Fallout: New Vegas

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Oblivion and Fallout 3 are nice to play, but they are not fun to play. When you have to constantly worry about the game randomly crashing and freezing it kinda sucks all the fun out of it.

Since New Vegas, reportedly, has these same issues I don't really see how it could be fun.

 

[spider-dork]

I have to agree 100% I couldn't begin to count the times I said to myself, while playing Fallout, something along the lines of "damn it I need something to get where I am going quicker." Fast travel not only killed immersion it also made the game a lot less fun overall. If I actually could have progressed my way to a destination on some vehicle then I probably wouldn't have felt so bored when it came to completing missions. Hell I would definitely have traded an accurate "driving sim" just to see my character riding something and going fast.

 

[captain underpants]

Bang on as usual. Fast traveling, yes. Teleporting - no, or at least limited. TBH one of the things I dislike about the missions in games like GTA is all the goddamn commuting.

If you're scratching around for something to review, and/or something in a new genre, I reccomend simulators. They're light on story, but big on immersion. I suggest this one for starters http://www.landwirtschafts-simulator.de/

 

[Michael O'Hair]

From the article:

If you went out of your way in Oblivion you could acquire a horse, but Fallout 3 just leaves you to hike.

A free horse could be obtained during the first quest right out of the prison sewer. Fast travel to the priory, talk to the monks, acquire free horse. Is that really considered out of the way? Looking back at the Oblivion critique, the lack of environment variety was mentioned; the same forested area copied and pasted all over the world map. Forests, a snow-covered mountainous area, and fields of wheat in the countryside were enough. Environs missing probably included a desert, a jungle, and the surface of a moon. I'm under the impression that Oblivion was played for about an hour, consisting of leaving the sewers and talking to the brain-dead NPCs for half of that time. The New Vegas critique seems to have gone further since Vegas proper was entered, but I'm under the impression that some of these games weren't even played for a significant amount of time with which to verify every assumed flaw. Should Zero Punctuation be renamed to First Impressions? Why do things half-assed?

 

[Clockwork Scarecrow.]

Since I haven't played New Vegas I'm going to go with; Arkham Horror, excellent board game.

 

[Meatstorm]

I thought Fallout(s) had plenty of details to add up the immersion, but they could always do better.

And when it comes to the fast travel i agree completely as it kills the adventure part. In games like fallout and oblivion one aspect of the game (for me at least) is to go and have an adventure to some random direction that i've never been to. It should give player a feeling of discovery, Finding somethings you didn't even know existed in the game. Fast travel just takes it away as everything is at your reach from where ever you are. (like in oblivion)

I think morrowind did better than newer bethesda games when it comes to real adventuring as you could travel between town with ships, mages guilds and siltstriders but they were on certain towns only and they had limited routes available. The point isn't that it should be as difficult as it was in morrowind to actually find the route, but instead players ability to go instantly from where ever he wants to where ever he wants instantly should be if not outright removed then discouraged.

Mages should make somewhat exception as its kinda their thing.

 

[JPArbiter]

and you pretty much described why I don't use fast travel in Fallout New Vegas/3

 

[Terminate421]

He got me to laugh the moment he tried to play grand theft auto as a law abiding citizen.

 

[RockyMotion]

Loved the Wizard of Oz reference. Now I think of it, having some magic shoes which would take you flying anywhere in a matter of seconds/minutes would be so more awesome than just teleporting.
I didn't hate the teleporting in Oblivion because it easily saves time and trouble (if so, I would just ignore it), but rather because the scenario was so dull that it compelled me to fast travel. I loved my initial hours with that game, but now I barely can get myself to play it because of that.

 

[haaxist]

If they had added a motorcycle for fast travel you could role-play as Mad Max. Now THAT would be an awesome game!

You sir, are a genius, that would be awesome! Making your own cars out of scrap material would certainly nail down the futuristic post apocaliptic feeling... Something like Rage or something, that would be awesome indeed and more chances to specialize and role-play in Hardcore Mode i.e. finding a constant supply of gas for your car/motorcycle.

Yes, it would also give people something to do with their ridiculously high repair skills. I mean, you can put together and make better a laser gatling gun, but you can't put a new transmission and some new wheels on a motorcycle?

Also, yes, the fast-travel is a bit of an immersion-breaker. The only saving grace it has is that you can't fast-travel until you've found the place, which means you're going to be exploring the world one way or another.

Funny story about fast-travel: I'd dressed up as one of Caeser's Legion so I could get into Cottonwood Cove for a bit of quest-related mischief. Anyways, after I was done, I fast-traveled to a different location, that was affiliated with the NRC. Apparently they're shoot first, realize we fucked up royally later. Luckily, the auto-save hadn't auto-saved after the fast-travel, so I was able to complete my quest without being caught in some sort of paradox of die, reload, die again, rinse, wash, and repeat.

 

[Netrigan]

He got me to laugh the moment he tried to play grand theft auto as a law abiding citizen.

