Fallout New Vegas In Retrospect - The Tale of Lucky Lopez

nestled in the dark waste of the mojave lies a city a city of lights and promises that are meant to disguise the dark deceptions that could topple kings and nations it is here we meet the protagonist of our story an intrepid courier who just happened to find himself hauling something of tremendous value to certain people he will quickly find himself wrapped up in events caught between great powers locked in a cold war caught between degenerates and new gooders and simply caught between the wasteland and its victims this is the story of lucky lopez and the war for new vegas from where you're kneeling must seem like an 18-carat run of bad luck [Music] truth is the game was rigged from the start [Music] you're awake how about that whoa easy there easy you've been out cold a couple of days now why don't you just relax a second get your bearings let's see what the damage is how about your name can you tell me your name contrary to what fancy suit says lopez is quite lucky for starters well he's not dead he'd been ambushed just outside of good springs a helpful little settlement where a handy doctor and an equally handy robot reside after getting shot being buried half alive lopez was dug up and brought over to the good doctor the bullet having randled a lot of lopez's gray matter has left him sort of confused doc mitchell helps lopez remember some things like what he's good at which ends up being shooting getting through locks and talking to people despite having a creepy psychotic episode the doctor considers lopez fit enough to be turned loose into the mojave but not before telling him what literally has been able to gather from the events of the past few days and a delivery note that the kur had been carrying when he'd been dug up if he's looking to settle things with the men who ambush him the doc suggests lopez meet up with some of the people of good springs it turns out getting shot in the head is a pretty good motivator to start getting [ __ ] done because lopez wastes no time shaking down every person in town for details on the ambush including the friendly cowboy robot who had dug him up he directs lopez to the graveyard just outside of town where he finds some cigarette butts left by the man in the checkered suit the soon-to-be dead man who shot lopez and made off with the weird platinum chip he apparently had been contracted to deliver to new vegas though all the details have been lost thanks to that bullet all you can vividly recall at this point is the jackass in the suit and his two leather-wearing goons sonny smiles who is also a fan of black leather but fortunately more helpful is kind enough to reintroduce lopez to one of his passions in life shooting things with guns she hooks him up with a rifle some ammo and a handful of caps after he helps her clear out some mutant geckos that keep harassing the villagers at the water well after killing the geckos and even saving one of the villagers from being eaten to death he makes it back to the town only to run smack into another [ __ ] of the wastes joe cobb is found threatening to barkeep or trudy demanding the town turn over ringo someone he and his gang known as the powder gangers believe is being sheltered in good springs a truly being used to the blastery criminal types basically tells cop to [ __ ] off feeling a sense of debt to the town that literally saved his life and getting the sense the powder gangers are no better than the [ __ ] who shot him a few nights earlier lopez agrees to get involved between him sunny smiles and ringo who is hiding in the abandoned gas station at the back of town they managed to rally most of the town to form a decent militia to fight off the pack of criminals that are surely to descend on the town once board gets back to the main group that good springs won't turn over ringo a big shootout ensues and the gangers get their [ __ ] kicked in hard by the armed and armed militia ringo who turned out to be a no-nonsense traitor who turned some gangers into swiss cheese on the road leading to good springs is please he bids the town farewell and offers up a reward to lopez telling him to look him up if he's ever in the crimson caravan compound outside of new vegas with the town safe his debt settled a fresh lead on his haunt and a good ass kicking to lift the spirits lopez heads off towards the town of prim this is a fantastic introduction to this game the whole getting jumped robbed and then shot in the head thing well not incredibly original on its own really works well with this game for several reasons first off it's just thematically relevant in a game set in las vegas which was at one time a very dangerous city rife with violence theft and corruption we will see obsidian really wanted to make that the general vibe of their game which also fits perfectly in a post-apocalyptic setting when i originally played the game i really took the wild west cowboy motif at face value and thought that that was the game's primary thing it sort of beats you over the head with it early on from the accents the fact that good springs is some backwater trading station to victor the robot having a cowboy personality but going back this time around with a character that's all about getting lucky i actually think topics like luck fortune and cheating are much more of what defines this game's vibe and in service to those topics the hunt for our would-be murderer fits rather perfectly it's also a great way to believably introduce the player into a story without making the story about the player they are just another pawn and a game of 4d chess being played by factions we're barely familiar with we know the platinum trip is important someone tried killing us for it but we have no idea why it's important and who else it holds value for we got all these questions now and the story is immediately about getting answers to those questions and i'm just a huge sucker for stories that are all about traveling and learning hey where the hell do you think you're going prim is off limits some convicts from the prison up the road have taken over the town everyone inside is either dead or in hiding what's more there are two tribes or raiders causing trouble in this area as well you'd be safer heading back up to good springs we'd love to they don't fall under ncr jurisdiction even if they did we're in no shape to protect them we don't have the equipment to take out the convicts and even if we did we need some extra hands for backup this is going to complicate things for lopez knows the many after are holed up in prim but getting in is going to be kind of difficult he heads over to the command 10 and chats up the officer in charge of the ncr outpost there but he has a little advice offer only complains about how slow communication and resupply is this far from the ncr bases it would seem the great and powerful ncr is having troubles of their own and mohavian this is how they managed to have a prison break that has resulted in the powder ganger is coming to be if he's going to get answers it's going to be up to him to get into town this turns out to be a lot more easier than the ncr soldiers were letting on as there's only a grand total of three gangers patrolling the streets of prim and none of them seem to be great shots though they do have their dynamite that they love to toss around still with them dead lopez is able to explore the town unhindered finding the remainders of the town folk hiding in one of the casinos johnson nash seems to be the one calling the shots around here and he is able to clue lopez into what's been going on the powder gangers rolled through after having organized themselves and killed a town sheriff and captured his deputy he also informs him that he's the head of the mojave express branch there and lopez asks about the job that he'd been tasked with nash admits that job was very strange and that victor the friendly cowboy robot was the one who hired all the couriers six quarters were hired in total and each given some strange item to go deliver five of them made it to their destinations but lopez's delivery never made it obviously so here we got answers just spawning even more questions he said he did notice a man in a funny suit with a couple of great cons rolling through town but the only person who might know more about them is the hostage deputy so it's across the street to the larger casino to mount a rescue operation lopez blasts his way to the deputy and freeze him but when the deputy attempts to flee instead of finishing off the powder gangers in the hotel lopez threatens to shoot the deputy himself if he doesn't tag along successfully cowed he and the deputy make it upstairs where another big shootout with remaining gang members breaks out fortunately for the deputy he was uh not in the greatest condition health-wise after being tied up for several days and lopez didn't exactly think of that until the deputy was lying dead on the hotel carpet oh well he sells his journal on him and in it the deputy posthumously informs lopez that fancy suit was heading up the highway towards nipton on their way to meet up with someone in novak so that's where lopez will be heading but not before handling some business around here nash insists they need a new lawman in town now that the sheriff and his deputy are dead otherwise the gangers will just come right back not being a big fan of the guys and wanting to wipe out as many of them as he can lopez agrees to help one of the gangers up at the prison where the original breakout occurred was a former sheriff and as dubious as that might sound it's not a bad deal getting to wipe out a ton of them and potentially secure a new lawman in the process so it's off to the ncrcf to get it done the prison is now a military outpost it's chain-link fences acting as a great barrier against the fearsome mojave oh wait surely the snipers in the guard towers will be able to alert the rest of the facility that they are under attack no i guess not the real barrier to entry becomes the welcome center which is more like a blender of bullets batons and dynamite lopez hops behind the counter with the shotgun and begins blasting it's a real harrowing battle but he manages to survive and so does the prospective sheriff who sat out the battle hoping not to get caught by a stray bullet or a stick of dynamite he's a little skeptical of the new job offer but says it's got to come with a full pardon by the ncr before he's willing to accept but he does accept the path lopez managed to carve to the exit with a shotgun and takes his leap to prim not really sure what he's thinking wandering into town that had just been occupied by powder gangers and is under the watchful eye of the ncr while he's still wearing his prison attire but okay lad good luck in god's speed lopez could leave the prison now and be off towards the ncr mojave outpost but there's still powder gangers here that are still breathing and no no that's just not going to do not at all he's intent on turning this prison into another mojave ghost town so he proceeds to embark on a meticulous conquest building by building room by room looting the prison for all it's got in the process as payment for services rendered to the ncr this is where lopez learns just how much money and gear the new california republic is just sitting on if they are willing to let a gang of ex-prisoners make off with it all lopez is going to remember that he hits the final building and uh no this this wasn't expected the super tight quarters energy weapon wielding gangers and copious dynamite is too much for his measly arsenal of a dual slug shotgun weak nine millimeter smg 10 millimeter pistol with a small magazine and spitball dealing bolt action rifle that's useless in close quarters the fight spills out into the courtyard and it's a slugfest to the death but lopez has stimpacks and he's afraid to use him eventually winning out the battle back inside the offices he dispatches a couple of stragglers and is proven victorious he's performed his first waistline cleansing and takes all the loot leaving the prison as an abandoned ruin it's then a quick walk to the mojave outpost on the southwestern border of the desert where the mojave links up with the ncr controlled west lopez ambushes and then is ambushed by another gang of raiders who hold better loot than the powder gangers along the way and fight some red scorpions at the outpost he secures the pardon for prim's new law man by lying to one of the men in charge that the sheriff is almost done serving his sentence as though that's still a valid reason to make him sheriff of a town that has been sacked by criminals but okay then back in prim myers thanks the courier for getting him his pardon but still insists on wearing his prison uniform hopefully he doesn't get sniped from across the road by the ncr people in a case of mistaken identity it prints a neat little town that helps ease the player into the general routine of new vegas explore and come across a settlement get a sense of the factions that inhabit it learn about said factions and the problems they are dealing with offer up help to the factions of their choosing and then go about solving those problems while getting to shoot and loot along the way it's a very fun and rewarding gameplay loop that really helps new vegas show off everything it's good at while constantly keeping everything fresh just as soon as one of the aspects is starting to wear thin it's on to the next stage of the loop and on and on it goes i don't know how much attention obsidian gave to the pacing but aside from all the walking the player has to do for a lot of the downtime between the shooting and looting novice is actually incredibly well paced it keeps the player hooked and invested and just about every settlement is over before it begins to overstay its welcome but we'll get back to that and now it's on to dealing with the ncr problem back at the mojave outpost lopez gets a real unfiltered taste of the ncr and it's not a pleasant first experience everyone in the outpost is just super frustrated with how slow and incompetent the ncr is being with caravan traffic resupply reinforcements orders and just general policies and procedures the ncr forces here have very strict orders to hold the line as they are the first and final stop for people entering into ncr territory and leaving it they are the gateway especially for traders and military resupply care fans and with all the craziness from raiders and this group calling themselves caesar's legion orders are to hold out and let no one in or out if they are told to just sit and wait wait for what who knows it's unclear who is more upset by these orders the ncr personnel who just get to sit around watching the mojave go to [ __ ] and their fellow ncr outposts withering away from lack of resupply or the trading caravaners who cannot head into the mojave because of the standing orders but can i go back because apparently traveling from california to las vegas by land on foot with a whole train of irradiated cows it's a slow and painful process doubling back without offloading their goods for profits and saddling up on goods to bring back to the west would be financially ruinous to say the least possibly even lethal if they are say low on food and water after such a journey so they all just sit in the station drinking at the little saloon and bitching up a storm to anyone without nco dog tags or pack animals who are allowed to come and go as they please such as lopez the commanding officer of the outpost while seeing the wisdom and the big brained idea of waiting and seeing still needs things to get done he needs someone to clear the roads heading to prim and goodspring so he can at least let some of the caravans through because things are just getting backed up with so many caravans coming in and nowhere for them to go he enlists the aid of lopez who walks aways and shoots some giant ants for this he is given a ton of ammo and some caps some food and a fantastic rifle to replace the piece of [ __ ] pea shooter he got from sunny smiles after coming back from the dead the sniper on the roof of the bar is concerned about the nearby town of nipton though she's been spying it through binoculars and has noticed nobody has been coming and going for the past few days and now there's smoke rising from the town's center she's convinced the town has been hit but is unsure who did it she'd go herself but of course those orders are preventing her from doing anything and asks lopez to go check it out for her she urges caution and aware hero goes don't worry i won't have you lashed to a cross like the rest of these degenerates it's useful that you happen by i want you to witness the fate of the town of nipton to memorize every detail and then when you move on i want you to teach everyone you meet the lesson that kaisar's legion taught here especially any ncr troops you run across where to begin that they are weak and we are strong this much was known already but the depths of their moral sickness their dissolution nipton serves as the perfect object lesson now go and teach them what you learned here there will be more lessons in the days ahead these are some twisted freaks but they haven't given lopez any reason to shoot them just yet but there's also a lot of them and they just tortured a town full of people for just being as more place puts it a town of horse he used the town to lure ncr troops looking for a bit of ass into an ambush the town mayor thinking caesar's legion a bunch of idiots he could string along in some ponzi scheme