Fallout: New Vegas

[Kekvit Irae]

(I was actually surprised when I bought it that it was energy, in all previous games it has been a gun/small gun with its own unique ammo).

It was an energy weapon in Fallout 3's Operation Anchorage.
Currently, I'm doing my second playthrough, using energy weapons (and spare varment rifles until I can get a decent laser rifle and good EW skill). I've only ever seen the Gauss once in my first run, so I'm not really hopeful to find another.

[TinCow]

It was an energy weapon in Fallout 3's Operation Anchorage.
Currently, I'm doing my second playthrough, using energy weapons (and spare varment rifles until I can get a decent laser rifle and good EW skill). I've only ever seen the Gauss once in my first run, so I'm not really hopeful to find another.

Gauss Location Spoiler:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

They are plentiful in the Brotherhood of Steel outpost. If you become a member, they should be for sale from the equipment vendor. If you exterminate the Brotherhood (which I assume is a mission option for one of the other factions), several members should drop them.

[Kekvit Irae]

Gauss Location Spoiler:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

They are plentiful in the Brotherhood of Steel outpost. If you become a member, they should be for sale from the equipment vendor. If you exterminate the Brotherhood (which I assume is a mission option for one of the other factions), several members should drop them.

Yeah... about that...

After playing F1/2/T/3, I couldnt bring myself to slaughter them after

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I helped Hardin become Elder.

[LeftEyeNine]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spent more than 2 hours clearing the Quarry Junction off the Deathclaws with a char of words and skills. I was thinking about the REPCONN HQ logs when I was in bed yesterday night.

I just don't remember the last time I was so engulfed by a computer game.

Ladies and gents, Wasteland is indeed alive.

[Tuuvi]

Yes Fallout New Vegas is amazing. So amazing, in fact, that I need to hide it in a box somewhere for a of couple weeks so I can pass my classes.

[SwordsMaster]

Damn! It's so buggy! CTDs after repairing upgraded weapons, CTDs if i save the game while having the Pipboy open, enemies getting stuck at a 90 degree angle from where they should be, the character sinking into concrete to his knees when walking....

[frogbeastegg]

Got it, playing it, loving it. New Vegas is definitely a frog RPG through and through; my tiny amphibian heart is basking in the nuclear glow. I couldn't disagree more with the RPS article. No idea what game he played because it isn't the New Vegas I've got.

Much, much better than Fallout 3 IMO. Better writing. More and better choices. More interesting world. Far better character creation system and leveling - no more uber god with a bajillion and two stat points, and close to maxed out SPECIAL. The combat feels less crappy; ironsights mode is quite fun and I'm worryingly good at popping critical headshots with it. Perks and stats impact on conversation far more than before, and I've seen lots of different skills which can impact on dialogue instead of the limited range in Fallout 3. The main plot isn't cringeworthy. The voice acting is less awful.

Hardcore mode is a bit of a wash so far. I'm not finding it makes much difference aside from crippled limbs being something which makes me wail about the expense of a cure.

It's a more stable and bug free game than Fallout 3 was at release in my experience. I've only encountered a single problem: invisible landmines. In some areas they simply do not show up as objects on the map. I trigger one, then check the area closely for more and see none. The instant I move again, bloom. Repeatedly. In other areas they show up clearly.

Above all the game is filled with - and about - choices. Big, small, permanent, temporary. None so far have had an obvious best path.

I would say more but I'd rather use the time to play the game. Yup. I'm planning 4 playthroughs for this one, a different character type for each of the 4 faction paths. Lone wolf sniper type (current), laser girl, Mr melee with secondary kaboom weapons, and the stealth type. Haven't decided which build will match with which faction yet.

[Kekvit Irae]

I've only encountered a single problem: invisible landmines. In some areas they simply do not show up as objects on the map. I trigger one, then check the area closely for more and see none. The instant I move again, bloom. Repeatedly. In other areas they show up clearly.

I've never encountered invisible landmines. I have, however, encountered extremely well concealed landmines. Such as at

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Ranger Station Charlie. There are landmines hidden under the corpses, requiring you to physically move them away to disarm the mines, as well a bottlecap mine(!) hidden in the corner.

