1w ago

It's... odd

Meanwhile my lonely ass been sitting over here absolutely loathing Fallout: New Vegas since its release. I did not like that game. I probably would today if I got over myself and tried playing it again.

57 comments

I read that tweet as something that wasn't really about Fallout: New Vegas, and more as something using it as a vehicle for a joke (about adult women being nostalgic for the games they played as teenage boys).
- Yeah somehow almost everyone is missing the joke? 😭
  
  The joke is partly that lots of trans women in particular enjoyed this game in particular, so plenty of people who noticed the switcheroo in the tweet will still see it as an opportunity to talk about the game rather than seeing the game as something irrelevant that could be swapped out for another.
  
  Oh we all got it, but our reaction was to relate warmly.
- i had a hearty queer chuckle
- From what I've heard New Vegas is also one of the games with special meaning in the trans community. Celeste is another (slightly more obvious) one.

I liked NV way more than FO3 because it felt like the same world as FO1 and 2, while 3 felt like an imposter wearing their skin.
It also is the most RPG-like of all the 3D fallout games. Obsidian actually knows how to make an RPG. And having a couple of the people who made FO1 and 2 was a big help.
- I liked NV way more than FO3 because it felt like the same world as FO1 and 2, while 3 felt like an imposter wearing their skin.
  100% this. What I said to a friend of mine was "Fallout 3 is not a bad game but it is not a Fallout" FNV was a real continuation of the franchise.
  Funnily enough, Fallout 76 is also quite good, a little bit like a parody Fallout, using funny elements.
  
  The only thing that I disliked about 76 when I finally did play it, was that even when you're by yourself the NPC enemies still rubberband like they were high pinging players, making it just super frustrating to do any kind of combat.

For anyone considering playing or replaying New Vegas, I cannot reccomend the Viva New Vegas modlist enough.
It's unfortunately not just some "one click setup". There is a Wabbajack installer, but there are some small steps you still need to do manually too.
That said, it is by far the best and most comprehensive "vanilla plus" modpack I have ever used. I'm a modding addict; I don't say that lightly. It doesn't change core game mechanics, story, or anything the makes New Vegas what it is.
It polishes what's there, upgrading visuals in a consistent manner that blends perfectly with the original content. It fixes countless longstanding bugs, performance issues, and crashes (only two crashes in ~40 hours on a setup that was modded even further past what the pack includes).
It polishes New Vegas to what it should have been on release (if Bethesda didn't force Obsidian to rush it out the door early), then brings it as close to the quality of a modern release as possible through modding.
If you want to replay Fallout 3, a lot of people prefer playing it in the New Vegas engine using the Tale of Two Wastelands mod. The version of Viva New Vegas that covers that and includes mods for the Fallout 3 content is "The Best of Times".
It appears to be up to the same quality as VNV standalone, but I haven't used it myself yet.
- Btw, don't forget A Tale of Two Wastelands.
- +1 for the Tale of Two Wastelands mention. It’s the single greatest mod you can install, because it brings all of the quality of life improvements from New Vegas (like true iron sights) into FO3. Plus all the mods you install on FO:NV will also run on Tale of Two Wastelands, so you can actually get a decent playing experience.
- I'm probably going to get hate for this, but do you know if any mods that allow the game to work in Windows 11? None of the fan patches I could find in the Nexus actually work, even if they claim they are for Win11 users. The game still crashes constantly. I'm seriously considering digging my old gaming PC out of storage just so I can play NV one last time.
  How's the game in Linux? Haven't tried it there yet cause it barely runs in Win7, an OS it was designed for (but at least it runs), so I didn't even try it in Linux cause I'm doubtful it'll work any better than it does in 11.
  
  I really reccomend you just follow the Viva New Vegas guide I linked. If you only follow it through the first few pages and stop before the "VNV Extended" section begins, there's no gameplay tweaks, only bug and crash fixes. The only texture mods in that section of the guide are for landscape textures (mainly distant landscape textures) to reduce visible repetition.
  It's the most up to date guide I've found concerning crash fixes, performance fixes, and general stability fixes. There's a bunch of old "fixes" that actually cause more problems on modern systems, and you don't need to worry about sorting through any of that yourself if you follow the guide.
  
