The main problem with New Vegas

[ProgsterJohn]

I felt moved to share some thoughts on New Vegas; having actually played it before playing Fallout Three. When I first played New Vegas I thought it was the best thing since, well, Elder Scrolls. I really love how they've mixed in a lot of different melieus in the game, and this is where the game shines. It's sort of the old west meets Howard Hughes meets Panic in the Year Zero meets Viva Las Vegas meets golden age scifi. How cool is that? At the end of the day though I thought both IGN and Gamespot where on target with giving New Vegas essentially a B/B+ rating and not an 'Editor's Choice' like Fallout Three. Although the New Vegas journey was mostly fun, I felt kind of let down at the end. By contrast I was in awe of the Fallout Three ending. In fact as the woman at IGN noted in her video review, some of the side quests in New Vegas were more fun and more compelling than the main quest. Therein lies the big problem with New Vegas and the challenge for modders. I think the main quest needs a serious reworking. For one thing, although on the face of it the war between the NCR and the Legion should be very cool (after all, it is reminiscent of Clint Eastwood and company trying to steer clear of the Union and the Confederates in the 'Good, Bad, and the Ugly'), it seems to be flawed in execution. For another, I've played all the endings except for the Legion, and they all seem pretty much the same. I hated all the running around and sometimes getting lost in the Hoover Dam labyrinth. Comparing the New Vegas ending to the awesome Fallout Three end fight involving Liberty Prime and the final scene reminiscent of Spock's sacrifice in 'Wrath of Khan', New Vegas comes up short. It's interesting to note that Obsidian did both New Vegas and Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic Two, and in both cases although these sequels were good and sometimes great, IMHO they fell well short of the original games. Again though, I think the challenge for the modding community is to either rework or marginalize the main quest and make New Vegas the great game it should have been. After all, by rights the New Vegas/Mojave environs should be a lot more interesting than the Washington DC area.

 

My two cents.

[kitkathy]

You should talk to my husband about helping you mod it better. That's all he talks about. I know he's been working on a mod for a long time now, and i've played it. I don;t know when its gonna be finished though. He doesn;t even tell me. :rolleyes:

 

byebye

[ProgsterJohn]

Hey KitKathy,

 

Is your hubby doing a re-working of the main quest? Again, I think it's the rather weak main quest that keeps FNV from being the truly great game it should be. I dunno, I think probably the easiest way to fix the game would be just to extend it so it doesn't end after the main quest is completed, and then add a bunch of user-created quests to the game. Of course the big problem with the main quest is that, unlike the Fallout3 ending, the FNV ending severely upsets the delicate status quo between the various factions. For instance, if you side with Mr House he destroys the Kings at the end whether you liked the Kings or not.

Edited April 4, 2011 by ProgsterJohn

[evilneko]

And the FO3 main quest ending doesn't upset the balance? Riiiight. :rolleyes:

 

Do agree about the main quest in NV though: why should the Courier either pursue the guy who shot him/her, or essentially become any side's point man?

 

That's why my NV character had other motivations to go after the guy (which I guess could also apply to the vanilla Courier, but only if he was that dedicated to his job). But she really doesn't care about the power struggle much, and probably won't ever finish the main quest.

[ProgsterJohn]

Good point EvilNeko,

 

To be be fair the FO3 ending does upset the balance of power a little, but not as radically as it does in FNV. I think this may be because of the tricky balancing act in FNV with the faction reputations. Although the faction reputations in FNV was a nice addition to the game, it's kind of a two-edged sword because now the political situation is a lot trickier to manage and more easily upset, from both the modder and the player's perspective. I think though the point I was trying to make was that as the games stand now it seems much more natural to continue FO3 after the main quest than it would with FNV. FO3 to me seems more open-ended and thus easier to work with.

 

BTW, interesting you should mention the main character motivations in FNV. One person noted on a forum how he felt that character development in FO3 was much more interesting than in FNV because in FO3 you start out the day you were born and by the time you leave Vault101 you already have a substantial back story and you care about your main character. Whereas in FNV you wake up with amnesia and nothing more than a vague idea about going after the guy who tried to do you in.

 

Anyway, I'm currently playing my first heavily modded game of FO3, and it is amazing! Probably the best, most personal and intense game I've ever played. All the new visuals and the Fallout Wanderer's Edition mod make a huge difference. Again though I would say that I loved the FNV milieu/setting, and it seems to me that some good modders could really go to town with it if they could just get around (or marginalize) the main quest. I think you might have the right idea about just ignoring the main FNV quest after a certain point. IMHO it ceased to be interesting after the meeting with Mr. House.

Edited April 5, 2011 by ProgsterJohn

[greenknightfury]

BTW, interesting you should mention the main character motivations in FNV. One person noted on a forum how he felt that character development in FO3 was much more interesting than in FNV because in FO3 you start out the day you were born and by the time you leave Vault101 you already have a substantial back story and you care about your main character. Whereas in FNV you wake up with amnesia and nothing more than a vague idea about going after the guy who tried to do you in.

 

 

 

The truly annoying thing is that they decided to officially say "The Courier doesn't have amnesia" after writing a game full of character dialog that makes it obvious you DO have amnesia (and that Doc is apparently a very poor plastic surgeon that messed up your face) since you don't even recognize the guy that GAVE you the package, Nash. (and Doc is a bad plastic surgeon because despite his dialog indicating he knows you well, he doesn't recognize you either)

 

There's also the convo with Veronica where you tell her you aren't sure where you are from because *you have amnesia from being shot in the head*. Not to mention the fact you should know about the locations in the Mojave, being a Courier there for years (a quite famous one) given the story they give in LR.

 

Of course anyone that read all the terminals in Vault 86 in FO3 know that the "official statements" contradict the in-game lore often enough, like how the terminals make it clear Fawkes was a female in the Vault that got experimented on after rejecting the head researcher, while the official statements say that Fawkes is male. Or

how they said that Nightstalkers are the product of Big MT. even though the terminals in Big MT. make it clear they were like that when they were taken from the Mojave for cyberdog conversion, they decided to study these odd mutants once they realized how odd they were.

 

Edited July 30, 2014 by greenknightfury