What about a pointy stick?

Got two more achievements today but I'm still far from finished.

First, after blowing up many deathclaws and giant scorpions I got the 10,000 explosive damaged achievement. Now the tricky part is beating 10,000 points of health out of various things with melee weapons. I'm off to a good start though since I have a handy cattle prod that knocks out most things in a couple hits, allowing me to beat them while they are on the ground (or move on to another target).

The other achievement I got was to find 125 locations, but that still leave over 60 locations left to find, and I haven't even started on the quests or collecting all the companions.

While exploring I didn't find too much that stood out, at least not compared to the rest of New Vegas. The southern end of the map seems to be where most of the nukes fell, since there I found a radioactive town, a radioactive trench, a and radioactive pond in 3 separate locations.

A refreshing end

Taking Jamie Hyneman's saying to heart "when in doubt, C4." I set some high power explosives in the door ways of the fun factory. With a little trial and error managed to blow everyone up and then sold all their loot back to their shop for more bombs.

I then got better practice with the assorted oridiances I had on me as I cleared out the robots in the old factory of Mr. House's half brother, took on about a dozen giant scorpions at once, and helped controll the local wolf population.

I called it quits for the night at map point F5, which happens to be the door of the vault the bomb loving Boomers came from, so with my current load out I should fit right in.

Go out with a bang!

Explored more of New Vegas today yet didn't find too much of note, most of the really interesting places are plot related so I just quickly passed them in order to fast travel when I get to those plots. One such location is what apparently is an arena, proving again that every WRPG has an arena.

Along the way I manged to kill enough Fiends and Raider with my energy weapons to get the 10,000 hit point achievement, so now it's on to explosives (which will be easier but more dangerous). Conveniently my nest stop was a weapons shop where I traded in all my energy weapons (except the rechargeable laser) for caps and bombs. Then since it was not a plot point and had no repercussions I stormed the fun factory to try out my new bombs.

Turns out that people in a gun factory are well armed. After they shot me to pieces a few times my character died so hard the 360 crashed, so I took that as a sign to call it a night.

Aliens and bug hunts.

Well on looking up the Quest for one of the possible companions I found that I had unknowingly killed off half of the story events to unlock his full quest. So before I paint myself in the corner I decided to stop wandering happazordly and killing possibly important NPCs and instead systematically go through every location and find out what missions they may be related to.

Starting from the top of the map I found a rather pleasant Super mutant community run by a character who apparently was from Fallout 2. I also found several caves filled with Lakelurks (easy to kill), venmous giant bugs (darn hard to kill), and mission points (avoided them more than the bugs). There was also a crazy Nightkin that was "selling" tumbleweeds in exchnaged for giving me a stealthboy. Not far from there, due to haveing the weirdness perk on, I came across a group of aliens and their stranded space ship (never would have found it without the guide I was using). So now I have a alien ray gun, which I hope is as good as it was in Fallout 3.

So tomorrow it's on to more exploring as I head up the upper right of the map.

The part of Gloiath will be played by 4 Deathclaws

Didn't play New Vegas too much today, spent most of the day playing with my new 3DS (it's very cool, can't wait for decent games for it). I exlored around a little until I came across a cave guarded by a family of Deathclaws, and I was very much down on ammo. I was able to kill all 4 of them though due to 2 factors. First I hapeded to approach from a high ledge that screwed with their AI too much for them to get to me, once they moved far enough to circle around to me they would lose track and head back. Secondly I had a niffy rechargeable laser gun that fired 7 weak shots at a time, so from my perch I gradualy shot at the and killed them little by little, by the end of it the gun's condition was almost scrap, so I hope to get it repaired soon.

Red Vs. Blue

Explored more places today including an odd vault (well all vaults are odd in their own way). This vault had the distinction of separating it's residents into 2 segregated areas and then subtlety racking up the paranoia until they went insane on each other. now currently it's being occupied by escape convicts which are now beginning to divide up into 2 factions against each other again. Also there is a giant crystal at the bottom of the vault that I have to option to blow up, destroying the whole vault. There is most likely a quest giver somewhere that gives you the otion of eather helping one faction or the other or just bnlowing them all up, so I won't do anything to either side just yet.

