In 2008 Bethesda Softworks gave us Fallout 3, an open world game where you could sprawl around the giant ruined city of Washington DC and fight approximately three types of enemies on your quest to save your father. Now Bethesda has released Fallout: New Vegas which involves you sprawling around the giant ruined state of Nevada in search of the man who shot you in the head, which is basically the exact opposite approach any normal person would take.
So then you’re set free in the desert wasteland of the future that’s been raged by a nuclear apocalypse, forcing you to survive against rogue soldiers, mutant monsters, and even the elements as you complete a number of quests and adventures and blah blah blah.
If you’re reading this review then chances are you know the basics behind Fallout and there really isn’t much more to say. And when I say that, I mean it. Because as far as sequels go Fallout: New Vegas gets the award for “Least Contributed to a Franchise” in that it changes virtually nothing from its predecessor. The VATS system that allows you to stop time and blow your enemy’s head off or vaporize them into a cloud of dust never gets old and comes with a certain sense of smug satisfaction that makes me question my sanity while you scrounge for food and water to maintain your health. Along the way you’ll meet numerous NPCs with as much personality as dead squirrels and have to constantly sleep and stock up on ammunition if you want to cross “not die” off your to-do list.
One of the major changes Fallout: New Vegas brings to the table (and by “one of” I mean “the only”) is Hardcore Mode. In Hardcore Mode the player is basically forced to constantly drink, eat and sleep to stay alive and fight against the elements. And I must say this is pretty god damned hard. There were times I’d think I was fine and hydrated only to have my H2O meter blinking five minutes later, obviously lending me to the conclusion that my character must be extremely out of shape.
The game allows you to switch between first and third person views but I’m really not sure why. Your character model is so stiff and lifeless in third person that it blends in with all the other husks of NPCs that roam around the deserted wasteland. Part of the appeal of first-person is using your imagination and pretending your way better than all the others around you so when you shift into third-person you suddenly just become a drop in a bucket of shit. Not to mention the fact that when in third person your character model doesn’t turn translucent so you essentially have a giant blind spot that any little head crab monsters will willingly take advantage of.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: moral choice systems in video games can fuck off. Fallout: New Vegas constantly belittles you for doing the wrong thing, like killing an innocent person or borrowing (stealing) some supplies, which are unarguably the most efficient modes of progress. It grades your morality by shooting red letters at you that basically sad “Bad” but takes very little time to praise you for your few good deeds. One of the best parts of open world videogames is the ability to be a dick without anyone chastising you for it so when the game constantly fires little red letters at you and embodies your psyche with a cartoon Satan it makes things a little off-putting, it’s like beating up on a 5th grader with your disapproving mom constantly shaking her head behind your back. Videogames are all about escapism and the ability to be a total asshole with no consequences is one of their most rewarding aspects especially when the same actions taken in real life would most likely result in a loss of my lunch money. Can you imagine if Grand Theft Auto IV had a moral choice system? By your third or fourth massacre your morality would be so low your TV would start crying.
One of the other things I noticed is that everybody in the world of New Vegas is some type of extraordinary clairvoyant that can magically detect any wrongdoing even when they happen behind closed doors. For example there was one moment where I really wanted this guy’s caps, which are the in-game currency. So I waited till we were alone in a house then shot him in the head in the name of instant gratification. Victorious, I walked out into the sunlight only to be immediately attacked by every civilian in the town. “No problem” I thought, “I’ll just travel to some other town until the heat’s off.” Of course when I traveled to the other town the civilians immediately turned to firing enough lead at me to recreate the RMS Titanic, making my only option to load the game from an earlier save and forget any notion of getting that jerk’s caps.
Just like Fallout 3 the map is huge but you can’t help but get this ‘copy and paste’ feel as the buildings and landscapes have the variety of a sorority pledge class with the exception of the token fat girl. Everything looks exactly the same and while it may be an “open” world there are so many boundaries that you feel more like a rat in a maze with invisible walls. There were several moments where I thought, “Hey, that structure behind that rock looks interesting” only to hit an invisible boundary emanating from a fucking pebble or something. It’s this kind of bullshit that takes me out of the immersive experience the game’s trying to create and makes me want to put down my controller and actually go out and do something productive (God forbid). The other problem the maps have is that there’s too much to see but no opportunities to do so. I purposely did all of the side quests before doing the main quests and by the time I was finished I still had only unlocked about half the map. Not that I’m missing much anyway besides more dirt-painted desert. Of course this isn’t the game’s biggest flaw…
Everyone’s heard of the phrase “if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it” but apparently Bethesda Softworks’ developers decided to up the ante and chose to not fix what is broken. While the game is riddled with the same bugs that send NPCs running into walls and spontaneous controller throwing-inducing freezing that resulted in the deaths of so many television sets particularly after you forgot to save for a few hours there’s one flaw that brings New Vegas’s score down by an entire letter grade. When you finish the game after it’s measly 15 hour or so running time you can’t go back and explore the ruined landscape, which is breaking the cardinal rule of RPGs where most of the fun comes from dicking around. “Hey!” says Bethesda developer A, “How about we take the worst feature from Fallout 3 and put it in this game!” followed by Bethesda developer B jumping up and down and shouting “Brilliant!” I don’t quite understand who thought it was a good idea to bring back the one thing that held Fallout 3 from greatness but I’m assuming it was the same guy who decided fuck a bird so his kid would have wings. Free roaming around the open world is the most fun part of an RPG and if you take that away you’re taking away one of the few things that makes it worthwhile. It’s like taking Hitler out of World War II; say what you want about Adolf but without him WWII would’ve been pretty boring so that makes him an okay guy in my book.
All-in-all New Vegas is solid if not particularly good and feels far more like an expansion pack than a sequel and that would be fine if it didn’t come with that $60 price tag. It’s basically more of the same and I guess if you’re into that sort of thing then go by all means dive right in. If you haven’t played Fallout 3 yet, however, I recommend getting that and the five expansion packs so you can actually enjoy the game before dropping half a paycheck on what’s essentially a sixth. There’s just not enough new material to justify an entirely new game and feels less like Bethesda throwing us a bone and more like them throwing us the loose end of a milking machine.
Email:
Brent (Does Not Actually Think Hitler was an Okay Guy) Saltzman
Bsaltzman @ Radford.edu
*Not much new about New Vegas! Get it! Amiright?!
