Saturday, February 12, 2011

Fallout New Vegas

Fallout New Vegas deserves a solid 9. The beauty of games like Fallout is the seemingly endless options in the story of the game. Every choice made changes the character in that it decides whether he is liked by a certain group of people and if he is good or bad. The game added on factions, which are just groups of characters that you can align yourself with and some have certain karma related alignments. Some are enemies as well so it forces the character to choose sides in some cases. The gameplay itself is pretty similar to the last one. They brought back a decent amount of guns from the last one, including the laser rifle, laser pistol, plasma rifle, plasma pistol, 10 mm pistol and submachine gun, the beloved Fatman, and many others. They also brought in a decent amount of new weapons though. Some of my favorites include the 12.7 pistol and submachine, the antimaterial rifle (heavy duty sniper), the laser RCW (laser machine gun), and Euclid's C-finder (locates point for deathray to hit). The world the character plays in is also expansive and allows free roaming, which often leads to small side quests. Another great property of Fallout is the strategy that the player has to put into deciding the character's S.P.E.C.I.A.L. (strength, agility, etc.), skills (hand to hand, energy weapons, etc.), and perks. These help decide how the character will progress through the story. Like if the character has a high speech skill then he will be able to resolve conflicts without pulling out any weapons. The game also has several minigames in it, such as poker, caravan (a card game), black jack, and others. 

The basic plot of the game is you play a messenger that was shot by a mysterious man. You are then revived by a doctor in a small town. As time progresses you find out that there are three main factions in the wasteland. The first one is the New California Republic. The N.C.R. is benevolent for the most part, but they  look after themselves before the good of the people a decent amount of the time. The second faction is Caesar's Legion. They are viewed as the more malevolent faction. The leader has a skewed view of justice and enforces his ideas in a brutal fashion. The last faction is Mr. House. Mr. House puts New Vegas first. He wishes to make a sort of utopia that cannot be touched by the outside world and will do whatever it takes to make that happen.

In summarization
Pros
  1. Massive amount of game play
  2. Many new weapons available
  3. Character customization
  4. Many companions available in game
  5. Faction Alignment
  6. Ability to be independent of factions
  7. Minigames
  8. Many plot options available making the second play through almost as interesting as the first
  9. Many side quests

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