Postby Janus%TheDoorman » Thu Oct 28, 2010 1:52 am
Played a bit of New Vegas. Far enough to get into the Strip, anyway. It's obviously very similar to FO3, but it has a very different feel in a lot of ways. For one your character feels far less central to what's going on. FO3 seemed like a world where everyone was just struggling to get by day-to-day until the Lone Wanderer ... wandered in and completely changed the scenario. The Courier's a lot more low profile which makes this feel a lot more like Six-Stringed Samurai than it does Mad Max or Book of Eli. I think the Six-Stringed Samurai inspiration is intentional, the Vegas connection is just too obvious.
It's a new world to FO3, that's both smaller and much more complex. There were obviously various groups of concern in FO3, but the faction and reputation system really helps bring them to life. You could vaguely play FO3 in such a way as to support the Enclave over the Brotherhood, or Tenpenny Tower over Megaton, but these felt like small and inconsequential variations in a fairly rigid narrative. New Vegas allows much greater freedom in the expression of your character.
Speaking of, character customization is different. You only get perks every other level for one, but the perks are largely unchanged from FO3, save that the skill boosting ones have largely been removed, and there are a few added in that provide bonuses for specific styles of play. Requires a much more specialized character to get the most of it. Skills are different, too, but the biggest change is in the speech check system. First of all, any of the skills can be used for a check, but most often it's Speech and Barter. And to counter save-scumming, the checks are no longer probabilistic, you either have the requisite skill or you don't. This doesn't sound like much, but having to pump both speech and barter up to 50+ early on to smooth out quests can easily leave you lacking in other skills, even with high intelligence builds. Funny enough, as important as they are, Charisma is my dump stat now, as weapons now require both a certain level of skill and strength to wield or else they sway about. Energy weapons, so far as I can tell have been gimped, mostly by the addition of a lot of cool, powerful firearms and firearm mods, the type of which were popular mods for FO3.
The changes are small individually, but together they make the Mojave a much more demanding place than the Capital Wasteland ever was. There are a variety of additional, strong enemies you face off against early on, and the desert, once you're off the beaten path is full of packs of feral ghouls and other nasties.
The bugs can't be denied, it's frozen up on me a few times, and the corrupted save issue is a big one, though that one hasn't hit me yet. Obviously both Bethesda and Oblivion are notorious for the instability of their games, and so long as I don't end up losing thirty hours of my life to a corrupted save, I'll keep one finger hovering over the quicksave button.
"But at any rate, the point is that God is what nobody admits to being, and everybody really is."
-Alan Watts