer that your character also uses to manage inventory, stats, quests information and so on. One, a station for mutants, has chatter as funny as anything on Grand Theft Auto’s radio channels. It’s a pity that the channels quickly start to repeat themselves.
The mutated insects and arachnids of the desert wasteland aren’t the only bugs you’ll be battling during your adventure in the desert wasteland. New Vegas is beset with technical issues that range from minor but bizarre graphical glitches to show-stopping crashes and interminable loading times.
Fallout: New Vegas trailer (via YouTube):
A post-release patch seems to have eliminated the worst issues. The bugginess won’t surprise anyone familiar with Fallout 3 or Obsidian’s back catalogue. But the lack of technical polish is disappointing in a game that is so good in every other way. Despite the nasty bugs and a few other quibbles, this feels like the real successor to Fallout 1 and 2 for which fans have been waiting for years. — Lance Harris, TechCentral
- Reviewed on Xbox 360. Also available on PC and PlayStation 3
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