"Another great RPG from Bethesda"

I have been playing rpg's since the mid 70's, long before consoles were around and have been playing Bethesda rpg's since TES: Arena. The latest release is another great game from this company. My pet peeve with rpg's is when they force you upon a certain path (i.e FF 13) and FONV thankfully does not do that.

Graphics: Although they are using an outdated game engine the graphics are pretty good. The are the same as FO3, the world looks bleak and burnt out, just what you would expect after what happened. There are some minor clipping and stuttering issues but nothing that bothered me at all. The weapons and armour look awesome (I love the look of my anti-material rifle). There are some repeating of buildings and areas but in a game world as massive as FONV you have to expect that. There is enough variety to satisfy me.

Sound: Pretty good, I usually have the sound turned down a bit because of where I live but on the occasion where I did crank it up it was great. I loved cruising the wasteland with the radio on low (love the old time music). The "crack" of the guns going off or being surprised when deep in a cave or vault was not good for my nerves and brought a smile to my face every time.

Gameplay: Awesome! Pretty much the same as FO3 with new areas, quests, people etc. I fell in love with FO3 and I am still in love after playing FONV. I have been playing almost every day and it is still holding my interest big time. I've put in over 80 hours and I still have lots to do. If you went and just played the main story line it would be a reasonably short game but there is so much else to do and discover beyond that. There are lots of different factions you can do quests for and help out. Who you help out has a dramatic effect in this game. Help out one faction and a few of the others won't like you and might attack you on site. I have yet to encounter any "game breaking" glitches and have frozen only 3 times in all my gameplay. I have finished the game viewing two of the ending so far. I realize a few others have had problems but I think they are in the minority. I had more freezes playing Star Ocean 3.

Character build: I like to have control over building my character and FONV does not disappoint. You can edit your stats (strength, agility etc), choose your own perks (although a few of them are inexplicably useless just as in FO3) and you can do minor changes to your face. The variety of weapons and armour is great. Sniping and enemy with my anti-material rifle or sniper gun from so far away that you can barely see the enemy was amazing.

Story: I never play an rpg for the story. I am a leveller and explorer. The story is good but not great. I won't spoil anything by telling you about it because frankly I never paid much attention to it anyway. It was not as good as FO3 but it was still ok.

Replayability: There is so much to do and different factions to follow and different character builds to explore that the replayability factor is amazing.

Overall I give this game a 9/10 as I am loving playing it just as much (if not more) than FO3. It's too bad some people had freezing issues and thus posted reviews of 2/10. Maybe they should clean there PS3's once in awhile.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10 | Originally Posted: 11/15/10

Game Release: Fallout: New Vegas (US, 10/19/10)

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