Stolen Pixels #246: New Vegas, Part 1

[DeadlyYellow]

I miss games like Divine Divinity that allowed you to steal furniture. If it had a weight limit, you could pick it up and put it in your bag.

On a side note, too many games seem to encourage the sense of entitlement that plagues my generation. Oh sure there's a Karma meter, but morality systems are horribly flawed and far too arbitrary to be meaningful.

 

[Fr]anc[is]

The GOAT made sense in FO3, even then you can skip it though. I just had a better idea. All that stuff in his house like the SMG and the chem set would make a much better test. He says "feel free to take some stuff, in exchange go help sunny, I'm sick of fixing gecko bites" If you grab the the SMG, guns; grab a nice suit, speech; etc. And there really wasn't a good way to get a pip boy.

 

[unacomn]

I also drank from the doctor's toilet after robbing him blind. Surprised to find a laser pistol and an SMG.

 

[Evilsanta]

That was awfully sneaky of you...Though i would have done the same thing.

 

[Vanguard_Ex]

Eh, not so funny really...is it just me who feels that the bits of text Shamus now adds to the end of the comics are to distract your attention away so it doesn't linger on a mediocre joke?

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

I played pretty much the whole world OUTSIDE of vegas. The game just isn't that good. None of the characters are original or compelling, the voice acting makes you want to claw your ears out and a post-apocalyptic desert looks enough like a regular desert that it really doesn't have the "cool" factor of blown up suburbs.

Plus the vanilla game is almost unplayable without HEAVY modding. And with heavy modding you get lots o crashes.

The karma system it totally broken, you gain karma from kills so you can keep max karma as long as you butcher a few raiders occasionally, whether or not they shot first. However you lose karma for "stealing" from the powder gang prison after you wipe them out.

My mods and the game still needs work:

1. MUTI makes the interface bearable
2. No karma loss for stealing to fix the stupid possession flags.
3. Automatic success with lockpick/hack games, the mini games or tedious after one or two runs, just make it work if you have the skill like F2.
4. No XP for lockpick/hack, the loot is the reward.
5. Explosives do more damage
6. Explosives knock people down
7. More cars explode.
8. No karma gain from kills.
9. Some kind of inventory manager that renames items so they are sorted.
10. Reload components found in loot.
11. Energy weapon reloading made non-stupid (as in you need batteries to reload energy weapons)
12. Enemies actually use up their ammo (optional to turn on enemies carry more).
13. Kill camera doesn't show up every time and doesn't take as long to finish.
14. Weapon upgrades for EVERY weapon, even though the mod is broken and prevents vanilla upgrades from working
15. Bobbleheads added like from F3
16. Make the chemistry sets work everywhere (not just in Doc's house).
17. Replace the cowboy robot picture with Chuck Norris.
18. Energy weapons have a DR reducing perk.
19. Fellout so the environment doesn't look crappy.
20. Barter made much harder so the skill isn't so lame.
21. Armor no longer disguises you because the whole disguise thing is broken beyond repair.
22. Increase number of traps.
23. Ravens don't show up on radar. (what the hell were they thinking)
24. No Respawn.
25. Fix performance by removing a lot of the clutter decals and objects.
26. Remove markers for unexplored areas to make exploration mean something.
27. Extra perks for selecting certain tag skills (really cool mod).
28. Perk given every level.
29. Perks have skill requirements removed (skill have stat and level requirements).
30. No speed penalty for drawn weapon.
31. Increase speed of bringing up pip boy.
32. Fast travel from inside.
33. Increase pip boy light distance.

So yeah a lot of mods, and still need more to make the game good. The crafting system is particularly poorly thought out.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

He does give you back your clothes, but not until after he's had a nice long chat with you about inkblots and you've wandered around his house for ten minutes.

That's just it though; he doesn't give you your clothes back, he gives you his old suits and presumably keeps your clothes.

 

[SirCannonFodder]

Funny, I couldn't bring myself to steal his crap and then he guilt-tripped me about "having stuff taken from him" anyway!