then use his powder gangers to carry out the ambush lopez realizing his lock-in getting to torture powder gangers and a town full of degenerate scum turns the tables on all of them and surrounds the town with his troops he drags everyone still living out into the town square sends those who make excellent slaves off to be enslaved and then starts issuing lottery tickets one by one numbers are called and this dictates the fates of each of them some are killed quickly the lucky losers most are crucified boxcar has his legs smashed with hammers and the guy at the gate is set free and the mayor well he just gets thrown into a pile of burning tires presumably for just insulting the legion the legion isn't exactly making the best first impression for lopez but he does understand and appreciate the purity of their justice and considering they gave it good to a group of criminal scum lopez sees no reason to get into a fight in town and once again there's just a lot of them and this isn't an ideal place to duke it out and piss off a group that has even the ncr scared shitless best to let them be on their way and inform ghosts at the outpost happened she's visibly figuratively speaking unsettled by this development but isn't ready to shed tears for the town as she knew what kind of scum lived there giving credibility to what lopez says about justifying his atrocities still they didn't deserve to be hit by the legion humans some of the others in camp aren't as calm and clear-headed upon hearing the fate of nipton as this has hit just a little too close to home but there's no real news of the people lopez is after and the outposts are in the ruins of nipton so it's off to novak where deputy beagles said they were heading hopefully there won't be any more legion parties or raiders come along the roads [Music] [Music] no okay never mind nipton and the mojave outpost are fantastic introductions to the two main competing factions in this game the weaknesses of the ncr are immediately put on display they are just too spread out to be very effective they have a gang of prisoners roaming the waves causing all sorts of problems and they are completely powerless to stop it due to orders and lack of supplies they can't patrol the region they can't even let their traders do business in the region it's a complete [ __ ] show on their end meanwhile the legion is deep in ncr territory committing their patented atrocities right in view of the ncr outpost completely unopposed it was a town of rapis and con artist sure but it's still a powerful message to the ncr there isn't much the player can do just yet aside from doing little walking and talking but they're feeling brave they can fight the legion nipton even though ghost says not to but it's cool having the game just give us an organic way to learn about these two factions without forcing us to get totally involved just yet trusting us to come to our own conclusions as incompetent as the ncr seems right now and the mixed reputation they have amongst the locals the people we've met thus far seem to have been pretty committed to doing the right thing and wanting to help the locals but they just got their own problems at the moment whether their commitment to those good intentions will remain is something that has yet to be proven so it's on to the next settlement along the way we see the legion doing their best to harass the ncr traders in the region which is a smart move trying to strangle the mega supplies of the ncr amplifying their biggest weakness in the mojave once again obsidian is doing a great job telling a story and doing some world building by showing not narrating we had a few people explaining this to us already but obsidian doesn't want us to just take the word of some npcs they want us to see it this also increases the immersion of the player when it feels like there really is a cold war going on neither side is directly attacking each other yet just sizing each other up and seizing what opportunities are afforded them [ __ ] mojave's going to hell and all i can do is sit here and watch novak is the largest settlement lopez has come across yet they are well situated in the highway to catch plenty of traders coming and going and have worthwhile accommodations to boot the mainstay of the town is a giant dinosaur out front that doubles as a store and the old motel behind it that is kept running by its proprietor jeannie mae crawford waiting by the gates of the town is good old victor who suddenly has felt the urge to head back to new vegas after years of being kept away knowing that he was the one who was setting up the deals for the couriers to transport all those weird items he seems a lot less friendly and a lot more creepy he doesn't even know why he's going back to the strip he just knows he's got to go back poking around town lopez meets manny up in the mouth of the dinosaur he's one of the two town snipers who guards the town from anyone coming up the highway lopez asks about the man in the checkered suit and many very casually admits that he knows them but he is curious what the courier wants with him lopez tries to lie and say that they are longtime friends but manny doesn't really buy the line and instead offers a barter pack of girls has moved into the old rapcon rocket facility at the back of town which is where the town citizens scavenge for things to trade to the passing caravans it's one of the most important lifelines for the town and with the ghouls up there scavengers haven't been able to get up in there and do their jobs he offers lopez the knowledge he has on checkered suit in exchange for lopez going up there and getting the ghouls out of the facility seems fair enough and seeing how far he's already come the facility of frail zombies doesn't really seem all that bad some further prodding and manny goes into his current cold relations with his one's best friend boone who was his sniper partner from the ncr days who now guards the town at night he admits things between them haven't been so great as boone's wife whom manny had many arguments with suddenly went missing recently and boone really hasn't spoken to him since he also mentions bitter springs which is important enough to get further into so there's a group of tribals known as the great khans who have lived in the mojave since before the youngstar came around bitter springs was a major con settlement and according to manny a lot of people who weren't part of the fighting ended up getting killed by the ncr over there manny who had been part of the great khans ended up not going by faking being sick so he's not really keen on the details but ever since then his ncr unit were called murderers wherever they went this led to him and boone eventually leaving their first recon unit and surfaced in the ncr military in general later that night lopez meets up with boone who is incredibly standoffish as he guards the town alone at night eventually he too enlists the aid of the courier asking lopez to look into who is behind his wife's kidnapping he's convinced someone in town had orchestrated it because the legion slavers snuck into town and only nabbed his wife nobody else it was a targeted mission and this means someone in town committed the sale boone knows his wife is dead but he won't explain how he knows he just wants payback for the one who sold his wife now that's some heavy [ __ ] and it's hard to say no to someone who's just clearly at their lowest with his snooping skills and his klepto habits lopez manages to stumble upon the bill of sale in the safe inside the motel lobby in it the seemingly nice genie may is listed as the one who struck the barter with the legion for boone's wife and her unborn child in exchange for 1 000 caps an additional some owed when the child is born god damn what just what a lovely woman miss crawford is so lopez finds her and tells her there's something she needs to see out by the dinosaur which why she would agree to follow a stranger who just rolled into town after she had sold someone into slavery is just a question for the ages out front lopez puts on the beret boone gave him as a signal he's standing next to the culprit and wasteland justice is carried out no people die out there often enough that no one worries about blame the too anxious to forget it happened in the first place i guess besides i was on break when it happened boone doesn't seem to care one way or another still but he's not looking to stick around novak he figures he'll just wander the waste and start hunting legionaries and lopez asks if he'd like to travel with him boone in his ever enigmatic way tells lopez he really doesn't want to do that either insinuating he wouldn't want to go haunt the legion or travel with boone but he's eventually convinced to come along and now the courier has himself a traveling companion this just leaves the situation at repcon to be sorted before the two of them can move on closer to new vegas the road leading up to the rocket facility is just littered with feral ghouls and a few dead ghouls and robes packing energy weapons and a couple of super mutant corpses there's going to be more to this job than just clearing out some mindless zombies it would seem the duo presses through the courtyard fighting more pharaohs until they are in the lobby of the facility a raspy voice of a ghoul bursts out over the intercom barking orders of the pair to make it to the east side of the facility before more ferals bursts in and start to swarm it's a slow progress to the east side as ferals pour out of the woodworks from every corner of the office building but they eventually make it upstairs to find a perfectly normal human calling them ugly smooth skins god but are you ugly get upstairs and talk to jason before i throw up just from looking at you your pranks won't work on me smooth skin they won't work on jason either stop wasting my time smooth skin go waste jason's as confusing as this turn of events are it's really nothing compared to what lopez comes across upstairs when he meets the leader of this pack of ghouls jason bright bright is funnily enough a glowing one a super irradiated ghoul who has somehow managed to not go insane well not exactly instead he's been gifted visions of a great beyond in space where the radiation will supposedly heal his followers this facility is part of their journey but bright isn't about to divulge everything just yet and instead wants the aid of the newcomers to help deal with the super mutants who have descended upon the followers and made it pretty much impossible for them to continue their great journey while not about ready to slaughter these peaceful ghouls lopez agrees to help bright is thrilled and directs him to the basement where the super mutants are in the basement they discover these aren't regular super mutants but nightkin who are particularly aggressive and use stealth boys to go invisible in ambush it's a dangerous battle from room to room in the tight quarters where the nikens invisibility and melee damage give them a huge edge over the gun-wielding duo they eventually succeed in evicting the mutants from the facility managing to rescue one of the more down-to-earth members of bright's group in the process and end up facing off against the supposed leader of the mutants with the basement secure it's back upstairs to report the good news to bright he then invites lopez to the basement where he will reveal the true plans for the great journey him and his followers are undertaking deep in the basement are three pre-war rockets bright and specifically haversome have been preparing to launch them into space even though haverson isn't a ghoul the group has decided to keep him around mainly because he's a technical genius who has more or less been the only reason the great journey has been able to succeed of course he's not actually a ghoul and bright doesn't want to bring the human with them because the radiation will kill him in moments but lopez suspects jason is just a charlatan and this cult secretly hates humans so to that end he convinces haversom that he is in fact human and they've been playing him this whole time informing him that he's going to be left behind he's understandably distraught having spent all these months helping this cult only for them to abandon him right at the end they need a few more parts to finish the repairs on the rockets but haversom also wants some revenge and asks for a few boxes of sugar bombs which he can then add to the fuel to have the rockets explode upon takeoff not really having a stake in this matter one way or the other lopez agrees to help haverson carry out his plot for revenge he secures all the necessary components for the repairs and the sabotage and lets chris do his thing the departing cultists bid the humans in the cruel earth farewell but made the fatal mistake of underestimating human cruelty and are left as nothing more than smoldering scrap on the launch pad however some heads into novak where his technical skills will be better appreciated and lopez returns to manny to inform him that the ghoul situation has been taken care of super appreciative manny tells lopez all he knows finally giving up a name benny as the man in the suit and was traveling with a couple of great con members manny knew they were heading up towards boulder city possibly to secure payment for the cons he doesn't really know much else but it's great to finally have a name for the man in the suit and with that the party has its next destination novak is one of my favorite segments of new vegas which is really saying something it's a part of the game where i feel the tutorial [ __ ] is just finally done with and we are trusted to really start to play at our own pace by our own rules picking up boone is something that can easily be missed if the player isn't doing their best to chat with people explore and put things together but boone's brief revenge quest is brilliant in context if not a little obtuse in execution like i pointed out it doesn't really make sense why the cold calculating [ __ ] who sold a woman and her unborn child into slavery would follow a complete stranger out into the wastelands on the edge of town but that is what it is i guess the rep con facility can play out in just so many ways there's tons of little variables like managing to placate the mutants into leaving peaceably by telling them where the shipment of stealth boys they are looking for is located that is after all the real reason they attacked repconn it really had nothing to do with the ghouls you can of course choose not to sabotage the rockets and you can also choose to crash the rockets on your own without half or some you can keep the secrets from haversome and have him learn it when the launch date comes and there's probably a few other permutations i'm not even aware about i've played rep con half a dozen times and have done it completely different each time i just love it though i wish the murder all the girls option had some better justifications to make it more gray and just not so evil it feels like a stretch to kill them all just on the grounds that they lied to some human who's kind of an [ __ ] anyway and it's an unusually black and white choice in this game but i did it because well i just never really did it before and i wanted to see what would happen not really so much because it would fit lopez's character oh well moving on the road to boulder city is relatively uneventful lopez and boone passed a time hunting some fire ants in the desert for sport as they move up one of the final stretches of the highways to new vegas boulder city was once a major settlement along the highway but was reduced to rubble when a squad of ncr rangers set up charges and blew the whole town up during the first legion invasion of the hoover dam years earlier now it's just a blasted wasteland of ruined buildings that maintains a small garrison of ncr troops guarding the road leading to the dam pro ncr propaganda is found all over the place here in a giant plot commemorating the ncr soldiers who died in the battle of boulder city stands to honor their sacrifice a cement mixing plant is one of the only useful things left in town which provides all the concrete the ncr uses to maintain the hoover dam an officer stands guard at the gates leading deeper into the ruins and issues lope has a warning about a standoff his squad is currently having with a group of great cons seems likely this is the group of cons benny used to ambush lopez so it's absolutely essential he gets in there to settle things up with him the officer isn't too optimistic of lopez's chances to defuse a situation but command has already written off the lies of the ncr hostages as acceptable casualties and agrees to allow lopez a shot the cons don't fire at the non-ncr group approaching clearly signaling they aren't too keen on their own odds of survival in these ruins and they allow lopez to make contact with their leader jessup who recognizes lopez just as quickly as lopez recognizes him there isn't much jessup is able to tell sadly he doesn't have the chip benny does and he's probably already back on the strip he's one of the bigwig chairmans who runs the tops casino on the strip and contracted jessup and his gang to carry out the hitch up but jessup got played and was duped out of the caps to chip and was left to deal with the ncr in these ruins that's all he really knows and well we all knew how this was going to end come on with jessup dead and the other con member from the beginning already dead in the back of the shop presumably from an ncr bullet that's just a surf to two of the three