It not only immerses you in the game but also means that when you do finally stroll onto the strip with money in your pocket and a gun on your back, it really feels like you’ve earned it. Instead, you’re encouraged to explore the towns and settlements outside of the glitz and glamour, meeting different factions and building a picture of the world you’ve been dropped into.
You’re absolutely free to do so, but you will almost definitely get slaughtered by the hordes of high-level wildlife – ever seen a Deathclaw up close? – along the way. At the beginning of the game, you may look at the map and decide to head straight for the titular New Vegas. The map design is also a masterclass in giving the player freedom while also gently nudging them along a predetermined path. Exploring ruined buildings and forgotten caves always turns up something interesting, whether a unique weapon or just a huge irradiated fly that really wants to kill you.
The game also avoids the trap of scale which some sandboxes fall into, instead opting for a mid-sized map that is packed full of things to do. I’m still yet to find something more satisfying than firing a sniper round from a hundred metres away and being rewarded with a slow-motion replay of my target’s entire head exploding in a mass of gore that would make a B-movie horror director proud.įallout: New Vegas. Chief among these is the inclusion of a proper iron sights aiming system, which makes the combat genuinely enjoyable in a way that Fallout 3 never did. Those dated graphics may initially lead you to the conclusion that the mechanics are pretty much unchanged from its predecessor, but New Vegas actually includes some pretty major tweaks.
Every encounter is unique, and despite some badly dated graphics and facial animations, each character feels alive in a way that few other games manage. Running guns for shady arms dealers, helping out a bandit gang trapped in a quarry, cleaning up the neighbourhood with a group who all dress like Elvis Presley (yes, really). Fallout 3 only had a handful of side quests to distract you from the main plot, but New Vegas is full of them. The world is the real star of the show, and whatever direction you strike out in, you’re bound to find something interesting. New Vegas’ plot escalates from there, but that’s almost the least interesting part of the game. A quick tutorial later – most of which is completely optional – and you’re left with a couple of map markers and a whole lot of questions.
This is the world that New Vegas has in store for you, but at the start of the game you’re being told to dig your own grave by a man in a checkerboard suit who sounds suspiciously like Chandler Bing (yes, they paid Matthew Perry to voice a character and no, it isn’t entirely clear what anyone gains from this.) You then get dug up by a cowboy robot with a TV screen in its chest and taken to the local doctor for a spot of brain surgery. Oh, and did we mention casinos? It just wouldn’t be Vegas without the casinos. Sure, there are two-headed cows, bandit raiders, and scorpions the size of a Ford Focus, but there are also towns, trading caravans, and even competing governments. The world you’re exploring is part-Mad Max wasteland, part-wild west film and part-fully functioning society.
Instead, it’s set 200 years after the bombs fell, with all of the advances you’d expect. What makes New Vegas so special though is that it isn’t set in a post-apocalyptic hellscape. Instead of smartphones and the internet, this universe gets atomic-powered robotic butlers and laser guns – oh, and a devastating nuclear war between the US and China in 2077 which destroys society and kills pretty much everyone who hasn’t booked their place in a huge underground bomb shelter, or ‘Vault’.
Luckily for everyone, Obsidian’s team included a lot of the original creators of the Fallout series, and what New Vegas lacked in graphical advancements and stability (the PS3 version was so notoriously buggy that it was almost unplayable), it more than made up for in story and atmosphere.įor those not in the know, the Fallout series takes place in an alternate timeline that diverges from reality after WWII. A short development cycle of just 18 months forced the development team to re-use assets from Fallout 3, and it was farmed out to Obsidian Entertainment as a spin-off rather than a full sequel.