Since the dawn of time, philosophers have
argued about whether a keyboard and mouse is better than a standard controller for playing
games. But as is usually the case with made up things
that didn’t happen, they were asking the wrong questions. What they should’ve been asking themselves
is Can You Beat Fallout New Vegas With A Guitar Hero Controller? Before getting into the game proper, here’s
a brief explanation of how the Guitar Hero controller works with Fallout New Vegas. [cut to Paul who is reporting live from Paul’s
2nd bedroom] After getting up from Doc Mitchell’s bed,
my first task was to use the Vigor tester. Getting to it was easy, activating it was
a different beast altogether, because everything is a mess. The game says Left Trigger, but the Left Trigger
doesn’t exist, and it should be the A button to begin with. I reconfigured it in the game’s controller
settings to make it work, and almost started assigning SPECIAL points. You use the Right Trigger to move through
the attributes. So I quit the game, momentarily remapped another
button, and could finally start assigning points. My only objective is to beat the game. I put 10 points into Luck to boost all skills,
10 in Intelligence to get more Skill Points when leveling up, 7 in Endurance to take some
damage, and left the rest at 4. I then went over to the couch to try and sit
down. I tried. But there was another problem: I can’t actually
look down or crouch. I spent a little while walking around the
couch to see if there was any way to reach it. There wasn’t, and it dawned on me that this
was a horrible idea. For the 2nd time in 10 minutes, I quit the
game and remapped some buttons. Because reloading wasn’t something I was
at all concerned about, I went ahead and made the orange button work overtime without any
extra pay by making it click in the left stick and press X. I may or may not have had to look up the controls
because I’m quite dim. It worked like a charm and was a waste of
time, because I found a spot where I could sit on the couch without crouching. We’re off to a phenomenal start. The skills I chose were Speech, for obvious
reasons, Medicine so that Stimpaks will be as effective as possible, and Melee Weapons
because I had a feeling that trying to aim a gun with a Guitar Hero controller would
be a worthless endeavor. The traits I chose were Skilled to boost all
skills and Good Natured to provide yet another boost to Speech and other non-violent skills. After 25 minutes, I was finally ready to leave
Doc Mitchell’s house. I took a few things from his house, the things
I could look at, like Stimpaks from his dead wife’s chemistry set and a hat. Then I accidentally enabled Hardcore mode
because of course I did. Once I’d made sure I didn’t just have
a heart attack, I disabled Hardcore Mode, and went out in the the Wasteland for the
first time. My first stop was Chet’s store to sell some
things and buy some stuff. Here I found yet another fun little side effect
of using the Guitar Hero controller, the Left Trigger moves to your own inventory, but I
still don’t have a Left Trigger, nor do I have it mapped to any button on the guitar,
so I can’t sell anything. For the time being, I’m stuck with what
I start the game with. While I do a few things around Goodsprings,
let me explain something about the Guitar Hero controller: it sucks. There are a lot of things I can’t do. I can’t jump, I can’t go into 3rd person,
I can’t strafe left or right, I can’t look up or down, I can’t aim down the sights
of a gun, I can’t block attacks, I can’t wait in a location, I can’t pick up items,
like, when you fling them all over the place, I can’t quick-save or quick-load, I can’t
use VATS. And those are just basic control things, you
already saw in Chet’s shop another thing I can’t do. It’s just… it’s such a pain in the ass
to play this way. But I’m doing it anyway. Also, one more thing. About an hour in to the game I started recording
a face cam to show that I’m using the controller. I had it pointed at both me and the screen
for some reason for a little while, but the majority has a pretty standard face-cam view,
so you’ll see it shift at some point. After all that explanation, I can put on my
best frown and leave Goodsprings in the dust. I followed the road for a while, discovered
Jean Sky Diving, ignored a few Powder Gardeners, and found a few animals to kill. The great thing about melee weapons is that
for the most part, you don’t have to have your crosshair directly on your target. If you’re looking in their direction and
they’re within range, you can hit them with your melee weapon. Next to the dead bodies I’d made I found