men who ambushed lopez back outside all hell is broken loose thanks to the massive shootout in the shop the cons are clearly outmatched though and caught on a pincer are very quickly soldered to the man the ncr hostages actually managed to survive the bloody shootout and are free to return to their comrades earning lope has some nice guy points with the ncr even if the cons now hate his guts from the sounds of things though that's a perfectly favorable trait in the mojave the rest of the trip to new vegas was pretty much long and quiet the party took a scenic route skirting lake mead and enjoying the views linking back up with the highway that ran up to the gates of the freeside along the way they met a few ncr locations such as the sharecroppers farm where citizens worked to grow food for the major ncr military outpost of the mojave and the aerotech park where down on their luck ncr citizens would go when they are flat broke from gambling on the strip once in freeside lopez gets acquainted with those not fortunate enough to live on the strip there's junkies and dealers everywhere and a gang of thugs makes a sad attempt to get the jump on lopez and boone but we all know how that goes [Applause] eager to get out of free side as fast as possible the party b-lines it to the gates where a free side resident delivers a warning that the securetrons will shoot anyone on site who doesn't submit to a credit check upon entering the strip and then delivers his life story because he just likes talking to people apparently fortunately lopez has been wheeling and dealing all the way up from good springs making a small fortune fixing up her covered weapons and all that dynamite and drugs repossessed from the powder gangers and getting him past the credit check with virtually no problems once on the other side of the gates the lights and the sounds of the strip are overwhelming the tall buildings the relatively clean streets the people looking lively and carefree all of it contrasts so starkly against what lopez has seen from the rest of the wasteland thus far it's just a completely different world in the strip but before he's even able to take 10 steps victor comes rolling up with a unique offer the boss of the strip mr house has extended an invitation for lopez to see him in his sealed off casino the lucky 38. victor along with the other securitrons were built by house and so it stands the reason he's been the one pulling the cowboy robot strings all this time lopez needs answers and house seems to have them and so he agrees to head up into the monolithic casino to meet the man in charge this brings close to the first act so to speak of new vegas it's a well-crafted carefully balanced show that's meant to introduce the player to the world of new vegas in as natural and as immersive of a way as possible while also letting the player build their character up some it's meant to create this sense that the player is on a grand arduous journey of discovery and while many games movies books and whatever else sometimes would devote an entire installment to justice segment and new vegas whisks the player through along in a much more abbreviated form maintaining an excellent pace the whole way but with the first act done the game is finally 100 open to the player the insight of the lucky 38 is nothing like the strip its dark silent floors and halls are filled with nothing but securitron standing guard no visible signs of life are detected giving lopez a sense that this place has been sealed up since probably before the war victor takes him up to the penthouse floor where he comes face to face so to speak with house himself this meeting has been a long time coming hasn't it you've come a long ways literally and i suspect figuratively as well i have to ask now that you've reached your destination what do you make of what you see house is a cold calculating and very far-sighted individual and that has allowed him to accomplish a great deal no other human could such as cheating death during the war and managing to retain control of a piece of las vegas that he defended during war since then he united some of the nearby tribes rehabilitating them into the three families who now run three of the major casinos on the strip this has allowed vegas to open for business once more just in time to welcome the ncr as it secured the hoover dam bargain was struck between house and the newly arrived ncr where house got to keep control of the city and in exchange the ncr got the hoofer dam and several worthwhile military outposts and resources ever since then they've maintained a cool relationship that more and more seems to be favoring house as he drains the ncr of caps and resources all the while reaping the protective benefits of befriending a large military force as for the platinum chip house is much less forthcoming with details it's something of tremendous value to him and he sunk an unimaginable sum of money for its development before the war and quite a lot more caps for its recovering following the war lopez was supposed to deliver it to house with all the other couriers acting as dummies so parties like the brotherhood of steel and caesar's legion wouldn't think to attack and steal it he underestimated benny's hunger for power and didn't expect an attack from within but benny isn't aware that house knows the chip was stolen and that benny is in possession of it and that element of surprise is lopez's greatest weapon at the moment because naturally house wants lopez to go recover that ship from benny figuring their motives are aligned and the added 1000 calves ought to sweeten the deal some more house doesn't quite care one way or another what happens to benny he just wants a chip and with a new bargain struck lopez has let loose back onto the strip down there everyone is eyeing lopez's though he'd just turn water to wine apparently getting into the lucky 38 and seeing house is a pretty big deal and that's caused quite a stir for the moment an ncr trooper comes running up with an invitation for the curry to go see admiral crocker the ncr representative on the strip lopez makes note to visit the ambassador as soon as benny is taken out because he isn't about to let benny slip through his fingers especially not without the chip the tops casino is the first new vegas casino lopez gets to enter well the first one with living humans in it anyway the security at the door strips him and boone of their weapons unfortunately making the most obvious direct approach basically suicide spotting the dope in his tacky suit from across the casino floor lopez thinks to avoid a confrontation just yet and see what he can learn on his own he catches an elevator to the 13th floor where house said benny's private suite is located the place isn't well guarded and thanks to a couple of handy lockpicks lopez is able to sneak into the room on accosted at the back of the suite is a hole in the wall leading to an unfinished part of the hotel where a lone securitron sits among some terminals yes man approaches the quarry and proceeds to divulge all of benny's super secret plans oh he wants to kill mr house and use the platinum chip to copy my neural computational matrix onto the lucky 38's mainframe that should give me control over all mr house's defenses most prominently his securitrons and then i just do what betty tells me easy peasy i was programmed to be helpful and answer any questions i was asked i guess nobody bothered to restrict who i answer questions for that was probably pretty dumb huh yes man is a repurposed securitron benny and a woman from a group known as the followers of the apocalypse managed to capture and reprogram to gain inside access into house's robust data network which allowed him to spy on everything house has been doing for years and determined that the platinum chip is a data storage device yes man became the main weapon benny had in his arsenal to carry out his plans to take over new vegas unfortunately for benny yes men just didn't have all the answers like what the platinum chip really has on it or how exactly to read it so those two questions he has his own guesses for and that is the platinum trip probably possesses software that would allow house to upgrade his defense somehow and that a few places on his data network potentially have the hardware needed to read the chip benny's plan is quite a complex affair seeming almost impossible but then again he did manage to see through house's security smoke screen with yes man to track down lopez and the chip so the rest of his plan which of course involves killing house by somehow getting into the lucky 38 organizing all the factions of new vegas and dealing with the ncr in the legion to secure an independent new vegas following the coming battle doesn't seem as impossible still seems relatively impossible though he knows all of benny's plans so it seems all that's really left to do is confront him on the casino floor of course he's surrounded by guards so this is going to have to be a carefully scripted thing what in the goddamn let's keep this in the groove hey smooth moves smooth hello the guy everyone saw go on the lucky 38 that was you oh [ __ ] i hit what i was aiming for guess you had brains to spare or you just thick skulled either way baby this is good news maybe i can finally sleep at night knowing you didn't die what say you and me cash out go somewhere is more private-like any questions you got i'll answer to start i'll comp you the presidential best suite in the house you deserve a taste of the vip lifestyle i'll hang out down here for a while to make everything look business as usual then come to you any questions you got i'll answer guarantee [Music] if that's what it takes to win your trust that's what it takes follow me [Music] now that you and me has got some privacy i gotta ask how is it that you're still living [Music] yeah hello well serves me right for using a nine millimeter once you were vertical how'd you track me down look at me a big leaguer so i claim making all the mistakes of an original loser i guess that's enough scratching around at first base tell me which way is the wind gonna blow all mine i'm gonna ruin uh lopez has managed to glean everything from yes man already so benny didn't really have anything new to add in a vain attempt to survive all he could really do is hope to win over the man he shot in the head which is a uh questionable move for sure with them end of the picture it's time to see what the ncr is offering but first it's time to put some of that luck lopez is known for to good use welcome to the tops how [Music] many [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] give it a lucky streak there you must be thirsty by now here have a drink on the house and keep on playing [Music] [Music] okay pal you've had enough time for you to leave [Music] you're free to enjoy the shows in the bar but no more games for you at the tops thanks for playing i've always found the first strip segment a little rush in its pacing we land on the strip and literally every major faction sends an envoy to greet us and try to win an audience with us it's clearly meant to play like this for the sake of the players so that they know who they can side with and start working towards that end but it's always felt just a little too contrived like i get it the strip is the place to be in the mojave and it would make sense that there are representatives for every major faction here but to have every single one immediately know of our presence measure up the importance of us and dispatch invitations in the exact same manner just smacks of game contrived this is too much for my immersion to handle especially since the game doesn't force us to commit to any one faction until much further in the game so obsidian didn't have to present it all right here or at least maybe they could have been a little more original with the invitations than just copying the same messenger greeting three times a house is an absolutely fascinating character and for a character who could literally be an endless font of info dumping exposition obsidian did an excellent job in writing his character to being aloof and just too good to be bothered by anybody which keeps a lot of the pitfalls of a character such as him in check it makes him unlikable or at least very [ __ ] difficult to like which is once again a fantastic stroke for his character otherwise he'd seem like the most obvious choice to side with especially since most players are going to meet with him first and if he's got all the answers and is a delightful fellow at the same time that trifecta would make it so players wouldn't feel compelled to explore other avenues it certainly wouldn't make siding with the s-men or even benny seem as tantalizing yes men is a clever idea to give the player the option to not side with any faction a feature i kind of wish more choice-based story-rich games would offer especially in a game like new vegas where we can play as anyone of any shade of morality having an independent option really helps justify abiding by our own worlds and not trying to make our character fit a certain faction's norms instead we get an immersive role-playing friendly way to play through the story that doesn't feel like a cop-out mostly because the independent option still requires us to do a lot of the heavy lifting and choices to make but we'll get to covering more of that when we meet the independent factions of the mojave and now it's time to meet and greet upon involuntarily leaving the tops lopez runs into won't pays again the man whom we last saw nipped in with a dog on his head crucifying and burning people lopez says caesar wants to meet and gives lopez his mark which will grant him safe passage through the legion territories lopez adds this to the docket and heads over to the ncr ambassador to see if the grass is any greener it turns out it really isn't the ambassador is too busy being constantly snubbed by house and seems more interested in lopez acting as a man who can get to house rather than anything else as much as an unlikable snob the house might seem he at least is willing to work together in a more partnership manner the ambassador seems just too used to issuing orders to whoever he barks at house gets what motivates people especially someone like lucky who's got self-interest at heart the ncr hasn't been written off but he's going to have to find someone with deeper pockets and a bit of a looser mindset he is able to find just those sorts of people at the crimson caravan outpost where ringo from good springs comes running up with the bonus caps he promised after being saved for the powder gangers he instructs lucky to go chat up alice mclafferty in her office for more work so he does exactly that and mclafferty is the sort of no-nonsense woman with deep pockets he's been looking for an ncr businesswoman from out west she's personally come to fix up the failing mojave branch which has been struggling thanks to incompetence mismanagement and corruption her first job is a very simple one go deliver an invoice to a doctor at the ncr's main mojave base camp account the old airport turned ncr military strongholds is on the edge of fiend territory a gang of particularly obnoxious raiders that everyone around new vegas has problems with it doesn't take long for lopez to run into these guys but having fought powder gangers for the past few days they aren't too bad the soldiers in mccarran have had enough of their [ __ ] though in particular the major out by the gates is issuing a general bounty for the literal heads of three of the big fiend bosses running around the ruins of western vegas he's been losing a lot of troops at the fiend's constant hit-and-run tactics even a couple of his first recon troops had a nasty run-in with one of the bosses unfortunately orders are too merely hold the line so they aren't permitted to mount the series offensive thus the bounties fortunately lopez and bounty hunting go together like jet and a freeside junkie and he agrees to take up the bounties poking around the tents introduces a few colorful characters belonging to first recon there's the stuttering rookie 10 of speeds the rough and tough corporal betsy corporal sterling an old sniper whose maimed hands have relegated him to his scout lieutenant gore bets who commands the whole squad and sergeant bitaru who is able to shed more light on the bitter springs massacre according to bitterroot who judging by his name is of great con descent without beating around the sugar-coated bush says the khan seriously had it come according to him they just kept prodding the ncr making such a confrontation all but inevitable he was a young kid still too young to be considered an adult in the cons when bitter springs happened and he was there to see it all in the midst of the attack he went around killing cons he held long-standing grudges with which judging by how much he hates the khans he probably had more than a few scores to settle but when the ncr found him he was covered in blood not belonging to the ncr or his own so the major took him in and he trained for the first recon he likes to keep things simple focusing on his duties and trying not to think about his terrible past lopez figures bitter root and boone have a lot in common inside the airport terminal lucky meets the head of the operations now that general oliver is at the dam colonel shu he's dealing with half a dozen problems from the fiends to issues with supplies and general issues and operations at the base in the brief time with the kernel lopez is able to get leads on half a dozen paying jobs