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  35               <h3 class="blog-title">Fallout New Vegas, 15 Years On</h3>
  36               <h3 class="datestamp">11/03/2025</h3>
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  40                 <p>Let it never be said I can't admit where I was wrong.</p>
  41                 <p>
  42                   Earlier this year I played Obsidian's Pentiment, which I
  43                   adored. Fabulous little game with choices that really mattered
  44                   and a genuine reverence and love for history.
  45                 </p>
  46                 <p>
  47                   I've tangled with Obsidian's games a few times to varying
  48                   degress of success. Their South Park games are a good laugh,
  49                   the Outer Worlds is weird and awkward and well, New Vegas.
  50                 </p>
  51                 <p>
  52                   I've played an awful lot of Fallout 3 and 4. Bethesda's games
  53                   have a certain je ne sais quois that really makes them a
  54                   delight, despite not being particularly good in... well, any
  55                   respect. Fallout, especially, has a real magic in it; between
  56                   the fantastic tech assets (the Pip-Boy, of course, but all the
  57                   vault mechanisms, the terminals... they all feel so suited to
  58                   the setting), the sublime score and radio that set the mood
  59                   and some very moody storytelling in each location, it's easy
  60                   to get lost in it.
  61                 </p>
  62                 <p>
  63                   Despite that, mind, I'd never managed to get into New Vegas,
  64                   although not for lack of trying. Every year or so, I'd go
  65                   'maybe this time it'll take' and then, without fail, I'd bail
  66                   around Primm. There was a fair amount of stuff that didn't gel
  67                   with me in it, most notably the fact that early doors it's a
  68                   <i>damn</i> hard game if you don't have Guns as a tag skill. I
  69                   knew, of course, that a lot of the quests can be solved
  70                   non-violently, so I'd usually put all three tag skills in
  71                   non-violent skills too.
  72                 </p>
  73                 <p>
  74                   Not this time, though. This time I finished a playthrough, and
  75                   smashed through the DLC, too. I tagged Guns, Science and
  76                   Speech, which was a massive help. A massive help, really -
  77                   tagging GUns makes the early game less brutal, and I still had
  78                   plenty of points in skill check stats for early-game speech
  79                   challenges.
  80                 </p>
  81                 <p>
  82                   Which, honestly, made the game an awful lot more fun. Suddenly
  83                   I wasn't doing chip damage on every single enemy and counting
  84                   down the bullets till I was punching them. It made that
  85                   initial journey to Primm and beyond a lot less gruelling.
  86                 </p>
  87                 <p>
  88                   Anyway, turns out everyone who wasn't me was extremely right
  89                   about this game. It's <i>delightful.</i> The shooting is still
  90                   the same as in Fallout 3, which is to say, it's kind of
  91                   rubbish, but everything around it rules. Being able to level
  92                   Speech to 100 and talk down everyone in the game, even the
  93                   Legion's Turbo Nazi? THRILLING. Meeting a guy at a solar farm
  94                   and using your high science skill to correctly deduce he has
  95                   no idea what he's doing? Phenomenal.
  96                 </p>
  97                 <p>
  98                   The sheer possibility landscape in the game kind of beggars
  99                   belief, to the extent that you kind of wonder how they even
 100                   fit it all in. And <i>especially</i> how they managed to put
 101                   it all together in just 18 months. How are there three
 102                   different major factions you can side with on the strip, each
 103                   with full-featured and intertwined storylines? How is there an
 104                   ADDITIONAL 'no thanks' questline that lets you take Vegas
 105                   independent? How come every place you go to in the Mojave has
 106                   at least two or three quests attached to it, even if it's a
 107                   single-purpose location like a Vault?
 108                 </p>
 109                 <p>
 110                   It's the kind of elegant design you simply don't see, really.
 111                   Bethesda certainly don't do it. Baldurs Gate 3 kind of came
 112                   close, at least in terms of density of quests, although it
 113                   definitely doesn't have the same quality in its choices. Even
 114                   Obsidian don't seem to have matched it, although granted I've
 115                   not played Avowed much or ever touched Pillars of Eternity.
 116                   Maybe they've cracked that nut again in those.
 117                 </p>
 118                 <p>
 119                   Anyway, yeah. Good game! The DLC is pretty mediocre, although
 120                   I really loved Old World Blues. That one specifically is
 121                   buoyed by the Think Tank being so weird and fun and tragic?
 122                   Maybe that's just me having 'old world blues,' myself, though
 123                   - I do think the best writing in all of the Fallout games is
 124                   when it's confronting the pre-war world and contrasting it
 125                   with the current wasteland.
 126                 </p>
 127                 <p>
 128                   But yeah. All this to say: if you were waiting for a sign to
 129                   finally play New Vegas, this is it. It's ruddy bloody
 130                   brilliant.
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