a Doctor’s Bag, but I couldn’t finagle myself enough to let me grab it. I continued heading Northeast along the road,
eventually switched to the much more adult choo-choo tracks, tried to pickpocket Snuffles,
fixed his leg, and got the rundown from Chomp Lewis about the Deathclaws up ahead. I made a backup save, crouched, and began
sneaking through Deathclaw territory. There was really no convenient way to get
through it. Closing your eyes and power walking as fast
as you can won’t work because tripping over a pebble will turn you into live bait. I stayed low to the ground, stopping every
so often to take a look around to make sure I wasn’t drawing the attention of any Deathclaws,
pressed onward a bit, and let the cycle repeat. I eventually found myself atop Neil’s Shack
with the world looking oddly devoid of color. I’m still not sure why that happened, A
Deathclaw gave me two solid spanks, I barely escaped with my life, took to the rocky cliffs
to regain my composure, kept going, and was eventually out of the danger zone, for the
moment at least, as I arrived at REPCON Headquarters. I stopped for a moment and discovered yet
another thing that doesn’t work properly: fast travel. I can only move the crosshair left or right. By this point, I was numb to it all and welcomed
the extra pain. For the moment though, that’s not an issue
since I’m heading North to the Strip. Outside Camp McCaren, I witnessed a brief
firefight between NCR and a few Fiends. I thought it’d be nice to pick up some new
weapons from the dead Fiends, but when you can’t look down you can’t loot a dead
body. I wasn’t overly concerned with the Fiend
bodies, I was concerned with the NCR soldiers. My plan was to kill an NCR soldier so I could
wear their armor and disguise myself as a solider to take the Monorail inside the Strip. Once I’d realized that idea wasn’t going
to work, I went East and killed the couple that runs the Grub n Slug. Chasing after an opponent is a problem when
your un-equip weapon button is the same button that makes you crouch. They both died though, I continued my journey
to the North, discovered a few locations for some easy experience, and found the remains
of a massacre. There was Combat Armor wrapped around a few
dead bodies, and I got lucky that one of them was near a decline in the Earth, allowing
me to crouch, search his body, and get myself a suit of Combat Armor. Finally something worked in my favor. I kept discovering locations until I got to
North Vegas Square. There were quite a few people in there and
something about them bothered me. I think it was that they were alive. So I whipped out my Grenade Launcher and systematically
annihilated everyone. Once they were no longer in the land of the
living, I left and got back to work discovering more locations around the Strip. I continued my campaign of carnage at Thorn,
I then tried to kill someone with a shotgun, which is by no means easy. With my circular trip around Vegas almost
complete, my last stop was Camp McCaren because I wanted to take one last shot at getting
myself some NCR armor. The general idea was that I’d kill this
Trooper and his body would flop over onto the sandbags so that I’d be able to reach
his body and snag the armor. Didn’t really work out the way I’d hoped
because it didn’t work at all. Still carrying the stench of failure, I continued
making my way back towards the Strip. The radroaches inside the Basincreek Building
succumbed to my machete, I got into a brawl with a Fiend, and went inside Allied Technological
Offices to kill a bunch of giant aunts. They’ve got a mean bite, but they go down
in a few swings and yield a cool 25 experience per ant, making it an opportunity that I couldn’t
pass up. I found another ant in a destroyed barn guarding
the entrance to an Ant Mound. My blinding genius was on full display down
in that hole. There was a mega ant, a Giant Ant Queen some
might say, and I decided in my infinite wisdom that the only way to kill her was with throwing
spears. Because when you’re using a Guitar Hero
controller, throwing spears are just about the most effective weapon at your disposal. She was a tough old beast, taking all the
spears I had and still coming back for more. With no more spears, I threw caution to the
wind and started to throw hands. She fell before me, I exited the ant mound,
and made a beeline for the Strip. I really wanted to sleep on an inviting piece
of cardboard that was on the ground, but I couldn’t figure out how to lay down, so
I kept going until I got to the Strip’s North Gate. Things got real when the bouncer told me I
