Why is Fallout New Vegas considered good?

[Tavar]

I think whether or not someone likes F:NV strongly depends on what importance is placed on gameplay. Fallout 3 has terrible gameplay. This includes the combat system, controls, itemization and progession system. F:NV doesn't fix these points. I just has better writing (not that hard) and supposedly good fractions (I wouldn't know as I only played the first couple of hours of the game). For some, this is enough to make F:NV a good game. For me, it's not enough. I hated Fallout 3 and F:NV just doesn't fix enough of the former's flaws.

 

[soutaiseiriron]

F:NV doesn't fix these points.

it does, actually. fnv is way less bullet spongy than fo3 and has improvements like a DT system resulting in more deadly headshots, various ammo types and true iron sights. base FO3 is just bad, TTW improves the game a ton.

 

[Ravielsk]

That's something that I don't get. Fallout New Vegas looks a lot better to me, in general, than Fallout 3. There's a lot more colors in Fallout New Vegas, particularly with the Vegas Strip. The starting area may not be the most colorful, but the saloon has that nice neon sign to give it a little vibrancy. Obsidian had to reuse a lot of the assets from Fallout 3, but their new assets they made also have to match the assets they were reusing.

Oh, yes it absolutely does look better. I am not denying that.

The thing is once you take it out of the FO3 context and measure it up against something like Metro 2033 or even Skyrim it just looks bad.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

or even Skyrim it just looks bad.

Toss in a "more plants" mod for New Vegas and you basically have Skyrim, honestly. Skyrim was pretty crappy looking when it came out also. Skyrim will just be grey and New Vegas will be brown.

 

[Hobo Elf]

F:NV doesn't fix these points.

it does, actually. fnv is way less bullet spongy than fo3 and has improvements like a DT system resulting in more deadly headshots, various ammo types and true iron sights. base FO3 is just bad, TTW improves the game a ton.

Not to mention that in FO3 you get a perk each level and way more skill points per level. New Vegas cutting the skill point and perk gain by half is already a massive improvement as it puts some pressure on your level up choices. To say that New Vegas doesn't improve the mechanics over FO3 is crazy.

 

[MasPingon]

This. I love New Vegas for it's setting, writing, worldbuilding, quest design but god damn, it's so buttfuck ugly it's beyond words. I consider NV biggest visual abomination of all time, gfx in this game is so off-putting I'm literally forcing myself to play while my eyes are bleeding. I can't even put my finger on what makes it so ugly - is it low poly assets, graphic designer's lack of ability to draw, terrible colour pallete, strange geometry, horrible textures or everything combined. Every little thing looks like composed of parts that do not fit together - it's either too small or too big and half of what you see on screen is just a shapeless blob. Doing something so unpleasent to see is actually quite a feat, I can't think of any other game that is even close.

Its really a curse inherited from FO3. The assets bethesda made were all intentionally made to look scuffed and overall crappy to sell the "post-apocalyptic" meme and there is very little that can be done with that without just redoing them all from scratch. With the time allotted Obsidian had no way of doing anything about that.

I know, but you can make everything look scuffy and still pleasent to eyes, look at Stalker games or even Fallout 1/2. F3/NV assets are just distasteful.

 

[Bad Sector]

Not to mention that in FO3 you get a perk each level and way more skill points per level. New Vegas cutting the skill point and perk gain by half is already a massive improvement as it puts some pressure on your level up choices.

And FNV has more interesting perks than FO3.

 

[Tavar]

F:NV doesn't fix these points.

it does, actually. fnv is way less bullet spongy than fo3 and has improvements like a DT system resulting in more deadly headshots, various ammo types and true iron sights. base FO3 is just bad, TTW improves the game a ton.

Not to mention that in FO3 you get a perk each level and way more skill points per level. New Vegas cutting the skill point and perk gain by half is already a massive improvement as it puts some pressure on your level up choices. To say that New Vegas doesn't improve the mechanics over FO3 is crazy.

