Scout, did you suggest to Veronica she join the Followers of the Apocalypse? That quest path leads to BoS betrayal. Hence my murderous rampage. I stand by it.

Finished the game, finally. Kimball's speech was so insanely choppy and lagged the first couple times I tried it. Turned off the PS3 for the day, picked up at night, it went better. Only one crash during endgame battle sequences.

Clocked 123 hours and change. The endgame itself was fun but mildly disappointing as I didn't see everyone I had sworn to assist me, such as the Khans. The Remnants all showed up, but only Cannibal Johnson came all the way across into Legion territory with me. I don't want to say much more due to spoilers.

The post-game wrap up is WAY too long... and I wish Ron Pearlman did all the voice overs, not someone from each respective group, or the people themselves. Anyway, pretty minor gripe.

All in all one of the best, most entertaining (not to mention bang for your buck) games I have ever played. The "true" sequel to Fallout 2. Better than Fallout 3 in regards to the quality of the writing, story, and acting. Also prefer the Mojave to the D.C. wastes; that is saying a lot, because I still think Fallout 3 is a bloody wonderful game. The only thing (note: it is A Big Thing) holding back New Vegas from the universally acclaimed status it should have been worth is obviously the lockup, hiccup, and freezing issues. Minor bugs: who cares? The bugs were never the problem, it turns out. I think I know better than the jokers who turned in their "reviews" after 25-30 hour play-throughs. It's definitely the crashing insanity that plagues certain areas (hint: the east) and the framerate death that occurs during certain parts of the game (Westside, Hoover Dam).

I can't wait to play it again with my typical second Fallout "meathead melee character." As noble as I thought some NCR intentions were, their ending is quite dickish: kicking the Followers out of Old Mormon Fort? Annexing Vegas? Was that really necessary? I wish you could sway some larger decisions within factions like that, but once again that's a minor gripe.

I recommend this game to any and all of you, with the one obvious disclaimer that the game will freeze and crash, probably many times on you. Maybe PC is better than PS3, I don't know. At about the 50 hour mark my game had probably crashed less than 10 times. By the end I would have to give an honest estimate of around 35 crashes, give or take a few. In 123 hours. So... you can decide there, at least by one person's experience, whether that to you is worth the risk, or if it is not.

I hope the crashing is addressed in future patches, but I don't think that is too likely. But one can hope.

This is Bethany, Level 30: Guardian of the Wastes, Play Time: 123:25:49, signing off.

I hope it keeps up for you, Kay. As much as I enjoyed the game I would've been able to enjoy it tenfold had so much freezing not occurred.

Good luck.

Fink, two things.

One, I don't think the lack of a cutscene where you expected one is a bug; are you aware that you had to visit the rooftop to see the rocket launch? I don't think it's mandatory, so you could miss it.

Two, the strip, and essentially the "center" of Vegas, is nothing at all like downtown D.C., which was a clusterfuck of doors, zones and passageways. The strip consists of just 3 main zone chunks; the first with a pair of casinos, the middle with another pair, and the last with Vault 21 and an NCR embassy. They are blocked off by giant tin can doors but there isn't even a loading screen pause between zones, just a quick screen fade to black and you're in the next area; no more than 2-3 seconds of loading.

Steerpike, I lived with the crashes, I know I threw out a huge number, but it was almost like they all occurred in massive chunks on maybe 3, 4, or 5 separate occasions of playing, and in very specific zones. I rarely lost much progress because of it; typically you know when a freeze is coming because the game really begins to chop and lag badly. It was just a waste of time is all. I've already started a new character, am about 6 hours in, and don't have a freeze yet. I'm convinced it's entirely exclusive to the eastern part of the map and a few exceptions elsewhere (Westside runs horribly, as do parts of McCarran Airport).

Check the ED-E thread, Pokey.