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I have to agree. Pathing bugs, poor companion implementation, and overused of invisible walls are all far easier to fix in patches than shoddy writing, poor voice-acting, and dull quest design.

Oh, and for anyone doing the ultra-luxe mission related to Ted Gunderson, there's a neat little CSI Miami reference.

Are there Fallout 2 references?

Also in Novac is a named NPC who apparently used to be a Vertibird pilot whose plan went down due to a busted rotor in Klamath. If asked how long she worked with NCR, she says "I didn't exactly work with them... it was a long time ago!"

Guess that burned corpse WASN'T the pilots...

Well, it seems the MUST HAVE skills to get the best results in various dialogues/quests are the following: Barter, Repair, Science, and Speech. Lockpicking, Firearms, and Explosives make up my choices for the Seven Skills every courier needs.

hey with wild wasteland I managed to find a refridgerator with a skelteton inside with a certain fedora, da-da-da-da-da-dum

Well, I just finished my first playthrough. Guns/Speech NCR without Wild Wasteland. The Legate, uh, was not really a challenge. 12 .308 JSP's to the face finished him off. I think if you pick the Retire option you can keep playing, but I'm not really sure because I picked 'keep travelling'.

As for the rest of the set piece? I'm actually really disappointed. I mean, yeah, it makes sense to strike from an open intake, but the fights just seemed too small. This is supposed to be a truly epic battle, the post-apocalyptic Fulda Gap (well, sort of), and all it is is, what, maybe 200 guys a side? Hell, the Great Khans (recruited in my run) sent exactly two men.

Now that's not to say it wasn't a nice set piece and I'm sure engine limitations (also just plain technology limitations to keep older systems basically catching fire trying to render a thousands-man battle) played a part in the small scale. The Boomer's bomber flying overhead was a goddamn beautiful sight, for instance, even if it'd have some pretty serious ramifications for the power balance in what seems increasingly likely - an NCR civil war.

Edit:
How could I forget the ending voiceover slideshow? It's nice to have that back properly.

About halfway through the game now, just stopped by Repconn HQ and picked up my Q-35 matter modulator and it's so much better than the Tri-Beam I was using before. Also, Jury-Rigging is a godsend.

I love Caravan so much. Buy as much crap from a store owner that plays Caravan. Then play Caravan with them and its like you didn't spend anything at all.

Victor....creeps me out.

I just picked up ED-E, so I'm not very far in the game.

BTW, why did they introduce an update that doesn't allow you to add cards to your deck?

AMT wrote:

Are there Fallout 2 references?

Also in Novac is a named NPC who apparently used to be a Vertibird pilot whose plan went down due to a busted rotor in Klamath. If asked how long she worked with NCR, she says "I didn't exactly work with them... it was a long time ago!"

Guess that burned corpse WASN'T the pilots...

There's a direct mention of Arroyo if you go to Jacobstown to get Rex's brain fixed.

AMT wrote:

Are there Fallout 2 references?

Also in Novac is a named NPC who apparently used to be a Vertibird pilot whose plan went down due to a busted rotor in Klamath. If asked how long she worked with NCR, she says "I didn't exactly work with them... it was a long time ago!"

Guess that burned corpse WASN'T the pilots...

She worked for another organisation that has vertibirds. Go Figure.

Way to miss the point completely, Ray.

I'm enjoying New Vegas. Despite the bugs. Of which there are many. I just failed "Bye Bye Love" because it's so buggy for me that it's impossible to finish it. So I shot the quest-giver in the head and moved on, so I don't have an unfinished quest sitting in my quest log. As another aside, I absolutely love my silenced 10mm. You can kill people right in the open, with all their friends around, and as long as you're hidden when you pull the trigger, nobody cares. It's great.

She worked for another organisation that has vertibirds. Go Figure.

Duh? I guess she worked for the Shi then, since they stole the plans. Or the BOS right? :-p

Bought it three days ago, beat it now.

I think the best way to compare this game with Fallout 3 is in the context of the original duology -- Fallout 1 and 2.

Fallout 1 and Fallout 3 were the leaders. In FO1's case, it was to prove that a modern remake of Wasteland could be done; and that CRPGs weren't dead -- oh, and to do it in something not like dungeons and dragons.

In FO3's case, it was to prove that the mainline RPG series could be revived after ten years and several failed spinoffs (Tactics in 2000~ and a console game in 2004). It also had the extra burden of trying to prove that Fallout could be done first person style, and that it could succeed in a much different market than the original Fallout.

They both did it pretty well, good enough for sequels to be released that could take advantage of engine maturity to deepen the world -- while the Mojave Wasteland is smaller than the Capital Wasteland; there are more quests to do; and less 'orphaned' areas that exist just to act as map markers as you tread the wastes.

The skills have been streamlined -- for example big guns and small guns got combined into "Guns", which makes sense -- and a very conscious effort was made during the design/writing process to ensure that more skills were actually used during the game; rather than just a couple like in Fallout 3.

