Fallout New Vegas

[Whyt Lindow]

I bought it one Friday and spend the majority of my time playing it. The same happened when I first bought Fallout 3 so I knew it was going to happen anyway.

Right then, from first glance at the new fallout you realise that it hasn't changed much from Fallout 3, the main differences are the location and variety of weapons and creatures.

The intro
You start in a doctors office after the opening sequence (I won't spoil it for those who want to buy it). One improvement from the previous Fallout is that the tutorial sequence is considerably shorter. You do have the choice to carry on after selecting your stats and what not to do a small game play tutorial. but as I said this isn't mandatory, you can just skip this by walking out of the tutorial area. One important feature is 'Hardcore mode', this mode will make it so you need to eat, sleep and drink. If you choose this mode and neglect one of the factors then it can lead to death. I find this mode adds more immersion into the game, rather than running around blowing up creatures and exploring vaults you actually have to stock up on supplies before you go. This should will be a key feature in games to come.

The Wasteland (Mojave Desert)
The Mojave desert is a much more difficult environment than fallout 3's wasteland, the creatures you encounter are strong and faster and you weapons don't seem to pack the same punch as previously known. Even on easy difficulty you can easily be overwhelmed by a giant mantis or a large flying wasp like creature.

Locations
The number of locations you can visit has increased. The number of vaults to explore also.

Factions
Something I have found better in this than the previous is that different factions have their affinity to you. You can choose to help one against another and you popularity will raise with one and drop with the other.
The use of costumes is also well done. You can put on a factions armour and enter a base. Although this doesn't guarantee access as it all depends on your affinity to the group and the amount of guards the base has.

Weapons
The number of weapons has sharply increased. This may be an improvement from modders influence on Fallout 3. As well as the weapons the types of ammo has also increased, from hollow point ammunition to armour piercing.

These points struck me as best in FNV as I was used to Fallout 3. I think it is a great improvement on game play although I cannot say the same for graphics. Although the graphics are something I cannot complain about since any improvement would cause a slowdown on console systems.

For those of you who are curious about I would recommend it. There's always something to do and hours upon hours of game play, especially if you have the PC version due to modding.

[Kik]

I really enjoyed Fallout 3 and have been debating about getting this one, but I've heard some mixed things about it. I think I saw it online for around 17$ so I might pick it up eventually =p