Fallout: New Vegas

[Morberis]

Do not setup your PC at your TV, unless you want to be that guy.

Just buy a more comfortable chair for your desk.

No no, my computer desk is near my bookcases and near my bookcases I have a rockin reclining chair that is far far more comfortable than any computer chair can be. Rotate that 45 degrees, move it forward 4 feet and with a new big screen monitor....

[Strollen]

So what type of characters are people going to be playing on their first playthrough?

I went back and played a few minutes of FO3 as melee character. Sadly I suck at melee and in FO3 you couldn't target locations in VATS with melee. So I am not going to try it in FO3.

Right now I am torn between a gun sniper character with decent sneak skills, trait: trigger discipline, built to destroy, perks shotgun surgeon, commando, finesse, sniper, better criticals.
Or a pistol/SMG spray and slay guy. Traits fast shot, kamikaze, perks rapid reload, run & gun, gunslinger, scrounger, finesse center of mass. I just hope there are some decent one handed weapons in the game.

[Adam Eayrs]

There are melee-weapon-specific special abilities that unlock only in VATS, as well as a bunch of VATS-specific melee perks. In my F3 playthroughs I never had a problem dealing out crits in melee, but YMMV! I understand that it "just isn't the same" when you aren't keying up 5 haymakers specifically on some poor guy's crotch (though groin targeting was conspicuously absent from F3!)

Anyways I build my characters around never entering VATS, stealth, or melee. VATS I despise because it ruins the flow of the game, stealth I find too unbalanced in favour of the player, and melee is just very dull. Maybe if the devs had introduced an AP-driven combo/environmentally-cued brawling system in place of VATS for the melee...

[Tom Chick]

Tom, for the wallet threat level tomorrow, can we get some kinda obscure/subliminal thumbs up/down?

How do you know I'm playing? :)

I'm not sure I could even begin to give a thumbs up or thumbs down yet. I can certainly say this is a huge game. I'm about 25 hours in and still pretty overwhelmed by the breadth of stuff to do. It's very Fallout 3.

I will say it's got some really disappointing tech and balance issues. The Xbox 360 version has locked up on me several times and I've heard the same from a colleague who's also playing. In addition, there seems to be some sort of memory leak. I was about ready to just throw in the towel, convinced that the geometry and effects in the actual New Vegas area were too much for the engine. But I cleared the memory cache (not sure if that actually does anything) and restarted my 360, and that made a world of difference. Now I'm making a point to quit out every few hours.

And although I love the hardcore mode in theory, in practice it hasn't been the least bit challenging. :( Thanks in part to Fallout's lack of a real economy, the hardcore mode just feels like an extra layer of futzing. It's more flavor than difficulty, I'd say.

I'll be doing a game diary series on Fidgit next week and a full review for Gameroni, Jason's site, when I'm done.

-Tom

[Adam Eayrs]

Aww, shucks. Does the balance stuff seem mod-able?

[Cl_Flushentityhero]

I'm thinking small guns, speech, and some form of close combat. Maybe stealth too, because I like how you can combine it with VATS for epic slow-mo ambushes against multiple enemies.

[Cubit]

Aww, shucks. Does the balance stuff seem mod-able?

If it mods like Fallout 3, then everything is mod-able.

[Joe M.]

An Obsidian game with technical issues. Surprise!

I think I'll finish this Fable playthrough and pick NV up after they've patched all the bad out of it (or modded it away, as the case may be).

[Morberis]

To be fair the original Fallout 3 had a fair bit of bugs as well, especially on release.

[Disconnected]

I'll be playing Christian Wasp, the mad stealth suicide bomber. It's the only way to play FO3D.

The gunplay is shitty and melee is dull, so both are out. On the other hand, VATS makes you near-invulnerable, Stealth makes you near-invisible, Explosives are just about the most easily available weapon in the game and works wonders with invisible, invulnerable player characters, and VATS has this built-in obnoxious-cam thing that is completely intolerable if allowed to show something other than blood decals.

[Omniscia]

I hate you, Amazon!

My copy has shipped, but their estimated arrival date is October 25.

Oh, it's because I'm a moron and didn't resubmit the order after I picked up Prime, so it's coming via Free Super Saver Shipping, and not release day shipping. :(

[Morberis]

Go buy one from a local store and then return the still packaged amazon copy to the store. Free release day shipping, courtesy of your friendly neighbourhood Gamestop.

[Omniscia]

Yeah, but I ordered the collector's edition.

I had enough credits banked to bring it down to $20.

[Strollen]

I hate you, Amazon!

My copy has shipped, but their estimated arrival date is October 25.

Oh, it's because I'm a moron and didn't resubmit the order after I picked up Prime, so it's coming via Free Super Saver Shipping, and not release day shipping. :(

My strategy guide is showing Oct 25 as ship date and delivery as Nov 1 to Nov 5. So I just canceled the order

[Omniscia]

My strategy guide is showing Oct 25 as ship date and delivery as Nov 1 to Nov 5. So I just canceled the order

My copy has shipped

Ahem.

