Fallout New Vegas

So just recently I played through Bethesda's game Fallout New Vegas. Reviewing this game is very difficult for me because I was spoiled by the all mighty Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. To me, Fallout 3 doesn't compare the medieval action you can find and slash in the game of the year, Oblivion. However, I am not saying that it is a bad game, because there were definitely some positive experiences while playing through the story.

Before going into depth on reviewing the game, you should also know that I never got the chance to play through the first Fallout release. From what I have heard from several people, it really wasn't worth the 40+ hours of game play to beat it. On that note, lets get started.

You start off the story with a doctor who somehow heals you from a bullet wound to your head. You walk outside after being healed, choosing your attributes, and perks and you notice that you are completely surrounded by desolate wasteland. This is one factor that I found to be necessary for the sake of the story but also not aesthetically pleasing. The land is a total desert which takes so much away from the graphics. Again, I am comparing this to Oblivion's rolling hills, trees, and beautiful buildings. On top of the par graphics, the game lags every 20 seconds. It's almost as if the game can't load the crappy graphics fast enough which makes no sense.

I found that the game was set up very similar to Oblivion in that you level up. Only in this game you choose perks for like shooting guns, shooting lasers, and building/fixing equipment. This was a nice change from the sword fighting, spell casting, alchemy perks found in Oblivion.

The story line is probably the best thing about the game. You are shot in the head at the beginning of the game and you set out to kill him but depending on how you play the game and make choices, you can end up running the entire city of New Vegas. The entire region is split up by several factions. NCR (New California Republic), Legion, and the Great Khans are just a few of them. You can choose to do missions for any of the factions but if you start missions for one faction and jump to another faction, you become unanimously hated by the original faction which is kind of annoying.

Another one of my favorite features to this game has to be the animals and creatures that you run into in the game. During the game play, I couldn't help but sit back and enjoy seeing two-headed cows, giant ants, giant praying mantises, and demon looking species. This was definitely a pro in the game.

The weapon selection was unbelievable (if you could find them). Depending on what missions you pick up and who you kill, the weapons are extremely cool. You start out with a regular hunting rifle that is used early in the game to kill giant geckos. As you progress, you can pick up guns like incinerators, laser rifles, and grenades. The one true problem that I kept running into was running out of ammo. Of course this ties in with the story because ammo is hard to come by after a nuclear war apparently. There are places to go to buy ammo but depending on what you buy it can be expensive.

To wrap things up, this game took me about 40 hours to complete. I did a lot of side missions that were not necessary to beat the game but I enjoyed every bit of it. I give this game a 7/10