5 Niggling Things: Fallout New Vegas

Last time on "5 Niggling Things" I looked at Skyrim, now it's time to look at Bethesda's other major RPG franchise. I've been playing Fallout: New Vegas a great deal recently with mods enabled and have a few issues that I didn't mention in my review. Let's get started... (and fingers crossed for Fallout 4 this year!)

1. A lack of clarity in gun customisation

Given how the titular city and its surrounding wasteland was mostly untouched by the nuclear bombs, New Vegas brought in a much deeper weapon system, complete with customisable parts for a majority of weapons. It was a solid system that added much more variation to that seen in Fallout 3. The customisable arsenal was not without its drawbacks though; when purchasing weapon mods, there was no indication of which specific weapon model the part could be fitted to. This was exacerbated by both the Gun Runner’s Arsenal pack and the rare toys you could find off the beaten path; neither of these could be customised in the slightest. This led to a fair bit of repetition and some wasted caps as you bought, sold and rebought items just to find the right one for your chosen armament. Better vendor menus that clearly displayed the corresponding weapon for each mod would be much appreciated next time.

2. A heavily unbalanced play-through when choosing Caesar’s Legion

Reputation in Fallout New Vegas made a very welcome comeback to the series; with several different factions to assist or hinder, players had to be especially careful about some of their choices throughout the game. However in future instalments, this system could use a fair bit of tuning to ensure each faction is balanced. In Fallout New Vegas, Caesar’s Legion definitely drew the short straw; not only do you get fewer side quests than you would when working for the NCR, but you also get plenty of bad karma for your trouble, putting you at a heavy disadvantage when attempting to interact with many other major NPCs in the Mojave Wasteland. If there had been more factions that would support an evil courier (plus a surplus of side quests to match the NCR), being a villain of the wastes in FNV would have been far more desirable.

3. Static locations and items

As mentioned previously, Fallout New Vegas’s reputation system added much more depth to the game, granting a great deal of dynamic replayability to players who assisted or hindered different factions on each playthrough. The same consistency does not apply to the locations the courier travels to however. What I mean by this is that once you clear an area of enemies, the area could read “cleared” of all enemies and the environment should change along with it. Items which would once give bad karma for stealing could change to normal and bed which could not be used because they were owned could also change to affect the “cleared” status. This would make the world feel more dynamic and would subtly convey the player’s impact on the wasteland, improving immersion in the process.

4. Restricting lock-picking and hacking based on level

The levelling system in the Fallout system is incredibly deep and addictive, with the perks in particular offering benefits that often go far beyond simple skill buffs. But one area which I feel has always been archaic are the lock picking and hacking skills. Rather than allowing any character of any level to open any lock, players are instead greeted with a “You must be level … to hack/pick” message, making some rare items completely inaccessible. As seen in Bethesda’s other major franchise The Elder Scrolls, lock picking is completely free of boundaries, with a low lock pick level making the task itself more difficult to pull off. If the same mechanic was applied to Fallout, it would definitely alleviate the frustrations of players who wish to pump points into other skills whilst also snapping up all the loot they can.

5. Vague quests and other lacking pointers

Fallout New Vegas contains far more quests than Fallout 3, drastically increasing the replay value and just giving players more things to do along their adventure. But despite bugs being mostly stamped out in the Ultimate Edition, some quests still suffer from continuity issues. The most notable instance of this happened on Boone’s quest (I forget to remember to forget); to access the main stage of the quest in which you take Boone to Bitter Springs you have to acquire 5 history points, which are earned by completing certain NCR quests with Boone at your side. Unfortunately if you complete these quests without Boone then the history points will be lost and you will be unable to complete his quest. Luckily on PC you can use the console to automatically complete the quest but for players who don’t know what they’re doing, this is an exercise in frustration. The same applies to random unmarked quests, such as when the Brotherhood of Steel vendor asks the player to find a missing plasma pistol outside the hidden valley bunker. Because the quest isn’t marked, most players will completely forget to do it and move on to other things instead of reaping the rewards. The next Fallout should take a cue from Skyrim and include any details and minor quests under a miscellaneous tab so that players don’t lose track of them over the course of the game.