New Vegas: Is Hardcore Mode Worth It?

[EllEzDee]

It's shit. Every so often (like 20 minutes) you need a drink or you'll get a -1 debuff to a stat. Same with sleep and food. I never stole throughout the game, yet i always had enough food and drink to nullify this piece of shit. As for sleeping, i just took an hours kip every few weeks and i was right as rain.
I expected a little more from hardcore mode, although, considering how quickly they pushed the game out, i suppose i should have expected to be disappointed.

 

[Meggiepants]

If the game hadn't been so glitchy, I think I might have enjoyed it. I really didn't have a problem finding food or ammo, so I didn't have to carry that around with me. Food is everywhere. I used a common gun so ammo wasn't a problem. It was the purified water that was the stickler for me. That I kept having to go back for. It weighs a pound each bottle, and I don't play with a high strength so those 15 extra pounds really fill up my pack. I didn't use dirty water to reduce the rad intake.

If you like roleplaying, you will enjoy hardcore. You have to do the basics. But I will agree with a bunch of the people here, it does get tedious after a while. But if you don't care about the achievement, you can turn it off and on whenever you feel like it. The best of both worlds, really.

One complain I did have though, if you didn't have a high survivalist skill, finding food that wasn't radiated was a pain in the ass. With the survivalist skill, you could theoretically make some better food. But the best food, Caravan Lunches and Wasteland Omelets, required so much shit to make, it wasn't worth carrying around the weight of the random pieces you picked up to complete the meal. It would have been nice to have a few more simple meals you could use a radaway with, like making the batches of purified waters.

 

[GonzoGamer]

One thing that bugged me though is that the "special reward" was an achievement. Achievements are not special rewards.

Yea, that annoyed me too.
I thought it would be something to encourage another playthrough.
Hardcore is okay.
I'm looking at it as something to spice up my second playthrough which I started a couple of weeks ago but have since gotten sidetracked by Asscree Bro... so I guess it doesn't spice things up much.
It makes things a little different. You have to plan things out more. But it doesn't refresh the game as much as (for example) switching to a new class in Borderlands.

 

[Chibz]

Also, I kid you not but I beat the game without sleeping once. How? Damned if I know.

That shouldn't have happened if you were playing on Hardcore. Either it was a bug, you cheated or you were on normal.

Check out my xbox 'tag. Hardcore mode's achievement (Special reward my butt) is there. And I swear that I never once slept. Bug? My sleep-meter went up, but it seemed to go down on its own accord. Cheated? How? Oh, the buggy PC version. Normal mode? Nope, got achievement.

 

[Hookman]

I'm going through hardcore mode now and I have to say it doesnt make much difference to anything except for combat. You just have to make sure to carry food, water and radaway. The biggest problem is that you lose health quicker in combat and you cant heal crippled limbs by yourself. Also its more difficult to fight groups of people so dont do what I did and piss off all the factions so that they shoot on sight.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Check out my xbox 'tag. Hardcore mode's achievement (Special reward my butt) is there. And I swear that I never once slept. Bug? My sleep-meter went up, but it seemed to go down on its own accord. Cheated? How? Oh, the buggy PC version. Normal mode? Nope, got achievement.

Certain consumable items will reduce your sleep meter, some of them by a lot. I'm guessing you just used a few of those throughout the game without realizing what they did.

 

[Chibz]

Check out my xbox 'tag. Hardcore mode's achievement (Special reward my butt) is there. And I swear that I never once slept. Bug? My sleep-meter went up, but it seemed to go down on its own accord. Cheated? How? Oh, the buggy PC version. Normal mode? Nope, got achievement.

Certain consumable items will reduce your sleep meter, some of them by a lot. I'm guessing you just used a few of those throughout the game without realizing what they did.

This is likely. But I'd have had to accidentally done this the entire main storyline (And a bit of messing around)

It's likely I might've eventually had to sleep if I played it longer (Read as: Didn't rent it). But I don't know.

I'm mostly embittered about having been promised a special reward, and getting an achievement instead.

 

[Xyliss]

I enjoyed it as it had more of a survival aspect to the game. If your starting a new character (or indeed starting for the first time) and want to give it a try, I'd say go for it. Just watch out in battles as companions die and don't just pass out.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Check out my xbox 'tag. Hardcore mode's achievement (Special reward my butt) is there. And I swear that I never once slept. Bug? My sleep-meter went up, but it seemed to go down on its own accord. Cheated? How? Oh, the buggy PC version. Normal mode? Nope, got achievement.

Certain consumable items will reduce your sleep meter, some of them by a lot. I'm guessing you just used a few of those throughout the game without realizing what they did.

This is likely. But I'd have had to accidentally done this the entire main storyline (And a bit of messing around)

It's likely I might've eventually had to sleep if I played it longer (Read as: Didn't rent it). But I don't know.

I'm mostly embittered about having been promised a special reward, and getting an achievement instead.