Also I managed to give out 10,000 points of gun damage by using almost nothing but guns since the play through started, which means without doing any quests I have already shot more things than any of my full play throughs. Now I'll be trying to use energy weapons exclusively to get that achievement next.

ROUS's? I don't think they exist...

Today I mostly just went around exploring everywhere. On the compass menu there are little ticks showing where an unexplored place of intrest is, so after completing the initial tutorial for some easy XP I started folowing the ticks, and when I located one I went to another.

Most of the locations were things I have either found before or just unique land marks, but some were rather interesting. I found one cave where it looks like some scientist was doing research on radiation that produced literal Rodent's Of Unusual Size. Another spot was an old mine where Caesar's legion was setting up shop and had some NCR solider captive, then after clearing that lace out found a NCR cation who game me the mission to save them, which completed instantly.

I am mostly staying away from doing any quests until I level up more so I can have the skills necessary to complete them. Since I'm doing everything this time I have to spread my skill points evenly across speech, lock picking, hacking, and all weapon classes, so it will take a while to bring any of them to decent levels.

No wonder this side always loses...

I finished the annoying Caesar play through today.

After stealing on of the methods to kill the president that I thwarted twice before I completed the mission and then went on to the final battle at the dam. Being on the offensive in the fight was much harder than when I was on the defensive, but that may just be from being so under leveld. In the final battle I had to use just about every bit of ammo I had and even then I just barely scraped through after dying a half dozen times.

The epilogue explained how Ceasar then took over everything and made most people slaves and everything went bad, blah blah blah.

Tomorrow it's on to the most fun of the play through, where I explore and do everything there is to do in the game just for the fun of it. Since this play through I am the one calling the shots it dosen't matter what side I annoy.

Fight apathy... or don't.

Today I started doing the main plot line of Caesar's play through, and wanting to get it done with quickly I opted for the "kill everything" method when possible.

First I used my small fortune of caps to by every kind of weapon and healing item I could then I went off to meet Caesar. It was the normal first mission that I did before, but this time I actually blew up the hidden bunker like he asked me. Next I was sent to kill Mr. House again, and just like last time it was a simple matter of running in and getting to the secret elevator before being shot too much. After that I had to deal with the Boomer one more time, but in the name of expediency I just kill them all and went back to Caesar.

Then there was an odd an pointless quest where I had to convince the proprietors of a high class restaurant to go back to being recluse cannibals. Not sure what it was supposed to accomplish for Caesar but they refused and I just finished the mission with that "no". Clearing out the Brotherhood of Steel again was next, but since I had even less stealth than last time I had to use the direct approach and blow up anything that moved.

Caesar then revealed that he's dying from a brain tumor and I have to go track down a art for his medical robot, the trouble is that the part is located in an irradiated vault filled with feral ghouls. After torching the place I got the part and cured Caesar, then he sent me on a mission to kill the resident during his visit, bit of a change from last time.

Since there was no fast travel spots between Caesar's cam and Hover Dam I had to run all the way there across half the map. when I was nearly at the destination I was killed by venomous bugs and had to start over at the camp...

Umm.. parley?

Well after spending a considerable amount of caps on energy weapons (using the same wait 3 days approach as the food), I dried to inflict 10,000 points of damage. Turns out that it's a rather large amount and it's hard to find a group that would not kill you while you try to deliver it.

So after being killed by bodyguards, robot cops, deathclaws, ants, fiends, doctors, and super mutants, I figured to call it quits and just work on it in my free play play through.

Time to die-t

Eating 10,000 health worth of food is not only dull but tedious.
To get the achievement I had to go to a food vendor, buy out all their stock, then wait 3 days in game time (sped up) until they restock till I could do it again. after doing this a dozen times I would drown my character to 1 HP and eat all the food, only to find out that it was not enough and I had to do it all again.

after doing this process 3 times and eating a metric ton of food (odd the my character's weight didn't increase), I finally got the achievement. Tomorrow I'll load from before this mess and go for one of the weapon achievements.

