New Vegas' Fallout

Latest addition to my geeky fan art: my courier from Fallout: New Vegas advertising the determination to get the job done that makes Mojave Express great.

I have mixed feelings around Fallout: New Vegas. This is primarily due to my introduction to the series itself. One day, having no real understanding as to why, I decided to boot up my fiance's copy of Fallout 3. I was instantly hooked. I loved that game to death. I was drawn into the interesting storyline, the compelling characters, the humorous radio broadcasts and the way I could control the pace of the story. I loved that I could be drawn into this personal search for my father but also take as much time as I wanted in simply exploring this new world that was as foreign to my character as it was to me.

As I was playing it, I new that development had started on the next game. Unfortunately, this caused me to really build up my expectations for it. I played Fallout 3 with a slight critical eye, taking notes of the features that I hoped they would improve in the next installment. I was hoping specifically that the animations would improve. It isn't a crucial feature, but I've always found the way Bethesda characters move a little unnerving and it sometimes pulls me out of the story a bit.

New Vegas wasn't a bad game, but I was crushingly disappointed. The story wasn't nearly as compelling as the previous game. For me, taking it out of the context of a personal story, it felt like 'what's the point? Why would my character care who the hell gets this stupid chip thing anyway?' Once I tracked down Benny, the rest of it felt very listless for me.

Also, it was just so buggy. I know the experience varied from player to player, but having the game crash, accidentally walking through parts of the ground that suddenly weren't registering, items I needed to interact with being unclickable; I found these endlessly frustrating, and they significantly lowered my already dwindling enthusiasm for this game.

These problems, though, are not at the core of why I wasn't satisfied with New Vegas in my first play through. Honestly, my expectations did me in. Fallout New Vegas was, in many ways, a repackaging of Fallout 3 but in a setting more familiar to the franchise as a whole. It would have been satisfying if that's all I was expecting. But I didn't think I was getting a game that felt, to me, like a massive mod of the previous one. I thought I was getting the next stage in the game's "evolution," not just it's West coast cousin.

Now that I know what to expect, I'm planning on playing New Vegas through again, now with some new DLC to explore. I suspect my opinion of it will be better this time around. I'll just have to try it out and see. 

Check out each of the images I used in this post over at my DeviantART account. Be sure to leave me a comment if you do!