Raising the stakes
The post-apocalyptic setting of Las Vegas, Nevada should make for a very interesting place to explore. Unlike the dilapidated ruins and barren wastelands of Fallout 3, New Vegas is still partly intact, vegetation is lush and skies are notably much bluer having escaped the catastrophic damage caused by the direct hit of a nuclear bomb. There’s still plenty of wasteland to explore, awash with terrifying super mutants, but it does mean that locations should be a tad less grim that Fallout 3 with many standing buildings to loot and gambling establishments to frequent as you travel across the huge open game world.The story this time takes place from the viewpoint of a courier who gets kidnapped by raiders, shot and then thrown into a shallow grave on his way to delivering an important parcel. The courier gets saved from certain death by a robot called Victor and is nursed back to full health. At this point you enter the character creation screen, choosing various skill tags for your courier, such as strong bartering skills, before setting off into New Vegas to find out the whereabouts of the package and who’s behind your attempted assassination.
Fallout: New Vegas runs on exactly the same game engine as Fallout 3 so it looks very similar in structure and should play much in the same way as its predecessor. The narrative driven, objective-based gameplay largely revolves around combat as you come face to face with various factions and various super mutants intent on causing you harm. Using a vast array of weaponry and special attacks, New Vegas is largelyl about customising and equipping your character with the best tools for the job, while learning the strengths and weaknesses of your equipment and your enemy and building your avatar up into a powerful, killing machine.
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