New Vegas review from NMA, too good to be true???

[Derper]

Once again: 90% of made's post (and his conclusion that the game is unplayable) was about the graphics.

But not these parts, right?

Char generation is a mess. (...) Next I had to click through 8 screens to assign my stats. Then answer a bunch of questions that may or may not have had an effect on how my skills turned out, I'm not sure.

Character generation.

Relieved that it was finally over, I went outside. Found a shop, chatted with owner, had a look at his stuff - WTF is this? 100 items crammed into one long ass list in a tiny window that shows only 5 at a time - no icons, no tabs, just text. Like a fucking console rpg from the 80s. I didn't buy anything. Same crap in the pipboy: there's no paperdoll, no drag&drop interface, no icons. It's all menus and text. Tiny menus and huge text. You have to scroll to see all your skills. Three decades of UI evolution never happened.

UI sucks and is hardly useable.

I tried to explore the town a bit more but even running around feels retarded. The char zips around like on skates. 3rd person reveals he's actually walking on clouds - the animation is totally disjointed from the camera movement. No sense of weight or mass. Think Bloodlines but ten times more jarring. The game doesn't look bad on screenshots but when you actually see it in motion it feels terribly outdated. Whatever, thankfully pipboy can teleport you straight to your quest objective.

Graphics, but more to the point: Wonky, glitchy, buggy animations.

So I found the girl I was supposed to talk to for my tutorial. I killed her dog before her eyes (after pumping 2 magazines into its head at point blank and staring in disbelief at the idiocy that is VATS). She didn't care, but apparently I lost reputation with the town. I quit.

NPC reactions seem off. Dog has a thick skull.

 

[Derper]

He complains that the inventory is text-based and there are no icons. That's graphics.

Just sayin'

It really isn't. Just sayin'

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Where does it say story? I thought that most people liked Fallout for the setting, dialogues, and the quest design. No?

No. I cannot play a Fallout in the Oblibion engine, any other engine that is a travesty. Sorry. It needs more than setting, dialogues and quest design to me.

Like?

Even though you're quoting Blackadder, I'd just like to add my two cents: Graphics have a large impact on the atmosphere off a game, and wonky glitches and shitty mechanics detracts from the atmosphere and immersion. I know some people who would cringe at the word immersion, but IMHO it's an important part. The graphics add to the atmosphere which adds to the experience, just like a great setting, great dialogue and quest design does.

Needless to say, I disagree. The mechanics of the game, the system used, is much more important. If the graphics are wonderful, well and good, but if they take effort away from the underlying mechanics and what is under the hood of the game, then that is a minus to me and unnecessary icing on a poorly baked cake.

CRPG's need to revert to the way they used to be: Engine and mechanics number 1, other areas following with graphics being the end game. The natural law always had CRPG's using last generation graphics or earlier, and this was an industry accepted standard, provided these resources were used to other effect including depth to the engine itself and the gameplay.

I didn't say mechanics weren't important, and I happen to agree that they should be priority number one. The problem is that VD seemed to argue graphics didn't matter at all, which I disagreed with. FFS. If New Vegas had used mechanics and graphics from F2 with a new world to explore and wellwritten quests, you'd see happy campers all over codexistan, DAC and NMA.
The mechanics of NV have been dumbed down, the graphics seem barely tolerable and glitchy (and have completely retarded ragdollism). The story is probably better and more wellwritten than in F3, but that can't save this shit from sinking.

Now I can agree with that point. If graphics is one of the pulling elements of this game, yet it is worse than the original (well, you know what I mean...), that is indeed a poor representation...unless the rest of the game is somehow that much more improved? Doesn't look like it so far, what with using the idiotic Bethesda system, but it will be amusing to read through the wonderful new improvements that the game no doubt has!

 

[Vault Dweller]

I didn't say mechanics weren't important, and I happen to agree that they should be priority number one. The problem is that VD seemed to argue graphics didn't matter at all...

I didn't. Made's points were that the faces are repulsive, the animations are "jarring" and are worse than Bloodlines', that the inventory is text-based, there is no paper doll, and that the game looks "outdated". Ergo, it's unplayable.

The faces look ok, in my opinion:



The animations are ok as well and I can't recall anything awful about Bloodlines' animations. I wished the game had inventory icons as I like those a lot, but it's certainly not a big deal. Same goes for the paper doll. The overall visuals aren't the cutting edge but I can run the game on a 5 year old PC with a year old video card. I certainly wouldn't buy a new PC just to play a Fallout 3 game.

