SchrodingerC
Member
I wish Obsidian had more time to develop the game. Though with official and unofficial patches, bugs are still a problem. For example, I can't finish a few quests due to bugs, even after following all possible work arounds.
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How Obsidian's Underrated Sequel Became a Beloved Classic
- Thread starter Krakn3Dfx
- Start date
The conversation about being pressured by the game to go a certain way reminds me of the first time I played. I went North and got to the city within the first couple of hours.
I was talking with a friend about my progress and he was pretty baffled how I got to NV so early, and asked how I got past the radscorps, deathclaws and cazadors. I didn't run into any of those.
We figure some kind of glitch or good fortune happened where they either didn't spawn, or I was just lucky enough to not run into any.
I was talking with a friend about my progress and he was pretty baffled how I got to NV so early, and asked how I got past the radscorps, deathclaws and cazadors. I didn't run into any of those.
We figure some kind of glitch or good fortune happened where they either didn't spawn, or I was just lucky enough to not run into any.
Just mentioning the original ending made me smile for all the wrong reasons
I didn't really like New Vegas. It forced you to pretty much go the path it wanted you to go down, although it was cool that you were pretty much allowed to do what you wanted as you went through the events in the order they wanted you to go through them in.
Fallout 4 is shitty because every fucking mission is just "kill everyone" with no option to do things any differently but I do appreciate that the game pretty much lets you tackle stuff in whatever order you want and go wherever you want to.
I think Fallout 3 still remains the game that best balanced everything and it remains one of my favorite games of all time. ¯\_(ツ
_/¯
Fallout 4 is shitty because every fucking mission is just "kill everyone" with no option to do things any differently but I do appreciate that the game pretty much lets you tackle stuff in whatever order you want and go wherever you want to.
I think Fallout 3 still remains the game that best balanced everything and it remains one of my favorite games of all time. ¯\_(ツ
_/¯Most of gaf either likes fallout 3 or doesn't care. It's mostly old school gamers and role players that have issues.
obsidian is too good
Depends on how old school.
Specifically the late 90s generation (Black Isle era) is the most vocal, and annoying.
Pre-Oblivion Bethesda was pretty awesome (Morrowind in particular, which is still their best game). Past Oblivion, they are doubling down on trends that do not make for good RPGs or and just not doing game design/gameplay particularly well to make good games overall. They make big worlds that have lots to do. Their games are the definition of quantity over quality. That does not make them "one of the best developers on the planet", not when their gameplay is generally so poor (melee & shooting is total crapola in comparison to actually good melee & shooting mechanics in other games, any resemblence of balancing is just not there, poor game design decisions), their role-playing mechanics so shallow and black & white, writing so bad and game engine so horrible that their games are nigh unplayable to too many people (from game breaking bugs to huge problems like on PS3 where the game got proggressively worse performing over time).
A developer that doesn't do good writing or meaningful choices & consequences or even fun RPG game mechanics to mess around with in their RPGs and also falters hugely on the technical side just isn't "one of the best". They have the money & will to do big worlds but that's just about all that is actually good in their games, when you start looking outside of Bethesda's games. Witchers do better writing, choices & open world design (combat is still fairly horrible, but still better than the clunky-to-the-max crap in Bethesda's games, especially by 3), Obsidian is just superior when it comes to RPGing (they aren't all that good with 3d combat either, but their RtwP systems are pretty decent) and then there are lots of smaller devs who also crap on Bethesda in so many ways, even in their limited scope (something like Consortium is >>>>> anything Bethesda has done as far as RPGing goes).
Bethesda is basically the Bayformers of RPGs. Super popular with the masses but, like, not for quality reasons when there's soooo much stuff in their games you can point out to being so much worse than what their competitors are doing, except the "spectacle" of having a relatively good looking big open world to explore.
TheRedSnifit
Member
Nobody's really defending it, so much as arguing that the shitty shooting (as well as basically everything else bad about NV) is there as a holdover from (Bethesda's) Fallout 3.
Literally all of New Vegas's problems stem from it being inside the world and game systems Bethesda built. The base gameplay, dull graphics, shitty engine, companion AI, gratuitous level scaling, etc. are all what drag it down. Everything great about NV comes from areas where Obsidian deliberately went counter to Bethesda design ideas.
Crunch2600
Neo Member
Judging from the title, I thought this thread was going to be about KotOR 2.
Well they did make Fallout.
Tal Shiar Agent
Member
The settlement building was the only good thing about Fallout 4.
