User reviews

After the mega-hit that was Fallout 3 a follow up was inevitable. Fallout: New Vegas attempts to recapture the shock and awe of Fallout 3, while adding a little spice in the form of new locations, gameplay, and the karma system.

As the name suggests Fallout: New Vegas takes place in a post apocalyptic Mojave desert. Your character is a courier who is shot in the head and left for dead. Luckily a friendly robot digs you up and takes you to a town for medical support. Once you're back on your feet you need to find out who shot you and why and retrieve the package they stole from you. But it's not that simple when you've got two major armies battling for control of the area, raiders, gangs, and countless wasteland critters in your way.

One of the things that sets New Vegas apart from Fallout 3 is... well Vegas. Unlike the rest of the Mojave, Vegas was never hit by the nukes. It still has the lights, casinos and sin of the old world attached to it. This attracts more than just tourists. Several military forces are pulling for control of Vegas and Hover Dam, and your choices will decide the winner.

Gameplay is similar to Fallout 3. You have guns, explosives, melee weapons, energy weapons, and even your own two fists to take care of the bad guys. The combat can be played in real time or in V.A.T.S. When using V.A.T.S. the game is paused and you select body parts to attack. Their chance of hitting and the enemies health are displayed. V.A.T.S. requires action points which are replenished in real-time combat, so you'll be using both evenly. The game can be played in first and third person, although first is highly recommended. When it comes to exploration there are no vehicles, which mean you'll be walking everywhere. Luckily once you've discovered an area you can fast travel there. Each time you level up you get to increase your skills. Skills determine how deadly you are with certain weapons, how tough you are, the locks you can pick, and the people you can trick. Every other time you level up you pick perks. Perks give special abilities to your character. Perks are unlocked depending on your current skill level with different skills so it's recommended you play through a second time to experience everything.

The other big gameplay feature is your karma and reputation. Karma is your personal choices on how to handle situations. Stealing and killing civilians will lower your karma while helping others will raise it. Different groups treat you differently depending on your karma but it's not as important as reputation. Your reputation is how much different groups like or dislike you. The more a group likes you the higher the discounts you get at their shops and the more support they'll lend you against foes. The more a group dislikes you the higher the prices the at their shops and the more likely they'll be to put bounties on your head. In makes you think twice about who you double cross. You won't be able to be friends with everyone so certain quests will be locked, so it's again highly recommended you play through a second time.

The graphics are (for the most part) amazing. Character models look great and it's breathtaking to climb a steep hill and see the Vegas strip shining for miles over a bleak and destroyed wasteland. The occasional texture fade-ins and unblinking eyes of NPCs break the realism.

Fallout: New Vegas sounds perfect, but it's not. The game is riddled with glitches. Some small like invisible walls and clipping, some big like hostile NPCs and and game crashes. If you save often it won't be a problem but it's still annoying.

All in all Fallout: New Vegas is an impressive game that any fan of shooters, role players, or gambling would be a fool to miss.

In my honest opinion, this is the best fallout game. The lights of new Vegas, the multiple endings, the soundtrack, all the different settlements and the reputation system within the settlements. This game has it all! The wild wasteland trait really adds some great references in the game aswell

As with all Fallout games in the series; the whole concept of the game is mind blowing. The sheer adventure of walking through a post apocalyptic wasteland may not appeal to some, but for those who support the series this is most definitely the best. Fallout 3 was brilliant, but was a bit depressing to play. New Vegas definitely has a better vibe to it, and it also contains more people and weapons. although there are a few minor let downs, 1. Quite Glitchy, a few unfinished rock graphics, slip into one you're stuck and must load back. 2. Danny Trejo's Voice doesn't really suit the ghoul character he plays 3. Main Story ends too quickly. But, apart from that: Brilliant.

Fallout: New Vegas is a game that can be played in every way: you could play though the main story and call it a day, or you could be a completionist like me and try to milk it for all it's worth over several separate playthoughs. you can go around with a sniper rifle on your back and try to take down your enemies before they see you, or you can go in with an assault rifle, or an SMG, or a plasma rifle, or a laser rifle for that matter. you can be noisy and rush in with your grenade MG, or with your trusty chainsaw, or, you can be sneaky and fight with a silenced pistol, SMG or sniper. what i'm trying to say is that the possibilities are virtually endless, and it is up to you to decide what suits you best.

