GB Feature: Fallout: New Vegas Review

After spending dozens of hours roaming around the Mojave wasteland, we’re finally ready to publish our full review of Obsidian Entertainment’s Fallout: New Vegas. A very small percentage of the entire five-page article:

Obsidian also made the decision to make the followers more interesting and important than in any other Fallout title. Each follower has a loyalty quest or event which unlocks an additional perk for them, and many have stories intertwined with some of the most important factions of this game and past games. The writing of the followers is generally outstanding, with Boone, Arcade Gannon, and Veronica in particular offering a rich back story and interesting quests especially compared to Raul’s or Lily’s. Worth noting here is that Arcade and Veronica are both homosexual characters, but this factoid is simply given as part of their personalty and treated naturally, which is a refreshing approach after the way BioWare has handled their bisexual characters in recent years.

While I have almost nothing but praise for the followers from a writing viewpoint, it’s worth noting that followers are always problematic in non-team based games, particularly in an FPS/RPG like New Vegas. Their AI really isn’t good enough for them to survive with normal stats, which means they’re often overpowered, and on normal difficulty will be slaying enemies left and right before you can even reach them. And at the same time their AI will have them running right into deathclaws and dying. While the writing is certainly a boon, from a gaming viewpoint increasing the importance of followers is not such a good idea.