@themanwithnoname,  i understand . overall whats your opinion on new vegas ? i plan on finally getting around to play and beat fallout 3 and then work on new vegas.

@crystalchild, thanks for the info. btw if u ever write any review for a rpg, do u think u could post it in this thread pls ?

i am gonna start writing some reviews for some older games soon, to get to into the review process.

@shadowblind, i am excited for tales of graces f very much as well. i still cant figure out why namco wont bring vesperia over to the ps3 outside japan, this puzzles me and makes me made because even though i have the japanese version , i also want a english version to go along with my 360 version as well.

Well, I think the easiest way to give you an opinion is to separate the good and bad so that I don't start rambling all over the place.

THE GOOD

As I said before, I think this game's writing is good and even great at times. There's so much dialogue here, it's not funny for one thing, but I think each faction is really handled well and it's very interesting to talk to members in them to get their take on areas and people that you've met within the game so far. I distinctly remember skipping through a lot of the dialogue with minor characters in Fallout 3, because I thought a lot of them were boring, but boring is about the last thing I'd say about any character in this game.

The scope is another positive point. This game is HUGE. I don't think the land size itself is bigger than it was in Fallout 3, but I do think there seems to be a lot more people to talk to, quests to complete, companions to recruit (each with their own quests) and nooks and crannies to explore. Considering this besides the fact that you'll probably have to play through this game three times or so to see all the endings, because the main quest forces you to side with a faction or go rogue, something the main quest in Fallout 3 never did. Is the main quest exceptional (thusfar)? No, not really, but it does serve a good job of throwing you all over the place on the map and make you go places you probably wouldn't. You also have challenge perks you can try to complete for extra experience. It's pretty clear to me that Obsidian's goal in making this game was to keep people playing it for a long, long time.

THE BAD

The first thing I'd like to say is that I think New Vegas is more difficult than Fallout 3 was. Is that inherently bad? No. The problem to me is that it's never consistent in its difficult. For example, last night, I was doing a quest, which had me venturing into Vault 34, which is occupated by lots of ghouls. I think I was a level 17 at this point, which isn't really high or low, but I started mowing ghouls down left and right all in the first area...that is, until I game to the end of it where all of a sudden I'm getting hit by ghouls who are moving twice as fast as the ones before and walloping me for big damage even though my armor was in pretty decent condition. All the while this is going on, I have a constant radiation level of one rad per second (if your rad level maxes out, you die), so I figured I'd take a Rad-X, which is supposed to temporarily alleve you of radiation damage. Well, apparently, Vault 34 is immune to Rad-X, so I ended up wasting a few of those for no apparent reason. Why have an item in the game, if it doesn't work?

Combine this with the fact that some of these level and quest designs are a bit ridiculous. Your choices for quests that have you going into vaults are to either lockpick or repair something in the vault that nobody would ever have enough stat points in either of those categories to do them, or to go to some random room and find a key card or loot a body (one time underwater) for it. I seriously had to look up on youtube how to do it for the Vault 34 quest. I bet someone at Obsidian has a good laugh over the monotony of any quest that sends you into one of the horrid vaults, but I don't find it funny or enjoyable at all.

This game also sort of throws you right in. You get some brief tutorials, but I think the intro to Fallout 3 was meticulously designed for you to be able to handle yourself when entering the wasteland for the first time. I don't think this game does as great of a job, and might be a lot harder for someone who hasn't played Fallout 3 to get a real feel for how to play.

THE UGLY

Bugs, bugs, bugs. And I'm not talking about minor bugs. Bugs here come in two flavors. There's the mildly annoying, and then the really freaking annoying. Common to the first kind are waypoints pointing to locations where people are supposed to be, but you go there and nobody's there. I initiated a quest once from an NPC and was supposed to meet him further down the road and he completely disappeared on me. Of course, I tried going further down the road and was pummelled into the ground by a few nightkin running around at double speed of anything else in the game with stealthboys. The really freaking annoying bugs are when the game crashes (happened twice now, thankfully not lately) or when something doesn't work the way it's supposed to. One quest has you going into a vault wearing a costume from a different faction to fool the inhabitants into thinking you're their friend. Upon putting the costume on, I got a nifty tutorial about being careful not to wear the wrong outfit in front of the wrong crowd and began thinking how cool it was that outfits can change the way people in the game view you. So I enter the vault and am immediately shot up and killed in a matter of about 5 seconds because for whatever reason, the outfit didn't work properly for the quest.

There's plenty of those kind of bugs all over the place, most of them completely random. One time I couldn't complete a quest because I had already started another random, unrelated side quest. It'll get to you after awhile...the level of bugs here is inexcusable.

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Those are my impressions after about 35 hours of playtime and I think I'm a level 18 right now. I am enjoying it, but it does get annoying from time to time when I encounter some bugs or poor level design. I recommend playing Fallout 3 first and picking this one up only if you really liked it. I'll let you know how my impressions change as I keep playing. I hope I was helpful.

@themanwithnoname, u were extremely helpful and i have decided to play fallout 3 and if i enjoy it alot than i will play new vegas and if not, i will give new vegas to a friend or let my wife have the game instead of me playing it.

i do apprecaite your insight and opinion on the game, thanks again my friend.  :)

I don't know either, but it may have be something like whats happening with Mass Effect 2, but you KNOW it won't sell as well . . . still, gawd do I want it. I can only hope that Graces f performs good enough that they bring Xillia over. I personally think the PS3 audience in the Americas will be more apt to buy JRPGs then the 360 audience was for Vesperia.

. . . I really hope . . .

@crystalchild: You should be that excited about it! Vesperia was sooooo amazing!

Thanks me too!

And yeah @ Type-0

I hope they surprise us and say they were stealthily doing the VA process for it since the start of this year. But yeah 50 VA's...if they haven't started the voice acting process yet the result will either be a delayed launch for us, possibly into 2012 or if they rush it bad VA.

The games tone looks very mature as its set in a war and showing things like dead chocobo's etc. So bad VA wouldn't be good for such a tone.

Its going to be the last hurrah for the PSP, but that makes me very worried for its sales, I still hope its ported to 3DS just for the sake of it getting the sales it deserves. It might sell well in Japan but in the west, where even the new GOW/MGS haven't sold that well the game is doomed to bad sales figures.

@darth, u are right about its sales. i think square-enix should announce a 3ds version at e3 this year and release it 6 months after the psp version. i would buy both versions  :)

I'll be so starting Vesperia tomorrow evening, i think they do not release it outside of Japan because of the Blu Ray. they wait until a Moviecompany releases it Worldwide in order to hype the crowd for teh game. :> .. at least i am hyped for it.

if there ever will be an PS3 Version, i'll play it  twice. its that easy. 360 here i come! (after i've passed on you foor like 2 Years lol)

I believe FF TYPE-0 will more likely get a NGP enhanced port then 3DS release.  

who is gonna buy : TALES OF GRACES F , when its released outside japan this year ?

i am :)

does anyone think since all these ps3 hd collections are coming out, that a final fantasy collection with ( FFX,FFX-2 AND FFXII ) is a high probably of coming out by mid-next year at the latest ?