Fallout: New Vegas

If there’s one thing to be said about Fallout: New Vegas, it’s that the game has a panache all its own. That’s incredibly impressive, given New Vegas’ pedigree.

New Vegas’ bloodline needs little introduction: Bethesda’s Fallout 3, Black Isle’s Fallout and Fallout 2, not to mention spin-offs like Fallout: Tactics and another that shan’t be named. It’d be easy to link dozens of elements in those games with Fallout: New Vegas, but New Vegas has defied the odds by having a distinct personality all its own. In fact, the most fitting nickname for New Vegas is “Mr. Personality”. It’s charming, but it’s kind of ugly: it’s still riddled with bugs several months after release. Many of which will be frustrating and baffling.

With that said, Fallout: New Vegas starts strong.

The game opens up in a dusty western town, complete with folksy doctor, saloon, and tumbleweeds. The main character (known as The Courier) has lived through a gunshot to the head, and being the complete badass that he is, skips the rehab and promptly jogs out of the doctor’s office on a quest to take his revenge on the guy that brained him. Or, you know, talk his way out of violence completely.

This entry stays true to the originals in that a pacifist character is viable, but you’ll probably murder someone at some point. For a male character, there are several perks you can take that help you achieve almost complete Gandhi-ism. For instance, the “Confirmed Bachelor” and “Lady Killer” perks unlock special dialogue options ranging from discreet sexual come-ons to things that would probably get you smacked at a strip club. Succeed at seducing, and you’ll save yourself a lot of fighting, or running around. Also, Gandhi was a gigolo, right?

All-in-all, New Vegas does dialogue extremely well. The writing can be witty or vulgar, but it’s always interesting. There are a lot of options for role-playing too, which never hurts. The voice acting leaves something to be desired, even with all the big-name cameos. The other thing this game does well is creating an incredible sense of setting.

Wandering around the Mojave Wasteland, there are a ton of places to explore and discover. Chances are the average player might only discover half of them in a single playthrough. There’s so many nooks and crannies, it can almost be overwhelming at times. There’s also a very western feel to this game. The Courier can be outfitted with different cowboy hats, six-shooters, lever-action rifles, and several other items that really give the game an old-west look. A lot of the NPCs further reinforce that setting with their dialogue (for example, scavengers refer to themselves as “prospectors”).

With that in mind, the presence of 50s-esque robots, rays guns, and space suits would seem like they’d be jarring to the senses, but that is not so. For some reason, those things just work. They add to the overall kookiness in New Vegas and further reinforce the game’s magnetic, yet strange personality.

Fallout’s trademark weirdness comes into full view pretty quick. For instance, the second town the Courier comes across, Primm, has been overrun by a local gang. All of the town’s inhabitants are holed up in a casino in the center of town, dug in against the gang, who are now running things outside. The Courier is tasked with clearing the gang out – a pretty standard RPG quest. But after that’s done, the real fun starts.

The town’s former sheriff was killed in his sleep, and no old-west town can function without a sheriff, of course. Why,without a sheriff, there’d be no one to swagger into the local saloon and happy-slap the riffraff! Naturally, the townsfolk turn to the Courier to solve their problems. They lay out three candidates, one from the bureaucratic NCR, one former sheriff who is incarcerated in the local prison, and one robot. The Courier then has to convince one of the candidates to become sheriff.

This robot isn’t the cool kind of robot you’d see from Star Trek or Terminator. He’s the kind of robot that was picked on at robot school. Go with the robot, and you’ll consign Primm to the cold, logical rule of a robot sheriff. It’s pretty rad. Only the Fallout series has the personality to pull that off.

Keep roaming the Mojave and The Courier hit the town New Vegas. At this point, the game sort of awkwardly changes gears from crazy post-apocalyptic western, to post-apocalyptic. It’s almost as if the game’s designers were having too much fun with the western part of the game, then remembered that this is supposed to be Fallout. “Time to cut back on the cowboy hats, and shoe-horn in some power-armor, vaults, and vaguely Mad Max looking gangs for good measure,” they surely said.

It’s not that there’s something to hate about the Fallout formula. New Vegas managed to delightfully stray from that formula, but then seemed to pull itself back into the safety net of previous Fallout games. Because of this, and some nasty bugs, New Vegas felt like a rush-job – a game that could have been great, but merely settled for good enough.

In the end, Fallout: New Vegas is worth the time to play it. Everyone should experience the trippy melding of 50s western and 50s sci-fi, with a dash of rat-pack. They work so well together. Just beware that what New Vegas offers isn’t perfect.