November 26. 2022

"A package courier found shot in the head near Goodsprings has reportedly regained consciousness, and has made a full recovery. Now that is a delivery service you can count on."
- Mr. New Vegas

The Fallout Series isn’t a series that I have ever been interested on until very recently, most that I remember playing of it was playing a bit of Fallout Shelter when it came out then dropping it for some reason, and hearing about the fiasco that was Fallout 76’s launch, but I am not talking about either one of those today.

So, what did get me into Fallout New Vegas? Believe it or not, it was the “Trans girls play Fallout New Vegas and Celeste” that made me play it, Celeste was a game I already loved before coming out, so why not just embrace the stereotype and try it out, if I didn’t like it, I would have just wasted time… so I had like three playthroughs, two without mods and one with mods, I’ll be commenting on the last two because I remember nothing about my first playthrough except that I never got out of Goodsprings. All of them without Wild Wasteland, although I might make a playthrough dedicated to it at a later date.

Suffice to say that this page contains spoilers of Fallout New Vegas, and I heavily suggest that you play the game, as it quickly became a masterpiece for me, although I recommend playing with at least mods that fix bugs… because this game is known for being extremely broken.

Stealing the joke from Hbomberguy’s vid on New Vegas but I love how every time you start a new playthrough you get shot in the head.

(The Wasteland can be quite unforgiving… bear traps killed me like twice on the way here. The Plasma Pistol from that quest that leads you here is quite good though.)

I simply named the character Anne, didn’t make a backstory for her and all, just had dumb fun with the game itself, finding out whatever crap I thought was cool. Using all the weapons I could find from the pre-order bonuses that I had unlocked somehow.

(Living in the trailer of a guy who tried to kill you is probably the best way to flex on him, not gonna lie.)

So, I don’t like playing as the bad guy in games, so I simply did good and tried to help the people of Goodsprings, saved Ringo, got Vilified by the Powder Gangers because I could, entered recklessly to Primm and somehow survived, saved Deputy Beagle, made a robot the sheriff… cool stuff, shame I don’t have screenshots of it. :P
And so, I went straight to Novac… dealt with Nightkin.

(Pretty sure you can make it so the rockets crash, sounds funny.)

I’d add more but I really don’t have cool screenshots until I got to The Strip, which is where I’d start the Independent Route… and ended up killing Mr. House and Caesar because I wanted to.

Now, here’s the thing. I don’t remember many things about this playthrough, except that I got into the Beyond the Beef main story quest… which was the one quest that made me start to mod the game, as I found out the quest is apparently the buggiest one in the whole game, and I spent a whole day trying to get mods set up. So that’s why most images are from a modded playthrough!... I took over 900 screenshots during over 100 hours of one playthrough, and of course I will not use all of them, just the ones I like the most.

This modded playthrough uses the modlist VIVA NEW VEGAS, which is what this blog is named after, you can find a written guide on how to install it.

I should explain that the screenshots from my modded playthrough are blurry because I had to use a third-party software to take the photos, as the 4GB Patch that is currently recommended in Viva New Vegas causes in-game screenshots to break.)

(This is the very first screenshot I took of this playthrough.)

This time I had an actual character in the form of Anne Oakley, the grandchild of a vault dweller from an unnamed California Vault (unrelated to the Vaults seen in Fallout 1 and 2), named after her grandmother’s favorite pre-war historic figure, Oakley was a girl who had to get around on her own from an early age, having an unknown accident that completely destroyed her face, which caused her to hide her face behind a mask every time.

She’d obtain the job of a Courier, all until the start of the game, where she gets shot in the head, however despite Doc Mitchell’s efforts to restore her face (which ended up giving her an entirely new face) she keeps using masks, doing whatever to avoid her face from being seen by anyone. (Because of this, I’ve made sure that all screenshots taken never show her face.)

So, my playthrough was mostly the same, with the exception of getting ED-E as a companion which was extremely good for the early game… until it was time to reach Novac, somehow in my first playthrough I did not stumble upon Nipton, this playthrough however, I ended up doing such, and because of what I heard about the Legion, even if they went after the Powder Gangers, I decided to fill Vulpes Inculta’s head with lead.

