Why is Fallout New Vegas considered good?

[KateMicucci]

I enjoy NV for the combat and the variety of weapons.

Dismemberment and exploding bodies is fun.

 

[The Decline]

Funny enough I lived in the general area where Fallout 1 and 2 took place and I now live in Vegas. Next time I play New Vegas I'm going to see if I can locate where my house would roughly be on the world map.

I know this post has nothing about why I like New Vegas, but that's how much I care about what the OP thinks.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

you can wear cowboy hats

 

[Falksi]

Meh, I liked a lot about it (C&C, good main characters such as House, interesting construction such as trap placement etc.) but I didn't actually enjoy playing it that much. The world just felt too empty and too lifeless too often. Joining Caesars' Legion is too much of a ballache too.

It's OK.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

The world just felt too empty and too lifeless too often.

That's because it's a desert

 

[smaug]

Fo2 used to be my favourite specifically because of the humour but I think it's objectively badly written in parts - the setting simply doesn't make any degree of sense. It's about as nonsensical as Fallout 3's setting at times.

Honestly though, all the Fallout games feel like different settings to me anyway - I can't square New Vegas and Fallout 1 as taking place in the same world. But Fallout 2, fun as it is, doesn't even make sense internally. San Francisco in particular is really shit, and anything to do with the Enclave sucks (though Arch Dornan and the prank call are both very funny). Broken Hills is also just fucking dumb, losing the chess game to the super-intelligent radscorpion and transporting the talking plant to a new patch are fun but they're also stupid.

Junktown and The Boneyard make no internal sense in Fallout 1. San Francisco is definitely the worst when it comes to the world, however, every other location has decent logic (and a geopolitical reason) backing up its existence and is essentially the 1st main story of F2. The Enclave stuff is definitely more tacked on but they’re a fun faction in regards to the secret evil government trope.

 

[Tweed]

Really, what is so bad about talking deathclaws?

If you don't find bloodthirsty giant lizards, talking and being intelligent closer to humans despite being completely genetically different, as immersion breaking, then i guess you won't find anything in Fallout 2 weird as well.

Yeah you could use all excuses for that, like radiation and ect.. for me it makes the game feels like a cartoon or a parody of the first game. It ruined Deathclaws as well, it makes like they are misunderstood, not scary, if only they could talk... we humans could be friends! instead of killing each other.

Goris haters are fags and I'm not interested in discussing how realistic things are in an alternate universe post-apoc game w/ talking mutants and ghouls.

 

[Abu Antar]

I don't love the combat, but you can also avoid it completely, if you wish. You can even avoid it and be a complete piece of shit.

Me: I liked the exploration, factions, and writing. Luckily, you can do good enough builds to maul a lot of things in the world. The game isn't great looking, and it has the usual Gamebryo issues, but I can live with that. One other thing is that you can explore the game world, and take your time, or you can beat the game in less than ten hours. You can kill almost everyone, or be a pacifist. There are quests with multiple solutions. Some people say that if this game had isometric view, it would still not hold a candle to Fallout 2, but I disagree.

I have to whip up this screenshot of my "pacifist" playthrough every few years:

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

What did you do to not kill anyone, but still get the worst karma in the game? Tempted to try that.

 

[Abu Antar]

What did you do to not kill anyone, but still get the worst karma in the game? Tempted to try that.

Being a douche in dialog, lie, and betray people at almost every opportunity that I got. If there were quests situations where I could get two factions fighting each other, I did what an average codexer would do, and hid. Be sure to have some stealth boys ready. I don't remember in details of all the quests, but there are plenty of options to be a dick.

 

[The_Mask]

I'm pretty sure you can get -100 Karma by just feeding 1 of your companions to the closeted cannibals on the Strip (can't remember the name off-hand), and I'm also pretty sure that doesn't count as a kill. Same thing with blowing up the Brotherhood of Steel bunker, I think.

