This is one of those games that I started playing and put down and went back to and played through entirely. I really wanted to play it because I loved The Stupendium’s song “The Fine Print”. I was recently diagnosed with ADHD and medicated, I didn’t think this would effect how I play games, but it allowed me to stay focused on the game and actually play it all the way through. I was able to thoroughly explore the game without getting distracted by picking up items, getting lost, forgetting the plot or quest line.
My favorite things about the game were the silly jingles and overall style of everything. The slogans and stylized art really made it feel retro-futuristic and dystopian. Everyone knows the companies are bad, but it’s all they have, so they have to put on a smile and deal with it. The choices you face make you think about the consequences (what’s right vs corporate greed, mostly). In my play-through I tried to do all of the “right” choices and stay on everyone’s good side, be the “hero”. I did every side quest and companion story line, so it took a while to complete, but it was nice to completely finish a game for once. The next time I play, I think I’ll do a more “evil” approach to see more story lines. I really enjoyed all the mementos and trinkets you collect for the ship, it was nice to read little snippets about them and the companions. I really think it was the little things about the game that I enjoyed the most. Fighting enemies wasn’t hard, especially with companions. I didn’t use their special abilities, (I don’t think I knew how to) so I missed out on the small comment scenes you mentioned.
Unfortunately, I played it on PS4, so the worst thing was load times. Every loading screen took forever. The further into the game, the longer they took. At one point the game crashed and I had to re-download to get it to work again, luckily this didn’t effect the save game. But it happened a couple of times, which was worrying. Hopefully I can get the PC version for my next play-through. I played on easy mode because I’m horrible at FPS and I have to say, the amount of ammo you’re given is excessive, even for easy mode. I had thousands of rounds of ammo for all ammo types. I don’t think I reached the storage limit, but it was close.
Great review, you summed up the story line and game style very eloquently! I agree that many quests were tedious fetch-quests, this was very annoying and obvious playing on PS4 with the load screens. I didn’t realize it was advertised as a follow up to New Vegas, but I had heard that it was made by some of the people that worked on it, which you point out is not exactly the case. Regardless, they did a wonderful job on this game and while it’s not perfect, it is a great story that I enjoyed! Coincidentally enough, I started New Vegas last night and expect to enjoy it as much as this game, if not more. I’d always heard amazing things about it, but never got around to playing.