i can see why people have dedicated the last decade of their lives to playing this. it didn't completely click with me like that though, but maybe i should just keep playing through the side quests and dlcs.

pros: gameplay, music, sound, ambience, setting are all 10/10s. exploring skyrim is probably the best aspect of the game, at times the setting feels like a character.

cons: the main quest is fairly weak, it wasn't until the last 3 missions that i actually felt a little bit invested into what i was doing. bugs, a lot of bugs. the roleplaying is very lacking in comparison to a game like Fallout New Vegas, and barely any NPCs are actually interesting characters. plus, it is fairly repetitive.

overall, pretty great, and definitely worth the price when it's on sale.

Very few open world games ever feel like their world is truly alive, a lot just end up feeling like just a bunch of disconnected locations and quests with no real purpose. Fallout New Vegas is not one of those games. From the moment it starts, you can feel the heartbeat of this game, from the way the towns are designed, to all the little side quests and character interactions, it all just feels so immersive.

As you're thrust into this post apocalyptic failed assassination attempt revenge tour, the wasteland of the Mojave manages to immerse you into itself, giving you choices and decisions that impact the entire world around you. Will you help a bureaucratic republic that's spread itself too thin with their conquest of the West, or help a legion of Roman LARPers achieve their goal of becoming just like Rome, just in a nuclear wasteland? Maybe you want to do none of those and shoot for an independent land? The choice is yours, along with hundreds of other smaller ones that end up impacting how you end up playing the game, how the game ends, and how the characters around you view your character.

The biggest problem I could find was really the amount of bugs and cut content. Hearing about all the things that were supposed to go into the game but were cut really makes you feel like you're playing a demo for what could be an even better game. But even without those things, this game manages to be a complete masterpiece, telling an expansive story about life in the apocalypse.

An absolute masterpiece that I would recommend to anyone who's interested in videogames.

a great rpg that's slightly hindered by pacing and bugs. doing both light side and dark side endings is super rewarding and the characters in this game are surprisingly well written.

the biggest problem i have with the game is that a lot of quests end up feeling the same. but, the story and gameplay more than make up for that.

loved playing this with my cousin as a kid and still love it now.