Fallout New Vegas, 15 Years On
+11/03/2025
+Let it never be said I can't admit where I was wrong.
++ Earlier this year I played Obsidian's Pentiment, which I + adored. Fabulous little game with choices that really mattered + and a genuine reverence and love for history. +
++ I've tangled with Obsidian's games a few times to varying + degress of success. Their South Park games are a good laugh, + the Outer Worlds is weird and awkward and well, New Vegas. +
++ I've played an awful lot of Fallout 3 and 4. Bethesda's games + have a certain je ne sais quois that really makes them a + delight, despite not being particularly good in... well, any + respect. Fallout, especially, has a real magic in it; between + the fantastic tech assets (the Pip-Boy, of course, but all the + vault mechanisms, the terminals... they all feel so suited to + the setting), the sublime score and radio that set the mood + and some very moody storytelling in each location, it's easy + to get lost in it. +
++ Despite that, mind, I'd never managed to get into New Vegas, + although not for lack of trying. Every year or so, I'd go + 'maybe this time it'll take' and then, without fail, I'd bail + around Primm. There was a fair amount of stuff that didn't gel + with me in it, most notably the fact that early doors it's a + damn hard game if you don't have Guns as a tag skill. I + knew, of course, that a lot of the quests can be solved + non-violently, so I'd usually put all three tag skills in + non-violent skills too. +
++ Not this time, though. This time I finished a playthrough, and + smashed through the DLC, too. I tagged Guns, Science and + Speech, which was a massive help. A massive help, really - + tagging GUns makes the early game less brutal, and I still had + plenty of points in skill check stats for early-game speech + challenges. +
++ Which, honestly, made the game an awful lot more fun. Suddenly + I wasn't doing chip damage on every single enemy and counting + down the bullets till I was punching them. It made that + initial journey to Primm and beyond a lot less gruelling. +
++ Anyway, turns out everyone who wasn't me was extremely right + about this game. It's delightful. The shooting is still + the same as in Fallout 3, which is to say, it's kind of + rubbish, but everything around it rules. Being able to level + Speech to 100 and talk down everyone in the game, even the + Legion's Turbo Nazi? THRILLING. Meeting a guy at a solar farm + and using your high science skill to correctly deduce he has + no idea what he's doing? Phenomenal. +
++ The sheer possibility landscape in the game kind of beggars + belief, to the extent that you kind of wonder how they even + fit it all in. And especially how they managed to put + it all together in just 18 months. How are there three + different major factions you can side with on the strip, each + with full-featured and intertwined storylines? How is there an + ADDITIONAL 'no thanks' questline that lets you take Vegas + independent? How come every place you go to in the Mojave has + at least two or three quests attached to it, even if it's a + single-purpose location like a Vault? +
++ It's the kind of elegant design you simply don't see, really. + Bethesda certainly don't do it. Baldurs Gate 3 kind of came + close, at least in terms of density of quests, although it + definitely doesn't have the same quality in its choices. Even + Obsidian don't seem to have matched it, although granted I've + not played Avowed much or ever touched Pillars of Eternity. + Maybe they've cracked that nut again in those. +
++ Anyway, yeah. Good game! The DLC is pretty mediocre, although + I really loved Old World Blues. That one specifically is + buoyed by the Think Tank being so weird and fun and tragic? + Maybe that's just me having 'old world blues,' myself, though + - I do think the best writing in all of the Fallout games is + when it's confronting the pre-war world and contrasting it + with the current wasteland. +
++ But yeah. All this to say: if you were waiting for a sign to + finally play New Vegas, this is it. It's ruddy bloody + brilliant. +
+