Having dropped New Vegas in the past due to lost interest, I decided to try this game out finally since a friend of mine was having a fallout 3 playthrough himself. It was it 8 bucks, so I figured why not. I have to say, I put way more hours into this game than both other Bethesda games I’ve played through (Skyrim and Oblivion) before even finishing the main quest line. The combat was excellent in my opinion, and I (seem to be in the minority of people who) really liked the story. The choices it forces you to make sometimes really had me feeling emotional at times. I also played it with some minor mods installed, just some custom outfits and real world guns for immersion. Nothing to break the story or anything, though there are a few DLC sized mods I’m eyeing up to play in the future. Overall I seriously enjoyed this game, I’ve noticed online it seems to be regarded as one of the least popular mainline games but I think it’s become my favourite Bethesda game I’ve tried so far honestly. Seriously recommend anyone who hasn’t played this yet to at least give it a try. It really pulled me in.
Edit: Since I’m done with F4, got New Vegas running with some nice mods to add gritty aesthetics and real world weapons. Giving it another try 6 years after I initially tried it and so far I’m way more into it!
Edit 2: more specific context
It’s a bad game that does some things that really make it worth playing, imo. The gunplay is mid and the social systems sucks so much ass, but not many games go for the scavenger fantasy like fo4. Throw some mods on top of the shaky base and you’ve got the only real good post apocalyptic survival game i can think of. Pick a spot to build up while living like a rat and you might get a few dozen hours of genuine fun out of it.
I personally recommend Frost or that modpack that turns the game into a survival horror, because the game is at it’s absolute peak when you are actually desperate for three more rounds in your revolver.
Not the same genre at all – it’s a turn-based open-world roguelike – but have you played the open-source Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead? I mean, it’s directly got some Fallout-inspired content, like power armor, but above-and-beyond that, it’s a post-apocalyptic survival scavenger fantasy, and it’s a hell of a lot more complex.
Like, you’ve got regional weather (fog, precipitation, wind) simulated, several nutritional meters (including stuff like going too far over and getting something like iron poisoning), fat reserves and hydration, several types of diseases, parasites, and fungal infections. Maybe the most-sophisticated gun collection out there in video-game-land, plus modeling firearms stuff like multiple sight and optic systems, multiple barrels, gun weight, recoil, different magazine types, different loading mechanisms (including doing things like having a shotgun or magazine-fed weapon with specific types of ammunition, like buckshot or slugs or Dragon’s Breath loaded into individual cartridge slots), carrying straps, bipods, brass catchers, Picatinny rails, grenade launchers (including attachable), rocket launchers, energy weapons, flame-projecting weapons, thrown explosives, placed traps. Food spoilage. Various types of carrying cases and aspects of them – things like straps to attach items via carabiners on some backpacks, multiple “pockets” per container that may have different volumes and maximum dimension constraints on items and may be able to contain different things, like mesh or rigid/nonrigid. Waterproof cases and water damage to some items, like dissolvable drugs or personal electronics. Vehicle construction and damage – you can build bicycles, cars, tanks, boats, helicopters. Remote cameras and displays. Electrical wiring and power generation and storage systems. Bionic implants. Mutations and associated powers. Various types of melee combat, including a wide variety of martial arts. With mods, multiple magic systems and magic items and psionic powers. Base-building. NPCs. The ability to build and manage NPC camps with NPCs producing things. Agriculture. Ranching. Thermal imaging and electromagnetic vision. Toxins, including airborne and injectable, and protection against same, as well as various environmental hazards, like acid. A cooking system. Food temperature that matters, including freezing damage to some foods. Drugs. Brewing, freezers and refrigerators (both fixed and in vehicles). Biodisel and ethanol fuel production, as well as other various fuel types, including gasoline and JP8. Morale. Sewing, including modification like Kevlar- or fur-lining items, and a material type system including things like removing buttons or zippers or fabric of certain material types (leather, wool, synthetic, cotton, etc) clothing to create something else. Crafting armor. Remote-control vehicles. Quests. Addictions. Radiation. A skill system, with separate “theoretical” and “practical” knowledge in each area. A proficiency system. A perk system. Stats. Personal electronics, like time, temperature-measuring, camera-enabled, display screens (e.g. one can scan books into tablets or smartphones or augmented reality glasses and then read them later). Lighting and shadows. Ocular adjustment time to dark or light conditions. Dwarf Fortress-like underground digging. Procedural map generation including subterranean maps. Enemy tracking via visual, auditory, and olfactory methods (not all of which can use all of these), and methods to mitigate one’s signature in these fields. Corpse dissection and resource extraction. Optional “innawoods” play, where one does a no-civilization survival play, just using primitive technology and food preservation. Achievements. Progressive content unlocking. Scenarios, like playing as a prisoner in a prison. Modeling of fires and smoke; one can have wildfires or buildings burning down. Various enemy factions; these can fight or otherwise interact; for example, a fungal faction can “take over” zombies. Water-gathering via raincatchers. Breaking into computer systems. Automated movement (to reduce drudgery of hiking from one map location to another). A configurable notification system. Rules-based searching through recipes and visible items. Ability to have the character perform automated sorting of items. Multiple competing audio and graphical packs.