Fallout New Vegas...7 days...

[Random]

Even playing uncomfortably on my laptop (using the touchpad ffs!) it's still very very good fun. I'm roleplaying a Stalinist Mexican, who supports the NCR as the best means of bringing about a People's Republic in the south-west USA. That first moment meeting the Legion, though, in front of the town hall, surrounded by crucified powder gangers. I shit my pants and agreed to do what they told me. And then raided their slaver camp so I'm now vilified by the Legion and two assassins jumped me within minutes.

 

[Random]

Anyone else finding the game a bit too easy? I helped the NCR assault Nelson, and even though there were only three bog-standard troopers in the team we butchered the Legion without having to reload once. Maybe because they had machetes and spears and we had 5.56mm rifles?

 

[ohmyliver]

are you playing it on hardcore mode, and hard difficulty?

 

[Random]

are you playing it on hardcore mode, and hard difficulty?

I have very little time to play so I've turned off hardcore to avoid faffing with my inventory all the time. Maybe I should bump up the difficulty from normal, but a review said that weapon damage is absurdly low, and I can't face the situation in the Fallout 3 endgame where my chinese assault rifle needed about 30 hits to take down an enemy...

 

[Random]

AHHHHH CAZADORS!!!!!!!

 

[tommers]

AHHHHH CAZADORS!!!!!!!

They're such fuckers aren't they?

 

[Random]

They're such fuckers aren't they?

I kept getting wiped out, so went and bought an assault carbine, and now I'm doing OK, although I always end up with two unconscious companions since Boone wades in with a machete, wtf.

 

[8ball]

They're such fuckers aren't they?

They're like the fucking bunny in Monty Python and The Holy Grail!

 

[tommers]

I kept getting wiped out, so went and bought an assault carbine, and now I'm doing OK, although I always end up with two unconscious companions since Boone wades in with a machete, wtf.

Have you taken his gun off him or something?

Not that his gun helps against those bastards. I remember sitting at the end of a gully from a bunch of them, with Boone, and plinking away with a hunting rifle till they could get close enough to sting us both to death repeatedly and then keep stinging our twitching corpses.

Nasty things.

 

[Citizen66]

I've started playing again making completely different decisions than I have previously. What I've noticed is that despite it being open world, it's a very linear game. I started by siding with the powder gangers and wiping out goodsprings. So then you get some quests off the powder gangers. Then you're forced back onto the main quest again. Any attempts to go off exploring where the game doesn't want you to go yet results in getting your arse handed to you by mobs that way exceed your level. So the game is going to be pretty much like before bar a few different decisions like siding with the legion rather than ncr. I hope the next one they make is more along the lines of skyrim/oblivion where you can have two or more completely different play throughs.

 

[Random]

Yes, I noticed that it pretty much sends you round on a rail south and then east and then north, on a rail, herded by deathclaws and pinned in by mountains.

"Herded by Deathclaws" will be the title track of my debut Fallout album, btw.

 

[Citizen66]

Tbf it gets a bit better once you reach new vegas. But it'd still be nice to see a fallout with the same depth as skyrim/oblivion. I'm fairly certain the games are comparatively priced when released.

 

[Random]

Since installing NV I've deleted oblivion and never looked back. NV has beautifully intertwining quests, based on realistic (and absurd) characters, and always several ways of completing the missions, whereas many other RPGs have too many "go here kill that".

So maybe the rather rigid structure of NV is based on the intense amount of scripting that went into it?

 

[8den]

The missus got me FNV 3 and Bioshock 2 for my birthday last year and weren't touched at all. But seeing as I broke my leg a few weeks ago I've found myself with alot of free time.

A) the starting quest pissed me off as it took forever to find the plants. Is this a common part of the game?

B) Do you have to play caravan alot? Not really into playing card minigames.

 

[Citizen66]

A) nope. In fact the tutorial quests are optional.

B) i'm on my third play through and never played caravan as that's entirely optional too (and looked shit. I hate distractive mini games).

