Fallout: New Vegas
 

Releases tomorrow (10/19). Here's an early review/preview.

Ok OK – I’ve been asked for some thoughts on the game so far. Here we go.

I’m still very early into the game (only about 12hrs – I’ve accomplished NOTHING!) but I’m back in Wasteland bliss. The enviroments still look as bleak, gritty and dirty as always (especially taking place in the Mojave Desert) yet still beautiful. I really don’t want to say too much to anyone but I will say that as of this moment, the player assumes the role of a Courier who gets shot and left for dead for one reason or another and you set out to find out who shot you and why.

For anyone wondering if this game is as big as Fallout 3, I can say with 100% certainty that it is…maybe even bigger. The gameplay is exactly the way it was before with some tweaks. One major change is the ability to play through “Hardcore Mode” which is offered once the user creates the player. Hardcore mode is crazy. Now Ammo carries weight, your player must stay hydrated, fed and rested otherwise, he/she will die or suffer serious consequences. I opted to play normally for my first kick at the can.

Another interesting change is the use of factions. Scattered throughout the Mojave Wasteland are factions of people whe the player can align themselves with or against. This will seriously impact where you can and can’t go without fear for retribution by said faction as well as the options and quests that open or close on you. Further to that, each faction has their own uniquie look and clothing style.

This also affects how different factions react to your pressence. So now with this knowledge, you’ll have to really pick and choose your fights and what armor/outfits you keep handy because they do carry weight as any armor will.

There are even a slew of different creatures and enemies to encounter and fight in the wastelands though I’m sure I haven’t seen all of them yet.

All in all Obsidian and Bethesda have done an amazing job. This is a sequel truely worthy of the Fallout brand. Expect a full review sometime on Tuesday. With only 2 more days to wait, I’m sure some of you are losing sleep with anticipation but rest well – You’ll need it for the long hours you’re sure to spend on this title.

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http://feedyourconsole.com/2010/10/f...t-impressions/

I might as well plan on taking a couple of months off and buying something nice for the wife.

New details from April's OMX.

The latest OXM has hit the stands and, just like PSM3 and PCGamer, they have an "exclusive" "world premier" of Fallout: New Vegas. Here are the details (scans after the jump):

•The Brotherhood of Steel is back, but the core story revolves around the NCR and Caesar's Legion.
•SPECIAL now has descriptions - eg CHA 10 = Cult Leader, EN 1 = Basically Dead.
•Those descriptions for Strength: 10 - Hercules' Bigger Cousin 9 - Doomsday Pecs 8 - Circus Strongman 7 - Beach Bully 6 - Barrel Chested 5 - Average Joe 4 - Lightweight 3 - Doughy Baby 2 - Beached Jellyfish 1 - Wet Noodle
•You get a Vault 21 jumpsuit from the doc who revives you, along with a pistol and a Pip Boy 3000.
•Weapons can be modified, but modifications only have positive results. The magazine implies you won't need to make a choice between different mods, because they won't be mutually exclusive.
•And a little later the magazine contradicts itself by writing that adding a larger magazine increases reload times.
•Every weapon has a special attack, not just the golf club. It seems that Fore! does not mean groin shots are back for every weapon.
•Guns have different knockback amounts, pistols don't do much, shotguns blast people away.
•There's a town-specific reputation, and Obsidian has 'hinted' that the reputation will impact endings.
•Karma has been overhauled, tracking the factions and ideologies that you agree with.
•Nightkin are back, as blue-skinned Super Mutants who've gone schizophrenic through Stealth Boy use. They attack you while cloaked, deactivating cloak at the last minute to hit you with a club.
•The Tabitha situation can also be resolved by convincing Tabitha to revolt against the other Super Mutants.
•Helios One is not only a power plant, but also the location of the controls of a solar weapon developed by Poseidon Energy which you can employ yourself.
•You can now choose the main character's age.

http://www.duckandcover.cx/forums/viewtopic.php?t=23740

Also, new (as in a month old) screenshots.

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/07/fi...ture-glorious/

How dare they release this during football season. I cannot be slave to two masters.

Sounds awesome. Hopefully its a little less buggy. Vehicles would be cool but I doubt it.
Posted via Mobile Device

No vehicles, Buck. They tried a horse in Oblivion and it was completely useless.

__________________________________


If you've already spent hundreds of hours combing the wastelands of Washington D.C., Pittsburgh and Anchorage, Alaska in Fallout 3, what might convince you to revisit the post-nuclear version of Sin City in Fallout: New Vegas?

