Fallout New Vegas

Fallout: New Vegas is an action role-playing video game in the Fallout video game series. The game was developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Bethesda Softworks. It released for Microsoft Windows,Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in October 2010. Downloadable content and expanded re-editions followed in 2010–2012.

The game is based in a post-apocalyptic, open world environment around the area of Nevada, California, and Arizona. The player takes control of the character known as the Courier, who is hired by a delivery service to take an unknown package across the Mojave Desert to the New Vegas Strip. During the delivery, the Courier is intercepted, shot in the head, and left for dead by a mysterious man who steals the package. After being found by a friendly robot, Victor, and healed by a man named Doc Mitchell, the Courier is thrust back into the desert to seek revenge and recover the stolen package. By doing this, the player becomes caught between various factions competing for control over the desert and its most valuable asset, the Hoover Dam, ultimately coming to shape the future of its inhabitants.

Even though it directly succeeds Fallout 3 in order of Fallout game releases, offers a similar action role-playing experience, and shares its engine and legacy content with Fallout 3, New Vegas is not a direct sequel. It marks the return of some elements found in Fallout 2. The game was a critical and commercial success, shipping more than 5 million copies altogether.

Obsidian Entertainment presents new features and improvements in Fallout: New Vegas that are implemented upon the foundation of Fallout 3. For example, the original Fallout 3version of the Gamebryo engine was reworked to accommodate the extra lights and effects of the Las Vegas Strip.

The game's combat is centered around the "Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System" feature, or "V.A.T.S.", which is from Fallout 3 with the addition of several new V.A.T.S.-specific attacks.^[8][9] Use of certain melee weapons trigger unique animations. Additions are new weapons, a weapon modification system, a better over-the-shoulder view for third-person combat and the ability to use the iron sights on almost all guns except several larger weapons that are shot from the hip.^[10] The game allows firearm modifications such as mountedtelescopic sights, rate of fire modifiers and increased magazine size.^[10] Crafting also plays a role in weaponry, with the ability to make ammunition such as hand-loaded rounds. A plant-harvesting system similar to that of The Elder Scrolls series allows the player to use plants to create special meals, poisons, and medicines.

The quantity of factions prompted developers to reintroduce the reputation system that was absent in Fallout 3.^[11] The degree of faction loyalty influences the player's reputation with that faction,^[11] which affects the behavior of the faction's non-player characters (NPCs) toward the player and reflects the impact of selected choices in the world.^[11] Karma is also a factor and is independent of faction reputation. For example, the player can rob a faction member, lowering their karma, but leaving their reputation unchanged provided the faction does not learn of the robbery. Character attributes, skills, reputation and karma affect dialog options with NPCs. Skills have a larger effect on conversation choices.^[9] Whether a dialogue option will succeed or fail is shown up front, and entirely dependent on skill level, rather than both skill and chance as in Fallout 3.^[9]

Companion behavior and tasks are controlled using the new "Companion Wheel", removing the need to enter conversation to give commands. The new Companion Wheel offers command execution by selecting commands that are presented in a radial menu. Game director Josh Sawyer has stated that the Companion Wheel offers ease of companion interaction.^[11] Examples of companion commands include setting and changing combat tactics, default behavior towards foes and usage frequency of available resources. The player can have one humanoid and one non-humanoid companion at the same time, and receives a unique perk, or unique advantage, per companion. These companions can be upgraded if the player completes a special quest related to the companion, and unlike Fallout 3 dismissed companions are sent to the player's house instead of returning to their original locations.

In New Vegas, the player can visit casinos to participate in minigames to win currency, including blackjack, slots, and roulette.^[12] A card game called Caravan, which was designed specifically for the game, can be played outside of the casinos.^[13]

Fallout: New Vegas takes place during the year 2281, four years after the events of Fallout 3, and 204 years after the Great War of 2077. The former city of Las Vegas (now called "New Vegas") and its surroundings are divided among various factions, but there are three major powers competing for control of the region: The New California Republic (NCR), Caesar's Legion, and Mr. House. The NCR's military, returning from Fallout 2, is now overextended and mismanaged, but controls the majority of territories in the Mojave. The slave-driving, Roman army-styled Caesar's Legion, formed by its leader, Caesar, conquered and united 86 tribes and now plans to conquer New Vegas. Mr. House, the mysterious businessman, controls New Vegas with an army of "Securitron" security robots. There are other factions and groups such as the Boomers, a tribe of heavily armed former vault dwellers who have taken shelter at Nellis Air Force Base; the Powder Gangers, a violent group of escaped convicts; the Great Khans, a tribe of drug dealers and raiders; and the Brotherhood of Steel, technology-craving remnants of the U.S. Army who are attempting to secure any technology that could cause significant harm. Landmarks featured in Fallout: New Vegas are the Hoover Dam, which supplies power to the New Vegas strip;^[9] Nellis Air Force Base and the HELIOS One solar energy plant.^[14]