wasn’t getting in. I told him to chug nitric acid because I was
going in whether wanted me to or not. Gate’s locked though. I knew what I did was wrong, so I let them
kill me. There was no way I was gonna be able to get
my hands on the 2,000 caps needed to pass the credit check, but you can buy a fake passport
for 500 from Mick and Ralph. The easiest job is working as a guard at the
Silver Rush. All you have to do is stand in place, interact
with a few people, be 1 point away passing a Speech check, and you’ve got yourself
200 caps. Spend a few days trekking out East to deliver
a package to a suspicious gentleman, and you’ve got yourself 200 more caps. With my pockets rattling like crazy, I went
to Mick n Ralph’s to see about getting a fake passport. That fun little problem where I can’t look
down reared it’s ugly head again because Mick is sitting down. He stood up after a few minutes, told me that
I’d need 500 caps to get a fake passport, and I was 72 caps short. I’d exhausted all other options, this was
my only way into the Strip. So once again I quit the game, messed with
the controls to let me sell a few things and buy a passport, then quit the game to reset
my controls back to their previous horrible state. I’d gone through hell, but I finally arrived
on the Strip to exact revenge upon Benny. Because I didn’t want to risk having to
kill Benny with my bare hands and having his body land on the floor, out of reach, I pulled
out my Grenade Launcher and blew up the Chairmen loitering around the Tops entrance. I had to be careful with Benny, I needed him
to die on the stairs so I’d be able to ransack his corpse. It took some trial and error, but I bopped
him good, took back what I decided a few minutes ago was mine, and went to get Yes Man’s
quest line started since his is the easiest of the four options. Inside the Lucky 38, I went ahead and got
my payment from Mr House before I invaded his personal space by forcing my way into
his basement. Once I took him out of the equation, I leveled
up, raised Medicine up to 99 since Speech has been at 100 for a while, met up with Yes
Man at the Tops again to let him know that Mr House’s time was up and his time was
now, and began the process of meeting the various factions spread across the Mojave. The White Gloves were up first because I despise
them the most. I got a few good chops on the Greeter and
covered my machete in his life, then a bunch of bullies ganged up on me and killed me because
aiming a Plasma Rifle in this nightmare is difficult. Round 2 saw me killing the greeter again then
go for Mortimer and finally Butters. For some reason I used my shotgun on the lunatics
that were crowding me, but with my work in the Ultra Luxe done, I left and gambled with
my life at Gomorrah. This one’s easier, just refuse to hand over
your weapons, fire a few shots, and you’re done. The three remaining factions: the Brotherhood
of Steel, Boomers, and Great Khans are all significantly further away. I decided to go deal with the Boomers first
because it’s pretty much a straight shot to the North East with not a lot in the way. I thought it’d be rough navigating through
their bombardment, but it wasn’t too bad. There are a few spots where you can hide to
avoid their artillery fire and there’s enough time between rounds that you can get to cover
even with a Guitar Hero controller. Just like with the Omerta’s at Gomorrah,
all you really need to do is make contact with the Boomers and then you can decide to
ignore them. After I dealt with the Boomers, I set my sights
on the Great Khans. There’s a road west of the Strip that runs
south towards Red Rock Canyon, but Fiends and other baddies infest it in several locations,
so I took to the Rocky Mountains to stay as safe as possible. It’s surprisingly manageable to make your
way up and over them without jumping. A little tedious, but not difficult. I avoided the Big Horners, arrived in Red
Rock, spoke to Regis and made a groundbreaking discovery that nearly gave me an aneurism. I can’t move the crosshair on the World
Map up or down, but I can move it side to side, and it doesn’t need to be directly
on a location to let me fast-travel to it. If you’re close enough, it’ll be the selected
area. So I can make my way south via fast-travel
by picking locations that are just slightly further south than my current location. This is why I discovered all those locations
earlier. It wasn’t actually, it was just dumb luck
that I happened to do that in this video. My next objective was Hidden Valley to meet
the Brotherhood of Steel. Getting there requires that I pass through
