Is the story better than the reviews are making it out to be? I heard a lot of bitching about the fact that some of the soldiers don't even pronounce their leaders' name properly, and how the most important crop field in the state was the most measley-looking thing in the world.

Personally I think they have just focused on the most negative aspects. Some reviewers have made a point of saying Obsidian make buggy unfinished games and now they.. haven't. Since the start of this game I have always had something to do, somewhere to go... I have a direction unlike FO3 where it was 'go find dad'. The writing is better, the quests are better, the acting is better, the guns are better... everything is just better. It's like Fallout 3 but... better.

Edit: I don't know about others but I have hardly used VATS either. The Iron sights work really well.

Congrats on the 666. :D I'm nearly there myself but you beat me.

Which is what I'd read before I started playing. I wonder if it is just a matter of Obsidian recognizing the wandering around fighting low level animals as being tedious and without a lot of benefit to the story. Because the map feels a lot smaller. Not sure how one would really know how large the map really is.

That's jumping to conclusion waaaay to fast, it's not mandatory, DR2 is not the first game using the date check thingy, and it's optional, if NV had used GFWL there is nothing telling us whenever or not it would have used the release date check.

It's like if you were saying that because Bioshock 1 used securom with limited online activation then all the new games using securom with obligatorily have limited online activation too...

I think Delixe here puts it rather well.

I liked Fallout 3 well enough. But New Vegas is.. a vast improvement.

I disagree with that, having replayed BG recently there is nothing in today RPG that didn't existed 10 years ago, heck (IMHO) Ultima 7 had much realistic NPC life/interaction than Oblivion or any other recent "open world" RPGs.

The only RPG which tried something new RPG wise (IMHO again) was risen... too bad that the rest of the game wasn't on par with it's initial ambition.

The main difference between today and "yestarday" RPF is that more and more RPG parts are removed and replaced by FPS/TPS action parts.

In terms of controls and UI I actually think that having to cater for such incredibly low resolutions was as much a major hindrance to RPGs as anything. I don't see the point in debating what was possible back then. The simple fact is that these possibilities weren't explored at the time.

As for your comment on aspects of RPGs being removed and replaced with FPS/TPS action... are they? Or is it more that developers are realising that an RPG can still be an RPG even with combat that's not directly based on the pen and paper game. If the combat is still determined by your stats and those of your opponent(s) and you gain experience from that then I don't see how it is any less RPG combat.

Haha thanks. :)
That's an interesting point. They might be biased...because Obsidian has such a bad rep, when they finally do something good reviewers (some) can't even recognize it. Though I started playing after the first 200+ fix patch, it does seem ridiculous nonetheless. phanboy_iv started playing before it and didn't encounter any real bugs after about six hours of play I believe. I haven't encountered any so far after four hours.

PS. Looks like console patches don't take a month...the first big patch (containing similar fixes) went out on Xbox Live today.

Both of your examples come from the Rockpapershotgun review, which is fucking terrible, we already talked about it. Read their comments section, no one agreed with that review.

And PS, the pronunciation of Ceaser is the Latin one, and most correct of any.

That's one of the details about New Vegas that makes it a pleasure to play. It's a minor thing and one which is undoubtedly going to be missed my most players, at least in the US. But I think the irony of a band of outlaws based upon Caesar's palace trying to recreate the Roman Empire in a way but getting that detail right is just delicious.

Improved graphics yes, but improved gameplay... look BG interface, now look at Dragon Age interface... where are the improvements ? Please don't tell me that you consider Fallout 3 pipboy interface or Oblivion mess as being an "improvement". :)


Except that in most action RPG (or action adventure) games, your stats have very often little to no repercussion on the outcome of a fight, maybe you will need to shoot twice to kill and enemy instead of once.

Maybe it has changed with New Vegas but in Fo3 I tried to create a more stealthy type character but in the end I often didn't event needed to be stealthy at all, I was able to kill anybody without any difficulty and even without having to use the "pause", just running around zig-zaging and shooting.

And it's even worse if you consider games like Mass Effect 2, I like ME games a lot but I definitely don't consider them as being RPGs, action adventure yes, but not RPG, heck ME2 had even less RPG elements that No One Lives Forever 2 which is an FPS.

Don't get me wrong, I don't consider actionish-RPG as being bad or anything, I actually like a lot of them, just that I don't consider as being "real" RPG.

Well, Bioware have always been more action orientated than most RPG devs. So Mass Effect 2 was more like a perfection of what they've been striving to achieve since NWN 1 than a devolution to a more simplistic state.

I don't necessarily agree that action is a defining characteristic of an RPG. Naturally it is for most. But when it comes to the essence of what makes a roleplaying game a roleplaying game it quickly becomes obvious that you don't actually need any combat in the game at all. You only need the option to resort to violence. Not necessarily the motive for doing so.

That said, I certainly don't think you're wrong in what you say about the role you're taking on being an essential part of how battles are fought. It should be a defining factor. In fact, this is true of almost any game where you're not simply a faceless avatar.

Take another genre - Mirror's Edge as an example. Faith could run rings around most people. But using weapons was never her strong point. No matter how good at FPS you are, you had to play to her strengths more so than your own skills to survive.

So there are certain elements of roleplaying there. It's just that it's not a character you either created or have the ability to shape. The game ends with her having the same skills as those she began with. You don't develop her character one iota. So in RPG terms she's like a snapshot; a static state, and one that will quickly be surpassed.
In terms of interface, the biggest improvement is in its removal without stripping features and options out of the game. It's about making these things more streamlined and more closely tying together the various aspects of the game into a more cohesive whole.

In terms of Fallout 3, the improvements weren't t to be had in the console-orientated Pipboy. I liked the general idea. But it's implementation was far more clunky than it needed to be on PC.

The improvements came from the lack of transition between exploration and combat. The lack of dialogue interface (compared to Fallout). How these things were more naturally blended into one complete roleplaying experience.

Yes, yet more can still be done in these areas. I didn't like how people spontaneously talking to you forced you to verbally respond to them. Having the option to ignore them or even just get on with killing them should always have been an option.

Well, yes. Action RPGs are just action adventures that use RPG stats. But the line between them tends to get blurred. Mostly with games marketed as being RPGs winding up looking more like action RPGs when looked at more closely.

I'm not too sure about Mass Effect 2. It was very action-orientated. But then so are a lot of RPGs. The choices you made had a fairly clear effect on people and events. Especially if you imported an ME1 character. But character development was definitely very, very limited. Is it still roleplaying if you can't really shape the role you play? Not really. Not in my book. It's still a very bloody good game though.

I think that has changed, Oblivion introduced some new mechanics which make things a bit more even. I don't really want to spoil anything for folks, but armor behaves differently, packs of enemies behave differently and I'm finding myself getting killed more quickly.

Of course being in hardcore mode might have something to do with it. Although over all I'm not finding it to be that much harder than FO3 was.