around base and this is where he realizes contract work with the ncr and a half bad gig for a professional problem solver such as himself one of the problems he's most perfectly suited for is being dealt by lieutenant boyd on the other side of the terminal she's currently trying to get a legion centurion who surrendered to the ncr forces to talk she's confused because legionaries especially high-ranking ones rarely if ever surrender choosing to kill themselves to avoid capturing compromising legion silas was different though choosing to surrender when all of his companions were killing themselves this let boyd think he was ready to talk and negotiate but so far he's just been incredibly uncooperative this is where she thinks lopez can come in because seeing as he's not part of the ncr he's technically not bound to the conventions that prevent torture of prisoners so if worse comes in worse lopez could just beat the info out of him being a smarty pants with some knowledge of the legion he now suddenly remembered he possesses lopez heads into the room to try his hand with silas no listen kaisar's secrets are safe with me i stayed alive because kaisar would have wanted it i'm useless to him dead i've told them nothing they've gotten nowhere i'm a contorian for christ's sake i deserve his trust you have to let this go i'll disappear no one will ever see me again that was always the plan in the first place no that's not what i meant i lieutenant this man is trying to kill me he's not who you think he is all that shouting honestly celis you get free room and board the least you could do is be a good guest lieutenant this man is an agent of the legion on a mission to kill me my we have an active imagination today don't we think about it is it worth the risk you need what i know well it sounds like the two of you are becoming fast friends it'll be your head if i die lieutenant you'll be disgraced you know what i think you're right celes of course i'm right except i don't care because it'll be worth it it'll be worth it to never have to hear you say another word celeus carry on lieutenant you don't have to do this if i had killed myself then i would have been murdering one of kaisar's greatest soldiers either choice is a betrayal of the legion as i see it i've done everything kaisar ever asked of me and this is how i am repaid with assassination i ambushed countless ncr patrols and wipe them out so that our operatives could move freely i waited for him to dispatch us for three days never questioning why the headaches he complained of would hinder his ability to command i haven't breathed a word about the officer we planted here he continues to radio intelligence to kaiser's camp nearly every night i've proven my loyalty all you're doing is killing a loyal soldier if that's kaizer's policy then i say his empire will crumble what what do you mean no you slimy bastard nothing i've said will change the outcome for you no force can hold back the tide of the legion this camp and everyone in it will burn so silas spills all the beans and boyd is nothing short of dumbfounded paying lopez for his expertise the next task needing doing involves uncovering a mole in the base who has been sending out troop movements to legion ambushing parties boyd comes around to point lopez to the radio tower where there have been mysterious break-ins recently though she's just been writing them off as promiscuous troopers going in to hide from their superiors as they get it on she gives lopez a key to the tower and over there he is able to access the terminal that logs the times people are coming and going aside from the usual watch changes there's a certain 15 minute window where someone is in the tower late at night so during that window he enters the watchtower only to overhear captain curtis feeding information over the radio to his legion contacts as it turns out there's a plan to bomb the monorail connecting the camp with the strip and everything is set for that bomb to go off curtis is not at all forthcoming with anything now that his cover is blown and lopez's opposite just execute them all before rushing to defuse the bomb on the monorail it all goes off without a hitch and he goes to inform shu that the manner has been resolved shu is understandably shocked by the revelation that one of his best officers turned out to be a legion agent the entire time his position at the base made him the perfect male for the legion and judging by his long career in the ncr he's been playing an incredibly long game of deceit and almost succeeded lopez is rewarded and it's on to solving some other camp problems in the rear of the terminal sergeant contreras resides and upon meeting the two immediately form a mutually beneficial arrangement as a supplies manager of the camp contreras is able to procure plenty of illicit contraband for anyone on base for a price of course as a shady merchant he has access to all sorts of things lopez would be interested in acquiring and he's got plenty of caps to purchase things from lopez he's willing to give the courier access to his exclusive supplies but he needs some things done first seeing as he's under intense scrutiny by the military police for his well-known reputation lopez is a great third party to work through this involves securing a weapons deal with the gun runners and picking up some medical supplies that turns out to be supplies to make illegal chems the last task is a lot more involved with contreras tasking lopez to essentially make a drug deal drop off with his contact in west side upon arriving there though the contact has been replaced by someone claiming to be his partner but the partner isn't aware of the passphrase this alerts lopez and gets the replacement to blow his cover as an ncr ranger looking to take contreras down he manages to slip out by convincing the ranger he didn't even know what he was delivering and it's back to the supply manager to alert him of the new development contreras is convinced the only option here is to just murder the ranger so it's back again to west side carry out the hit which seems a little sloppy contreras but that's his problem not lopez's so he gets to jump on the ranger and gets him out of the way contreras is satisfied giving lopez access to his exclusive stock and giving him a nice rifle mccarron hosts quite a few interesting and diverse quests that manage to intersect with a lot of what's going on in new vegas i'm not sure why many of them are unmarked but they're pretty fun and rewarding regardless many of the quests continue to reinforce the idea that the ncr is just stretching themselves way too thin and its conservative tactics continue to weaken it while giving their enemies such as legion and the fiends enough room to maneuver and continue to harass the ncr we don't learn a huge amount about the ncr and mccarran as weird as that might sound but we do learn a lot more about the other factions in the region more about the politics of the region and we do get to meet some interesting ncr characters that help to add faces to the blobbing entity from the west some of the quests like dealing with contreras are just super buggy and finicky and i was trying to resolve the issue with the ranger by getting contreras to agree to cooperate with the ranger to hunt down local drug dealers but the game just bugged and wouldn't actually let me complete the quest the quest to catch them all went smoothly this time but just about every other time i've done this quest something never triggered correctly necessitating reloads and a lot of wasted time my biggest problem with mccarran is not technical but more design and content related mccarron has some of the most side quests in any region probably more than any other faction in the game and really makes it feel like the game nudges the players who want as much content as they can towards earning good guy points with the ncr especially when compared to the legion who have barely any worthwhile side quests in the game it hurts seeing one of the factions having such a large content advantage over the other factions in the game this has been blamed on the rush nature of new vegas but i just really wish the other factions got a similar treatment as the ncr because it's easy to miss so many of these side quests and reach the end of the game going wait that's it it's time for somebody to deal with the fiends they've been making life miserable for many people and with the nice bounty on some of their heads it seems time has come for someone to step in and do something having done a lot to occur with the powder gangers it seems lopez is uniquely qualified for this job fiends aren't gangers though they are much more aggressive much better armed and armored have much more defensible turf they're more organized and there's just a ton of them extermination is going to be a much more involved process for the dynamic duo one by one each fiend boss falls bringing with it peace in the region and some caps but even with the bosses eliminated and plenty of raider grunts dead it's only a matter of time before more sprout up to cause problems to finish them off for good the party will have to get into their fortified vault the western ruins and take care of motor runner the source of the fiend organization that's exactly what they do meaning stiff resistance in the ruins outside the vault once inside though lopez is able to convince the gullible guard that he's there to deliver some drugs and she directs him to the big man himself deep in the heart of the vault well that takes care of reaching the boss by taking him out and making it through the vault alive will be another matter entirely lopez attempts to strike up a bargain with motor runner and extract some caps out of the guy but he's having none of it tells the courier to piss off so lopez offers to bring his skull to the ncr instead and proceeds to slaughter the boss his dogs and his guards waiting outside with the cover sufficiently blown they are forced to carry out a slow battle through each level of the faults moving room to room looting what they can in the process they manage to freeze some hostages once the vault has been cleansed of its fiend presence and it's back to mccarran to inform shu that his western flank is going to be much quieter now by the end of this campaign lopez has earned enough points with the ncr to have a favorable reputation with them that's going to come in handy down the line because with his work with the ncr now mostly done he is ready to get on with working over another faction of the mojave but before saying farewell to mccarran completely he first pokes in to deliver that invoice to the doctor for the crimson caravan which was the whole point of him coming to the base to begin with and the doctor offers him another job he needs a mercenary to go and recover some data from the nearby vault 22. there's been some inexplicable vegetative growth coming from its front door and he's convinced the inhabitants of the vault uncovered the secrets to growing robust plant life in the irradiated mojave wastes seems simply enough so lopez agrees upon leaving the office he's stopped by the head researcher who asks if the doctor mentioned any of the other mercenaries he's sent to the same fall the past few weeks specifically the most recent monkey part researcher part mercenary whom the assistant was fond of uh no he didn't so she issues lopez a warning that whatever is going on over in that vault it can't be good she insists lopez find keeley and help her out if she's still alive that is the fault is just as the doctor described overgrown with vegetation despite being in the rugged desert mountains and not a human in sight tending to them there are warnings posted all over the place about murderous plants so this isn't going to be a delightful trip through a greenhouse as a doctor light on figures inside the place is rusted crumbling and just barely functioning it seems the place has barely enough electricity output to keep the lights on and this sickly rusty orange hue is the only light lopez will get to guide him through the vault's twisting hallways an elevator at the end of the main hallway is broken but lopez being a genius with technical work now is able to fix it without any tools or any parts they descend to the first level and begin hunting for the data and keeley the mark scientists the lady at mccarran wanted him to track down the whole place is empty of any life it seems save for the plants that are now growing in the hallways and in the corners of the room there's a constant hum and hiss coming from the life support systems of the dying vault that only adds to the creepy factor of the place keeley's makeshift lab is abandoned with some of her research notes talking about the spores in the place that are contributing to the vegetation some scarce terminals with notes from the former inhabitants no doubt long dead gives a few clues to what happened during their time down here so it turns out the resonance of the vault didn't escape the vaulter even technically die but were transformed into these super creepy spore carriers as carriers they involuntarily help sustain the plant life but that's all they seem to do the only hope that's left for them now is a bullet to the head lucky eventually stumbles upon the main computer database which fortunately still has power and even more fortunately still has its research data intact so he downloads it just as the doctor mccarran wanted and starts to make his way out of the vault while moving through some cave networks that the vault has been built inside he finds kiely still alive but trapped by the out-of-control killer plants with the way clear she is able to head back to her lab and she insists lopez meets up with her there back in the lab she explains the last few pieces of the mystery and then says that these spores need to be purged from the bowels of the vault she pumps some explosive gas into the basement level and tells lopez to basically [ __ ] around down there with some grenades to get the police to blow up how are they supposed to survive the blast i don't know figure it out so lopez lops a grenade at one of the gas spewing vents and locks himself in the server room which shields him from the raging inferno that runs its way through the entire basement level back at the lab keeley gives him a good job and says the only thing left to do is delete the data because it's too dangerous for people to go messing around with what the [ __ ] keelly i thought you were a scientist just because something is dangerous doesn't mean it shouldn't be understood if anything that's something that absolutely must be understood granted is the man at mccarran the right person to carry that torch probably not he seems like a bootlegging ncr drone who will fast track the research to get a promotion but hey he's paying keeley notices the data has already been accessed and is incredibly suspicious but lopez lies and she figures it must have been one of the other mercs the doctor sent down all right good enough lopez leaves with keeley staying behind to finish up some research by the time he's back at mccarran the head researcher is happy because keeley radioed in and toured the doctor a new one for being so cavalier the head researcher gives lopez a nice little reward and then it's a matter of shaking the doctor for all the caps he's worth in exchange for the dangerous data but there's really nothing like milking the ncrt for a week to get a man set in the mojave back in free side lucky starts meeting some of the groups he'd been hearing about for a while his first stop as the followers of the apocalypse as they seem to have a deep central role in the city julie farkas heads the operations at the old mormon fort and she is facing considerable trouble trying to run a rehab clinic in a city with more drugs in it than food and water her resources are at their breaking point and asks the curry to help find a supplier of the materials she needs to help residents kick their addictions strangely enough the only place that is able to appropriately accommodate the fowler's needs is the atomic wrangler casino the brother and sister running the place while being shrewd business people understand the need to take care of their communities somewhat less they end up with no customers save for junkies with no caps to spend so then it's just a matter of doing some leg work to nail down the details of the arrangements and both sides walk away feeling good about the agreement while at the casino lopez picks up some work for the siblings agreeing to help collect debts owed to the casino by a few locals and recruit some talent for the escort services rendered by the casino securing the talent for the escort services lead to some very interesting interactions i'm all boot knives and leather friend and cool besides what kind of weirdo wants what i've got weirdos into bullwhips and necrosis huh doesn't sound half bad fully integrated security technotronic officer active and reporting for duty yes sir fist all reporting for duty please assume the position circles active operation complete thank you for your business i will require a hardware and software upgrade to offer enhanced services you did ah damn i've been looking for one of those for years for my customers i mean i'm not into that kind of [ __ ] hey i'm amazed you even found the thing in the first place here is double for your trouble those freaky fetishes taught to be satisfied now it is it will my god imagine the possibilities it didn't happen to come with an owner's manual did it ah forget it trial and