Courier: Wasn’t the NCR’s army big enough to defeat your Securitrons and the Three Families?

Mr. House: Indeed it was – and still is. But not without taking significant casualties. Would Kimball and Oliver have traded the lives of hundreds of soldiers for absolute control of Hoover Dam? Oh yes. They weren’t afraid of me, they were afraid of Caesar – that attacking me would leave them vulnerable to a Legion offensive. And so they negotiated. Not out of the kindness of their hearts, as they try to make it seem. Because the calculus of power left no other choice.

Fire and thunder. Those were the last things you remember before Benny’s bullet pierced your skull. By all rights, you should’ve died and been buried in the unmarked grave on the hill just outside Goodsprings. But death, in all its black winged glory, had other designs for you. Instead, it became both that unspoken companion, as it does now for some in this new world, and a constant enemy.

Shadow gives way to light. Eyes open to the spinning ceiling fan above you. The world is off-kilter, blurry. A voice in the light; soft, consoling, friendly. An unlikely thing in this world, but oddly welcomed. As you rise from the bed you’re in, like the proverbial Lazarus of old, you can almost feel the cold skeletal hand of death rest upon your shoulder, reminding you that your time will come.

But not today……

And so your adventures begin. In this world far removed from the decimation of war, but still feeling its effects, what once was is no more. Familiar commodities of today are a rare and valued treasure in this future imperfect. Unblemished land, clean water, blue skies. All of these things men now fight for. And even wage their own wars over. There is an unspoken lawlessness, a primal and visceral fight for survival, here. Dominate, or be dominated. Survive by any means, or die by its hand.

There are many cards in play here. Factions and clans that vie for their place in the deck. People both great and small. Who you ultimately decide to ally yourself with will change the very course of this land’s future. And how you stack this deck in your favor is up to you.

Enjoy Your Stay

The road has been long and difficult. And here, upon this small hill beneath the glowing wonder of what remains of old world Vegas, I say my final goodbyes to a once-troubled companion. One that I shared my adventures with upon a chance meeting in the small town known as Novac. He was quietly watching the roads below, standing silent vigil over its people.

Even in the darkening night, you could tell that he could see and sense the world around him. I think he knew every bush, every pebble, every stray tin can by heart. And anything that would put it out of order, his rifle would set to right. His road, much like mine, had been long and difficult.

But I would like to think that, before the end, I helped to give him no small measure of peace. For the loss of his wife. For what happened at Bitter Springs. He gave his all before the wasteland took him. And even though he did not see the end of my road, he left it with no regrets.

And so I lay the final stone upon his resting place, turn my eyes west, and quietly walk towards the gates of New Vegas. But I will return here as often as I can, the wasteland permitting.

For here, I bury not only a companion, and a soldier. I bury here a friend.

My road is long. And difficult. – The Courier

Despite what Obsidian has tried to do with the aging Gamebryo engine, all in all Fallout New Vegas still looks rough. The world is varied enough, from dry sandy plains with sweeping clouds of grit being blown by the wind, to the unexpected evergreen wood coated gently with snow near the mountainous regions of Jacobstown. But the graphical errors, the glitches (like floating rock formations, seriously, they’re everywhere), just kill the experience.

Reused assets, most notably the ambient scores while exploring the open world, are rehashed from Fallout 3. True, there are some new scores being introduced here in New Vegas to give it its own persona, but most you’ve already heard in Fallout 3. And while the new scores and songs used in the Radio give off that “old world west” vibe, they’re just not as memorable here. Three Dog’s howling radio commentary has been replaced by Mr. New Vegas, voiced by legendary singer Wayne Newton. And, while not a bad effort, it’s not a memorable one.

The voice acting is commendable for the main characters in the game. Ron Pearlman as the narrator still does his thing, and most of your companions are competently done. However some of the secondary characters sound, well, samey. Mainly because you can tell they’re being performed by the same voice actor. Some even alter their voices after certain actions with no explanation. Hearing a sultry, somewhat upbeat lady suddenly sound like a deep throaty older woman when you discontinue the discussion track is…..well….kinda weird.

