Starwars

With the latest patch, the companions you have with you are marked on the world map so try looking around there. Not sure if they're still marked if you told them to wait but I think so. EDIT: Also, if you haven't told them to wait, they should show up again if you fast travel somewhere.

Finished my second playthrough, this time with the Legion (first time was the NCR). I actually enjoyed the CL storyline more than I thought I would. Aside from stuff I don't like about the faction itself, the only complaint I'd make is that it would've been really beneficial for it to have more NPCs to talk to, especially who could maybe talk a bit about how life really is back in the Legion controlled territories. I quite liked Caesar as a character and liked his arguments (though you can certainly feel the history-nerd influence, haha). I just wish there was *more* rationalization throughout the various NPCs. It feels rather thin when compared to the NCR. The plus side is that I enjoyed the end-game a lot more with CL. The whole combat romp just feels much more fitting when you're with the Legion, easier to get caught up in the bloodthirst of it all. The NCR endgame had me feeling rather bored. And again, I felt the ending slides were very well done. Aside from a few missing links, they feel quite comprehensive and seem to take into account a great many things. The consequences feel believable. Great job on that.

But that is basically the case of the Fallouts. I had no immediate reason to care for Vault 13 in Fallout 1 either. The worlds are designed to be open so that you can roleplay a character with different views each time. It's not driven by emotions like how F3 tried to do it (and failed miserably imo). I mean, that is basically what you're saying. But it's not a flaw of the game, it's just a different way of going about it than we tend to see in other RPGs today (which are loaded with cutscenes and 'ooh drama and emotions!' moments). What I can see though is how people can get burned out on a playthrough. I think New Vegas is much better played if you're not going crazy trying to do everything there is to do in the gameworld. Create a character concept, do quests which would feel natural to do for that character. I ended my first playthrough at level 25 and I think it would've feel strained to take it further than that. So now I play a whole different character, who does different things, explore different places and ally with different people.

Crazy old ladies are most likely a reference to the 'Hell's Grannies' sketch by Monty Python.

The first one is a reference to the somethingawful forums and the corpses are named Owen and Beru, a reference to Luke's caretakers in A New Hope. Other than those two, I've run into two Monty Python references as well.

He does both. Most of the times it's the "faulty" pronounciation but there is at least one line with the correct one. So the writer for that area probably forgot to put a note on the faulty ones on how it should be pronounced by the VA. About similarities to F3, I think it's a bit of a cop-out to claim that the gameplay is either totally different or totally the same when compared to F3. You have to dig a bit deeper because there many things that factor in. I didn't care for F3 much and yet I quite like the New Vegas gameplay. It's similar in many ways but the many details that were changed, and stuff like how the world is built (much less level scaling, more territorial creatures instead of just being "scattered" across the map) all factor into how the game plays.

The more I play the more mindboggling I find it that people could actually do the release-day reviews and stand behind them. There's just no way that they could be considered informed in any way whatsoever. There was even one that admitted he had not finished the game once. It's a sad state of affairs.

Yes LadyCrimson, following that questline (that starts with the messenger) is the way to the NCR storyline.

I haven't done any of the BoS missions yet but some people mention that there must be a particular leader in place at the BoS for the deal with NCR to work out peacefully.

Yeah, no idea what they were thinking. It's useful though, it's probably good that the duration is so short. Just finished Vault 11. Never did it on my first playthrough. Very impressive stuff. The Vaults are very well done (the ones I've seen anyways). The reason he was recruited is because he loved Fallout 3 actually so I imagine he enjoyed it. That said, I agree that it's not a very good performance (though I didn't find it terrible). Then again... Can't really blame him because just look at the writing for the guy. Would be really hard to pull that off in a convincing way.

I think Hardcore's main change is the healing over time which can really change some combat situations. Other than that, I don't really view it as difficult, more as a second layer of managing for the people who like that (I do). There are a few comments about you being female in CL, and I hear that you can't fight in their arena, but other than that there's not a big change I think.

I kinda bitched earlier about how easy it is to kill most stuff even with a low Guns skill. But I must say, this time around I'm using a character with more focus on Guns and being able to VATS shoot critters like Cazadores in the wings before they get close to you is a huge help.

Question on the factions. If I got totally anti-NCR, become villified and all that. Does that mean they will attack me on sight in the Strip? EDIT: Also, a neat little touch I found... There's some creepy "whispering voices" thing going on if you visit Goodsprings Cemetary at night. Hard to hear without headphones but great touch.

Definitely agree on the NCR end-game. I think that was actually the worst part of the game for me, the whole "let's kill a load of generic bad dudes because hey... it's the end-game of a RPG!" thing is so old, it felt very uninspired. I also ended up being a bit confused because I didn't know which arrow pointed to which objective. In the end, I ended up not doing the optional objective. I enjoyed that I could talk down the final boss but I have to say I felt it kinda came out of the blue. Maybe I missed significant story-lines that can be found in the game but I really had no good idea whatsoever on who this dude was. At least he looked pretty bad-ass. Very happy with the actual ending though. I'm sure there are some scripting bugs here due to how many slides there seem to be but I was very pleased by it. While there were some strange omissions (I really expected something on the families of the strip), all in all I think the consequences to my actions in the settlements were very well done and believable.

