My First Week in New Vegas

I spent a lot of time playing Fallout 3.  I found every bobblehead.  I did (almost) every quest.  I played every expansion.  It was the first thing I wrote about on this site.  To say I was looking forward to New Vegas would be an understatement.  Now, a week in the Mojave Wasteland under my belt, I feel many of those fond, old feelings rushing back.

In Fallout 3, you spend the first hour or so in a montage of your character’s life in Vault 101.  It was a fun take on the traditional “tutorial” level of a game’s beginning and it also sets up the find-your-father storyline pretty well.  That being said, I also appreciate the accelerated pace that New Vegas takes in dropping you into the game.  After being left for dead in the opening cinematic, you are dug up by a robot and nursed to health by a doctor who allows you to tell him what your face looks like.  You then grab hold of a stat-setting Love-Tester machine and take a quick Rorschach test and pretty soon you’re out meeting the locals. 

You’re also quickly introduced to the improved combat.  In Fallout 3, it was hardly worth pulling a trigger if you didn’t have the Action Points required to fire a shot in V.A.T.S. mode.  While gun fights in real-time are still a bit of a gamble in New Vegas (no pun intended), the iron-sight you can now look down adds some much-needed accuracy.  It’s nice to be able to fire off a sneak attack critical from a good distance without ever hitting the “V” key. 

New Vegas also brings with it the addition of “Hardcore Mode.”  Enabling the option introduces hunger, hydration, and sleep deprivation meters to manage as well as giving ammunition weight.  The game itself tells you that something special will happen at the end if you enable Hardcore Mode and never turn it off, so I did.  Honestly, I haven’t had it inconvenience me too much.  It has changed what I pick up and consume, though.  For instance, I’m not using any energy weapons, so I haven’t been picking up any energy cells.  I also pay more attention to what food and drinks I’m picking up.  There are campfires throughout the wasteland that you can use to cook up some recipes, but I honestly haven’t felt the need to cook very many things.  Hardcore mode also makes it so stimpaks now heal over time and do not restore limb condition, which has really been the biggest game changer for me.  If you don’t go into a confrontation carefully, you could get overwhelmed and die fairly easily.  Overall, Hardcore adds an extra layer of survival that I’m actually kind of enjoying. 

Your character in New Vegas has a level cap of 30 right from the get go.  At first, I was thankful to not have to wait for an add-on to raise my stats a bit more and snag some more perks, but New Vegas only grants new perks on even-numbered levels.  I’ve definitely had to think a little longer about which perk I was going to choose since I knew I was going to have half as many.  It’s a blessing and a curse, really.  It’d be nice to snag as many perks as possible, but being limited has also made me narrow down my play style.  I knew going into this game that I wanted to be a silver-tongued soldier with a heart of gold, so my choices of perks have all been with that in mind.  It has helped me narrow down my inventory, also.  Not only do I not use energy weapons, but I also ignore one-handed guns in favor of two-handed rifles.  I feel a little more human now than I did in Fallout 3.

Part of that humanity also comes from the companions of New Vegas.  So far I’ve met Boone and Veronica in my travels and felt good about both of them.  I loved having Fawkes by my side in the Capitol Wasteland, but outside of his absurdly powerful gatling laser and mutant-caveman-lawyer attitude I felt he was under-characterized.  I like the back-stories of both Boone and Veronica and I like the way more and more information about them trickles out as they wander the wastes with you.  I haven’t done any quests unique to them yet (save for what you do to get Boone on your team), but I’m looking forward to doing just that. 

So far it has been a good journey.  I’m about 15 hours deep and just starting to get into some of the faction-related quests.  I’m also about to enter New Vegas proper for the first time.  I’ll put up an update next week, hopefully with a good story or two from the wastes. 

Play it again, Johnny Guitar.

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