Fallout Is Fallout: New Vegas a worthy Fallout game?

[Morality Games]

"shrug" Arcanum is a game that pisses you off while you're playing but when you look back on it you remember a bunch of awesome stuff. The sheer level of role playing in that game is pretty amazing.

 

[Diggfinger]

Great game, unlike F3 it caressed my nerd RPG-gene and made my lose countless hours into crafting my character. Complaints:
- combat is cool, areas well thought out BUT SOME AREAS ARE TOO SPARSELY POPULATED/BORING. Yes I know its a wasteland bla bla but I want action, guddammit!
- fucking giant mosquito-things annoy the shit out of me. Why is my baddass ultra-levelled character getting ripped to shreds by these fuckers...*on lowest difficulty*!?
- DLCs SUCK. ASSS. Fuck that shit. Should've released 1 or 2 guud ones instead of this ass. OK, I didnt complete the spooky one, but the others were boring as shit and repetitive. Yes, Im INCLUDING New World Blues here. Why the fuck did anyone like that piece of shit? I was asked to repeat(!!) the same missions again and again, fight the same monsters etc. Felt like an anal-cleansing, just wanted it to stop! And Avelone's gay (robot) jokes were crappy too.
- What else? Otherwise it's awesome. For me its a 7/10 game.

 

[KILLER BEAR]

But why did you play on lowest difficulty?

Diggfinger

 

[Diggfinger]

My Arcanum experience is that of playing the game for a lot of hours, non-stop, only to stop playing and thinking to myself "Am I having fun?".

I had a similar experience. Only with masturbation instead of Arcanum #BestGameEvah

 

[Endemic]

fucking giant mosquito-things annoy the shit out of me. Why is my baddass ultra-levelled character getting ripped to shreds by these fuckers...*on lowest difficulty*!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarantula_hawk

Their larvae eat tarantulas for breakfast.

 

[Roqua]

I wish the poll could be expanded with age groups. I bet the vast majority of the people voting yes never played the originals and probably weren't even born when the real fallouts were made.

Fucking little kid idiots. They are all a bunch of console retards who love controllers and rpg-lite shit and hate all real crpgs.

 

[Longshanks]

No. It's a Bethesda game in spirit. Fallout's probably my favourite RPG, F2 top 10, but I didn't last more than 20m with FNV. I've never liked any of these large, open-world FPRPGs and NV didn't feel any different. I'll probably give it another shot at some point, but I doubt I'll ever see it as a worthy Fallout game.

 

[Repulsive]

No. It's a Bethesda game in spirit. Fallout's probably my favourite RPG, F2 top 10, but I didn't last more than 20m with FNV. I've never liked any of these large, open-world FPRPGs and NV didn't feel any different. I'll probably give it another shot at some point, but I doubt I'll ever see it as a worthy Fallout game.

It's worth a shot, make sure you play with the DLCs included too.

 

[an Administrator]

The biggest problem of NV's gamplay was that friendly NPCs never give a flying fuck if you smash the skull of their mate before them with a sledgehammer while you're [HIDDEN].

 

[Roqua]

No. It's a Bethesda game in spirit. Fallout's probably my favourite RPG, F2 top 10, but I didn't last more than 20m with FNV. I've never liked any of these large, open-world FPRPGs and NV didn't feel any different. I'll probably give it another shot at some point, but I doubt I'll ever see it as a worthy Fallout game.

I'm 100% with you and agree with you but there is a mod out there that makes chargen better (more options) and chardev meaningful. The combat difficulty and enemy numbers are ramped up and supplies are diminished. I never take crafting perks but had to with this mod just to have ammo so my weapons weren't just decorations. I liked that chardev was more reactive to what your situation was at the time rather than a planned build.

After a while it got easy and I got bored, but I got about 30 hours of not horrible monkey shit out of it. I forget the name of the mod. But it is one of the big overhauls made by one person, and starts you at different areas depending on what faction you pick (or if you pick an android type race).

