Notes From New Vegas 2
Nov. 9th, 2010 11:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynNotes From New Vegas 2: Stitch, Noooo
Good morning! And welcome to the town of Goodsprings, Nevada, or something, anyway. Not like there's any kind of government worth mentioning in this part of the Mojave territory. You've just walked out of Doc Mitchell's house with a fresh new set of scars on your noggin and a Vault suit that belonged to a guy's dead wife, and a note saying 'oh yeah, finish your damn job'. Naturally, you're going to run off into the Mojave wasteland and pursue your mission immediately,right?
AHAHAHAHA NO.
No, you are not, because this is a FALLOUT game and there is a TUTORIAL and you have GOT TO DO THE TUTORIAL. So go on up to the town saloon and oh, hey, robot! Hi, robot! My, you're a friendly robot- oh, you're the robot who dug me out of my grave? Well, nice to meet you, then! Thank you for saving me! That smiling cowboy on the TV screen on your chest is kind of creepy, but you knew that, right? Okay then! Where did the people who shot me go, do you know? Because I want to go anywhere in the Mojave but there.
... did you say that out loud? Oops.
Anyway. Friendly folksy cowboy-voiced robot talks to you and rolls off, which leaves you with that tutorial to slug through. Because it's not as if you know what you're doing already, is it? Go find Sunny Smiles up at the saloon. yes, that is her name. No, she is not a bimbo or a blonde or anything else silly. She's a very serious-faced young woman in leather armor with a dog the size of Dogmeat, and she gives the impression of being played by Michelle Rodriguez as she offers to teach you how to survive in the wilderness. Okay, fine, might as well follow her up behind the saloon and shoot at a couple of sarsaparilla bottles until you get the hang of the rifle. Can't hurt. You get a free gun out of it, that's kind of cool. Once you plink the bottles down Ms. Rodriguez turns to talk to you about the next-
.... does that say [END TUTORIAL] in the dialogue options? GLORY HALLELUJAH. For the first time since someone at Interplay said "No, make EVERYBODY go through the Temple of Trials" back around Fallout 2, you now have the option of saying "Mmm... nah" and dropping out of the tutorial. Me, I didn't, mostly because I wanted to see where Ms. Rodriguez was going to take me next. In this case, it was off to one of the wells south of town to shoot geckos.
And they are good wells. The town of Goodsprings comes by its name honestly. Remember how in Fallout 3 you couldn't find a non-radioactive body of water anywhere? This is not like that. The wells are numerous and clean and safe and well-maintained and oh, yes, they're frequented by mutant lizards that come up to... I don't know, your waist maybe... and that make cheerfully cackling sounds as they run at you on their hind legs and then leap at you with intent to eat your face. They're sort of purplish-blue and stripey, and they've got big red eyes and thick paws, and I swear that when you shoot them in the face they paw their heads exactly like Stitch from Lilo and Stitch. You're being attacked by many, many evil Stitches, all gleefully screeching as they compete to see who gets to eat your face first. It is very satisfying to realize you can skin the corpse and yoink a big ol' hunk of meat out of 'em when you're done shooting, although that's probably a good point at which to stop thinking about Stitch. I mean, I'm just saying.
When you've finished killing Disney critters (from HELL) and raiding their corpses, Ms. Rodriguez offers to let you come along and wipe out geckos at two other wells, and even offers you money to help her. Or you could [END TUTORIAL], which is really kind of a lovely thing even if you don't [END TUTORIAL] right away. Just knowing it's there... that's kind of pretty. If you do decide to continue the tutorial, do yourself a favor and holster your rifle, then run for the nearest quest marker. The geckos've got a townswoman trapped and if you save her, you'll get a very good reputation in town.
Right! Reputation! Remember how in Fallout 3 Three Dog was always yammering about how wonderful you were or how evil you were or whatever? And how everybody in the Wasteland knew you on sight and thought exactly the same thing about you? Once again, this is not like that. You still have your karma meter, but it doesn't seem to move much. What does move is your reputation. If you do good stuff where townsfolk can see you, you get a better reputation, and if you're a jerk, people treat you like a jerk. Save the woman from the lizards (although she's got a cleaver of her own, so you might want to be careful how close you get) and she thanks you profusely and gives you some stuff and then wanders off to spread your reputation in town. Yay you! If she dies, well, you didn't get there in time. So sad.
