Just wondering, I'm considering buying it and was curious on how good of a job obisadan did. I heard it is much more of a role-playing game than 3, which got me interested. Any thoughts?

I found it better than Fallout 3 (which I thought suffered from Bethesdaitis), but it still seems to be missing something. Hardcore mode is a nice addition, but even with that and higher difficulties the game felt too easy.

The praise for better role-playing probably comes from the fact that the writing and dialogue is WAY better in New Vegas than Fallout 3. Charisma is as useless as it was in Fallout 3, but Speech is a lot more important.

The world is much smaller than Fallout 3 (probably 1/4 the size), but overall I think it was a good move. Quality > Quantity, but some of the areas felt thrown in and forgotten. I'd discover an area, get it marked on my map, look around, and see nothing worth looting, a building with no entrance, no safes to pick, no computers to hack... so basically a new area that has nothing of interest.

The focus on player skill rather than character skill, and shoot em up gameplay instead of turnbased cerebral strategy were also negative points for me. Since the focus is more on FPS mechanics for combat than RPG, if you're a half decent FPS player then the combat in New Vegas will be very easy throughout, and leveling up combat skills will just make it easier. Takes a hunk of RPG out of the game when character skill has such a small effect on combat, but regardless, it was still fun. Having iron sights was a huge plus as well.

As far as bugs, I only had six CTDs (yes I counted) over the 30 hours I spent in the game. I had one quest glitch, and it was so minor it only left me confused for a few minutes - I spoke to an unnamed NPC in a house, and they responded as if I had just saved them from a vicious attack, and I got XP, caps, and a reputation bonus. Yeah, it was out of place, but it seemed like a very small side quest, so it didn't bother me.

If you're a Fallout 1 & 2 fan, I think New Vegas is worth the $50. It's a lot closer to the Fallout feel than Fallout 3 was, with the only major difference being the combat, and I guess I should mention that Tag skills only give you that initial boost, not the 2 points for every 1 spent like in Fallout 1 & 2, but the quality of writing and a more genuine Fallout feel make up for these shortcomings.

Well it depends.... if you are one of those insane "Fallout 3 sucks coz it haz nothin 2 do with 1st 2" fanboys then you might not like it, as it has pretty much the same combat engine & has a similar open world. If you did like Fallout 3 on the other hand, you will probably like New Vegas as it is mostly more of the same (although it does have more in common with the first two from the way I hear it).

Personally I still prefer Fallout 3, but I'm still not very far in, so take that for what you will.

I really like New Vegas. It had a lot of story elements from the original games that were pretty neat. There were a few bugs, especially with companions, but those have since been fixed.

I should also note that the game freeezes all the fucking time... so if you do get it, save OFTEN.

Thanks to everybody who responded, I decided to get it. Should I get the disk or should I just use steam as I heard the disk DRM involves steam or something.

I would go with the disc; if you plan on modding it a lot(or even just moderately... or a little...) having a disc nearby will be a godsend if you ever need to reinstall because you made an oopsie.

They're practically the same thing anyway. New Vegas runs through steam whether you purchase it off of their online store or install it with a DVD.

It doesn't matter, the box makes you use steam like the guy above me said.

It's not 1/4 the size of Fallout 3 either. Maybe 3/4 the physical size with about 3x the depth, I am seriously impressed at the various contingencies the game can respond to in terms of what you have/haven't done.

Step up from Fallout 3 in every way, though not so much that you should play it if you absolutely hated Fallout 3.

But yeah. Everything's better. Story is better, companions are more manageable and likable, you have meaningful choices to make when it comes to the outcome of the plot, slightly smaller world but with generally more interesting locations, nothing like the horrible tunnel system you had to use to try to explore D.C., and Hardcore mode makes it a lot more fun.

Its a lot better than Fallout 3 but if you didn't like it in the first place, you probably still won't. They pretty much took the most popular mods and smoothed them out.

A lot seem to think it's better than 3, but i personally don't think it is. To me there on the same grounds, NV is lacking afew things that made fallout 3 great, but it's the same to fallout 3 lacking afew things that made NV great.

Fallout 3 was imo rushed, when it came to the main story and quests (they felt short and un-rewarding) but because it was huge it had abit more variety because of it.
NV wasn't rushed which made the dialogues and quests so much better than 3, but it was smaller and had a lot of crap thrown into it that felt tacky and not needed like the ammo making system, and the other bs with the fire camp, ye it added something nice, but it wasn't needed at all, it's really something that's just "there" you use it or you don't either way it makes no difference.

All said and done, i'd recommend both anyway, there good games, both of them.

Late, but i like adding my 2cent :)

It took me a while to get into it, but now I absolutely love it. Fallout 3 did have nothing to do with Fallout 1 and 2. It's like painting a pick-up truck Ferrari red and then trying to say it's a Ferrari 'cause it's the same colour. Bethesda games have shitty writing and totally forgettable characters. They lack charisma and the quests seem to be formed by thinking of the most generic thing possible. With Elder Scrolls, fair enough, it's a pretty standard fantasy setting anyway, but it really jarred when Fallout was handled by those same clueless hands.

New Vegas refers to loads of the old factions and elements that made up Fallout 1 and 2. Fallout 3 felt like a chrysalis stage as the Gamebryo engine got itself into Fallout mode, now it's hatched into a fully-fledged Fallout game. The idea behind The Kings (what would a group several hundred years after a nuclear apocalypse make of Elvis? And what if they found an old Elvis impersonation school?) has more creativity and wit than every element of Fallout 3 combined, and The Kings are just a minor group in the game.

In short, imagine a sequel to, say, Lord of the Rings. It mentions the Ring Bearer a few times, mentions Sauron a few times... But it's not set in Middle Earth, it doesn't mention Rohan, Gondor, The Shire. It doesn't look into the aftermath of the war in Middle Earth at all - it's just a farmer in some distant land who occasionally refers to how the Ring was destroyed long ago in the west. It doesn't mention any of the factions or ideas introduced apart from a small cluster that it doesn't develop or expand on in anyway, in fact it often mishandles and misrepresents them. Then a spin-off is commissioned and it actually does do all those things properly and actually carries on with all the plot strands and momentum from LotR... That's what happened with F3 and FNV.