 

[Random]

The starting quest with the plants is just to introduce you to the food/medicine crafting feature. I've avoided it 100% ever since. Although now my repair skill is 80 I'm getting annoyed I didn't hoard more Wonderglue and duct tape to make into exciting equipment using the workbenches.

 

[8den]

A) I was more talking about the having to forage for roots and herbs a significant part of the game. It took for fucking ever to find the roots by the school house.

B) Thanks I was getting flashbacks to FF7. I am too fucking old to be arsing around with imaginary card games in fictional worlds.

I loved Bioshock 2, and am cracking my way through Max Payne 3. Fingers crossed I'll have finished off FNV before my cast is off.

 

[Citizen66]

I'm getting a little pissed off with all the mini games in GTAIV which apparently piss NPCs off if you don't play darts / go bowling / on dates / socialise with them.

It's GTAIV ffs. I want to steal cars and kill people not kiss on the back row of the movies.

 

[Random]

What I really really love (apart from one-shotting enemies with a sniper rifle) is the way that speech skill can be used to unlock so much more of the world - in terms of interactions; you can convince people rather than bullying them or stealing from them or killing them. It reminds me of my first fallout 2 playthough, where I accidentally suceeded in a high-level quest early on, since I'd picked a character with good social skills and talked my way into a tribal camp.

And there always seems to be more that I'm missing, for example, because I don't have a high barter or science or medicine, so there's always some reason for developing all the less critical skills.

 

[Citizen66]

Yeah. I tend to set my three special skills as science / a gun one / a speech/barter one and not neglect any. Sneak even comes up as a modifier in dialogue, and medicine.

 

[Random]

What about lockpick? I wish there was some register that kept track of all the locks you skipped. There's lots that I encountered which were too hard for me and that I've forgotten where they were now my skill's 100.

 

[Citizen66]

I used to choose lockpick as a starting speciality but had to neglect speech/barter to do it which I find is more helpful. it's a balancing act for sure.

 

[Citizen66]

I just need to not lose interest before finally playing the four playable expansions I have this time.

 

[8den]

I'm getting a little pissed off with all the mini games in GTAIV which apparently piss NPCs off if you don't play darts / go bowling / on dates / socialise with them.

It's GTAIV ffs. I want to steal cars and kill people not kiss on the back row of the movies.

Yeah when I got a text message saying I stood up a friend for a game of airhockey, and had to pull out my phone in a firefighter and got someone's voicemail I gave up.

Also I'm no longer playing GTA until there's fucking sat nav.

 

[Citizen66]

There is sat nav though...

 

[8den]

There is sat nav though...

No. If there's a mission you get a tiny little map. If I want to go to someone's gaff that isn't a mission I'm on my tod, and the next thing you know I'm going the wrong way down the fucking interstate, and looping one of the shagging islands. If I'm going anywhere. I want to open the map, click on a location and as I drive I want to hear a nice voice saying "at the next junction turn left"

 

[Citizen66]

No. If there's a mission you get a tiny little map. If I want to go to someone's gaff that isn't a mission I'm on my tod, and the next thing you know I'm going the wrong way down the fucking interstate, and looping one of the shagging islands. If I'm going anywhere. I want to open the map, click on a location and as I drive I want to hear a nice voice saying "at the next junction turn left"

You can. Press escape and on the map hold the mouse over where you want to go and press enter to create a way point. To have sat nav permanently on click audio (whilst map is still open) and next to 'gps speech' click so it says 'on'.

Christ, do you always need your hand holding in order to understand a game?

 

[Citizen66]

Besides, you could always pull a cab if driving is too tricky.

 

[8den]

Yes. Explain again what the "A" and "B" buttons do in Super Mario Brothers.


In my defence I only have "The lost and damned" and that gay tony thingy. The instructions are a bit sparse in the manual and I presume that the game assumes you've played GTA IV as well.

Oh and shut up!

 

[Citizen66]

Well there's this thing called the internet...