[LeftEyeNine]

I've encountered no more than 3 CTDs so far among which only one was in the middle of the game; the rest happened the moment I quit the game.

I think the game's flawless play is heavily dependent on how clean and up-to-date your rig is.

[Ja'chyra]

I gave in and bought it, and wish I hadn't, it's a bug ridden waste of money.

The worst bud is a black screen on zoning but there are others as well. I've heard all about the "You can't expect the game to work at release", but, yes I can, I paid for it, it should work. Never buying another game at release again.

[frogbeastegg]

I've never encountered invisible landmines. I have, however, encountered extremely well concealed landmines.

Those are some evil landmines. I like it!

My invisible ones were near the start of the game. You know that small gang camp based around a crashed vehicle about 5 minutes away from the starting town? Three mines there on the open landscape. I walked in, heard the first one beep and started to backpedal. My explosives skill is low so it blew after 2 beeps and crippled a leg and my head. I froze, scanning everywhere for more mines. Nothing. Took one step, beep beep boom. Patched myself up a bit, took another good long look around, saw nothing, three steps and beep beep boom. That seemed to be all of them as I didn't encounter any more as my crippled self staggered about the area hunting for loot.

[SwordsMaster]

Those are some evil landmines. I like it!

My invisible ones were near the start of the game. You know that small gang camp based around a crashed vehicle about 5 minutes away from the starting town? Three mines there on the open landscape. I walked in, heard the first one beep and started to backpedal. My explosives skill is low so it blew after 2 beeps and crippled a leg and my head. I froze, scanning everywhere for more mines. Nothing. Took one step, beep beep boom. Patched myself up a bit, took another good long look around, saw nothing, three steps and beep beep boom. That seemed to be all of them as I didn't encounter any more as my crippled self staggered about the area hunting for loot.

Same here. Exactly the same scenario too...

[TinCow]

I've actually never used the Gauss Rifle before. My first playthrough was Guns only. However, the AMR is almost double the damage of a Sniper Rifle (110 damage with the AMR compared to 63 damage with the SR), and can use Armor Piercing rounds for quick and easy takedowns of Deathclaws.

Thanks for the tip on the AMR. I switched over to it and used it instead of the Gauss for the rest of the game. It doesn't seem to do quite as much damage as the Gauss, but it's close enough that it doesn't really make a difference. Both guns work perfectly fine for ultra-long range power sniping. With the AMR, there's no need to put any points in Energy Weapons. In fact, it seems like the way FO:NV is balanced, you're intended to only really pursue one of the weapons paths. Each path seems to have low-level weapons available from the start, and contains weapons that serve all purposes. This isn't FO1/2/Tactics, where Small Guns were what you developed early on and Big Guns/Energy was what you used in late game.

Finished the game, closing comments with spoilers:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I finished up and chose the Independent Vegas on my first play through. I was astonished at I was actually able to talk my way out of both final battles (Legate and General). I maxed Speech early, and it really paid off throughout the game. Many, many quests resolved without fighting for that reason. I'm going to start my second play through later today, and plan to side with NCR. My biggest complaint about the main plotline is that there's really no serious attempt to make Legion seem like a desirable ally. I kept waiting for some to make a serious argument about why I should help Legion, and it never happened. It seems like the 'side with Legion' option was added on later without much effort, and it shows. The other three all have decent appeal though, so I'll probably do all of them with Legion last (if ever).

The bugs are annoying though. They plagued me right up to the end. My game actually crashed in the middle of the epilogue section, and I had to redo the final sections just to see my full ending. Ugh...

[Kekvit Irae]

Thanks for the tip on the AMR. I switched over to it and used it instead of the Gauss for the rest of the game. It doesn't seem to do quite as much damage as the Gauss, but it's close enough that it doesn't really make a difference. Both guns work perfectly fine for ultra-long range power sniping. With the AMR, there's no need to put any points in Energy Weapons. In fact, it seems like the way FO:NV is balanced, you're intended to only really pursue one of the weapons paths. Each path seems to have low-level weapons available from the start, and contains weapons that serve all purposes. This isn't FO1/2/Tactics, where Small Guns were what you developed early on and Big Guns/Energy was what you used in late game.