There are some unique innovations that were sorely needed in FO3; but they don't last that long -- for example, we got reloading benches and surplus ammo; but on normal difficulty, you only need them for the first few hours of gameplay or so, until you kill enough people to start getting a nice cash flow in.

Likewise; the weapon modifications sound nice at first, then you realize how limited they are compared to Weapon Mod Kit (WMK) for Fallout 3 in that there are only a few types of mods available for each weapon in New Vegas -- for example scopes are limited to a few types of guns to prevent other guns in the game from becoming pointless.

It would have been better to have it based around components like the reloading bench and the campfire -- I found a nice low power scope in some ruins and here's some scrap metal to fashion a mount from it -- and presto you have a custom fitted scope for your gun.

This of course, would have meant less guns in the game -- but I felt that while it was nice to have a bit more variety than the 1 million ten millimeter pistols that inhabited Fallout 3, it ended up being a bit like like the endless avalanche of reskinned guns in JA2.

It also felt odd having the reloading bench capability of breaking down ammo and making ammo; but not being able to modify your guns to fire non-standard calibers through permanent modifications or conversion kits.

The steady emphasis on "small towns" of a couple shacks and at best six people is annoying -- I'd rather lose a couple of 'towns' in order to make the remainder bigger with more NPCs.

But my biggest gripe with New Vegas is the same gripe I had with Fallout 3 -- there's no fine grained fast travel, you have to travel to big top level points on the map; but you can't travel rapidly to specific points within each area.

I don't want to waste my time going back and forth in the various "neighborhoods" of Vegas once I've visited them once -- I should be able to simply click on the top level map icon for BigTown, which then expands into a constellation of low level icons for the Hotel, Gun Store, Police Station, etc etc.

The same thing could be applied to the various caves and whatnot that you visit, once you've cleared that part of enemies and visited the exit points -- if you revisit them in the future, it can get pretty confusing, their twists and turns in the first person view -- something that was not a problem in the isometric view of FO1/2.

So I just tried it out. First thing I noticed was that they still haven't fixed the fucking aspect ratio issue for the PS3. -_-

Pretty neat so far, although the next thing I realized was that you can loot the good doctor's home for all he's worth without anybody caring (including him). That set me up with about 300 caps to start.

Next I had the pleasure of experiencing the Radscorpion Quartet in EARGH minor. My guess is I'm not supposed to go that way yet. :V

The uniforms thing is kind of neat. Did anybody bother trying to negotiate with the Powder gang, or did you just kill any you encounter like I did?

yes, there's a sequence of three missions for the powder gangers.

still miss my scoped varmit rifle from my first run through....

Gauss Rifle.

Is so good.

I love it. I especially love the way it just sends shit fucking flying backwards when it kills them. Really makes the weapon feel powerful... it is my new favourite gun.

Until I find something cooler.

I've found a way to kill the damn radscorp/nightkin rape swarms

incinerator, short controlled bursts, running backwards, while healing constantly...

... I charged towards them wielding a chainsaw and laughing like a madman. Of course, I'd dose up on Med-X, Buffout and Psycho before hand. Crazy fun.

EDIT: Before I came up with the idea of charging them head-on in a drug-fueled chainsaw massacre, though, my own tactic was running backwards and spraying them with Laser RCW fire. The chainsaw is just so much more satisfying, though.

Dude. Mix some Slasher up. One dose, both Med-X and Psycho.

I'm terrifyingly unorginal. I just slink around with a hunting rifle or my new favorite, the unique Garand, tag-teaming things with Boone.

One thing I don't understand about psycho, when it says 25% damage increase, does that mean bullets somehow, or just melee?

Chaotic Neutral wrote:One thing I don't understand about psycho, when it says 25% damage increase, does that mean bullets somehow, or just melee?

Everything. Don't try and understand, just fire up the angry juice.

Brother-Captain Gaius wrote:I'm terrifyingly unorginal. I just slink around with a hunting rifle or my new favorite, the unique Garand, tag-teaming things with Boone.

If you don't already have it, take the Hand Loader perk. .308 JSPs are 150% damage with no increase in enemy DT. They work beautifully on everything.

Ryan Thunder wrote:So I just tried it out. First thing I noticed was that they still haven't fixed the fucking aspect ratio issue for the PS3. -_-

Pretty neat so far, although the next thing I realized was that you can loot the good doctor's home for all he's worth without anybody caring (including him). That set me up with about 300 caps to start.

Next I had the pleasure of experiencing the Radscorpion Quartet in EARGH minor. My guess is I'm not supposed to go that way yet. :V

The uniforms thing is kind of neat. Did anybody bother trying to negotiate with the Powder gang, or did you just kill any you encounter like I did?

I rescued the Powder Gang captives from the Legion but otherwise I slaughtered the shit out of them. I even went to their prison and started killing off their leaders.

If only uniforms worked on small time gangs. Ah well, only small group that hates me is the Powder ganger, because there's basically no black/white to them.

Same with the Legion, do they have any redeeming qualities? All I've seen is: "Murder dudes for disloyalty, enslave people and act like total jackasses."