WDeranged

After 25 hours I just made it on to the actual strip, I could have gotten in a few hours ago but I was so absorbed in Freeside and the other areas around Vegas, I've possibly just reached critical mass in my quest tolerance, so much to do... Still enjoying the generally decent writing and voice acting, no major bugs or issues to speak of so far, just a couple of standard issue gamebryo ctd's.

They did that occasionally in FO3 too, never got fixed, It's one of those "just live with it" type things that you get with Gamebryo.

That was just dumb, it doesnt disrupt the game in any way so DO pick it. You just come across some fun hidden "I see what you did there" things if you happen to find them. I thought it was a good demonstration of restrain, leaving plenty of stuff to see in my second playthrough

WTF? While I wouldn't use quite the same words I did like the epic OMGWTFW00Tiness of Fallout 3, and walking around something as iconic as a nuked out Washington is actually quite hard to top atmosphere wise, New Vegas is winning on quest depth and writing though, by a longshot, I haven't even got to Vegas yet

I managed to restrain myself from taking the Wild Wasteland perk on my first game, wanted to though, really badly

To be honest I wouldn't say it beats FO3 in *every* aspect, the art direction in FO3 was magnificent, they nailed the post apoc atmosphere (regardless of how out of place it was lorewise), I feel less excited about seeing what's over the next hill in New Vegas but the characters and believable use of locations is what brings back the old Fallout feel for me. One thing that has surprised me is that reviewers are saying NPC's faces are looking better, I really disagree, I've found some faces are definitely on the Oblivion side of freaky, FO3 did far better in my opinion.

I noticed that detail, felt a warm nostalgic glow, one of the few things I did in New Reno was bang Mrs Bishop

I just got my Collectors Edition box, the graphic novel was a short but decent read and I'm just watching the making dvd, all in all the quality of the extras is excellent, no rough edges, the poker chips (platinum and otherwise) are nice and weighty too. I ended up buying the game over steam at the start of the week and unlocking it via vpn so the excitement of getting the box set has obviously been dulled a bit, I'm pretty sucked into the game though, the rough edges are a bit of a contrast to the excellence of the box set but hopefully mods will sort it all out by the time I get around to a second playthrough. The characters are decent, the quests so far are interesting with lots of different resolutions available and I'm only about 15 hours into the game with barely 20% of the map explored, technical issues have gotten in the way once or twice but nothing unfixable. It does feel like a true successor to the first two games, there's a reasonable sense of necessity to the quests and the vibe is *very* different from Fallout 3, I'll be loading it as soon as I get back from work, which is always a good sign.

As far as I can tell only full time companions get the Companion Wheel.

Pretty sure that won't be possible.

I'm still choking down the shame of letting myself get spoilered by a jerk on another forum, it lifts my spirits to see all the good reviews though, I hope when I finally get the game I'll be able to get over it. Congrats to Obsidian, looks like this is one of your defining moments

I'm drinking several cups of tea and smoking a ton of cigs, seething with nerdrage over reading something I shouldn't have, I really should follow my own advice when it comes to avoiding spoilers

*silently stares into his vodka and counts the hours*

Good question...a better one is why am I still awake at 4am? God damn this game.

Chances are good you'll be safe here, I'd avoid Bethesda and RPGcodex though...maybe that should be a general rule at all times

PC = can't even get all the files to make it work yet Xbox = Guy at Gamestop lifts a fully working copy from the back room when his boss isn't looking. Aye, how times have changed, though as the xbox is now the world's most fertile grounds for piracy we might start getting worthy PC games again, at least till the new (brain implanted) superconsoles start coming out.

Colour me completely and utterly unsurprised by those filthy PC pirates ruining the future of our beloved indust...HEY, WAIT A MINUTE, XBAWKS!? Seriously though, I expected this the second I heard the game had gone gold so no surprises here, on a brighter note I got another email from Game. "I am delighted to let you know that your Preorder for Fallout: New Vegas Collector's Edition (with Preorder Bonus in-game Classic Pack) is now being processed subject to successful payment being taken from your credit card when it is dispatched. The order will be despatched by your chosen delivery method in time to reach you for the day of release."

Dear Customer, Thank you for preordering Fallout New Vegas Collectors Edition on www.GAME.co.uk Due to the epic size of the Fallout New Vegas Collectors Edition we have a lot to do to make sure it gets to you in time for the launch day of Friday 22nd October. As a result, we will be processing your order and charging your payment card a little earlier than usual. It'z coming...

I think this is the kind of presentation we've been waiting for, detailed and slow paced with intelligent conversation, it looks great, lovely smooth video capture too, no tearing, stuttering or dropped frames.

Ohhhh f**k, I was just going to bed and now I have to obsess over every frame of this

It'll be a good 8-9 days till I get that email

On a related note I really like Vulpes Inculta's voice acting, menacing and slightly androgynous, I think I've burnt out on Wes Johnson style overtly sinister voices.

I like what I'm hearing about the new music, when I first started playing Oblivion I used to think how cool it would be if they could have implemented a classic Lucasarts style iMuse system, Fallout 3 had better sound direction so it wasn't such an issue but I'm seriously looking forward to feeling the subliminal effects of morphing sound in New Vegas, Oblivion beat you over the head with about ten themes, over and over...

It's a small thing to most people but as usual the gameplay footage has judder going on, I keep hoping it's just bad video capture or youtube messing up the cadence but I'd bet money at this point that New Vegas is going to have the same 64hz issue as Oblivion and Fallout 3. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't but it'd be nice if they'd have sorted out that problem by now, otherwise I'm hoping that Fallout Stutter Remover doesn't take too long to get ported to New Vegas. On the actual topic of the dev diary, things do just keep sounding better and better the closer we get to release day

Lots of lovely life wasting quests