Fallout: New Vegas.

I opened it for Christmas and was shocked to see it. What ensued next was an adventure through a familiar but immensely new setting, the Mojave Wasteland. Right at the start I was looking for those annoying Radroaches and instead found fast moving lizards and Giant mantises attempting to eat my flesh. That was refreshing. Also I immediately noticed the immersion from Fallout 3 was still abundant. When I play Fallout 3 I am caught in the story, so much so that the familiar music of battle usually gets me a bit on edge, the patter patter of gunfire from people who don't like me too much (in game) distracts me and makes me feel like making gory bits all over the desert.

Starting out I had the Caravan pack, which nets you some neat gear. At the start you realize how important your decisions are. You get a mini-tutorial on shooting that actually makes you want to crouch and shoot, which didn't happen to me in Fallout 3, in which I tended more to get in close and blast baddies to pieces with the combat shotgun. VATS is still around and just as useful as the last. Which is a good thing.

You start out with a bullet to the dome and a friendly doctor to stitch you all up. So friendly in fact he doesn't mind if you take anything from his house, just don't sleep in his beds. Once you exit his house, which is mostly just a "create your character" area, you are immediately free to do whatever you want. You could at this point go explore the wasteland and fight off raiders, gangs, bandits, and wildlife, finding random "treasures" amongst seemingly worthless piles of scrap.

Of course the questing is where Fallout games are fun so, lets do that. First and foremost your character decides they want to find the jerk who shot them in the dome. So of course you go on an information gathering parade around Goodsprings, which is the first town you find yourself in. It's not a bad place, just.. somewhat boring. That is, until the Powder Gangers show up and start causing trouble. You are given the opportunity right then to become a baddie and join the Gang, at the expense of Goodsprings settlers. I don't wanna give away too much, but giving you moral choices that early in the game is fresh and feels necessary.

All in all I say this game is great, regardless of the low scores it's been getting all over. Admittedly it is somewhat glitchy/slow at some points but most of the time that doesn't arise until several hours of playing and thats to be expected from Bethesda games which are so huge and immersive that they require a fairly large cache draw. The trick is, once it starts getting laggy and such, save your game, shut off the console, then start it up again. You won't see any lag because you just reset the cache of the console and cleared the issues.

There is a lot to this game I haven't seen yet, and a lot I have. I would reccomend this to any fan of the series and would warn them to watch what people in the game say because often times it is very important, or just funny/creepy. I think now is a good time to call this blog done so, take it easy all.