That is just one aspect of the game. What really makes this game one of the best is simply the atmosphere it has. No game in history has ever made you wish a nuclear apocalypse more than this one. weather it be the wide, desolate yet wild landscapes, ranging from scorching deserts to snowy mountains to vast lakes (not as peaceful as it sounds), or maybe the endless sub stories hidden throughout the many computer terminals that are present in all of the ruins scattered about the Mojave wasteland, this game is huge. not just in the size of the map, but in the stories that go along with it, because for all those people who think that this game has no character development, you are mistaken, for the character with the most depth and mystery is the Mojave Desert itself.

The undisputed champion of modern Fallout games and an amazing experience overall. With an expertly crafted world and well written story, Fallout: New Vegas gives the player a wide variety of opportunities to shape the future of the Mojave, be it through benevolent actions and righteous causes or through downright psychotic mass murder. You owe it to yourself to play this modern classic, even if technical issues might slow you down.

Pros:

• Great story, perhaps better than 3's
• Interesting characters
• Some new additions to gameplay (sights, mods)
• Deep expansive open world
• Less drab graphics than 3's
• Great RPG elements
• Multiple factions

Cons:

• Not allot of differentiation from 3
• Still can't explore after completing game
• Graphics still look pretty bad

Verdict: Fallout NV is sort of a Fallout 3.5, but it is still great game to play that improves on a number of things. Still a good game.

8 /10.

The deepest, most complex and well-written RPG of all time. It lets you truly do anything with the world and characters and the whole event feels like a complex rolling epic that you have total control over. Obsidian need to make the next game in this series. Better than anything Bethesda did with Fallout (not that I don't like Fallout 3).

It is amazing, from the story to the excellent gameplay. New Vegas never disappoints, still my favourite fallout game as it nails the atmosphere and theme. The world is absolutely amazing, the strip is so cool to go to and the Mojave wasteland is so empty, depressing yet realistic. There are at least 100 weapons and each weapon feels different which makes for unique combat encounters. Each enemy feels unique, each requiring different weapons or types of ammunition to kill. Gambling is also existent and it now feels more purposeful to have a high luck skill. As well as the smaller details in casinos, with the fun casino mini games and the three rewards you can get before earning too much money and getting banned from the casino. Each quest is unique yet fun and I genuinely think (after over 150 hours of playtime) that this is and always will be the best fallout game.

New Vegas is a game where the player chooses the story almost entirely. It has a wide variety of characters, a vast open map and a great soundtrack to give the game life. This is a game where role playing a character is a huge part of the fun. New Vegas has a couple problems however. In my opinion I hate the fact that the game ends after you beat the story, I wish you could continue as planned rather than just having to start a new character. I also don't like the durability system that they kept from Fallout 3. My biggest issue with the game is the actual gameplay. As smooth as it can be compared to Fallout 3, I hate relying on VATS all the time. These problems don't make the game unplayable or anything but they are very present and I'm glad Fallout 4 addressed them. Fallout: New Vegas is one of the most lively experiences a game can offer and without a doubt will be one of the best games I've ever played.

Nuff said...



My review is too short so here are some extra words for padding.

New Vegas is an excellent addition to the Fallout panoply. Having played the originals up through Fallout 76, F:NV is one which always comes to mind for its flexibility. You can do so much in this game, and there are (as someone else stated) no "good guys" who obviously need your allegiance. My only complaint, honestly, is the music. For reasons unknown, the developers chose the most listless, dull, depressing country music they could possibly find. Other than that, the game is nearly perfect.

I wanted to like this game (with its supposed focus on freedom and interesting characters), but could not.

It felt very dated, and there were too many immersion breaking flaws and bugs. In terms of graphics, level design, and animations, this feels like a game from 2005 (to a lesser extent also true for TES:Oblivion, but it certainly bothered me less there). The main quest offers good freedom of choice, but otherwise quests are mostly quantity over quality – a hallmark of Bethesda. Some of the characters were entertaining though, and voice acting is fairly good. Character leveling and perks are also quite well done.

The interface looks cool but is a total pain to use. There are no keyboard hotkeys, which means switching weapons or healing requires browsing through the full menu each time! Combat feels unbalanced (Oblivion and Skyrim were slightly better here) ranging from OK to frustratingly tedious or difficult. The difficulty of various foes often does not match with the expectations the game lore may give you. Enemies run around without any movement inertia making them frustratingly difficult to aim at. Hitbox detection is not great, and your bullets are often blocked by invisible walls if they pass near geometry. I also had lots of enemies get stuck behind geometry, with only legs clipping through the wall. Worst of all, at one point, my gun would not fire bullets – I would hear and see the gun fire, and the ammo counter would work, but no bullets – I got eaten alive, both ingame and in terms of frustration.