Plus the AMR only uses one .50 ammo, whereas the Gauss uses five MF ammo. Definitely a treat for end-game snipers. However, if you're like me and want the sneak attack criticals, go with a standard Sniper Rifle (x5 crit instead of x1 for AMR). Maxxed out Gun skill and fully repaired, the Sniper Rifle will do 310 damage, whereas the AMR will only do 224. I wouldn't suggest the Gobi Campaign Scout Rifle since it cannot be modded and it requires 100 Lockpicking to get, even though the AP is less. If weight (re: Hardcore) is a concern, go with a fully modded Sniper Rifle (-5 weight, Silencer) instead.
If you're in a situation where the enemy is already ganging up on you, the AMR is definitely the king of battle for Gun users.

[Greyblades]

Eh I prefer a varmint rifle with supressor & night scope when up against humans, there's a lot of fun to be had by picking off the convicts at the abandoned NCR penitentiary and its an early game weapon there's loads of them around to repair with.

[al Roumi]

Those are some evil landmines. I like it!

My invisible ones were near the start of the game. You know that small gang camp based around a crashed vehicle about 5 minutes away from the starting town? Three mines there on the open landscape. I walked in, heard the first one beep and started to backpedal. My explosives skill is low so it blew after 2 beeps and crippled a leg and my head. I froze, scanning everywhere for more mines. Nothing. Took one step, beep beep boom. Patched myself up a bit, took another good long look around, saw nothing, three steps and beep beep boom. That seemed to be all of them as I didn't encounter any more as my crippled self staggered about the area hunting for loot.

Those particular mines, if I remember correctly, are powder charges -so they'd just look like a tin can (with a sensor attached). As well as the legion planting mines under corpses

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

at post-raid Ranger station Charlie, I closed the door behind the corpse which shoved the corpse and uncovered the mine-without triggering it. Yes I did feel smug.

I've come accross "hidden mines", which look like a small mound of dirt and exploding ants (which could be confused for a mine).

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

the hidden mines were laid by the goul hidding out among the Nightkin basement in the Bright-followers' quest, west of Novac. The exploding ants were in the Boomer generator room

I'm now up to level 19 and I'm delighted to say the story is motoring. I still cannot see anything between my game and "that review", i'm starting to think the RPS guy did it on purpose, a la Tom Chick, just to be a jackass different. The wasteland is indeed alive and as Froggy says, there are no easy choices to be made when leveling or building your character. I have to applaud the addition of magazines and nerfing of training manuals -not to mention the reduction in number of stat boosting items. With a clutch of implants, my character is a stealthy ish sniper(guns) with good science & lock pick skills, but also tragicaly autistic. I'm often running up against speech level barriers to dialogue options, but also very pleased to see the wasteland has a place for such socialy crippled boffins as mine with the variety of science & repair skill options.

Having sorted the Gomora (is that a reference to the book/film on the Camorra?) casino out, I had a go at gambling last night (well, it IS Vegas). With 9 luck, I was gratifyingly ruining the house, I gave up counting the number of times I was dealt a black jack hand. Unfortunately, the maximum bet is 200 chips/caps -but that's probably wise as this at least makes "bet farming" a chore and not too pronounced an exploit.

[frogbeastegg]

My current thought on the landmine mystery is that they must have clipped through the landscape. That's the only explanation which makes sense; there was nothing at all on view. I know it happens in the game as I've seen it happen a couple of times at later points, including a scorpion which fell halfway through a hill while scuttling over to attack. Must be the same glitch that caused NPCs to vanish in Fallout 3's starting town.

Still loving it. I think I love it all the more now I have realised that I won't be able to bring stealth into my current character build. Hurrah! Stealth is so powerful that I always ended up taking it as soon as I got my core skills (guns, speech, repair) to a decent level. Here I can't justify it - getting my cores up to 90 will take a lot longer, and then there's support skills I need more, such as lock picking. Once I had stealth on a character I always felt like I had to use it in order to get those stealth attack bonuses. I found that made gameplay something of a drag, and overpowered my character still further.