error should do it looks like that gives us a full roster a new ass to sell good work enjoy the bonus the king is meant to be the big man in charge of free side though so that's where lopez goes to next he immediately runs into pacer who attempts to shake lopez down for some caps but his silver tongue saves him the hassle like everyone else in the mojave the king has a lot going on and is need of someone with the skills the corgi can bring for now he just wants help investigating a freeside bodyguard who's been earning a bit too much business to be doing things completely straight see freeside is an exceptionally dangerous place especially for people looking to make it to the strip who might be let's say laden with caps and not much in the way of wits so people contract bodyguards at the gate only this one is pulling too many customers so lucky's gotta hire the bodyguard and see what happens it just so happens that they are detoured down an alley by some sketchy looking thugs and that's when they get ambushed by some other thugs only things don't seem quite right and lopez realizes he's just paying people to act like thugs and puts on a whole show to make freeside seem even more dangerous than it really is and make him seem really on top of his [ __ ] so he reports back to the king who isn't at all amused by the swindler's antics and has his boys pull him off the street so no one is looking but now it's time to handle the real problem plaguing freeside touches between the ncr citizens and local residents has always been cool at best but recently things have been getting really tense and the king wants to know what the recent source of friction has been when one of them said hey lou we gotta go at least i think he said lou might have been something else now that i think of it he said lose something something with a t tenant that's what he called him lieutenant he probably said lieutenant wayne the boy means well but he's dumb as a mutant sometimes he has lopez go around and ask about the current social climate and between julie farkas and an ncr do-gooder he's able to locate a secret location in the back of freeside where nco troops are handing out free food and supplies to nco residents only she's a bit miffed because she sent representatives to the king to work out getting supplies to everyone in freeside but those people got nothing but a beatdown and she took that to mean the king did not approve of their humanitarian efforts because of that she only lets ncr citizens access her services and that has led to a lot of the tension pacer once more pops up and tells lopez to mind his own business and forget about the stuff the ncr woman spoke about soul lope has extracted some caps to keep silent and tells the king anyway because [ __ ] pacer the king is really pissed because he never got to meet those representatives and he sure as [ __ ] didn't order them to be beaten so someone is doing some shady [ __ ] behind his back and right on cue a king member runs up and informs king that pacer is involved in a shootout with the ncr people running the soup kitchen the king being quite dense isn't sure what pacer is up to but sends lopez to go to fuse the situation he wants to work out a deal with the ncr and end the hostilities so he runs over to the old train station and does exactly that fortunately pacer survived his stupid shootout the king is very relieved and officer courier any favor he might ask he doesn't call in the fifa but instead asks about his robo-dog rex the king says the dog is sick something wrong with his brain but he's not sure what to do he says the followers might be able to do something but upon inquiring over there julie just points lopez to dr henry and jacob's town far to the northwest appreciative of the good work he's done for freeside and wanting to see his pet dog healed the king lenslorp has wrecks so now the party is three meanwhile at the crimson caravan lopez receives payment for the invoice he dropped off at mccarran airport ages ago and is given a list of new tasks to complete he needs to acquire the deed to cassidy caravans from its owner down at the ncr mojave outpost and get one of the debt beats off of mclafferty's payroll who only managed to get his position because his daddy is a big shot back in california the latter is easy to blow over seeing as he's a degenerate mess gambling away his dad's money at the atomic wrangler the former though will require some more convincing the current owner of the now defunct caravan cass is spending all of her time at the bar at the mojave outpost even though her caravan is burnt to hell from raiders her caravan papers are keeping her stuck at the outpost because the commanding officer refuses to let caravans pass through despite all this trouble she doesn't want to part with the caravan as it's all she's really got and her late father built the company up she doesn't want to disrespect his memory by selling it lopez is a smooth talker though and convinces her that there's no sense holding on to something that's long dead especially to honor someone who is also long dead she capitulates and signs the paper agreeing to the sale of the caravan and is back to the compound for his reward alice has one last task taking care of a bottle cap press in the old sunset sarsaparilla factory outside of town she noticed a ton of new caps have been entering circulation recently and that means someone is counterfeiting the post-war currency this is a problem of course because the scarcity of the caps is what lets it retain its bartering power if someone is able to just print new caps the value will drop she says the crimson caravan actually went through and destroyed every press they could find in order to prevent large-scale counterfeiting but they must have missed this one it's pretty straightforward head over to the factory deal with the robots still active they're defending the police and destroy the press once it's done it's back to mclafferty for a ward and then oh that's it no more work from the crimson caravan company the party then strikes it across the desert to jacob's town far from any civilized parts of mojave it's here lopez finds a community of super mutants trying to live peacefully away from the bigotry of humans particularly the ncr the appointed leader and founder of the settlement marcus greets the party at the gates and welcomes them so long as they abide by the rules be respectful and don't look at the nightkin so a group of nightkin along with their leader are staying at jacob's town while dr henry tries to find a cure for their schizophrenia all night can have a certain degree of mental instability from their constant self-boy usage and it's causing them just all sorts of problems and is the source of a lot of their aggression they really don't like being seen so staring at them especially humans staring at them make them extremely uncomfortable and usually violent marcus tells lopez if he's willing to help he should go see the doctor he also asks the curry to take care of some ncr mercenaries that have been harassing the town from the gates marcus doesn't want to retaliate because that would just provoke the ncr giving them the excuse they need to roll through and kill all the mutants so he asks lucky to go talk to them hopefully if they see a human they will be more inclined to cooperate so lucky heads down there and just issues them a stern threat scaring them shitless and having them run off it's finally time to meet the doctor he tells lopez the problem with rex is unavoidable a brain can only survive so long inside a jar he says if the courier can find another brain of a dog then he could simply just swap out the brains and rex will be good as new he lists a few locations where he might find a viable candidate with the dogs belonging to violet one of the fiend bosses lopez killed a while back as one such suitable candidate back in fiend territory he's able to locate the body of one of the dogs he killed earlier still intact somehow and removes the questionable brain bringing it back to dr henry for the procedure he does the brain swap and rex goes from senile and confused to much more aggressive from all the drugs the fiends had pumped into the brain it might suck for rex a little bit but he now takes off like a rocket ship and doesn't stop until everything on the battlefield is dead so there is that dr henry asks lopez to look into something for his research into the cure for the nightkin and seeing as he helped fix her ex it seems appropriate so people have noticed the local nightstalkers have a natural invisibility similar to the effects of stealth boys and while dr henry isn't convinced it isn't some coincidence he does ask lopez to go check it out anyway this just means going down into a cave full of them and finding that they've just been chewing on some stealth boys so no they didn't manage to mutate to gain invisibility like some of the locals were thinking the doctor isn't surprised and goes ahead with his next line of research which involves testing the effects of a stealth boy mark ii on one of the more da sunlight kin in jacobs town the mark ii are much riskier to use so it's a gamble having her run the test but it all seems to go well enough and dr henry is convinced he can now have a cure ready in the near future my request is perfectly reasonable give us the stealth boy specs and there will be no need for us to splatter the room with your insides no i didn't not until now anyway very well human you've made your point and i withdraw my request have you seen that tower nice work with the night kin i've never seen anyone able to talk their kind out of anything once they had their mind set to it with not much else left going on in jacob's town it's probably high time to get involved with the major power struggles of the mojave it's about time to visit house and finally give him back his damn trip already such a small thing isn't it and yet so capacious so very dear decades of hiring salvagers out west to search for this little relic in the ruins of a place called sunnyvale back then anyway that's where the chip was printed on october 22nd 2077 it was to have been hand delivered to me here at the lucky 38 the next day but the bombs fell first suffice it to say the delivery was never made with his chip now secure house was able to say a breath of a leaf he'd been holding for two centuries he whisks lopez down to his basement where he shows off what that ship was holding an operating system update for a secure trons that unlocks some new weapons in their auto repair routines basically making them unstoppable back upstairs he reveals his next phase of his plans which naturally involves lopez the object now resides in his underground bunker at fortification hill where caesar has made his base camp the chip will allow lopez access to the bunker and from there house will be able to give further instructions house also reveals more about what he thinks about the political situation of mojave and a little bit of a history lesson he has no desire to go to war with the ncr seeing as they are what has been fueling his economies engine in new vegas for years the leaders are just too sketchy to be trusted though and the only reason they haven't booted house out of office has only been thanks to the threat that caesar legion poses if they were to attack new vegas they'd be vulnerable to an attack from the legion and they'd surely lose in that situation this is why the ncr chose to negotiate a treaty with house not because it was the right thing to do as they like to lead locals into thinking but house has no interest in losing new vegas not after all the time and money he'd sunk into securing it everything he's been doing years before the war even broke out two centuries ago was in preparation for the inevitable bombs falling back then he built up a robust network of defenses that when the date came we're able to defuse most of the nukes that were headed for las vegas unfortunately the platinum trip didn't reach him in time to bring his systems up to their absolute potential and a few bombs did manage to land around the desert and then he struggled with power outages and software bugs that left him in a coma for years eventually he awoke and got his systems under control but his securitrons were not at their optimal performance and he was picking up reports of people from the west entering mojave and judging by their uniforms he knew them to be organized enough to field an army so that's when he unified the tribes renovated the strip and when the ncr did come to his doorstep he rolled out the welcome mat and brought them to the table to negotiate the treaty in exchange for just five percent of the dam's output going to the strip the ncr gets to send the rest of the power back west and set up shop at key military outposts of course now everything is changing with the legion getting ready to do their second assault and with the outcome questionable house isn't waiting around he wants the war to play out on his terms not the belligerences this means heading to fortification hill and finally meeting the big man across the colorado boone's are gonna have to sit this one out unless he starts shooting anything in red and thus lopez and rex strike it out down south to cottonwood cove alone the camp is an oppressively terrible place docile slaves are everywhere lugging massive loads around and just trying to avoid the ire of their impatient masters while recently enslaved people are corralled in pens waiting for their bleak futures no doubt it's meant to be a display of power forcing anyone wanting to do dealings with the legion to see their enslaved and crucified victims anyone outside looking at the legion can plainly see the legion doesn't [ __ ] around the mark does a trick and gets lucky on a boat up the river to the big man's camp at fortification hill they of course take all of his weapons contraband and the platinum chip and then lopez is allowed limited access to the camp once again it's a long uphill trip past slaves rose a crucified victim some no doubt from four years ago and of course a tiny portion of caesar's army at the tent rex is forced to stay behind and lopez enters the heart of caesar's command center alone and unarmed you're the courier who caused so much trouble for my legion and yet you dare come before me years of meticulous scheming to place a mole at camp mccarran wasted so tell me this because i really want to know i am feared with good reason but you of all people dare to come here and stand before me the mighty kaisar what were you thinking maybe i should have you struck blind so my face is the last sight you ever behold look you do know why i wanted to meet you right a man nearly kills you so you track him across the breath of the mojave you arrive on the strip and waltz into the lucky 38 like someone left you a key under the doormat you assassinate the head of the chairman in his own casino and get away with it then something happens to mr house's robot some kind of military upgrade when you set your mind to something you get results i like that the question is are you ready to get started well lopez isn't dead so that's one good thing coming out of that conversation living up to his reputation he's not a patient man and it's plainly obvious lopez would have been killed in that tent had he not been much more useful alive and working for caesar than dead it's just as house predicted though he wants whatever is in the bunker below destroyed and lopez is turned loose again with all of his possessions down in the bunker house finally fills lopez in on what is down there a [ __ ] securitron army the secure challenge everyone has been seeing for years is only a fraction of the total ever produced the rest house stored down in the bunker for safe keeping when he would need them now lopez is there chip in hand ready to upgrade their software and awaken them to house's commands back at the lucky 38 so it makes sense why caesar would want this entire facility destroyed he's terrified of relying on technology to get things done and if he knew what was under his feet he'd probably nuke the facility just to be extra certain that it was destroyed but he isn't aware and this lets lucky and house get to work activating the army once done he reports back to caesar who takes the ground shaking to mean that the place is being blown to help uh yeah sure just uh just don't go checking down there with lopez having presumably done his bidding he decides to talk azira for a while and give lope has an extensive history lesson on the legion and its ideology caesar originally came from the ncr as a follower of the apocalypse no less his mother went to the followers when he was very young and he was taught to read and write and it was there that his intellect was stoked guiding him towards a life of science and benevolence but caesar wasn't too thrilled by the lofty goals of the followers and when his trip to the grand canyon to learn about the tribes in the region took an unexpected turn caesar began becoming caesar when he and his traveling companions were taken captive by a group of tribals who were at war with seven of their neighboring tribes caesar turned to the lessons of his old books he started helping their captives train and equip themselves taught them how to use firearms effectively and deploy unit tactics he even taught them how to make explosives they thought of him as some sort of wizard and soon he was leading them on a conquest against their weakest enemy when they refused to surrender he had his soldiers slaughter the entire tribe and