 

[Volrath]

Topic just shows how useless the codex is.

This topic is about NV, i just want to know if it is worth it to play it or not.

That only depends on whether you enjoyed Fallout 3 "for what it was". If so, wait until all relevant mods have been updated, and play it as a paperdolling survival sandbox with horrible story/dialogue/quests/animations/everything else.

If you didn't like it at all, there's nothing to see here. No element has been improved enough that you could say it truly matters now. It's still best played with brain turned off.

So quests, writing and NPC's are still total fucking shit? I'm not trolling here, actually interested.

Just tell me if this game is shit or not.

 

[made]

I'll try and sum up my point one last time. Not for the obvious trolls but for my own peace of mind.

Horrible engine, horrible interface. So horrible, in fact, that I just can't bring myself to put up with the game in the faint hope that dialogues and C&C will reward me in the end. I might give it another go a couple months down the road to see if mods fix the worst of it (which I doubt), but in its current state I consider the game unplayable.

Now go back to posting dog pics or whatever lulz omg so funny.

 

[Vault Dweller]

"Char generation is a mess. (...) Next I had to click through 8 screens to assign my stats. Then answer a bunch of questions that may or may not have had an effect on how my skills turned out, I'm not sure."

Character generation.

What seems to be the problem, officer?

"Relieved that it was finally over, I went outside. Found a shop, chatted with owner, had a look at his stuff - WTF is this? 100 items crammed into one long ass list in a tiny window that shows only 5 at a time - no icons, no tabs, just text. Like a fucking console rpg from the 80s. I didn't buy anything. Same crap in the pipboy: there's no paperdoll, no drag&drop interface, no icons. It's all menus and text. Tiny menus and huge text. You have to scroll to see all your skills. Three decades of UI evolution never happened."
UI sucks and is hardly useable.

It does suck, visually. Hardly usable? Not the case. In fact it's fairly easy to use it and find what you need.

"I tried to explore the town a bit more but even running around feels retarded. The char zips around like on skates. 3rd person reveals he's actually walking on clouds - the animation is totally disjointed from the camera movement. No sense of weight or mass. Think Bloodlines but ten times more jarring. The game doesn't look bad on screenshots but when you actually see it in motion it feels terribly outdated. Whatever, thankfully pipboy can teleport you straight to your quest objective."

Graphics, but more to the point: Wonky, glitchy, buggy animations.

First, where does it say buggy? Second, the animations are neither wonky nor glitchy. They are not rave-worthy, but that's not a crime ... yet, is it?

"So I found the girl I was supposed to talk to for my tutorial. I killed her dog before her eyes (after pumping 2 magazines into its head at point blank and staring in disbelief at the idiocy that is VATS). She didn't care, but apparently I lost reputation with the town. I quit.

NPC reactions seem off. Dog has a thick skull.

Definitely a flaw. The only valid point in the entire post.

 

[Vault Dweller]

http://rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=46169&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

And?

He says that he would have done a lot of things differently, explains that he and many other leads took over in the middle and did what they could. It's an honest "what went wrong" analysis, not flip-flopping.

What exactly do you have a problem with?

 

[Forest Dweller]

Just for fun, and because I all you guys so much, I fired up a saved game post-tutorial, walked into the starting tavern, and attacked the dog.

The result? The dog went hostile after a couple of shots. Another NPC in the tavern, not part of the town's faction, helped me kill it. The town faction NPCs did nothing to help or hinder it.

After attacking a town faction NPC in the same tavern, the other town faction NPC turned hostile to me the same instant the attacked NPC did. The non-faction NPC did not intervene, though he did seem annoyed by the nearby violence.

So, it's probably just a faction flag thing. Either the dog isn't flagged the same faction as the town (just flagged friendly to it), or "creatures" in a faction don't trigger the same reaction as "people". I think the second scenario is more likely, but either one is plausible.

What about the girl? Was she present?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

You can almost hear him saying "Are you people ignoring me? Do you like to argue that much?"

 

[Silellak]

Just for fun, and because I all you guys so much, I fired up a saved game post-tutorial, walked into the starting tavern, and attacked the dog.

The result? The dog went hostile after a couple of shots. Another NPC in the tavern, not part of the town's faction, helped me kill it. The town faction NPCs did nothing to help or hinder it.

After attacking a town faction NPC in the same tavern, the other town faction NPC turned hostile to me the same instant the attacked NPC did. The non-faction NPC did not intervene, though he did seem annoyed by the nearby violence.

