Fallout New Vegas.
I loved Fallout 3, yeah, it wasn't like FO1 or 2 but it wasn't supposed to be. It was supposed to never be made, but some fans who just so happen to have their own game company decided to buy the license, and bam a new Fallout game, something many of us thought would never happen.
I got to play Fallout 3 in a very grim time in my life, when I was jobless and homeless, living in my older brothers efficiency, sleeping on the floor and living off cheap food like bread, 79c hot dogs, macaroni, crackers etc.
He let me use his Xbox while I waited for job calls. I got Fallout 3 with an e-rewards gift card that took like 6 months of boring online surveys to earn and I played the hell out of it, because I had time to kill.
It took me from the wasteland of my real life to one I could actually enjoy.
The game didn't punish me, expect me to know it before I knew it, barr my way with end-game creatures outside the starting town, or glitch up all over the place.
New Vegas did. All of the above except the me enjoying it part.
Okay so back-story over with, let's get on with the complaints. I pop that New Vegas disc in and I'm ready for fun. Well, the old guys head starts spinning in circles, creeped out a little I laugh, shrugging it off. Half an hour later of sitting naked on an old mans couch (could they have made the opening of a game any slower and less interesting? Fallout 3 had lots of interesting characters and events going on in the beginning to keep you from getting bored while it integrated you into the game..) so yeah, half an hour later I get out of the old guys home and I see the Obsidian boys tried to copy the "ooh, aah" effect that Fallout 3 did when you left the vault, only.. you don't really go half blind when you merely step outside of a cottage... so it was stupid. Oh, and the screen froze at that point, so I had to start it all over again as it DIDN'T AUTOSAVE YET.
AN HOUR LATER since starting, I'm finally playing the game, I explore some of the buildings in town and I enter a large one to the right of the old doctors cottage. I kill all of the preying mantis' and loot everything of value, and then I do one of those science mini-games several times, noticing how they made it so you can't exit out and start over quickly anymore, it actually forces you to sit there and watch the guy type an entire screen full of non-sense. I finish the puzzle after about 15 minutes of re-tries (common with low science skill, but made far worse than it had to be by the tinkering with the skill in NV) and when I walk outside the door the game freezes.
I did have an autosave to load, but it was before I looted that building.... so there I was 2 hours into the game with NOTHING accomplished at all, nothing. Absolutely nothing, I didn't see any storyline, I didn't have fun and I didn't even get to keep my looted items. I decided to SKIP the evil building up and just proceeded into the wasteland.
I killed some geckos easily enough and finally had some fun. I kept walking north I believe it was, and was promptly slaughtered by giant radscorpions. I wasn't even level 3 yet and the game was throwing monsters at me that I had no chance in hell of beating OR running away from. (they run faster than you can). The entire New Vegas experience is just like this. It's grueling and punishing. At times your arms glitch up and flails all over the place, as if to mock you and laugh saying "nyah nyah, try aiming at that enemy now, looky I can make your gun do tricks!". Sometimes you walk into a cave and you get swarmed by 505050150175916156y148y1 flying freaking bugs with a paralyzing poison. YEAH THEY PARALYZE you, that was a smart design move, players love nothing else but to sit and watch as they're murdered and can't do anything about it, MADE worse by a glitch which actually makes stimpaks kill you when you're under the affect of paralyze (a confirmed bug, look it up!).
I don't even want to get into the other skills, but I will later on, let me just say that small guns were pretty much the only one they tested for bugs... (and it had plenty of its own).
New Vegas has some interesting dialogue but I don't feel that it justifies all the glitchy frustrating the game throws at you or the overall horribly unpleasant feel the game presents itself with. For one thing it doesn't even feel like a Fallout game. You could throw a name like "Cowboy Blues" on the cover and it would fit, because 1) the radio plays nothing but country music, 2) everyone had a cowboy western accent and wears a cowboy hat/leather clothing 3) theres nothing but red sand and cacti EVERYWHERE, no post-apocalyptic damage except for some of the creatures like super mutants and giant scorpions, which feel out of place in an entirely healed desert world.
It just doesn't feel post-apocalyptic, a lot of the memorable icons of the past games are easily missed as they're treated as side-quests and you're only introduced to them by exploring, something you're encouraged NOT to do until you've finished leveling, by which time there's hardly any point. Fallout 3 let you have fun and explore right at level 1, and it was expertly crafted to tailor to any players eventualities. NV just sucks ass. I don't care who made it, they should have done a much better job.
Forgot to mention, the unarmed and melee skills are unusable, (have a repeating fatal screen lockup with some of their special moves, or it did when I played). So if you plan on playing an unarmed only or melee only character, guess what? The only viable option is small guns! Unless you like glitching all over the place and killing your system with constant restarts.
The game was just an untested, unpolished mess trying to rake in some dough in Fallout 3's wake.
Basically... I was really disappointed in New Vegas. REALLY. It had so much hype and I was as excited for it as I am for Skyrim, luckily I know Bethesda doesn't fail like Obsidian at making games... so I know I'll be enjoying myself come 11/11/11.
Why did I type so much more than anyone else you ask? Details are important my friend... and I couldn't sleep. And I want to save someone from wasting their money.