Pushing my luck

I wanted to get this lay through over with quickly and get on to the more fun free roam play through, so right after making my character (max luck and barter skills) I headed straight north to New Vegas, skipping all the story missions in between (done them twice). Turns out to prevent just such an action the makers of he game made the road north deathclaw territory. I stuck close to the mountain ranges along the side of the road, but they soon led to Super Mutant territory. So just as the mountains ended I spotted a small building by the side of the road, I made a mad dash for it and made it in the gap under the porch just as 3 death claws caught up to me. I used every bit of ammo I had on me to kill 2 of them but ran out by the third.

After several failed attempts where I was killed, I finally managed to make another mad dash with the last death claw close behind me, and by the time I got close the the New Vegas area it gave up the chase. Unfortunately I rand into a roving ban of drug crazed Fiends who were armed to the teeth and I didn't even have a pointy stick. To make matters worse, there was also a giant fire breathing ant in the area and If i hung around too long the Deathclaw caught up. So after several failed attempts to kill them with my fists I made another mad dash right passed them, and right to a patrolling band of NCR troopers.

The troopers made quick work of the Fiends and I was able to loot their bodies of all they had. Since I was in the Vegas area now I didn't have to worry about any more serious threats on my life, so I found a traveling merchant and sold everything I had but the vault suit on my back to cover the 2k entry requirement. Unfortunately I wound up 500 caps short and started roving the outskirts for anything to sell. While searching I found a ammo cache and a gun, so I kept the gun and the ammo for it (not to be unarmed any more) and sold the rest.

I then found a dinky casino bar outside of the main strip and hit the slots with 100 chips. 10 minutes and several jackpots later I had 10 times the necessary amount to enter. I then made the rounds to all the big casions and a short time later I had cleaned them all out and had over 75 thousand caps.

Tomorrow I just have to do some purchase related achievements and I can get down to Caesar's dirty work.

The easy way and the hard way.

I finished another play through today.

The Brotherhood of Steel turend out to be very unobservant since even with my meeger sneak skill I was able to take all 3 secrity cards and make another mad dash before the place blew up.

I then had to do the mission again where I save the president, that's where things got complicated. I took out the first 2 assasins no problem, but as I ran to take the bomb off the president's helicopter some guard though I was getting to close and all of a sudden the whole NCR opens fire on me. To make matter worse I had just triggered an auto-save so now I can't go back to before I was being attacked, and my last manual save was back before stealing the last securty card from the Brotherhood.

So I reload back to the brotherhood and decide do do things differently. While taking the key-card I placed a live frag mine in the leader's pants (took a few tried), killing him instantly and I took his handy shock glove (much like Caesar's) and proceeded to kill his two guards with it. I then gradually made my way through the whole camp picking people off one by one with the glove.

After that diversion I blew up the base any ways and then finished the president mission without incident.

After that was the final push mission, where I had to save the dam from an attack of Caesar's Legion. In the end the epilogue told how the NCR gradually took control of the whole area (for better or worse) and my character wandered off to find new places.

Tomorrow it's on to the odd and unpleasant play through where I side with Caesar and max out my luck stat for gambling, both things I would not normally do.

It wasn't lupis.

Did 2 mission today and they went relatively quickly.

First I had to do the whole Gomorrah quest again, but since I knew where all the quest points were I just went directly from A to B to C.

My next quest was to kill of Mr. House, so I just went up to his penthouse, hacked the security terminal, dashed to the elevator terminal while being shot at, hacked that, took the elevator down, and pulled his plug.

Tomorrow it's on to more familiar ground when I have to go and kill off the Brotherhood of Steel again, which should be trickier since I'm missing the stealth needed to pick the security cards out of their pockets.

KHAAAAAAN!!!!

Fortunately I had maintained good relations with the Khans in the past, from successfully negotiating a hostage situation, and was able to walk into their camp with out being killed instantly. It quickly became clear that they would never join up with the NCR (a disastrous NCR raid killed half their families), but the diplomatic option was still open to prevent them from siding against the NCR.

