Topic: Fallout: New Vegas - Update: FO: New California Mod Released (Reply 155)

[idolminds]

The...I....FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU........

[MysterD]

The...I....FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU........

I knew Idol's response wouldn't be good...
Okay, I'm just gonna wait for Que's reaction to the news, which probably won't be good, either...

[Quemaqua]

Well, guess I'll be pirating this one.  What, you wanted my money, motherfuckers?  Sorry about that.  Try making a working product.

[Cobra951]

Looks like the release date is Oct 19th in the US, the 22nd in the EU, according to joystiq.

[MysterD]

G4TV - Some of the voice-actors lined-up to do FO: New Vegas.

Me, I find it interesting to see on the list these ones:
Kris Krisofferson, Danny Trejo, and Wayne Newton.

Who y'all like that's on the list?

[Xessive]

They're all great talent!

Danny Trejo often gets type-cast for the crazy Mexican roles but his voice work has had a lot more variety. I'd still really love to see a MACHETE movie

[MysterD]

Hmmm...Matthew Perry in a Fallout game...
Dunno what to make of that 1.

[MysterD]

Hmmm...
FO: New Vegas will have DLC.

Maybe I should just wait for the inevitable Steam crazy sales (since Steam is required) AND/OR some sort of GOTY Edition w/ everything...

[W7RE]

Maybe I should just wait for the inevitable Steam crazy sales (since Steam is required) AND/OR some sort of GOTY Edition w/ everything...

I was sort of thinking the same thing. It's not like I don't have other things to play between now and the inevitable GOTY version.

[MysterD]

BethBlog -> FO: New Vegas - "TV Spot" Trailer.

[MysterD]

BethBlog -> FO:NV - PC Version System Requirements.
Also, keep in mind - this game requires STEAM.

[Xessive]

Those are relatively low system reqs compared to current games. They're basically the same reqs as Fallout 3, so I'm guessing they didn't change much in the engine.

I'm looking forward to New Vegas but from what I've seen I get the feeling it's gonna be more like an expansion or "Fallout 3.5" since it takes a lot from the original.

[MysterD]

Those are relatively low system reqs compared to current games. They're basically the same reqs as Fallout 3, so I'm guessing they didn't change much in the engine.

Basically, FO3 required a Single-Core 2.4 Ghz processor, 1 GB RAM, and GF 6800+ card or ATI X850+.
Doesn't seem like much has changed w/ New Vegas - just the double-core 2.0 Ghz requirement.

I'm looking forward to New Vegas but from what I've seen I get the feeling it's gonna be more like an expansion or "Fallout 3.5" since it takes a lot from the original.

A lot of New Vegas to me doesn't seem really much new - agreed. The scenery, back-drop, and game-world looks like the biggest changes here. There's a few nice new things and tweaks - such as you can aim down the sights and certain melee weapons actually have special attacks of their own in VATS - but yeah, is there really anything else new here? 

Hopefully, Obsidian add the kitchen sinks, in terms of having LOTS of content - especially on the side quests and all. I'm betting FO: New Vegas will take longer than most new games that are full-price - since it's still a RPG and all.

[MysterD]

DualShockers.com -> Interview w/ Chris Avellone of Obsidian.

Chad (DS):
What are some things we’ll experience in New Vegas that we didn’t in Fallout 3?

Chris (Obsidian):
New ammo.
Gambling.
Wayne Newton.
A dinosaur with a gift shop in its belly.
Rockets.
Companion quest arcs that change their perks and their attitude.
Calling death beams from orbit.
Faction politics, both violent and passive.
Confronting a situation where you choose the bad guy…even if the bad guy is everyone.
More than one critical path.
Survival recipes.
Mantises.
Geckos.
Modding weapons.
Traits.

[Xessive]

Confronting a situation where you choose the bad guy…even if the bad guy is everyone.

What does that mean? I'm having a hard time making sense of that sentence.

[MysterD]

What does that mean? I'm having a hard time making sense of that sentence.

Yeah, his line can be read and interpreted so many ways...
Guess we'll have to eventually play the game and find out.

For me, probably won't be anytime soon, I don't think... *shrug*

[W7RE]

Maybe it means you choose to be the bad guy, even though everyone in the world is a bad guy.