Vastly improved mechanics (like being able to aim down the iron-sights of a weapon instead of shooting from the hip like you had to do in Fallout 3) are a godsend. Obsidian adds its own personal touch as well, adding in a plethora of new abilities and competent game mechanics to New Vegas. Like the companion wheel, which allows you to make certain changes to their behavior. Like being more cautious when entering a firefight in dangerous areas of the world, or giving you some breathing room by not following so close while you’re exploring.

Weapon mods are a surprisingly great idea, and I do hope that future Fallout games consider keeping both the companion wheel and the weapon mod abilities in future installments.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t say something about the optional “Hardcore” mode. Which pretty much turns your Fallout experience into about as close to a sim as you can get. In Hardcore mode, you have to pay attention to your water, sleep, and food levels or you’ll get dehydrated, hungry, or loopy in the head. Go too long after that and it’s curtains. Also, stimpacks don’t heal you automatically, but over time, kinda like food. Plus, if you’re limb wounded, a doctors bag or an actual doctor are the only things that can fix it. Also, instead of having your followers momentarily incapacitated during a bad gunfight, they instead die. Forever. The only way you’re going to get them back is reloading a previous save.

So be warned, Hardcore mode is not for the faint of heart.

The boons, however come with banes. Like graphical and technical glitches. Bugs, in other words. The technical issues stem from the light (like floating rocks, or even enemies being somehow stuck in the environment itself) to heavy (graphical slow-down, pop-up texturing, and the slightly infuriating game crash or game freezes). While you can sort of forgive a few things, Bethesda has had plenty of time to try and alleviate this from happening. They’ve had a full game, five expansions, and this one to try and get it right. And they haven’t. And I can only point to the one flaw in the design. The Gamebryo engine. I can only hope that any subsequent new Fallout release will leave this aging and bug-filled tech behind.

While they have addressed some of the more glaring technical issues of Fallout New Vegas, there are still a mountain load of them to get fixed here in the game. But, I will say that the DLC packages have been beefy, memorable, and a great addition to the Fallout universe. They range from the downright brutal (Dead Money), to the downright insane (Old World Blues). These DLC packs include the aforementioned Dead Money and Old World Blues, as well as Honest Hearts and Lonesome Road. Other DLC packs include The Gun Runners Arsenal pack, Caravan pack, Classic pack, Mercenaries pack, and Tribal pack.

There’s also an official/unofficial PC mod known as the J.E. Sawyer Mod (Which adjusts the maximum level to 35, halves the rate of increase in player experience points, reduces base player health, reduces the base weight a player can carry, defines certain characters as good or evil rather than neutral and other smaller, technical adjustments). These are changes that Bethesda and Obsidian originally wanted included in the game, but they were not released as an official update. However, this mod requires the Mod Manager, all add-on packs, and all pre-order bonus packs to work.

The best part of the experience is not the main storyline (which is decent, if a bit predictable), but the vast and almost overwhelming amount of other tales you can find out in the Mojave Wasteland. Almost every man, woman or child has a story to tell. And that…..that alone is amazing to experience. From talking to a down-on-his-luck drunk wanting nothing more than find his next fix, to the darker tales found in the darker places of the world. One that sends you into places where even angels fear to tread in order to accomplish their tasks.

And how you accomplish your goals, as Paragon, Survivor, or Conqueror, that is all left up to you to decide. And that is an amazing thing.

Final Thoughts: While the open world flavor has been preserved, and even expanded upon due to Obsidian’s expansive and impressive display of the Fallout universe (FYI most, if not all, of the Obsidian team committed to Fallout New Vegas are former Black Isle Studio members. The original creators of the Fallout brand), the technical issues are a detriment to the series. While I am hopeful that the future will look brighter for future Fallout games now that Bethesda has done away with their Gamebryo engine for the better looking (if still flawed) Creation Engine, Fallout New Vegas is a game that is far from perfect.

And yet, far from being a bad experience. The story, the side-stories I should say, will hopefully leave that lasting and indelible mark upon the players that experience them. Forget politics, forget devious machinations and personal vaunts of egotistical supremacy that reside within the main story.

Give me more of this. Give me more of its beating heart and soul. Give me more of its unexpected surprises. That is something I personally hope to see in the tomorrow. Because more of that gives me hope for a better, and unquestionably brighter, Fallout future.

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