After several missions that had me running all over the desert, I was able to convince them that siding with the insane slave trading Caesar was not in their best interest. So then they chose to pick up camp and find new land to take over some where else. I then reported back to the NCR that the Khan problem is no more and got my next assignment.

Looks like tomorrow I'll be treading familiar ground again where I have to investigate again the strip club Gomorrah.

Off with their heads!

after a little back tracking to sign up 2 musicians again I was on to the next main NCR story mission which is to ally with or get rid of the tough warrior tribe the Khans. To get there I had to pass by Vault 3, which is the home to a gang of drug crazed killers. Since I got an earlier side mission to save a hostage from that area I decided to pay them a visit and kill any one who attacked me.

Along the way I cam across some named NPC's and when checking their inventory I had the option to take their heads for a bounty, a bit grusome but they might come in handy later. When I got to the vault I used my speech skill to convince them that I was one of their drug dealers and I was able to walk right up to their boss. After polite negotiations failed I had to zap him into dust (but still got his head some how), and then I had to kill every psycho in the place as I made my way out.

When I cashed in my side quest I also had the option of getting aid for 2 of the 3 heads, not sure where the 3rd one goes to yet. Tomorrow it's on to have a chat with the Khans.

Thank you very much

While leaving the strip I decided to stop by and kill the guy who shot my character in the head just in case the chip comes in handy later. Since I did it all quiet like the casino he runs didn't even become aggressive to me (though the desk clerk some how knew he was dead minutes later).

I then dealt with the Elvis gang "The Kings" by choosing the diplomatic route with the help of my speech skill and forming a partnership between them and the NCR. With that out of the way I did a side quest where I had to collect entertainers from all over to work at one of the casinos. I first found the 2 comedians, and then went out and got the 2 musicians. After that quest was over I noticed a building with the title "New Vegas Station", and thinking it was a radio station like GNR from Fallout 3 I walked in. I saw a big door with a red light about it and figured that's here the program was recorded, so I walked in and all hell broke lose.

Turns out the station was a monorail station and not a radio station, and the NCR have it strictly off limits. So while they are rapidity shooting at my character I dive into the monorail train and take it to wherever it goes. This section lapse of logic takes me to a new auto save point and losing all my repution with the NCR, and my last manual save was before I got the musicians...

So tomorrow I'll do a little bit of back tracking.

From photo-cells to blood-cells

Upon entering the new Vegas strip I realized that I don't even need to kill the guy who shot my character in the head since I wasn't working for Mr. House and thus didn't need the platinum chip. So I headed to the NCR base in the area to talk to the head guy there what I could do to advance the plot in their direction.

I was sent down a familiar path when I was told that they wanted the bomb loving Boomers to side with them. I did the standard things to gain their trust, but this time though I didn't have the repair skills to fix their solar panels, but I did have the medical knowledge I lacked before and was able to heal up some of them who were injured by giant exploding ants. Also I was able to kill off all of said giant ants in one shot with the help of my science skill.

After that was all settled I went back to the NCR and got a new assignment to deal with some Elvis impersonators.

Another roll of the dice.

After a short trip to pick pocket the same pack of gum 50 time (minor exploitable bug) before I lost all that hard earned stealth, I started on my next play though.

This time I'm siding with the military group NCR, and right off the bat thigns are going quicker. Since I now know my way around I skiped the shooting tutorial and made a direct line to all the early story points, along the way helping the NCR where I could to gain a reputation. Already putting points into speech has helped a lot, getting me past 2 tricky situations where my less than par shooting skills would have been tested other wise. The points into science has not helped so much, but when I finally find a locked computer it will be easy pickings.

By then end I had reached the vegas strip with enough money to get in, taking one evening to do what took me 4 days before. Also with my speech perks I should be able to trap the guy that shot my character in the head before he takes off to Caesar, saving another day.

I'm planing on doing this and the next play through quickly, then on the final round going all out and doing whatever I want since it's the free explore play through.

