Fall Out 3

So much time has passed that Las Vegas is rebuilt into the brightly-lit, crime-infested, sin-encouraging cesspool that everyone loves today. Where Fallout: New Vegas really excels is in retaining the atmosphere of the apocalypse. The world of New Vegas feels real, as if this is a probable prediction of our nation's future. As an added bonus, players who pay attention to detail are blessed with extra jokes, narratives and a greater appreciation for this world Bethesda has created. Even though much of New Vegas plays just like Fallout III, many subtle improvements keep the game interesting. At times, it can even feel as scary and tense as playing a DOOM video game.

New Vegas will freeze fairly frequently, which requires players to save their games more often as a reassurance that their hard work won't ever be erased. These glitches are slightly more frequent on the XBOX 360 system but are still commonplace with PS3 systems.

What better premise could there be for a sandbox shooter-RPG game like this second entry in the revived Fallout series? I would find a virtual hiking game exciting if it operated off of that premise. New Vegas adds to the successful formula by taking the engine and gameplay of Fallout 3 and giving them a sense of place (in this case, a mixture of Wild West and 50s casino aesthetics) that they only rarely accomplished last time. New Vegas concerns a major upcoming border clash between the New California Republic and Caesar's Legion, two armies of nebulous morals in conflict over the resources of New Vegas and Hoover Dam. The player character is a courier who has been miraculously revived after receiving a bullet in the head from a New Vegas casino owner trying to get at your character's mysteriously significant delivery, a platinum poker chip. Yes, the gameplay is more or less the same as Fallout 3, however there is one major gameplay addition that's very enjoyable, but might be looked over because the game actually recommends that you don't use it. If Obsidian had simply forced the player to adopt these changes, this new gameplay element would seriously improve the game for everyone, but most gamers will likely not choose to adopt features that the game itself warns them will be more difficult than they actually are.

So it really is a fantastic game, but for a modern console game it is incredibly riddled with bugs, to a ridiculous degree. It's not exactly game-breaking, but expect to reset your console about fifty times before you're finished with the basic storyline.

Fallout: New Vegas is still a spectacular game, and the new western setting fits the series perfectly and adds a lot to the experience.