So, it's probably just a faction flag thing. Either the dog isn't flagged the same faction as the town (just flagged friendly to it), or "creatures" in a faction don't trigger the same reaction as "people". I think the second scenario is more likely, but either one is plausible.

What about the girl? Was she present?

Yeah, she didn't react. As I said, I'm guessing it's because of a general "faction flags don't work the same for creatures as for people" thing, but it's just a guess.

If so, it's probably intended so that the entire town doesn't come shove a gun up your ass if you kill a Brahmin. As I said, as soon as I attacked the girl, the other nearby person in her faction did respond, and someone else who was nearby but not in her faction, didn't.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

http://rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=46169&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

And?

He says that he would have done a lot of things differently, explains that he and many other leads took over in the middle and did what they could. It's an honest "what went wrong" analysis, not flip-flopping.

What exactly do you have a problem with?

Just as prophesised.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Can you please explain?

 

[Jasede]

I think the game's pretty good, a huge improvement on Fallout 3. Cheesy and Obsidiany, but hey.

Pretty fun! I don't consider all the FO 1/2 references thrown in to be cash-ins, more like "Well, y'all know we can't really make a TB ISO game for the mass market these days, or get it funded at least, but hey, we still remember, y'know?".

And before someone says the combat sucks, so does it in Gothic, Ultima 7, Arcanum, PST, BG2 (goes on for more titles).

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Last time I have checked, Fallout was a faithful recreation of GURPS on computer, including game mechanics and turn based miniature combat on a hexagonal map as in GURPS advanced combat rules and the first of planned GURPS games to be made on that engine, not just "dialogues, quests and setting".
The GURPS got ditched because of some stupid disagreements and the games in other settings never got made, but the presentation of action has remained. It still has good old tabletop-style turn-based combat, even the hexes are still there. And that's the Fallout that I love and consider good for what it is .

Now suddenly the tabletop doesn't count and a FPS RPG is a worthy "successor" despite belonging to a different sub-genre .

 

[Serus]

"Char generation is a mess. (...) Next I had to click through 8 screens to assign my stats. Then answer a bunch of questions that may or may not have had an effect on how my skills turned out, I'm not sure."

Character generation.

What seems to be the problem, officer?

"Relieved that it was finally over, I went outside. Found a shop, chatted with owner, had a look at his stuff - WTF is this? 100 items crammed into one long ass list in a tiny window that shows only 5 at a time - no icons, no tabs, just text. Like a fucking console rpg from the 80s. I didn't buy anything. Same crap in the pipboy: there's no paperdoll, no drag&drop interface, no icons. It's all menus and text. Tiny menus and huge text. You have to scroll to see all your skills. Three decades of UI evolution never happened."
UI sucks and is hardly useable.

It does suck, visually. Hardly usable? Not the case. In fact it's fairly easy to use it and find what you need.

"I tried to explore the town a bit more but even running around feels retarded. The char zips around like on skates. 3rd person reveals he's actually walking on clouds - the animation is totally disjointed from the camera movement. No sense of weight or mass. Think Bloodlines but ten times more jarring. The game doesn't look bad on screenshots but when you actually see it in motion it feels terribly outdated. Whatever, thankfully pipboy can teleport you straight to your quest objective."

Graphics, but more to the point: Wonky, glitchy, buggy animations.

First, where does it say buggy? Second, the animations are neither wonky nor glitchy. They are not rave-worthy, but that's not a crime ... yet, is it?

"So I found the girl I was supposed to talk to for my tutorial. I killed her dog before her eyes (after pumping 2 magazines into its head at point blank and staring in disbelief at the idiocy that is VATS). She didn't care, but apparently I lost reputation with the town. I quit.

NPC reactions seem off. Dog has a thick skull.

Definitely a flaw. The only valid point in the entire post.

Hardly 90% is about graphics as you claimed several times, earlier in the thread, even according to your own analysis then. Character creation, user interface, npc reactions AND graphics were all subjects of the post. QED.

 

[Serus]

I think the game's pretty good, a huge improvement on Fallout 3. Cheesy and Obsidiany, but hey.

Pretty fun! I don't consider all the FO 1/2 references thrown in to be cash-ins, more like "Well, y'all know we can't really make a TB ISO game for the mass market these days, or get it funded at least, but hey, we still remember, y'know?".

