I finished Fallout: New Vegas on my Xbox 360. For the record, I am doing something of a marathon I covered in the last thread:
First Post
>>300677
Last Post
>>311811
Archive:
https://archive.md/TJfAY
I also documented my musings in the Friday Night threads:
Thread one
https://archive.md/MgxcK
Thread two(current one)
https://archive.md/AubWu
>What is this?
I essentially made a build and am testing it in every single Fallout game I can think of, in the chronological timeline of events(not chronological release of games themselves). I am also counting full overhaul mods like Fallout Nevada, London and New California into the equation on top of the official titles. I think I already covered the build itself in one of my earlier posts, essentially I am running a pacifist-diplomat that tries resolving every conflict peacefully. If I can't resolve a conflict using speech, stealth, barter/bribes or some other non-combat skill(Fallout 3 was full of combat encounters with little in the way of alternative solutions, for example, as was Fallout Tactics) and am forced into combat, I have a Leadership build that has companions vaporize enemies for me, and my character himself is forbidden from using guns, only able to use unarmed/melee/thrown and various utility items like the Dart Gun or Pulse Gun. How I distributed SPECIAL/skills I must have already covered in one of my earlier posts, so I heavily encourage you to read my previous posts if you're interested, I am not going to rehash previous playthrus unless they're relevant and instead continue off from my Fallout 3 post I made a couple of weeks ago.
Fallout New Vegas is the last of my little departure back to the Xbox 360, which I spend the last 3 or so months on. It was a wonderful time and I am glad my Xbox still works just as well as it did before, minus one minor scare I had when I got Red Ring of Death a little while back. I thought that was it but I fired the system up again and it worked like a charm, at it's age I am not surprised but if I encounter an RRoD again in the future it might be time to start doing some serious maintenance work on the system. The console probably overheated in this climate, not much that can be done about it.
New Vegas is a monumental improvement over Fallout 3 in pretty much every way, every problem I had with that game was fixed in New Vegas and I had a much more comparable experience to the isometric titles. Game is designed as a proper RPG rather than an Oblivion mod, combat is more balanced(and actually difficulty in early-middle game), resource management is a bigger problem in the game(even if you still collect more items than you will ever need by the end, plus Hardcore Mode adds more complexity to the system by adding weight to ammo and forcing players to eat/drink regularly), there is a ton more alternative solutions to encounters, including pacifist ones and the introduction of Unarmed skill moves greatly improves me experience, as does the addition of Pulse Gun, Flare Gun and Compliance Regulator as tools melee users can utilize to make their playthrus more interesting. The latter proved vital to this playthru, being able to stun any enemy upon scoring a critical hit made even the toughest encounters a cakewalk, most notably reducing Quarry Junction into an easy stroll as my character smashed the skulls of Mother and Alpha Male Deathclaws with his foot, as if squashing a roach, as they laid helpless on the ground. To a lesser extent there is the new KO system, but I think it is underutilized, for example melee weapons like Cattle Prod knockout enemies in more time and hits than it takes to kill them with proper weapons so what's the point? There are Flashbangs introduced in one of the DLCs but they didn't work out nearly enough and their stockpile is limited so I couldn't reliably knockout enemies from afar. Not that it really mattered, with just Love & Hate as well as War Club from one of the DLCs I was able to solo the entire game, I was worried that OP weapons I modded into my New California playthru might have muddied the waters, but it's good to know that this build is just straight up OP even with the weapons the devs intended you to have. Love & Hate bring me back to my London playthru where I modded these in and used them as my MVPs in the end game, my Courier even wears a face mask(Legion Recruit Helmet) like my Wayfarer did. On the thrown weapon front, I found that the game has been balanced to never give you too many of them, Spears are mainly limited to how many Legion soldiers you can kill and with the exception of Dynamite(if you side with Powder Gangers) and Frag Grenades(if you are friendly with the Legion) there is no reliable way to farm high level explosives like Plasma Grenades. This made them an occasional power weapon rather than a main means of doing damage as opposed to Fallout 3 that gave you a retarded amount of Frags thanks to the Outcast Collection Quest, however towards the middle of the game I got my first companion and they generally had my back at a distance. Towards the end, I even pulled an exploit to hire all my companions at once like in New California or Fallout 2 playthru, which turned my little group into a task force and brought out the Leadership build in full. One last note on combat, I had an overstock of poisons since I never really had any use for them. I only used them in three encounters:
>My first Legion hit squad since I was very low leveled
>Quarry Junction
>Hoover Dam Battle
Generally, I could do just fine with just beating stuff up or blowing them up, I figure if I went into one of the tougher DLCs I might have needed them, but I had little use for poisons in this playthru. I should add that I like the feature and they can be very useful, but if a no-guns/melee build can't make them viable, nothing will.
