Viva Las Wasteland

It would seem my time in the wasteland is winding down. Like every preceding Fallout, I hit level cap long before I ran out of side crap to do (and boy is there a lot of side crap to do), and that really takes the wind out of my fucking sails. So much so that I found myself sleepwalking through the climactic last few missions where you decide who lives and who dies a horrible death by slideshow and narration.
Yes, the sad part is NV continues the trend of declining ending quality in a series that is otherwise still unpeaked. Even top notch voice work (Cyclops, Whistler, Machete, even Codex to name a few) can't take away the fact that Fallout 1 has a better understanding of the phrase "ending cinematic". I suppose the payoff was supposed to be the gigantic battle in which you not only participate, but decide which side comes out on top (something that was missing in Fallout 3), but all the explosions, gun shots, and dialogue trees in the world can't hold a candle to Liberty Prime bringing justice and hyperbole to the Capital Wasteland in F3.
Still, I hold no grudge against New Vegas (save the bugs). The gameplay is tight, the story is well knit, and the characters are very relevant. Sadly, the best complaint I can make is that there is simply too much to do in the game. Too many avenues to take through every scenario, and just too much content to squeeze into 30 experience levels. I guess this is a marvelous selling point for younger players with more time on their hands, but I've got this big dumb game guide staring me in the face, reminding me at all times just how much game I missed out on while I was enjoying all the other shit I did. There is definately at least one more playthrough in me, but I'll be using it to mop up achievements and exploit the game design not explore and be enthralled.

That said my next conquest will be Enslaved, which I played only for a moment before the guilt of having friends further than me in Fallout drew me back. It'll be interesting to see if it can maintain its momentum, or if I'll just have to restart the 10-15% of the game I started to get back into it.

In other news, those new characters FINALLY got released for Castlevania HoD, the better part of 4 months later. Seriously. 3 months after everybody lost faith, and 2 months after everybody stopped caring, Konami drops content that should've been ready at launch. Let this be a lesson. If you are going to promise dlc, fucking deliver it. And if you need more time, take the goddamned "download content" button of your main menu. Now, this isn't a shot at HoD for being shortsighted, or DLC for being (or not being) a rip off, its a shot at Konami for getting us salivating, and then keeping us waiting until we literally died of starvation. The only people enjoying Julius and Yoko are people who just bought the game last week.