One of my complaints with Fallout 3 (still not finished, or even deep into the main plot) is that there aren't nearly as many options when trying to play as a bad guy. You can rarely bully people into doing what you want, and killing people just makes everyone around you instantly hostile. Plus if you help someone, they give you quests. If you kill them, you miss out. Maybe I haven't been around enough but I'd like to see quests become available based on my karma, so that being bad doesn't feel like it's locking me out of stuff. I feel like the game is forcing me to be chaotic good, when I want to play chaotic evil. (I'm not sure if it's nerdier that I used those terms, or that I didn't know them, but looked them up.) So I feel like I'm forced to follow the rules until no one is looking. People thank me for my help and smile when they greet me, then I steal shit behind their backs just to artificially lower my karma.

In FO3, I feel like I'm going to miss out or screw up crucial plot elements if I play full on evil. Example from early FO3 (Moriarty early plot stuff):

(click to show/hide)

Moriarty is an asshole, and I wanted to kill him. First time I talk to him, I did. The whole bar went hostile, I escaped, and the whole town was hostile. I almost made it out of town, but then what? I wouldn't know to head toward GNR, because Moriarty didn't tell me. I'd be lost, because I chose to play the evil guy who shoots the asshole in the face.

[Quemaqua]

You haven't played enough yet.

[W7RE]

You haven't played enough yet.

I thought (hoped) I'd get something like this, lol. My latest save is standing outside of GNR, but I've put 65 hours in already by playing OCD style, trying to complete every available quest before moving on in the story, and by thouroughly exploring every dungeon/building I run across on my way.

[Cobra951]

Your karma opens up different, exclusive possibilities.  Yeah, what Que said.

[K-man]

Keep playing.  And for the love of God do the main storyline before you get bored and quit playing altogether.  It's not that long, and is actually very good.

[MysterD]

Keep playing.  And for the love of God do the main storyline before you get bored and quit playing altogether.  It's not that long, and is actually very good.

I think it's BethSoft's best Main Quest in any of their games so far. Some of the Main Quest elements feel like homage to FO1 and 2 and also doing its own thing, as well.

BTW - Tranquility Lane is awesome.

[MysterD]

Shacknews -> D2D gets exclusive FO:NV - Digital Collector's Ed w/ a 48-page digital FO:NV comic "All Roads".
This version sells $5.00 more than the Standard Ed ($54.95).

D2D version of FO:NV (Standard or Collector's Ed) also comes w/ their own special for pre-orders: Tribal Pack.

Steam version of FO:NV comes w/ their own special pre-order pack: Caravan Pack.

Steam is still required for ALL versions FO:NV on the PC, BTW.

[MysterD]

1Up -> FO: New Vegas will have "Exclusive" DLC for X360.
It's planned for the Holiday Season.

[Xessive]

It might be a timed exclusive.. We'll find out later.

[MysterD]

It might be a timed exclusive.. We'll find out later.

I hope so.

The way 1Up was speaking, sounds like they weren't sure if it was exclusive for a short time period or forever.

[K-man]

They can say whatever they want, but we all know that eventually it'll be on the PS3.

On a positive note:  I had been debating which system I wanted the game for, but this spelled it out clearly for me.  Hoping to snag a CE at K-mart (I have a 15 dollar off coupon for buying the coasters there).

[W7RE]

I'd like to support the game and the content as it comes out, but the fact that I'm still just scratching the surface on Fallout 3 makes it that much easier to wait for the inevitable GOTY edition with all the DLC. I've got plenty of Fallout to tide me over until then.

[MysterD]

GiantBomb -> X360 Review - 4 stars (out of 5).
Jefft Gerstmann is reviewing.
GiantBomb gives it a high-score, despite NUMEROUS technical issues.

New Vegas runs on the same basic framework that powered Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and it brings a lot of technical weirdness up from those games. Less than an hour in, I was staring at a guard, pacing back and forth to guard his post... 20 feet off the ground.

Enemies clip into the ground with an alarming frequency, often making them impossible to shoot. The game--a retail disc running on a new-model Xbox 360--crashed on me about a dozen times over the 33 hours I spent playing, often taking a significant amount of progress with it.

