The few problems with the guide stem from a question I’ve always had with regard to strategy guides. The quests are well organized and easy to find thanks to a comprehensive table of contents at the front of the book. A walkthrough of all the different possible paths for the main quest follows, as well as brief and informative guides for each of the many side quests the game has to offer.
The guide opens with a seemingly endless barrage of spreadsheets for reference including briefs on all the different factions, the many weapons available, different items and characters, and good character creation practices for both normal and hardcore game modes. As such, New Vegas holds the player’s hand a bit less than many similar titles – even 2008’s Fallout 3 a good guide will blow the world wide open. Fallout: New Vegas feels like a bit of a throwback to the older style of RPG, and appropriately so: many of the guys at developer Obsidian worked on the original Fallout games. The massive, open worlds are packed with easy-to-miss quests, special items, and interesting characters to interact with.
If there’s any game series that deserves a proper strategy guide with every release, it’s Fallout.
