I love New Vegas. It is probably one of the best RPGs I have ever played and for that I love it. It's pretty much the best Fallout for roleplaying, even beating the old Fallout games that many seem to blindly praise for some reason. New Vegas' dialogue is not only hilarious but memorable and meaningful. I see a lot of love for the game (rightly deserved), but I also see a lot of criticism for Fallout 3/4 (also deserved). It seems 3 and 4 though are the only games on GUN that are criticized heavily, and not to the extent that New Vegas is. GUN is known for it's FNV mods, lesser so known for it's FO4 mods, and the Fallout community in general is very split on it's fanbases of each game.

Either way, there are many things New Vegas can be criticized for, and it's healthy for GUN to both criticize and praise the game instead of evade any criticism of it. So, post all your criticisms of the game and let out what you hate about it.

For me personally, I didn't find locations in NV very memorable besides The Strip, Freeside and The Fort. Most settlements looked empty and devoid of all human life in New Vegas, and exploration wasn't interesting at all. I feel like Obsidian either wanted to create more settlements and civilisations in the Mojave or implement cars like with the earlier Fallout games but they didn't have enough time. A lot of the buildings were left unused and there was clearly a lot of lost potential.

What I also hated about New Vegas was how under developed the Legion was in comparison to other factions. The Legion seemed to be an illogical faction that just want to be dicks to everyone for no real reason. Caesar's dialogue was probably the only redeeming factor, but his logic also falls quite flat when you realize it makes no real sense at all because humanity wasn't reset after the Great War. I mean, in just 200 years the wasteland has a democratic government and unimaginable technology not even we have in the 21st century. As for the NCR, I can see how Obsidian did try to make the NCR as grey as possible, but they still come off as typical valiant heroes who need help defending their Republic.

The storyline seems quite rushed too. As soon as you kill Benny every faction leader forgives you for no real reason no matter what you do and wants you to join them. Once you do join them, there are only a few quests where they don't send you to gain a better reputation with side factions who are also mostly under developed. The Boomers weren't very interesting and the BoS quests were mostly fetch quests.

And don't consider this an attack on New Vegas. I have already said I love the game, but of course, nothing will change for the better if we don't criticize it for what it is.

Coming into the Mojave Wasteland hot off of 600 or so hours in the Capital Wasteland, it was pretty clear that New Vegas lacked the same type of environment that Fallout 3 had. New Vegas felt like a desert, surely, but I found the lack of enemies to be very disappointing. In a way, it felt like a step back since New Vegas took initiative to provide more variety in the weapon arsenal but had so little enemies and incidents to try out every weapon. In a way, New Vegas felt like I was always trying to find enemies to kill, because the settlements just didn't feel memorable in any way.

I've been playing fallout 3 since I recently lost my PC that could run new Vegas and here's my list of grivences
As much as I love new Vegas I feel every settlement was very void of any memorible NPCs or even things to explore and loot
There so much ground where I could think a few settlements and or camps could be set up
I'm understand that there's a three way split between who will control the area
The legions logic is very narrow-minded regime and didnt really have any meat quest to help them before the dam which is kind of sad
But all in all that's all I can complain about

@Corvo I may not agree with everything you listed but I think my biggest problem is its optimisation and bugs. The gameplay, while not being great, is tolerable, at least for me, but it's poor optimisation is frustrating. The constant frame drops, especially in intense combat situations, is annoying. The bugs can be game breaking and immersive breaking. I mostly blame Bethesda on this part since they gave Obsidian only 18 months to make the game but apparently the consoles held it back too. It was a bit obvious because of the cut content that was more or less finished had to be removed and some objects as well so the poor consoles can at least handle the game. Obsidian came out and said if New Vegas was a PC only game, it would've had fewer performance issues.

Mods and powerful PC parts can only do so much for a game like this, especially when it's heavily modded.

I dont really have complains but if I really need to say some, then it will be 1.bugs 2.lot of characters' face are always the same or little to no different and 3.very few voice actors.
However, these things doesn't only apply to NV but ALL of games that are made by Bethesda Game Studio.

Of course, @corvo, I think you hit the nail on the head with locations.