The load times and frame rate seemed to get randomly worse as I continued to play the game, with some simple scene transitions taking 20 seconds or more. The technical hurdles you'll have to make to stay interested in New Vegas are meaner and more frustrating than any Deathclaw or Nightkin you'll face in the game.

If you're the type of person who likes to watch for a patch or two before settling into a game, know this now: you probably don't want to play Fallout: New Vegas right away.

[Cobra951]

So they didn't work on correcting the major bugs in the core of the game engine, which is a shame.  FO3 crashed dozens of times during the time I spent with it, and it seems New Vegas is no better.  I'm going to hold off on this.  I'd like to see the job finished before I buy the product.

[MysterD]

More quoting from Giant Bomb's X360 version review on New Vegas...

It's not a surprise that Fallout: New Vegas sticks closely to Fallout 3's structure and style. But if it weren't for the game's way-too-long list of technical issues, New Vegas would actually be better than its predecessor.

Instead, it's a well-written game with so many issues that some of you might want to take a pass, at least until some of this nonsense gets fixed.

Yet, for all its flaws, I'd consider taking a second run through it, if only to see how some of the game's finer points play out with different choices.

Is it me - or does this sound like every game Obsidian has made of late?

They always seem to make a sequel to a game someone else did - and it would be better than its predecessor, if it wasn't for the high-level of technical issues.

See NWN2 or KOTOR2.
Looks like we can add FO:NV to the list.
Yup, call me when Obsidian irons the issues out.

Oh - I'd still like some of Alpha Protocol's balancing issues fixed, too - pretty please!

EDIT:
From PC Gamer's review on New Vegas.

Wandering the wasteland now, two years on from Fallout 3, I’m both happy and disappointed. I’ve long wanted more of the same from Bethesda, and this is the hand that New Vegas deals. But while it’s good to be back, the leap from one game to the other isn’t nearly as large as it should have been. New areas, characters and factions, but the same clunky inventory and character models. Two years to stay exactly where you were.

[MysterD]

AtomicGamer Review -> 9 (out of 10).
They do compare all 3 versions of the game - PC, X360, and PS3.

X360 and PS3 Version

Unfortunately, the Fallout: New Vegas experience is fraught with a pretty large range of bugs, some of which are hilarious and fun, and others which will just lock up the game. I found several crash bugs in both the 360 and PS3 versions, problems with the Caravan card game not starting properly, and plenty of issues with NPC pathing and animations (which, admittedly, that is pretty much par for the course for anything running on Gamebryo tech).

On the PS3, I saw some serious ragdoll physics freakouts, one of which sent a headless body flying about a mile off into the distance. Beyond that, it seemed like the 360 version was still superior, as it had antialiasing enabled for smoother visuals and seemed to be at least a little less prone to crash - and, according to a Bethesda press release, it'll get new downloadable content first, too.

One thing I want to note is that while I have found a lot of bugs, I haven't found one yet that ruined my save game or broke progress on a vital quest, but I would still recommend that when you play, you keep multiple save games just in case.

PC Version

The PC version of New Vegas is, from a technical standpoint, the best one you can get and it even costs $10 less, but it's got its fair share of problems as well. It's got built-in mod support, higher-resolution textures and better visuals (on a well-enough equipped PC, at least - the system requirements have hardly increased since Fallout 3) and support for gamepads as well as a mouse and keyboard, giving you the precision required to make tough shots without having to lean on VATS.

Games for Windows Live, one of the most hated parts of Fallout 3 on the PC, has been dropped entirely and replaced with a full Steamworks implementation along with Steam achievements. Sadly, this version also seems to have many (if not most) of the issues and crash bugs that the console versions do, but at least on the PC you have a quicksave key to make saving your progress at any time pretty much instant.

[Quemaqua]

I'll likely wait and get an expanded edition with the DLC when it eventually comes out for PS3.  I won't do Steam, so they can fuck themselves on that one, and I've found that I enjoy FO3 quite well enough on PS3, despite the lack of mod support (which is a damned shame).

I wonder if there will ever be a way to get New Vegas into FO3.  It would be lovely to get a PC version that didn't fuck itself in the face by requiring Steam.

[MysterD]

I wonder if there will ever be a way to get New Vegas into FO3.  It would be lovely to get a PC version that didn't fuck itself in the face by requiring Steam.

