Ein paar Auszüge der ersten Reviews:
Joystiq (3.5/5)
Giant Bomb (4/5)The only other major overhaul is Obsidian's faction system, which lets you earn the respect or hatred of the Mojave's tribal clans. Did you help out soldiers from the overbearing New California Republic? Be careful, you might incur the wrath of the Kings, a gang solely devoted to the image of the long-dead Elvis. Did you off an explosives-toting Powder Gangers just to score some cheap dynamite? You better hope his gang doesn't hear about it (spoiler: they always do).
By presenting no clear "bad" or "good" clans, Obsidian really lets you figure out the groups you identify with and cast your lot with them, free of the constraints of traditional morality. Unfortunately, this can make things a little confusing, especially in the game's main quest line, which concerns the clans battling for control of New Vegas. A couple of times I completed a quest only to find out I'd ostracized a group I had no clue would care about my actions. Others, I'd see whole quest chains appear and then be instantly failed because I had no idea they existed, let alone that I was losing my chances at them.
Feed Your Console (10/10)Let's talk about that engine. New Vegas runs on the same basic framework that powered Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and it brings a lot of technical weirdness up from those games. Less than an hour in, I was staring at a guard, pacing back and forth to guard his post... 20 feet off the ground. Enemies clip into the ground with an alarming frequency, often making them impossible to shoot. The game--a retail disc running on a new-model Xbox 360--crashed on me about a dozen times over the 33 hours I spent playing, often taking a significant amount of progress with it. The load times and frame rate seemed to get randomly worse as I continued to play the game, with some simple scene transitions taking 20 seconds or more. The technical hurdles you'll have to make to stay interested in New Vegas are meaner and more frustrating than any Deathclaw or Nightkin you'll face in the game. If you're the type of person who likes to watch for a patch or two before settling into a game, know this now: you probably don't want to play Fallout: New Vegas right away.
RPGFan (85%)When I made my 1st impressions review yesterday, I still hadn’t made it into Vegas – I could see and was even just outside the gates but “Beef-Hooked” if i couldn’t get into the Sin City. If there’s one piece of advice I can give everyone…Pay close attention to your speech skill. This isn’t the Capital Wasteland – I’ve had to do some things so ass backwards because my speech skills were so shitty. I’m just not used to needing it so much. That also brings me to another point – I’m having one hell of a time finding any good armour that doesn’t completely suck the ass of a dead donkey. Same with Caps and Stimpaks. For some reason, they seem to be hiding very well from me because I’m always broke or in dire need of health – Go to the nearest travelling trader you say? Ya I did that…they’re sold out.
Planet Xbox 360 (8.8/10)The basic story itself is fairly unimpressive, although the use of the new faction systems, explained in greater detail below, is great. I can't say that there are any memorable characters along the lines of Moira, the denizens of the Republic of Dave, or any of the Garys. The characters aren't bad by any stretch of the imagination, but aside from a cyborg-dog companion named Rex, I had no emotional attachment to anyone in the Vegas Valley.
Game Informer (8.5/10)It dropped from somewhere around 30, into the teens and even locked up for a few seconds a few times. Everywhere you go in Novac the game engine has a problem drawing what's on screen, and it feels as if it could lock up for good at any moment, and while it never did for me, knowing the problems of Fallout 3 freezing, my experience in Novac was cringe worthy and completely took me out of the game experience. Sound design on the other hand is great, the score is properly menacing and does a great job of alerting you to changing situations in the game without bombarding you with on screen information. The same great sound effects are back from Fallout 3, meaning that blowing a guys head into chunks is as satisfying as it ever could be. The soundtrack is also worthy of the Fallout universe and is appropriate for this Vegas setting. Sinatra and the Rat Pack come to mind often. Something needs to be said of the controls. If Bethesda and Obsidian are going to parade the Fallout franchise around as any sort of FPS, they need to implement some decent FPS controls, as what is in place in Fallout: New Vegas doesn't amount to anything worthy of even a mediocre FPS control scheme.
