Why is that don't you write for Unwinnable again?

Fallout: New Vegas, however, feels more like another expansion pack than a stand alone sequel.

It somehow manages to emphasize on its predecessors faults while eschewing all of its strengths. No small feat.

Fallout 3 did an excellent job of cluing the player in on the world around him while letting him discover it for himself. That the lions share of players had no prior knowledge of the Fallout universe was a moot point, as you play a character from birth in a vault, so player and playable character experience the outside world for the first time together. The Capital Wasteland and Fallout 3 story line were ridiculously immersive, almost dangerously so. I lost plenty of days in the outside world wandering virtual post-apocalypse DC.

New Vegas does away with this sensible introduction and starts you off as a grown ass man whose only skills are getting shot in the face. The only reason to wander the Mojave Wasteland is if you really want to, as you can see the lights of the Vegas Strip from most locations in the world after the sun goes down. And, since it's set in the middle of the desert, there's not much to stop you from just walking toward the lights.

As far as the story goes, with all of the (capably acted) dialogue propelling this game forward I kept waiting for the option to have my Courier say "Wait, why should I give a shit about any of this?"

There are warring factions, which you are not a part of. That are preparing for a battle, which you do not have a stake in. That threatens the future of a city, that you have never been to!

"Wait, why should I give a shit about any of this?"

This is a post-apocalypse where people spend their time doing idle chores, waiting for a stranger to happen by, so they can ask him to do a task that is necessary for their survival. The two warring factions do this as well. As mighty as they are they are apparently locked in a stalemate until they can convince a stranger with a bullet in their head to side with them and, kind of/sort of, win the war for them single handedly.

"Wait, why should I give a shit about any of this?"

Fallout 3 had a plot that placed you directly in the midst of a chain of events that was certain to shape the world around you. New Vegas' plot is "You spent 60 dollars on a game, might as well get on with it."

The gameplay is quite possibly the clumsiest of its generation. In addition to the aforementioned 'stuck in a boulder' scenarios, my character loved to show me which gun he was carrying. So much so that he would often let it block up most of the center screen, making free firing damn near impossible. Sometimes, however, he turned the gun invisible. Every now and then he met me halfway. When the gun did block up the screen, I was forced to use V.A.T.S., a system that worked well in the previous game. New Vegas' V.A.T.S. eats up a lot more time (it is not uncommon to see an enemy fire off four or five rounds at you while you watch yourself pop one off in slow motion) and its kill cam is buggy as all get out (I ended up turning it off.) On more than one occasion my character lost the ability to aim or turn entirely. Having relied on auto saves for the last few hours of gameplay I came very close to shutting the game off and giving up on it entirely, before I begrudgingly checked the internet and saw that another player with the same bug and fixed it by equipping a one handed weapon instead of a rifle(of course!) There was a small flight of stairs in a train station that my character could not climb. He would fall through them, through a glitched out screen, and end up back at the door of the train station. He was also not a very adept climber when it came to the mountains of the Mojave. Some steep hills posed no trouble at all, yet some slight inclines were insurmountable. Plenty of time wasted differentiating the two. On top of all this, my male character grunted like a woman when he got hurt.

The artificial intelligence is almost non-existent, enemies in the distance can be picked off without ever closing in on your position. The wandering gangs didn't even seem to notice when I sniped someone they were standing right next to. The gamblers at a casino still sat at the blackjack table attempting to place bets with a dealer whose head I had just blown clean off. After I slaughtered a casino full of gangsters I noticed the receptionist had gone back to her desk. I could have the same conversation with her that I had before I killed everyone she worked for. Staggeringly drunk soldiers, when talked to, will straighten up and tell you in perfect speech their thoughts on a recent in game development, before slouching over and staggering away. These matter of fact musings come from all factions, but for each group unnamed characters only have 2 or 3 sayings, which means when you wander into a Vault full of drug addled raiders you will hear the same 3 things said by 30 different NPC's. Companions are another thing entirely, with a knack for disappearing completely, and they all had their own lovable quirks (my sniper buddy, for instance, liked to get as close as possible to the Deathclaws in Quarry Junction, who would kill him in seconds. Even though I was on the cliffs, out of their reach, sniping. You know, like a sniper. Like my companion. Who is also a sniper.) The disappearing act however, became another bug that threatened to end my campaign for good, as you can't visit any of the Mojave's movers and shakers with companions in your party. You also cannot ask a companion to wait outside if you don't know where they are. Once again my resolve weakened and I checked the internet. It turns out when a companion splits unexpectedly they have a tendency to boogie on over to Vault 22, where they like to hang out on the 5th Floor(I don't know why I didn't figure that out on my own!)

Probably the biggest gripe I had about Fallout 3 was the regressive difficulty level. The game started out incredibly hard, with even the weakest enemies giving your low level character a run for their money. As you leveled up however, even the most difficult foe became easy prey. This problem is at least addressed, though not quite solved, in New Vegas. Perks are granted every 2 levels, instead of a perk every level as in Fallout 3. However, it now grants you all XP for an opponent killed by a companion. You had to do the majority of damage in the last game to get the experience, which was fair enough, because traveling with a companion made the game much less challenging. Now that you get all the XP it doesn't really affect you that you get perks less often, because you'll be leveling up more often. Once again though, a higher level player becomes damn near unstoppable. I was excited about the addition of Hardcore Mode, which promised more of a challenge, but really just meant more time spent managing inventory. Every now and then I would have to excuse myself from a quest area to trek back to a trader to pick up some food or water, but that was rare. This was a convenient apocalypse, after all, and every fridge in the wasteland is full of food and drink(sort of makes you wonder how effective all those gangs of raiders are, doesn't it?) The only thing tested on my Very Hard Difficulty/Hardcore Mode play through was my patience.

I suppose load times and freezes are worth mentioning. This game reminded me of the kind of game you'd play on a PC. Specifically a PC with insufficient memory and a non-existent graphics card.

All the talk of reputations is hogwash, because as you near the end of the game all factions will give you an opportunity to do a quest for them that will negate any grudges they currently harbor towards you. This was fortunate, because it meant I didn't actually have to play through the game again to see a different ending, merely load a save at the right point. Unfortunate, I suppose, if the intent was to ape other games where consequence is a factor, because in this case it really isn't.

All in all, this game is a walking simulation. Its desert setting makes the sort of white knuckle gaming found in the ruins of DC impossible. You won't turn a corner to find a Talon Company Patrol 30 paces away, you'll be inching through the desert until you see your enemies far enough away that you can dispose of them with neither challenge nor excitement(Unless of course they spawn on top of you.)

That was my New Vegas experience. No challenge, no excitement. Plenty of frustration and tested patience. The explorer perk has let me know that I have discovered roughly half of the locations in the Mojave. I'm fine with that. The first DLC will be coming out soon, and I won't be playing it. I'm loaning this game to a friend tonight, and I feel as though that's kind of a shitty thing to do.

(Note: The glitches I mentioned occurred with available patches downloaded)