From Bottleneck.org
Fallout: New Vegas
The Christmas computer games haul included Fallout: New Vegas, Assassin's Creed II, Mass Effect 2, and Mafia II, so it's a testament to Fallout: New Vegas, that I'm only just writing up my impressions of it.
And that's the first thing to say - the game is vast. Don't get me wrong, you can plough straight through the main storyline with blinkered vision, and do so in the matter of just a few hours game play, but to do so would be such a waste.
Whilst the map may not be any larger than Fallout 3's, and in some ways feels a little smaller, it is much richer. It rather felt in F3 that exploring the wasteland was a chore involving vast treks across large distances in the vain hope of finding something interesting. Once in the ruins of Washington DC, the map became fairly linear, but was at least a bit more rich in content, and as a result I spent most of my time in this area in F3.
Not so in F:NV. The map is positively littered with things to find - towns, settlements, military camps, mines, caves, trading posts and more. From any given position on the map you can spot a couple of "undiscovered" pointers and wander off to explore them. Each of these locations is rich in its own right, generally offering a side quest or two, or at the very least some reasonable loot. The New Vegas Strip and its environs actually becomes rather dull in comparison to the fun to be had exploring the rest of the map - a place to visit to progress the major missions, rather than to enjoy. Perhaps my opinion is warped, though, since I didn't bother going there until I'd got a good 40 hours game play under my belt!
That's not to say that the map doesn't have problems. There are on occasion vast mountains between you and your objective, which are not particularly easy to trace on the map. All too often I'd go wandering off in the direction of an undiscovered map marker only to find a huge mountain range in my way, and then try to walk around it in the wrong direction and waste twenty minute of game play. Just as frustrating is the over-use of "invisible walls" - often you can pick your way up a mountain and near the top, for no reason, find you simply cannot continue. There is the odd clipping error as well, but nothing too serious given the vastness of the map.
Internal maps I found were often very confined and confusing, particularly in the vaults, where everything looks the same. On at least one occasion I got so fed up of trying to figure out which parts of the vault I'd already explored and which I hadn't, I just gave up and headed straight for the exit. This is not improved by the lack of height information on the Pip-boy local maps, a problem also present in F3.
The quests range from main plotline quests, to major side quests, to minor ad-hoc quests. There is also the usual range of "collect these" quests which can, for the most part, be ignored. There are a number of companions available to you through the game who each bring their own side quest, often with a detailed back-story that becomes apparent through conversation with your companions. All of the quests are interesting and entertaining.
As you play, it becomes apparent that the game's quest logic is also vast - choices you make will close off avenues of storyline to you, and it's hard not to feel a little remorse for all the content you've missed. Of course, there is nothing you could do about it other than play the game again and make different choices - some of the content is simply inconsistent with other content. While that seems unfortunate at first, it does enrich the game play as it's far more reflective of real life, and forces you to think at each stage about what sort of route you want to take through the game. The only criticism of it I might have is that you can occasionally close off avenues unintentionally - it would be nice if the plot flagged through the dialogue that this was about to happen.
Aside from that, the game is just as playable as F3 but in a different, and prettier setting. There is much less focus on karma in F:NV, but a lot more on your reputation with the various factions in the game. There are new elements such as the ability to cook things up at camp fires, craft a wider range of things, recycle ammunition, and so on, but most of these things are fairly irrelevant side issues. The game is a little less stable than F3, with perhaps 20 crash to desktops over the 50+ hours I probably spent playing, but that might be expected from a new game, versus one that has been through a number of patches and additional content installs.
All in all, Fallout: New Vegas is even better than Fallout 3 - and we all know how good that was!