Fallout: New Vegas is a game I want to like. As a sequel to 2008’s Fallout 3, New Vegas has shoes to fill. Fallout 3’s strongest aspect was its environment. Ever wondered what a world post-nuclear-war would be like? How would you survive in a city that had been reduced to rubble? Fallout 3 captured this experience so elegiacally that it was easy to spend complete weekends submerged in the world. Sadly, Fallout: New Vegas is not nearly as fun to explore, and this has made all the difference.
It is impossible not to compare Fallout 3 and New Vegas, partly because they are so similar aesthetically and they play largely the same. Both New Vegas and Fallout 3 are role playing games about surviving in a dystopic American wasteland post-nuclear war. At first glance both look like a first-person shooter such as Call of Duty or Halo, but Fallout is hardly about shooting. Embedded into each game is a deep role-playing system built on exploration of a huge map.
Fallout 3 takes place in Washington DC while New Vegas takes place in the Mojave Desert, right up I-15 and into Las Vegas. In both games you’re allowed free reign to explore these areas, meet people, complete quests, level up (strengthen your character, whom you create), and scavenge the wasteland. It’s a formula that works when there is a rich world to explore - the essence of Fallout 3 was that you would always wonder what you’d find a little further down the road, what crusty gem could be hiding amongst a mess of dirty crates and shelves.
In retrospect, Washington DC was a prime location for Bethesda (Fallout 3’s developer) to pick. DC is so dense with recognizable locations and names that it can feel familiar to almost every American. Even if you’ve never been there (and in 2010 I find it more likely than not for someone to have visited DC at least once) the landmarks are universal. We all know what the United States Capital building looks like; we all recognize the beacon of the Washington Monument. They are functional landmarks that unite America by their presence. I explored every nook and cranny of the Capital Wasteland because combing the crumbled remnants of our nation was inherently interesting.
New Vegas fails here. Las Vegas has its share of landmarks, but none that hold the weight of our Capital city. New Vegas is extensive, covering Vegas, its strip, and surrounding cities like Primm, but it’s significantly less dense. You will have to walk far stretches before you find something genuinely worth exploring.
Even then, most locations you discover aren't going to feel that special. When I entered the Mojave Wasteland, I immediately began exploring aimlessly (like I had in Fallout 3), but that became boring quickly. I wasn't finding anything unique or interesting. I'd enter buildings to find piles of absolute junk. The experience of scavenging has been enriched through the added mechanics of recycling ammo, plant picking, and food preparation, but these mechanics are undercut by a dearth of valuable finds. The best parts of foraging and scavenging, be they digital or reality, are the moments when you’ve found something rare and valuable under a veneer of waste. This “eureka” moment comes too seldom in Vegas, and it sabotages the players’ commitment to exploration. Very few locations feel unique because most are filled with the same stuff. It’s just not fun.
Even the strip, the geographical and narrative epicenter of New Vegas story, feels synthetic and empty, a husk of the comparatively rich National Mall we explored just two years ago.
What New Vegas has chosen to focus on is factions and reputation, and I welcome that addition. New Vegas really shines when you feel like you are genuinely affecting the world and its varying perceptions of you, a mechanic that was much too black and white in Fallout 3. I like aligning myself with factions. It's fun. But the de-emphasis on the environment, arguably the most important aspect of Fallout 3, hurts the longevity of the experience. The web of reputation entangles an inconsequential world, a place I couldn't bring myself to like. It makes me wonder what the point is of all the traveling at all. I mean, why bother? Without the world to back it up, New Vegas is really just a prolonged text adventure at its core.
The Mojave Wasteland is not here for us to enjoy, it is here to create longevity, to legitimize Fallout: New Vegas' presence. It does not enhance our experience, it obfuscates it. Every salient and quality aspect of New Vegas is made longer by the fact that you must walk long, uninteresting distances to find points of interest. For a game like Fallout to work, the environment must be the foundation. It has to be a treat to inhabit, a place we look forward to exploring.
I spent over 150 hours playing Fallout 3, and I welcome the famine of women that admission that will bring to my life. I am not ashamed of any moment of that time spent. Fallout 3 gave me a place worth exploring rivaling the real-life Capital itself (a place in which I have spent extensive time). There is something about the atmosphere that was distinct, complete with its own self-deprecating tone and mid 20th century motif that made every dusty corner an archaeological dig.
In short, it is probably informative for some people to examine all the incremental additions in New Vegas over Fallout 3, and in those terms New Vegas is an objective improvement. But when push comes to shove, the most telling aspect of New Vegas for me is the moment-to-moment experience of inhabiting the game world. And New Vegas, offers nothing truly worth remembering. It begs for the inordinate attention that Fallout 3 captured so deftly while shucking the very aspects that made Fallout so interesting.
A sense of discovery fueled everything I did in Fallout 3. A search for that same sense of discovery has fueled everything I’ve done in Fallout: New Vegas. Without that interest in the game world, I find my time spent very pointless. If I could only suggest one of the two, I’d pick Fallout 3 over New Vegas every time. Vegas, as it always has, will leave you feeling empty, broke, and annoyed.
