Giantbomb.com Fallout New Vegas Review - 4/5 Stars

[Gunslinger08]

Did anyone else find the guy with a crazy amount of ammo for sale at the Hoover Dam? He has like thousands of rounds of each caliber.

I haven't used any alternate ammo yet. I'm not even sure how to quickly switch ammo. I thought the tutorial said you could hit '2', but that doesn't do anything for me.

 

[exar333]

So far, Ive always had more ammo than I could use, and I never buy any. Im only playing on normal though. It could also be because I steal everything I can get away with lol. And if somebody is watching something I want, Ill just drag it somewhere else.

Same here. Part of the game strategy is that you have to mix wandering in the wilds with city quests. Getting ammo as you hunt animals in the open areas usually doesn't yield a lot of ammo, but XP can be very good. I actually like this game dynamic, it adds a sense of needing to "resupply" as you might get with real logistics. It is refreshing that returning to town is not just to drop off your collected goods for selling them.

 

[exar333]

Did anyone else find the guy with a crazy amount of ammo for sale at the Hoover Dam? He has like thousands of rounds of each caliber.

I haven't used any alternate ammo yet. I'm not even sure how to quickly switch ammo. I thought the tutorial said you could hit '2', but that doesn't do anything for me.

The hot-key '2' does change your ammo type. It only works (obviously) if you have other ammo types (AP, etc).

 

[disappoint]

Ive managed to kill the radscorpions using Boone with one of the sniper rifles and me using a missile launcher. However deathclaws are still raping me even with sneak attacks and increased crits...damn things are waaaaaaaaayyyyy overpowered and I'm level 16 now and 12 hours in.

I will say the side quests and such seem much better then FO3.

I did the opposite, I had the rifle. I gave my companion the missle launcher. Also I gave him lots of grenades. Funny to see him fire missiles and grenades at radscorps and cazadores, he makes total mince meat out of them.

As soon as I get some plasma rifles from Silver Rush at Freeside and all the plasma bombs I can afford I'm going to take on those Deathclaws. Course I will equip my companions with everything they need as well.

 

[skace]

For traits I took: Wild Wasteland and Four-Eyes
For perks I took: black widow, chavez something, +2 skills each level up, and some other stuff that I can't remember...

 

[skace]

Lmao, Nipton spoiler...

Spoiler

I just gunned the lottery winner down in cold blood only to find out what he actually "won". Aaah they set me up for that one, haha.

 

[JoshGuru7]

Well I finished the main storyline (and thus the game) last night after about 42 hours of play. However, the ending is similar to Fallout 3 in that you can't continue to play afterwards. That bugs me a lot, since I suspect they just did it to get everybody to buy the next DLC that will let you continue.

 

[Gunslinger08]

Well I finished the main storyline (and thus the game) last night after about 42 hours of play. However, the ending is similar to Fallout 3 in that you can't continue to play afterwards. That bugs me a lot, since I suspect they just did it to get everybody to buy the next DLC that will let you continue.

I'm at about 20 hours and I haven't even gotten to The Strip yet. Am I slower/faster/the same as you?

 

[DefDC]

I'm at about 20 hours and I haven't even gotten to The Strip yet. Am I slower/faster/the same as you?

I'm around level 10, and probably logged the same amount of time as you... And I haven't hit the strip either. I can't resist wandering and exploring the unknown markers...

I'm afraid of all the enemies I made. I hope I can go to Vegas without being KOS.

 

[Phobic9]

Lmao, Nipton spoiler...

Spoiler

I just gunned the lottery winner down in cold blood only to find out what he actually "won". Aaah they set me up for that one, haha.

I did the same thing. I had no idea what he was talking about at the time but I killed him anyway for being annoying.

I rarely play evil/neutral types so I'm glad I did this for my first playthrough. I managed to kill an entire camp of NCR troops just to see if I could but I'm not sure how that'll effect me later on so I just reloaded my last save.. Maybe I should just get over it and kill em anyway.

 

[TraumaRN]

So I'm level 20 now, still haven't hit the strip yet. Did take the Explorer perk and almost cried(tears of joy) So many places to explore! At least as many as Fallout 3, maybe more.

 

[Phobic9]

So I'm level 20 now, still haven't hit the strip yet. Did take the Explorer perk and almost cried(tears of joy) So many places to explore! At least as many as Fallout 3, maybe more.

New Vegas has nearly double the locations vanilla FO3 has (200 ---> 400 according to the Fallout wiki). Sounds like I have a long ways to go since I'm only lv 8.

 

[JoshGuru7]

I'm at about 20 hours and I haven't even gotten to The Strip yet. Am I slower/faster/the same as you?

Hard to say, it really depends on the order in which you do everything. I did a pretty average amount of exploring.

The strip doesn't have that much content itself, but it does direct you to a whole bunch of content outside (brotherhood camp, boomers camp, great khan camp, caesar's camp, ncr stuff, etc). It's a good way of making sure you don't miss the big stuff unlike in Fallout 3 where you could complete the main quest pretty quickly and miss the majority of the content.

