Fallout: New Vegas

[Mightynute]

I tend to stick with small arms, just because they’re cooler. The only energy weapons or super-tech I use with any regularity are the Gauss Rifle (against Albino Radscorpions because the knockdown effect keeps them at a distance) and Tri-Beam Laser Rifles when going up against the Super-Duper Mutants that carry them (VATS-target their weapon to disarm them, run up and grab it, run away and shoot them with their own gun).

Otherwise, nothing tops the Terrible Shotgun or the Point Lookout old-school rifles for coolness factor. It’s just more fun that way for me.

[TurinTur]

Other than that I think the game is horribly mediocre. But more on that later.

Ouch.
Don’t do that to me!

[Lizard_King]

Interesting; that was kinda true on my first playthrough of FO3 but on the second and third go throughs I found scads of laser rifles/pistols, and once you hit the Mothership it’s all alien tech anyhow for the rest of the game. Chinese Assault Rifles I still find hard to find though.

I never had trouble finding ammunition or resupplies for any weapon I liked (Chinese Assault rifles were plentiful with the mid tier supermutants), especially above level 10 or so. The biggest obstacle was always the weight of big guns themselves, but I just treated ammo as a more useful system of currency thanks to the broken weight system. Naturally, mileage may vary depending on your play style…I’m ocd about exploration, containers, and theft.

[Murbella]

Small arms were plentiful and had good power and applicability to a lot of situations. Energy weapons were cool, but I wasn’t able to find them in a sufficient quantity to rely on them as my mainstay weapons until later in the game, any by then I’d focused on what I was able to keep in supply: small arms. Explosives are similar in that they’re good for some encounters, but a lot of the time they’re impractical, whether because of splash damage, ammo availability or weight. We’ll see how it goes in New Vegas I suppose, but I expect to find plenty of assault rifles, pistols, and repeaters.

Of course it is to be expected that energy weapons and their ammo are rarer than small arms, but this was balanced in previous games by energy weapons generally being more powerful (other than small arms which had even rarer ammo). This is just not the case in fallout 3 where small arms are both MUCH more common and better. You end up asking yourself why you’re trying so hard to get batteries for your expensive energy weapon that is worse than the assault rifle you just found and everyone drops free ammo for.

I didn’t play most of the dlc so maybe there was some super duper energy gun in one of those, but in vanilla FO3, this is undoubtedly the case.

[MSUSteve]

This is just not the case in fallout 3 where small arms are both MUCH more common and better. You end up asking yourself why you’re trying so hard to get batteries for your expensive energy weapon that is worse than the assault rifle you just found and everyone drops free ammo for.

I didn’t play most of the dlc so maybe there was some super duper energy gun in one of those, but in vanilla FO3, this is undoubtedly the case.

You’ve got the right of it Murbella. Eventually, through playing all the DLC I was able to max out most of the weapon categories, including energy weapons. TheWombat is right about Mothership Zeta, which contained tons of energy weapons. I was glad I had leveled that skill when I went through that DLC because if I recall there isn’t much else to use. But as you said, I never found energy weapons to be worth the trouble as compared to the Chinese Assault Rifle, Terrible Shotgun, and Lincoln’s Repeater.

[OblivionSHO]

October 18, 2010 (Rockville, MD) – Bethesda Softworks®, a ZeniMax® Media company, today announced plans to develop add-on content for Fallout®: New Vegas™, the follow-up to the 2008 Game of the Year, Fallout® 3. The first downloadable content for Fallout: New Vegas will be available this holiday season through Xbox LIVE® for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft.

“We’re excited to continue the partnership between Bethesda and Microsoft, and build on the success of the game add-ons released for Fallout 3 on Xbox LIVE,” said Pete Hines, VP of Marketing and PR of Bethesda Softworks. “Fans will once again be able to continue their experience in the Fallout universe with the add-on packs planned for after the launch of the game.”
Fallout: New Vegas brings this beloved franchise to a location only Fallout could do justice: Vegas. Fallout: New Vegas takes all the action, humor and post-apocalyptic grime and grit of this legendary series, and raises the stakes.

DLC exclusive for the Xbox 360? Looks like the G.O.T.Y. edition is already starting to look like a good buy.

[MSUSteve]

DLC exclusive for the Xbox 360? Looks like the G.O.T.Y. edition is already starting to look like a good buy.

Except for that whole waiting a year to play the game part.

Glad to hear they’re going to support New Vegas like they did with Fallout 3. I played and enjoyed all of the DLC packs released for Fallout 3. Hopefully they don’t release a relative stinker like Operation Anchorage for their first offering. While I still enjoyed that DLC, it was definitely my least favorite.

[OblivionSHO]

Except for that whole waiting a year to play the game part.

Glad to hear they’re going to support New Vegas like they did with Fallout 3. I played and enjoyed all of the DLC packs released for Fallout 3. Hopefully they don’t release a relative stinker like Operation Anchorage for their first offering. While I still enjoyed that DLC, it was definitely my least favorite.

Sure, but it would be nice if they showed some support for the PC and PS3 players of their game. This exclusive DLC crap is irritating. I know that eventually, they will probably release the DLC on the other platforms, but who knows.

[MattKeil]

Someone paid for shipping to GameStop. I guess I was brought up differently. But this isn’t the time/place for this discussion, so back to FO:NV…

And someone paid $60 for a new game and got $20 in trade for it three days later, only for Gamestop to sell it for $54 used immediately after. A strong argument could be made that anything done to stick it to Gamestop is simply turnabout being fair play.