Beat the game going with NCR. Very pleased with the game overall, but I have to say that the end-game mission might be the worst part of it for me. Why must all RPGs have a combat-fest at the end with generic dudes popping out and getting in your way? At least I got to talk down the final dude (who looked bad-ass but seemed to kinda come out of the blue). Very pleased with the ending slides though. Believable and felt "Fallout-y" enough, definitely. An occasional oddity. For example, Lily's ending spoke of her traveling with the Courier but I only took her along for the Jacobstown quest and then left her. I guess that ending gets triggered when she joins the first time. Really liked that they included endings for characters who died along the way, a sort of funeral speech for them. Nice touch. Some things which would've made for logical endings were not included. Was disappointed that there were no closure on the families of the Strip (unless it's assumed that the NCR puts a stop to them all, but no mention of it). Had expected that since their quests are pretty involved. Really enjoyed the game, definitely gonna start up another character.

Just did the Vault 34 quest, excellent area! Also, just trekked through a long-ass canyon type of thing filled with Cazadores. That was rather painful overall but I was rewarded with finding a Super Mutant corpse with a Fat Man on it. There are people on the Bethsoft forums complaining that the exploration isn't as good in New Vegas as in F3 but I find that they really cut back on the tedium and introduced some really good locations. The settlements feel quite different from one another (and actually feel like settlements). Perhaps the most fun thing about exploring New Vegas is that there is a real chance that you're gonna die horribly if you're not careful.

The lated NVIDIA driver seems to have solved a problem I had where small white "flashes" would sometimes appear very briefly when looking across the landscape. I also haven't had a crash since I installed them but don't know if that's related. The 3 crashes I've had so far have all been inside New Vegas and I haven't been there when playing with these new drivers yet.

It really does feel like the weapons are good for different things which is great. As you say, when clearing out Nightkins in a certain location, I had a really hard time utilizing the weaponry I had relied upon previously up until that time. But once I started using higher DPS weapons (think it was the 9mm submachine gun I had at the time), things became a lot easier. Of course, that also made me burn through almost all my 9mm ammo. My main complaints so far regarding leveling: 1) I think I still get waaay too many skill points. At level 16, my three tag skills (Barter, Speech and Science) are at 100. Though that is with Good Natured and 9 INT. But still, I don't think I'll have much problems in capping a skill here and there before the game is over. 2) I started out the game with (I think) 16 in Guns and have played the majority of the game thus far with that number (only started raising it just a little bit after I capped my tag skills). But I have used guns just fine and they feel very effective. I have had zero problems with accuracy or damage against most foes I encountered so far. I had expected (well, wanted really) to feel a bit more gimped in that department with such a low skill. Granted, I'm sure there will be a difference against the tougher foes like Deathclaws or Cazadors (who eat me up) but I had hoped for more of a challenge against the more "common" enemies as well. Maybe I'll try raising difficulty to Hard next time. Loving the game so far though.

Just a heads-up. The newest NVIDIA drivers (released on the 25th) supposedly has improvements for New Vegas. Not sure how substantial, but...

Depressing, but I wonder if those are for boxed sales or if they include the digital sales on STEAM. Not that it would boost it to incredible numbers at any rate but...

Do you guys listen a lot to the radio? Just curious. I like it as a piece of ambiance (stopping by a radio to listen to a newscast, or hearing a song play in the background) but I almost never switch it on myself. I think it kinda wrecks a lot of the atmosphere when you're out and about, especially since I think they did such a good job on the "normal" soundscape. That said, that mod obviously looks like an improvement for the radio.

It differs, sometimes they are different and sometimes they have the same result (even the same nr on the skill check).

This game... is not small. Also, a fun thing is that I've actually gotten a pretty fair amount of Barter skill checks in my game (I tagged/focused on it). But for anyone thinking of raising skill, a lot of the checks seems to be in the same convo as Speech (which I also tagged). Something to keep in mind, but I love that they tried to make Barter a bit more useful. Still not seeing much at all in the way of bugs though unfortunately I've gotten one or two crashes on area transitions. Still not a huge deal since I'm something of a save-a-holic but I hope that's something that can be ironed out in a patch. Beth's version of gamebryo has been really crash-prone for me (across a number of different systems, both in Oblivion and F3). New Vegas is more stable for me though.

And more annoyingly, the usual forum experience after an OEI release.

I think just less stimpaks overall would've done it for me. Still, I think the most positive trait of Hardcore mode is that it makes me fight rather differently than in F3 with the healing over time. There have been moments where I've been forced to momentarily retreat, find cover and try to get my HPs up. In F3, I would've just stood there, soaked up the damage and spammed stimpaks as needed. I really hope there will be some mods that just tweak the Hardcore mode/abundance of supplies slightly. I don't need an overhaul, I think it's pretty damn close to feeling *right*. Just a few nudges here and there, a tweak or two and it would be really sweet.