Firefighter Z
10-24-2010, 04:50 PM
FALLOUT New Vegas...
I've read today's paper and found out that the new game crashes a lot.
http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/entertainment/105267998.html
Fallout: New Vegas, the latest in the post-apocalyptic role-playing shooter for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PCs, is out today. It's a follow up to Fallout 3, which scored all kinds of game-of-the-year awards and other kudos a couple of years ago for its incredible story, interesting characters, brilliant game design and beautiful visuals. New Vegas copies a lot of what made Fallout 3 such a splash -- and even adds a few improvements -- but there are some serious technical problems that potential players should consider before buying the game.
First off, for those unfamiliar with the series, the Fallout franchise takes place in an alternate Earth where technology marched forward but artistic and cultural aesthetic stayed in the 50s. Everything from clothing and furniture to soda machines and cars all have that vintage look, although the science advanced to the point of having personal laser pistols and housekeeping robots. There was a nuclear war with China, and the survivors were either lucky enough to get inside underground biospheres called Vaults or unfortunate enough to get mutated in some grotesque way. The Fallout series takes place long after the bombs have dropped, and players assume the role of a survivor exploring the wasteland, either helping or harming its inhabitants and just generally trying to survive.
New Vegas unfolds in what's left of Sin City, which compared to the Capital Wasteland (aka Washington, D.C.) of Fallout 3, is in much better shape. The bombs didn't hit this area quite as hard, and players eventually discover why.
New Vegas begins with your character getting shot in the head and robbed -- he (or she) is a courier who has something some people want. After a quick recovery that serves as a character creation process and tutorial, you are off to the Mojave desert to have words with the fellows who ganked you. This being Fallout, and unfolding in an open-world, sandbox-like game environment, there are many adventures to sidetrack you; places to explore, creatures to ambush you and treasures to be looted. It's this element of exploration that makes Fallout so compelling: curious characters and insidious dangers can lurk just over the next ridge or inside that building off in the distance.
New Vegas also gives players a satisfying amount of choice when it comes to how they want to solve various challenges. Many quests can be solved by various combination's of picking locks, hacking computers, fixing equipment or talking other characters into certain decisions -- all depending on the skills you've built into your character and whatever items you have to boost those skills. This kind of diversity in playing a game is a refreshing break from so many others that have you following a linear path and leading you by the nose.
The new Fallout game also offers a few featurey upgrades from Fallout 3 -- new elements have been added to character creation process; it's easier to interact with the companion characters following you; and there are several different factions in the Las Vegas wasteland to deal with, offering you lots of choices and much re playability.
New Vegas, much like Fallout 3, feels organic, raw and wild.
Unfortunately, the coding in New Vegas also feels a bit wild and raw, too, because the game crashes regularly. Over the more than 50 hours I've spent playing New Vegas (and many more to come) it locked up dozens of times. Sometimes these crashes happened when I entered new areas, sometimes it locked up while I was wandering around, and sometimes it seized up while I was browsing menus or engaged in dialog with characters in the game.
I'm playing the retail release for the Xbox 360 -- it's possible (but unlikely) the other versions are more stable -- and it felt like as the hours passed the game's performance steadily dropped, almost like there is a memory leak. Occasionally the game hitches up as you run through the desert, and the poor draw rate on things in the distance causes objects like buildings or mountains to pop into place. And there are other problems. I noticed certain scripted events caused New Vegas to freeze up, but even more troubling is that I ran across one quest that was simply broken. I'll spare you the details because I don't want to spoil content, but I'll say that some bug causes the game to think a faction in the Las Vegas wasteland had been wiped out when it actually hasn't. People talked about them in past tense, yet I was able to visit with them and talk with members of the group.
These are problems that can and hopefully will be fixed with a patch pushed out over Xbox Live, the PlayStation Network and and for Windows Live, although who knows when that will be. Meanwhile, the game hits store shelves today partially broken. Bugs, instability and poor performance are not going to stand in the way of hardcore Fallout fans, but players with limited game time and patience are going to want to wait until Bethesda, which published the game, and Obsidian Entertainment, which developed it, fix these issues.
New Vegas was built on top of the technology behind Fallout 3 (designed by Bethesda Softworks), but instead of refining, enhancing and optimizing the system, Obsidian's design team made things noticeably worse.
Thankfully, all of the engrossing story, depth and value of a Fallout game are there. The code just needs to be cleaned up.