What he's referring to has nothing to do with you. He's referring to the fact that

Spoiler

Mr House filled his home (Vault 21, hence the jumpsuit and pipboy) with concrete.

 

[Hargrimm]

...in new vegas you have amnesia

Huh? When is that ever mentioned? You don't know anything about Vegas because you just got here, you know being a courier and all

and some dude just gives you, a complete stranger, this piece of advanced technology for no reason...

Yeah, I admit that was kinda weird.
On the other hand, what good is it to the doc?

and thats just the tip of the iceberg of poor writing in this game, i agree that fallout 3 had a ton of problems with its story, but new vegas makes it look like fallout 2.

wut
Care to give any examples, because Fallout 3's writing was the most abysmal I've seen in a loooooooong time.

 

[Swaki]

...in new vegas you have amnesia

Huh? When is that ever mentioned? You don't know anything about Vegas because you just got here, you know being a courier and all

and some dude just gives you, a complete stranger, this piece of advanced technology for no reason...

Yeah, I admit that was kinda weird.
On the other hand, what good is it to the doc?

and thats just the tip of the iceberg of poor writing in this game, i agree that fallout 3 had a ton of problems with its story, but new vegas makes it look like fallout 2.

wut
Care to give any examples, because Fallout 3's writing was the most abysmal I've seen in a loooooooong time.

to the first point, heres why i think you have amnesia, you don't remember anything about your life prior to waking up at the doc, his robot has to tell you how the guy looked, and a big part of the game is running around finding out where he is and who he is, you dont know where anything is, which you would expect him to do, you know being a courier and all.

i think the pipboy would be pretty valuable to a doctor, for inventory and detecting and locating radiation, wounds and poison on his patience, heck even if it only works on the guy who wears it he could just put it on his patience, look over their shoulder, easily locate the problem and save lifes.

now the poor writing, its that everything just happened before you got there, be it that some important information just imploded, like with the kings, everything they based their gang around just disappeared, no holotapes no sheet music no nothing, and holotapes are build to last, remember in the first game where you went down a nuclear crater and found a working tape, if it can survive that, it can survive anything.

and then theres just the way people act towards you, i quickly maxed out my speech skill, and the things i was able to change by passing a speech test are insane, there could be people who had done the same thing for 40+ years, who believed that what they did was the right thing, they had based their entire life around a certain belief or moral value, but then i came along and said "erhmm, no, you are wrong" and they changed their mind.

i do think new vegas is a step in the right direction for the fallout franchise, but its only a small step, all in all it was a disappointment for me, it didnt have the dark and crushing feeling fallout 1 did, it didnt have the freedom and humour fallout 2 had, and it was not as interesting to explore as fallout 3.

 

[mechanixis]

Shamus, why do you even play games if you have so little suspension of disbelief? You'd probably criticize Tetris for "not explaining where all these blocks are coming from."

 

[The Wooster]

Shamus, why do you even play games if you have so little suspension of disbelief? You'd probably criticize Tetris for "not explaining where all these blocks are coming from."

Pssst. It's not entirely serious.

 

[haaxist]

It's funny, because he doesn't even give you your own clothes. He says "Here. This is all you had on you when you were brought in", then hands you 18 caps and your delivery notice thing. Then he gives you his wife's old Vault suit. Apparently, Benny stripped you down before he buried you (since the character is wearing clothes in the cutscene), or Victor took your clothes when he dug you up.

Or the good Doctor was lying about what you had on you and everything you snatch from his house was yours to begin with. I like that explanation better. That way I don't feel bad for taking it.

 

[Corpse XxX]

haha.. Yeah, i robbed that doctor of all his shit too..

Later in game i killed Benny in a 1 on 1 machete fight to the death.. He had no chance the unlucky fart!

 

[Chris 'Chaos' Voce]

I wonder what happened in those five days..."shudders"

 

[Master Kuja]

I wonder what happened in those five days..."shudders"

You are now thinking about what the good Doctor did to you whilst you were unconscious...Have fun with that.