Just Push Start (4.5/5)Obsidian’s writing is top notch (especially the dialogue), and I wanted to see more from most of the characters I met, but none of the scripted moments deliver the nuclear bang that Bethesda achieved. Nothing is on the same level as the black and white VR sequence or the communist robot.
Hooked Gamers (9/10)The graphics of New Vegas didn’t improve from the previous game. Comparing it to the graphics of Fallout 3, everyone can conclude that Obsidian Entertainment has reused the graphics of Fallout 3 and just added new perks, story, setting, and weapons. Reusing it is not a bad thing because the graphics of Fallout 3 are indeed beautiful. However, the graphics could have been improved, as the engine used for Fallout 3 is several years old already.
Playing through New Vegas feels like I’m playing an expansion instead of a new game. Playing for the first ten hours will make the players think of the same experience as Fallout 3. Once the game has gotten to the point where they reach exotic locales of New Vegas, that is the time the player will experience an all new game. The game has a slow start but it will pick up as the player progresses.
GameStar (88%)Sure, Fallout 3 had a good amount of exploration and a good number of people to meet. But New Vegas takes it to a new level with all of its factions. You have the Great Khans, raiders that have adopted the nomadic lifestyle of Mongolians from the time of Genghis Khan even though they have nothing to herd. And then there are the Kings, a gang comprised of Elvis impersonators that runs Freeside, the poorer outskirts of the Vegas Strip. There are several more - some major, others minor - but they all have rich histories and cultures of their own.
PC Games (84%)Kalifornien und Washington waren toll, aber von allen Fallout-Regionen ist Nevada für mich die bisher beste: einleuchtend, überraschend vielfältig und dicht vollgestopft mit Abenteuern. In mancher Hinsicht übertrifft New Vegas seinen Vorgängen Fallout 3 noch, insbesondere bei den klasse gestalteten Begleitern und der immensen Sammelvielfalt. Dem Gegenüber steht aber die allzu schwache Rahmenhandlung. Und die simple Tatsache, dass sich die Zeit seit Fallout 3 weitergedreht hat: Spiele wie Mass Effect 2 definieren heute, wie filmhaft mitreißend man eine Geschichte inszenieren kann. Dagegen wirkt New Vegas steif und altbacken. Macht nichts, denn ein fantastischer, hochmotivierender und nebenbei herrlich witziger Spaß ist das neue Fallout trotzdem.
IGN (Germany) (8.5/10)
Cynamite.de (8,5 /10)
GamingXP (85%)Im letzten Teil mussten wir die Negativ-Punkte mit der Lupe suchen. Dieses Mal waren sie recht offensichtlich: Die Technik ist ein wenig in die Jahre gekommen und abseits des Ruf-Systems und des Hardcore-Modus machen sich die neuen Features nicht stark bemerkbar. Trotzdem ist Fallout: New Vegas ein würdiger Nachfolger und keine Erweiterung zum Vollpreis. Mehr als 100 Spielstunden, eine packende Story und eine komplett neue Landschaft zum Erkunden - das bietet kein Add-on!
Noch viel mehr sollte im laufe des Tages auftauchen.Es ist kein „Neverwinter Nights 2“, es ist kein „Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2“, es ist einfach „Fallout: New Vegas“. Obsidian hat es geschafft, in dem Franchise von „Fallout“ der Charakterentwicklung viele sinnvolle Neuerungen mit auf den Weg zu geben, und es scheint, als gäbe es so gut wie keine sinnlosen Fertigkeiten mehr (was in „Fallout 3“ ja zu bemängeln war). Technische Mängel werden durch die unglaubliche Präsenz des Titels mehr als nur wieder wettgemacht, und es liegt an Ihnen, ob Sie sich dieses Abenteuer rund um New Vegas entgehen lassen wollen. Wir für unseren Teil werden sicher noch eine Weile mit diesem Titel verbringen, alleine schon deswegen, um die riesige Welt zu erkunden ...
