Sunday, December 5, 2010

When the Going Gets Tough...

...the tough get confused and go do something else for a while.

I've officially put about 68 hours into Fallout: New Vegas, by my Steam account, but about 55 hours into the game according to my saves, because I've done a bit of backtracking and reloading.  Some of that's been due to bugs -- a quest not proceeding as it should (I still can't make the one at the Camp McCarran tower work properly) -- but a lot of it's been down to me being indecisive.

From what I can tell, there are a total of four different quest arcs you can choose from, to reach the end of the game and complete the story.  I know I have no interest in helping the Legion, ultimately, but otherwise I'm still undecided about what the best or worst outcome for New Vegas may be.

And on the one hand I like that the game isn't as clear-cut as Fallout 3 was (Brotherhood good; Enclave bad), and I enjoy that there are a number of different major and minor factions at play.  But on the other hand, I have this burning need to follow all possible roads as far as I can.  I think, for the three or four end-game series that have stages 1 - 7, I can get up to about #3 or #4 on all of them before I have to pick one path and stick with it.  So that's what I'm going to do.  But I can tell it's going to get very tricky...

(In the meantime, folks who like me include the NCR, the Brotherhood, the Strip, the Followers, and a number of towns around the Mojave Wasteland; folks who really can't stand me are mainly just the Legion but I have a safe passage token for them.  The other baddies are not pleased with me but only one of them is kill-on-sight (and not the ones who Vilify me, oddly) so I've been free to explore the map.  Only 8 locations left uncovered!)

7 comments:

  1. I killed Caesar's psychos who crucified the people of Nipton so now I'm in good with NCR and Legion Assassins are tracking me. I thought I'd play my character (Uma McBride) as a sort of Eastwood libertarian who doesn't much care for nation builders, so we'll see how close she really remains to NCR. Not too many bugs so far, just a few crashes and opponents with instant regeneration.

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  2. It's been interesting for me, wandering around and doing pretty much every quest I can find... I feel like the game really does make it hard to decide what's best for everyone, all these people trying to get by...

    Anyway I think the people I would most want in charge can't be in charge so we'll see who I decide should take over. For once, I actually don't think I should be in charge. Usually I do. ;)

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  3. I took the fight to the Power Grangers and wiped out their fort basically as soon as we'd fought them at Goodsprings. They killed Cheyenne. I don't much take kindly to dog harming. I wonder if I precluded any interesting quests by wiping out a faction's base at the first moment though. Now I'm going to focus on making life miserable for the Legion, doing tasks for the townsfolk when I can and for the NCR when I must.

    I'm pretty disappointed with the sound track, btw. No "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance!?" Logical fallacy or not, that's a great gunfighter song.

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  4. The fine citizens of Goodsprings wiped the floor with the Powder Gangers, so I didn't see the need to go chasing them down. I do suspect they still want to kill me (I can't remember if I'm "vilified" or "merciful thug" with them; it might be the latter) but they're the least of my worries these days...

    And yeah, Mr. New Vegas's playlist is surprisingly slim, even as compared to Three Dog's GNR rotation. I suspect they had trouble getting the rights to some songs, or simply didn't want to pay what it would cost.

    (FWIW, in the end your four options are Mr. House, the Legion, the NCR, or Independent Vegas; I've permanently eliminated two options and am wavering still between the other two. And what's your Steam name? I'll add you.)

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  5. A4Phantom ! And I would be honored.

    I'm going to bring the hurt to the Legion because they represent absolute tyranny, but only support the NCR inasmuch as is necessary to fight the Legion. I haven't encountered House yet but I assume that amounts to corporate interests so again, only as an ally against the Legion. Independent Vegas for me!

    WRT music, I think I'm must going to bring my laptop downstairs and play Johnny Cash, Elvis and Carrie Rodriguez. I hate most Country music anyway.

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  6. Ahhhh! Damn the NCR and their inferior IFF procedures! The guy in Legion armor kneeling in the grass picking off Caesar's minions with a supped up Varmint Rifle is not an effin' Legionary!

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  7. I just started playing on a disk bound version. It's imported and I think what is meant by "grey market." It can't update via Steam and I'm trying hard to find the patches available for manual download. I definitely plan on picking fights with the Legion as early and often as I can, though right now I'm appalled at the quality of my weapons and I might have to find weaker human prey to pillage guns from first. Are there Raiders around like in FO3? Or are all armed people members of the Factions?


    (If this is sketchier than you're willing to have discussed on this blog, please delete.)

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