I have a weird tendency to forget how good a lot of games really are.

Like, NV is and always was a near-perfect 10/10 experience for me, but I kind of forgot how good it really is with time.

When I booted this game up again for my recent run, I ended up playing for 8 HOURS STRAIGHT. And it did not feel like that at all. That shit disappeared in an instant, that's how good this game is.

New Vegas takes everything Fallout 3 did and just improves on it to near-perfection. This game is what Vice City is to GTA III. A pure refinement of the formula to near-perfection. It's so funny looking back to see those initial launch reviews call this game a "glorified DLC", because honestly it doesn't feel like that at all. It has all the stuff from 3 sure, the engine and gunplay and such, but it's all just improved here. It takes everything fo3 did, threw away all the stuff that didn't work, and creates something that actually FEELS like a sequel to fallout 1 and 2, both in narrative, and in gameplay. Playing Fallout 1 has honestly given me a bigger appreciation for this game's quest formula and how it handles it's world, because it honestly isn't far off from what the classic games did. It really does feels like Fallout 1/2, but in first person. Hell even the map, for as much as some do complain about it, gave me that vibe too with just how much of fo1 and 2's map was just select named locations with desert plains between them all. Sure, it does mean you do need to go out of your way to find all the actual named locations that are worth exploring (I recommend either picking up the explorer perk or looking up a map online), but even with that this game's map still feels fun to explore and engage with all these years later. There's so much choice, be it in dialogue, how you accomplish quests/objectives, your general gameplay style, and much more. It's as much of a sandbox game as it gets, for this series at least. Every time I beat a quest, I think "man what if I did THIS instead?" and that inevitably becomes what I'll do next time. If you think you can do it, you probably can in NV, and that's the mark of a great RPG. I'm still discovering stuff about this game all these years later, be it stuff about the factions (which are already incredibly fleshed out despite the obvious cuts like with the Legion), quest details, gameplay, companions, and much more.

The only real things that haven't really held up aside from the general Bethesda gamebryo jank that's in basically all of these games is really the vanilla gunplay and specifically, stealth. It's really not a fun playstyle imho with how it's basically just for sneak attacks before inevitably going loud and nothing else and it's so easy to steal items so long as you either have a stealth boy or are out of the general NPC's line of sight (and sure, stealth boys are rare, but with how many you find just from doing come fly with me alone (which you WILL be doing early on) you'll have at least 5+ sitting in your inventory for when you really want it). But again, like before, that's an issue in basically every Bethesda RPG.

Only other real thing is the Karma system is really stupid and especially doesn't belong in this game. At least in 3 you can argue it made SOME kind of sense with just how basically every single evil choice was so painfully obvious with how comedically supervillain it was that you'd have to be stupid to pick it on pure accident, but here it just doesn't make sense. Why do I lose karma when I steal from LITERAL CANNIBALS THAT EAT PEOPLE? What about from the Legion if I DON'T agree with slavery and how they treat women?? Imagine if in Deus Ex you got an alert saying "YOU'RE BEING EVIL!!!" if you decided to follow orders during the first Liberty Island mission and kill all the NSF when you as the player don't know what UNATCO is really up to. It just makes no sense and it doesn't help that in this game it impacts absolutely NOTHING. Give me a red alert when stealing a certain item that if I get caught will gain me infamy sure, but don't pass me with that "stealing is evil no matter WHAT even if you think they're bad" shit. Let me decide for myself whether or not it's justified and let me deal with the consequences.

But even with all that, it's all minor at the end of the day. I can still play this game vanilla and have a great time, something I can't say for Fo3 or even some other Bethesda RPGs. Even on console, Xbox 360 backwards compat at least, I can have a good time. Which I did back when my old PC went under and I had to stick with my Xbone for a while (altho I've heard horror stories about the PS3 version and you should prolly avoid it). Some people'll say this game's overrated, and I can understand that to a certain extent with just how annoying some of the fans can be, but I genuinely do believe that praise is there and is warranted for very good reason. You'd have to be a pure frowning friends ass cynic if you wanna believe this game is truly awful, or at least not above average. New Vegas is just THAT GOOD, nearly 25 years later. It remains to be seen if this series will ever reach this high ever again, but even if it doesn't, I'll be comfortable replaying this for the rest of my life.

It's so funny how my opinion on this has changed with time.

Back when I first beat NV this was my second favorite DLC, right behind old world blues. I think the whole ED-E storyline and the guns carried it for me because looking back while those still hold up holy shit this is kinda the worst one lol.

In a way I'm not entirely against combat-focused expansions, but it definitely suffers here from a purely vanilla stance with just how much NV/3's gunplay and combat has aged. And even with that there just isn't much to explore in the map. There's a few things and a couple of buildings to go inside of, but not much else other then that and even with that there isn't much worth picking up inside.

Ulysses is such a shit villain lol. I think I only put up with him because I couldn't really understand wtf he was saying at such a young preteen age and just thought it was good bc it was deep and his voice is cool and bear and bull but his whole motivation is shot when you realize it's basically just "billions must die" for something you DIDN'T EVEN KNOW YOU DID OFFSCREEN. This whole conflict would've been a lot better if say, during the base game, you were able to pick up another courier job and have that be the detonator that fucks up the divide, and could totally refuse it if you wanted to. It would've given a bit more connection to the narrative because otherwise the whole expansion feels like I'm just being yelled at for something I didn't do (yes, technically I did, but I wasn't even aware until I was told and again it was all done OFF SCREEN).

Only other pros I'll say is I like the ED-E upgrades and how they transfer back to the Mojave and also the nuked areas you can explore, be it the courier's mile or the long 15/Dry Wells if you decide to nuke NCR/Legion respectively, even if it isn't much other then just a single map. It's got good loot and tons of ammo tho so there's no real reason to not explore it (even with all the deathclaws in the courier's mile). But yeah other then that it's pretty MID.