ElkianLionblood

Gameplay: Stars Turned Face Up - makes every single Blue Star bottle cap have the star-side up to increase visibility. Fallout Overhaul Kit, or F.O.O.K - giant catch-all of bug fixes, restored content, adjustments, and added weapons, armor, recipes, food, etc. As someone who's not great with the nitty-gritty of modding, it's very convenient. Better Character Creation - Streamlined, lore-friendly character creation made to be a little faster. Cuts out the crack about your name (you can add it back if you want) and the psych tests become standard skill tagging. Also makes Wild Wasteland an option in the way of Hardcore mode rather than taking a Perk slot. Collision Meshes - tightens up Collision meshes to make shooting through gaps, etc. more viable. Precision Collision - Clutter: What it says on the tin. Gamplay (fun) Karmanaut - in-lore Karma adjustor. As discussed with my friend: "Wait, so this is just indulgences" "You can also make Karma go down" "...Undulgences" Snowglobe Perks - grants bonuses on pickup of Snowglobes (perks/traits remain even when the Snowglobe is removed from your inventory) ST Traits and Perks - adds a ton of Perks and Traits and modifies a few existing Perks. My favorite is "Family History". Haven't gotten far with this one yet but I love the idea. Cosmetic: Your Bloody Courier Clothes - A mix of different costumes, bloody and nonbloody, more in-line with the stated profession. Note that the clothes grant a +15 carrying capacity. Mojave Express Messenger Bag - What it says on the tin. Adds +25 carrying capacity, so can be a bit OP combined with the Courier uniform unless you have some way of turning that off. TFH's Bullet Scar Race - improves the Roleplay element by giving you a visible bullet wound, ranging from fully healed to freshly stitched, with multiple other options TFH's Rugged Race - I respect players who prefer the Barbie doll look but personally I like the improved immersion of gritty, more human-looking characters. YMMV, natch.

While mechanically it has its issues and graphically it can be unappealing (personally I'm fine with most of the vanilla graphics but there's tons of mods around to shake em up too), it really is a masterwork in RPG writing. Have you played Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic? In particular, KOTOR2 was made by Obsidian as well, and you can see some of the same hallmarks of their skills in that game. If you enjoyed KOTOR2, you will most definitely enjoy FNV. It took me a few attempts to really get into New Vegas - crashes and necessary modding to make it run on my PC was a bit of a turn-off - but once I got it, I really enjoyed it and kept coming back for more. It feels like there's always something new to explore and discover. The writing is rich and the characters feel like real, breathing people more often than not. The choices you make have real, lasting consequences and the game is surprisingly reactive, particularly considering it was made in 2010 on a hilariously truncated development schedule of 18 months. One of the best things, though, was when I completed my first full playthrough, I had made a character who was okay in combat, but skilled in Speech, Barter, and general Charisma stuff. I was able to reach the end of the game with this character, not because the combat was easy or the boss was weak (YMMV, there's tons of difficulty mods out there, don't @ me on this one), but because the development team planned for a scenario where a Charismatic character reached the end of the game. I was able to beat the final confrontation by playing the character I made, and it felt absolutely amazing. My next run was a feral cannibal (yes, that's an option) Lord Death Of Murder Mountain gremlin who yeets all her foes with her beefy arms. Both of these characters are completely viable. So if you really enjoy the role-playing part of RPGs, particularly making new and different characters in order to get new and different results, this is absolutely the game for you. It does have some cut content worth unlocking with the JSawyer mod or whatever, but the vanilla game as-is is incredibly deep and has a ton of fun packed away. The DLCs all have something going for them (Old World Blues is one of the best DLCs I've played. Not for New Vegas, just of video games at all) and, while unnecessary to understanding and enjoying the main game, they add a lot of lore that you get to have fun recognizing in the main story. I also really appreciate how smoothly the game integrates the tutorial into the story proper, to the point that I mentioned it to a friend who had several years and dozens of hours of play time over me and he went "OH, it IS a tutorial!" The tutorial quests are entirely optional and you can bug out at any time after character creation, which was a genius move because it allows both newbies and veterans to pick up wherever they like. It's also worth mentioning that every character (except children, Ron Perlman, and one very special later character) can die. Don't like someone's style? Blow em up! You are the master of your own destiny and no-one, not a single character in this game, is too important to die. That kind of control is really nice when you meet someone who is, for example, so rancid and terrible that your very first instinct is to shove a grenade down their throat. Mechanically, it's worth noting that this game grants you the option to play real-time or turn-based, sort of - there's an optional mechanism called Vault-Assisted Targeting System, or VATS, which allows you to completely halt all action, scan the accessible battle targets, and even aim for specific body parts and weapons while showing a hit %age. Now, actions taken in VATS eat up Action Points, which can be increased based on your stats and Perks and so on, so it's not limitless but it's very handy for people (like me) who aren't outstanding at FPSes, or don't like the specific FPS system in this game, or are trying for a specific action, or what have you. It's sometimes useful to line up a tricky shot and then take it outside of VATS bc VATS will not let you take a 0% shot that the physics engine may nonetheless allow you to achieve. In terms of Jank, there is some. Mechanically it was a bit of a buggy mess at release, apparently. I have to install the same technically-outdated graphics fix every run so that people have hair. Sometimes stuff clips irretrievably through the floor. My personal opinion is that the story, writing, and setting are so good that that doesn't ultimately matter in terms of enjoyment. Rarely if ever have I run into a bug that ruined a run for me, and again the modding community is pretty robust and bugfixes abound around here.