This isn't all Obsidian's work, obviously. Fallout's uncompromising violence, too, is double-edged seeing crucified Caesar's Legion victims dying in agony isn't funny in any way, but watching a raider's head explode really is. It's a serious game, overall, with moments that are genuinely sobering, but there's also a wicked undercurrent of black humour in the face of such desolation, the Wasteland's inhabitants have developed an amusingly cynical worldview. The voice acting is much better, too, which really helps carry the game's hundreds of interlocking stories. Characters are duplicitous, foul-mouthed, desperate, broken, suave, or all of the above. Fallout: New Vegas has strong, clever dialogue as well as good writing and quest design. It's the embodiment of Fallout's nihilism, a cheap, neon shadow of former glory that's nonetheless the most attractive thing in a irreparably devastated world. New Vegas, like Fallout 2's New Reno, is at once fascinating and hugely depressing, a centre of tawdry entertainment for miserable, damaged, bored people run by malicious, manipulative powers. Your Luck stat suddenly becomes very important, especially if you get drawn into the city's sinful culture.
When you eventually get to the New Vegas Strip, you realise that the rest of the wasteland so far has been foreplay. The complete absence of a mutant-infested subway makes it easier to get by without guns and handle situations the way you want to. It draws you out all over the place, pointing you in four directions at once, never telling you to explore but rewarding you greatly when you take the risk. It's smaller, but there's no less to do, making uneventful treks across barren scenery a thing of the past. The Mojave Wasteland, a post-apocalyptic Nevada, is a better setting than the Capital Wasteland. Fallout: New Vegas' focus on factions is less facetious than it first appears it's never just a matter of siding with one at the expense of another. Similarly, the families vying for control of the the Mojave Wasteland's glittering, neon-lit New Vegas are all as bad as each other. The game's central conflict between the people's militia, the New California Republic, and the slave-driven empire of Caesar's Legion seems like a black-and-white decision between well-meaning lawmakers and murderous, barbaric fiends, but neither of them is a force for good, and over the forty or fifty hours you can easily spend with the game you'll see the worst side of both of them. It knows that sometimes there is no right choice. It understands that morality is ambiguous, and subjective, and that games shoving obvious choices in your face undermines their emotional maturity. It offers you decisions all the time, but it rarely forces you to make any.
It understands that sometimes you must do awful things for a greater cause, or choose the best of two bad options. Because in some respects Fallout: New Vegas is a very different game from Fallout 3, and that's largely because it's better written. You'll forgive me, then, for focussing on the things that are different.
You still rely on your PIP-boy, a Filofax for the post-apocalyptic future, to organise the weapons, armour, quests, information and salvage that you can scavenge from your hopeless surroundings. The combat is the same, with the same divisive VATS system that lets you target limbs or gun arms to cripple an enemy's ability to fight back. The setting is different, but the aesthetic is the same – crumbling buildings, settlements comprised of shacks, unending waves of dusty, tortured wasteland dotted with ruins from a happier past. Fallout: New Vegas' similarities to Fallout 3 are obvious.
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