Deathclaw territory again. The small upside is that this time I’m a
bit more comfortable with the control scheme, allowing me to get to the Bunker without any
significant issues. The Brotherhood are freaks who make all newcomers
strip naked to meet the leader who then puts an explosive collar on them. How sick does a person have to be to put an
explosive collar on someone before telling them to go somewhere and do something. I had a slight problem getting the Elder to
speak because he was sitting. I got lucky and pickpocketed him, he caught
me, but didn’t go red. I took advantage of the small window of time
he gave me and spoke to him to get my mission. I knew that the quest he gave me could be
handled easily with a high enough Speech skill, so I left and was told my belongings are in
a chest. Huh. That’s an intersting development. All my stuff is on the floor in a box I can’t
access. In any other playthrough, I might just ignore
it and press forward, but not this one. I’m not going to the Hoover Dam without
any armor, weapons, or Stimpaks. I backtracked a bit to just before I got abducted
by the Brotherhood and left the Bunker to continue my plan. The solution is actually rather simple: get
Veronica as a companion so I can enter the Bunker with my clothes on and not have my
belongings stuffed into a box. She’s at 188 Trading Post, which is a short
journey North along a road. And on my way there, a few things happened. The first was that I came across Neil’s
dead body which I could actually loot. He had a Rebar Club that I used in place of
my ol’ Machete. I discovered the El Dorado Substation and
entered a field of Ants. These ants are all feisty, like they’ve
got ants in their pants or something. Despite their ferocity, they don’t stand
a chance again my Rebar Club. Even the biggest of ants goes down in a few
swings. After a brief conversation I gave the Lonesome
Drifter a wallop, and because I was curious, I went to Boulder City to see if Jessup has
any unique dialog options now that Benny’s dead. He doesn’t, I convinced him to give up the
hostages and leave peacefully, and traveled to 188 Trading Post where I got Veronica as
my companion and used that Fast-Travel technique I mentioned earlier to get to the Bunker again. Veronica got me in, my interactions with the
Brotherhood were complete, and I slowly fast-traveled my way back up north to the Strip. With everything ready, I spoke to Yes Man
again and had one last thing to do. As I left the Lucky 38, I noticed that Veronica
was standing in place. This is because companions automatically wait
when you go to the Penthouse. And guess what, I can’t get her back. My limited inputs only allow me to choose
2 of the 8 options on the companion wheel, neither of which are the wait/follow toggle. Alone again, I headed back to El Dorado where
I mopped the floor with all the NCR soldiers guarding the exterior of the building, went
inside, powered up the substation, returned to the Strip, the Tops specifically since
there’s a bed in Benny’s room that I can actually reach, slept, and returned to Yes
Man again. The end is near, all that’s left is to take
part in the 2nd battle of Hoover Dam. It’s worth mentioning that I’d taken the
Toughness perk twice in my travels, upping my base damage threshold to 6. I’ve also still got the Combat Armor, making
the Nerf darts fired by the Centurions nothing to be concerned about. Inside the Offices, I quickly dispatched of
2 armor-clad NCR soldiers, installed Yes Man’s override chip, and started clearing out a
few of the Legion and NCR soldiers inhabiting the offices as I made my way towards the power
flipper. Also, Veronica is back because of the way
the game handles this end-game section. I pressed the switch, overrode the generators,
and it did too good of a job because it crashed my game. It worked the 2nd time, the robot, Veronica
and I went back outside and began the final push towards the Legate’s Camp. I tried once to take on a group of Centurions,
but they overwhelmed me pretty violently. Upon reloading a save, I accidentally smashed
Veronica skull with my Club, I successfully fought off a few Centurions, and entered the
Legate’s Camp. The first Praetorian went down 2 swings. The next one few tried to take advantage of
me with their powerful fists, but it didn’t work out the way they thought it would, and
I was finally face-to-face with the Legate. Since the beginning I’ve been planning for
a diplomatic victory, and for once my plan worked out exactly as intended. General Oliver arrived, I told Yes Man to
throw him off Hoover Dam, and I beat Fallout New Vegas with only a
Guitar Hero controller.