  In my experience, the crashing is usually from some directX rendering compatibility issues with the windows 11 driver and display stack. Try using DXVK (which is what steam proton uses on Linux) to convert the driver stack into something vulkan compliant. For me, personally, it SIGNIFICANTLY reduced crashes even in windows 10. I'm rocking an AMD GPU though so my vulkan performance is notably more stable than many Nvidia equivalents. To use DXVK you just download the zip file from the GitHub releases page and drop it (extracted, 32 bit dll's specifically) into the folder with the game binaries (similar to old dinput override mods). Then launch the game like normal and it SHOULD "just work".
  
  do you have the steam version or gog? i played the steam version on windows 11 last year and had no more problems than usual. also if you’re using the steam version, you might have to make sure it’s not installed within Program Files or Program Files (x86). those install locations can cause problems with mods.
  you might also benefit from installing the 4gb patch in addition to IStewieAI’s engine tweaks. a lot of the mods in the first few sections of the viva new vegas guide are pretty much essential in order to play the game with minimal bugs and crashes. also some of the “crash fixing” mods cause problems in windows 10 and 11.
  hopefully one of the above things works. i had to find a lot of those things out the hard way, it can be a pretty finicky game. really fun though.

Wow that's an unpopular opinion for sure. You might get roasted for that one. What bugged you about it?
- Not OP but New Vegas always felt like a total overhaul mod for Fallout 3. Same assets, different location, different story, crashes a lot.
  
  Basically was, Bethesda crippled Obsidian with a ridiculous target to release in so they had little to no time to work on new assets etc.
  New Vegas is a great game despite its original flaws that in the years since, modders have completely fixed.
  
  Honestly, I'm ok with it it. It created a game more focused on story.
- For myself, I don't hate it, I just don't seem to get it like everyone else. I just leveled myself up and gave some weapons after a while because I found the combat unengaging and wanted to finish the story. I'm interested in trying out that mod pack someone else mentioned. Maybe the experience will be quite different.

I don't know what I've beaten more times, New Vegas or my meat. Either way that game stays installed on my PC, Steam Deck, Xboxes, everything. I ain't no fink, dig?
Honestly it's just amazing Obsidian was able to make that game's story and assets in 18 months with Bethesda looming over their necks.
- no need to make up stories about the development, pretty much every obsidian dev cherished the opportunity to work on that engine and create a game
  oh and obsidian themselves set the timeline and then mismanaged their time (like they usually do, see kotor 2)

I have well over 5k hours in fnv split between Xbox 360 and PC. I'm terrified there's never going to be a game like it again with the way everything is becoming a live service.

I'll join in the controversy. New Vegas is fine, great game, way overhyped. It rolled straight from the initial sentiments (Fallout fan boys loved it on release and called it "the real fallout 3" and you can imagine the rest), into generous comparisons to every new game ("is Game X the next New Vegas?!") and straight into wistful nostalgia.
I liked Fallout 3 better. It's more goofy fun! I like exploring the DC ruins more than Yet Another Mad Max Apocolypse Desert. I liked the story line and (yes, the ending was silly and forced) but i liked how the plot wrapped up! I had finished all the side quests I wanted, it felt like a fitting end, a solid wrap up to a difficult life, where I'd made amends for the sins of the father and made a better wasteland.
I mean, then the BoS DLC replaced it with a non-ending so you could have Endless Adventure ™️ and I think that really set the tone for Bethesda's downfall. There's no one moment, but that DLC was a big sign that the philosophy of games internally was shifting. Fallout 4 was also enjoyable but to me went too far away from the RPG hybrid balance that FO3 had, imho, gotten perfect. The most vocal people wanted more RPG hence the cultish love for NV, but it seems the mainstream wanted more Action and hence the "tuh-ripple Ayyye" treatment of FO4 and subsequent games.

I never played Fallout New Vegas.
It's sitting unused in my Steam library.
Is it actually any good?
- There is a hard "yes/no" answer to this.
  It looks like a first person shooter, so you might expect it to play like a fun FPS game. Is it fun in that way? No, not really. Mods can fix this a bit, but it will never be Doom 2016.
  It is published by Bethesda, so you might expect it to have fun exploration like Morrowind, Oblivion, or Skyrim. Is it fun in that way? Kinda, but it's a bit theme-parky and the explorable world is less "open" than other Bethesda offerings. What you find is always fun, but the "getting there" part is only so-so. (Kinda the opposite of other Bethesda games this way)
  So why is it still talked about so much and called a masterpiece then you might be asking? Well, in the spirit of the great CRPGs, the narrative agency is insanely good. Where many RPGs give you the illusions of choice, New Vegas is the ultimate "choose your own adventure".
  While there is no "wrong way" to play a game, if you want to see why people love New Vegas, try to stop thinking about RPGs from the BioWare "paragon/renegade" dichotomy, and instead try to really consider, "what outcome do I want to happen", and New Vegas will surprise the shit out of you with how much agency they really give the player. In this way, it is one of the GOATs. (And I'm not talking about the exam)
- if you like fallout then yeah its good
  if you dont like fallout or open worlds with a lot of talking to people then youll probably be bored out of your mind
- It has the best story of all the Fallouts, by-far. Really amazing what they managed to pull off with only 18 months of development time. But because of the rushed schedule, the game is also extremely buggy. I would not recommend playing it without mods that fix the bugs and restore missing content that wasn't finished in time for release. It also doesn't play well with modern OSes. Some people have had success running it on newer PCs but for me it's been hit or miss. Don't let that discourage you from trying it, though. It's such a good game that it's worth putting some effort into trying to get it to run.
  
