Fallout: New Vegas

[Nathan]

Forgot about that. Awesome indeed.

[BillyG]

Oh, and something cool. Wild Wasteland. Choosing this trait will introduce a lot of random encounters, and odd happenings you won't see otherwise in the game. I found a Crystal Skull reference (dead Indy inside a fridge), some really weird outlook post with 4 red balls and 4 aces sitting on the ground (any ideas?). Whenever you find something that is unique to Wild Wasteland a little Pip Boy icon pops up in the corner with a shocked look and an ellipsis next to him.

[BillyG]

Yea, the game definitely needs those patches ASAP. I didn't suffer any crashes tonight, only one early yesterday, but tons of bugged out enemies and janky load times. Still tons of fun. Went through a town today and with the Wild Wasteland trait I found Owen and Beru's burnt up corpses!

[Abraham Smashington]

haha, sweet. I'll probably grab this after Christmas.

[BillyG]

New Vegas Wikia needs to get busy filling in locations and unique weapons.

And I don't believe at all that the difficulty slider works. I came across giant radscorpions and got fucking SLAUGHTERED like 6 times last night. I even went in and changed it to very easy, still got destroyed. I also got ambushed by a gang, and barely walked away from that. If this really is their idea or easy and very easy they are sadistic bastards.

[Captain Russ]

PROS: huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge amounts of stuff to do. A lot of variety to the factions you can align with, and along with them long quest lines that are also varied in scope and style of play. It keeps you on your toes, and makes exploring so much fun once you get a handle on the environment you're traveling through (hostile, friendly, giant nest of roid-mosquitos). I've been burning through the NRC and Brotherhood of Steel stuff for the last day and a half. I'm probably only about halfway through those. The other big factions like the Great Khans and the Legion? Haven't even gone their route yet. That's a veritable shitton of other stuff to do.

And I haven't even gone to Vegas yet.

CONS: There are moments where the frame rate is desperately trying to keep up with the simultaneous loading (it's most noticeable around the Fiends' area of the Old Strip). It's a momentary nuisance, but I've also had the unfortunate luck of entering VATS at the same time (to disastrous ends).

FUN FACT/PROTIP: New Vegas Clinic has a med staff that will give you bobblehead-esque implants for a price (as well as a couple of outrageously-priced ones that sound like they're right out of the Weapon X program's playbook).

OVERALL FEELINGS: Graphic hiccups aside, this is one hell of a fun game. Unless you had a mad boner for more post-apocalyptic shenanigans after FALLOUTBOY TREES was finished, you might want to give this a shot over the holidays when there's more time to sink into it. In summation, I love this game.

[Abraham Smashington]

Sold.

[Captain Russ]

I almost forgot to mention the revamp of some of the perks.

There are some new ones that work like achievements. Like "kill 100 of blabbity blah" gives you the "Lord Death" perk, which increases your damage output. On top of it, you'll get a big experience bonus for all of your hard work at wrecking shit. There are a bunch of others to do if it's your bag, and it's just one more way that they reward you for keeping to a certain playstyle for however long (there are cheevs for melee, rifles, energy weapons, explodey things, etc.).

Just one more add-on to make me squee.

[V]

I've been holding off on any new games until Black Ops comes out... but this shit seriously has me reconsidering.

[BillyG]

Totally forgot the "in-game achievements/perks" bonuses. I got the rank 1 bug killer and rank 1 rifle damage last night.

Russ, been to Nipton yet? SO FUCKED UP.

[Captain Russ]

What they ask you to do in Nelson is also not-so-proper fucked.

Side note: I does afraid of anything named Deathclaw Alpha Male.

[BillyG]

What about the fucking PACKS of Night Crawlers or whatever those fucking half lizard half dog wolf things are?

[Captain Russ]

What about the fucking PACKS of Night Crawlers or whatever those fucking half lizard half dog wolf things are?

I was mauled to human plasmatic poop by those freekz early on. Then I learned to hotkey stimpaks to my radial menu.

They still suck, but at least they won't kill my shit so easily anymore.

Wait until you get to Vault 19. Those things kinda freaked my shit out.

[BillyG]

Soooooooooooo the Nightkin with Stealth Boys. Not great. Rebar clubs to the head fucking HURT. But hey, I got like 12 stealth boys in Robco.

[BillyG]

360 patch live