New Vegas' locations, while having some great moments, feel way too bland. For example, the majority of the map is just the area around the strip. Stray away from there and it's quite dull. Supposedly, according to this article from a while back

https://www.pcgamesn.com/fallout-new-vegas/fallout-new-vegas-console

there was meant to be a far larger world for FNV, with more diversity, and while I can believe consoles limited the game, I believe it was more than that. I think time constraints affected the game a lot too. Though consoles where surely a limiter, particularly when looking at the strip itself, (though to be fair, open strip on PC is still a nightmare for older systems). As for the main story, I don't know if I'd say rushed. It made sense, in a way. The player was a major piece in the fight for Vegas, chasing down the platinum chip and all. My only real complaint is that none of the Factions, NCR for example, and Legion to a lesser degree, don't care about Houses interest in the player, or want to make use of the Securitrons, which is odd because they could truly tip the scale in the fight for Hoover Dam. Hell, NCR never ask what the player, House or Benny wanted the Chip for in the first place. It feels odd, considering that's the catalyst of the entire game.
The game then becomes quite uniform once you side with a faction in dealing with all the minor groups struggling in the Mojave. Now while I do love this feeling that all the factions are struggling to carve out their own piece of Vegas, but I feel some groups are underdeveloped while others, like Cooke and his powder gangers, a notorious terrorist who could derail and undermine the war effort, have no real effect, which much like the fiends, I can only assume was down to time constraints.

While New Vegas is easily my favourite Fallout game, and a much better story than 4, yes, it has issues.

My main criticism is the War between the NCR & Legion. Like the Civil War in Skyrim there is little indication that a war is actually going on outside some battles the player can participate in and the occasional skirmish between wandering patrols.

I usually use mods that make it so the NCR and Legion will actually fight each other. The Faction Overhaul Mod is my personal favorite in this regard.

I actually sort of like that not every location is memorable since it feels more realistic,
I do however agree that the legion is not as fleshed out as it should be

I always criticize it. It's not a bad game, but it's not perfect like many people like to pretend it is. It has a lot of flaws.

1: The map. It's far too linear(path-wise) and it's essentially a giant circle. You start off in GS and have to go all the way around the map to progress in the story. I mean, sure, there are two other paths, but it's painfully obvious the devs didn't want you going those ways so they put 2 of the most deadly late-game enemy types in them so you're pretty much forced to go on the set path. Aside from the forced path, the map itself is a huge flaw. It's just a giant circle. So many impassable mountains with invisible barriers. The map looks about the size of 3's map, but if you cut out all the mountains that you can't access, then the whole map is pathetically small. I actually did open up the map in a paint program to see how much of the map is actually accessible and it's astonishing. Then, you need to factor in the useless empty areas. Now, I'm all for useless empty areas as it adds to the wasteland feel, but most of the end up being way off the path and you never have any real reason to cross them. These areas include most of the river, the fields north of the quarry, and the dried up lakebeds. There is practically no reason you ever need to cross these areas for quests or looting points of interest. Then there is the issue of 80% of the bottom half of the map pretty much becoming useless after you get to Novac. You just really don't ever need to go to GS, Primm, or Mojave Outpost. Most of the quests in those areas can be completed on the first arrival.

