Fallout New Vegas Review: Technical Embarrassment?

By Alan Ng

19 October, 2010 Gaming, PC Games, Sony Playstation 3, Xbox 360 10:51 am

For those of you looking to pick up Fallout: New Vegas today in the US, you’ll be pleased to know that review scores are generally very positive for the game. However, there seems to be a lot of criticism on the technical aspect of Bethesda’s new title.

We’ve picked out Joystiq’s review for example, as they have scored the game a 3.5/5 and have controversially labelled it a ‘technical embarrassment’.

They mention that during gameplay, the game inexplicably froze up as many as three times, with each one requiring a hard restart to the Xbox 360 version they were testing. Furthermore, they comment on the poor framerate issues which slow down considerably during certain parts of the game, and also rather long load times.

Bethesda are a bit-infamous for the long load times, and Joystiq claim that load times are between 25 and 50 seconds, regardless of if you install the game to the hard drive or not.

We’ve seen other websites score the game a 9/10, but most of them reserve a portion of criticism over the game’s performance issues. Let us know your thoughts on this – is the ‘technical embarrassment’ statement justified or not?

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Thomas

YEAH!! #1
pre-loaded game off STEAM
commence playing whooo!!
and i am soooo sleepy..
BUT IT ROCKS!!!
jim

erm, it scored 3.5 out of 5, which makes it 7/10?
DDar

3.5 out of 5 not 10!
Abc

Joystiq gave 3.5 out of 5, not 10.
- Dex
  
  3.5/5 = 7/10
  
  5 + 5 = 10
  3.5 + 3.5 = 7
  
  Yay math, retards
  - barry
    
    Other sites gave it 9/10, jostiq gave it 3.5 or 7/10, where's the confusion.
    
    Otherwise, another review I read, I think Eurogamer said that they were assured that there would be a day one patch for launch day (Friday), which would sort the freezing. I wonder why Jostiq didn't take this into account, or at least wait to see if this was true
larslake

sux
Alan Ng

Thanks for the heads up, fixed.
jacob

i hope they dont rush TESV!!! we dont want a half assed job there too!
Shuma

Perhaps that should be directed towards the developer Obsidian who made the game and not so much Bethesda soft who just published it..
Zizou

So getting the score worng sorta makes this whole “article” worthless?

lulz
Bill

No. Course not. Important to see if these tech issues are also in the full retail version.

Also, Elder Scrolls is developed by Behtesda Softworks – this was developed by Obsidian. The game was distributed by Bethesda, however. Nevertheless I would not expect any quality issues associated with this to be associated with ESV just because they share the same distributer.
Piemaster1337

25 to 50 second load times? that's nothing compared to 2min save times in Sims 2 and 3mil load times in KZ2 (sims 2 sux on consoles, obviously, but KZ2 is awesomeness)
FNV Fan

This game rocks!!! I don't know what game your playing but on my end it's awesome. Bring on TESV Bethesda.
Eric

The game seemed strong in the first hour I played, but now it's freezing and I can't proceed in the game.
FALLOUT

Um, they are talking about "Fallout" right? Have they ever had a glitch free game? I'm looking forward greatly to New Vegas, and if the technical problems are the only bad thing to say about the game, then it's already passed all expectations.
- wedge
  
  this game if fucking terrible i cant get past 30 mins without it freezing i put 90 bucks on this game it better not be a waste
Knight

The load times are not that long and it has not froze for me once…but i would have liked to see some improvements in the graphics. The game is still awsome!

9/10.
- mike
  
  I've played for about 5 hours with no freezes or any major problems. Maybe we just got lucky because so many people are complaining.
r.Wiley

There is definitely a problem with the game freezing. After playing for about 15 minutes it froze and i had to restart my ps3. It also pauses every once and a while when you are running around which is pretty annoying. Its a good game but the technical problems are rediculous.
mememe

lol, then you will not be disapointed. I urge you to save often. I hope your getting the ps3 version. Enjoy.
mark

The game freezing up every 30minutes kinda makes it hard for me to appreciate the gameplay.
Master Race

All you console suckers complaining about technical issues just need to get yourself a good PC. PC gaming is the way forward, you get much more out of it (mods, texture updates for old games etc) and can be used for other things too, and a decent gaming rig 4x more powerful than a PS3 would cost about the same as a PS3, all the consoles are so out dated now!
Dylan

Master Race has the idea…lol. Not only that but it's actually less costly to maintain a computer than it is to buy a new console every few years; so you end up saving money.
JR

Got it for the PS3, not a single issue in over 5 hours of play so far. Not for nothing and trust me, I am in no way a ps3 fanboy I think PC and Xbox360 are fine systems but every review for this game I’ve seen that complains of glitches and crashing has been for 360 and PC which is strange. Not saying it wont happen to me but I save like every 5 mins anyway so its no biggie.
Admin

I do agree that owning a PC is of the better, but honestly I use my PC for other purposes i.e college papers, business and such. (I'm not gonna buy 2 computers; that would be ridiculous!) I don't really wanna game on my PC anyways, that's why they have gaming consoles; besides not everything is made for PC so in the end I still end up buying the console -_- although I gotta admit COD is nice on the PC way NICE!
Anthony

I must say that this game was a big fail in my opinion. I am nearly finished the main quest in Fallout New Vegas, when my game becomes corrupt, and doesn't allow me to enter The Strip anymore. Every single time I try to enter the Strip, the loading screen pops up like normal, but then the screen goes black, and I need to restart my console.
Rikk

I have to agree, that this video game, as far as professional standards is concerned, is a technical failure on numerous fronts.

I've lost hours of gameplay due to corrupted save files, the frame rate goes to hell often, enemies load as invisible and crash your game if you lock on, and then there's just the weird ass glitches where characters twitch and spaz like mad.

I'm playing on Xbox 360, and people playing on 360 who comment saying they don't have ANY problems are LYING.

This game is seriously flawed and needed at least another few months. If they don't ditch this brain-dead game engine in the next one, I'm not interested in Fallout anymore.
Russ

It was absolutely justified. In fact, imo, the rating doesn’t reflect just how ruinous the technical issues were to the overall game experience. I’m a fan of the series but those “game busting glitches” were no joke. Having to back-track 10+ hours of gameplay because of corrupt save data, glitched error messages (as happened to yours truly on my xbox) and palsy-inducing frame rate issues will destroy ANY game play experience, no matter how compelling the plot is. Nothing is more frustrating than finding one of those “treasures” in Wastes only to have some technical issue swipe it and all the progress you’ve made in finding them away from you. I can honestly say that I’ve beta tested games that were more complete than New Vegas.

Live and learn, I guess. Next time I will not be purchasing a Fallout game upon it’s initial launch and will instead wait and see how concerned I should be about technical issues.