I'm currently playing GTA III for the first time and it's funny how suicidally idiotic all of the drivers in Liberty City are. Once I was just driving around, attempting to follow traffic laws and witnessed three crashes in two minutes. Makes those missions where you have to transport a car without crashing across town incredibly hard. If cars aren't careening into you for no reason, pedestrians have this odd habit of jumping in front of your car if you wander a bit too closely to the sidewalk. I've actually had cop cars swerve into me... then suddenly it's my fault.

 

[cheese_wizington]

or napalm a school building and pour the ashes of the children over their erect, twitching knobs for sexual release.

What, the ****...

Anyway, please don't just puss out of reviewing Black Ops by saying it's more of the same. It is, but at the same time, it isn't.

 

[Dora]

I have actually so little self restraint that I remember downloading a mod for Oblivion that flat-out disabled fast-travel. I always start out intended to go everywhere on foot, 'cause, you know, my magical fantasy/post apocalyptic experience is more "realistic" that way, but within an hour of unlocking two locations I'm blinking all over the place. The terrain is just too damn boring. Oddly enough, I didn't have this problem in Red Dead Redemption... maybe because as much as the travel frustrated me, I was also apparently TOO LAZY to stop and pitch a campfire so I could get the option to fast travel. I think it's the ease with with the option is accessed that determines how likely I am to use it. MEH.

I actually really liked the New Vegas "review". It was just so different from what I was expecting, and it's cool that he can still have fun with his work. I giggled way too much at the nice couple who allowed him to drink out of their toilet.

 

[microwaviblerabbit]

The use of the fast-travel system is often a clue to how much I'm enjoying a game.

In Red Dead Redemption, I only rarely used it... usually only when the game was sending me all the way to the other side of the map for some bullshit quest or in the event I just needed to buy an item not readily available in the town I was in.

I constantly used the taxi in GTA IV because driving around simply wasn't fun. Between the twitchy car handling and the occasionally protracted police chases that could stem from a simple fender bender, I took taxis virtually everywhere... which seriously spoiled the illusion when you're taking a cab to a hospital shoot-out.

Saints Row didn't have a fast travel system (apart from taking advantage of the save game function), but I never missed it. Getting from Point A to Point B was always fun and I knew any cops I acquired on the way over could be easily ditched on the other end (simple vehicular fun & games rarely got me over a one-star wanted level).

As of yet, I've not sunk my teeth into Fallout 3 (beyond getting to the Wal-Mart stand-in) and a lot of that is simple game pacing, but also trying to figure out exactly what sort of skills I should invest in early in the game, since they give me about five billion options and I have only the vaguest notion what half of them would be useful for. So far, I've not built up the enthusiasm to overcome this immersion hurdle, so I play around with games that have a faster in to, not only the action, but the point as well.

Saints Row 2 did have a fast travel system - the taxis. I ended up using it for specific things, mainly going to the airport and 'borrowing' planes. Though this was kinda because I am terrible at flying and each flight ended in a fiery death. This did add to immersion because you had to call the taxis first - plus they were disabled during missions.

 

[HaraDaya]

I learned that not having fast travel was a good thing in Far Cry 2. People need to learn to enjoy the hike to the objective. It's sort of a build up to the climax of the mission. Games of course need to make the hike interesting, which is were Fallout New Vegas falls a little short. Both because you run what feels like so goddamn slow, and because it's mostly just huge open wastes.

 

[internetzealot1]

I've been saying for a long time that fast travel systems gimp games.

 

[internetzealot1]

Well..., yeah..., then..., if you don't like fast travel...

--- WARNING! MAJOR REVELATION AHEAD! ---


...why just not use it?

Because if you don't, you can never escape that little nagging feeling that you're cheating yourself and that you're being extremely inefficient. Objectively, ignoring fast travel systems is being a dumbass.

 

[The Random One]

Wow, I thought I was the only one who pretended to be in a cryopod in space while waiting to fall asleep. Although trapped in the cockpit of a powered down mecha and on the control room of a self-piloting submarine have been edging that one out lately.

 

[Sparcrypt]

Very much a mirror of my own thoughts on both issues.

Playing through Fable 3 mostly all I could think was 'this is Fable 2 only with some things polished and others completely ruined'. Fun game for sure, but it was nothing new. The lack of menus and inventory screens was absolutely idiotic though.

RPG fast travel has bugged me for a while... yes I don't HAVE to use it, but the fact that it's there generally means that if you do opt for the slower walking route there is generally nothing there minus a few random encounters.

A perfect example of this is Fable 3 - there is a fast travel system in place from the begining that completely maps out the whole world and gives you the option of starting quests from said map before travelling directly to where you need to go next. Faster? Sure. However it also meant that when you actually DID travel the most you ever came across was a dig spot or two and maybe a treasure chest. Woo.

 

[perpetualburn]

A city looks rather awe-inspiring when viewed from a distance, but once you get in for a closer look you find all its custodians staring at walls and drastically shifting personality from dialogue line to dialogue line.

I love Oblivion and Fallout 3, but you hit that nail square in the head. While I agree that fast travel is dumb, real-time travel works better in MMOs (where you can talk to other people while you wait) than in single-player games (namely, Red Dead Redemption, probably because the horse was faster).