Yeah that really bugged me. I mean, I wouldn't have cared if beating Hardcore mode only got you an achievement if that was all I was expecting. But at the beginning of the game they say you get a "special reward" for beating the game with it on, which led me to bnelieve we would at least get some amusing little easter egg. An achievement is hardly special, that's par the course for most games nowadays.

 

[Chibz]

Check out my xbox 'tag. Hardcore mode's achievement (Special reward my butt) is there. And I swear that I never once slept. Bug? My sleep-meter went up, but it seemed to go down on its own accord. Cheated? How? Oh, the buggy PC version. Normal mode? Nope, got achievement.

Certain consumable items will reduce your sleep meter, some of them by a lot. I'm guessing you just used a few of those throughout the game without realizing what they did.

This is likely. But I'd have had to accidentally done this the entire main storyline (And a bit of messing around)

It's likely I might've eventually had to sleep if I played it longer (Read as: Didn't rent it). But I don't know.

I'm mostly embittered about having been promised a special reward, and getting an achievement instead.

Yeah that really bugged me. I mean, I wouldn't have cared if beating Hardcore mode only got you an achievement if that was all I was expecting. But at the beginning of the game they say you get a "special reward" for beating the game with it on, which led me to bnelieve we would at least get some amusing little easter egg. An achievement is hardly special, that's par the course for most games nowadays.

I was expecting something like a gamer pic pack, or an avatar award (I checked partway through, it didn't have any so I dismissed this one early). SOMETHING. ANYTHING more special than a slightly bigger achievement. 100 gamerscore isn't even the largest achievement I've ever seen. Isn't even top 5.

 

[Colonel Joson]

Did hardcore on my first playthrough, didn't really feel like hardcore, more like mild annoyance... despite it being supposedly more realistic, I could still fit 5 miniguns in my pockets, and carry a thousand bullets without being unable to move.

 

[cthulhumythos]

Now I'm not talking about the little achievement that the game gives you for beating the game in hardcore mode. I already know that that isn't worth it because I'm not a whore for grinding achievements or any other throwaway game stats. What I want to know is whether or not it makes the gameplay experience more fulfilling at all. It sounds like it can take roleplaying to the absolute max, but it also sounds like it could be a whole lot more trouble than it's worth. What are your opinions? Who has tried it and finished the game? Who has tried it and decided that it wasn't worth the effort?

there's no other way to play it.

trust me.

once you start, you will question how you ever played the game without it.

 

[Googenstien]

I like Hardcore mode, it brings me back to a day when games would add in these often afterthoughts (like eating, drinking and resting) It really not that much more of a challenge as it is a way to make the game move a bit slower and have you collect and do more little things... and really make you think before you do alot of things - broken limbs suck!

 

[CD-R]

The Fallout Wanderers Edition mod for Fallout 3 (what hardcore mode is based off of) was way more hardcore than the hardcore mode in New Vegas. Ammo was not only scarcer, it was more expensive. So were stimpacks. Stimpacks were also the only way to heal yourself out in the field. Food and drinks didn't restore your health at all. And there was a penalty if you over ate. The guns also did way more damage so you could be killed a lot easier. Coupled with Mart's Mutan Mod that added things like roaming feral ghoul hordes, that didn't always stay dead when you killed them, super mutants armed with M60's, and these guys

staying alive wasn't easy.

I'd say if you're looking for a really hardcore experience wait for the modding community to come out with a tweaked hardcore mode.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

these guys

What the hell is that thing? Is it a behemoth?

 

[demoman_chaos]

No, it doesn't. Very rarely do you have to drink something or eat, and the sleep bar almost never goes down. As long as you don't fast travel a LOT, you will never have an issue so it adds nothing.

 

[PortalParadox]

It's definitely worth it. I started with it, and after about a day I stopped noticing the differences. Having to eat and drink became as natural as reloading my gun. Also having to use doctor's bags to heal limbs makes for some very interesting situations, like when I had to fight out of vault 34 with both arms crippled. It was way more satisfying than just using a stimpak and walking it off.

 

[Xealeon]

I don't know if anyone else has this problem but Hardcore mode goes into overdrive for me. I tried playing it and I got tired so I went to sleep with 0 thirst but then I died of thirst before I woke up. So I tried sleeping in increments of 1 hour but that didn't decrease my need for sleep enough to prevent me dying of exhaustion. After talking to my friend it seems my game may just be messed up but it certainly isn't worth it for me.

 

[CD-R]

these guys

What the hell is that thing? Is it a behemoth?

Nope it's a gargantuan. From Marts Mutant Mod. "the guy the Behemoth goes to when he runs home to mummy, and has right hook that sends enemies flying. You don't want to meet mummy. Really, seriously. What, you got a death wish? Ok..."



Yeah Marts Mutant Mod was nuts. I really hope he makes one for New Vegas at some point.