2: Towns. I agree. The towns are bland and empty. They have no real life and are vacant. They really need more life. Only a handful of named no-bodies in each town. GS only has I think 2 "settlers" and they don't really add any life. The only real people in GS never really leave their stores to do anything. It makes it feel like a ghost town instead. Makes you wonder why a group of 5 raiders didn't come in and wipe them out. Primm is even worse. I get that the convicts showed up and ruined it, but even before that, it must not have been a very impressive lively town. even when you kill the convicts, all they ever do is wander around the non-functional casino. They never go home. The future sheriff never leaves the office. Nobody moves back into the Bison Steve. Just useless. Mojave Outpost isn't much better. I get it's not a town, but it kind of functions like one. It's supposed to be an outpost and traders are supposed to be stopped and it's supposed to be a big issue, but you only ever really see maybe 3 traders stuck and a handful of troopers standing around. There isn't much going on there. Novac is probably the best town in my opinion, but that's only because of the easy access house and the fact that the trader is right next to it. It's not the greatest house, but it beats going through 4 loading screens just to get to the Lucky 38 suite. Novac isn't perfect though. I just rate it high because of those two things. It's still pretty empty and feels dead. Nobark is the only one who really walks around adding life, but he's more annoying than enjoyable. The doctor walks around a bit, but I really think they should have given her a tent or small clinic in the gas station. More settlers in there would also add life. It could also stand to have another sniper tower as it's pointing in the exact opposite direction of the ghouls(which they claim are a problem) and some walls. It's got 2 First Recon snipers for guards. You can't tell me they wouldn't have put up walls. I think they also should have put Gibson's Scrapyard in Novac. It's pretty much right next to it, but it's too far to really bother. It's actually problematic if you use mods that spawn enemies around because she sits outside often. I88 also needs a touch up. It's supposed to be a major pit stop, but other than a makeshift bar, there's really not much there that says it's a real pit stop. If it's as popular as it's supposed to be, there would be more makeshift buildings and a small inn of sorts. Freeside is a little more lively, but still empty. There's a little life, but it's spread too thin and the thugs are more of an annoyance than a threat. Needs more shops and points of interest as well. It makes no sense that a single one of those buildings remains boarded up. There are people literally sleeping on concrete outside and there are tons of vacant buildings. The Strip is the worst offender of all. I was so disappointed when I first got there. I was expecting there to be so much to do there. I thought it was going to have the best of everything. Best gun store, best junk store, best armor store, best food store, heavily populated, and lively casinos. Instead I got empty streets with a few people dancing awkwardly to music in the distance and a few empty and dimly lit casinos.

3: Illusion of choice. Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of choices in the game, but so many of them ended up being the same. So many people like to bring up "all the different faction quest lines" when comparing it to FO3/FO4, but if you really look at it, most of the major quests are exactly the same and only differ in who gives you the quest. Everyone sends you to the Kahns and Boomers to do the same things.

4: Poor enemies. I like some of them, but most are pretty bad. When you first see Powder Gangers, they're fine because they're just as armed as you, but once you get a little bit farther, they aren't even a threat at all. They never upgrade to better weapons and stick with shitty .357s, baseball bats, and dynamite. Now, I'm not saying to give them AMRs with combat armor, but it'd be nice if they got some better weaponry later in the game. It's not even worth looting them. Hell, most NPCs share this problem as well. Most carry the most weak weapons. I get that this is probably to prevent you from killing them to get a good weapon early in the game, but it's just not immersive when practically everyone only ever has varmint rifles, .357s, and single shotguns. Maybe give them hunting shotguns, lever action shotguns, service rifles, hunting rifles, and some new damn clothes. Seriously, everyone wears overalls or rags. Only a few wear anything else and it's usually settler outfits. If they simply added more clothing to their inventories, it'd spice it up so much.

5: Horrible cap system. They made it far too easy to abuse the caps system and get rich. Rather than patch the game, they decided to just increase the cos of the DLC weapons. That's not even a good solution. They pretty much catered the DLC to the players who were filthy rich. All the weapons are crazy expensive and most are pointless to even get. The weapon mods are nice, but most are useless as well. For example, the GRA baseball bat. Costs like 250 for the bat itself and it's the same stats as a regular bat. No real reason to trade it in for more caps than your bat has value. Only difference is the ability to hold mods. Ok, but the mods in the game are often very difficult to even find. By the time you get all the mods for your gun, odds are you've already found a better gun to replace it. Why spend 250 for a baseball bat and travelling all over creation looking for the two mods for it which cost a few more hundred caps when you could just go find a better weapon? A lot of the weapons were also priced too high for the level where they'd be actually useful. The Paceonia or whatever it is called is not a very good gun due to the lack of a scope. It's only really useful by the time you get to Novac, but it costs a small fortune to get. Why buy that gun where you'll find a better gun shortly after when you can buy That Gun for a few hundred caps(or steal it for free) and do the same thing, saving over 10k caps? Then there's the DLC weapons which break the economy even more as they are all worth thousands of caps when repaired aside from a few weapons like the flare gun and bowie knife(but those are still a couple hundred caps a piece). The DLC gear is so valuable and easy to stockpile as enemies respawn with it. Because The Divide is right at the begininning of the damn game, I had 10,000 caps plus an AMR and full riot gear before I even got to Nipton. Sure, I struggled a bit to kill those sentry bots, but the arc wielder leveled the field pretty well and then all it took was a bit of farming the respawning marked men at that clinic. Their armor alone is like 1,500 caps in poor condition. Repair them together and you get a couple grand easy.

6: I agree with you on everything happening too fast. Benny needed more and it didn't really make sense for you to be forgiven when you set foot on the strip. I take advantage of that feature and complete Lonesome Road first and blowing up both the NCR and Legion so I can access those 2 bombed areas for the unique gear. I'll be vilified and get assassins, but stepping onto the Strip means they forgive me for nuking them both and no harm done.

The game isn't perfect and it has quite a few flaws, but I still think it's better than 4(though that's not saying much). I still like 3 almost as much because I think it had the best map and towns. Now those towns felt alive. Each was unique and generally full of life(aside from Cantebury Commons and Tenpenny Tower. TT wasn't lifeless, but it could have a bit more going on).

Now that I think about it there is few places where the Karma system comes into place. It has mostly been pushed aside by the faction system which is not unwelcome but I would still like to be acknowledged as a saint among men a bit more.

Yeah, the karma system (although I didn't exactly like it at all) should've been referenced a little bit more by NPCs. Fallout 3 had Three Dog who would constantly reference your karma whereas Mr. New Vegas seems to not reference the Courier at all, despite the Courier being famous across the Mojave for killing Benny.

Speaking of Mr. New Vegas, I think Wayne Newton did a great job voicing him but he could've been in the game at least. I know he's AI but so was John Henry Eden and many other NPCs the player can speak to. Ironically, Three Dog just seemed much more human to speak and listen to than Mr. New Vegas.

Forgive me in advance, because I suspect that while I'll number my points, it'll actually just read more like a ramble that jumps between points.

Now, in no particular order...

1. Too few human enemy encampments, unless you antagonise both the NCR and the Legion. The Fiends have their small encampments, but they're just tedious to fight thanks to their annoying lines ("WHEN I FIND YOU, I'M GOING TO EAT YOUR SPLEEN!", "YOU LIKE THAT?!", "YOU LIKE THE SIGHT OF YOUR OWN BLOOD?!", etc.) and they're just easy to kill, and never found outside of the area outside of Vegas. I actually prefer F3's way of handling raiders.

2. The Legion not only has too little development, but contradicts itself. The way Caesar describes his Legion, and the way the Legion actually behaves in practice are subtly different, but for someone such as myself, who is very, very familiar with right-wing politics, including his sort of reactionary ideology, I'm very well aware that subtle differences aren't actually that subtle.

3. Post-apocalyptic politics in general are just completely out of whack. This is a problem I also had when F2 introduced the NCR. Look, following a nuclear apocalypse, even if 200 years later, no one is going to be clamouring to adopt the ideological systems of one of the countries involved in the Great War. This means you're not going to have a bunch of Communists, and you're not going to have a bunch of people wanting democracies/republics/democratic republics. Because both systems are shit, and when things get reset, people start heading back to more traditional systems of societal function. Realistically, Shady Sands likely would've become a monarchy, not a democracy.

And then you have weird things like how tolerant people seem to be with homosexuals. Uh... no. Homosexuals are only tolerated in decadent societies, and this is historical fact. Major Knight sys the NCR frowns upon them, but that's the only thing that contributes to that idea. It tells you, but never shows you. The Brotherhood of Steel, with its small population count... is fine with Veronica being a lesbo? Bollocks, is it. The Legion, wanting its men to be strong, allows them to engage in behaviour that leads to high risk of fatal diseases, AND doesn't look down upon rampant sex, when constantly emptying their load into people is going to make them more tired and less aggressive? Utter nonsense.

4. State of spirituality is also nonsense. Somehow, Christianity, the largest religion in the world, is wiped out entirely? (Mormons aren't Christians, as their theology is different from Christian orthodoxy.) Hell, Islam is, too? Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, etc.? Complete nonsense. And there's no pseudo-religions either, with the exception of the tribals in Honest Hearts. So you have a few Mormons (only really two, since New Canaan was destroyed), some tribals, and everyone else is atheistic, with no feeling of spiritual emptiness and searching? That's not how people work. Fallout 3 actually handled this waaaay better, which is just astonishing to think. It had a Catholic church in Rivet City, and the Children of Atom in Megaton. Yes, this makes sense. Even the Children of Atom make sense (at least in F3, not so much in F4), when you consider all the nonsense people make cults around these days. Their theology actually had some thought put into it.

5. The towns could do with more life. I like the different tone of each of the towns, but there's never enough activity in any of them. And, another thing, why is every place so damn dirty? The Prospector Saloon is Goodsprings has stains on the floor and some trash about the place. Freeside has rubble everywhere (I know it's a shithole, but you think even the people living there would want to not have 200 year-old rubble strewn about the place), even Vegas has a bus right past the entrance, and the Lucky 38's sign has graffiti on it, not to mention the trash everywhere.
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There's undoubtedly more things I dislike about the game, but that's stuff to add in here once I get back into the game properly again (which should be after Vortex releases in January, since I don't feel like modding NV now with MO2, then having to adopt Vortex later and redo it again).

I would have liked to have seen DLCs in NCR New Reno or Shady Sands,etc, and Flagstaff (legion territory). It felt important to me, to be able to "evaluate" these places in comparison to the value of House's Vegas, since we really were being asked to choose who was going to rule. I wanted to see just how they ruled their cities, even if they weren't as brightly lit as Vegas.

Better random encounters would be great. Funnier more exciting etc. Fallout 2 everytime I had a random encounter it was cool. Not so in new vegas.

"see you time for bed" does randoms while sleeping and there's another for fast travel, forget what it's called.

What? The Flawless Fallout: New Vegas has...flaws? How dare you, ser! New Vegas can do no wrong, and anyone who disagrees loves EA!

Pff. But in all seriousness. Yeah, I do love New Vegas, and it's not without it's flaws. The story and stories within the story, as well as a vast variety of characters are greatly written. But New Vegas does have it's weaknesses apart from the unfair, yet at the same time fair, critique on engine and graphics. When it comes to factions, I sincerely wish that the Followers of the Apocalypse had a bigger role in the game, or more quests than being watered down to a collective radiant "quest" for reputation build up to the max for the safehouse.

It's actually interesting, when playing with AWOP, and then trying a run without it - It highlighted to me the lack of opportunity of certain locations that could have been used more whether with buildings or small raiding camps. Things I once thought were always part of the vanilla to see that they were due to AWOP does show me just how much more space was there that could have been used to give more life to the Mojave.

I also find a..particular reversal baffling. The Legion seems like a very bland faction with an interesting, driven, and thoughtfully-written leader, with the NCR just playing the "corrupt government that never learns" stereotype. The Legion as a whole had the potential to be a lot more interesting, and the NCR could have had more shades of morality than just being what we'd pretty much expect a faction like them to be.

I wish that there were more evident and in-game effects that resulted in an Independent interest, but that said, I think that can fall into the category of "I wish that there was a continuation after beating the main quest" gripe, heaven knows this is something I did utterly loathe in my first gameplay on console. I know some could argue that this is what inspires repeat runs with different builds, but at the same time, it erases any real "end-game" presence, with the "Logan's Loophole" sense of progress being "beginner-late game".


But even so, for all the flaws that can be found when one does look into them that are fair to criticize, I do still absolutely love Fallout: New Vegas, and stand by it that it still holds up. As much as it had the potential to be more, it still does offer more than some of the modern games.

As far as the story goes, I wish the main story was as fleshed out as some of the DLC's seem to be. I agree that it feels rushed in a way. I just hate how you're kind of thrown into each respective storyline as some henchman for a group. I usually always do Wild Card because of this.

I did a evil playthrough siding with the Legion just for the fact of how they were so different from everyone else choosing to be an imperialistic slaver group using an ancient roman ranking system with the idea of bannishing the use of energy weapons and picking up pieces of armor from fallen foes, and even being able to match against the Brotherhood Of Steel? That takes skill. I wish their story was stretched out a bit more I felt like they died out too fast. But oh well.

I wonder if they will make a Fallout game about them in the future

I want to say replay ability but thats really my fault. I took my time and tried to do everything in my first playthrough. On all the others I just change the daction I side with, or who I get to help at the second vattle of hoover damn.