then when their next target refused to surrender he showed them the pile of corpses one by one the other tribes yielded to caesar and his conquest of the east had begun he went around conquering with joshua graham a mormon missionary who had been with caesar when they were first captured serving his second in command looking back at his old books caesar found inspiration for replacement culture for all the disparate tribal cultures he was conquering and he found in rome a model befitting for the wasteland he took the monarch caesar and used his new methods and ideas to unify the east under one banner conflict with the ncr was inevitable as he puts it because they are just so ideologically opposed just as caesar had to defeat the corrupt and withering roman senate so too will modern day caesar have to conquer the corrupt and stagnant ncr he claims the ncr does not care about its citizens and does deals on the regular with rich landowners and brahmin ranchers to the detriment of its people they are supposed to be a democracy but president tandy was in power for 50 years and her father was a republic's first president that's more like a dictatorship than a democracy in his eyes and when tandy was gone and democracy was free to finally be exercised all that happened was greed and infighting took over caesar looks at ncr's democracy as its weakness and not strength he on the other hand works to elevate his people to something greater a collective power that is far more than the powers of its individuals this ensures that his will and their best interest are always in line with one another or so he claims he tasks lopez to assassinate house for him because as he puts it house is a coward hiding behind robots and is kind of just in the way lopez agrees if only to get away from this psychopath and caesar lets the courier go no doubt figuring that he either just created a useful pawn or he just let an enemy go that he will just get to destroy later as he takes the dam it really doesn't matter all too much to him ah if only he knew back on the strip house is ready for the next phase of his plans his securetrons are ready so now it's time to get some of the tribes in line more or less just to kill time fixing the odds even more in his favor while he waits for caesar to make his move he wants lopez to make contact with the omertas the white glove society the boomers the great khans and the brotherhood of steel and either secure their support their pledge of neutrality or just eliminate them outright securing the home front first lopez elects to take care of the two remaining tribes on the strip whose support might be dubious with all that has been going on as a fleet in the gamora casino the omeras are less than charming but cater to a much seedier crowd lopez gets to work poking around the place and quickly finds dirt on one of the lowest level bosses kachino using it as leverage to get him to flip katrina wants to take the place over and is also privy to some of the details of his boss's plans he doesn't know it all but he's sure house wouldn't approve of it so he gives lopez some tips on how to screw over their plans and that's exactly what he does this wrestles the bosses a great deal and cachino sees an opportunity for the two of them to knock out the bosses completely a meeting is set up where cachino arms lopez and then reveals lopez as the one who is messing with their plans hey i'll take care of them when you're ready just say the word i suggest doing it while they're talking some words take a seat on the couch so we can get to talking so i assume you know why we called you here [Music] yeah clan will be hard to replace but not impossible we're playing contractors just like him without breaking a sweat [Music] hey you [ __ ] me you didn't even know what the plan was yeah as a last request i guess we can give you that courtesy caesar asked us to provide a distraction on this trip so when he gives the wood we're gonna launch all our assault on the strip first we're gonna blow the embassy then we're gonna use soldiers to kill every last [ __ ] on this trip then we'll run this joint that'll teach not at home what can go on while he sits in his [ __ ] ivory tower lording down from on high [Music] the [ __ ] i knew there had to be someone higher up helping you nero you backstabbing two-timing [ __ ] i knew this day would come here oh [ __ ] that actually worked how about that cachino uh chino so with the plan to bring down vegas foiled it's on to rob the casino blind at the tables and then it's on to the last casino down the road is the ultra lux a casino that's known for its top class presentation and great food it's run by the white glove society one of the rehabilitated tribes of house they also have a reputation for eating humans for the last time the white glove society has never and will never consume human flesh for any reason it's written in the charter now didn't i already tell you that we don't do that sort of thing we do not engage in cannibalism here under any circumstances though we haven't always been the white glove society there was another time a dark time when we went by a different name but that's all change now we've evolved past such base impulses since settling into our new home i've seen to it that those days are behind us well as it turns out not all of them have reformed their ways as the son of a great brahmin rancher heck gunderson has vanished while staying in the casino heck wants lopez to find his son and a little poking around reveals the cannibals of the ultra locks abducted him because he'd be a great source of meat from his soft pampered living by his daddy a little more talking and snooping lopez finds heck's son and reunites the two lopez tells them both the truth but convinces hack not to fly off the handle and embargo the entire town to starve them all because as lopez puts it that is exactly what cannibals would want them to do because then they get to turn around and start eating each other understandably disgusted with the entire town heck leaves vowing never to return but nonetheless super appreciative to the courier for helping rescue his son and that's another crisis of the strip averted then it's off to nellis air force base where the enigmatic and extremely reclusive boomers bomb lopes approach as is they're accustomed to anyone who comes with inside of their gates the guy at the gates questionably aiming a rocket launcher at the chain-link fence asks how lopez did it and lopez just casually explains that he's just quick on his feet the party has eventually whisked away to mother pearl the matriarch leader of the boomers and she's super glad lopez didn't get blown up because she's been wanting to open nellis up to the outside world maybe just a little bit but the other boomers set in their ways are too fearful of the outside world and would rather just blow it up from a good safe distance god damn did this whole thing age like a fine wine she has a savage oh i'm sorry i mean outsider go around learning about her people and helping out where he can lopez gets a history lesson from a kid and a painting on a wall in a shack help some injured people in the clinic and carry out more repairs on their solar array without any tools or parts by then he's trusted enough to be told about the lady in the water like it's some big secret secret but lopez has already heard about it back when he was at the lake following boulder city regardless they want lopez to go down there and put deployable ballasts under the plane to lift it out of the league because they are just too afraid to step beyond their gates lopez tells the engineering protege to use corn husks to make a hermetic seal so he can have a mask that lets him breathe underwater and then it's off to lake mead to see if that plane is even still underwater somehow it hasn't rusted away after two centuries being under water and the plan basically goes off without a hitch they then send robots to pick up the plane off camera and pearl tells lopez's enemies are now their enemies and they will gladly assist at hoover dam cool now it's the cons and well as yes men aptly puts it the cons are just they're a dirty people they live in tents like animals and they're very rude they've been kicked around a lot but no one's finished them off not yet anyway they were one of the tribes the three families pushed out of vegas a whole bunch got killed so they settled at bitter springs but they kept being so obnoxious the ncr had to kill a whole bunch more of them so then they settled at red rock canyon there's just no getting rid of them they already hate lopez for having slaughtered jesus and his crew in boulder city after he you know ambushed lopez an assistant in his attempted murder so there's really no room for mercy here boone is about to relive his trauma as the party carries out a much more carefully planned and executed bitter springs 2.0 the ncr might have started this war but lopez is going to see it finished so the group makes their way into khan territory a beautiful but desolate patch of dirt nestled in red rock canyon they slip into their home camp and then using stealth snipers and shotguns gets to work [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] 30 [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] lopez boone and rex reap and unholy slaughter upon the unsuspecting cons and leave no one standing with the cons reduced to dust more or less it's time to tackle one more faction and it's well kind of a roller coaster down south that hidden valley is a series of bunkers that all seem abandoned and sealed off but upon entering a specific door lopez is blinded by a flashbang and a bunch of dudes in power armor comes storming in barking questions and orders lopez does what they say because being turned to ash wasn't exactly on the agenda for the day this is the brotherhood of steel and they aren't off to making a positive impression on the guy who just committed a cleansing of the wasteland of a long time travel fixture things are even more stacked against them considering house told lopez they gotta go by way of complete annihilation so slapping an explosive slave collar with a microphone on it and sending lopez to go deal with an ncr ranger camping in one of the nearby bunkers isn't really a good look lopez manages to convince the ranger powder gangers like to use these bunkers as camps just as he's wanted to do and he not wanting to be surprised with a sink of dynamite in the middle of the night as he sleeps apparently [ __ ] off then it's back to the bunker where elder mcnamara is waiting to take off that piece of explosive bling lopez is set free in a manner of speaking but he does get warned that under penalty of death he cannot disclose the location of the brotherhood and then he asks for his help again uh what still for whatever reason lopez decides to hear out the elder and figure out what their deal really is they're currently under a lockdown since their terrible showdown with the ncr at helios 1 where they got their ass kicked hard by the approaching western army and what remained of their chapter limped into hidden valley and have been in a state of lockdown ever since contact with the surface world is almost entirely cut off with only a very small amount of activity on the surface approved for the sake of the survival of the bunker this has been wrestling a lot of people on the bunker seeing as it's been years that they've been trapped underground and it's only weakening their chapter while the rest of the world above grows stronger or at least that's what their assumption is they didn't realize the ncr is weaker than they had originally thought house is planning a coup and caesar's legion is about to storm the dam they really don't get out that much he gives lopez a series of tasks that involve tracking down missing squads that have been sent to the surface to investigate secrets of the mojave and assess the social and political climate of the world above they realize things might not be as hopeless as they originally thought but a lot of those parties did turn up dead in lopez's investigation this means it falls to lopez to complete their work the mucker is actually starting to break down key systems that everyone relies for life support down there are starting to fail and so the elder wants lopez to go and fetch some equipment from the nearby vault-tec vaults because they are probably the only places likely to have the appropriate parts lopez goes yep sure why not i was heading to those vaults anyway and earning some extra caps couldn't hurt and then goes and gets them their parts two of the three vaults he's already been to vault three when he had cleared out the fiends and vault 22 when he had to rescue keely and retrieve the research data this just leaves volatile effing which was a crazy social experiment where everyone would vote on who they had to sacrifice to the death chamber that was the overseer's office and uh whatever your eyes now and imagine what joys await you in the next life the afterlife can you see them [Music] with all the parts the elders pleased and asks for lopez to complete just one last job they want to reestablish surveillance on the outside world and for this they need him to go get them system access to the black mountain facilities which is currently occupied by a hostile group of super mutants over at black mountain neil meets him at the gates and warns him about the night kin up the road but figures lopez can help to post the crazy leader tabitha and save his fellow mutants unfortunately lopez has to kill quite a few of his mutant brethren along the way up the mountain peak but once he's up there he finds a broken robot named ronda and just flips the switch to get it back up and running again the robot as it turns out is a friend and traveling companion for the leader tabitha and the two just ride off into the sunset not even bothering to ask what a human is doing on the mountain and why there's a bunch of dead mutants everywhere okay then it's just a matter of bugging the system for the brotherhood saying goodbye to neil who didn't even have a chance to tell the group what to do rescuing a glow mechanic and then it's back to the brotherhood to learn how to wear power armor and become the savior of the bunker and a super trusted friend lopez accepts their love and affection discovers the bunker's self-destruct systems reprograms the bunker's turret defenses to start killing all brotherhood personnel and then sets the place to blow the [ __ ] up leaving her to smoldering ruin as he reaches the surface good [ __ ] riddance lopez isn't sure why he didn't just do this from the start but hey learning how to wear power armor might actually come in handy someday with that every major tribe has been taken care of with only a couple of them not being completely eradicated though oh there was also the remaining powder ganger forces hanging out in another vault north of good springs that lopez went into and exterminated ending the powder gangers for good once again good [ __ ] riddance i really wish there were more to some of these factions than just a single 20-minute quest as is the case with the omers and white golf society it just feels out of place when the crimson caravan and atomic wrangler have more quests and are better fleshed out than the two of the major factions on the strip and the game doesn't even force us to interact with either of them i don't really know why they were chosen to be the factions that we have to interact with during the main quest the boomers and the brotherhood of steel both have quite a few quests multiple characters with detailed backstories and a ton of lore to go digging through meanwhile the two major strip factions exist in a vacuum that is their casinos and aside from a couple of info sources we talked to there really are no characters either to top it all off both the omerta quest and the white glove society quest are just super buggy and feel half finished like why didn't they just swap them out for one of the other more developed factions like say the kings for instance or failing that just remove the need to interact with them entirely it's not like their quest extended the experience much i mean they don't hamper the experience i'm just confused why obsidian chose to leave it the way they did before launch i didn't get to show much of the cons because i didn't want lopez to be the wasteland massai or something he needed an atrocity under his belt like every other major faction in this game and killing the cons at least makes sense thematically speaking i mean i guess the ghouls that repcon could have counted too but i just wanted to show how this game actually lets you wipe out a major faction entirely and aside from some quest being lost forever the game actually doesn't break so that really just leaves the boomers in the brotherhood as the only two factions worth discussing their segments perfectly exemplify the typical new vegas gameplay loop i discussed earlier we hear about the factions go to their respective settlements get fully immersed in their worlds and their problems and then get the chance to decide whether we want to help them or not if we do help them we are given a series of diverse quests although the brotherhood has a lot of fetch and delivery quests unfortunately and eventually earn the trust of the people there learning more about the factions as we go along when it's done we earn some sort of bigger reward and the game signals to us that we haven't seen the last of them yet implying we will see them impact the ending somehow it's just a neat