So I started a new game (my husband's has the only other saved game) and things were fine at first until I got to the quest, Fire By A Trail or something like that (one of the first quests where I have to find Broc Flower and Xander Root). When I got to the graveyard to find the Broc Flower the first thing I noticed was that it wasn't there -- didn't matter where I looked, what time I looked, etc. it just wasn't there. While I was looking I noticed a glitch over the pile of cigarette butts near the open grave. Finally I decided to just keep going, and that's when I noticed another glitch in town where the saloon is. Whatever, ran past that and started to head to Primm for the other quest. Once I hit the sign pointing me to Primm and heard gunshots, that's when things froze on me. I literally could do nothing -- I couldn't even turn off the console from my controller. I'm not sure if this is all the games fault or not, but I know that the glitches from the quest was not from the PS3 itself. My husband has played his game without much of a problem; maybe a glitch here or there, but nothing major that he could see. I just wanted to let someone, anyone, know the issue I had with this game and see if they had any input on the matter.

Funny fact: This is the first time I've played a video game in well over a year. Go figure it craps out on me! Haha

sorry about your luck, the reason the game freezes up a lot(especially when your far into the game and your save file is around 8-10MB) is because of the software used to make the game, Gamebryo. For some reason, either because of the extra features of New Vegas(like multiple endings, modified weapons, crafting and recipes, etc) or because of half-assed programming, issues are far more present in NV than Fallout 3. Things like the Broc flower glitch are scripting errors, and can be fixed through a patch, however we haven't heard any news from Gstaff that they're at least working on it, so it could be awhile....

Unfortunately, there's nothing that really fixes this. I have a thread titled "For people with freezing issues" in this sub-forum, which helped some people, including me, with crashes/freezing. Please note that it doesn't help everyone, but there's nothing to lose by at least trying it. a bonus is if you choose to restore your file system you'll clean up any corrupted files that are stored on your system.

For things like bugs and glitches the best you can do is make a lot of multiple saves instead of overwriting your previous one, so if there is a scripting error you can go back to a previous save and re-trigger the script(for example, you go to talk to an NPC to trigger a quest from them, but the only speech options are "goodbye". reloading a previous save from an hour or two before may fix this.)

Some good news: Bethesda is discontinuing using the Gamebryo software in future titles. but that doesn't really help the people who have purchased this mess.

Hope something works for you.

Also, to safely turn off your system after a crash(or freeze, they're the same, really) just press the power button a single time and patiently wait for the system to turn itself off. It may take a couple minutes,I've had to wait about 10 minutes once for it to turn off, but it's the safest way to do it. your system is completely unresponsive after a crash, so you wouldn't be able to bring up the XMB or the black screen that comes up after holding down the PS3 button on the controller.

Finished my first playthrough a couple of days ago, 49 hours. During that time I had roughly 6 or 7 freezes requiring a full system restart and numerous glitches. Just started a second playthrough, less than 2 hours in I got my first freeze and a glitch where my gun disappears in first-person view.

I don't think I'm going to play it again until a patch is released.

I'm about 45 hours in and probably have another 10 or so more if I get back on main quest. When I started NV over the Christmas break, I obviously had to install the patch immediately. The first 15 hours, I must have had this happen over a dozen times - then it got better and all was good. I had turned off the wireless on the PS3, so I'm not signing in when I boot up. Maybe that has helped, I also never listen to the radio.

Though it did freeze on me the other night when I played, a little over an hour into it.

EDIT: To clarify, each time the game froze I had to turn the PS3 off manually, DS3 does nothing, press power off and a few seconds later the PS3 rapidly beeps a few times then shuts off.

Same problem so sad