  I mean, it's the Majora's Mask of Fallouts.
  They already had an engine, they didn't need to play it safe, both because the flagship entry was giving it a boost and protecting it from detracting pressures.

Meh. Games are mature now. Classics are classics. Just like movies.
Also, funny meme.

It's the last good fallout game, how can we move on if things after it are subpar?

Anyone who wants to play NV again/for the first time, check out Viva New Vegas, a modguide that makes the game actually playable and performant. There's now a Wabbajack version, meaning you can get it perfectly modded with very little user input.
I also recommend "Just Assorted Mods" if you want some modern QoL changes (sprinting, hit markers, weapon wheel, loot quickmenu, etc)

I tried to play it but it’s coded so fucking poorly that it would regularly crash and I also got bug really early on that meant I could never interact with this one NPC, and that bug is apparently in the bone-stock, unmodded game!
Bethesda just makes dogshit products and it’s a shame when the story seems interesting but, like, I have better things to do then have my mediocre game crash again.
- Crashes are all a part of the Bethesda experience, and until you embrace it, you'll never experience the joy their games have to offer lol
  
  bethesda games give all gamers the "oh i walked 30m in game, time to quicksave again" instinct

That's a hell of a take, but I can kind of get it. It was definitely a mess at launch, and was a very different vibe from 3, which might rub you the wrong way if it's not what your preference is.
I do enjoy the shit out of it personally. Different strokes and everything though.
- Oh it's not a game I've ever called bad (or maybe I have in a fit of nerd rage, but never meant it), it's just a game that has never appealed to me after my first playing of it. I loved Fallout 3 because it allowed me to get my rocks off on one specific thing I love. Exploring a fucked up, post-apocalyptic, dystopian world. I loved sifting through the rubble and going into places no human has set foot in for a very long time. Exploring. Fallout 3 offered a lot of this. There were scattered settlements and a couple big cities but mostly just fucked up areas with monsters and secrets.
  Then there was New Vegas. I do need to play it again to enjoy it for what it is, because I did enjoy it for what it was when I played it a while ago. I was just resentful because your options for exploring desolate areas are pretty far and few between. Most locations on the map have people already there of one faction or another or just a straight up town with bars, shops, etc. It is a great game for building those connections and the questy stuff and I do enjoy that type of game. But I was so hoping for more of the exploration that I got so let down I've just been avoiding the game ever since.
  
  I've heard the same from a friend of mine, the exploration in 3 was one of the best parts of that game. I've played the other Bethesda games, but I don't think anything scratches that itch the same way, not even new vegas really did.
  
  This is kinda what I see from most people that dislike New Vegas. It's definitely not a post apocalyptic game.
  In fact, before Fallout 3, 1 was the only real post apocalyptic game in the series imo. Fallout 2 is a continuation of the world's lore, so all the tribal villages have developed into societies. New Vegas expands upon this, with the societies becoming imperialist states.
  So yeah, if you like exploring rubble then New Vegas is NOT the game for that, and Fallout 3 does that much better.
  But, if you're more interested in how society would develop after the apocalypse, New Vegas definitely tackles that question head-on.
  Fallout 3 was my first, and I do love all the insane shit you can find in the wasteland. It will always have a special place in my heart. But to me, the NPCs are what really give RPGs life, and New Vegas has some of the most well-written, realistically motivated people I've ever seen in video game format. While the Battle of Hoover Dam may not be as grandiose (even though you can put in the legwork to make it fucking awesome) as the Liberty Prime antics in 3, it feels like the culmination of decades of real conflict. It's not good guys vs bad guys, it's 4 distinct groups that all believe they have the best plan to carry humanity to the point at which it existed before the war. I love it for that.

Same, they doubled down on funny parts of f2 which were cringe, and it looked like shit even 15 years ago, and the story is just so focused on

Add the map is extremely dense with events, there is an event every minute, very tiring.
- Minus the initial part about F2, this is basically how I feel. Stuff is always happening. I never get to enjoy the apocalypse.

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