And before someone says the combat sucks, so does it in Gothic, Ultima 7, Arcanum, PST, BG2 (goes on for more titles).

Combat in BG2 wasn't perfect and not to everybody's liking but saying that it "sucks" is going a little too far. And to compare it to the abomination of the "combat engine" offered by newer Beth engines is going waaaay to far.

 

[Jasede]

I personally enjoyed BG 2 combat, but I'd wager if you had a poll here, most would say it sucked.

(Personally, I thought the encounter design was brilliant, yet the engine lacking.)

The point is, combat, while certainly very important, doesn't have to entirely make or break an RPG. Unless it's focused on it, of course.

 

[Mastermind]

Second, the animations are neither wonky nor glitchy. They are not rave-worthy, but that's not a crime ... yet, is it?

The animations make playing the game a pain. They make precision aiming a huge fucking chore because characters "vibrate" like the energizer bunny. My aim's never been particularly great in any fps, but I've never seen anything like oblivion/fallout3/NV. I should've stuck with stealth sniping like I did in F3.

 

[Serus]

I personally enjoyed BG 2 combat, but I'd wager if you had a poll here, most would say it sucked.

But we had a poll there. Three times. BG2 was considered one of the best CRPG ever made each time. And don't try to tell me it was because of dialogues or setting or c&c or...
http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic ... codex+poll
You said you'd wager. I wonder what exactly.

 

[Jasede]

I strongly believe that poll result comes from a few things: encounter design, scope of content, amount of dialogue and things to do, nostalgia (many people's first "big" RPG) and a very strong beginning (raise 10K gold any way you like) - not a strong combat system.

And of course there isn't anything I'd wager, it was just a turn of phrase. We'd have to have a poll to find out for sure.

 

[chzr]

I personally enjoyed BG 2 combat, but I'd wager if you had a poll here, most would say it sucked.

but with reference to JA2 or TOEE, not with 'Worse then F3 combat'

 

[Jasede]

Granted-

But for the point's sake, do not be too fixated on BG2. It was just one example. Ultima 7 is also highly regarded, yet its combat is completely, well, bollocks. Arcanum has the same problem, to a lesser degree. I am just saying, and not to start an argument or any such thing, that combat might not be the one thing that makes or breaks a good game.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?

I've just been playing Morrowind again. [...] I like becoming the highest rank in every faction. If you do it in the right order then you can join all of them and one of the three houses. Telvanni, Redoran, or Hlaalu. You can eventually get your own house and that's always cool. I tried to collect every set of armor and rare items to decorate my house. I have screenshots of it somewhere. [...]

going down the toilet, etc

anyway, look what I found

 

[Serus]

I strongly believe that poll result comes from a few things: encounter design, scope of content, amount of dialogue and things to do, nostalgia (many people's first "big" RPG) and a very strong beginning (raise 10K gold any way you like) - not a strong combat system.

And of course there isn't anything I'd wager, it was just a turn of phrase. We'd have to have a poll to find out for sure.

You miss the point. Let me make it clear for you:
1. BG2 was a combat-centric game. It didn't have any brilliant quest design with multiple options and stat checks or great C&C, story was only average, so was the setting. It was all about combat + character development + some exploration. I hope we can easily agree on that.
2. BG2 is considered a very good CRPG around here - on average of curse - as the polls that were made many times clearly show.
3. If a game strongly focused on combat is considered very good by majority of codexers then the combat must have been at least passable. Maybe not good or great but at least acceptable. It is the only logical conclusion.
You suggested it sucked. You compared it to Bethesda games combat. You suck.

I know it was a "turn of phrase". My question was rherotic. Rotfl.

but with reference to JA2 or TOEE, not with 'Worse then F3 combat'

Exactly my point but much better said.

Granted-

But for the point's sake, do not be too fixated on BG2. It was just one example. Ultima 7 is also highly regarded, yet its combat is completely, well, bollocks. Arcanum has the same problem, to a lesser degree. I am just saying, and not to start an argument or any such thing, that combat might not be the one thing that makes or breaks a good game.

Ultima 7 is highly regarded - yes but less so than BG2, and mostly because it has one of the best "living" world in crpg history and great exploration aspects.
Arcanum had great quests and setting. Combat almost "broke" it and prevented it from being a very good game.
Combat IS the one thing that makes a good CRPG - with only one or two exceptions in the history of the genre that confirm the rule more than anything else. Storyfags, interactive movie fans and Vault "C&C" Dweller followers crowd may think differently but they all suck and i am right.