Having dropped New Vegas in the past due to lost interest, I decided to try this game out finally since a friend of mine was having a fallout 3 playthrough himself. It was it 8 bucks, so I figured why not. I have to say, I put way more hours into this game than both other Bethesda games I’ve played through (Skyrim and Oblivion) before even finishing the main quest line. The combat was excellent in my opinion, and I (seem to be in the minority of people who) really liked the story. The choices it forces you to make sometimes really had me feeling emotional at times. I also played it with some minor mods installed, just some custom outfits and real world guns for immersion. Nothing to break the story or anything, though there are a few DLC sized mods I’m eyeing up to play in the future. Overall I seriously enjoyed this game, I’ve noticed online it seems to be regarded as one of the least popular mainline games but I think it’s become my favourite Bethesda game I’ve tried so far honestly. Seriously recommend anyone who hasn’t played this yet to at least give it a try. It really pulled me in.
Edit: Since I’m done with F4, got New Vegas running with some nice mods to add gritty aesthetics and real world weapons. Giving it another try 6 years after I initially tried it and so far I’m way more into it!
Edit 2: more specific context
Yes!! I felt the same way!
Particularly the ham fisted way it’s written, you’re really led to choose the railroad path, but I felt I never got a proper explanation on how the institute was bad (the why is clear).
I ended up going with the institute and I got a really underwhelming ending
The institute are bad because they’re basically “scientific racists” - they diminish the experienced suffering of conscious beings, even though they’re anatomically identical to Real Humans™
They’ve got the power to fix so many problems upstairs, but they’re so far removed from the suffering of others that they don’t know what the problems even are.
They’re essentially the 1% in our world. Bunch of privileged cunts who think they can fix the world by throwing money at a problem without really understanding the plight of the working class.