Fallout New Vegas is addictive & highly immersive up until the game freezes on you. Still, it's been worth the wait.
Like Red Dead Redemption, you can pick flowers although it's extremely difficult to find some of them like Xander Root. There's hard core mode which I've been playing in which requires item micromanagement to ensure you have enough stimpacks, food & water during your journey. It's a nice separation of hard, normal, easy & easier modes. You can play on hardcore mode for the game & yet be on easy. For a challenge, play hardcore on hard or normal. The difficulty of your damage output & enemy damage to you is controlled by game difficulty. It's a great option that if you are a novice that you can still play the game on "hardcore" mode & have the game be challenging. The game seems to be more balanced in terms of stats and perks than the previous game. For instance, Perks have pros & cons. Toughness adds +3 to your DT (Damage Threshold). Smaller Frame adds +1 to Agility but your lower legs are vulnerable to being more easily crippled. Kamikaze adds +10% damage to your weapons but gives you a -2 DT.
Skills have been tweaked & are actually useful now. I've encountered Speech, barter, intelligence & strength checks during gameplay.
The trade off to all of this is, the game will occasionally freeze up resulting in you having to reboot your Xbox 360. There was a patch on Thursday or Friday for Xbox owners but as of yesterday, my game still freezes. It's annoying b/c I thought I had a defective Halo: Reach edition Xbox 360 & it takes you out of your Fallout experience. The upside to the game freezing is, it reminds you that you need food & drink (like your in game persona) and possibly, sleep.
Annoying as it is, the only way to combat this is to save your game frequently. I have 7 save slots but I've saved about 239 times so far & I've discovered about 45 places in the game.
Still, the game is addictive & highly immersive up until the game freezes. The sound effects & music draw you into the story. Unlike Fallout 3 where Three Dog was a constant companion on the radio, I haven't turned on the radio at all. Maybe they can add a DLC pack adding Three Dog & a mission to having you set up a cross continental radio transmission pick up with one of the satellite dishes from Black Rock Mountain.
Regardless of the glitches, this game is a worthy sequel to Fallout 3 & the PC Game franchises Fallout 1 & 2.