Hardcore!

Well I finished the first of the 4 play thoughts, and aside for the pickpocket (which I only got 4 out of 50) and the leveling up ones (due to an exploit being patched) I got all the achievements for that run and then some.

In the end Mr. House had me hack into some power stations, including hover dam during the middle of a war, to power his robot army so he could take over New Vegas. In the epilogue it says that he turns the whole area into a strict but fair autocracy with the primary goal of making money to fund scientific advacment.

So with that play through done I can set the game to normal difficulty and turn hard core mode off, makign it so I no longer have to worry about water, food, or sleep. Also it makes fixing limbs much easier and heal items cure instantly. The next play through also focuses on science and speech skills so it's much closer to how I normally would play.

Crash and burn...

Well the mission to get rid of the Brotherhood of Steel hideout was simple enough, After trying several times to just kill everything that moved I decided on a more stealthy approach. To gain their trust they had me kill of some guy who was snooping around the area, and after that they let me wonder around the place. While the head of the base was walking away I managed to sneak up and pick pocket a pass card (first successful time in the game), figuring it would come in later, before getting into another area and being giving a new mission.

I then started walking around the place looking for ways to blow it up when the game crashed...

Fortunately the last auto save was right before the briefing, so I didn't have to pickpocket the card again. I then found a computer that required 2 other cards for the self destruct so I just pick-pocked any named NPC while they were asleep. After setting the auto-destruct I had to run as fast as I could out of the place before everyone in the base shot me. After getting back to Mr. House I was sent on another mission to make sure that the president dosen't get kill during a visit to hover dam.

I then started walking around the place looking for ways to prevent it from blowing up when the game crashed...

I figured that was a good time to call it quits for tonight.

What? No super mutants?

Next job Mr. house had me do was to sort out the strip club across the street called Gomorrah, and it more or less lived up to it's name. They not only had male and female dancers but also ghouls of both genders too, good to see they don't discriminate at least. After snooping around a bit I found that the owners were planning to take over the area with the large pile of weapons they were hoarding in the basement. So after destroying all the weapons I had a little chat with the owners where I killed them both (they shot first though).

Next Mr. House wants me to tracked down the remaining Brotherhood of Steel members in the area and get rid of them.

After I saved the game I was curious as to just what was the deal with Mr. House and how he's over 200 years old. So I broke into his secure area and found out that he wasn't a computer AI like I suspected but actually a person in a sealed pressure chamber hooked up to machines and computers keeping him alive. After pressing the wrong button though he exploded, but I'll just restore at the last save tomorrow so the quest line will be intact.

Baby Boomers

So today I helped the bomb crazy Boomers out doing various things like killing exploding ants, repairing the power, and finding one of them a girl friend. Then for the final quest I had to float up that crash bomber plane that I found earlier, fortunatly I got a breathing mask to do it with so I didn't have to worry about running out of air. Now I just need to go back to Mr. House and find out what he wants done next.

Also today I bought Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. I was interested in the game when it game out and it got good reviews so when I found a copy with the price drooped to 20$ (which is great since it's still at least 40$ most places) I picked it up.

A little early for the ides of march...

Chasing after the guy who killed my character lead me to the main camp of Caesar, the clearly evil faction, who had captured the guy I was after. They agreed to give me the platinum chi that everyone was after if I agree to stop whatever Mr. House was planing to do with it, so I agree to their terms.

Then I planted 5 charges of C4 around Caesar's throne and started lobbing grenades until everyone else was dead. Then I took Caesar's clothes and nifty defibrillator glove and let the guy I was after go free. While he was running around like an idiot and soaking up all the bullets, I had enough time to find cover and just walked out of the camp disguised as their leader when the heat died down. There was no plot related reason to do it, I just didn't like the faction.

I then find out that the platinum chip contains the update drivers to change the normally heavy duty security robots into super military grade robots. Now that House has an army he sends me out to stop the people that may mess up his plans, starting with some gun crazy former vault dwellers that have control of all the anti aircraft guns in the region. I could either just kill them all or gain their trust, I went with the friendly option since they seem like interesting people.

