there is a very strange consensus around this game that it is THE best fallout game of all time, to some, even one of the best modern RPGs of all time, and for a while i just chocked it up to reddit circlejerking, especially when a lot of the conversation used to focus around how obsidian was "better at making a bethesda game than bethesda themselves!", and, well... if you've played the outer worlds, you can probably understand why i felt so skeptical about these sentiments.
however, i've been waiting for Starfield's creation kit 2 to release, and turn that game into a virtual playground, and in the mean time i've been craving some more bethesda-grade open world slop, and the last few times i tried doing another full playthrough of this game, i bounced off everytime, feeling like the exploration was lackluster and uninteresting compared to its peers. so i figured, "fuck it, why not give it another try?" and try i did. i played practically the entirety of the base game (including many quests i missed on my first playthroughs during my childhood) AND all of the DLCs. and you know what? i did decently enjoy it.
while i still think this game's fatal flaw lies in its lack of interesting exploration and locales, i do think the writing and improvements from fallout 3 is strong enough to let the game stand on its own two feet - MOSTLY. i think the main story is still more of the same barebones bethesda storytelling you get from a lot of their games, but the skill of the writers involved does season it enough to make it palatable.
FNV is also a game that very much seems to hold classic fallout and especially fallout 2 in deep reverence, with many aspects from black isles' cancelled fallout 3 (aka van buren) being included in this game, and while i can see the appeal, i'm also a bit biased, as someone who has never really played through those games, and i can really only see the complicated baggage that new vegas carries with it as a result.
anyways, before i make this review even more winding and directionless than it already kind of is, i do like this game a lot more than i used to. that being said, i still kinda think it's a bit overrated, when in reality, it just has the opposite flaws and strong points of most bethesda games in a lot of ways.
however, i've been waiting for Starfield's creation kit 2 to release, and turn that game into a virtual playground, and in the mean time i've been craving some more bethesda-grade open world slop, and the last few times i tried doing another full playthrough of this game, i bounced off everytime, feeling like the exploration was lackluster and uninteresting compared to its peers. so i figured, "fuck it, why not give it another try?" and try i did. i played practically the entirety of the base game (including many quests i missed on my first playthroughs during my childhood) AND all of the DLCs. and you know what? i did decently enjoy it.
while i still think this game's fatal flaw lies in its lack of interesting exploration and locales, i do think the writing and improvements from fallout 3 is strong enough to let the game stand on its own two feet - MOSTLY. i think the main story is still more of the same barebones bethesda storytelling you get from a lot of their games, but the skill of the writers involved does season it enough to make it palatable.
FNV is also a game that very much seems to hold classic fallout and especially fallout 2 in deep reverence, with many aspects from black isles' cancelled fallout 3 (aka van buren) being included in this game, and while i can see the appeal, i'm also a bit biased, as someone who has never really played through those games, and i can really only see the complicated baggage that new vegas carries with it as a result.
anyways, before i make this review even more winding and directionless than it already kind of is, i do like this game a lot more than i used to. that being said, i still kinda think it's a bit overrated, when in reality, it just has the opposite flaws and strong points of most bethesda games in a lot of ways.