Sunny Smiles-Rodriguez then offers you the chance to learn one more thing, whether you saved the woman or not. (I don't know if she offers you the chance if you deliberately shoot the woman yourself. Let's get something clear here: I don't play for Team Evil. I don't enjoy being a jerk or a bastard or a monster. I like playing heroes, clean or grubby- but definitely heroes.) If you take her up on it, she leads you over to a campfire bed and tells you to go find some Xander Root and a Broc Flower and she'll teach you how to make Healing Powder. Flashbacks to game 2 aside, this is a good introduction to the fact that you are going to find a lot of things in the desert, and you can make even more things out of them in the right places. The campfire is mostly for foody things, and for occasionally tanning hides. There are workbenches to deal with weapon builds and modding ammo, and there are reloading benches for taking ammo apart and rebuilding it. Right now, though, it's just fire and you, so get movin' and go get that root and that flower.
The first you're going to look, at least if you're me, is up by the old schoolhouse. It's big. It's red. It's distinct in another way, namely: it's the first building I've seen in any Fallout game anywhere that had air conditioners. Seriously. Go load up Fallout 3 and look at the buildings. There aren't any air conditioners sticking out of the windows, and all the big buildings you'd expect to have central air have fans on the desks and shelves but no interior air vents. Washington, DC was not air conditioned in 2077, but the Vegas area was- or at least the biggest building in a small town in the Mojave Desert was. Not like any of the other buildings have boxes sticking out of their windows around here. It's a little detail but it's one I appreciate.
'Course, you can't pay much attention to little things like that, because BUGS. Specifically, mantises. They're kind of cute- little things that come up to your mid-calf or so- but don't let that fool you. They are BUGS and they are MUTANTS and they want to EEEET YOUR FAAAAACE. They'll just take longer to do it than the big ones, so get that gun out or your slicey or fisty weapon of choice and KILL THE BUGS. Trust me on this. Tiny they may be but they will still kill you. KILL THE BUGS.
And then pull their legs off, because if you have mantis legs and certain plant products you can produce honey-mesquite grilled mantis at a campfire. Mmmm, tasty! ... oh don't give me that look. If you played Fallout 3 there had to have come a point where you stuck raw giant mutant bear meat in your face. You know you did. Go grill your mantis legs and pretend they're shrimp.
Anyway, once the bugs are no longer a problem you can look for your xander root. You can go inside the school, too, that's no problem, but be aware that the bugs outside are not alone. There's a bunch of mantises inside the building and they're harder to see. Might want to skip that for a while. Get your root and get ready for a flashback, because the flower you need is up in the graveyard.
You know, the one the robot dug you out of. The one where you were shot.
Janice had a little bit of an EEEH HHHH EEEH HHH moment up here, but it wasn't too bad. The place looks different in daylight than it does when you're, you know, tied up and kneeling at the edge of a grave in the middle of the night. That, and there are bloatflies here, big fat horrible ones the size of a human baby, which makes any hysterical hyperventilation a bit tougher if you don't want to end up on the wrong end of something so huge that it had to have been one of the biggest maggots in entomological history.
Oh, you didn't need to sleep tonight anyway.
Seriously, though, once you've dealt with the bloatflies and grabbed the Broc Flower, take a moment to look around. You won't be getting an Oh. My. God. moment like you did when you left the Vault in Fallout 3, but your first view of the Wasteland from the graveyard promontory is a reasonably close analog. You can see the lights of Vegas from here, even in daylight. You can see the rollercoaster in Primm. You can see... all kinds of places, really, places that you might or might not know. The desert rolls away in every direction, and it is gorgeous even if it's not the same kind of sucker punch to the gut that you got seeing the ruin of the Washington Monument and the Capitol Dome in the distance.
This was where I decided something about Janice: she had been put into the courier trade pretty young, maybe not entirely of her own decision. She's spent most of her life since then moving back and forth between places, carrying things, but never actually getting to see and do. Now that she's been shot in the head and left for dead, she's out of the trade. She gets to go out and interact with whatever she wants, and by gum that's what she's gonna do. Well, once she gets that healing powder made, anyway, and takes Sunny's advice to go look for some caps by picking the lock on a safe in the school building full of bugs. But after that? And maybe visiting the town saloon? AdVENture!
She'll regret thinking that eventually. They always do.