Developer Obsidian Entertainment is taking over for Bethesda Softworks for the follow-up to Fallout 3, set three years after the events of that game and thousands of miles westward, featuring an all-new cast of characters. What does Fallout: New Vegas have to offer the Vault dwelling veteran?

Specifically, for the serious Fallout fan, New Vegas introduces a Hardcore option from the get-go, allowing them to bypass early tutorials and live a more difficult post-nuclear life. Players opting to go hardcore will have to stave off hunger and dehydration, and will be required to visit doctors for more serious injuries. Hardcore also more harshly limits the amount of ammo one can carry, applying weight to bullets. Stimpacks won't heal instantly, but will heal over time.

Players can choose whether they want to go Hardcore during the game's opening, which doesn't begin in a Vault, but at the offices of New Vegas' medicine man Doc Mitchell. He'll patch you right up after your whole "I've got a bullet in my head" ordeal that starts off the next Fallout. Yes, finding out who was trying to blow your brains clean out and why they left you for dead will play some part in the story of Fallout: New Vegas.

Doc Mitchell will fix your face up the way you like and, through a series of tests, help you determine your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. abilities (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, Luck). He'll set you up with a Pip Boy 3000 and get you on your way.

Obsidian's new take on Fallout introduces a few other changes, starting with the Companion Wheel. The pop-up radial menu lets players control their allies in battle, issuing simple command behaviors to AI-controlled compatriots.

The VATS combat system has also been tweaked, allowing for melee attack commands. Just don't expect a massive difference in the way the successful targeting system worked in Fallout 3. But do expect a greater variety of weapons, thanks to new weapon mods that let players customize their firearms with larger clips, scopes and specialized ammo. More outlandish weapons like the grenade machine gun and golf club will also add a little variety to your post-nuclear excursions.

During your journey across the desert lands of Fallout: New Vegas, you'll have to deal with the various factions who claim ownership of certain territories, like the New California Republic, the Brotherhood of Steel and Caesar's Legion. The notoriety system complements the karma system of Fallout 3. Depending on the actions you take—who you kill and who you befriend—various groups will either want you dead, want to be your best bud or attempt to pay tribute to your character.

We'll have extended impressions of Fallout: New Vegas early next week, from the outskirts at Primm to details on what awaits you on The Strip, so keep an eye peeled for further details. If you have any specific questions you want answered, let us know.

http://kotaku.com/5528480/fallout-ne...yline=true&s=i

The horse in oblivion was useless? Hell no. Got me where I wanted to go faster and helped me escape some sticky situations, too. There was a great mod to make it gallop faster, too.

Plus it was fun when it died going down to steep a hill and I had to resurrect it.

I didn't use the horse much.... was too busy building up my jumping/etc. stats.

First look from IGN.

Best part.... "You can now aim down the sights like most standard first-person shooters".

Apparently it's scheduled for a Q3 2010 release, but I'd be shocked if the game ships before October/November.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/108/1086462p1.html

I didn't need much to be interested.

Improved game play and a new story is all it was going to take.

I dont think a vehicle would be useless.

Lets say you want to just go discovering locations, then you hop on a motorcycle and find them at 5 times the rate you can on foot.

Are any of the Fallout games worth picking up? I've never played them before.

Sure, but it'd change the whole dynamic of the game. You'd be able to easily escape from most enemies and it'd make the vast wasteland seem much smaller.

Fallout 3 GOTY is a must-buy. The others were reputedly great back in the day but are probably pretty badly dated.

I've heard it being compared to Borderlands......are they similar?

Sort of. Broadly-speaking, Borderlands is an FPS with RPG elements, Fallout 3 is an RPG with shooter elements. There's no comparison story-wise, however.

Yeah, it's like comparing Mario Kart with Gran Turismo.

New preview. Hate to say it, but the graphics aren't really aging well.

http://kotaku.com/5556044/see-fallou...egas-in-action

Good thing this game isn't about the graphics.

If you haven't played Fallout or Fallout 2, do so immediately.

The games aren't "aged" because they were always so different from all the other games. While most were playing Duke Nukem and Command and Conquer (FPS and strategy games), Fallout was unabashedly turn-based and focused strongly on humor and nuances. Simply put, Fallout and Fallout 2 are still immensely playable, and will remain so, because it was never about the graphics for them.

Who cares? The graphics are fine. The wasteland looks awesome.

more liek FAILout amirite?

Combat looks way better, similar to the jump between ME1 and 2.

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That looks incredibly badass.

Whoever designs the Fallout trailers is a ****ing genius.

Preview of the "first 30 minutes" of the game.

http://kotaku.com/5610615/my-first-3...lout-new-vegas

I saw this available for pre-order.... WOOOO!!!!

Excellent.