The mod experience was bad: I could not get most mods to work despite following all instructions etc. The mod scene may be vibrant, but it is still a total mess. It lacks curatorial refinement and there are no "1-click install" total-overhaul supermods (like the "complete" mod series for the Stalker games).

Buried underneath all the flaws is a good game, and you might find it, but I gave up after days of digging.

When this game came out I had never played Fallout before, but a lot of people I knew (IRL or internet) were excited for it and I started listening to them talk. What I heard was a lot of positive but also lots about bugs, glitches, freezing and just how much time it consumes – ie similar to what I had heard about Fallout 3. Since then I picked up FO3 for tiny money and loved it despite the very occasional freeze-up in my 100 hours or so playing! Despite this, I let the negative things about NV put me off picking it up for a while before eventually getting it.

As before I find that Fallout delivers me a massive gaming experience with so much to explore and do that I get totally immersed in this world despite me not really being a big RPG fan. At time of writing I have played the game for around 130 hours and still have a couple of the DLC sections I want to do. It is also worth saying that this time is with one character. As with FO3, you have a main storyline but you also have endless little side questions, many of which are linked to the story but a lot of which are simply optional. In terms of the story, it is much better than the previous game and I did find it interesting to follow along, although not so interesting that I tried to rush it – having played the previous game I knew that the story would wait for me to progress it. I also benefited from knowing that there was a specific point in the story where you do have to make a decision to align yourself definitively with one of four factions – so I put this point off for as long as possible so that I can make a save here (as the exploring and discovering is a massive part of the game for me, repeating 80 hours for the sake of a different ending doesn't appeal).

However I did like the way that different factions do treat you different. In FO3, the karma thing makes a difference but not a massive difference. In NV it makes things much more engaging that, if you decide to attack NCR for fun, then don't expect them to keep giving you missions and smiling at you – they will attack and you may find you go so far that you remain enemies throughout. I enjoyed this and, as I play middle-of-the-road, it was fun keeping everyone more or less onside by doing side-quests etc. As before, exploring may not look fun to someone watching you play, but it is fun to never know what is coming and find locations that might just be a burnt out car with some stuff – or come over the hill to find the city of New Vegas illuminating the skyline. Indeed I enjoyed the side quests so much that I had done 80 hours and the majority of them before I even went to Boulder City (which is early in the main story).

The game looks and feels the same as FO3 and it is a little disappointing that graphics haven't moved on since then, but only a little – the game quickly makes you forget superficial details like that with how enjoyable the gameplay and world is. Those that were excited about the strip will have been disappointed to find that it is quite a small settlement with only a small number of buildings, but personally I liked it as it was only ever going to be an oasis in the desert and not a massive city. I also very much liked seeing it from afar at night and its location was perfect for that. The audio design was improved from FO3. OK we have more star voices in small roles, but for me the main thing was that more voices were used for characters you don't interact with, whereas in FO3 all males had the same voice and phrase.

I didn't dare play hardcore, but this game was enjoyably tough even in the normal mode. Enemies seemed harder and some of the tougher ones were scattered around nicely – although I missed my dartgun at first, I was glad that the Deathclaws remained a challenge throughout, and couldn't just be slowed down with one dart. The only downside of playing for so long and doing all the side quests before advancing the story was that, by the time I did finally get around to choosing a side and fighting at Hoover Dam, I was such a high level that I was pretty hard to stop; but personally the handful of actual story missions were just a small part of the game when you consider the wider world.

Overall Fallout New Vegas did it for me again. A huge world with so much to do – yes visually it is essentially a mod of FO3 but this only bothered me for the first few seconds; after that I was off out into the wasteland, making moral decisions, exploring, helping out towns, setting up murderous old women, leading a cult to their salvation and keeping all factions on my side. Crashes and glitches for me were probably 1 in 15 hours, which I can happily live with in exchange for such a great game.

Take the feel of the first few and add the gameplay of part 3 and you have a masterpiece.