Good morning! And welcome to the town of Goodsprings, Nevada, or something, anyway. Not like there's any kind of government worth mentioning in this part of the Mojave territory. You've just walked out of Doc Mitchell's house with a fresh new set of scars on your noggin and a Vault suit that belonged to a guy's dead wife, and a note saying 'oh yeah, finish your damn job'. Naturally, you're going to run off into the Mojave wasteland and pursue your mission immediately,right?
AHAHAHAHA NO.
No, you are not, because this is a FALLOUT game and there is a TUTORIAL and you have GOT TO DO THE TUTORIAL. So go on up to the town saloon and oh, hey, robot! Hi, robot! My, you're a friendly robot- oh, you're the robot who dug me out of my grave? Well, nice to meet you, then! Thank you for saving me! That smiling cowboy on the TV screen on your chest is kind of creepy, but you knew that, right? Okay then! Where did the people who shot me go, do you know? Because I want to go anywhere in the Mojave but there.
... did you say that out loud? Oops.
Anyway. Friendly folksy cowboy-voiced robot talks to you and rolls off, which leaves you with that tutorial to slug through. Because it's not as if you know what you're doing already, is it? Go find Sunny Smiles up at the saloon. yes, that is her name. No, she is not a bimbo or a blonde or anything else silly. She's a very serious-faced young woman in leather armor with a dog the size of Dogmeat, and she gives the impression of being played by Michelle Rodriguez as she offers to teach you how to survive in the wilderness. Okay, fine, might as well follow her up behind the saloon and shoot at a couple of sarsaparilla bottles until you get the hang of the rifle. Can't hurt. You get a free gun out of it, that's kind of cool. Once you plink the bottles down Ms. Rodriguez turns to talk to you about the next-
.... does that say [END TUTORIAL] in the dialogue options? GLORY HALLELUJAH. For the first time since someone at Interplay said "No, make EVERYBODY go through the Temple of Trials" back around Fallout 2, you now have the option of saying "Mmm... nah" and dropping out of the tutorial. Me, I didn't, mostly because I wanted to see where Ms. Rodriguez was going to take me next. In this case, it was off to one of the wells south of town to shoot geckos.
And they are good wells. The town of Goodsprings comes by its name honestly. Remember how in Fallout 3 you couldn't find a non-radioactive body of water anywhere? This is not like that. The wells are numerous and clean and safe and well-maintained and oh, yes, they're frequented by mutant lizards that come up to... I don't know, your waist maybe... and that make cheerfully cackling sounds as they run at you on their hind legs and then leap at you with intent to eat your face. They're sort of purplish-blue and stripey, and they've got big red eyes and thick paws, and I swear that when you shoot them in the face they paw their heads exactly like Stitch from Lilo and Stitch. You're being attacked by many, many evil Stitches, all gleefully screeching as they compete to see who gets to eat your face first. It is very satisfying to realize you can skin the corpse and yoink a big ol' hunk of meat out of 'em when you're done shooting, although that's probably a good point at which to stop thinking about Stitch. I mean, I'm just saying.
When you've finished killing Disney critters (from HELL) and raiding their corpses, Ms. Rodriguez offers to let you come along and wipe out geckos at two other wells, and even offers you money to help her. Or you could [END TUTORIAL], which is really kind of a lovely thing even if you don't [END TUTORIAL] right away. Just knowing it's there... that's kind of pretty. If you do decide to continue the tutorial, do yourself a favor and holster your rifle, then run for the nearest quest marker. The geckos've got a townswoman trapped and if you save her, you'll get a very good reputation in town.
Right! Reputation! Remember how in Fallout 3 Three Dog was always yammering about how wonderful you were or how evil you were or whatever? And how everybody in the Wasteland knew you on sight and thought exactly the same thing about you? Once again, this is not like that. You still have your karma meter, but it doesn't seem to move much. What does move is your reputation. If you do good stuff where townsfolk can see you, you get a better reputation, and if you're a jerk, people treat you like a jerk. Save the woman from the lizards (although she's got a cleaver of her own, so you might want to be careful how close you get) and she thanks you profusely and gives you some stuff and then wanders off to spread your reputation in town. Yay you! If she dies, well, you didn't get there in time. So sad.
