I remember when I saw New Vegas on my first play through for the first time.

It was night. I distinctly remember the brilliant lights under the dark sky. It's the moment I fell in love with Fallout:New Vegas and the Fallout series in general.

Discribe your first experience seeing the strip..can be any impression: good or bad.

I waited for this.

A night full of stars, even thought they slowly disappeared due to New Vegas' lights.
As soon as I entered, I felt as I was part of The Life: I made it inside, I was one of the ''winners''.
Slowly all the excitement flew away with the song in the background...

''My head keeps spinning, I go to sleep and keep grinning, if this is just the beginning, my life is gonna be beautiful...''

Then Benny came back into my mind.

Though it's not as impressive as it could be through being seperated into different cells, and less NPCs, it's such a contrast to the rest of the Mojave that it's still impressive and an unforgettable experience. In the words of Felix Leiter in the novel Diamonds are Forever: “Boy, you've seen nothing until you've seen that Strip. Five solid miles of gambling joints. Neon lighting that makes Broadway look like a kid's Christmas tree.”

I also first saw it at night. It was a big moment, felt like I had really accomplished something.

And then the game REALLY got into gear.

I Expected it to be bigger, but it was still cool to see.

I wanted to see more neon/marquee signs, just to give it more flash.

I think I was surprised to see things still going on as it is in the real world Las Vegas. Then again, I felt the robots were a bit much.

I lived in Las Vegas as a teenager so the game version looked small and unimaginative.

THIS. This was near exactly what I felt. For 15 levels I had scrounged and suffered in the dessert and now I was HERE. The gem of the wasteland. The land of the proverbial "them." But in the midst of this, I longed to find Benny.

I was disappointed

but Zion was absolutely stunning.

Zion took my breath away. Still does.

The beauty of New Vegas existed for me in part of it's visual design but also just the feeling that is achieved by being somewhere completely outside anywhere else in the game. Zion has the same affect, just using natural phenomena.

All I could think was "Is this real grass?"

Underwhelming for me. Seeing lots and lots of videos featuring the real Vegas strip, this one was kind of sad, by comparison.

I was pretty high level my first time when i got to the strip, so when i was attacked by the thugs i had to laugh a bit, the ambush in the alley was pretty interesting and standing at the gate while the Bots shot down the guy trying to run in had me in stitches. But yeah the first time on the strip was pretty epic. Though my first time getting there at level 1 was what i recall the most, crap armor a 9mm pistol and a badly damaged lever action shotgun and 5 rounds(from the destroyed caravan). Then walked out of casinos with so many caps after braking the bank i did not even know what to buy first lol. I was the baddest level 2 guy though, free combat armor as well. Loved the first look at the casinos, stepping inside and getting a small glimse of what the old world looked like was pretty neat. First time meeting house and realizing what he was, kind of made the game very very epic.

I agree with the comments about Zion. Just the fact that it was raining was a wonderful surprise, and the scenery was beautiful. An incredible area to explore.

Underwhelming for me, probably because Vegas is not somewhere I'd ever want to go.

I wish I had been running the strip open main mod on my first trip. All those doors and loading screens drove me crazy.

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/528388899091305889/8F5CEBEEF89604E34ED93C80C3F53D30E0948AAD/

The gate separation made it seem smaller than it already was, and the fact that it was pretty linear kinda svcked. But, it was nice to be welcomed with all the neon lights and comparing it to my struggle in the wasteland made me feel like I accomplished something (even though it wasn't much).

It depends. Do you mean from afar or on The Strip proper?

Afar: I'd gotten the CE at midnight release and had been playing the game for a day or two taking it all in going down 'The Loop' most players likely go through. It was night at the 188 before any patches came out, so there was still an NPC who mentions losing the close off his back there. Then I go over the hill from him and see The Strip close enough it made me appreciate just what Obsidian did with Bethesda's outdated engine, especially since many of them had never used Gamebryo or Beth's kind of Gamebryo before. It made me eager to finally get out of the desert and see The Strip.

The Strip: My first impression was a mixture of appreciation and disappointment: Appreciation because it was beautiful to see such a marvelous slice of Pre-War comfort alive in such a desolate world like Fallout. Disappointment because, as I'd been following the game's progress religiously pre-release, the Strip being segmented was disappointing compared to the E3 beta model with an open strip. Of course, this is because of technical problems, but either way, I still love The Strip.

At first, was I pretty disappointed as well because I thought it would be bigger, in regards to being more open with less gates for loading screens. But eventually you forget about it and it grows on you, and appreciate it as an awesome location in Fallout.

Just wondering, maybe in the Fallout universe Vegas never grew as large as it is in our universe, explaining why it's not very large in FNV?

I chalk it up to story vs gameplay segregation. IE: It would have taken time and resources Obsidian didn't have due to their strict time schedule.

That and the fact that not ALL of New Vegas was protected. The 'heart' of New Vegas was but 'Outer Vegas' got hit pretty bad.

Yes and no. None of Las Vegas was hit and destroyed more through dereliction and societal collapse than atomic bombs. However, if you look around the game you can find some of the warhead crates from the ones that managed to slip past Mr. House's missile defense grid.

The comments about the gates makes sense to me. I think that may have artificially helped make The Strip "seem tiny."

I just took my lvl 3 burglar up there, across the great desert, even managed to kill two deathclaws, snuck past Black Mountain, now I'm on Freeside.