Speaking of DLCs, it's not a secret that the game has some of the best in the entire genre. Each one is worth going thru in it's own way, either for the gear it provides or for the narrative. I completed all of them but Lonesome Road in my New California playthru, this time around I only went to Honest Hearts for my gear and halfway thru Lonesome Road for ED-E upgrades and more gear(Ulysses told me I could go home at any time, so I did). I only went to Old World Blues in NC playthru so I could use The Sink as my playerhome so I had no need to go there this time around(I used an out of bounds exploit to travel to Legate's Camp early and I made my playerbase there), and I was going to do Dead Money for Sierra Madre Armor Reinforced, the best Light armor in the game, but I decided to just keep using Joshua Graham's Armor for +3% to Critical Chance since Compliance Regulator is so OP. Even without the DLC the game has a good variety of content, but some of the more fun bits of equipment can only be found there. As I said, I was impressed with how many more quests could be resolved without bloodshed than in Fallout 3, despite my character being possibly the most skilled martial artist I had during this marathon with maybe the exception of The Chosen One, who became a New Reno Prizefighter and San Francisco Champion despite being Jinxed. The game rewards those who do not shoot NPCs, raise non-combat stats and actually use some common sense to realize what they need to do, hell even the final boss can be talked down instead of being fought(which is what I did). This is why I spend most of the game not even bothering with raising combat skills and just focusing on Speech/Barter/Science and similar skills so I could resolve quests quicker and more easily. This did run into a hitch early on when I helped out Powder Gangers and became a wanted by both Legion and NCR hit squads, it wouldn't be until completing the first act of the main story(which I only did much later) until I got a pardon, so I was hounded by some of the toughest human NPCs in the game straight out of Goodsprings, pretty much. Surprisingly, this didn't matter much due to level scaling, meaning that these NPCs were using crappy early game weapons, as well as the arse shattering power of Love & Hate, I must have beaten the shit out of my first NCR Veteran Rangers and Legion Centurions before I even reached level 15. This early boost of confidence did help in building my character into who he was, slowly becoming known as a monster thru out the Mojave as he helped out bandit factions like Powder Gangers and Great Khans, until both NCR and Legion were forced to give me a pardon. NCR was smart and paid me for my work, so we stayed friends(and eventually I became Idolized by them), where as Ceasar made a mistake of trying to make me his bitch so I killed him towards the end of the game for free Boone loyalty points. Funnily enough, with how the reputation system works, since I did some quests for the Legion when I was friendly with them, even killing Ceasar didn't have the faction sending hit squads after me again since my reputation was too high for it and it couldn't go any lower. Real curiosity, since the reason why Legion wanted me dead before the pardon was for freeing a few Powder Gangers and killing a couple of green Recruits. I guess they got scared off, considering I wore Joshua Graham Armor, and thought he came back from the dead to kill Ceasar or something. I sided with House, just like in my New California playthru, since I figure my character likes the luxury and money The Strip has to offer(and he still hasn't forgiven The NCR for wanting him dead). Yes Man feels like a cop-out so I barely do that playthru, but I like the idea of the protagonist having a backup plan in case House(or some other faction) doesn't deliver on their side of the deal after the events of the game, an ace up their sleeve.
Now would be a good time to talk about the biggest flaw with the game: the jank, performance issues and bugs. Fallout 3 had it's share, but it looks not just downright stable but also complete in comparison to New Vegas. My playthru was plagued with crashes, glitches, asset loading issues and oddities, script errors, I could go on. Several quests could not be completed due to busted triggers(most notably Raul's companion quest not popping up the final conversation to end it, which is notorious for only being able to be completed if you do it in a very certain way without talking to 3 NPCs before meeting him, with one being critical to the main story. In my 16 years of playing the game, I have never completed this quest for this reason). The game is very obviously unfinished and you can see that even if you play the game for the first time, youtube channel Triangle City does a good job diving into this kind of content if you're interested in learning more. Lastly, the unmodded version of the game on consoles have some very glaring technical problems, which include consistent crashes and slowdown, and that's after all the patches, it was even worse at launch. I can't blame the age of my Xbox here since I remember most of these issues being present years ago as well. This is not acceptable and I can see why Obsidian were criticized for the state the game is in, as much as I love what's in there I think cutting out some content and polishing what's left would go a long way. The only game that was less stable than this was the 1.0 release of Fallout London that had a ridiculous amount of crashing, I wager over 100 crashes over the course of my playthru, New Vegas didn't come anywhere close to that but I did get at least a dozen over the course of 80+ hours easy. Thankfully, all this and more can be fixed on PC, but I think it's important to remember the awful state the game launched in, most people don't and it's a shame since even at it's worst, it's still a fantastic experience despite the issues. The mods dilute the experience, no matter how many improvements they bring, and I am glad I was able to give the original a go again, especially after playing thru unmodded Fallout 3 right beforehand so I could appreciate the changes Obsidian made in such a short amount of time.
