Ambitious video games are usually accompanied by several aspects; they’re fun, expansive and consuming, but they also tend to have their fair share of technical faults – Fallout: New Vegas is not the exception. As a series, Fallout conceptualizes a post-apocalyptic universe wherein all of the greatest fears of 1950’s America came true – the bombs did drop, the devastation did happen, and anyone dumb enough to believe curling up into ball would save them from a nuclear blast is long dead.
The stylization of the franchise really captures and embodies the ridiculousness of the 1950’snuclear mentality astonishingly well. Fallout 3 did a great job of this too while also feeling like it incorporated some steam punk elements, but New Vegas takes these same ideals and turns it into more of a post-apocalyptic Western instead. These characteristics are reinforced by the spaghetti Western storied beginning as your character is bagged, gagged, hog-tied, shot in the head and left for dead. But it turnout that you’re just not quite dead enough.
In true Fallout fashion, a cowboy robot saves your neck and then you’re off in a pursuit of vengeance across the Mojave. While traveling the deserts of Nevada you’ll come across many different situations like; radioactive bunkers, looters, gangs, defunct Brotherhood of Steel members, ancient satellite weapons, feuding militant factions, and a lot more than you can see in a single play through.
New Vegas is very similar to Fallout 3 in that respect – there is simply a ton to do and a lot of places to discover. The abundance of content isn’t the only thinker-emerging, if you’re returning from Fallout 3 then the Capital Wastes of Washington bleed through into the war torn Mojave. New Vegas seems to swap the muted gray-greens of Fallout 3 for lighter, more vibrant yellowish amber to give the game assets a new coat of paint.
Before too long the paint peals, but, overall, the environments are still expansive and fantastical in size and scope, just not in unfamiliarity or sense of tension from trekking through a new alien vista. Even though there is a retread of familiarity with the wastelands, there’s still a lot that’s been added – like the Vegas strip which is like a well-contained micro city with gun runners, traveling merchants, minicamps and gambling. But the bulk of the new additions help flex Fallout’s RPG muscles with deeper customizations through perks, stats, different ammo types, weapon moods and crafting, while also strengthening the gunplay with the newly added Iron-sight.
But, my favorite new feature is the hardcore mode which really sets the level of immersion high by requiring your character to eat food, sleep, and drink water on a regular basis in ordered to stay alive. New Vegas applies all of these additional gameplay aspects in favor of fixing old issues, and the rehashed environments it feel a bit like more of the same, but that’s okay with me – it never claimed to be Fallout 4.
In the end, Fallout: New Vegas is an immersive, RPG-heavy, tactical time-stopping first-person shooter, piece of buggy frustration wrapped in some perplexing astonishment through moments of true greatness and absolute ambition. Really, how much you enjoy your stay at New Vegas hinges on how well you’re able to take the good, with the bad, and the ugly.