A few recommendations to players just starting out:

- Start with a pretty high endurance (9) and no 10's. You meet a doctor who will let you upgrade each stat once if you have a high enough endurance for the implants. Carrying capacity is also again a major limiting factor as even with two companions holding stuff for me I found myself leaving a lot of stuff on the ground.

- There's a pretty awesome perk gated by repair skill (70?) that lets you merge dissimilar items together. This perk is basically a ticket to unlimited funds and gear as you can use really cheap gear to max out the condition on your good stuff, which keeps it in great condition and also multiplies its value by a lot. Once you get this perk the only challenge is finding people to sell to who have any money left.

 

[BurnItDwn]

- There's a pretty awesome perk gated by repair skill (70?) that lets you merge dissimilar items together. This perk is basically a ticket to unlimited funds and gear as you can use really cheap gear to max out the condition on your good stuff, which keeps it in great condition and also multiplies its value by a lot. Once you get this perk the only challenge is finding people to sell to who have any money left.

Oooh sweet ...
I've gotten up to around level 23 or 24, and I never read the perks I couldn't do, my repair is kinda low (around 50 or 60), but maybe I'll get this as it would be a lot easier than having to find crap to make repair kits.

 

[Qbah]

Man, this game is a blast! I'm like level 18, still not at the Strip. I entered the BoS location and holy smokes, this time those guys are screaming high-tech! I "got" a Gauss Rifle and a Tri-Beam Laser from them Gauss Rifle = win Deathclaws are actually manageable now! Just aim for the legs - two hits (sometimes one) and they crawl... Sometimes I manage to kill one with two hits Yes, Gauss Rifle owns that hard! Eats ammo like crazy but each shot destroys your enemies!

Runs great, I had small scripting issues (change quest + fast travel + fast travel back fixed those though) and two crashes and I have ~30 hours now in the game (lvl18). Using the hacked d3d9.dll and I'm running the game at 1920x1080 Ultra with CCC-forced SSAAx4. Looks and runs great on my rig And there's so much to explore! And so many references to previous Fallout games! The more you play the game, the more you want to play it and check out every single little thing you can find.

 

[CrackRabbit]

Having fun just wandering around at level 15-ish

Spoiler

Found the Holy Hand Grenades inside the church basement in Searchlight. Got a good laugh out of that one.

 

[TraumaRN]

Found the Wasteland Survival Guide twice now. Gives me good memories of that quest in FO3.

I'm starting to reach that tipping point of being able to waste almost anything now. I've spent my day off basically using the explorer perk to travel to every location I can. Found lots of loot, enough so that the doctor has given me 3 implants so far. Even Deathclaws are reasonable now, although it's still a bit of a crapshoot, but I found the Tesla-Beaton prototype and that rapes pretty much everything.

 

[coldmeat]

Oooh sweet ...
I've gotten up to around level 23 or 24, and I never read the perks I couldn't do, my repair is kinda low (around 50 or 60), but maybe I'll get this as it would be a lot easier than having to find crap to make repair kits.

I just got that perk, it's actually at 90 repair. So if you want it you're going to need to start focusing a lot of points into repair. It's a pretty sweet perk though, you can really repair anything with almost anything. Pretty much any apparel item can repair any other, same with weapons.

 

[JoshGuru7]

At level 30 I ended up with most of the stats I cared about at 100 (I took the perk that gives you a fourth major skill). Medicine was at 85 or so maybe, then survival/unarmed/energy weapons/explosives were all under 20. I won't spend nearly that many points in Medicine next playthrough as I had 150+ stimpacks (and 30+ super stimpacks) when I finished the main quest.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

Perkwise, I'm beginning to think comprehension is a hell of a buy. 52 Skill points bonus if you collect all of the permanent books, plus 10 extra points from magazines means things like lockpick and science can generally be left at 75 while you use a magazine + equipment for the hardest skill tests.

 

[TraumaRN]

Perkwise, I'm beginning to think comprehension is a hell of a buy. 52 Skill points bonus if you collect all of the permanent books, plus 10 extra points from magazines means things like lockpick and science can generally be left at 75 while you use a magazine + equipment for the hardest skill tests.

Comprehension was one of the FIRST things I got. I made sure I had high endurance, intelligence right from the get go. Easily one of the best perks in the game, behind only the Jury Rigging repair perk.

 

[Bateluer]

Payday's tomorrow, is New Vegas worth paying for now?

 

[911paramedic]

I'm at about 20 hours and I haven't even gotten to The Strip yet. Am I slower/faster/the same as you?

lol, I was reading this thread because of that very reason. I've been playing for quite a while now and haven't gotten anywhere near the strip yet.

 

[Regs]

lol, I was reading this thread because of that very reason. I've been playing for quite a while now and haven't gotten anywhere near the strip yet.

You can get distracted very easily. Think of the Strip as the central point and everything you do outside the strip has some effect to what could be done on the strip.

 

[coldmeat]

I made it to the strip fairly quickly, I think early teens. I wasn't really finding very many side quests til I got close to the end of the story and now I have so many I don't know which one to do first. Still haven't finished the story though.