And so, after several save reloads and help from ED-E, I gave the LARPer a humiliating death… as he got stuck on one of the crosses until I shot his head with a shotgun twice.

I’d reach Novac, which I don’t have many screenshots of, as it was mostly what you’d expect, I helped the Bright Brotherhood with their rockets, helped the Nightkin in the basement of the REPCONN building, and got to the 188 Trading Post before Boulder City, where I’d find Veronica, a companion I also missed in my first playthrough… and probably my favorite companion in the game.

(Veronica’s thoughts about The Legion, based.)

(Me and the girl… and the cool as fuck Eyebot.)

Of course, this is the last screenshot until I’d start to get into mods outside of Viva New Vegas, I tried to go as Vanilla-Friendly as possible, as in no alternative body types or any of that crap.

Which is where I’d start with…

Just to clarify, Autumn Leaves is just a DLC-sized mod, and it’s genuinely my favorite Fallout New Vegas mod even after this playthrough, thought it would be nice to have a good experience for a low-level player, besides, unlike the DLCs I can actually leave the area at any moment without stopping progression of the quest line itself, so one can simply stop and continue whenever they wish, being a break from the horrible wasteland out there.

However, I simply went out of my way to finish the mod’s story in one whole night… which got me an ending I didn’t want, so I played the mod to it’s entirely UNTIL the final confrontation, which I’d handle several hours later. Despite that, I absolutely loved this mod’s story and it’s a definitive recommendation when it comes to content mods, although it does have a bit of questionable dialogue.

Back to The Strip, which I’d reach shortly after, I ended up killing Benny inside of the Tops casino, with shortly after getting called into the Fort by Caesar.

Of course, instead of doing that I started the Vault 22 quest until I got one shot by a Giant Mantis even with Arcade Gannon’s help and decided to leave it for later, then got Raul out of Black Mountain by fixing Tabitha’s robot.

Bored, and having obtained a whole-ass Minigun from somewhere I can’t remember anymore, I’ve decided to tackle the New Vegas DLCs, starting with…

Now, I will not spoil the DLCs as even those who might have played New Vegas in their entirety hasn’t played them, despite the majority of screenshots I got being from them, so I’ll be short with my opinions of these.

Honest Hearts ended up being my least favorite, mostly because it’s story beats didn’t hit with me, as Joshua Graham wasn’t that interesting to me really, to not mention how Zion Canyon just sucks as a map to traverse through, being where I’d discover the save/load exploit, which helped me a lot with going through. That aside, I found it fun, and the loot I got from it was pretty dang sick, Joshua Graham’s pistol is really good for the middle-game.

I’d end up dealing with some exploring with Gannon and ED-E, met a cool Super Mutant who is literally just there.

(This guy is cool by the way, he even got rid of some enemies I didn’t notice at first.)

(Definitely a subtitle error but I don’t care.)

And… well, I’d deal with the quest that made me stop in the first place, Beyond the Beef and… aside from the fact that it’s probably the most boring quest in the whole game, it didn’t bug out for me, thankfully.

I did find the Tesla Beaton Prototype from the Crashed Vertibird, which I used a lot during this bit of the playthrough.

(Genuinely this gun is so cool… it also saved my ass at a later point.)

I got back to Black Mountain… to meet Neil just right after the quest that introduces you to him… oops. He was cool with it though.

(I also went through this vault, those who went through it will understand what I mean when I mean that the Tesla Beaton Prototype saved my ass.)

Of course, after this short stroll through the Mojave, I ended up lobotomized in what is essentially an official Obsidian shitpost.

And this official shitpost just so happens to be my favorite DLC in the whole game, sticks to the theming perfectly, the Big MT is genuinely fun to explore, the weapons are great, to not mention the writing is absolutely fantastic, laughed out loud and all, it also is a pretty melancholic DLC all things considered.

Huge spoiler but this DLC lets you talk to your own brain. If you plan on getting any of these, please do so. I genuinely don’t have a single issue with it. It also gives you an extremely good player home once you are done with it, making getting the Long Haul perk unnecessary.

Once I was done with Old World Blues, I decided to stroll around, until I got tired of Arcade Gannon’s quest not triggering at all so I had to look up the wiki to force him into talking.

