Xbox 360, PS3, PC, Bethesda, cert 18, out now
The Fallout series was doing post-apocalyptic gaming long before it became the cliche that it is now. Released in the late 1990s, Fallouts 1 and 2 were ruthless, pull-no-punches, hard-as-nails isometric RPGs for the PC, memorable for their excellent writing and the believability of their cutthroat world. If there ever was a nuclear apocalypse, Fallout would have pretty much nailed the aftermath: humanity reduced to desperate scavengers, killing one another over bottle caps and irradiated water.
Bethesda resurrected the series with Fallout 3 two years ago, bringing Fallout's world into 3D and crafting a beautifully desolate version of Washington in the capital Wasteland. It was a huge hit, and deservedly; for here was a rich, complex and rewarding role-playing game. But for Fallout fans, there was something missing, something of the original two games that just didn't quite carry over ? something that lay in the script and storytelling.
Fallout: New Vegas is just as big and just as beautiful as Fallout 3, but it's been made by Obsidian Entertainment, a studio that employs talent from the developer that originally created the series. It really shows. On the surface New Vegas isn't much different at all ? it looks the same, and plays the same ? but it has better-quality scripting. It's well written, dark and thought-provoking, with a brilliant sense of gallows humour, and its morality is far from patronisingly black-and-white. If you want a game that will make you really think about what you're doing, not through heavy-handed cinematics but through subtle plotting, clever scene-setting and the consequences of your own actions, Fallout: New Vegas is it.
The Mojave Wasteland, the game's setting, is a fictional post-apocalyptic Nevada. The jewel in its crown is the titular New Vegas, a depressing, neon-lit den of sin controlled by three power-hungry, competing families. New Vegas is your eventual goal, but the game lets you determine the pace and nature of your journey. Head out into the wasteland with no place in particular to go and you may well get yourself killed, but you might also discover something miraculous; a closed community, a broken-down old supermarket stuffed with lifesaving supplies, a pre-apocalypse radio station with the computerised diaries of its staff at the moment of annihilation still intact.
Ultimately Obsidian's scriptwriting and Bethesda's game prove a match made in heaven. Fallout: New Vegas is a real undertaking ? this is a huge game, but it's also more ambitious and intellectually fulfilling than anything else out thus far this year.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/oct/24/fallout-new-vegas-review
