Zarniwoop said:
It's a great game, despite the Bethesda-ness.
The combat is a bit retarded, yes. Energy weapons are almost useless, except for the Gauss Rifle, whereas the various types of Power Fists are stupidly overpowered. 2-3 Hits from one can kill you even with power armor (which is also far less effective) on.
Although for me the worst thing isn't the combat, it's the way they fucked around with the canon again. Like the OP says, Caesar's Legion just being retconned in as a major threat is a bit retarded. Then there's the NCR itself. In Fallout 2 they all have Bazors and blow the crap out of everyone, while in NV they have weak-ass pea-shooters. In Dead Money (which is a really good add-on IMO), they mention cars being "gas guzzlers" in some of the Sierra Madre's logs. WTF?? In Fallout 2 it's widely known that the cars ran on Micro Fusion Cells before the war.
The point is, yes there are flaws, but overall it's much closer to the Fallout atmosphere than that piece of shit "Fallout" 3 was. For me, the game gets better the farther you go, the beginning is a bit slow. Kind of like... Fallout. And there are LOTS of places to explore on the world map. Also, Dead Money is awesome, but be prepared for a struggle to survive, depending on your skills. It's quite different from the rest of the game. Definitely worth the $2 (I think) I paid for it on the Steam Summer Sale.
edit: The part with the ghoulified NCR (Torchlight I think) doesn't need to involve much combat, you can just hack the turrets to blow the crap out of them and explore the town, etc. Can't remember if there's a lot of stuff to find though, more just backstory about the war.
About half the game's plot and lore centres around how/why NCR has degenerated from the strength it had in FO2:
- firstly, some folks mention that NCR is STILL much stronger, and more modern, in the area where it started, and that the New Vegas region is something of a wild frontier - Caesar's Legion aren't the only opposing army NCR faces, just the main one in this part of the Republic, and one which happens to be dangerously close to taking a crucial piece of infrastructure.
- NCR is at an all-time weakpoint during NV, due to being bled dry by the efforts needed to push back the Legion from Hoover's Dam.
- also (and this is the main issue the game focuses on), simply overexpanding and occupying New Vegas has caused the NCR to decay internally. Vegas (and New Reno, as at least one NPC mentions) has corrupted the NCR culture, causing a former 'picket fences and green lawns' state to become economically centred around gambling, drugs and corruption.
Given that, the weaker weapons at the start of the game make some sense.
Also, try playing the game past the first few story points. The main NPC progression in NV isn't level-scaled but story-scaled, which I consider a massive incline. The sophistication of the weaponry packed by both NCR and Caesar's Legion increases dramatically as the main quest is progressed. In terms of 'internal lore logic' the idea is that at the start of the game the NCR's internal bureaucratic inefficiency is such that they can't actually get their weaponry out to the troops in an efficient manner. As the main quest progresses, the region moves closer to fullscale battle and both sides start deploying their heavier arms.
That's why in the early parts of the main quest, NCR squads will have all the same mid-strength assault rifle, with maybe one stronger rifle on the commanding officer, and Legion squads will all have swords or axes (apart from Legion Assassins, who always carry guns). Later on, NCR squads will have a full mix of miniguns, assault rifles, snipers and grenades, and Legion squads will have more firerams units as well as chainsaws and better armour.
Even so, yes it's blatantly silly to have chainsaws and power fists combatting gun-toting NCR troops. But that's always been part of FO. It was equally silly having viable melee and unarmed builds in FO1. Given that you''re playing a game series where unarmed and melee have always been viable (sometimes overpowered) builds, it does make sense to at least have that reflected in the game world.