So now that I can finally enter The Strip without having to wear a cowboy hat, I had hoped I'd be able to continue playing Fallout New Vegas without worrying that the experience was going to come to a screeching halt at any moment. No such luck. I'm at the point where every time I come up to a gun battle between NCR and missionaries in Freeside in the course of the GI Blues mission, the game freezes up my Xbox 360. I've cleared my cache, I've uninstalled the game from the HDD, and I've redownloaded the patch. No dice. Anyone have any creative solutions for getting through this part of the game? Is there a certain kind of hat I have to wear? Or should I just keep my fingers crossed that the next patch will finally make this game playable for me?

-Tom

So it turns out the issue is much more dire than simply freezing during this mission. Instead, the game freezes any time I come within combat range of an enemy. Needless to say, this is going to make actually playing Fallout New Vegas uniquely challenging.

-Tom