and effective formula and it's more or less done now as we enter the third act of the game this next part isn't a directive from house but lopez figures while he's in the habit of settling scores he's got one more name he'd like to cross off his list of smug [ __ ] needing a good ass kicking he tells boone to go grab his rifle and his beret because they are about to go legion hunting he finds a splendid new sniper rifle on a ridge overlooking cottonwood cove and he gets to break it in on the legion skull milling about below the two of them plus rex carved through the slave of camp like carving a cake and it's actually maybe a little bit disappointing that they didn't get to kill more of them they set the slaves free and it's on to a boat to fortification hill at caesar's camp the party gets to enjoy a more gratifying battle as they fight their way up this hill to the main legion camp and this is where things start to get maybe just a little bit tough the legion on the hill are some of caesar's best and use some explosive gloves that make fighting them with guns just a bit of a challenge fortunately they have no real counter to the grenade launcher lopez has been dragging around since good springs and they crumple like paper the party rallies at caesar's tent and it's time to end the insufferable prick once and for all retribution [Applause] [Music] with caesar and his elite bodyguards dead and stripped of gear lopez gets to taint the throne with his wasteland behind and enjoy a hard-fought victory rest in peace caesar lopez sells his armor to contreras who in a top-class power move starts wearing the armor a little while after eliminating caesar ii all but guaranteed the red empire's falling apart was only part of the reason for the assault the other reason was to make it up to boone for blue balling him this entire time when he promised to go kill legion with him and then well never actually did but with them standing in caesar's obliterated camp boone is actually happy for the first time in a long time and they get to talk about bitter springs again bitter springs has been following the two of them for a while even before they killed the last of the cons lopez suggests that the two of them actually go and visit bitter springs and who knows maybe it will actually bring boone some closure because clearly single-handedly wiping them out didn't achieve that aim a boon agrees and the two of them closer x make it to the extreme north east corner of the mojave boone reminisces a little while and gives some final details of the massacre we radioed to confirm our orders but command didn't get what we were seeing they told us to shoot till we were out of ammo so that's what we did yeah well i'm not a soldier anymore those rules don't seem like much of an excuse now anyway i don't know why we're here thought maybe it helped me see things better i'd like to stay here for the night think something's over and lopez agrees only to be awoken in the morning by boon sing he spotted a huge legion raiding party probably coming to attack the poorly defended refugee camp for slaves the two of them plus rex then have to fight off wave after wave of legionnaires trying to keep what few ncr and civilians are left alive they managed to do it though and boone isn't exactly sure what this means he was convinced ever since his deeds at bitter springs that he'd been marked by the universe with just supremely bad karma and that means bad things were coming the kidnapping of his wife the subsequent mercy killing he had to carry out on his wife and unborn child lest she be sold into slavery all of this just seemed like the universe getting even with him he was convinced he was meant to die their fighting legion at bitter springs clearly underestimating lopez's leave the [ __ ] crits at this point lopez convinces him he needs to forgive himself that he made mistakes but he can use them to guide him towards a better path and that the universe honestly just doesn't give a [ __ ] about anyone one way or the other so he can absolutely forget about that stupid voodoo nonsense boone appreciative of his friendship with the courier and the opportunity he got to finally butcher legion scum figures yeah it's probably time to move on and then he starts wearing his old ncr gear again and somehow becomes even more [ __ ] lethal with his shitty hunting rifle i mean god damn boone's loyalty mission is by far my favorite of the loyalty missions in the game which is probably why he's my favorite companion in the game too it's just so well integrated with the game world taking us from killing legion soldiers and getting to learn about the effects of their slave trade to the old remains of bitter springs where we see the ncr is not squeaky clean either it's through his perspective we really see the ugly darker side of both major factions and is in my opinion essential playing for anyone looking to get a clear understanding of what these factions are really about i kept mentioning bitter springs throughout the game for this exact payoff we hear about this massacre constantly wherever we go but it's always through second-hand accounts until we find boone and bitterroot but both of which are clearly [ __ ] up from their experiences here had i gone deeper into the cons i'm sure i could have found even more references to it it's this sort of world building that is honestly exclusive to video games because we could get such a one-sided impression of events if we had only talked to a couple of people who were very anti-cons and pro-ncr and of course the reverse is true if we never do boone's quest and find out it was just a miscommunication more than anything else you just can't get an experience like that in any other form of media like i said there's quite a few loyalty missions for the other companions like cass's deals with the major trading faction the mojave veronica who we never actually met in this play through deals with the brotherhood of steel and arcade deals with the enclave but none of those felt as grounded as boone's mission which isn't just about boone and his relationship with the ncr but instead is also about the game world itself the game manages to say a lot of poignant [ __ ] in such a brief window and is probably some of the best examples of world building in this game and all of it is hidden behind a companion we could never have even met like [ __ ] i just love this games is writing in world building lopez has come to the real work at last the two great powers will be squaring off soon but house isn't done yet stacking the deck even more in his favor and has just a few more things he needs his apprentice to work on he's been warming up to the courier more seeming a lot less condescending though still very stiff and business-like that's all fine and good the two are making a good team and lopez can't deny he's enjoying the freedom houses offering him to extract caps and gear from every possible source president kimball is going to be visiting hoover dam soon and house is utterly convinced the legion will try and succeed to assassinate him and lopez has to agree the ncr is just too incompetent to manage to cobble together an impervious security screen and the legion are just goddamn masters of infiltration espionage they likely have like half a dozen moles of the dam if they had such a high ranking one at mccarran kimball's survival without someone with enough luck to warp the fabric of reality to protect him is almost surely not going to make it off that damn lopez wonders though why house even needs the present of the ncr life especially since he is planning on evicting the ncr from the mojave completely but house is adamant that the man must live to take the blame for the failure to retain hoover dam it was he after all who started the whole expansion of mojave and over the past few years the ncr has been bleeding men resources and calves in the desert and if he manages to lose the damn on top of it all he's basically politically [ __ ] so much so house expects that he would wind up committing suicide but that's a kimbo problem not a house or lopez's what would become their problem is if he did manage to die the dam and he becomes a venerated martyr and then they evict the ncr then all blame will be aimed at new vegas especially with the legion out of the picture this would be exceedingly bad for business if that were to happen and house needs all the caps he can get if he's going to rebuild humanity in vegas which is his current trajectory after all he needs the man to live to see another much more bleak day so it's off to the dam where lopez's great standing with the ncr thanks to all the work he's done for them over the past few weeks has gone him a cushy spot in the security detail for the visit the ranger isn't too keen on lopez but he wouldn't be a good security manager if he wasn't wary of an officially unaffiliated mercenary offering to beef up security granted the fact that lopez killed caesar should earn him an honorary medal for the president at this thing but whatever lopez just wants the president alive because he knows someone here is going to bungle their job a lot of the place is locked down even for lopez and he can't actually even have his guns out in the crowd so he needs to be watching the place like a hawk boone makes some good advice as a sniper watch the watchtower overlooking the president's stage in case something goes wrong the president lansin quickly makes his way to the stage where he starts giving a long stirring speech to the 10 soldiers there only two of which are actual audience members and the rest being security which kind of begs the question why he even came here in the first place but as boone predicted there's some shenanigans at the watchtower and a body falls from the top upon closer inspection it's the corpse of the rangers sniper guard and the party knows that they got a situation on their hands at the top of the tower another ranger is standing sniper in hand wondering what the courier is doing up there lopez points out that there's a dead body at the bottom of the tower and the guard is like oh [ __ ] we uh better go down there and check it out uh yeah i already did we got a radio in and report it ah no we don't uh yeah we do the radio is right [ __ ] there the legion agent loses his patience and starts shooting and boone wastes no time dumming the [ __ ] as lopez hits the radar to report the disturbance the ranger on the other end is pissed and says he's cancelling the event and getting the president the [ __ ] out of there asap but this was all too easy lopez knows the legion's gotta have several operatives at the dam they got agents everywhere as caesar himself explained there's no way they only put one sniper on this job thinking back to the plot at mccarran lopez wonders if they'd try the same thing twice over there they tried bombing a monorail maybe here they would try bombing something if that's the case a likely target would be the vertibird the president flew in on so he makes it over to the helipad where the guard eventually lets lopez through just because he asked nicely jesus christ no one of the president is in so much [ __ ] danger these people are absolute morons so lopez inspects the vertebrae and using his mechanical know-how recognizes another bomb clearly signaling the legion aren't as original as one might expect he yanks the [ __ ] out and clears the way for the present to take off if they got an assassin on the vertibird 2 [ __ ] is hopeless and he [ __ ] deserves to get killed at this point fortunately that isn't the case in the president and his entourage make it off the damn safe and sound the security people taking a big sigh of relief wonder why the hell anyone even thought this was a good idea to begin with i mean i hate to say i told you so but you know i told you so back at the lucky 38 house is happy that his fall guy will live to see the end of his political career he saved his life so don't feel bad about ending his political career is basically what he ends up telling lopez the legion are beginning to set up for the battle but there's just one last thing house needs doing something that couldn't be done until now when the ncr will be completely distracted by the legions maneuvering on the other side of the river near helios one is an unassuming power substation inside is a console and house needs lopez to bug the console with another one of houses technical doohickeys so he can kick his secondary reactor online he needs the reactor online so he can start issuing all the commands to his robot army and because the ncr is likely to cut all power from the dam during the battle that just wouldn't do house any good he couldn't do any of this sooner because the ncr would have noticed the massive joltan power surge from the strip that's needed to kickstart his secondary reactor with the legion on the dam at this point they almost certainly won't notice the temporary surge it's a very simple job but the substation is heavily guarded with ncr troops who won't let any unauthorized personnel on the premises so lopez grabs some ncr armor to disguise himself as a soldier and just waltzes in and plants the bug nobody none the wiser excellent everything is in place and the odds are so stacked in house's favor his victory and by extension lopez's victory is guaranteed it's only a matter of waiting for the battle to shake out and then humiliating the victor house suggests lopez head over to the dam to assist the ncr just to stack the odds a little more and to get a good view of his new robots in action lopez agrees and heads down to the dam for the final showdown so here it is it's all come down to this the battle everyone has been anticipating since even before lopez got shot in the head and left for dead the bear in the west and the bowl of the east come head to head over one of the great engineering feats of human history quite a historic battle probably the greatest of the earth has seen since the great war and it's an utter route for the legion they didn't stand even a remote of a chance with the ncr and house's robots pushing them down the dam and the boomers coming in and carpet bombing them back to the stone age they barely make it halfway across the dam before they start falling back inside the dam lopez has to install one more house doodad to officially transfer all control of the place over to him and then restart the dam because as expected the ncr shut down the thing before the battle even started with all that he is ready to send in his robot army and finish this thing lopez meanwhile has to keep fighting legion back topside and help the ncr secure the thing once and for all the party makes it to like atlania's camp on the eastern edge of the dam where the last of the legion are making a final stand as much like what went down when they raided caesar's camp at fortification hill and killing legion has become second nature to lopez boone and rex the second biggest man lanius makes his appearance and lopez meets him for a chat an envoy of vegas yet you carry yourself a battle if so you cannot truly be of that city of cowards many graves in the east are filled with those who said as much with braver words not backed by strength it is kaiser's will this gate to the west bear the flag of the legion kaiser's will shall be done kaiser's will is the will of the legion and the west all beneath the flag of the great bear exist to test the strength of the legion the west shall fall as the east fell and all the tribes that stretched to the setting sun shall bear the mark of the legion i see you fight with words like all beneath the flag of the bear let us hope your skill with weapons proves greater so you see quarter terms of surrender our roads into ncr are hung with the bodies of those who attempted to negotiate with us save your speeches we will take hoover dam and move forward until our feet crush the setting sun beneath them hoover dam has never seen the mass strength of the east only leggets such as graham who deserve the fire kaiser blessed him with now i am here and make markers of your people as the legion carves its way west you speak in circles what if the east i am the east and i will prove it this day the victory here shall be swift our forces shall take the dam secure it then built a road west on the bodies of the ncr the east will hold once across the colorado nothing to rival hoover dam remains your weakness you seek to thwart me by claiming the legion is too strong for you that does not mean we would not succeed the east was a hard-fought campaign even now kaiser drew too much of the legion's blood needed therefore this hoover dam is but a place i will not have it be the gravestone of the legion whether quickly or as you describe slowly by attrition as for wisdom there is wisdom in your words man of the west know that i shall return east i shall not remain there forever on that day the strength of the bear shall be tested if the west is one day filled with ones such as you perhaps it shall be a worthy fight indeed my coming would have saved you set your people free in ways they cannot see war would have tested them broken the weak with its violence yet allowing the strong to arise violence gave you that strength awakened you i can see it upon your face where two bullets left their mark perhaps it is unfortunate wolpex was not here to hear your words something tells me you would prove more than his match until the day when our armies meet again envoy of vegas i shall wait for you on the battlefield with him and his boys in full retreat the day is won and vegas is almost free