Fallout: New Vegas is a post-apocalyptic action role-playing video game. It is a spin-off of the Fallout series and was developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Bethesda Softworks. It was announced in April 2009 and released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on October 19, 2010. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic open world environment that encompasses a region consisting of parts of Nevada, California, and Arizona. It is set in a world that deviated onto an alternate timeline thanks to atomic age technology, which eventually led to its devastation by a nuclear apocalypse in the year 2077 in an event referred to as "The Great War". This war was caused by a major international conflict between the United States and China over natural resources. The main story of New Vegas takes place in the year 2281, four years after the events of Fallout 3. It is not a direct sequel, but it does mark the return of a number of elements found in the Black Isle Studios-developed Fallout 2.
Players take control of a character known as the Courier. While transporting a package across the Mojave Desert to the city of New Vegas, the Courier is ambushed, robbed of the package, shot in the head, and left for dead. After surviving, the Courier begins a journey to find their would-be killer and recover the package, makes friends and enemies among various factions, and ultimately becomes caught up in a conflict that determines who will control New Vegas and the Mojave Wasteland. New Vegas received positive reviews, with critics praising the game's writing, quests, and improved gameplay, while garnering criticism for glitches and bugs on launch. New Vegas was a commercial success, shipping more than 5 million copies altogether, and is estimated to have sold around 12 million copies worldwide. The game also received a Golden Joystick Award for "RPG of the Year" in 2011.
Gameplay
While gameplay from Fallout 3 was retained for Fallout: New Vegas, Obsidian Entertainment worked upon providing the game with improvements upon existing elements while introducing some old and new features to the series. Some of the improvements and new features included:
- Combat is improved upon, with the V.A.T.S. system being updated with several new V.A.T.S.-specific attacks, and a number of kill animations being made for several of the game's melee weapons. Players can use the iron sights on firearms in the game, with the exception of certain larger guns and some energy weapons.
- The third-person perspective in the game was redesigned to be more "over the shoulder" than it had been in Fallout 3.
- The Character Creation section of the game was refined to take less time than Fallout 3, with players able to skip the tutorials and proceed across the Wasteland once their character is set up. The option to make any last minute changes to their character occurs when the player steps beyond the boundaries of the starting location of Goodsprings.
- More Perks were added to the game to provide greater options for improving the player's characters upon leveling up.
- The Perk system itself changed, allowing a Perk at every other level instead of every level like in earlier games in order to prevent the player from having an overly powerful character early in the game.
- More weapons were added to the game, including the 9 mm Pistol, the Single Shotgun, Powder Charges, Dynamite, Trail Carbine, and Grenade Launcher.
- A new skill, Survival, is introduced. This skill impacts how much health is restored by food and drink. Skills have a larger effect on conversation choices; whether a dialogue option will succeed or fail is shown up front, and entirely dependent on Skill level, rather than both skill and chance as was the case in Fallout 3. Players can receive a temporary boost to a skill by reading a skill magazine corresponding to it, which can be found around the Mojave Wasteland or purchased from vendors, the effects of which can be further enhanced by certain Perks.
- Players can gamble. They can do this by visiting casinos, buying chips with the three major currencies in the games, and playing either blackjack, slots, or roulette within them. Players can also play a card game called Caravan, which was specifically designed for the game and has its own rules, and can be played with certain people outside of the casinos.
Crafting and modding
Although players could craft items in Fallout 3, these items were limited to a few unique weapons. With New Vegas, crafting was expanded to allow the creation of food, drink, drugs, and ammunition along with unique weapons. Crafting can be done at workbenches, reloading benches, and campfires, and requires specific components as well as a sufficient skill level; for instance, cooking food at campfires requires the player to have a sufficient Survival skill level to do so. Some special items cannot be made until their recipes/schematics are found. Players can harvest plants to use in recipes, similar to Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls series. In addition to crafting, players can also modify weapons with special firearm modifications. Such modifications can improve the rate of fire or the size of the magazine, or add a mounted telescopic sight to allow for greater range. Modifications for firearms often require either scavenging for them in the Mojave or purchasing them from vendors.