• Positives

All

• Cons

None

In 2010. when the game came out, a lot of players experienced gamebreaking bugs and glitches that were really annoying. Considering it was made in 18 months, the game was pretty good. The developers kept making patches that would eventually fix most of the bugs, but to this day, bugs do occur in every Fallout game, there's even a bug section on the wiki. What wasn't made in those 18 months, came later in the form of DLCs: Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Lonesome Road, Old World Blues. Each one is more entertaining then the last, introducing new elements of the game and stories never heard of before. The overall story of New Vegas is one of the best stories ever written, having comedy, tragedy, romance, action, and many more. Every character has a story behind them, each being more impressive than the other. Unlike in the other Fallout games, you aren't a figurative demigod, you are a person that is imperfect in their own way, that has an altruistic feel, deciding who they trust, and who they don't trust, who to support, and who to not support. I started playing this game in 2015. thinking it was going to be just a normal open world game. But, it was more than that. Even five years after my first try, I still discover new things that are little things the creators implemented during their 18 short months of development. The gameplay is in the middle of things, it's much better than of Fallout 3, but not so much better than Fallout 4. One of my favourite gameplay elements is the Karma and Reputation systems. Karma determines how good as a person you are. Gaining Karma can be done by helping people or killing bad guys, while losing it can be done by helping bad guys and stealing from people. Reputation determines how you treat a certain faction. For example, I am disgusted by what the Legion does, so I have a Vilified reputation with them, because I like to see their red football jerseys through my sniper scope. But the most interesting thing in the game is the pacifism. Unlike Fallout 4, where almost all your choices are to murder people, in New Vegas, you can avoid that through conversation, intimidation and bribery. The whole game can be beaten by not hurting a soul. Seriously, you can talk your way out of a boss fight if you play the game correctly. In other words, since New Vegas, it has only gone downhill with the inclusion of the Creation Club and microtransactions. Going back to the day where everyone made a game because they loved to is really good, and playing this game sure shows so. I would recommend this game to everyone, not just adults, but younger people too, because this game can teach them a lot of things other than how to use a weapon.

Fallout New Vegas is my favorite game from the Fallout franchise without a doubt the characters and and story are absolutely incredible. I mean who wouldn't want to track down the person who attempted to murder them in a post apocalyptic Las Vegas. "The Courier" is probably my favorite fallout protagonist his option dialogue is great. This game is superior to every fallout game that came before it and after it. I really enjoyed the visual aspect of this game New Vegas is definitely the coolest fallout location to date and some of the side characters/quest are just awesome for example I can remember one instance in particular where an npc asked you to retrieve a "sex robot" and keeps reassuring you that it's not for him and people who have sexual relationships with robots are degenerates. Honestly all of the factions have good points (or at least all of them are fun) and the ending dialogue when you finish the game is great. Personally I chose to side with Mr. House my first playthrough and I still see that as the logical ending. But after all the true beauty of Fallout is the sheer amount of freedom you have to play as you see fit. But hey "From where you're kneeling it must seem like an 18-carat run of bad luck."

This game is great for fans of western settings, and dystopian settings. Good story, tons of choice and variety, so many quests to do that affect the game's ending, tons to explore, tons of awesome items to get, replayable af (I've done about 15 playthroughs) in my opinion as I describe it, The Definitive RPG Game. The only other RPGs that can contest with this game in my opinion are Skyrim, Oblivion, and Fallout 3. Very great game. I did reviews on the DLCs, all of them were good except for one. I literally just can't get the perfect words from my mouth. Great story, much to explore and do, fun DLCs, what's not to love? Not to mention it actually feels like you're in a Roleplaying Game, cause you can join other factions, choose other minor factions to join you as you gain their trust, and the Courier doesn't have too much backstory to him/her so you can imagine any background to your character. Very awesome game. And this game costs $20 since it's dated now? Buy this game and it's DLCs now except for Dead Money which I did a whole review on too. I hope this helped.

Edit: Also don't listen to the people who say it has bad graphics, yes it was dated by the time of it's own release, but it's still playable. Morrowind had bad graphics but was considered one of the greatest RPGs ever made. Plus gunplay isn't very great but you'll get used to it.

