So, I am now level 16 and I have completed a few quests. I think it is time for a critique. I have held off until completing a fair amount of hours of gameplay and...

I have some issues.

I am a huge Fallout fan and I have to say I am disappointed.

1. Fallout New Vegas seems more like DLC for Fallout 3 with an updated edge. But it is still DLC in my opinion.

2. The music/radio stations. Don't like the new guy--I miss three-dog. The music is extremely repetitive no matter what station you listen to.

3. Graphics are enhanced but not innovative and fresh.

4. Alot of places you cannot navigate--too rocky on the terrain. Get stuck in rocks alot.

5. No Co-Op which I think would be really cool.

6. Same character customization as before--nothing different--that is a negative.

There are other issues--these are just my main ones. Bethesda--next Fallout better be fresh and innovative--or just simply release it as DLC for Fallout 3 like you did with this one.

Different setting, a few new weapons, a few fresh graphics...factions--not really innovative, repair bench changes--nothing innovative there either....This game really feels like someone said, "Lets take our existing set-up with Fallout 3 and make some minor tweaks that make it seem like we have changed the game, but we just want to make money off of the fans without taking our time to give them a really great NEW experience.

Fell short for me. As a fan, I love playing it, the same way I loved Fallout 3...But I would rather have paid for it as DLC and downloaded it for half the price.

1. It's bigger than FO3, don't see how it could be a DLC if it's bigger than the original game.
3. Innovative?
4. Ooookay? Do you deliberately find the most rockiest place and try to climb it? Because I never get stuck anywhere. I found one invisible wall which was rather annoying but nothing past that.
5. How would Co-op work with kill cam and VATS and separate loading zones?
Other issues: What are you talking about? This wasn't a "new" experience to yout? And there are a lot of minor tweaks which improve the game way above FO3.

Not saying I disagree with you entirely, but out of interest, what graphical innovation were you expecting? That it would look like a Japanese watercolour a la Okami? That it would look like a cubist painting, or be done entirely in monochrome, or that character models would be stick-figures?

Myself, I have never seen a DLC that includes a world as big as the original game, and additional crafting mechanics and a thoughtful reworking of the dialog and core rules. :shrug:

Neither Fallout 1, Fallout 2, or Fallout 3 had a co-op mode (thankfully), and neither did FO:NV.... This was by design, not something that never occurred to them .

When I visit a new IP, I look to see if it has what I look for in a good game of the genre; if it doesn't, I look to the next on the list... I am at a loss to explain un-ending stream of negative posts about positive features ~often specifically those that the series is noted for. :confused:
(like the ending summary and sensible termination of the game... To not end would be the real immersion breaker no?)

How can you gloss over the benches as 'not really innovative'? Can you name another title that would let you breakdown 9mm shells and reload 357 shell casings with the powder? As for being a money grab ~This is both tough to believe and very surprising based on what I've seen so far... And I've only played as far as Primm.

1. I agree that over all size in exploration it is smaller since FO3 had a crapload of dungeons, but I never cared for dungeons and think of the main map more.
3. Okay.
4. Yup, but I've never had a problem exploring like I want (except for that one time) so I don't really get that part.
5. Yeah it is possible but I guess it's for convenience that they decided to not work on a multiplayer/co-op feature. Don't really mind though. Fallout has never been a game meant for multiplaying imo.

I don't know what to say to people who say "It's the same graphics and stuff, therefore it's just a DLC." I don't know how to reason with them.

In all honesty most of the complaints about Fallout New Vegas are complaints that were made about FO3 when it came out

It's too buggy
The music is too repetitive
I get stuck in places and I can't move (happened in Oblivion too so I can't see why anyone would be surprised this happened since Bethesda has not implemented a fix for this at all)
No co op-This complaint has also has been around since even before Oblivion so seriously people need to get over it because it just isn't happening (wait for FOOL or a TES MMO)
I can't get rid of the quest marker it makes the game too easy
The graphicsis is not purrty
etc., etc.,

I guess in some ways it has to do with the similarity of the games that people have so many problems with the series of games that Bethesda (and now Obsidian) has produced. However, I can say that in terms of story, replay value, and the return of the original Fallout lore I can say that Fallout New Vegas is a definite improvement over FO3. If anything I would completely disregard FO3 as canon (seriously 200 hundred years after the war?) and replace it with Fallout New Vegas.

Tell them to look at development time of F3 and compare it with FNV. FNV is F3 with new story and characters plus some improvements. But what else would you expect? Completely new game running on new engine with all graphic redone? That would take 3x as much development time if not more and proportionate budget. Lot of stuff is reused ...but is that stuff bad? Only complain on my side are ugly animations and bad character creation. But that is part of engine unfortunately so would require lot of effort to change. Beside developers might be of different opinion.

Bye the way FNV is to F3 what F2 was to F1. And F2 was complete success. Probably best game of whole series.

Your Graphic argument is moot. Obsidian was hired by Bethesda to make a game using their tools and engine. That they were able to make as many improvements over the uber kludge of an engine as it stands is quite a feat as it is.