I don't think you need the DLCs but maybe. If you have good taste you will not get to the dlc areas because the game gets shit easy and boring before them.

I'd also like to say to the monkey retards - no good game needs mods to be good. All good games are good without playerbase help. Great games get greater, like ToEE and Bloodlines. Shitty games can be okay with heavy modding, like this mod for Fake Fallout NV, or the Enderal for Skyrim, etc.

 

[Black Angel]

Combat is a big part of gameplay since in most RPGs you often progress through fighting mobs.

I'm a newfag in cRPGs, and I also have no experiences with PnP RPGs, but isn't non-combat skills checks part of gameplay in RPGs? If so, then games like Arcanum and New Vegas actually had a decent balance between combat and non-combat section, and thus quite a good gameplay.

I'm extremely baffled with some here who would argue how they enjoyed New Vegas BUT didn't enjoyed Arcanum. In some ways, New Vegas and Arcanum had this similar situation where they were initially released as a buggy mess of a game, and also had pretty shitty combat gameplay mechanics. The difference is that:

1. New Vegas was severely held back by a shitty engine, shitty design decision from the owner of the engine, and having to please console audience, Arcanum was not.
2. New Vegas's scope of the gameworld was severely scaled down, Arcanum was not.

To me, Arcanum was actually much more fun and feels/plays better, because I had this newfound adoration for Top-Down Isometric Turn-Based games. Sure, the combat mechanic of Arcanum was kind of messed up because Tim Cain and co had to develop and balance it around the use of Turn-Based AND Real-Time combat, but it still plays better for me.

Also, what baffles me even more is how aweigh stated he's a combatfag, BUT he is defending New Vegas as if New Vegas had better combat gameplay than Arcanum (as an RPG, that is).

 

[Abu Antar]

It is a very worthy Fallout game. people keep saying that Obsidian should have made it turn-based or isometric. How naive can you be? Do you think Bethesda would have approved? No chance in hell. They got to make this because the foundation for Fallout 3 was there. It was going to be first person perspective or nothing at all.

Is it a worthy Fallout game? Yes. Is the combat not great? Yes. Was Fallout 1 & 2 combat great? I don't think so. The game allows you to role play your character in a decent fashion. Several factions to join and some of the quests had several solutions. Stats and attributes did matter, no matter what anyone says. You can also play the game without killing anyone. Basically most of the things I like in Fallout was in New Vegas. The Gamebryo engine and the first person perspective were the things that I disliked, but it was also something Obsidian couldn't really do anything about.

 

[an Administrator]

You can also play the game without killing anyone

Really? Tell me how did you avoid Viper gangs in early game.

 

[Abu Antar]

You can also play the game without killing anyone

Really? Tell me how did you avoid Viper gangs in early game.

By following the main path and being a dick in the beginning. Here's an old screenshot of mine. You do sometimes have to run like a coward. I did this run on hardcore, even.

 

[Somberlain]

At some point I considered Roqua to be one of the most obnoxious posters on this site but then I realized that his chimpouts are incredibly entertaining.

 

[Hirato]

This game would be so much better if it didn't have to suffer from everything it inherited from Bethesda.
Particularly the broken as fuck engine, with rendering tech so primitive any random PS2 game can run leagues around it with regards to graphical fidelity.
Even the skyrim edition of the engine (which finally gave us a proper lighting model that didn't look like absolute shit) would've been a massive upgrade.

 

[Lurker King]

F:NV has better graphics and soundtrack than FO & FO2, and a more serious tone overall. Even with some retarded characters, it’s still much more mature, there is no comparison. However, F:NV was held back by a shitty engine, a shitty console audience and the “hundred-fetch-quests-in-a-big-world” design that hurts your chances of enjoying the replayability. It is a pain the ass to have to cross those huge maps in order to try different things. FO & FO2 didn’t have any of these issues.