Mine is an evil laugh!

Well got back on track of the main story mission, no more wandering around backwards, since i;ll be doing this 4 times I better cut to the chase.

I managed to get to new Vegas and instead of going on a quest to get a entery visa I just sold 3 C4 mines and bought my way in. Once there I met with "Mr. House" (not voiced by Hugh Laurie unfortunately) who's faction I'm siding with this time around and then went off to find the guy who shot my character in the head. After finding him I'm stuck in an obvious trap where I only have a grenade launcher and all my guns to fend off 4 guys with knives, how did I ever make it out of there alive?

So now I have to track him down again and sort this mess out by the end of the game...

sdrawkcab sgniht gnioD

Another example of how I seem to be inadvertently going about things in this game in the wrong order happened today.

I came across an outpost by a lake and one guard there mentioned that there is a bomber plane sunk some where in the lake. I take this as a cue to check it out, but nothing happens when I find it. Then near by I find a cave underwater filled with monsters, after a very close fight I manage to kill all of them and loot the bodies of a bunch of soldiers. I find a way out and then make my way to another outpost to the north, they say that there was a outpost to the south that they lost contact with. I check my map and find a new marker close to the caves I just left. I walk all the way back and find the remains of the outpost and locate another entrance to the cave. a short way in I find a survivor (scared the heck out of me) and he say "looks like you killed all of them, thanks for the help!"
Apparently I completed his mission already in just trying to survive...

Too dumb to breath

Counting with my first run through of New Vegas, and I keep running into problems due to having the character set up as the guide recommended and not how I normally play. Normally I focus on speech, science, and repair, so I can talk, hack, and fix may way into anywhere. This guide though has me putting my points into strength, stealth, and repair, so while I can carry all the food and water I need to survive and sneak past most who are trying to kill me, I can't talk my way out of a paper bag and can barely turn on a computer.

Also since it's a very basic guide, just go here for this achievement, I'm not sure if I'm doing this in the right order. I come across a building and have to fight my way in, and then later come across some one who asks me to investigate it. At least the game is not as broken as the last one where the wrong order can totally screw you over. Also aside for one crash and some monsters stuck in the ground, it' hasn't been too buggy.

Back in the saddle again

Well New Vegas is very much a continuation of Fall out 3, it's like the wanderer from vault 101 just headed south and became a courier. The environment looks the same, the people look the same, most of the monsters are the same, and the building are VERY the same. Not that's it's much of a bad thing.

Since the game has 4 factions you can side with, I'm using a rough guide which involves getting all the achievement in 4 play-throughs. The first run through i'm using the new "hard core" mode, where your character's water, food, and seep levels affect their health, along with a few other new challenges. Fortunately the hard core mode is not directly linked to dificulity, so I ironically have it on Very Easy.

So far the plot is that my character has been shot in the head and is not looking for the ones responsible. Also there are remembering about a big fight over the hover dam.

Well that's forty-three down...

In the end it's revealed that the ancient aliens that created humans left a message directly for Desmond under the Vatican, explaining how some cataclysm involving the sun killed almost all of them off and that humans soon faced the problem again. So it looks like not only does Desmond have to save the world from the Templars, but also literally save the whole world itself.

I'll have to wait till next boxing day when Brother-Hood is on sale to find out what happens next...

In the meanwhile it's on to Fallout: New Vegas, where the rad-roaches are not the only giant bugs to be found...

Nom de plume

After doing a couple more missions I finally unlocked the last area, and with it access to the last codex and the remaining feathers. I took a while but I manged to track down all the remaining feathers with the help of an on line map. With that done I was able to get the last non-mission achievement and finish every collectible in the game! Now I just need to do the last few missions to finish the game!

Quite an achievement really...

Ran around today collecting all the non mission based achievements that I could, with only the ones relating to the 100 feathers remaining. I can't yet get all the feathers or codex yet since the last area hasn't been unlocked, yet I have started collecting the feathers around the previous cities I've been in.