Finished with Fallout: New Vegas

Alright, I am now done with Fallout: New Vegas, even got the platinum trophy. It glitched one too many times for my liking, or to be more precise it froze on me three times within one hour, so I stopped roleplaying and just hurried through the trophy related tasks and story quests using fast travel, and I dropped the difficulty and turned off Hardcore so that I didn't die from the fast travel. Funny enough, Hardcore mode is actually a pain in the ass only if you fast travel a lot since you'll constantly get dehydrated and miss chances to get more water and food during the travels.

This may look like a static image at first glance,
but it is actually moving video footage of the game.

I've already spent majority of post space in two blog updates just listing various glitches I've come across in the game so I won't do it again, but trust me, I could easily write a third list and many of the glitches would be something that lead me to reloading a save. The game, even with the current patch, is so broken that any article about New Vegas in the Fallout wiki is mostly just information of any bugs the player might experience when dealing with whatever character, location, item or quest the article in question is about. I'm serious.

I do have to say that as far as the quality and quantity of the quests and the ending of the story go, New Vegas is a HUGE improvement over Fallout 3. Back when Fallout 3 was just about to be released there was quite a bit of talk on how it was going to be the first game ever that REALLY has hundreds or maybe even thousands of diffrent endings (not that any sensible person would've believed it), and when it was released it really only had four that were at all different, and what type of ending you'd get depended solely on some minor choice in dialogue and overall karma.
New Vegas goes back to the original Fallout style, telling more specifically how you affected the different companions, factions and locations, and they're often further changed based on which of the four major Mojave-changing paths you took.

Something I don't like, though, is how little danger there is in the Mojave desert. Running from the Mojave outpost to the Nellis AFB is nothing to fear, and those locations are at the opposite corners of the map. Really, I faced more danger during my one mile long walk from home to school back when I was a kid than I ever did while walking from Jacobstown to Primm in this game about a dangerous post-apocalyptic world in which mutants and raiders are ready to kill you at every step, and it also took longer. Hell, you literally encounter more danger in Fallout 3 just by walking from Megaton to Rivet City, and those two places are relatively close to each other on the map. Sure, you could make some argument about how cramped Fallout 3's world is with enemies at every corner, but that doesn't take away the fact that New Vegas is also cramped, but Fallout 3 delivers the feeling of a inhospitable dystopia better. Between New Vegas and Nellis, the only aggressive enemy you can see is literally the mad Brahmin in the Mole rat Ranch. New Vegas' map is a lot smaller, feels even smaller due to a lot of space being locked out of or filled with mountains, and how friendly the world is just further emphasizes the size.
It also annoys me that there aren't any random encounter spawn locations. Only place where the type of enemy I faced changed was the small "town" to the south and slightly east of Red Rock canyon, where I first killed some raiders and then later on some Cazadors. And although I was hinted at possibly getting jumped by any factions that hate me, I never was. Often factions that hated me just let me pass through their territory without any trouble at all.
The Mojave is a boring, hospitable place where a trek from one end of the map to the other is comparable to your averige shopping trip, just a bunch safer.
Also, when I wrote the first impressions post I said that I liked seeing creatures fight each other. I did, while I still saw that they fought each other. From Novac and beyond, the only fight I ever saw was between Fiends and Giant Fire Ants, largely due to there being so few places in the desert where creatures roamed at all.

So, in the end I have to say that some reviewing cunts online just have shit for brains and Fallout: New Vegas is not Fallout 3 repackaged, both in good and bad. Fallout 3's biggest problems are the story, quests and total length of any adventure you'd have in the game no matter how you roleplay, but it's strength is the entire world. It feels like a post nuclear shithole where life sucks. Doesn't sound like something positive on it's own, but you must understand that it's a video game about a post nuclear shithole where life sucks.
New Vegas' strengths are the story, quests and the possiblity of role-playing through the quests, and the fact that thanks to Fallout 3's existence the smaller gameplay elements have been tweaked for the better, but it's biggest problems are the INSANE AMOUNT OF GLITCHES AND BUGS and the lifeless map. I know, it's a post nuclear desert and it feels as empty as a post nuclear desert, but it's a bit TOO post nuclear desert for a video game you play for entertainment.

I also can't quite comprehend why I'm not just able to recycle my empty bottles and fill them with purified water from lakes or water taps. I mean, it's a world where there is, supposedly, a huge problem with water being irradiated if it's even available at all for most people while the land is literally littered with hundreds upon hundreds of empty bottles and large masses of radiation-free water (which is why the lack of water sounds odd). Put one-plus-two-plus-two-plus-one together man, and go live like a king as a water merchant!
Why'd you have to eat the empty plastic bottles after drinking the water from inside them, anyway? They must weight like 0.05 pounds when empty, you could carry a hundred of them to Lake Mead! IDIOT!

I'm now somewhat relieved that I'm done with Fallout: New Vegas, instead of slightly sad like I usually am after finishing a game I've enjoyed. The glitches made me so mad a few times that I almost destroyed my now one and only working controller, and despite looking forward to re-role-playing it earlier I actually don't want to anymore. It's too buggy and dead to warrant another run anytime soon.
I'm going to stop now, go eat something and then start playing Batman: Arkham Asylum.