I picked up the PS3 version of New Vegas over the holidays, and I've spent the last couple of days playing it. I just reached Novak, and honestly I'm pretty mixed about the game. On the one hand, the gameplay is markedly improved. Using the iron sights on your guns feels a lot better now, and fights are just faster overall. There also doesn't seem to be the endless barrage of office buildings, factories, and subway tunnels that really killed Fallout 3 for me. Your character feels a lot more balanced now, with many perks having distinct drawbacks and some perks not even being available till you complete little in-game achievements first. The new faction idea is cool, though it feels less like charting your own story through the Desert than it does achievement baiting (cute of Obsidian to put in trophies for getting each of the 4 endings): of the two main factions so far, I've seen no reason whatsoever to side with Ceasar's Legion.
On the other hand, I didn't think it was possible but the desert is even more spectacularly bland a place to explore than the Capital Wasteland. Granted, I've mostly been following the roads and exploring areas near them, but this really feels like even more of an empty world than Fallout 3. Quests seem unusually scarce, and there really doesn't seem to be much to do until you reach New Vegas itself, which is a lot later into the game than you would expect. It's also pretty annoying that you can't get a home base to dump all your stuff in until you reach Novak, which incidentally is right before you reach New Vegas. Wayne Newton makes for a fine new radio commentator as a constant companion through the game, but he and his songs repeat even more frequently than Three Dog did, and I've long since shut him off out of lack of anything new. The world just feels very small, which is disconcerting considering how huge this game's predecessor was.
And then there are the crashes. Man, I thought giving this game 2 months to get out of the public Alpha they charged the public to test at launch might have actually led to this game being more playable. No, on the PS3 at least the game is a technical disaster. In the 12-15 hours or so of the game I've played, the game has crashed about 6 times. As a tester myself, I can't imagine how this game got through Sony's certification process without money exchanging hands. It's completely unacceptable, especially since I recognize these crashes after frequently running into them in Fallout 3 (one crash randomly occurs just walking around, where the game will just crash trying to load new textures, and the other randomly occurs entering V.A.T.S.). And there have been numerous technical issues besides those, such as the game deciding in one fight that my character simply wasn't going to do anything in V.A.T.S., having him just stand there until an enemy killed him. This game is a technical abomination and should never have been released. It's a pity because it's not a bad game, but every time I'm on the verge of enjoying it the game craps out.
Topic: Fallout: New Vegas (Read 9717 times)