So there is only one kid in the entire game?

The little lamplight kids in FO3 were annoying as shit anyway. They didnt really serve any purpose either, other than being annoying as shit.

That whole entire segment of the storyline in dealing with the lamplighters was the low point of the game for me. You either have to waste a perk slot so the kids will help you advance the story, or you have to keep reloading until you pass these ridiculous speech checks to get the items you need from them.

It also wasnt believable that a colony of children could even begin to think about surviving in a world like that, so it drew attention to itself in a bad way.

New Vegas comes out on Tuesday.... I may have to load a quick character in F3 today to get sufficiently geared up!

w00t!!!

Here is a video of a few different Factions you could join.

Ceasar's Legion, the New California Republic , Las Vegas ruler Mr. House, or align yourself with smaller groups like the Kings. Or don't join a group and take them all on.


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Day 1

Bethesda's last two games (FO3 and Oblivion) have just bored the living shit out of me. I never did finish Fallout 3. Maybe if the reviews are high enough I'll give New Vegas a shot, although I don't have any faith at all in Obsidian Entertainment to provide a quality product.

Already got mine bought and paid for. Just waiting for Tuesday to get here. :rockon:

Pretty much.

I loved both of them, but for me both of them get to a critical mass point where you just get tired of it. I picked up Shivering Isles and got about a third of the way through it before I quit.

Fallout was a much better game, though. The best part about Oblivion for me was the guild quests - particularly the assassin guild.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. They are both fantastic looking games, and it's fun to run around the world and kill random shit for 15 or 20 hours, but eventually the newness wears off and there just isn't any meat there to keep me interested for the long haul.

I really enjoy the character building aspect of games like this - that keeps me going even after stuff gets too repetitive. I like to max out everything and then go destroying until I get tired of it.

I think my favorite part of fallout 3 was the character creation sequence. That to me was a really innovative and entertaining thing. Unfortunately there wasn't anything else in the rest of the game that drew me in as much.

I was enthralled with Fallout 3 before I hit max level. I loved it everytime I gained XP. Once I hit 20 I just did the main mission and haven't played again.

This time I'll probably up the difficulty so it takes me longer to get to 20 or wherever they set the max level. Hopefully at least 30.

Fired up Fallout 3 the other day to finish DLC and get in the mood.

Point Lookout was a blast, the alien ship was cool...now I just have to do broken steel.

This came out yesterday on newsgroups for the 360. I dont have a modded 360 to play it though.

I have a plan. I'm going to unite the gangs and take over.

And this is how i will do it.

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They all look like douchebags.

DEATH TO THEM ALL

At Palms launch party (totally by accident)! Vampire Weekend is playing.

Sweet.

The alienship was a letdown, IMO.
Point lookout was ****ing killer awesome!

Lamest thing ever is when I bought the GOTY edition and got to about a Level 5 and was walking around the wasteland and I came across a downed alien ship and I thought that it was the one where you get a super weapon, but it turned out to be the alien spaceship. It took forever and wasn't even that fun. I haven't even played since I beat it. I still need to do those other DLC missions.

PS, does anyone know if you get anything extra if you reserve it? I think I can still reserve at Game Stop through tomorrow.

On steam you get this:

http://storefront.steampowered.com/v...aravanpack.jpg

I'm getting it for PS3.

Here, let me google th.... ahh **** it.

http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/70...-detailed.html

Yeah I found that link. I went ahead and went with Amazon. Just preordered it. Not only do I get that melee gear and poison, but I get a $10 video game credit for a future game.

I have a feeling I may end up getting this despite my better judgment. I've checked out some video on it this morning, and it looks to be more in line with what I think is the spirit of the original Fallout games. Should be some reviews tomorrow, so we'll see what they say.

Rofl now that sucks.

Here are some shots from the launch party at the Palms. Wayne Newton was there, which was pretty surreal. He looked, in a word, wax-y/plastic.

Brief thoughts from playing the game for 5-7 minutes. The graphics and FPS mechanics are somewhat improved, but it's more Fallout 3.5 than anything else. Will still buy it, though.

Played it for about 10 hours so far.

If you were thinking they were gonna make a new, polished Fallout you're gonna be disappointed. All the jank is still there. It's basically Fallout 3 with new locations and new weapons (some of which are very cool.) There are some minor additions like factions that can like/dislike you, books that will add points to skills for a limited amount of time, a new companion interface, etc.

If you liked Fallout 3 and want more, you'll like this.

Sounds good, Fallout 3 is still one of my favorite games.

Same here, and with Amazon credits I'm getting the game 1/2 off, so Fallout 3.5 is fine with me.

Is that a dog with a human brain?

