Fallout: New Vegas

Revisiting Obsidian’s desert wasteland.

- Andy Kelly

Shot in the head and left for dead, you wake up in the one-horse town of Goodsprings and begin a quest for vengeance in the Mojave Wasteland. That’s the beautifully simple setup for Fallout: new vegas, which makes the vault sequence in Fallout 3, where you watch your character grow up, seem needlessly long-winded. After a quick chat with a local doctor, voiced by Saul Tigh from Battlestar Galactica, you’re set free. And it’s up to you whether you want to hunt down the people who tried to kill you, or just drift aimlessly around the desert like Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name.

The Mojave is a far cry from the grim, shattered ruins of the Capital Wasteland. This part of the United States wasn’t bombed quite so heavily, and has retained some colour and life over the centuries. Fallout 3 was a sea of blues and greys, but New Vegas sizzles with oranges and reds. It’s a more vibrant post-apocalyptic wasteland, but still tinged with the melancholy, desolate tone that defines the Fallout series. You begin the game on the edge of the desert among isolated towns and rolling tumbleweed, then move closer to New Vegas itself, where civilisation has a stronger foothold.