The complaints about bugs ect ect, well it is not obsidian's fault that the engine is 10 years old, this same engine has been used since morrowind, with just graphical upgrades. The bug's were ignored by Bethesda's QA , yeah they were in charge of QA http://bethblog.com/index.php/2010/02/09/inside-the-vault-andrew-scharf/ .

You can't blame the contractors for the shoddy workmanship of what they had to work with. It's like Building a house, and blaming the electricians for the cracked foundation.

F:NV has bugs, but bugs can be fixed. NV is better written, the story is compelling, it is cohesive to the rest of the series, and the gameplay is interesting. The combat svcks, but you can only polish a turd so much. As someone on another forum said, Bugs can be fixed, a bad story or bad design can't. NV is not perfect, but it is a lot better then it's direct predecessor.

the second you requested "co-op" i gave up. i think you miss the point of fallout games entirely. go play call of duty. sheesh.

So basically, if a game isn't rebuilt from bottom up - it's a DLC to a previous game, no matter what things they did change from the last game?
Obsidian made the game, not Bethesda and they had to use the same engine as Fallout 3 because otherwise Bethesda wouldn't let Obsidian make the game(at least to my knowledge). Obsidian did amazingly well considering the time and resources they were given.

As for your points:
1. If every DLC for a game were like NV, then I would only ever buy DLC.

2. I actually kinda agree with this.

3. Refer to above

4. Simple fix - don't climb stuff that shouldn't be climbed.

5. Co-op would be the scourge of Fallout. It should never -ever- happen.

6. I don't recall answering psyche questions in FO3, or traits, or age sliders.

That reminds me, I loved that was kind of like the old Ultima games. Yeah FO3 had the school test, but it felt more interesting in NV.

No offense, but you're missing a ton of the changes added to the game mechanics in NV. Game engines and assets have been re-used in games as far back as I can remember, and I've been gaming for quite a long time. Complaining about something that's common practice is a bit strange, to be honest. I'm going to assume that you haven't been a gamer for very long. IMO the changes to game balance, the subtle changes to character development that make it actually matter now, the characters that are actually interesting, the branching and changeable storyline, and a ton of other additions make NV a better game than FO3 in a lot of ways.

Half of these complaints are due to expectations that really aren't realistic for a game with less than a two year development cycle, many are just opinion, and almost all of them can be applied to Fallout 3. No co-op? Really?

Really I'm hearing one complaint: it's too much like Fallout 3 for mah monies. If you liked Fallout 3 I don't see why that would be a problem, number one. Number two, if you think not much has changed then you're not paying attention to anything but the graphics and the visual appearance of things. Really, it's been known that NV was being built on Fallout 3's game engine for a looooong time. If you that was going to ruin the game for you then why did you buy it? Did you buy GTA: Vice City? Did you buy GTA: San Andreas? Did you have the same complaints about those games? They were exactly the same game as GTA III and people didn't seem to have a problem paying full price for them.



So, a game using the same engine has to be DLC now even if the new content and changes took nearly two years to create? No offense, but have you been gaming for more than a year? I'm honestly not flaming you, but this assumption is absurd and goes against how the industry has worked for a long time.

But what does this have to do with innovation?

I can't figure that out either. I'm also really confused by the comments about DirectX. It's not like DirectX is phasing out or OpenGL is new. I'm not sure what he's trying to say. Either way I generally stop reading when I see that the point being made is about how the graphics haven't changed. To me that's a non-issue, but to each his own.

Agreeing on the absolutely infuriating invisible walls, not so much on everything else.

You have to remember your basing Fallout 3 memories on a game that is now done and has lots of successful DLC New Vegas is just out, give it time to grow on you they have changed so much to make it better and one little example is how the player runs and jumps, completley new and it looks alot better.

I do agree there, it is failures of a sloppy engine. Morrowind had them, Oblivion had them, and FO3 had them.

Now the kicker? gamesas has said they spent the last 2 years(all of 2009) redesigning the engine that will be used for the next Elder scrolls game, Not a new engine, just a revamp of the same one:) Meaning the next fallout game when we see it, in 4 or 5 years, likely won't be much better:)

You could still climb mountains in MW/OB/Fo3, but in here it's just totally forbidden. Probably to prevent you from just scaling the nearest mountain from Goodsprings and hightailing it to Vegas, so you don't realize just how compacted the map is.

Morrowind had invisible walls? I never noticed them when I was levitating all over the map.

It has been a while, but there were only one or 2 places. But your right you could just float over them. Not to the extent they were in the other games. I miss Morrowind actually.

WRong. So WRONG.

This game isn't anywhere CLOSE to being how big fallout 3 was. Better stats and core gameplay? yes! But bigger? There is no way, shape, or form that new vegas is bigger than Fallout 3. You could take the explorable area in new vegas and it would fit in 40% of fallout 3's map//content//explorable locations//sites.

I miss levitation. Damn Traven. Anyway, uh...Fallout. Yeah. That's what we're supposed to be discussing.

I miss the metro system.

You mean the main map?
Cause that's what I meant, and in that case, you're wrong.
It's not a lot bigger than fallout 3's main map but it isn't that much smaller either.
The main map in both games are about the same size.
FO3 is bigger in the sense of explorable dungeons.
In that aspect New Vegas failed.
And glad I am for that.
Cause I absolutely hated the dungeons. :laugh: