Honest Hearts - Part 1

“I'm not saying that everything is survivable. Just that everything except the last thing is.”  -John Green, Paper Towns.

The caravan I travelled with arrives in Zion, and I look out over the landscape, feeling very pleased with having installed those graphics enhancing mods. The characters look as weird as ever, but the area in itself? It's absolutely gorgeous and the canyon feels a lot more natural than the regular Mojave area.

Anyway, as me and the caravan walk on and I listen to the bantering of the guards... suddenly an explosion and two guards are dead. In a panic I pull out my sniper rifle and lock on the first enemy I see. He's dead before I can really tell who or what he is. But more enemies come and my comrades die one by one. Soon, I'm all alone. The enemies are gone, my allies having taken them out, but dying in the process.

Seeing no alternative, I simply keep walking on and I come upon two enemies, finally seeing who they are.

They're regular people, but white-painted all over their bodies. They look similar to American natives in dress and weaponry, immediately throwing tomahawks at me. I pull out my Rising Sun and incinerate them. Then I keep walking.

Shortly afterwards, I'm approached by another native, not white-painted, wearing- What are you wearing?

Oh my God that hat is ridiculous...

Anyway, Follows-Chalk as he's named is part of a different tribe. The ones who attacked me and my party are called "White-Legs" while Follows-Chalk is part of the "Dead Horses" tribe. He tells me a bit about the White-Legs, which can basically be summed up as "They're bad", and then asks me to follow him to his tribe's camp, where their leader is waiting for me.

On the way we meet a Yao-guai, a horribly mutated beer. Follows-Chalk tells me to be still and it leaves. Of course, me being me, I follow it and destroy it. Bewm.

I try to explore a bit, but every time I try to veer off the path to the Dead Horses camp Follows-Chalk whines at me. Not good. I want to explore, but apparently I'm not allowed to right now. As a lover of sandbox games, this is not good, giving me a massive land to explore but forcing me along a linear path, and it's something I've noticed overall in New Vegas. But again, I'm going to get to that later.

We reach the camp after a short walk. It's... not exactly big.

And these guys are supposed to be a big tribe of fearsome warriors... Okay...

Follows-Chalk leads me into a cave to meet their leader. The Burned Man himself.

Joshua Graham.

Honest Hearts - Introduction

After my adventures in bounty hunting, I felt like playing one of the DLCs. The one I chose is "Honest Hearts". One difference between Fallout 3 and New Vegas is that New Vegas is blatantly darker, which seems especially apparent in the DLCs from what I've read on the Fallout wiki. Honest Hearts, from what I've seen so far, which is pretty much just the intro sequence, seems really interesting. I'll provide the intro text here and the intro itself in video form.
If there are lore parts you don't understand, don't worry. The lore hasn't been very well explained to me either in the game, but I'm starting to get a grip on things. I'm going to provide a post about the general lore of New Vegas once I feel I fully understand things. For now, enjoy Honest Hearts.

"The paths we're following are slow going, so you might as well keep your ears open and listen to what old Jed has to say.

A few decades back, folks in the NCR started to hear about a community in northern Utah called New Canaan. Didn't know much about them, except that they were religious folks. Sent out missionaries to talk to tribes. We've seen our share of cults, but the New Canaanites, they were honest traders. Good fighters, too. Raiders wouldn't tangle with 'em. But then the Legion appeared in Arizona. I reckon you know all about them.

Turns out Caesar's first war chief, the Malpais Legate, was a New Canaanite. Joshua Graham. Legend goes that Graham was the meanest, toughest son of a bitch in the whole damned Legion. The New Canaanites wouldn't talk about him. They were ashamed. