As many others have pointed out this game has numerous technical flaws mainly due to the engine that Bethesda had Obsidian use. A lot of the flaws that due happen e.g. crashes, stuttering, infinite loading screens, low fps and the works can all be fixed through mods. That's not to excuse the game for having these issues as they are just that issues. However, if you install certain mods such as NVAC (New Vegas Anti Crash), Fallout NV 4GB patcher, NVSE (New Vegas Script Extender), and if you aren't on Windows 10 NVSR (New Vegas Stutter Remover) as if you are on Windows 10 will cause a lot problems mainly crashes, the game is almost perfect.


The story in Fallout New Vegas is simply wonderful. It fixes a lot of the issues I personally had with Fallout 3 and Fallout 4, mainly that those games both tie you down and restrict how your character can grow and change. In both instances you are tied to a family in Fallout 3 it's your dad as you are forced to follow him to continue the main story essentially making you the camera man for James' story. Fallout 4 suffers a similar fate by having your son get kidnapped and wife murdered and forces you to track down your son. In both games I found myself not caring about Shawn or James as I barely had any time to connect with them and thus felt no drive to care about them or find them. New Vegas avoids this by having your character simply be a random courier that happens to get shot in the head during a delivery. From there you can choose to find the man who shot you or not. It's up to you. Once you do track him down you're not immediately forced to murder him like you are with someone like Kellog. This freedom of choice and freedom from forced relationships are what put New Vegas above and beyond the rest of the Bethesda titles.


Combat is also one of the games weak points but that again mainly stems from the ♥♥♥♥ job Bethesda did with the shambled mess that is the Gamebryo engine or Creation engine I guess. No matter who's to blame the flaws are still there and detract from the overall experience but not as much as it may seem at first. The actual shooting so non VATS combat is very wonky to say the least. It feels very off. This may mostly be in part to the AI as they seem to bounce around randomly making things more difficult than they need to be in the way of aiming. The VATS system makes it's return from the past games operating identically to Fallout 3. Most of the praise of this system seems to stem from the wow factor from its initial release. Now 10 years later, or 12 in the case of Fallout 3, it seems very basic as choosing which body part to attack or who to attack is almost frustratingly difficult as where I'm targeting seems to switch on a dime and I'm sometimes not even able to attack the person I want to.


In conclusion, Fallout New Vegas how ever flawed it may be absolutely deserves the attention of any self respecting RPG fan as well as FPS fan as this offers a good taste of both. The story more than makes of for the combat as the combat essentially seems to serve a secondary purpose as a lot of combat with NPCs can be skipped entirely with certain dialogue choices and speech checks. So if you somehow managed to not play this game yet, which I would find very surprising, you absolutely have to as the story is one of the best in any game I've ever played as well as most certainly the best in any Fallout game. Highly recommend.