Meanwhile my lonely ass been sitting over here absolutely loathing Fallout: New Vegas since its release. I did not like that game. I probably would today if I got over myself and tried playing it again.
I liked NV way more than FO3 because it felt like the same world as FO1 and 2, while 3 felt like an imposter wearing their skin.
It also is the most RPG-like of all the 3D fallout games. Obsidian actually knows how to make an RPG. And having a couple of the people who made FO1 and 2 was a big help. To this day, Old World Blues has some of the best dialogue in a video game.
For anyone considering playing or replaying New Vegas, I cannot reccomend the Viva New Vegas modlist enough.
It’s unfortunately not just some “one click setup”. There is a Wabbajack installer, but there are some small steps you still need to do manually too.
That said, it is by far the best and most comprehensive “vanilla plus” modpack I have ever used. I’m a modding addict; I don’t say that lightly. It doesn’t change core game mechanics, story, or anything the makes New Vegas what it is.
It polishes what’s there, upgrading visuals in a consistent manner that blends perfectly with the original content. It fixes countless longstanding bugs, performance issues, and crashes (only two crashes in ~40 hours on a setup that was modded even further past what the pack includes).
It polishes New Vegas to what it should have been on release (if Bethesda didn’t force Obsidian to rush it out the door early), then brings it as close to the quality of a modern release as possible through modding.
If you want to replay Fallout 3, a lot of people prefer playing it in the New Vegas engine using the Tale of Two Wastelands mod. The version of Viva New Vegas that covers that and includes mods for the Fallout 3 content is “The Best of Times”.
It appears to be up to the same quality as VNV standalone, but I haven’t used it myself yet.
Btw, don’t forget A Tale of Two Wastelands.
I’m probably going to get hate for this, but do you know if any mods that allow the game to work in Windows 11? None of the fan patches I could find in the Nexus actually work, even if they claim they are for Win11 users. The game still crashes constantly. I’m seriously considering digging my old gaming PC out of storage just so I can play NV one last time.
How’s the game in Linux? Haven’t tried it there yet cause it barely runs in Win7, an OS it was designed for (but at least it runs), so I didn’t even try it in Linux cause I’m doubtful it’ll work any better than it does in 11.
In my experience, the crashing is usually from some directX rendering compatibility issues with the windows 11 driver and display stack. Try using DXVK (which is what steam proton uses on Linux) to convert the driver stack into something vulkan compliant. For me, personally, it SIGNIFICANTLY reduced crashes even in windows 10. I’m rocking an AMD GPU though so my vulkan performance is notably more stable than many Nvidia equivalents. To use DXVK you just download the zip file from the GitHub releases page and drop it (extracted, 32 bit dll’s specifically) into the folder with the game binaries (similar to old dinput override mods). Then launch the game like normal and it SHOULD “just work”.
do you have the steam version or gog? i played the steam version on windows 11 last year and had no more problems than usual. also if you’re using the steam version, you might have to make sure it’s not installed within Program Files or Program Files (x86). those install locations can cause problems with mods.
you might also benefit from installing the 4gb patch in addition to IStewieAI’s engine tweaks. a lot of the mods in the first few sections of the viva new vegas guide are pretty much essential in order to play the game with minimal bugs and crashes. also some of the “crash fixing” mods cause problems in windows 10 and 11.
hopefully one of the above things works. i had to find a lot of those things out the hard way, it can be a pretty finicky game. really fun though.
GoG, but I really appreciate you trying to help. I already tried the 4GB patch and I don’t remember if I tried IStewieAI because it’s been over a year since I last tried running the game, and I have ADHD. I’ll look into that and the rest. Thanks.
I read that tweet as something that wasn’t really about Fallout: New Vegas, and more as something using it as a vehicle for a joke (about adult women being nostalgic for the games they played as teenage boys).
Yeah somehow almost everyone is missing the joke? 😭
Oh we all got it, but our reaction was to relate warmly.
The joke is partly that lots of trans women in particular enjoyed this game in particular, so plenty of people who noticed the switcheroo in the tweet will still see it as an opportunity to talk about the game rather than seeing the game as something irrelevant that could be swapped out for another.
But why trans women?
i had a hearty queer chuckle
I’m sure you could swap it out for other things and it would still work, like OOT or something.
I never played Fallout New Vegas.
It’s sitting unused in my Steam library.
Is it actually any good?It has the best story of all the Fallouts, by-far. Really amazing what they managed to pull off with only 18 months of development time. But because of the rushed schedule, the game is also extremely buggy. I would not recommend playing it without mods that fix the bugs and restore missing content that wasn’t finished in time for release. It also doesn’t play well with modern OSes. Some people have had success running it on newer PCs but for me it’s been hit or miss. Don’t let that discourage you from trying it, though. It’s such a good game that it’s worth putting some effort into trying to get it to run.
I mean, it’s the Majora’s Mask of Fallouts.
They already had an engine, they didn’t need to play it safe, both because the flagship entry was giving it a boost and protecting it from detracting pressures.
if you like fallout then yeah its good
if you dont like fallout or open worlds with a lot of talking to people then youll probably be bored out of your mind
i spent hundreds of hours playing it across xbox 360 and PC.