Sunny Smiles-Rodriguez then offers you the chance to learn one more thing, whether you saved the woman or not. (I don't know if she offers you the chance if you deliberately shoot the woman yourself. Let's get something clear here: I don't play for Team Evil. I don't enjoy being a jerk or a bastard or a monster. I like playing heroes, clean or grubby- but definitely heroes.) If you take her up on it, she leads you over to a campfire bed and tells you to go find some Xander Root and a Broc Flower and she'll teach you how to make Healing Powder. Flashbacks to game 2 aside, this is a good introduction to the fact that you are going to find a lot of things in the desert, and you can make even more things out of them in the right places. The campfire is mostly for foody things, and for occasionally tanning hides. There are workbenches to deal with weapon builds and modding ammo, and there are reloading benches for taking ammo apart and rebuilding it. Right now, though, it's just fire and you, so get movin' and go get that root and that flower.
The first you're going to look, at least if you're me, is up by the old schoolhouse. It's big. It's red. It's distinct in another way, namely: it's the first building I've seen in any Fallout game anywhere that had air conditioners. Seriously. Go load up Fallout 3 and look at the buildings. There aren't any air conditioners sticking out of the windows, and all the big buildings you'd expect to have central air have fans on the desks and shelves but no interior air vents. Washington, DC was not air conditioned in 2077, but the Vegas area was- or at least the biggest building in a small town in the Mojave Desert was. Not like any of the other buildings have boxes sticking out of their windows around here. It's a little detail but it's one I appreciate.
'Course, you can't pay much attention to little things like that, because BUGS. Specifically, mantises. They're kind of cute- little things that come up to your mid-calf or so- but don't let that fool you. They are BUGS and they are MUTANTS and they want to EEEET YOUR FAAAAACE. They'll just take longer to do it than the big ones, so get that gun out or your slicey or fisty weapon of choice and KILL THE BUGS. Trust me on this. Tiny they may be but they will still kill you. KILL THE BUGS.
And then pull their legs off, because if you have mantis legs and certain plant products you can produce honey-mesquite grilled mantis at a campfire. Mmmm, tasty! ... oh don't give me that look. If you played Fallout 3 there had to have come a point where you stuck raw giant mutant bear meat in your face. You know you did. Go grill your mantis legs and pretend they're shrimp.
Anyway, once the bugs are no longer a problem you can look for your xander root. You can go inside the school, too, that's no problem, but be aware that the bugs outside are not alone. There's a bunch of mantises inside the building and they're harder to see. Might want to skip that for a while. Get your root and get ready for a flashback, because the flower you need is up in the graveyard.
You know, the one the robot dug you out of. The one where you were shot.
Janice had a little bit of an EEEH HHHH EEEH HHH moment up here, but it wasn't too bad. The place looks different in daylight than it does when you're, you know, tied up and kneeling at the edge of a grave in the middle of the night. That, and there are bloatflies here, big fat horrible ones the size of a human baby, which makes any hysterical hyperventilation a bit tougher if you don't want to end up on the wrong end of something so huge that it had to have been one of the biggest maggots in entomological history.
Oh, you didn't need to sleep tonight anyway.
Seriously, though, once you've dealt with the bloatflies and grabbed the Broc Flower, take a moment to look around. You won't be getting an Oh. My. God. moment like you did when you left the Vault in Fallout 3, but your first view of the Wasteland from the graveyard promontory is a reasonably close analog. You can see the lights of Vegas from here, even in daylight. You can see the rollercoaster in Primm. You can see... all kinds of places, really, places that you might or might not know. The desert rolls away in every direction, and it is gorgeous even if it's not the same kind of sucker punch to the gut that you got seeing the ruin of the Washington Monument and the Capitol Dome in the distance.
This was where I decided something about Janice: she had been put into the courier trade pretty young, maybe not entirely of her own decision. She's spent most of her life since then moving back and forth between places, carrying things, but never actually getting to see and do. Now that she's been shot in the head and left for dead, she's out of the trade. She gets to go out and interact with whatever she wants, and by gum that's what she's gonna do. Well, once she gets that healing powder made, anyway, and takes Sunny's advice to go look for some caps by picking the lock on a safe in the school building full of bugs. But after that? And maybe visiting the town saloon? AdVENture!
She'll regret thinking that eventually. They always do.
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Date: 2010-11-09 05:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-10 03:48 pm (UTC)That's because it's fucking Vegas, and we run our AC in the winter in this city. Even the Fallout verse isn't that insane to deny Las Vegas A/C. :P
I do have to say, though, the rendering of the Mojave is most excellent. Red Rock in particular was one of my favourite areas, and even with the "everything is compacted for easier gameplay" scale, you still get the impression of how stupidly huge the desert is.