Fallout: New Vegas–Ain’t That a Kick in the Head?

I had such high hopes for this game, really high hopes, dizzyingly high even. I’ve been waiting for this game for sometime wanting a great experience.

After the Fallout 3: GOTY bug fiasco I was hoping, beyond hope, that New Vegas would be released bug free or thereabouts. You see I love nothing more than a good RPG with a rich environment and an immersive storyline; something you could sink into. New Vegas was supposed to be that or so I hoped.

Hope is such a fickle thing and so is New Vegas. This game has more bugs than an ants nest, freezes more than water in the Arctic Circle and glitches more than… well it’s just really glitchy. At first these were minor disturbances and something I could live with. As a software developer myself I know that no software can be produced bug free and I was content to let a few issues aside. Things have changed however.

Over the past three days I’ve been watching my girlfriend go for the end-game scenario’s. There’s four big endings and she wanted the trophy for each. Considering the work she put into it I don’t think it’s too much to ask. Unfortunately the game didn’t think so and decided to fight her all of the way. During one mission the game froze four in less than an hour and then suffered a severe drop in frame rate. Following that the game have an issue were VATS couldn’t be accessed causing the mission to fail indirectly. Entirely ridiculous.

Now don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot I like about this game. It’s a beautiful post-apocalyptic world; my favorite kind. There’s some really interesting characters and backstories around. Modding weapons is a lot of fun and you could build a character around that alone. Plus for anyone who played Fallout 2 back in the day, well, you’ll get a lot of references and pick up on a few things that those newer to the series won’t.

Unfortunately, though, I don’t know what I’ll be doing with this game. My girlfriend ran into an uber glitch only yesterday. This glitch occurs through exploration of Vault 11, be it of your own accord or that of a faction mission. Now anyone who enters a Vault is going to explore it top to bottom because each one has its own unique, twisted story to tell. But the secrets in this Vault could in fact fail one of the four end-game scenarios for you. Why? Because of the oversight of some developer who didn’t realize what a major glitch had been produced.

My girlfriends game and my own have been affected by this. Her chances of getting all end-game scenario’s completed, of getting all trophies has been robbed. I wish I could recommend this game but I can’t. At least not until it’s been patched to fix the serious errors and issues this game is encountering.

A note to all games developers: don’t release a broken game…