:) game good.

This game is the definition of lightning in a bottle, we will never have a game this special ever again, very compelling and strong characters in an amazing story and setting.

Fallout: New Vegas is one of those games that doesn’t just let you roleplay, it dares you to. From the moment you crawl out of a shallow grave with a hole in your head, the game basically looks at you and says: “Alright. Be a hero. Be a villain. Be an idiot. I don’t care. Just commit.”

And that’s the magic of it.

The writing is absurdly good, and the factions are easily the strongest part of the game. They’re all clear reflections of real historical ideologies and power structures, just filtered through a radioactive blender. Empires, dictatorships, failing republics, technocracies, it’s all there. And the wild part? They all make sense.

Now, yeah, some of them are straight up awful. In my opinion, Independent and the Legion are both terrible choices. The Legion is brutal, cruel, and horrifying. Independent is basically “good luck, Mojave, you’re on your own.” But even then… the game does something rare: it makes you understand why they exist.

The Legion is evil, no debate, but their obsession with order and stability comes from a real place. The NCR is bloated, corrupt, and inefficient… but they’re trying to rebuild civilization. Mr. House is a control freak billionaire fossil… but he genuinely has a long-term plan. Every faction is horrible in some way, and every faction has a point. It feels uncomfortably realistic, like actual history instead of video game morality.

And despite my personal opinions, I’ve played every faction multiple times, yes, even the Legion. Do I like them? Absolutely not. Do I think they’re a valid choice within the logic of the world? …annoyingly, yes. That’s how well it’s written. No matter who you side with, the game makes it feel justified if you think about it from the right angle. There is no clean ending, no perfect outcome, just different flavors of consequences.

The Mojave itself is empty in the best way. It feels lonely, dangerous, and quietly hostile, like the desert is just waiting for you to mess up. And you will mess up. Constantly. Probably because you tried to fistfight a Deathclaw at level 6 “just to see what would happen.”

Combat is janky. The engine is held together by duct tape and hope. Sometimes NPCs forget how doors work. Sometimes physics decides today is a comedy show. But honestly? That just adds to the charm. New Vegas isn’t polished, it’s characterful.

The DLCs are also insane in the best way. Dead Money is psychological torture, Honest Hearts is beautiful and tragic, Old World Blues is unhinged sci-fi nonsense, and Lonesome Road is basically the game staring into your soul and asking why you make the choices you do. Incredible stuff.

And the mods? Oh, the mods. Fixes, overhauls, meme weapons, anime companions, total conversions, if you can imagine it, someone’s probably broken their game trying to install it.

Fallout: New Vegas is flawed, messy, morally uncomfortable, and brilliant. It doesn’t ask you to pick the right side, it asks you which disaster you can live with.

Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter.

Almost.