I talked about "fixing" not improving. I think the whole combat system introduced in FO3 is broken and can only be completely replaced. I still think that System Shock 2 is the best synthesis of shooter gameplay and RPG elements and hence I think it would work well for Fallout as well. We could just discard that aimed shoots (not that big of a loss as many Fallout veterans used "fast shot" anyway) and use skills primarily as a requirement to use weapons. Then we could have actual shooter gameplay and not this weird and broken hybrid. The fine-tuning delivered in F:NV is just too little to rekindle my interest in FO3-style games.

 

[Socrates]

Honestly for me where FNV really shines is it's characters. Very memorable. I can barely remember a single character from F3.

 

[Bad Sector]

I still think that System Shock 2 is the best synthesis of shooter gameplay and RPG elements and hence I think it would work well for Fallout as well.

System Shock 2 and Fallout New Vegas are two very different games, despite both being first person RPGs with shooter elements.

SS2's flow/progression is much more controlled than FNV, which is more open ended in general. SS2 doesn't really have any side quests whereas FNV (and all Fallout games in general - or at least the main ones) is chock full of them to the point where you can ignore the "main quest" for many hours. FNV has more varied builds you can have with many situations having non-combat solutions taking into account NPCs and NPC/faction relations - SS2 on the other hand doesn't even have a real NPC.

These change things dramatically and you can't just transplant the combat system of a game to a very different one without affecting everything else (character progression, game/quest flow, etc) that interacts with it.

You need to start by figuring out the goals the system has and identifying the problems the combat system has exactly (not in vague terms like "it is too easy" because that is highly subjective) when it comes to achieving those goals. One common example would be, if the goal of a game (like most proper RPGs) is to have character skill be more important than player skill (as far as combat is concerned) then how does the game fare on that front (as an example, for an FPRPG with shooting, how easy is for a player accustomed to FPS games to offset the character having low stats)?

We could just discard that aimed shoots (not that big of a loss as many Fallout veterans used "fast shot" anyway)

Pretty much all of my shots in Fallout 1 (and Fallout 2 but i've mainly played Fallout 1) were aimed shots :-P.

 

[9ted6]

I think whether or not someone likes F:NV strongly depends on what importance is placed on gameplay. Fallout 3 has terrible gameplay. This includes the combat system, controls, itemization and progession system. F:NV doesn't fix these points. I just has better writing (not that hard) and supposedly good fractions (I wouldn't know as I only played the first couple of hours of the game). For some, this is enough to make F:NV a good game. For me, it's not enough. I hated Fallout 3 and F:NV just doesn't fix enough of the former's flaws.

At least from what I've seen the positivity toward FNV is on the basis of it being better than FO3 rather than a genuinely good game in its own right.

In a world without FO3 it probably would've had a much cooler reception.

 

[Lemming42]

Real time combat is never going to work properly in these games where the focus is pitting your character build against the quest design, because it means that combat is always viable for every character and therefore every quest is trivialised because if you don't meet the skill checks or can't be bothered finding alternate routes, you can just shoot your way through. Polar opposite of Fo1/Fo2 where, unless you invested in combat skills, entering combat was a death sentence.

On top of that I just don't think I've ever seen a marriage of RPG mechanics and FPS mechanics in any game. It always seems to be either "combat is always viable and stats just make you do a bit more damage and sway less" (Fo3, FNV, TES), "you shake the gun like you're on crack if you don't invest in skills" (Deus Ex), or "failing to invest in skills means you inexplicably do zero damage against spongey enemies". Fo3 was clever to come up with the VATS system as a way to excuse and mask the shitty FPS gameplay, but it's still nowhere near enough.

 

[Bad Sector]

Real time combat is never going to work properly in these games where the focus is pitting your character build against the quest design, because it means that combat is always viable for every character and therefore every quest is trivialised because if you don't meet the skill checks or can't be bothered finding alternate routes, you can just shoot your way through. Polar opposite of Fo1/Fo2 where, unless you invested in combat skills, entering combat was a death sentence.

You say that, but playing as a Toreador with barely any combat skills in VtMB was hell on earth, especially with the later sections where combat was forced on you despite being a realtime RPG with FPS combat. Subsequent playthroughs with better stats were much easier.