Fallout new Vegas takes place in a post apocalyptic world in Vegas. Your character travels the Mojave as he tries to track down the guy who shot him in the head. The game really gives you a western vibe. The game not only has a long story but many side quest. And every mission in the game has multiple ways to beat it. The games gives you a lot of choices in the game and the choices you make affect how character will treat you in the game. So you can be this guy who helps people around the Mojave or you can be the guy who people are scared of because of how mean you are to people. Or you can be the guy who only helps people for pay but still has morals. The game gives you a big open world for you to explore and a lot more lore to learn. The game also gives you 4 different ways to beat the game with all of them having different endings. The combat is also pretty good for a game that is old. The game also has some great voice actors they got Danny Trejo, Zachary Levi, Ron Perlman, John Doman and Matthew Perry just to name a few. Overall I think this has to be the best Fallout game to date and I would recommend this game to anyone.

Great FPS RPG to sink hundreds of hours into. By today's standard (2024) it is a bit outdated, but holds firm as a classic, and can be improved with the great mods from the community. Has tons of dark undertones, as it is set in a nearly lawless post-apocalyptic wasteland, giving the stories of the Mojave an atmospheric feel. As one of the post-apocalyptic Mojave's couriers, you traverse deadly a landscape crawling with deadly mutated abominations, filled to the brim with discovery, and many quest to be completed. The DLC is noteworthy for anyone new to the game, I can recommend the Ultimate Edition of the game. It's safe to say this game is going down as one of the greats.

Please do a remake for this game. Great screenplay, great side quests, massive gameplay with lots of inside. The only bad thing is that their graphics are bad.

If you haven't played and you're an RPG fan, I would definitely recommend you to play this game. While Steam discounts continue, you can take the game at a very cheap price and lose yourself on Mojave territory.

For the record, I own the Ultimate Edition for Xbox 360, and have put the game onto my hard drive to try and diminish potential issues.

This review is a latecomer to the scene, as this game has been out for several years at this point. However, I think that I need to bring to light that while this game can be very enjoyable in the way most modern Bethesda games are, the terrible bugs that can randomly occur while playing this game greatly diminish the Fallout experience.

The story of the game is simple enough, and I won't review it this post. In short, it is a competent narrative that is a good enough hook to make the gamer invested in what happens. Side quests that are a staple of Bethesda sandbox games are omnipresent in this game, although I will say that it seems that compared to Fallout 3, this game seems to focus more on combat experience than quest experience. In Fallout 3 huge XP bonuses were gained only for completing quests. The more important the quest, the more XP awarded. In this game that still happens, but now there are bonuses in XP for completing certain combat challenges, such as killing X amount of enemies, popping pills Y amount of times, or drinking and eating Z amount of health. This isn't necessarily a detractor to the game, but it is a change and a focus shift that may bother some gamers.

The combat itself is very similar to previous Fallout games. VATS is still the go-to for combat, but one major improvement in the game was the ability to use iron sights for aiming guns manually. This is a very simple change, but it makes a big difference in combat, because alternating between manual aiming at enemies and using VATS becomes a more plausible option than in Fallout 3. There are several major problems that I personally have had in combat. Several times I have used VATS, only for my character to enter VATS mode for a prolonged period of time without shooting at the specified target. This is a problem because your character is still vulnerable in this mode, and you are rendered completely helpless to whatever enemies are attacking you. Another problem I have had is with the Mysterious Stranger perk. This stranger will show up and do his work, but then VATS mode will continually focus on him while you again helplessly take damage again. I have died at least fifteen times due to these two aforementioned bugs. I have had countless enemies get stuck in rocks or in walls, and have also at one point had to restart from a save because I walked over an uneven slope, and entered continuous and inescapable free fall.

Several other problems I have encountered are random freezing, and I have had several save files corrupt, ruining over 10 hours of game play. I have also occasionally had my screen change colors, often to an unplayable point where my screen was completely bright green.

Suggestions: Save often, and create at least five different save files. This will hopefully prevent losing progress from file corruption. If frame rate slows down, immediately save. Avoid the Mysterious Stranger Perk, and do not use VATS unless completely necessary. These are suggestions that solve the problems I have encountered, there may be more I haven't encountered. Overall it is a good experience, but all of the aforementioned issues have made it frustrating and unfortunately somewhat ruined the game experience for me.

Was enjoying this game and would have given it a 7, but I've experienced a game breaking bug where it freezes about two minutes after starting it. I'm 36 hours in and have experienced several crashes but have been able to reload a save up to this point with no issues. This is the kind of thing to make me never buy an obsidian game again. I've wasted hours playing a game I can't finish.