LogFAQs > #947976850

Alright, so let me cut the roleplay crap for a minute and talk about my impressions of the game so far.

I'd say it's going pretty well. I played for a long time last night just wandering around, trying things out, and doing quests. I find it more engaging than a lot of games I've played for this project. In comparison to the old Fallout games, I'd say what strikes me most is that while the combat is a lot better, it's also much more central to the experience and I wouldn't say I like that. In Fallout 2 it was possible to play for hours without getting into any fights, and the game was at its best when you were playing that way. So far a big part of New Vegas is, like in Skyrim, wandering around, looting the places you find, and getting into fights with random passerby. There are a good few quests that have non-combat solutions, but so far just as many can't really be done without a fight. To be fair, the old games had quests like that too.

I've always had the impression that Bethesda's games were designed with a quantity over quality philosophy, whether with respect to the quests, the characters, the areas, or anything else, and I think that has prevented me from enjoying them as much as I might. I'd say that shows in New Vegas too. It's been a pretty frequent experience for me to be kind of disappointed by the lack of detail in the character behaviors and dialog options in particular, to the point where, also in classic Bethesda fashion, the game isn't all that immersive. For example, the dialog from most NPCs in a place like Goodsprings doesn't change even if your reputation is different or you're dressed up as a Powder Ganger - in fact, the dialog with the Powder Gangers seems to be the same whether you're disguised as one of their buddies or not. A few things I was a especially let down by were how even after reprogramming Primm Slim into a Sheriff bot and finding him outside he still talks as if he's in the casino, how there were no options to use the medicine skill or a doctor's bag to help Boxcars with his leg (which seemed like an obvious thing to include. Yes you can give him painkillers but he still just sits in the convenience store for all of eternity,) and how even after finding the evidence that Jeannie May sold out Boone wife there is no new dialog with her where you talk about how you know what she did, you just use the generic "let me show you something in front of the dinosaur" line that you can also use to frame someone else. I know it would be a lot of work to include every little idea like that, but this is also the same series that used to re-write every single line of player character dialog if your intelligence was below a certain threshold. I could see it benefiting from mods that flesh out some quests.

As a first companion, I have to say I find Boone to be a pretty unappealing character, and there aren't really any other stand-outs yet except maybe Victor. I know the story gets a lot more interesting to most players once characters like Benny, Caesar and Mr. House come into the picture so here's hoping that will change.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 11/129
Currently Playing: Fallout: New Vegas