PC is a better experience by far
I don’t know what I’ve beaten more times, New Vegas or my meat. Either way that game stays installed on my PC, Steam Deck, Xboxes, everything. I ain’t no fink, dig?
Honestly it’s just amazing Obsidian was able to make that game’s story and assets in 18 months with Bethesda looming over their necks.
no need to make up stories about the development, pretty much every obsidian dev cherished the opportunity to work on that engine and create a game
oh and obsidian themselves set the timeline and then mismanaged their time (like they usually do, see kotor 2)
It’s the last good fallout game, how can we move on if things after it are subpar?
I have well over 5k hours in fnv split between Xbox 360 and PC. I’m terrified there’s never going to be a game like it again with the way everything is becoming a live service.
I am not a gamer. I enjoyed fallout 4 a lot, though, and kept hearing all this hype for New Vegas. Legit bought that game thinking it was new. Lmao
What I’ve played has been good, though
Wow that’s an unpopular opinion for sure. You might get roasted for that one. What bugged you about it?
Not OP but New Vegas always felt like a total overhaul mod for Fallout 3. Same assets, different location, different story, crashes a lot.
Basically was, Bethesda crippled Obsidian with a ridiculous target to release in so they had little to no time to work on new assets etc.
New Vegas is a great game despite its original flaws that in the years since, modders have completely fixed.
no they didnt, obsidian crippled themselves by saying they can do it in 18 months and then mismanaging their time
Honestly, I’m ok with it it. It created a game more focused on story.
For myself, I don’t hate it, I just don’t seem to get it like everyone else. I just leveled myself up and gave some weapons after a while because I found the combat unengaging and wanted to finish the story. I’m interested in trying out that mod pack someone else mentioned. Maybe the experience will be quite different.
Yeah the gunplay is better than fallout 3 but that’s not saying much… It is pretty damn barebones. VATS can be fun though.
It’s funny when nostalgia kicks in with stuff you never even stopped doing (like games that I regularly replay from 20+ years ago, or music I still listen to).
How tf is Doom nostalgia, I last played it like a bit over a year, maybe 18 months ago? And yet it is.
Anyone who wants to play NV again/for the first time, check out Viva New Vegas, a modguide that makes the game actually playable and performant. There’s now a Wabbajack version, meaning you can get it perfectly modded with very little user input.
I also recommend “Just Assorted Mods” if you want some modern QoL changes (sprinting, hit markers, weapon wheel, loot quickmenu, etc)
a modguide that makes the game actually playable and performant.
Can you elaborate? How is the game not playable without mods?
“Playable” is a spectrum. First there’s the usual compatibility problems that come with running an old game on modern PCs. Plus it’s a notoriously buggy game running on a notoriously buggy, engine with DX9 code that did not scale well on the CPU.
With mods you get it to running flawlessly.
That’s a hell of a take, but I can kind of get it. It was definitely a mess at launch, and was a very different vibe from 3, which might rub you the wrong way if it’s not what your preference is.
I do enjoy the shit out of it personally. Different strokes and everything though.
Oh it’s not a game I’ve ever called bad (or maybe I have in a fit of nerd rage, but never meant it), it’s just a game that has never appealed to me after my first playing of it. I loved Fallout 3 because it allowed me to get my rocks off on one specific thing I love. Exploring a fucked up, post-apocalyptic, dystopian world. I loved sifting through the rubble and going into places no human has set foot in for a very long time. Exploring. Fallout 3 offered a lot of this. There were scattered settlements and a couple big cities but mostly just fucked up areas with monsters and secrets.
Then there was New Vegas. I do need to play it again to enjoy it for what it is, because I did enjoy it for what it was when I played it a while ago. I was just resentful because your options for exploring desolate areas are pretty far and few between. Most locations on the map have people already there of one faction or another or just a straight up town with bars, shops, etc. It is a great game for building those connections and the questy stuff and I do enjoy that type of game. But I was so hoping for more of the exploration that I got so let down I’ve just been avoiding the game ever since.
This is kinda what I see from most people that dislike New Vegas. It’s definitely not a post apocalyptic game.
In fact, before Fallout 3, 1 was the only real post apocalyptic game in the series imo. Fallout 2 is a continuation of the world’s lore, so all the tribal villages have developed into societies. New Vegas expands upon this, with the societies becoming imperialist states.
So yeah, if you like exploring rubble then New Vegas is NOT the game for that, and Fallout 3 does that much better.
But, if you’re more interested in how society would develop after the apocalypse, New Vegas definitely tackles that question head-on.
Fallout 3 was my first, and I do love all the insane shit you can find in the wasteland. It will always have a special place in my heart. But to me, the NPCs are what really give RPGs life, and New Vegas has some of the most well-written, realistically motivated people I’ve ever seen in video game format. While the Battle of Hoover Dam may not be as grandiose (even though you can put in the legwork to make it fucking awesome) as the Liberty Prime antics in 3, it feels like the culmination of decades of real conflict. It’s not good guys vs bad guys, it’s 4 distinct groups that all believe they have the best plan to carry humanity to the point at which it existed before the war. I love it for that.
