Fallout is known for its open world, and massive branching story arcs. New Vegas is no different. The landscape is quite massive. Dialogue options are plentiful. The amount of perks and abilities is staggering. The amount of things you can loot and acquire is overwhelming. All these should point to a very deep and rich game experience, but there are problems.
With so much information, there needs to be a way for it to be organized in a way that doesn't make it a jumbled mess. And that's exactly where New Vegas falls short. After I progressed a good few hours into the game, my bag was full of goodies and random stuff. The weapon section alone was a jumbled mess. The chaotic amount of ammo and weapons are all mixed in the same category, making browsing to the weapon I want a very difficult task. There are no shortcuts whatsoever. Having to pull p the pip boy every 20 seconds breaks the pace of the game way too much. This adds onto the numerous times you need to pull it up to see quest objectives, and double check marker location, cause besides a marker on the main screen, there's absolutely no indication of how far away you are from the destination.
There were times when I wasn't sure if I should be approaching a certain area because there may be too many enemies, enemies who are way higher level than me, or random proximity mines on the ground. These all cause cheap deaths, which break the pace of the game. For this very reason, I found myself having to quick save constantly, which in itself was annoying.
There's no explanation for a lot of the effects that happen to you throughout the game. I'm getting radiation...ok, so what? What does radiation do to me? Oh, I'm losing good karma...ok, how does karma affect me? So many questions, but no answers, until I google it.
The game gives you all these perk choices at the very start of the game, but you have no idea what you need. How much charisma do I need? Will there be a lot of dialogue choices which takes advantage of that? How important is combat? Will there be situations which screw me over because I assigned only 1 point to strength? How important is perception? Will there be a lot of enemies in the hub world that I can't get past unless I have some perception? You have to guess all these things before you even set foot out the door. The most logical choice is to assign the points evenly, cause you no knowledge whatsoever of what to expect. You start to get an idea of what to expect after getting out of the first town, but you perks are already locked in at this point. Oops, you want to be a charismatic person and pass speech checks, but you only assigned 3 to speech? Too bad, slowly grind your way there.
Not knowing what was a main quest and what was a side quest was really annoying as well. I want to know who shot me in the f***ing head, but I could be following false leads because this guy promised me information, if I help him get this guy, but the guy I'm trying to get will tell me, if I help him with this. It's just quest-ception, on and on. But the final part of that mission, might not give me what I want to know, case the entire branch was a side quest. By the end of it, I'm scared to take on another mission, cause it might be a quest-ception of side quests. After 3 long branches of side quests, I'm so drained, I don't even care about who shot me in the head anymore, and just want to stop playing, or want the credits to roll.
I do love the freedom, and the story branches the game offers. It's truly remarkable how many ways you can play through this game. But all that is largely hindered by the lack of knowledge, and organization. Overall, the experience felt like a jumbled mess for the most part, but when things worked, it was amazing...which unfortunately was far and few in between.