And it isn't like you can't cheese combat with Fallout 2 at least - first time i played Fallout 2 i had sucky combat stats and bruteforced my way through the desert to find the Enclave base (i didn't knew it was there, i was just exploring and i didn't want to restart with a new character because i had already spent hours with the one i had) where i picked up a power armor :-P. Similarly, my later playthrough was much easier with the only time i faced any real difficulty being the boss fight at the end.

On top of that I just don't think I've ever seen a marriage of RPG mechanics and FPS mechanics in any game. It always seems to be either "combat is always viable and stats just make you do a bit more damage and sway less" (Fo3, FNV, TES), "you shake the gun like you're on crack if you don't invest in skills" (Deus Ex), or "failing to invest in skills means you inexplicably do zero damage against spongey enemies".

What you describe does sound like a marriage of RPG and FPS mechanics though :-P. After all realtime FPRPG are, ideally, RPGs and in RPGs your character skills do matter - if they don't, they are not RPGs.

 

[Lemming42]

And it isn't like you can't cheese combat with Fallout 2 at least - first time i played Fallout 2 i had sucky combat stats and bruteforced my way through the desert to find the Enclave base (i didn't knew it was there, i was just exploring and i didn't want to restart with a new character because i had already spent hours with the one i had) where i picked up a power armor :-P. Similarly, my later playthrough was much easier with the only time i faced any real difficulty being the boss fight at the end.

Fo2's definitely got a lot of issues around the combat, and the relative ease of getting the Enclave power armour is insane.

The trip from The Den to Vault City used to drive me crazy as a kid with those rifle-wielding bandits. Not to mention the tanker basement, that has to be an all-time low for cRPG encounter design.

What you describe does sound like a marriage of RPG and FPS mechanics though :-P. After all realtime FPRPG are, ideally, RPGs and in RPGs your character skills do matter - if they don't, they are not RPGs.

Oops, I worded it badly - I meant that I've never seen a successful marriage of the two genres. The three ways I listed are the only ways I've seen people do it so far, and IMO none of them have been satisfying. It feels like both genres are dragging each other down, rather than lifting each other up, so you tend to end up with something that feels like a bad FPS with RPG-lite elements tacked on.

 

[Bad Sector]

It feels like both genres are dragging each other down, rather than lifting each other up, so you tend to end up with something that feels like a bad FPS with RPG-lite elements tacked on.

I think that is subjective, personally i like the feel of growth that improving my character stats give (it isn't like my own skills will improve during the game :-P). If anything i like it more when games have you really weak at the beginning - like in e.g. Gothic, Risen and ELEX - and you can feel the growth over the entire game, despite sometimes this feeling odd if you take a step back and think about it (like the guns not doing much damage or missing despite being impossibly close). I do not see it as any more weird/different than when, say, a fireball in Might & Magic (or whatever similar game) is brushed off by enemies instead of having them be scorched to death while screaming in agony :-P.

 

[Gargaune]

That's something that I don't get. Fallout New Vegas looks a lot better to me, in general, than Fallout 3. There's a lot more colors in Fallout New Vegas, particularly with the Vegas Strip.

It's odd for me that so many of you seem to prefer NV's visuals over Fo3's. Both were butt-ugly, to be sure, but I really thought NV took that medal with no contest. Fo3 at least kept a sense of visual cohesion and I could develop a sense of tolerance after a while, whereas NV's art direction felt like a bad mod and those extra colours you're talking about only shone an unflattering light on its disjointed nature. It's why I was really hoping the F4NV team would pull through with their remake, but it doesn't look like it's gonna happen anymore.

 

[MakenBro]

Dead Money and Lonesome Road have much better art direction than the Mojave worldspace. What bothers me is how ass the area surrounding Vegas looks, and the amount of reused Fallout 3 assets doesn't help at all.

 

[9ted6]

Dead Money and Lonesome Road have much better art direction than the Mojave worldspace. What bothers me is how ass the area surrounding Vegas looks, and the amount of reused Fallout 3 assets doesn't help at all.