I appreciate the suggestion, though.

[Raife]

FYI, the "Go Postal!" perk allows you intercept mail while it's in transit.

[Shellfishguy]

I finally broke down and pre-ordered on steam. I just couldn't take the thought of waiting for this one.

[Anti-Bunny]

FYI, the "Go Postal!" perk allows you intercept mail while it's in transit.

Keep in mind, it lowers your faction with the postmen and Kevin Costner hunts you down.

[Omniscia]

Keep in mind, it lowers your faction with the postmen and Kevin Costner hunts you down.

Costner hasn't been able to land a hit in years, though.

[Morberis]

So this is set to release at midnight and not the noon the count down timer says?

[Jafisob]

To be fair the original Fallout 3 had a fair bit of bugs as well, especially on release.

As far as bugs in FO3, I didn't notice any glaring bugs that significantly impacted my game play.

Regarding balance issues....
To be fair FO3 and Oblivion both had major balance issues. I was a demigod in Fallout 3 before level 10. At 20 I was a god. I wasn't expecting FNV to be dramatically different.

[BleedTheFreak]

As far as bugs in FO3, I didn't notice any glaring bugs that significantly impacted my game play.

Regarding balance issues....
To be fair FO3 and Oblivion both had major balance issues. I was a demigod in Fallout 3 before level 10. At 20 I was a god. I wasn't expecting FNV to be dramatically different.

Try hardcore mode - it sounds extremely interesting, and I fully plan on giving it a shot on my first play through.

[Omniscia]

As long as there are interesting places to explore and fascinating stories to witness, I don't really care about balance.

Fallout 3 was all about the exploration for me.

[Adree]

If it crashes on the 360 I'd be quicker to blame the engine than Obsidian, FO3 was pretty easy to crash and since Tom said clearing his cache helped I'd almost guarantee that was the cause.

[Jafisob]

As long as there are interesting places to explore and fascinating stories to witness, I don't really care about balance.

Fallout 3 was all about the exploration for me.

Yes! This is the reason Fallout 3 was one of my favorite games. Despite some of the balance problems, the open world exploration was exemplary. This is my expectation of Fallout New Vegas. It may have balance problems and other issues, but I expect to have a heck of a fun time running around and finding things.

I will enjoy reading Tom's review when it comes out.

[Tom Chick]

If it crashes on the 360 I'd be quicker to blame the engine than Obsidian, FO3 was pretty easy to crash and since Tom said clearing his cache helped I'd almost guarantee that was the cause.

Well, there's two separate things here: the lock-ups and the "memory leak".

I could be misremebering, but I don't recall Fallout 3 freezing up on my 360. New Vegas is locking up on me with alarming frequency. Like a hard lock where I can't even call up the menu by pressing the Xbox button. It's happened about ten times.

Most of the time it's no big deal, since the game autosaves so frequently. One time it happened, I had just won about 5000 caps after a string of successful Caravan games (ingame CCG that's pretty much impossible to lose). Another time, just now in fact, it locked up at the end of a progression of arena style battles. At which point I get to decide whether to replay that arena stuff or just say "fuck it". I'm leaning towards the latter.

If this was an issue in Fallout 3, it wasn't nearly as bad. And this is with the retail version. I have no idea if there's a day-0 patch in the works, but New Vegas needs it.

The memory leak (not sure if that's what it actually was, but the framerate was excruciatingly slow and the game was pausing every few seconds) was a separate issue. I haven't seen it since last night, but I've been saving and restarting throughout the day. As for clearing the cache, I have no idea whether it actually helped. It's just one of those things like defragging that I figure I might as well do to cover all my bases.

-Tom

[Tom Chick]

Try hardcore mode - it sounds extremely interesting, and I fully plan on giving it a shot on my first play through.

My experience is that hardcore mode doesn't have any meaningful impact on the power curve. As I said above, it's more a matter of adding survival flavor than making the game more challenging.

-Tom

[Sander 001]

More specific than exploration, what I loved about Fallout 3 was the interpretation of a retro-futurist post apocalyptic universe and also discovering many of the small subcultures that have developed over the centuries from it. What great imagination and setting artistry!
Unfortunately, my sensors have not picked this up from New Vegas. Please, somebody show me wrong.

edit: Atompunk it is.

[Morberis]

As far as bugs in FO3, I didn't notice any glaring bugs that significantly impacted my game play.

Regarding balance issues....
To be fair FO3 and Oblivion both had major balance issues. I was a demigod in Fallout 3 before level 10. At 20 I was a god. I wasn't expecting FNV to be dramatically different.

Actually in fact the same issue comes up if you do a bit of googling, I don`t how the frequencies compare or whether the crashing was caused by memory issues but it was fixed by clearing your cache as well. In fact when I played Oblivion I did have to clear the cache because of caching.

So yeah definitely an engine issue. Which I guess is bad for me hoping I can get the game to stay up for more than a half hour.

[Equis]

Tom is playing on the Xbox yes? Are there similar issues with the PC version?