Unlike NV, I do not have qualms with rating this a 3. It is a solid RPG with some pretty good writing, and a surprisingly loaded and talented voice cast (for the few characters that ARE voiced) and that certainly carries the game for most of it, but its combat is a slow, cumbersome mess that just isn't fun turned based combat. It makes the first half of the game feel like a chore, especially considering that the first half of the games writing really doesn't tilt the scale enough to make the game feel worth playing, but IT DOES GET BETTER. Definitely worth playing if you like the world of Fallout, or if you've just a hard on for not great 90s CRPG game play. Also its short enough to where multiple play throughs with different builds doesn't seem horrifically daunting, but not short enough to where it feels unsatisfying when the credits roll, so that's nice.

Completed Any%

I feel like its unfair of me to give this game a 3 and not explain that, because I really wish I could give it a 4 instead. This is a REALLY, REALLY good RPG, it has it's lulls for sure, especially when you're meeting all the different factions and a lot of the quests can turn into "go press a on these things and then come back to me to let me know you pressed a on all the things", but- BUT- there is an undeniable charm to the writing and world building of this game that is unlike anything else in its series or other RPGs. There are so many stand out and memorable characters and moments in this story, as well as the game leaning heavily on the RPG half of its Action RPG genre, meaning you get a lot of opportunities for player expression where it feels like no matter what it is that you specialized in or speced into that character will have its time in the spotlight so to speak. There's plenty of quests that can go in several different ways, and overall it's just a very, VERY entertaining black comedy of an RPG to play though.

What I CAN'T look past, and why I can't in good faith give the game higher than a 3 is the fact that the game is painfully stuck in the shadow of it's much worse older brother, Fallout 3. This game got rushed out the door, most noticeable with how underdeveloped the legion are as a faction compared to everyone else, and more importantly Obsidian was stuck making the game on the worst hellfire shitfuck engine ever written by man. Oh my god, the Creation Engine is fucking awful, its so- PAINFULLY- awful, and the fact that Bethesda just gets away with releasing shit in the state that they do will never not be mind bogging to me. Throughout my play though, I had several hard crashes to desktop, several times where it soft locking loading a save, forcing me to restart the game and load an EARLIER save, I got stuck in the terrain several times and had to load an earlier save, I kept achieving the same achievement over and over again, characters (including quest important characters) would constantly be running into walls and generally not a single thing in this game moved in a way that looked or felt natural, sometimes dialog just wouldn't load so the character just stared at me until the would be dialog was over, an uncountable number of times where items or corpses or living characters were floating in the air, items falling through the floor, cracks in the floor leading to the forever nothingness below, some of the worst pop in I have ever seen and plenty of stuttering, and a frustratingly inconsistent auto save that would have me sometimes lose almost no progress when dying and sometimes had me lose like 15-20 minutes worth of progress after getting one shot by an enemy I didn't even have time to process.

So yes, New Vegas is a damn good RPG, but god damn, it is unmistakably, and unforgivably fucking BROKEN.

DNF Reason: Aggravation. Bad game.

Is as engaging and challenging for a puzzle platformer as it is a fluid and fun Mario game, which is to say it isn't. Genuinely one of the worst Mario games I've ever played. Extremely stiff controls, awful AWFUL music and sound effects, horribly monotonous level design that at times made me aware of my own mortality and the wasted seconds of my lifespan I spent playing this game. Absolute travesty, stay away. I do not understand how this got a remake, but I hope that is at least improved.