there's just the matter of handing general oliver his own terms of surrender to house and the free new vegas caesar on the cross been a long time since i've seen the kind of work you've laid down today a damn long time and the screams of those legion bastards as they kick dirt running east like a choir of angels to my ears speaking of that crazy light show over the fort what the [ __ ] was that some kind of thumb of god you called down amazing [ __ ] amazing could use 100 of you just scatter you over the east like jacks give those plum [ __ ] the what for what the hell are you on about house he's just a rumor on this trip never leaves us what is this brahman [ __ ] i'm not getting the feeling we're all about to sing kumbaya here what the hell are you talking about what is this the free economic zone of new vegas what the hell does that mean oh wait here we go demands ncr's immediate withdrawal withdrawal like [ __ ] hell we're withdrawing we just held the damn we didn't do it to let it go this paper of yours isn't fit to wipe my ass if you think after all that's happened i'm going to grab my ankles and take it like the legion you know i won't surrender the dam and certainly not to the ghost man of vegas and his new right hand of the week we held this place for years kicked one legged out of here so hard caesar burned him to a crisp it's our post we've fought for it i'll fight for it again today if you're looking to convince me otherwise you better have a lot more reasons than you just telling me to go true guess i'm a little too used to seeing securatrons in vegas to think they turn and be bad news and i know how bad they can get look house vegas it's pretty got you blinded a bit maybe but ncr has got perks too think about it before you sign on with him and if you say no keep in mind what that means ncr may have its problems but when we're riled watch out i'm not going to throw away the lives of my men just to make a point and there'll be other days with his tail between his legs oliver sent packing back west and if house is correct the ncr won't be back anytime soon if ever again the high leadership of the ncr will be culled and tourists will come pouring back into the strip to continue to lose their caps while house with his assets now freed to invest in a better mojave will begin getting industry up and running again and real progress will be made once more as for lopez who really knows he's one of the richest men in the mojave now something of a hero who helped bring stability to the wasteland and he's house's favorite protege the life of easy living does seem nice but maybe he'll just go back to wandering once more this is just the start you see this is where it all begins and so the courier who had cheated death in the cemetery outside good springs cheated death once again and the mojave wasteland was forever changed mr house's securitron army took control of hoover dam and the strip pushing both the legion and the exhausted ncr out of new vegas mr house continued to run new vegas his way a despotic vision of pre-war glory the streets were orderly efficient cold new vegas continued to be the sole place in the wasteland where fortunes were won and lost in the blink of an eye the courier fair and kind-hearted to those in the wasteland ensured that mr house would keep new vegas stable and secure for future generations mr house afforded him every luxury at his disposal in the lucky 38 out of gratitude and a quiet sense of pride for his choice in lieutenants mr house showed little interest on the boomers who eventually began venturing out to nellis to meet and trade with travelers buried beneath tons of rubble the mojave chapter of the brotherhood of steel was no more those few who were outside the hidden valley bunker when it was destroyed settled into new lives or headed west to find a new chapter to join their leaders destroyed by the courier the fiends scattered throughout the wasteland without the organization of motor runner cook cook violet and driver nephi they were easy prey after mr house gained control of new vegas he sent to securatron to goodsprings as a token of appreciation for helping the courier victor was a mixed blessing however as he continually monitored the town for mr house after generations of being beaten down the great khans were finally broken by the courier those few who avoided the courier's wrath moved north into the wilderness of idaho where they tried once more to rebuild thanks to the courier and lily a cure for the nightkin schizophrenia was found shortly after dr henry's experiment concluded nightkin and other super mutants in the wasteland flocked to jacobs town and the town became known as a haven where a mutant could find peace flush with his victory mr house sent securatrons into freeside thinking to increase his control over the area when fighting broke out the kings fought valiantly but were no match for the armored killing machines and were wiped out to the last man revitalized by violetta's brain rex eventually learned to balance the memories of his old life with violetta's experiences among the brutal fiends his mind had difficulty adjusting but rex eventually found peace with his new more vicious self while the destruction of the repcon rockets appeared to be a boon to the salvagers of novak the benefit would never be realized radioactive fuel from the wrecked ships seeped out and contaminated the area salvages were forced to move on and the town was abandoned though ncr was withdrawing from the region boone remained in new vegas finding work as a security guard and caravan scout along the highways while he might have preferred rejoining his old unit boone couldn't bring himself to abandon the city where he'd met his wife after hoover dam the leaderless powder gangers at the correctional facility vanished into the waste leaving the prison empty the correctional facility became another abandoned ruin in the wasteland its carcass occasionally picked over by enterprising prospectors with cook dead powder gangers at fault 19 fell apart those who weren't destroyed by the courier fled into the hills or attempted to work their way back through the mojave wasteland you survived after hoover dam sheriff myers runs prim with his own style of frontier justice he deals with most folks fairly but now and then someone winds up dead with little to no evidence against them and so the carrier's road came to an end for now in the new world of the mojave wasteland fighting continued blood was spilled and many lived and died just as they had in the old world because war war never changes you don't have to go digging too deep to realize new vegas is a bit of an oddball of a game in many ways it was serendipitous it got made at all obsidian doesn't own the rights to make the games bethesda does but bethesda asked them if they want to make a spin-off game seeing as a bunch of the og creators resided at obsidian then the team agreed excited to get into work on one of their old ips again but it did come with a few strings attached they had to use bethesda's already outdated engine they had a very strict deadline to meet and a cash bonus owed to the studio would be paid out only if the game managed to hit an 85 on metacritic this understandably soured their partnership and led to a lot of the shortcomings in new vegas there are some parts of the game most noticeably in caesar's legion where there are just gaps in the content the ncr was fleshed out quite well with several hub areas and tons of connecting side quests but caesar's legion just didn't get the same treatment and then there's just the general jankiness of the game most notably in combat with the first person shooting feel of the game just feeling clunky at launch and by today's standards it's just awful especially early game where your combat skills are low weapon handling and accuracy is just painful and maybe it serves me right for not using vats but i prefer to play these games not have the game play itself it's playable but damn it's just rough by the end of the game with my guns at its max rank and packing some better firearms the combat was left just feeling awkward and not almost entirely broken which is a nice improvement i suppose then there's the bugs and broken quests i played through this game with only stability mods and bug fixes installed but even with those it was just a struggle to get the game stable and to stop crashing and even then they still happen enough to cause some headaches quick saving often is absolutely essential with this game but several quests just had wonky scripts that just wouldn't trigger the next stages correctly and the reason my sections of the or merida and the my glove society quest were just so brief is because those quests basically just completely fell apart from weird objective triggers the white glove quest in general was just a hot mess when i started talking to everyone and taking advantage of all the speech checks available things just really started to get weird all in all though the technical problems of new vegas aren't able to diminish the brilliance of the game that being it's world building and storytelling the game is nothing short of some of the best world building i've seen in a video game it's absolutely masterful work from the very introduction before we even get to make our character this is a game about factions and i honestly use it as a template or a benchmark for good political storytelling and just about anything else like when game of thrones was still got on hbo there were times where i was going damn if they just took some inspiration from new vegas with how to introduce and portray their factions this show would practically be untouchable from the way they were all introduced to how they were portrayed both in game and by npcs and finally how they interacted with the player the world and each other it's all just so damn good it's almost seamless the way these factions are integrated with their world it's almost impossible to imagine a wasteland without the ncr or house or even the fiends there's so much story and gameplay interaction between the different factions and you really get the sense that there's a power struggle going on in the respective spheres of the wasteland you got the crimson caravan and van graffs trying to corner all the trade in the region which rustles against the gun runners cass's independent caravan and several other traders in the region you got all these raider groups just running amok you got the kings the ncr and the followers of the apocalypse all playing a hand in the fate of free side you got the ncr versus the legion ncr versus strip ncr versus the great khans and you even got the ncr versus the ncr and the game will just flip through these conflicts effortlessly sometimes giving you a taste of many of those conflicts in one settlement and a single quest none of these factions feel out of place even in the slightest they all occupy some niche in the world and in the stories and quests so none of them feel redundant or irrelevant the game tries not to punish the player for interacting with as many of the factions as they want unless they start with the legion of course which all bets are off then unfortunately the game doesn't really leverage the players as karma level which is probably a hold of her from fallout 3. i'm willing to bet the devs didn't even want to include it in new vegas seeing as just how useless it turns out to be in this game instead it relies much more heavily on the faction reputation system which is absolutely [ __ ] brilliant in concept and execution you do things to a faction that faction is going to hate you until they try murdering you on sight and inversely if you help a faction they're going to reward you with discounts houses gear and sometimes backup you can call whenever you're in trouble so you can absolutely be a piece of [ __ ] to the factions you don't like and a literal savior to the ones that you do like and the game doesn't break itself because it keeps track of all these stats and it's very well compartmentalized and then we got the characters and while quite a few of the factions would have benefited from more human faces i got the struggle to populate a game with so many useful and interesting characters when time is so short so i'll focus on the two most recognizable faces house and caesar house is a narcissistic power player who's just too damn good and important to be bothered with 99 of what goes on in the waistline even most of what goes on in the strip isn't much of a concern to him he's got big plans and all he needs from people is what they owe him but he might be one of humanity's last best hopes the guy did manage to predict the great war 15 years in advance and was only off by about 20 hours his defenses as underprepared as they had been because of said lapse in time still managed to defuse most of the nukes headed for vegas it then survived two centuries and once a week went right back to playing politics and moving entire nations at no point during the story does he really give the player reasons to doubt him it's just the player's own understanding of human greed and shortcomings that give them pause for the validity of house's claims to the integrity of his own character it's an unfortunate and ironic position for someone like him to be in where he's gotta ask someone to just have a little faith in him it probably would have behooved him to be a bit nicer but then he'd almost be like a mary sue character and a no-brainer to side with then we got caesar who like house is a complete narcissist who believes he is the last best hope for humanity but unlike house he is also a complete not a control freak everything has to go through him and everything has to be exactly his way and oh boy does he have as many opinions as he has big words and philosophies making his hope for a stronger humanity seem just a little doubtful there's no doubt he's committed to his ideals unlike house who is just one bad idea away from becoming some crazy powerful evil robot overlord but caesar's ideals are maybe just a tad bit extreme his methods maybe also just a bit extreme he's got a big problem for his image back in the west which is probably going to cause him all sorts of problems even if he does manage to take the dam he won't be conquering backwards tribes anymore but instead a mostly united nation that has no real reason to question the status quo of their nation is the ncr flawed yeah sure is being crucified or enslaved any better uh i doubt it and that's the dilemma caesar faces but he thinks what worked in the east will work in the west because well he wills it and that's questionable logic to say the least house at least had statistics data and projections to back up his reasoning and once caesar is gone what then he lambasts the west for falling into corruption when tandy died but what happens to the east when their emperor dies it's not like he's siring a dynasty or grooming replacement but there's no doubt the legion is giving the ncr a total run for its money in the mojave they constantly outmaneuver and outplan their counterpart their reliance on local supplies rather than long complicated and vulnerable supply chains lets them move and act with impunity and that sort of flexibility is absolutely an advantage in the wastes the unifying culture of the legion has literally allowed dozens of once warring ignorant tribes to live in peace with one another and even allows them to just simply communicate with one language their methods are atrocious but the results do speak for themselves but these sorts of dichotomies naturally spawn all sorts of awesome questions the player gets to constantly think about when playing and best of all is that the game constantly feeds new information gives new perspectives competing and contradicting perspectives and then just lets the player decide for themselves what to do with the whole thing obscene went out of their way to account for just about any sort of logical decision and action the player might come up with and then ties it all up pretty well at the end of the game really there's so much more i wish i had time to get into there's so many companions i didn't even get to meet in this let alone do their respective royalty missions there's a lot of other settlements and interesting locales i didn't get to hit there's all the dlcs which really does a ton of extra world building to tie up loose ends and flesh out the courier some and then there's just a ton of quests i wish i got to cover more in depth [ __ ] i didn't even get to cover the improved rpg mechanics with diverse character built and meaningful skill checks but this thing is already a massive [ __ ] video and i'd have to do multiple characters to cover all the content so i figure it's time to just call it here new vegas is a fun game chock full of fantastic world building interesting and amusing dialogue cool characters and just tons of atmosphere and charm very rough around the edges but if you work past that this game is absolutely worth playing if you enjoy games that are all about setting in factions anyways take care and i'll see you in the next one [Music] you

Channel: Private Sessions

Views: 198,032

Keywords: Fallout NV, FNV, Fallout New Vegas, pc, steam, retrospective, in retrospect, story, rpg, role playing, role playing game, rp game, 2k, 1440p, 60 fps, long-form, long-form analysis, analysis, video game analysis, review, game review, obsidian, bethesda, new vegas, ncr, mr house, caesars legion

Id: 1dgm7WZCGcs

Length: 146min 48sec (8808 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 23 2020