I love Fallout: New Vegas. There is so much to see, so much to do, and so many ways to go about it. I love the way it looks, I love the way it sounds, I love the atmosphere and the script and the Wild Wasteland trait. I've played hundreds of hours of this game across so many different characters, all of the DLC, several times over. I'd give you an exact number, but sometimes I get twitchy and decide that my new character is my new "main", and thus I delete my old "main". I still don't know why I do that.

I just recently finished Lonesome Road, the latest DLC (which I thoroughly enjoyed), but mere minutes ago I had my fill of this game. After who knows how many patches, the PS3 version still has these MAJOR issues:

1. Random frame rate drops. They get so bad that the only solution is restarting the game, loading a save does not help.
2. Random crashes. The game world freezes, music keeps on playing, only solution is to reset the PS3. Believe me, I tried waiting. Sometimes it never clears up.
3. Long load times. It's not unbearable, but combined with the above? It's a nightmare.
4. Broken quests. "Go see this guy! Except, you know, he hasn't spawned yet so I'll point you in the direction of NOWHERE".

I'm writing this right now because it got so bad that I was restarting the game every fifteen minutes. It's ridiculous. It would seem that the game gets more unstable the more hours you've put into a save, although the first time I played through the game I made it through 30 hours without a single crash (!). Now I'm lucky if I can make it through 15. Beyond that, it becomes more frequent.

I've tried everything. My PS3 actually broke at one point so now I have a brand new slim model. Didn't make a difference. I've tried deleting the game files, re-installing the game, nothing. I even tried restoring the file system of my PS3 by going into some weird boot mode. No difference. Disabling auto-saves? Does nothing.

It's a shame, because I love playing this game so much, I really do, despite its many other obvious flaws that go beyond it being a shoddy port or poorly programmed (don't get me started on those). I don't think any other game has made me spend so much time playing it since World of Warcraft (or, you know, Fallout 3).

But there is hope! With the "new engine" they're using for Skyrim, maybe Fallout 4 won't be so fucking broken. Maybe.

Bah, who am I kidding...I'll start up a new save once the Gun Runners' DLC is out, and I'll wander that Mojave wasteland until it freezes on me again.

Then I'll start a fresh save.

Again.

So I read a summer course where they introduced us to animating in Flash, and this is the end result. It's my first animated film!

Let me know what you think! =)

...it started off well. The atmosphere was creepy. It was dark. Strange noises and a very interesting premise. Amnesia, wandering a spooky castle? Hell yes!

It took me a long time to find that switch. It was so dark and I didn't want to waste my oil! But now I'm stuck in this hallway with two rooms...rocks fell down behind me and there's not a lot to explore but I don't know how to move on! I see the fragile bricks, and I've tried banging a rusty helmet against it, and chairs even, nothing works. This shadow thing that I haven't seen yet that I'm not supposed to fight is intriguing, but I feel like this game is really lacking direction, and for a game that seems to encourage exploration - why is my lamp on a damn timer?!

Long story short, I'm stuck, not scared, and not sure if I'm willing to continue. Am I missing out? Should I get over this slight threshold and give it another chance?

So I felt like I wanted to give Photoshop a go, it's been a while since I tried to do something like this...took me a couple of hours to throw together!

Hope you like it =) if you can't see the whole thing, try here!

So I had just finished my essay, ran off to play some more Dragon Age II for an hour or so and then the screen turned black. The light blinked yellow, followed by it blinking red repeatedly and refusing to start up again. 
 
By some miracle my fiancée managed to get the disc out (yay?) but now I'm at a loss. Is it even worth trying to get it repaired? There are plenty of PS2/PS games I own that I still want to play every now and then. I was real happy to have a backward compatible system. I had replaced the hard drive with a 500 GB one so I would never have to worry about running out of space, kept all the demos and trailers I downloaded and also had a couple of movies and some photos on there. 
 
Man, I'm so bummed. I don't know what to do now. Me and my fiancée are both students so our economy isn't that great. I have a PC that can run most modern games at low settings, but...all my saves!! What a nightmare...
 
What would you do in my situation? Any advice? =(

So after playing through this wonderful game for the third time on the PS3 (despite the awful bugs I keep running into) - there is yet one trophy missing.
 
That's right. "Traveler".
 
After doing some research, I've concluded that noone seems to know exactly what triggers it. The description says something along the lines of "visited every area of the game". Right!
 
People have aquired this with different map completion percentages, ranging from 75%(!) to 98% or what have you. Some people do every possible side quest they can find, and still no trophy. Others seem to ignore plenty of side quests and areas and they get the trophy anyway.
 
I finished the game with a 92% map completion, and no, I didn't get a trophy.
 
If anyone finds out what requirements this trophy has, please share! If you have aquired the trophy, try to describe how you played your game (did you do every side quest, reveal every corner of every map?) or post a list of your completed quests, or post in which part of the game you got the trophy, have you played any previous characters, what class did you use - anything that might help us find a pattern to once and for all set this trophy's requirements straight.
 
Normally I don't bother too much with trophies, but being one lousy Bronze trophy away from a Platinum is fairly disheartening even for me (I only have two!). 
 
Thank you for your time =)
 
UPDATE 2009-12-13: So I finally got my trophy after going after some sidequests I had missed, specifically the Blackstone Irregular ones which leads you to a camp near Lothering in the end, as well as the quests from the bartender in Denerim. I did not do the stealing/stealth sidequests, so I'm more uncertain than ever as to what actually counts for this trophy. Best of luck to any of you still after this trophy! I guess it wasn't that impossible after all!

...after completing it on Normal first. It feels like you have to be reeeally careful all the time because the slightest mishap can cost you your life (just switching cover while escaping from a grenade has gotten me killed numerous times!).
 
So now I only have one trophy left to obtain before Platinum: Completing the game on Crushing. To those of you who have done this, do you have any hints or tips for me that might make the experience easier? I'm fairly bad at these kind of games, and the only reason I even finished Hard was because I tried really hard until I made it (it felt kinda like banging my head against a wall at times).
 
What I've discovered so far that I didn't know during my Normal playthrough:
- Apparently the Guardians' crossbows are very useful against other Guardians
- The explosive blue resin is a lot more useful than I thought, and intentionally placed
- Most difficult encounters give you some sort of advantage, be it a weapon or propane tanks or the resin
 
UPDATE: Thank you everyone for your comments, they've really helped so far! I just finished chapter 18, Heart of Ice, and it's gone surprisingly smooth. For some reason the step from Normal to Hard felt a lot more difficult than going from Hard to Crushing! I also appreciate the video tip on the last boss, but here's hoping I won't have to resort to using it =)
 
UPDATE: I got my Platinum Trophy only moments ago =) Couldn't have done it without your advice, thanks guys! I must admit I played that last boss for a sucker but I didn't use any glitches!

But instead, my Monday will be spent exploring the site. Very good first impression!