Just about everything ahead from Novac to the end of the map feels like a rush job. There's a very noticeable difference in scale and detail in Goodsprings and its surrounds vs the New Vegas surrounds.

 

[agris]

it’s gamebryo, ass is what’s for dinner

 

[Bad Sector]

It's odd for me that so many of you seem to prefer NV's visuals over Fo3's.

Personally i do not have as a negative reaction to either of these games' visuals as some commented here, but i do prefer FNV's visuals way more than FO3. Main reason being that the thing i dislike in FNV is the overblown bloom/HDR that creates too shiny hotspots in surfaces - but the rest i find fine. The brown palette fits with the whole desert setting IMO, the place is supposed to be hot and dusty with sand everywhere and i think the visuals do communicate that.

And well, there was also a lot of dusty and rusty brown in the original Fallout games too - though less saturated - so i guess there is that too.

Fallout 3 on the other hand has this moldy green tone that makes everything look sick and the lighting in many places is outright wrong especially with contrast turned up to 11, blacks set to abyssal levels and saturation all over the place (some places become almost black and white). I can fix the part i dislike in FNV by disabling HDR, but outside of using mods i can't really take the sickly mold or wacky contrast out of Fallout 3's visuals.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Fallout 3 on the other hand has this moldy green tone that makes everything look sick and the lighting in many places is outright wrong especially with contrast turned up to 11, blacks set to abyssal levels and saturation all over the place (some places become almost black and white).

Fallout 3's palette never made sense to me. It's that oddly grey green color. I guess it's supposed to imply radiation? Skyrim honestly has the same problem in most of it's areas. I guess it could imply that it's that weird and unexplained Vault-Tec eye overlay that has VATS built in?

 

[9ted6]

Like most of the dumb design choices in 3 it makes more sense when you consider the game was originally set a few years at most after the war. It still doesn't make sense but it's not as weird.

 

[Gargaune]

The brown palette fits with the whole desert setting IMO, the place is supposed to be hot and dusty with sand everywhere and i think the visuals do communicate that.

I also prefer NV's desert beige to Fo3's pollution green, but everything else about its visuals left a bad impression, like it was just slapped together. Vegas looks garish and not in a "well, it's Vegas" sort of way, Freeside looks like baby's first Fo3 mod, and even the Mojave sometimes seems washed out and disjointed. I dunno, it all just felt very rushed and cheap, which isn't surprising given the development timeframe. Check out Project Mojave on Fo4 for how the same concept could look with more artistic finesse (and a better lighting engine, granted).

 

[9ted6]

The brown palette fits with the whole desert setting IMO, the place is supposed to be hot and dusty with sand everywhere and i think the visuals do communicate that.

I also prefer NV's desert beige to Fo3's pollution green, but everything else about its visuals left a bad impression, like it was just slapped together. Vegas looks garish and not in a "well, it's Vegas" sort of way, Freeside looks like baby's first Fo3 mod, and even the Mojave sometimes seems washed out and disjointed. I dunno, it all just felt very rushed and cheap, which isn't surprising given the development timeframe. Check out Project Mojave on Fo4 for how the same concept could look with more artistic finesse (and a better lighting engine, granted).

It's really obvious what they worked on first, what they did when they were more familiar and had time to spare with the SDK and what they did when it was time to ship it out the door ASAP. For example nowhere else has the same level of clutter detail as Goodsprings and the Repconn Factory and those are two of the first areas they worked on.

FO3's subways are rightfully memed on but bad as the game is as a whole its levels are just better than NV's. They're much more consistent and generally much more detailed and even if you discard the subway sections the DC ruins feel much, much bigger than New Vegas and Freeside.

Imagine if we'd gotten a proper map makeover and expansion instead of two mid and two terrible offmap DLCs.

 

[Bad Sector]

Check out Project Mojave on Fo4 for how the same concept could look with more artistic finesse (and a better lighting engine, granted).

I'm only judging from the author screenshots from here (user screenshots have a bunch of mods and such) because i do not have Fallout 4 available, but from what i can see 95% of the difference seems to be because of the lighting engine :-P.