The achievement selection for this game is pretty bad - I feel sorry for anyone bothered about collecting such things. Do 10,000 points of damage with this weapon class, heal 10,000 points of damage with that item class and so on. A few for levelling, a decent number for the larger sidequests and main quests. Where's the ones for the fun aspects of the game? Obsidian missed an opportunity to promote some of the game's less obvious sides by using achievements, e.g. one for completing a playthrough with a low intelligence character, which gives different dialogue.

[TinCow]

The achievement selection for this game is pretty bad - I feel sorry for anyone bothered about collecting such things. Do 10,000 points of damage with this weapon class, heal 10,000 points of damage with that item class and so on. A few for levelling, a decent number for the larger sidequests and main quests. Where's the ones for the fun aspects of the game? Obsidian missed an opportunity to promote some of the game's less obvious sides by using achievements, e.g. one for completing a playthrough with a low intelligence character, which gives different dialogue.

Definitely a missed opportunity. I admit that I didn't play more than a few minutes with a low intel character in FO1/2, but after having completed FO:NV once, I'm very tempted to do so in this game. A low intel melee character seems like a perfect pro-Legion character... and also the only way I can justify sympathizing with those jerks. I will resolve all quests by punching things in the face, for Caesar! Unfortunately, such a character seems to require skipping most of the companions, as they're very heavily anti-Legion. Oh well, at least I'll have enough strength to carry the entire planet in my backpack.

[naut]

I like it. Alot. Except for the repair mechanic. Arg. Repair mechanics of any sort are friggin lame, regardless of the game.

[LeftEyeNine]

What is the best thing since sliced Deathclaw ?

FALLOUT NEUE VEGAßE !

[Prussian to the Iron]

just got it a few days ago on ps3. aside from a few freezes no big bugs, and i definitely like the game. alot. like in fallout 3 I couldn't find enough quests, here I cant pick which to do first!

i think i said everything I needed to in the what are you playing topic, so if you wanna see my review go there.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I told you all, it was going to be much better.

[miotas]

I am very pleased that I got this on PC. As amazing as the vanilla game is, mods just make it so much better.

I downloaded a combat mod to make bullets more deadly and armour more relevant. Before I downloaded the mod I had run around playing most of the game on Very Hard/Hardcore without a scrap of armour, and whilst there were plenty of tight spots, there was never any situation that I had too much difficulty navigating, after I put the mod on however a powderganger with a little peashooter could kill me in one shot if I wasn't careful.

I've got other mods for flavour like extra radio stations, binoculars with more zoom, picking up thrown weapons, and one that effects your vision when you are intoxicated or radpoisoned to name a few, but I now find that combat mod essential, after playing with that vanilla is just way too easy.

[Prussian to the Iron]

my unarmed/melee character for CL seems like its too easy, at least against non-cazadores/deathclaws.

with my ranger move, I can easily take down anybody for several easy hits with my spiked knuckles, plus with my new perk, just about every hit knocks down (comically, in some cases, such as securitrons) my enemy.

[Beskar]

Shotgun-punch = Win Button

[Prussian to the Iron]

ah yes, i remember being killed multiple times by those bastards. gotta get me one of dem.

[miotas]

For my melee character I prefer to use knock-knock, or any other fire-axe for that matter. There are melee weapons that are more powerful, but I take a perverse satisfaction from sinking an axe into my enemy's skull.

[naut]

For my melee character I prefer to use knock-knock, or any other fire-axe for that matter. There are melee weapons that are more powerful, but I take a perverse satisfaction from sinking an axe into my enemy's skull.

Surely the 9 Iron is the best way to go. Nothing better than playing Deathclaw Golf.

[LeftEyeNine]

Sorry but nothing other than a full-fledged pack of Cazadors or numerous Deathclaws are bothersome enemies in the game. I mean it's not dependent on your character.

[miotas]

Well it's largely dependent on level, very little appears to be scaled in the game. Waltzing through Scorpion Gulch or assaulting Cottonwood Cove as soon a you start a game would be tantamount to suicide, and attacking places like the Brotherhood bunker and the Fort is always going to be hard even at level 30, but for the most part I agree with you, which is why I downloaded mods for the game.

One thing I like about this game is how you are very rarely forced to kill anything, there's almost always a non-violent resolution to every situation if you posses the right skills. I might try do a playthough where I don't take a single life.