[Briosafreak]

Sure, but it would be nice if they showed some support for the PC and PS3 players of their game. This exclusive DLC crap is irritating. I know that eventually, they will probably release the DLC on the other platforms, but who knows.

The DLC will be released for the PC for sure, the tab inside the New Vegas main menu already works

[Paul_cze]

At least this time around, when it actually is released, we will not have to suffer the abomination that is GFWL…
Still, it sucks it will be exclusive, even if just timed.

[Adam_Sensoy]

Look, I played Fallout 3 on the Xbox 360. This isn’t like that. I hate to disappoint you guys, and I know what it’s like to hear bad things about a game you’re psyched to play, but what I’m experiencing with Fallout New Vegas is a whole other ballgame in terms of being a technical mess.

For instance, I’m at a part now trying to move through really close quarters dotted with monster closets (nicely explained in the in-game fiction, BTW). If I use my Incinerator, which is a flamethrower perfect for this situation and currently my weapon of choice, it locks the game up. Every single time. Without fail. This is repeatable. Clearing the system cache does diddly to address the problem. Therefore, my high science, high energy weapon dude gets to work his way through Vault 22 with a laser rifle he normally uses for longer range engagements. Yay. Great. Thanks. Can’t wait to see what other stuff is so thoroughly borked.

I don’t really care whose fault it is, but this is pretty damn frustrating and not the sort of thing I’d expect from a game that isn’t called, I dunno, Gothic.

 -Tom

Wait, wait! Another Obsidian game that’s not polished and full of bugs? Who would have thought??

Disclaimer: I like Obsidian’s games, a lot. It’s just that this seems to be a pattern.

[Raife]

And someone paid $60 for a new game and got $20 in trade for it three days later, only for Gamestop to sell it for $54 used immediately after. A strong argument could be made that anything done to stick it to Gamestop is simply turnabout being fair play.

I stopped in a mall EB yesterday to ask when New Vegas was coming out, and the guy said Tuesday. He immediately asked if I wanted to pre-order it, and I said no. He regaled me with wild tales of free bonuses for pre-ordering, bonuses worth a lot of money. “Don’t you like to getting cool bonuses?” he said. I said no. Then he tried to get me to join their gaming club where apparently you get discounts at the store. Again I said no, and he said, “Oh, that’s right, you don’t like cool stuff or saving money.” I responded, “Absolutely not, I like to spend as much as I possibly can for everything. That’s why I’m in here.” and left.

What a jackass. It only confirmed why I hate those two stores.

[greg_wak]

Wait, wait! Another Obsidian game that’s not polished and full of bugs? Who would have thought??

Disclaimer: I like Obsidian’s games, a lot. It’s just that this seems to be a pattern.

Tom has said this has a lot of techincal issues over on Fidgit. I don’t quite get how this can happen a lot with an existing engine.

[TimJames]

I stopped in a mall EB yesterday to ask when New Vegas was coming out, and the guy said Tuesday. He immediately asked if I wanted to pre-order it, and I said no. He regaled me with wild tales of free bonuses for pre-ordering, bonuses worth a lot of money. “Don’t you like to getting cool bonuses?” he said. I said no. Then he tried to get me to join their gaming club where apparently you get discounts at the store. Again I said no, and he said, “Oh, that’s right, you don’t like cool stuff or saving money.” I responded, “Absolutely not, I like to spend as much as I possibly can for everything. That’s why I’m in here.” and left.

What a jackass. It only confirmed why I hate those two stores.

Should have called him a shitbag.

[MSUSteve]

Again I said no, and he said, “Oh, that’s right, you don’t like cool stuff or saving money.” I responded, “Absolutely not, I like to spend as much as I possibly can for everything. That’s why I’m in here.” and left. .

Did you really say that? Great response!

[Miramon]

Wait, wait! Another Obsidian game that’s not polished and full of bugs? Who would have thought??

Disclaimer: I like Obsidian’s games, a lot. It’s just that this seems to be a pattern.

This has been the pattern even in previous incarnations back in the Interplay and Black Isle days. How long did it take before Fallout 2 worked properly? I got it after the last official patch, and even then there were plenty of silly bugs.

And of all the games with broken 3D that allow you to fall through the walls of the world and be trapped forever on the wrong side of the surface normals, you’d have to rank:

1. Daggerfall
2. Every game from Obsidian
   …
   m. 3D games from Bioware
   …
   n. Other games

So Obsidian have not yet managed to match Bethesda’s amazing fall-through-the-walls tour-de-force of 1996, but they are a strong placing contender, and of course, who are they working with on this game? And who did they work with on their last collaborative license? Ha.

[TurinTur]

Tom has said this has a lot of techincal issues over on Fidgit. I don’t quite get how this can happen a lot with an existing engine.

Answer: bad engine.

[MSUSteve]

I’m hoping that at some point Bethsoft starts relying on id for its engine tech. As much as I’ve loved all of their games since Morrowind, they’ve never been technical marvels. Of course, that might just be part and parcel with making open world games of this size. I dunno.

[MattKeil]

I’m hoping that at some point Bethsoft starts relying on id for its engine tech.

I have to assume that’s, like, the point of buying them to a large degree. Elder Scrolls 5 on the Rage engine, please.