MidnightCowboy
Member
I probably disagree with DocSeuss on games 90% of the time lol
i disagreed with DocSeuss on lots of stuff even before i knew neogaf was a thing
i think we argued a few times in the Kotaku comments section
CrichtonKicks
Member
I agree though I would probably put the demarcation line at Skyrim. Before Skyrim each Bethesda release was incredibly ambitious. They were constantly pushing the technology. Oblivion, though heavily flawed, is just insane for what it was trying to do on a console in its first 6 months of release.
And I don't begrudge them Skyrim- it's really just a nicely polished version of Oblivion and it feels like they kind of perfected the kind of RPG they were going for.
Fallout 4, though, just felt like their heart wasn't in it. There isn't anything new in the game other than the settlement building. And that felt neutered because it wasn't properly hooked into the rest of the game. I can't believe that Bethesda's first game on new hardware in a decade didn't try to do anything they weren't doing back in 2008.
When you read the feature list for Dagerfall, Morrowind, or Oblivion there was always a sense of "no way, they are really going to do all of that?" And sometimes they didn't (radiant AI *cough*). But, damn, it really fired up your imagination. Fallout 4 was kind of the ultimate case of "That it's??!?"
Angry Fork
Member
New Vegas kinda sucked in terms of exploration and interesting area's compared to Fallout 3. Bathesda is so much better at that. Except for the big towns literally everything else in NV was random huts with shit loot. No secret underground bases, no cannibal towns, everything was either tied to the main story or not worth doing.
The Vegas stuff was cool and all but the world was nowhere near as interesting as Fallout 3 to me. Maybe there's a bit of nostalgia because I played Fallout 3 first but every new area in Fallout 3 I was like whoa I can't wait to explore this, I can't wait to see what else is over here, and for the most part it would deliver and that wasn't the case with NV. I felt like I could really get lost in Fallout 3 and find some random interesting area with weird characters that had quests worth doing. In NV everything seemed to be geared towards the revenge plotline.
The Vegas stuff was cool and all but the world was nowhere near as interesting as Fallout 3 to me. Maybe there's a bit of nostalgia because I played Fallout 3 first but every new area in Fallout 3 I was like whoa I can't wait to explore this, I can't wait to see what else is over here, and for the most part it would deliver and that wasn't the case with NV. I felt like I could really get lost in Fallout 3 and find some random interesting area with weird characters that had quests worth doing. In NV everything seemed to be geared towards the revenge plotline.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
New Vegas is the only fallout that exceeds the classics imo. New Vegas is the Fallout I was hyped about when 3 was announced.
CrichtonKicks
Member
Jacobstown, Hidden Valley, Repconn, Vault 22, The Kings?
yeah, new vegas is cool like that. I think I ended up betraying everyone too and conquering NV for myself. it's probably the best option, content wise
dunno. the first time in FO3 I explored throughly, cause the overworld is just so cool. I would from time to time be pushed into the main plot by chance, but by and large I was fucking around
which only really works once cause FO3 is very anemic in content, compared to FO4, NV, of course Skyrim and even Oblivion. in later playthroughs, I made quick work of the main quest until before the final battle and only then I explored around.
NV instead, the main plot was more interesting so I made quick work of it, except for a detour here or there
my problem with NV is that the overworld is far less interesting. there's a ton of empty space and the inhabited areas are largely uninteresting or make no sense. Now, ye,s yes, I know FO3 makes no sense either, but at least each area makes no sense in individual ways. sure, the town of little kids is stupid, but it is a little side area
in NV I could never get over how much of the world is still devoted to casinos. where do these people find the disposable cash, free time, and, hell, interest in gambling in the post apocalypse? and then there is Caesar's legion and his ridiculous amount of troops just sleeping outside NV and ... that is very hard to believe from a logistical point of view too? and they've been stationed there for just how long?
I think both games have problems of scale, but at least FO3 is better at trying to convince you that what you see is all there is, whether it makes sense or not. meanwhile NV is more of a bad liar, constantly telling you that the legion is way bigger than what you see, that the NCR has a bigger presence than what you see. this, IMHO makes FO3 the more convincing game world
of course that is just splitting hairs. the real problem is that the strip was never as interesting to me as the washington ruins
darkwing-buck
Member
New Vegas is my generation's Vampire's Masquerade:Bloodlines.
Every time someone posts about it, I get the urge to re-install it.
Every time someone posts about it, I get the urge to re-install it.
Angry Fork
Member
I did almost everything in New Vegas and have like 60 hours in it because I still enjoyed it and I honestly can hardly remember any of it except the stuff tied to Vegas. I remember so much more of Fallout 3 side quest stuff/environments and whenever I get the urge to play Fallout again it's always 3 I want to go back to.
