Amazon Prime has started production on its Fallout series, and it’s got fans with their fingers crossed that this is one of the good adaptations. Video game adaptations don’t exactly have a great track record in the live-action sphere, as the Resident Evil Netflix series attests.
That said, it’s not like the Fallout franchise is free of flops themselves. Even the fan favorite that is Fallout: New Vegas took a gamble and failed on some of its choices. They don’t quite make the game unplayable (except when they literally do), but they’re worth mentioning nonetheless.
Bugs Galore (Not Just Cazadors)
It’s no secret that New Vegas was more than just a regular troubled production. The crunch the devs experienced thanks to strenuous deadlines set by corporate was not kind to the final product. It’s yet another example of upper management not caring about the developers as long as the bottom line is met.
Unfortunately, this means New Vegas was barely playable upon release and needed several patches to get into a truly working order. Even then, the odd bugs here and there really set the experience back, especially on a fresh install of the game.
Reliant on Mods For a “Complete” Experience
New Vegas can certainly be finished without any modding whatsoever, but the experience just wouldn’t be as sleek or complete without the bare essentials. Unofficial bug fixes, restoration of cut content, and visual improvements really make a flawed but great game into a masterpiece. It’s sad that the game needs the community to band together to “finish” it, essentially.
The devs simply were not given the time needed to fulfill every feature they wanted. Thankfully, enough modders have made the devs’ ambitions come true, though perhaps not as fully as the devs could have. Plenty of hidden details from the devs’ diaries are revealed thanks to these mods.
Broken Quests
While there’s a general complaint for bugs, special mention needs to go to quests that are just prone to breaking. These quests practically become unwinnable because of factors outside of the player’s control. While there are tons of quests that could be elaborated on here, Bye Bye Love takes the cake.
It’s a questline that’s just so poorly designed. There are a ton of time constraints, the NPCs walk at a snail’s pace, and the distance between locations only to be greeted by a conversation shorter than the walk is rather upsetting. Even worse, it’s one of those quests that will just randomly fail without the player even knowing why. It’s annoying to play a fun FPS-RPG and suddenly be told about a failure.
Unfinished Storylines
As mentioned previously, there’s quite a bit of cut content from the game, but the biggest loss was definitely the stories. Many factions were clearly built up to have more of a presence in the game. The Boomers, despite being an important faction, get the least development of the major factions, for example. However, the main evil faction of the game suffers this the most, the Legion.
There’s also the fact that a lot of the storylines are more “tell’ instead of “show” due to time constraints. For example, the Legion’s apparent “good” communities are never seen in the game. People only say that the Legion does good things, but the player never sees any of those things the way they see the NCR do good things.
The Courier Does a Lot of “Courier Stuff”
It shouldn’t be too surprising, but the Courier is quite good at being a courier. However, that does reflect in the gameplay in a negative way. A lot of the side quests are basically just extended fetch quests. They are incredibly time-consuming and worst of all, they don’t give great rewards. They also aren’t “hidden locations” with interesting lore, making it even more of a slog.
The worst offender has to be the NCR questline “Return to Sender”. This quest has the player practically explore the entire map to find NCR stations and reactivate radios. While the payoff is a bit interesting, it’s definitely not worth the nauseating repetitive quest loop. This is especially noticeable on repeat playthroughs.
“Dungeons” Aren’t Very Rewarding
There is the equivalent of “dungeons” in New Vegas in the form of caves and vaults. These places are full of enemies and traps, but after all the struggle, most players are left with a few caps and a mediocre weapon for their troubles. This makes dungeons feel like a huge slog.
While some mods fix this, it’s a core gameplay choice that’s, unfortunately, a bit of a mood killer for the enterprising Courier. At least fetch quests guarantee some form of reward at the end. Dungeon crawling is never quite as rewarding as players will want them to be, especially compared to Fallout 4’s gallery of armor and weapon rewards.
Speech Is Too Telegraphed
While New Vegas talks a big game about the effectiveness of speech levels, it’s perhaps a bit too effective. Most social situations become literally easier because there are tags for speech options. Hard to mess up when there’s a big red marker on the wrong conversation choice.
This makes speech far too easy and allows the player to skip entire fights without even trying. It could be argued that this makes sense for a Speech 100 player, but that’s not really accurate. For one thing, a Guns 100 Courier still needs to aim their gun after all. In that same vein, Speech 100 should give good options, but allow the players to figure out the correct answer for themselves.
Lack of Voice Actor Variety
While Liam O’Brien has an absolutely massive body of voice-acting work, his voice has become cemented in gamers’ minds through sheer repetition. The lack of variety in voice actors has always been a Bethesda problem. However, it feels much weirder in a game with such distinct characters like New Vegas.
It’s hard to stay immersed when two people who should seemingly be enemies sound exactly the same. Not to mention, replays become even more of a “skip” party as the players have heard everything before already. There are some ambitious mods out there that do fix this problem. It’s pure cost-cutting to not hire more voice actors.
Honest(ly Too Short) Hearts
Honest Hearts is a beautiful DLC in its own right, and Joshua Graham is definitively one of New Vegas’ most iconic characters. There are a lot of interesting dynamics and character stuff in this DLC. However, all of it ends way too quickly. Unlike the other DLC, Honest Hearts feels like a story that is completely missing its middle act.
There are only a few quests for each faction and only one real lore side quest. This makes the experience fall a bit short of its full potential. It’s especially noticeable because of how intensely difficult the other DLC can get for the player, while this one can be sped through with not much effort.
“Bear, Bull, Bear”
There’s no doubt that The Lonesome Road is a test of endurance for the Courier. The titular Lonesome Road is not a gentle path, and along the way, Ulysses will monologue about the Courier’s perceived sins. Despite the great voice acting from Roger Cross, the character is a premiere example of New Vegas telling, not showing.
Through logs and checkpoints, Ulysses reveals just how much he knows about the courier. He’s also revealed to have been a major part of every preceding DLC. It would have been awesome to see more visual evidence of this in the DLC. Sadly, Ulysses seems more content just one-sidedly talking at the player, while hypocritically absolving themselves of any blame.
Source:gamerant.com