 

[Lurker King]

Now I’m having urges to replay F:NV. Damn it. Fuck you all for doing this to me. I don’t have the time to play this shit.

 

[FeelTheRads]

There's no sensible excuse not to, and if you play on console, lel.

The UI is not perfect, but at least it gets the job done fairly well. It's literally a matter of scaling it down, which is more than I can say about that other game's UI.

If you think the UI gets the job done (as opposed to something that was designed for a PC with an actual mouse and keyboard) then you are clearly a console braindead moron. No wonder you can't appreciate good things when you've lived all your life in filth.

 

[Momock]

F:NV has better graphics and soundtrack than FO & FO2, and a more serious tone overall. Even with some retarded characters, it’s still much more mature, there is no comparison. However, F:NV was held back by a shitty engine, a shitty console audience and the “hundred-fetch-quests-in-a-big-world” design that hurts your chances of enjoying the replayability. It is a pain the ass to have to cross those huge maps in order to try different things. FO & FO2 didn’t have any of these issues.

Totally agree. There's too much bullshit between the interesting bits, too much empty places with nothing interesting, too much crap everywhere, etc. I can replay Fallout 2 or Age of Decadence anytime, it's fast. But New Vegas I can't because of this. For 30-40 hours of true gameplay I know I'm going to waste twice this time walking in the empty desert and dealing with the abominable inventory/interface, it's a bug turn-off.

With a true PC-friendly interface (and no Pipboy), a Deus Ex-like design for the locations, a map like in the first Fallouts to travel between locations and a better itemisation, the game would be almost perfect.

 

[Carrion]

You can also play the game without killing anyone

Really? Tell me how did you avoid Viper gangs in early game.

By following the main path and being a dick in the beginning. Here's an old screenshot of mine. You do sometimes have to run like a coward.

If you just want to complete the main quest, you don't really even have to run away. Every quest has a pretty clear non-combat solution, and when moving between locations you can avoid enemies rather easily if you pay a little attention to your surroundings. In case of an emergency you can also use the stealth boy which you can get in Goodsprings (although Primm is probably the place where it's the most useful). Going full pacifist in NV is definitely easier than in FO1 or FO2.

 

[Black Angel]

F:NV has better graphics and soundtrack than FO & FO2

Eeeeeh, no. To me, FO1 & FO2 looks just as good. I don't know why, but it does. New Vegas had the luxury of having pretty ambitious modders to pump the graphics, but in no way does that means FO1 & FO2 has worst graphics.

But the most I disagree with your statement above is how New Vegas had better soundtracks than the older Fallouts. My first 'Fallout' game ever was Fallout 3, and I thought it has neat soundtracks. Then I played New Vegas and there's these many soundtracks that really got to me, that when I looked them up I found that they were from the older Fallouts, reused in New Vegas. Obsidian did better job in giving direction to Inon Zur to make better soundtracks for a Fallout game than Bethesda for Fallout 3, but Mark Morgan's touch were essential in defining the world of Fallout. Nowadays, whenever I heard or think about Fallout, the first soundtrack to come to my mind was and would always be Metallic Monk, A Trader's Life, Flame of the Ancient World, Acolyte of the New God, Vault of the Future, etc etc.

Seriously, Mark Morgan is (or was?) king. The only ones I could think of to match Mark Morgan's touch for video games, in the days of me gaming, were those who made the soundtracks for Souls games. And then, right below them would be Josh Culler's work for Underrail.

It is a pain the ass to have to cross those huge maps in order to try different things.

The thing is, had New Vegas got better, more sufficient engine, the world would be pretty big and not scaled down like the way we got now.

Having said that, I agreed with what Momock said above about having a map like the older Fallouts would work best for whatever engine Obsidian planned to use for New Vegas had Bethesda didn't impose upon them the must of using their shitty engine.

 

[Lurker King]

Eeeeeh, no. To me, FO1 & FO2 looks just as good. I don't know why, but it does. New Vegas had the luxury of having pretty ambitious modders to pump the graphics, but in no way does that means FO1 & FO2 has worst graphics.