Alexander DeLarge
Member
This is why I was hoping Fallout New Orleans was a thing. It makes sense that the Mojave Desert would be a lot of shacks with gas stations in between.... But I want to see Obsidian's urban open world design. New Orleans or the Boneyard. Give Obsidian a comparable setting/development timeline (NV's 18 months vs FO3's 3 years, they had to be working on it before Oblivion shipped) and I'd be very curious to see how it stacks up next to Fallout 3 or 4 in regards to exploration.
80s to early 90s had Ultima 5, Isles of Terra and Star Control 2. Fallout does not make that era more special, at least not enough for late 90s RPGers to shout in our ears forever about roleplaying.
I can hear future me yelling at Nexusmods right now.
Tale of Two Wastelands is surprisingly easy to install and can run on most PCs.
Being able to play both Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas on one playthrough - and have the story actually make sense - is pretty awesome. Having F:NV mods in FO3 is pretty awesome. Having 200+ hours of content is pretty awesome.
Definitely check it out if you game on PC and are into Fallout. YouTuber providing description
Being able to play both Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas on one playthrough - and have the story actually make sense - is pretty awesome. Having F:NV mods in FO3 is pretty awesome. Having 200+ hours of content is pretty awesome.
Definitely check it out if you game on PC and are into Fallout. YouTuber providing description
FONV is probably my favourite modern single player game and there are three major reasons for this, and one less important one.
1, the companion and companion missions (apart from one or two that feel unfinished) are varied, start in weird and different ways, generally well written and there are ways for them not to trigger, If you're not wandering with Veronica or Gannon or Boone or Raul at the right time its possible just to not get that stuff.
I felt Bethesda really tried to work this into 4 but failed, especially by not hiding what the companions liked/disliked.
2, the faction and larger quests work to give you a feel of defining a character without necessarily bleeding over into being red/blue choices.
Also the loyalty stuff flows into the faction stuff which is tied to the main line quests was all written to a decent standard, with some being exceptional and it all mostly made sense. The ending also gives you a payoff for all of this. Get the boomers on board or the hidden Enclave and they are with you at the end. Maybe get the Brotherhood on board and have them join the NCR? Why not. Turn on them with robots? Cool. Or I guess you could join the legion and take the dam from the other side. I cant remember if you can side with Benny early or late, I haven't done that play through in years.
3, The character here is essentially a blank slate so I get to define them to a very large degree by interaction with characters, but still have personality. Which I feel must be a tremendously difficult magic trick to pull off because I play a lot of these games and I either feel bludgeoned by a pre existing defined character or the character may as well just be a cypher.
I also want stats to matter, even the shooting ones.Which is part of defining the character, I like the hard gated checks.
4, This is the most subjective. I really like the setting, the weird post post apocalyptic 50's rat pack Western Americana sci-fi was so good for me. The Bethesda FO games are AMERICAN, NV is an America. Its probably my favourite setting in a non-adventure game. This goes a long way with me.
I can see the arguments that the game doesn't start strong, without knowing what you're doing the first four hours or so can feel a bit like a gated tutorial. But that and the bugs are really my only two really complaints.
1, the companion and companion missions (apart from one or two that feel unfinished) are varied, start in weird and different ways, generally well written and there are ways for them not to trigger, If you're not wandering with Veronica or Gannon or Boone or Raul at the right time its possible just to not get that stuff.
I felt Bethesda really tried to work this into 4 but failed, especially by not hiding what the companions liked/disliked.
2, the faction and larger quests work to give you a feel of defining a character without necessarily bleeding over into being red/blue choices.
Also the loyalty stuff flows into the faction stuff which is tied to the main line quests was all written to a decent standard, with some being exceptional and it all mostly made sense. The ending also gives you a payoff for all of this. Get the boomers on board or the hidden Enclave and they are with you at the end. Maybe get the Brotherhood on board and have them join the NCR? Why not. Turn on them with robots? Cool. Or I guess you could join the legion and take the dam from the other side. I cant remember if you can side with Benny early or late, I haven't done that play through in years.
3, The character here is essentially a blank slate so I get to define them to a very large degree by interaction with characters, but still have personality. Which I feel must be a tremendously difficult magic trick to pull off because I play a lot of these games and I either feel bludgeoned by a pre existing defined character or the character may as well just be a cypher.
I also want stats to matter, even the shooting ones.Which is part of defining the character, I like the hard gated checks.