I'd rather use Steam than the current cluster-fuck that is G4WL.

Personally, I'd rather deal w/ neither Steam nor G4WL, if given the option.

I like the way X3: Terran Conflict - Retail Disc does things. It gives you options. Latest patch removes DRM check and you can just play the game as is - no strings attached. You don't have to deal w/ Steam. Steam isn't required; it's an additional option, if you want it. If you want to turn your retail version into Steam version, you may do so - since their Retail CD keys are now accepted on Steam. It's all your call.

[Cobra951]

I'll likely wait and get an expanded edition with the DLC when it eventually comes out for PS3.  I won't do Steam, so they can fuck themselves on that one, and I've found that I enjoy FO3 quite well enough on PS3, despite the lack of mod support (which is a damned shame).

I wonder if there will ever be a way to get New Vegas into FO3.  It would be lovely to get a PC version that didn't fuck itself in the face by requiring Steam.

Skidrow has fixed your major issues.  Just FYI.

[MysterD]

1Up.com -> FO: New Vegas - Intro Bug.
Shacknews -> Patch is already being worked on.

That Intro Bug...It's like something out of The Exorcist or something - hehe.

[Xessive]

Haha that's pretty creepy!

The original game had a few moments with buggy animations; it was pretty buggy on release day. Beth fixed up fairly quickly though (compared to Morrowind and Oblivion). Hopefully Obsidian will tackle the major bugs asap.

[MysterD]

From GameSpot's console review.

Unfortunately, Fallout: New Vegas isn't technically capable of supporting these high ambitions. Simply put, it frequently breaks in some of the most phenomenal ways. You can't mention any given aspect of its design without also mentioning a related bug--and the more you explore and the more you do, the more the game buckles under its own weight.

Your companion may not initiate a conversation with her elder, forcing you to reload a saved game or ignore the quest. A mutant for hire will respond to your request to continue the quest with the same dialogue that he delivers if you tell him you need more time. Scripting errors abound in which things that are supposed to happen never do, while in many other cases, inexplicable events occur that will boggle your mind. Locals will freak out and run around as if someone is brandishing a weapon and then stop and walk back to their assigned positions. A vendor might attack you unprovoked, even if you have a golden reputation in that town and are dressed in neutral clothing. Sometimes, it's unclear if you're unaware of a contributing factor or if the game is simply going bonkers. Not to mention frequent crashes on both consoles and corrupted game saves, which might cause you to lose progress. In addition, the longer you play, the slower the frame rate gets (on the Xbox 360), or the more noticeable the screen tearing and frequent pauses become (on the PlayStation 3). These are but a small number of the major bugs we encountered. Fallout: New Vegas is a technical mess.

Fallout: New Vegas is an expansive and complicated RPG that encourages you to see and do as much as you can. This is an explorer's game, always lavishing new and interesting quests on you and giving you a lot of flexibility in how you approach many of them. It builds upon Fallout 3's mechanics in interesting and esoteric ways, making it a comfortable evolution to one of 2008's best games.

It's unfortunate that it suffers from so many bugs and other inconsistencies. Role-playing veterans expect glitches in games this complex, but this one far exceeds tolerable limits for these kinds of issues. And yet as busted as it is, Fallout: New Vegas is periodically awesome and consistently compelling. If you've got the stomach for some technological lunacy, this is one gamble that will pay off.

[Cobra951]

It amazes me how pro reviewers end up recommending clearly broken games.  The mark this game deserves is D, as in deficient.  Imagine buying any entertainment hardware with this many issues, like a TV that hangs whenever it shows a blue sky (bsod?), or changes channels randomly.  Then imagine some reviewer giving it thumbs up anyway.  He'd be out of a job.

[MysterD]

It amazes me how pro reviewers end up recommending clearly broken games.  The mark this game deserves is D, as in deficient.  Imagine buying any entertainment hardware with this many issues, like a TV that hangs whenever it shows a blue sky (bsod?), or changes channels randomly.  Then imagine some reviewer giving it thumbs up anyway.  He'd be out of a job.

Cobra,

From what I'm reading in reviews and seen on the FO:NV Technical forums, this has to be one of the buggiest games upon its initial release since Gothic 3.