That is because you prefer 2D art. The fact is that F:NV had a bigger team of artists to work on minute details, more graphic fidelity, etc. In order to understand how much FO could look better (even as an isometric game) you just need to compare it with PoE.

But the most I disagree with your statement above is how New Vegas had better soundtracks than the older Fallouts. My first 'Fallout' game ever was Fallout 3, and I thought it has neat soundtracks. Then I played New Vegas and there's these many soundtracks that really got to me, that when I looked them up I found that they were from the older Fallouts, reused in New Vegas. Obsidian did better job in giving direction to Inon Zur to make better soundtracks for a Fallout game than Bethesda for Fallout 3, but Mark Morgan's touch were essential in defining the world of Fallout. Nowadays, whenever I heard or think about Fallout, the first soundtrack to come to my mind was and would always be Metallic Monk, A Trader's Life, Flame of the Ancient World, Acolyte of the New God, Vault of the Future, etc etc.

Seriously, Mark Morgan is (or was?) king.

The soundtrack of FO & FO2 was pulled out from an obscure album whose authorship is anonymous. Morgan signed it and took credit, but he is not the author. He is not king of anything and the real king is unknown. Anyways, you can’t possibly compare this pseudo-Morgan with Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Marty Robbins, Antonio Vivaldi, J.S. Bach and Richard Wagner. The difference is overwhelming. The soundtrack of F:NV is filled with western classics, jazz classics, classical music, etc.

 

[Black Angel]

That is because you prefer 2D art. The fact is that F:NV had a bigger team of artists to work on minute details, more graphic fidelity, etc. In order to understand how much FO could look better (even as an isometric game) you just need to compare it with PoE.

Fair enough.

The soundtrack of FO & FO2 was pulled out from an obscure album whose authorship is anonymous. Morgan signed it and took credit, but he is not the author. He is not king of anything and the real king is unknown.

I've heard about that, but only with City of Lost Angels. Did all of the soundtracks not Mark Morgan's original work?

Edit: Mark Morgan's words on this

Mark: When Interplay was thinking of using me for the game, they sent over some music that they liked and wanted me to do something similar as a demo. The CD they sent me had no titles or artists’ names, just a few pieces of unidentified music. I gave Interplay what they wanted and I think they must have used some of my demo in the final game. At the time, I wasn’t familiar with the work of Aphex Twin. To me, it was just my interpretation of what Interplay asked for.

Source: From Youtube
Actual source: http://www.game-ost.com/articles.php?id=24&action=view
Another source: http://www.wykop.pl/link/2603787/ap...ka-morgana-w-tworzeniu-muzyki-do-fallout-1-2/

The last two sources, I can't open. Maybe it's gone, or whatever. Dunno what to say about this, so I guess I'll just have to take your word about this.

Anyways, you can’t possibly compare this pseudo-Morgan with Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Marty Robbins, Antonio Vivaldi, J.S. Bach and Richard Wagner. The difference is overwhelming. The soundtrack of F:NV is filled with western classics, jazz classics, classical music, etc.

I mean more of the ambient soundtracks. But hey, if soundtracks from full-time singers and musicians counts for you, instead of just the video games music composer's work, then be my guest.

One particular soundtrack from New Vegas that I just remembered however, is Begin Again from Dead Money (or was it Old World Blues?). Begin Again definitely up there with the ambient soundtracks I mentioned in my previous post.

 

[Lurker King]

The soundtrack of FO & FO2 was pulled out from an obscure album whose authorship is anonymous. Morgan signed it and took credit, but he is not the author. He is not king of anything and the real king is unknown.

I've heard about that, but only with City of Lost Angels. Did all of the soundtracks not Mark Morgan's original work?

Not all songs, but it was a couple, if memory serves me right. I'm not trying to dismiss the ost of FO either, which is glorious.