Lastly, I just want to touch on the writing in the game. It is so refreshing to play a Fallout title that treats the player like an adult again, Fallout 3 felt like a cartoon more than anything and it seems every quest outside the main storyline took place in it's own wacky little world: Go find Nuka Cola for the crazy lady living all alone with a horny guy that wants to fuck her, and somehow hasn't raped her at gunpoint yet because that would be rude! Oh look, there is a battle between a super hero and a supervillain in a town with zero economy that shouldn't exist, maybe you should go kill them!(or talk them down, if you're feeling fancy). There is a talking tree that ends up being revealed to be a character from the original titles that has absolutely no reason to be on the East Coast, isn't that cool? Just don't ask why there are so many trees in this one location in the game and why there is zero living trees elsewhere in the game, world design is hard! Yeah, there is none of that here, there is real factions and real people and you always know their motivations, how they make their living, their relationship with other towns and factions, and most of these NPCs are grounded and act like real people. Cartoon encounters are largely relegated to Old World Blues DLC and Avellone's OC Ulysses, whom I am guessing was supposed to be some sort of badass but just ends up sounding like a disgruntled politisperg constantly whining about BEAR and BULL. On the other side of the DLC spectrum, Dead Money and Honest Hearts have phenomenal writing and world building, I only played thru Honest Hearts right now but I really wish there was more of it. Daniel is a whiny little bitch and I doubt there is anyone in the fandom who actually likes him, but everyone else(Joshua Graham front and center) were great to be around and it made me wish for a future title or a mod set in Utah, so we could get more tribal politics and mormon missionaries, not to mention beautiful landscapes filled with nature instead of the tired old desert setting. Faction relations in the base game are also something to be commended on, factions like Powder Gangers and Great Khans could use more content but even they are fleshed out and feel like they belong, where as in Fallout 3 it felt like everything existed solely around the player: The karma bounty factions did nothing until an arbitrary point where you were too evil/good, and only then did they became part of the game, Brotherhood only exist to be good guy paladins to help you kill the bad guys Enclave who are evil for no reason, and there is barely any other active factions in the game. Hell, you don't even know what the hell people in DC eat since there is zero functioning farms. Ironically enough, the only faction that has any real worldbuilding would be Brotherhood Outcasts, and they are intentionally written to be just like the classic Brotherhood. Suffice it to say, NCR/Legion/Strip wipe the floor with even them, from the moment my character progressed far enough in the story till the end I felt like I was part of a bigger conflict, I had to carefully wage my options in order not to piss off one faction too much(like I did at the start) and generally, it felt like I was making progress in the grand scheme of things with every minor and major quest done. This lead to the climax at the Hoover Dam, where the final encounter with Lanius felt like a natural progression towards the end, despite me meeting this NPC for the first time minutes before the end of the game. There is no comparison to how Fallout 3 fumbled the main quest and writing, especially before the Broken Steel DLC which was needed just to make the story of the vanilla game make sense. It is a shame that this Obsidian is dead, no doubt if the rumors of them being in charge of the next Fallout game are true, there is no way we will get anything near this quality, we can expect something more akin to Outer Worlds and Avowed.
Overall, this was a very enjoyable playthru and one of my better recent ones with this build. My enjoyment was only mired by some technical issues, but they were not enough to get me to stop playing. I would like to note that New Vegas is a perfect summer game, between it's desert setting and warm colors I found myself being more immersed than normally in this heat, hell I even went a step above and bought some Sarsparilla to sip on as I played. If it's not apparent enough already, even in it's primal, most broken state, the game is very much worth playing and still superior to Fallout 3. I recommend anyone who played New Vegas before to give the original game a try, maybe not on a console but a playthru without any mods(yes, even quality of life ones) on PC. I found this to be a refreshing experience that ended up being very nostalgic, altho just being able to sit down and still play my Xbox at all like in the old days alone proved to be a great experience. As for what's next for me, since I played Fallout 3 and New Vegas in their original, unmodded states, the only way forward is to play them both modded and see how much various fan fixes and extra content improve an already solid foundation. I am talking about Tale of Two Wastelands, of course, a monumental playthru since I will be playing both games at the same time, most notably fixing every single Fallout 3 gameplay related problem since the game uses New Vegas mechanics as a base. This one is going to take me a little while to finish, but I am still pumped up even after all the hours spend in the other 3D titles. As much as it was a unique experience going back to vanilla, I am very much looking forward to all the new improvements I installed over the years to fix the games, not to mention smooth 60+ FPS and much more powerful hardware to play the game on. Still, outside of this Fallout marathon, I am thinking about going back to my Xbox eventually to play games I didn't get a chance to back in 7th gen, assuming it doesn't crap out on me, but that's something to think about in the future. My recent Operation Darkness playthru proved to be refreshing not just because it was something different to Fallout, but it also made me curious what other forgotten gems are on that console.