It sounds difficult, but I'm sure it only *sounds* difficult.

 

[Lemming42]

Still got a screenshot of mine too, from 2014 (posted about it on the Codex):

 

[Abu Antar]

I'm pretty sure you can get -100 Karma by just feeding 1 of your companions to the closeted cannibals on the Strip (can't remember the name off-hand), and I'm also pretty sure that doesn't count as a kill. Same thing with blowing up the Brotherhood of Steel bunker, I think.

It sounds difficult, but I'm sure it only *sounds* difficult.

I don't remember if I did that, but getting crap karma is easier than one thinks, but I also did this run eight years ago. Memory is a bit fuzzy.

 

[Frank Capicoli]

I'm pretty sure you can get -100 Karma by just feeding 1 of your companions to the closeted cannibals on the Strip (can't remember the name off-hand), and I'm also pretty sure that doesn't count as a kill. Same thing with blowing up the Brotherhood of Steel bunker, I think.

It sounds difficult, but I'm sure it only *sounds* difficult.

I don't remember if I did that, but getting crap karma is easier than one thinks, but I also did this run eight years ago. Memory is a bit fuzzy.

I'm guessing a little bit of stealing probably adds it up fast too since being a pacifist doesn't get the absurd amounts of positive karma from killing raiders and feral ghouls.

 

[Sigourn]

cohesive worldbuilding

Football pads vs guns.

 

[Butter]

I don't love the combat, but you can also avoid it completely, if you wish. You can even avoid it and be a complete piece of shit.

Me: I liked the exploration, factions, and writing. Luckily, you can do good enough builds to maul a lot of things in the world. The game isn't great looking, and it has the usual Gamebryo issues, but I can live with that. One other thing is that you can explore the game world, and take your time, or you can beat the game in less than ten hours. You can kill almost everyone, or be a pacifist. There are quests with multiple solutions. Some people say that if this game had isometric view, it would still not hold a candle to Fallout 2, but I disagree.

I have to whip up this screenshot of my "pacifist" playthrough every few years:

No kills, but you're drinking stimpaks. Looks like you just sat there tanking while your companions did all the fighting.

Football pads vs guns.

Wait until you see the armor soldiers wear against guns in real life.

 

[Desman]

I feel like people like it for what it could have been rather than what it truly is

This is exactly the reason. It is objectively a shitty game, mostly because of the technical limitations and terrible art but at the same time you can feel it tried to do new things and to improve the oblivion/fallout 3 formula. Writing can be silly but still enjoyable.
For me it's a solid contender for the best "failed game" title. Done correctly with a better engine it could have been marvelous.
Now let's talk about Motb and the Aurora engine

 

[ind33d]

New Vegas was only good because Fallout 3 laid all the groundwork. Same as Majora's Mask vs Ocarina of Time

 

[Üstad]

I love New Vegas. With all DLC and JSawyer's mod, of course.

The world building is excellent. The factions are good to great, I don't know what you guys are talking about. The characters and the writing range from adequate to brilliant. Mr House is brilliant. The Burning Man is brilliant. The Survivalist is brilliant. Dead Money is brilliant, and some of my favorite Avellone's work. Old World Blues is great as well once you accept what it is going for. Vulpes Inculta is awesome.

The fighting is not that good, but sniping is not bad. You can have fun with it.

The voice acting again ranges to pretty great. Burning Man, Vulpes Inculta, Dean Domino, House are awesome.

The vaults are interesting. My favorites are Sierra Mardre and Vault 11, but others are very cool too (Vault 22 etc).

EDIT: The is some excellent quest design as well. Not all quests are created equal (it is a huge game with hundreds of quests after all), but some are great. "I put a spell on you", the Boomer questline etc.

Awesome game, tbh.

Is this generated by ChatGPT?

 

[Butter]

New Vegas was only good because Fallout 3 laid all the groundwork. Same as Majora's Mask vs Ocarina of Time

Why wasn't 4 good after 3 and NV laid so much groundwork?

