Continuing the tradition of playing and reviewing old games, here's New Vegas from 15 years ago. Now I played Fallout 4 a couple of years ago, and I thought I'd skip New Vegas. 76 is out of the question, MMO trash. But then the Fallout tv series happened, and that's clearly the Vegas outline at the end. So I just had to play through this as well, to experience the story and understand why fans were so upset at the nuking of Shady Sands.
Well let me tell you, this is Fallout as I love it. Keeping the trend, I made a female character called Lucy. This is her outfitted with an explosive collar.
The story in short: some guy shoots you in the head, you survive and go find him. It escalates quickly.
The graphics are old, but the vistas are still great.
But first, the wacky stuff.
Fallout wackiness
There's also propaganda on display in museums.
There's innuendos. (Don't worry, NPCs will also swear explicitly when the situation dictates.)
And other funny messages, if you look around.
Take the Wild Wasteland trait, and there's easter eggs.
Like this Monty Python reference in a Legion encampment.
In between all the doom and gloom post apocalyptic quest line, there's one where you make young lovers meet. It took a good bit of back and forth, but the awkward dialogue was totally worth it.
And there's a suspiciously similar quest but the lovers are a prostitute and a mob thug. And yes, you can solicit her as payment.
There's a sizable duration you spend in New Vegas (or at least, I did). The high rollers act suspiciously appropriate for the current times.
Even the robots try to be sexy.
There's also more prostitutes, including ghouls and a sex robot. Did I hire both? Absolutely. Am I proud of that? ...ugh, no?
Sex scenes just fade to black, but the cowboy ghoul hooker does make some growling noises.
Whereas the sex robot aptly named Fisto will make drilling noises.
Speaking of prostitutes, female characters can take the Black Widow perk for extra dialogue options with male NPCs. Such as this line of dialogue, when confronting the guy who shot me in the head, to get him laid.
Then there's an appropriately long sex scene in black.
And then the option to kill Benny in his sleep. Which I did.
And finally, there's occasional visual bugs to spice things up.
Companions
Go through all their dialogue, there's some spicy lines in there. Yes I do love Veronica and she's my favorite.
Robot companions don't talk much.
You can see them socialize but nothing actually happens. This could have been a great addition, but the game is already packed with content.
Obligatory insane super mutant companion.
I did all their quests excluding poor Arcade who I got too late.
Character development
I admit that I frequently consulted a fan made wiki; nobody has time for trying out several builds. But without the hardcore option, the game is quite easy (except when a random raider has a missile launcher and one-shots you). Well, that is if you do everything there is to do and max out your character.
In tradition with older playthroughs, I took the Mysterious Stranger perk.
I generally played a good character, but karma is dirt cheap if you start killing Fiends and Legionaries. Which I did. So I occasionally went for a better paying option.
There's challenge perks. This one is pretty easy to get as long as you play the game.
When in doubt, take ALL the chems.
Other interesting quests
Let's see. Shoot ghouls into outer space (on purpose, they follow some religion that tells them this is how they escape). Work through the vaults you discover, including one with a moral experiment: to continue their life, a person must be sacrificed each year. That was chilling. Another has standard bio experiments. Sure, let's combine spores, praying mantises and mind control. Nothing bad can happen.
Deathclaws are a lot smaller compared to Fallout 4 but no less deadly. I sweated through the quest that needed me to kill them in their lair.
Factions
Caesar's Legion is a bunch of assholes. Especially if you play a woman.
I did not screenshot it, but a female slave in the camp told me to take care, as she heard legionaries talking about trying me out. I was never this repulsed in my life.
On the other hand, the NCR is a bunch of dearies. Even with the politicking, infighting and occasional corruption, the game still pushes you in this direction.
Everybody else is okay, I guess. Given that you can dress in faction clothing, as long as you don't walk into an NCR town wearing legion armor, the faction system itself did not affect much.
The main questline
As is tradition, I did everything else before doing the main quest. Poor Benny would have had zero chances in a firefight, even if he hadn't died in his sleep. And then no spoilers, but I took the side of the NCR. Who could have guessed. Mr. House can suck on it.
Ending(s)
So based on the above exhibits, Legion ending excluded and Mr. House can still suck on it. I did not see my character as a settler/overlord, so I went with the NCR. Little dearies.
Alright, cool, I deserved that. During the final battle I took all the guns with me but no spare armor, and my cool gear broke down halfway, so I had to carry my minigun in my underwear.
Now, for the various little guys I worked with/for during the game. Like this old ghoul. Companions with completed questlines all get an ending, but some are basically unachievable if you don't get them early and stick with them throughout the game. Unless you consult the wiki.
Good for them.
I was genuinely sorry for the Brotherhood, but I had to do it for the NCR.
Poor Veronica. Still my favorite companion.
Just because I did not slaughter my way through their occupied vault, the Fiends remained a major power.
Too bad for these guys. Spoiler: they always get the short end of the stick.
Small towns doing alright.
Cass was kind of useless, but I liked her attitude. Note: I would be totally incompatible with her in real life. She's like Cait in Fallout 4.
Playing into my speechcraft, I felt compelled to solve everybody's problems. Including the super mutants.
Lily was cute (and terrifying).
I laughed a lot at this Elvis impersonator gang.
I didn't really care about the robot dog, and I only got a replacement brain by accident.
I didn't care about these guys either, but I somehow stumbled into their questline.
Novac was my preferred home and storage unit, so too bad for them.
Looks like the ghouls not launched into space came back. Ironic, given that the townsfolk hired me to get rid of them.
Old soldiers never quit. This guy was fun.
"the last thing they never saw"
I did not find this vault, so I guess the gangers lived?!
Another small town.
The best companion ever.
And so I walked into the sunset.
...aaaand goosebumps.
OK, cool. This was my canonical ending. But I did want to see what would happen if I went rogue.
Ending 2: independent New Vegas
Yeah fuck all those guys.
Again good for them.
As I said, they always get the short end.
At least Goodsprings got what it deserved for helping me out of my grave.
Cass still ride or die.
Most companions' ending staid the same, except small changes here or there.
Goosebumps all the way
So yeah, this is how you end a proper RPG. This was very reminiscent of the slideshow at the end of Rogue Trader. Unlike that dumpster fire Mass Effect ending I'm sure we all remember from way back.
The battle for the dam, which was the last quest, was pretty good. Now I'm sure it could have been fiddled with somehow, stealthed through or whatnot, but my girl was an expert in guns, and by all that's holy, I blazed through the Legion. Ironically, the independent fight was a lot easier. Not only did I get power armor off some NCR soldiers I murdered (with the holy hand grenades no less), but the Securitrons were stronger allies than the NCR soldiers previously. Note that the Legion encampment was harder though; probably because I did not kill them all in the dam.
But even carrying my minigun in my underwear and jacked up on all the chems in my inventory, I loved walking round the dam. And the WW2 bomber zooming overhead and dropping bombs was the highlight of it all.
Definitely loved it, give it a thumbs up.
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