Hands-On Preview: Fallout: New Vegas (#e3)

Nestled away in the corner of the West Hall, Bethesda housed an appointment only booth to show off their upcoming titles for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC platforms. To no ones surprise, their biggest and most talk about title ended up being Fallout: New Vegas. I had a chance to give the alpha code a run behind their closed door booth, and came away with a generally positive vibe, however there’s a significant feeling of “deja vu” which may or may not hamper your experience with the final build

Before I entered the fort-like monstrosity of Bethesda’s E3 booth, I took a look at the newest trailer for Fallout: New Vegas, complete with gameplay footage sprinkled throughout the latter half:

After a few minutes of waiting, I finally had the chance to get my hands on the 360 version of Bethesda’s latest entry into the Fallout universe. There were to separate segments that were available to play: a combat centric portion in which you have the support of ally NPC’s in a battle against other enemies, and an exploration segment in which you can explore some of the areas on the New Vegas strip, complete with gambling. With the combat portion, I was given over a dozen different weapons to toy around with while I hunted down each of the enemies that stood in my way. Anyone with even the smallest amount of time with Fallout 3 will notice the visual similarities and immediately pick up the controls, utilize VATS to its fullest potential and have no problems understanding what to do. This may or may not be a positive attribute, as the remarkably similar gameplay will welcome Fallout 3 veterans with open arms, but also offer nothing substantially diverse from their previous offering. This was also an alpha built of a very limited piece of the experience, which was thoroughly entertaining nevertheless.

The second part of the playable build revolved around the exploration of New Vegas, complete with gambling halls with playable games. The remaining and reconstructed neon lights and atmosphere retains the semblance of the Vegas of old, but you can also tell that the feel isn’t completely the same as it used to be. Blackjack, roulette and a poker slot machine were available to try out in the casinos available. If you’re too successful with your betting, you will be asked not to place anymore bets at the casino, as they think you maybe cheating in their games. Unfortunately, I was told that you’ll receive a permanent ban from gambling within the halls of that casino. There are various casinos on the strip though, so a permanent ban from one establishment shouldn’t destroy your gambling addictions.

Not much else can be unearthed from this limited, early preview of Bethesda’s upcoming open world FPS title. I was told that the weapon count would be doubled from Fallout 3, with roughly the same completion time (minus side quests) as well as the events of New Vegas taking place several years after the events of Fallout 3. Fallout 3 ended up being quite a gripping, thoroughly addicting title, and with the early similarities between 3 and New Vegas, we’ll either see an extension of the enjoyable experience, or more of the same. We’ll all witness the final product before the end of 2010, but until then, take a glance at the visual progress of Fallout: New Vegas thus far:

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