It's that time again, I'm going to take a moment to say this game is long and complicated as hell. That aside it follows the "doesn't matter how badass you are someone is always stronger rule" After sinking 46 hours into the game doing side quests, free quests, recruiting armies and followers, weapons and weirdness sites, and eventually the main story, I got bored and said fuck it to much to do must hurry up and write a review, I still had a day to devote before I pick up Fable III but what ya going to do... The leveling system is redone and gets rid of perks every level and made it like every other level... sucks... the new perks come mostly from challenges you can complete, kill enough bugs, animals, abominations, things in general. Some that raise healing and water consumption. The challenges in game come from how you do missions, if you killed off a faction or had them side with you, I went independent and forgot to kill 90% of the "other" bad guys, whoops. The ending is awesome not to spoil it cause my path would be different from yours, but it gives follow ups on everyone! All of the small things are awesome to know. The crafting/recycling system is a pain to get used to, the advance follower options are great to have but Boone and ED-E kept killing anything before I could get close enough to stealth kill... Boone kills everything with his sniper rifle and ED-E lets you see for miles ahead and it makes you paranoid as hell! The perks are also dialed down extensively I got my ass kicked by baby Deathclaws, later by blind Deathclaws (deadlier than an Alpha or a mother), The weapons are fun to use like the chainsaw which I found after slaughtering all of legion guards... at level 7 not fun NOT FUN AT ALL... The ending depending on sides ends the game at the battle for the dam, a fitting place for a final battle but boring as my allies were slaughtered by the NCR and Legion, which were by comparison highly over leveled compared to their normal pre-battle counter parts.
For the insane leaps of difficulty, the time needed to play the game with side quests, and the shear amount of bugs (because I don't have live and there for would never get patches or DLC until retail copies hit stores) I give F:NV an 8.5 of 10.