It really goes away with pretense of things being in eternal stasis of everything bad - which is great. Fallout games should have been set in 20-50 years after the end so it would not clash with visuals. But NV problem is it clashes horribly with aesthetics, soldiers a talking about mono-rail line from California while everyone lives in half burned (for no reason) wooden houses that are at least 200+ years old and in abandoned convenience store you can pick something like food or medicine cabinet with drugs in bathrooms, and so on. And the map is dense with events, it should be at least 2 times as big to not feel as gamey.
But New Vegas is the frontier, it’s still largely unsettled. Of course there’s still abandoned stuff, the only superpower in the area for a while only cared about the Vegas city limits. The “clashing of aesthetics” is deliberate here. People still live in somewhat disarray, and an advanced state with manufacturing abilities is moving in. Even in New Vegas, The Strip is in luxury and the rest is destroyed. It highlights part of the class struggle present in the game’s world.
New Vegas’s (and classic Fallout’s) thesis about the apocalypse is “Yes, there was an apocalypse. Nuclear bombs were how the world ended, but it wasn’t because of nuclear bombs, it was because of the behavior of humanity.” And then you get to see those same behaviors play out again and again, even after the apocalypse. Constant resource struggle, faction alignment, pushing ideologies. “War never changes,” etc. There is no shame in preferring a cool wasteland that you get to explore, like in Fallout 3 and 4, but I think it’s a tad unfair to point to the clashing of aesthetics like it’s a flaw when the main factions of the game are Romans vs WWII America. It’s pretty intentional for the story.
And I’m sorry but it is a video game at the end of the day. I’m not fond of wandering for hours with nothing to do or see in my free time. New Vegas has plenty of empty space as it is, in my opinion. It’s actually a downgrade (exploration-wise) imo from the awesome worldspace of Fallout 3. Whatever you like is whatever you like, but this has got to be the first time I’ve ever heard someone say game worlds are better when they’re less dense.
Fallout 3 is a post apocalyptic adventure game. New Vegas is a post post apocalyptic role playing game. I enjoyed the hell out of them both but largely for different reasons.
I enjoyed New Vegas, I started on FO4 and it feels a bit meh i have’nt reached that far yet, maybe I should give FO3 a spin?
Fallout 4 is the worse Fallout 3, imo.
The shooter gameplay is definitely better in 4, the crafting system is pretty neat too. The story is like a weird reversal of the Fallout 3 story, with stakes that don’t feel as real as Fallout 3.
None of that matters, though. It’s a Bethesda game, and people don’t really play those for the main story. Here’s what really matters. The world of Fallout 3 is so dense, the side quests so memorable, that if you’re the type of player who loves seeing what’s over that next hill I think it would be a disservice to NOT recommend Fallout 3 to you.
Depends what you’re looking for, don’t play FO3 if you want a great main story, if you’re going in for the exploration and side quests, it’s a lot of fun with some great things to find.
I’ve heard the same from a friend of mine, the exploration in 3 was one of the best parts of that game. I’ve played the other Bethesda games, but I don’t think anything scratches that itch the same way, not even new vegas really did.
Too true. Bethesda really peaked with Oblivion and Fallout 3.
That’s just my opinion, though. I know the Morrowind fans are having a good chuckle at what I just said 😅
Meh. Games are mature now. Classics are classics. Just like movies.
Also, funny meme.
Fallout games bored me senseless. I bought fallout 3 on recommendation the day it came out and sold it a few weeks later, the only time I’ve ever done that. Too slow, terrible dialogue, really repetitive.
I tried to play it but it’s coded so fucking poorly that it would regularly crash and I also got bug really early on that meant I could never interact with this one NPC, and that bug is apparently in the bone-stock, unmodded game!
Bethesda just makes dogshit products and it’s a shame when the story seems interesting but, like, I have better things to do then have my mediocre game crash again.
Crashes are all a part of the Bethesda experience, and until you embrace it, you’ll never experience the joy their games have to offer lol
bethesda games give all gamers the “oh i walked 30m in game, time to quicksave again” instinct
I’m a simple man. If I see Whiterun, I quicksave.
Yeah, Bethesda said “you guys only need 18 months to make this game, right?” and Obsidian leadership said, “Yep.”
Try the Viva New Vegas modlist sometime if ever you feel inclined. Pretty sure there’s a Wabbajack installer (one click install). I still think New Vegas is phenomenal, even with the bugs, and I suffered through about 700 hours of constant crashing on PS3.
I recognize, though, that most people aren’t so head over heels for the game that they won’t suffer to experience it, nor will they take the time to mod it. But man, it really is worth even playing on vanilla.
Nice to see someone else reccomend VNV! There is a Wabbajack installer, but there are some things you still need to do manually too.
It’s my favorite way to play New Vegas, though maybe only because I think vanilla is waaaayyyyyy too easy.