Which got me to the quest of the Enclave Remnants, now I have not played Fallout 2 (The game where the Enclave are introduced.), but I did know about the Enclave and this quest did a good job at introducing them.

I ended up talking them into helping the NCR, and… GOT MY FIRST POWER ARMOR WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I got two actually.

Wanna know the very first thing I did with the Power Armor? Easy. Storm Cottonwood Cove as well as The Fort and kill Caesar, but before that, I started Raul’s quest… which I got frustrated trying to trigger over finding one NCR guy at Camp McCarran, who I didn’t find until, very late.

So, I gave Boone my spare Enclave Power Armor, and absolutely let him go wild on any Legionaries, no survivors left.

(Get fucked Caesar, twice.)

After that, I took care of the ending of Autumn Leaves for once, as well as doing Vault 22’s quest as well, I was pretty much dealing with the things I had left.

I installed a mod that added the weapons from the classic games as well, and eventually found the Vault 13 canteen on the Crashed Highwayman, I strongly recommend it by the way, cool mod.

And now, I had to prepare for the one DLC that I feared the most, and left my heart at the Sierra Madre.

Now, Dead Money is the one DLC that I feared the most because of the fact that I could not return to the Sierra Madre after finishing it, so I had a completionist’s guide so I could get all of that sweet loot… which didn’t have to be necessary because the DLC let me get around the Sierra Madre one last time before beating it.

Now, this is my second favorite DLC, fantastic atmosphere, fantastic story-writing. Dean Domino can get fucked with a rocket launcher. I did end up getting 36 out of the 37 Gold Bars… I suppose I did let go one of the bars, although caps were a non-issue already because of all the weapons I sold from assaulting the Legion.

(It does upset me that Veronica won’t wear the dresses you give her, fucker asked me the whole game for one only to never wear it, come on Veronica.)

Anyways, in preparation for the last New Vegas DLC, I ended up installing a bunch of content mods, more exactly the someguy series, playing New Vegas Bounties I and Russell, mods which I did like, despite New Vegas Bounties I being pretty underwhelming, I’m aware New Vegas Bounties II is considered a huge improvement over it, but I didn’t get too far on it.

I really liked Russell’s story, genuinely a cool companion, as well as letting me get to another nice map to get around, as well as an excuse to kill Legionaries.

However, with not many things to do, and me not wanting to install too many mods mid-playthrough, I’ve started walking the lonely road that is…

(… Lonesome Road doesn’t have a title card.)

Now, Lonesome Road didn’t hit as hard as Old World Blues and Dead Money, but I absolutely love The Divide as a map, genuinely my favorite map in the whole game, fantastic to get around to, the environmental storytelling is absolutely top tier and it has some incredibly great additions to the lore of the Mojave.

Shortly after beating it, I installed mods that added Marcus and Goris from Fallout 2 as followers, I didn’t like them too much but they were nice additions, Goris due to his size made exploring a little more complicated, and it was a bit of a jumpscare to have a fucking Deathclaw behind me at every moment.

(Looking for mods that gave me things to do, I found this mod. Who’d know this would be the gun I’d use to kill Legate Lanius.)

However, right before Hoover Dam, I finished Raul and Lily’s quests for good, as well as installing the mod of Havasu Blues, which I found to be just a neat addon of things to do in New Vegas, as I didn’t want to finish the game just yet… but eventually I got bored of it, as well as it breaking during the final mission. So, I ended up starting Hoover Dam.

(Get fucked, Lanius.)

And for those who played the game and are asking, yes, I ended up throwing General Lee Oliver off Hoover Dam.

And so, I am done with Fallout New Vegas, over 100 hours of it, and I enjoyed the entire ride, genuinely one of my favorite games of all time, and I loved going through it. I genuinely recommend playing it to anyone interested in the series, it’s a game I’d consider an actual masterpiece.

Now, will I play the other Fallout games? Well, I bought Fallout 4 only so I could mod it, and I got Fallout 1 on my Steam Library, might as well get Fallout 2, and 3 doesn’t seem too hard to get either. Will I write blogs on them? Probably not, maybe if I have interesting things to say about the first two Fallouts I will, but don’t count on it, after all, war never changes, men do.