 

[ind33d]

New Vegas was only good because Fallout 3 laid all the groundwork. Same as Majora's Mask vs Ocarina of Time

Why wasn't 4 good after 3 and NV laid so much groundwork?

4 is good, play on Survival and mod the dialogue options

 

[Lemming42]

No kills, but you're drinking stimpaks. Looks like you just sat there tanking while your companions did all the fighting.

That's not necessary, and in fact if you're trying to do a true pacifist run then companions are a massive hindrance, especially Boone because the stupid emo fuck has beef with every other person in the Wasteland and will constantly start sniping people from across the map. You can get through the game and the majority of sidequests with no kills at all iirc, I think on my 91-quests-completed run I only caused the deaths of Caesar and Motor Runner, in neither case using companions. I forget how, I think killing Caesar involved empowering Benny and then hauling ass around the tent knocking the guards down with the cattle prod, and Motor Runner involved some weird creative kiting.

Cheating via companion kills is almost never even advantageous, though - the only time it would even be useful is in random encounters on the world map, which are trivial to sneak by if you're solo. Very very few quests ever force you into combat of any kind, and when they do you can usually just run, or, in the event of the stupid "battle" quests like the NCR raiding the prison, hide while NPCs clash with each other.

You also can't get through Dead Money with companions, because their kills are counted as your own, so even if you're trying to cheat by having them kill for you, it backfires. Dead Money is a spectacular babysitting exercise where you routinely have to hurl yourself in front of your teammates to prevent them from scoring hits on the gasmask guys, and demand that they part ways with you immediately at the earliest convenience.

As a point of interest, people might be interested to know that you can also near-100% Fallout 3 with no human kills (creature kills are unavoidable: radroach in the tutorial for starters, and then the five guardian ants in "Those!" if you're going for 100% completion), and you don't even have to kill any Super Mutants other than the small squad in Project Purity. Interestingly, avoiding violence on principle actually gets you worse outcomes in a couple quests ("Oasis", "Tenpenny Tower" and "Head of State", from memory. Also kind of "Stealing Independence" - you can sneak through the whole dungeon or just Stealth Boy it, but if you do, Sydney will always get her ass handed to her).

 

[LarryTyphoid]

What did you do to not kill anyone, but still get the worst karma in the game? Tempted to try that.

It's really easy to get low karma by stealing in NV. I had planned to do a good karma Mr. House run, but my rampant kleptomania led to Cass ditching me for being an asshole. She was a whore anyway.

 

[Abu Antar]

I don't love the combat, but you can also avoid it completely, if you wish. You can even avoid it and be a complete piece of shit.

Me: I liked the exploration, factions, and writing. Luckily, you can do good enough builds to maul a lot of things in the world. The game isn't great looking, and it has the usual Gamebryo issues, but I can live with that. One other thing is that you can explore the game world, and take your time, or you can beat the game in less than ten hours. You can kill almost everyone, or be a pacifist. There are quests with multiple solutions. Some people say that if this game had isometric view, it would still not hold a candle to Fallout 2, but I disagree.

I have to whip up this screenshot of my "pacifist" playthrough every few years:

No kills, but you're drinking stimpaks. Looks like you just sat there tanking while your companions did all the fighting.

Football pads vs guns.

Wait until you see the armor soldiers wear against guns in real life.

You will be attacked even if you do not always initiate combat. There are mines, and other crap. "Fly Me to the Moon" made me use a bunch of stimpacks. There's a quest where a showdown occurs, but I forgot its name, which made me use a bunch of stims.

You're not safe in the wasteland.

 

[Drunken Irishman]

Because... Joshua Graham is a righteous man.

I recently played through all of the Fallout games, and New Vegas writing definitely stands out. Not all of it is equally good, but when New Vegas writing is good, it's really good.