49| Fallout: New Vegas

Released: October 19th, 2010

Definitive Version: PC; Also on: Xbox 360, PS3

Fallout 3 sucked. It was a disappointment. Rather than being a deep and compelling WRPG, it was essentially an open world quasi-FPS with RPG elements. It was essentially STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, only not as well designed. Fallout: New Vegas was announced and many were immediately skeptical. Some of that skepticism was lifted when it was revealed that Bethesda wouldn't be at the helm, but rather Obsidian.Obsidian had a history of developing deep and compelling WRPGs including Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, and the then hot on the shelves Alpha Protocol. People hoped that Fallout: New Vegas would follow the same path those other games did, in terms of having a game that focused on having a quality role playing experience first and foremost. It did.

Fallout: New Vegas is everything Fallout 3 was supposed to be. For starters it had a 3D open world where the the map was designed less to be a frontier for the player to explore, and more so to have the player encounter various hub towns and areas. In these towns and areas were locals in which many had a handful of quests for the player to complete. These quests weren't your typical "collect X amount of radioactive goat spleens and I'll give you a reward", but often intertwined the player with what was going on in the particular community. These objectives often had players choose sides under specific conflicts and were rarely morally black and white. They would often affect what the player would be able to do later and how the game would be played. Allies and enemies are frequently made due to how the player chooses to align during the various situations that are presented. Fallout: New Vegas truly made the player's choices matter.

Of course, role playing would only matter so much if one didn't care about the characters. I will admit, while the characters aren't the deepest, or even that appealing, they definitely are memorable.Throughout the game one will encounter: a genocidal Roman barbarian group, Elvis, servant robots, cowboys, a supreme being A.I., and many others. The player's allies are just as unique. I played the game with a cyborg dog and a grandma Supermutant as my companions. Say what you want about Fallout, but it truly branches out of the traditional Tolkien and SciFi trope characters, especially in this entry.

Presentation wise, the game looks just like Fallout 3. Looks can be a bit deceiving though. Despite having the same texture and similar artstyle to the first game, the theme has been altered a bit. Rather than being a 1950s version of the post-apocalyptic future, it instead is an 1850s version of it. Fallout: New Vegas takes the post-apocalyptic vision of the Fallout series, and adds some cowboy flavor. In the first five minutes of the game, it even presents the trope of shooting beer bottles on top of the wooden fence for target practice. This proceeds to set the tone for the rest of the game. The area that is the one exception that doesn't feel like the 1850s is the city of New Vegas. It is, as one might expect, a 1950s version of Las Vegas. This is complete with the bright lights, casinos, and the tacky decorate. In fact, it is one of the few places in the game that actually looks habitable...somewhat...not really, but still.

Combat in Fallout: New Vegas works just like Fallout 3. This is actually pretty good, as Fallout 3's combat was enjoyable. The VATS system is back and is more satisfying than ever. The game gives the player a variety of weapons from pistols, to energy guns, to rocket launchers. My only complaints is that while the combat looks flashy, it is fairly shallow. There is a long list of games that just did the quasi-real time battle system far better. To be fair though, the Fallout series always had mediocre combat.

In terms of the story, well I don't want to give much away, but it does manage to hold the player's interest. Like many WRPGs, the story begins with the player being near death as they recall being in some heavy shit. They miraculously survive their ordeal, and have inconveniently developed amnesia. They now roam the world as they try to pick up the pieces. Despite being cliche as all hell, the plot gets the job done as it gives the player an excuse to transverse the world and conversate with others. It isn't the best story out there, but like with most RPGs, the meat is in the journey not the destination.

Fallout: New Vegas is a game that seems to be part of a some sort of parallel universe where Fallout 3 actually did justice to the franchise. It took the Fallout series and expanded and refined it. It was part of a small wave of games in the dawn of the 2010s that were both ambitious and had deep role playing mechanics. With Fallout 4 being released and falling prey to the same potholes Fallout 3 tripped over, fans of the series are hoping for a repeat of when Obsidian would proceed to take the developer's chair to create their own entry. Only time will tell if this will occur, but at least the studio left fans with a quality game in the series that they could continue to replay.