I've read today's paper and found out that the new game crashes a lot.
http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/entertainment/105267998.html
Fallout: New Vegas, the latest in the post-apocalyptic role-playing shooter for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PCs, is out today. It's a follow up to Fallout 3, which scored all kinds of game-of-the-year awards and other kudos a couple of years ago for its incredible story, interesting characters, brilliant game design and beautiful visuals. New Vegas copies a lot of what made Fallout 3 such a splash -- and even adds a few improvements -- but there are some serious technical problems that potential players should consider before buying the game.
First off, for those unfamiliar with the series, the Fallout franchise takes place in an alternate Earth where technology marched forward but artistic and cultural aesthetic stayed in the 50s. Everything from clothing and furniture to soda machines and cars all have that vintage look, although the science advanced to the point of having personal laser pistols and housekeeping robots. There was a nuclear war with China, and the survivors were either lucky enough to get inside underground biospheres called Vaults or unfortunate enough to get mutated in some grotesque way. The Fallout series takes place long after the bombs have dropped, and players assume the role of a survivor exploring the wasteland, either helping or harming its inhabitants and just generally trying to survive.
New Vegas unfolds in what's left of Sin City, which compared to the Capital Wasteland (aka Washington, D.C.) of Fallout 3, is in much better shape. The bombs didn't hit this area quite as hard, and players eventually discover why.
New Vegas begins with your character getting shot in the head and robbed -- he (or she) is a courier who has something some people want. After a quick recovery that serves as a character creation process and tutorial, you are off to the Mojave desert to have words with the fellows who ganked you. This being Fallout, and unfolding in an open-world, sandbox-like game environment, there are many adventures to sidetrack you; places to explore, creatures to ambush you and treasures to be looted. It's this element of exploration that makes Fallout so compelling: curious characters and insidious dangers can lurk just over the next ridge or inside that building off in the distance.
New Vegas also gives players a satisfying amount of choice when it comes to how they want to solve various challenges. Many quests can be solved by various combination's of picking locks, hacking computers, fixing equipment or talking other characters into certain decisions -- all depending on the skills you've built into your character and whatever items you have to boost those skills. This kind of diversity in playing a game is a refreshing break from so many others that have you following a linear path and leading you by the nose.
The new Fallout game also offers a few featurey upgrades from Fallout 3 -- new elements have been added to character creation process; it's easier to interact with the companion characters following you; and there are several different factions in the Las Vegas wasteland to deal with, offering you lots of choices and much re playability.
New Vegas, much like Fallout 3, feels organic, raw and wild.
Unfortunately, the coding in New Vegas also feels a bit wild and raw, too, because the game crashes regularly. Over the more than 50 hours I've spent playing New Vegas (and many more to come) it locked up dozens of times. Sometimes these crashes happened when I entered new areas, sometimes it locked up while I was wandering around, and sometimes it seized up while I was browsing menus or engaged in dialog with characters in the game.
I'm playing the retail release for the Xbox 360 -- it's possible (but unlikely) the other versions are more stable -- and it felt like as the hours passed the game's performance steadily dropped, almost like there is a memory leak. Occasionally the game hitches up as you run through the desert, and the poor draw rate on things in the distance causes objects like buildings or mountains to pop into place. And there are other problems. I noticed certain scripted events caused New Vegas to freeze up, but even more troubling is that I ran across one quest that was simply broken. I'll spare you the details because I don't want to spoil content, but I'll say that some bug causes the game to think a faction in the Las Vegas wasteland had been wiped out when it actually hasn't. People talked about them in past tense, yet I was able to visit with them and talk with members of the group.
These are problems that can and hopefully will be fixed with a patch pushed out over Xbox Live, the PlayStation Network and and for Windows Live, although who knows when that will be. Meanwhile, the game hits store shelves today partially broken. Bugs, instability and poor performance are not going to stand in the way of hardcore Fallout fans, but players with limited game time and patience are going to want to wait until Bethesda, which published the game, and Obsidian Entertainment, which developed it, fix these issues.
New Vegas was built on top of the technology behind Fallout 3 (designed by Bethesda Softworks), but instead of refining, enhancing and optimizing the system, Obsidian's design team made things noticeably worse.
Thankfully, all of the engrossing story, depth and value of a Fallout game are there. The code just needs to be cleaned up.