Hope those are in the game.

Works for me. I don't need new and improved with every game if there was nothing wrong with the old one.

Also, being old, not having to learn any new stuff is a plus. :D

Just give me perks and I'll be happy. God, I love perks.

Welp, I think the xbox-360 only thing on the dlc packs has made my decision for me. No buy.

Exclusive to the 360 for the holiday season, in the same way the MW2 DLC was "exclusive" to the 360.

Really? Hopefully the exclusive DLC will be ****ing brahmin armour for all the silly people that are avoiding this game because of this.
If the content is worth a damn, just wait for the GOTY edition which always includes ALL the DLC for a lower price..
Also, it's only for the FIRST DLC.. that is all that is mentioned. This isn't the first time they've done this; it'll be available for all in a few months.

Shit, why do they keep doing that? I bought it for PS3.

It will be available eventually right?

P.S. I've started a new game on 360 (Fallout 3) and just made my guy super intelligent and perceptive. Its cool having a Speech check of 100% everytime, lol. I'm only on level 9 now and I've been doing some stuff in the Northwest portion of the map. Needless to say, I am scared shitless knowing that any second I could run into a Deathclaw. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm not looking forward to it.

Speaking of Deathclaws, I just was reading a thing about Fallout NV's Deathclaw Mothers. Apparently these were in Fallout and Fallout 2, but I never played those.

"Matriarchs of the Deathclaw broods, mother deathclaws are bigger, stronger, and more easily angered than your run-of-the-mill Deathclaw. They usually trawl dark areas near their pups or eggs, and are more than eager to tear apart pretty much anything that the wastelands throw at their babies."

Yes, you read that right, they are even more vicious than your normal Deathclaw.

http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__...claw_alpha.jpg

Some gameplay vids...

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I don't think you'll see that many deathclaws at level 9 but keep a few bottlecap mines on you just to be on the safe side.
My first playthrough I was just doing a bit of exploring and found myself in a Deathclaw sanctuary. Used two stealthboys to get outta that one.

Game is sitting on 85 on metacritic
http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-...lout-new-vegas

Per the MTV reviewer, there are a ton (like 9 in 30 hours) of crashes and bugs. Hopefully fixable, though.

That sounds more like a bethesda release than an obsidian one.

Sure, except the release schedule seemed pretty tight on NV.

Well, my first experience with this game wasn't positive. I was still up, and GameStop is only a couple of miles away, so I went and picked the game up at midnight. I wasn't planning on playing it (well, not much), just getting everything set up so I'd be ready to go tonight. Well, apparently the Steam one who sucks the peniss think Illinois is located on an island in the pacific somewhere, because I was unable to install the game because "it hadn't been released yet." When I sent a message to customer service, it was time-stamped 9:30 p.m. on the 18th instead of 12:30 a.m. on the 19th, and even though I then altered my time settings, it didn't matter. Idiots. :shake:

Hopefully I'll enjoy the game more than I do dealing with Steam's Draconian horseshit.

Companions I've found:

Ed-E: In the Mohave Express building in Primm. It's the robot sitting on the front desk.
Boone: Sniper in the dinosaur's mouth during the night in Novac. Have to do a mission for him.
I've heard about a couple others but can't find them.

It was 12am pacific time that it was unlocked for everyone. Pretty stupid, I agree.

I played about 3 hours and haven't hit any major crashes or bugs, but the game is chuggin on my computer. Maybe its time to upgrade.

I'm really enjoying this game. They've tweaked some of the skills and added a new ammo modification ability (sort reminds me of the little differences between KOTOR and KOTOR 2), but other than that it plays exactly the same.

And as annoyed as a certain football team has made me over past couple of weeks, this is a welcome diversion.

PC version has some bugs.

Most notably, quick and auto saves won't re load if you exit the game.

Make sure you hard save early and often.

I haven't had any problems.

Because you bought yours. Someone did a shitty job cracking it.

Nah, it has nothing to do with that. Just be wary, frazod.

Heh.

Gamespy has an article entitled "Fallout: New Vegas Bugs Transforming the Wasteland into Oddworld" but ironically if you follow the link you get a 404 error. LMAO

The rest of their description reads as follows:

I haven't really encountered any Bugs, but I have crashed twice in about 6 hours of gameplay. Its annoying. I even turned off the game for good when I had 4 good hours left in me last night and I got to sleep at a reasonable time.

Yeah, thats how annoyed I was.

I still can't decide which faction I want to align myself with, either the NCR or Caesar's Legion.

8 hours in (hardcore mode - normal) and no bugs or serious framerate drops and most importantly no corrupt saves.
Loving it.