4, This is the most subjective. I really like the setting, the weird post post apocalyptic 50's rat pack Western Americana sci-fi was so good for me. The Bethesda FO games are AMERICAN, NV is an America. Its probably my favourite setting in a non-adventure game. This goes a long way with me.
I can see the arguments that the game doesn't start strong, without knowing what you're doing the first four hours or so can feel a bit like a gated tutorial. But that and the bugs are really my only two really complaints.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Same.
Especially the stuff about the writing being poor or the shooting being better in 3. Hard to believe these are real opinions lol
...???
Except, not really. FO3 forces you through incredibly monotonous subway tunnels filled with bandits or supermutants for fucking ever if you want to advance the story. This is way worse than the "soft gating" of NV.
Rushersauce
Banned
Candescence
Member
I really should try FNV one of these days considering all the praise I hear about it - can't be worse than Fallout 3, really. The moment-to-moment gameplay in Bethesda games post-Morrowind (I haven't played Morrowind, only Oblivion and the games after it, so I can't say how good that is) is dreadful, the environments are dull as fuck and the writing is just... Maybe okay, at best. The only reason I play Skyrim anymore is the mods. I've seen talk about how FNV's quest design is really good, on the other hand, amongst other things.
It kinda does in this discussion, given its about Fallout.
Alexander DeLarge
Member
A lot of people love Fallout New Vegas for the same reasons they love Morrowind so that should give you some idea of what to expect. The only thing that a lot of Morrowind fans don't like about New Vegas is the inclusion of voice acting because it makes third party content stick out like a sore thumb.
Fallout 1 & 2 were great RPGs. There's no need to even bring other old RPGs into this. When it comes to Bethesda "streamlining" & simplifying the RPG part of a series very much loved for its VERY deep, complex & meaningful RPing, yes we can.
I understand that with today's game development realities (when making big AAA(A) games with voiced dialogue and the kind of graphics modern machines are capable of pushing out), it's not necessarily possible/feasible to offer quite the kind of openess that 90s RPGs did, but Bethesda doesn't even do the really limited amount of choices & interaction with the world well. There aren't any interesting choices, even less interesting consequences (& differences in those consequences) and interacting with the world is just subpar. That's the reality of it.
If you can still enjoy Bethesda's games, more power to you, but people have every right to bring up their dislike of Bethesda's handling of their _RP_Gs when unarguably that RP part is really weak in the last 3 games they've done, two of which belong to a franchise very much loved for how much options & freedom it offered it its RPing.
I didn't really like New Vegas. It forced you to pretty much go the path it wanted you to go down, although it was cool that you were pretty much allowed to do what you wanted as you went through the events in the order they wanted you to go through them in.
Fallout 4 is shitty because every fucking mission is just "kill everyone" with no option to do things any differently but I do appreciate that the game pretty much lets you tackle stuff in whatever order you want and go wherever you want to.
I think Fallout 3 still remains the game that best balanced everything and it remains one of my favorite games of all time. ¯\_(ツ
I agree. Fallout 3 has the best of both games, writing is pretty okay, story is pretty good, exploration and discovering stories in the world through its objects and situations like you are a historical detective, just all around pretty great.
Huge Succeeded
Banned
yeah, the opinion of a contrarian twisting himself into knots trying to deny New Vegas any credit at all. It's surreal to watch.
Fallout 3's plot literally falls apart on itself if you apply logic to any part of it. It's still a fun game, but if logistics bugs you then Fallout 3 should be giving you an aneurism.
LurkerPrime
Member
I'm shocked and awed that someone used their question to ask about Fallout: New Vegas' best mod: jesawyer! It is hands down my favourite way to play--a harder, more survival-focused kind of game, turning bland loot into useful resources. It also adds some fixes and improvements, and is kind of a "Director's Cut" of New Vegas.
Like, while I enjoyed vanilla New Vegas, jesawyer New Vegas is a much more fulfilling and rewarding experience. I also kind of thought I was one of like a couple dozen people that used it.
For an idea of how wild the mod itself is:
So, yeah, FONV is a classic. I wouldn't say it's the best RPG or anything, but it's definitely up there. It is one of many examples showing that Obsidian really gets how to make both an RPG and roleplaying game--and make no mistake, they aren't the same thing.
Like, while I enjoyed vanilla New Vegas, jesawyer New Vegas is a much more fulfilling and rewarding experience. I also kind of thought I was one of like a couple dozen people that used it.
For an idea of how wild the mod itself is:
I recommend anyone interested to try it.
So, yeah, FONV is a classic. I wouldn't say it's the best RPG or anything, but it's definitely up there. It is one of many examples showing that Obsidian really gets how to make both an RPG and roleplaying game--and make no mistake, they aren't the same thing.
the New Vegas resurgence is a mixture of Obsidian doing PR for that Tyranny expansion, Fallout fans increasingly disenchanted with the direction the series went with 4, and Bethesda's work keeping Fallout 4 in the news through the Creator's Club stuff, FO4 VR, and that new expansion (FO3/NV, in comparison, was kept in popular discussion by fan discussion before eventually dissipating away for the most part).
I did as well.
I stand by my opinion that Killzone 2 is a great game even though Doc hates it.
Generalpsyduck
Banned
That sounds awful.
bati
Member
Since you like jsawyer mod, if you ever find yourself playing Skyrim (again, or for the first time), give Requiem mod a shot. One of the best mods for any Bethesda game, ever.
New Vegas definitely deserved better than it got especially at the time it was released.
As for the discussion in this thread there are two things I will not accept. One is that Fallout 3 had better gunplay. That is straight up nonsense. As bad as you want to say NV's gunplay was F3's was worse.
The other thing that boggles my mind is people claiming that Fallout 3 has the more interesting world and New Vegas' world is empty. As someone who explored the shit out of both of them Fallout 3's world had the same problem New Vegas' world did. They both had a few areas that were interesting, but for the most part one ruin was the same as the next. If you want to say you liked Little Lamplight more than REPCONN or whatever then fine say that. I argue all the time I found the places in Fallout New Vegas more interesting and fit into the world much better than Bethesda's haphazard way of doing things in F3. My biggest problem is when people try to make it sound like Fallout 3 was this wonder filled world where amazing things were all around and in comparison New Vegas was a boring empty desert. Because that is straight up bullshit.
As for the discussion in this thread there are two things I will not accept. One is that Fallout 3 had better gunplay. That is straight up nonsense. As bad as you want to say NV's gunplay was F3's was worse.
The other thing that boggles my mind is people claiming that Fallout 3 has the more interesting world and New Vegas' world is empty. As someone who explored the shit out of both of them Fallout 3's world had the same problem New Vegas' world did. They both had a few areas that were interesting, but for the most part one ruin was the same as the next. If you want to say you liked Little Lamplight more than REPCONN or whatever then fine say that. I argue all the time I found the places in Fallout New Vegas more interesting and fit into the world much better than Bethesda's haphazard way of doing things in F3. My biggest problem is when people try to make it sound like Fallout 3 was this wonder filled world where amazing things were all around and in comparison New Vegas was a boring empty desert. Because that is straight up bullshit.
I liked NV, but I could not really get over how terribly aged the world is. The mountain parts are like some kind of mini-me version of what they should be. As soon as I started exploring too much of the world it became kind of cartoony and not what I wanted. And it's all due to that horrible engine. I modded this to hell because the original game really isn't that great. I feel the game is honestly overrated without mods.
While the story is kind of cool, it's not really great writing in any sense, and a lot of the tangents are crazy. The gunplay in both is terrible, though I played without the silly as shit targeting system for the most part so it was not that bad.
That being said the freedom it allows is amazing. I just wish the world and the technical problems with this engine were sorted out because they do at some point kill the experience for me.
As for this being underrated what the hell lol? All people do is fawn over this game like it's the second coming. I think my viewpoint is actually a minority viewpoint.
While the story is kind of cool, it's not really great writing in any sense, and a lot of the tangents are crazy. The gunplay in both is terrible, though I played without the silly as shit targeting system for the most part so it was not that bad.
That being said the freedom it allows is amazing. I just wish the world and the technical problems with this engine were sorted out because they do at some point kill the experience for me.
As for this being underrated what the hell lol? All people do is fawn over this game like it's the second coming. I think my viewpoint is actually a minority viewpoint.
WaterAstro
Member
It's underrated?
I think it got the correct rating for its quality which that it is fairly good.
I think it got the correct rating for its quality which that it is fairly good.
Brerlappin
Member
I agree. FNV has the ugliest, most boring location of any fallout game. The gameplay was infuriating at times, and a lot of the writing was utterly dreadful. As bad as anything Bethesda could write, easily. I felt like Obsidian fanboys just went over fucking board hyping the shit out of it because they hated Bethesda more than FNV being a genuinely great game.
Screaming Meat
Unconfirmed Member
Never put down to fanboy conspiracy that which can be adequately explained by differing standards or opinions.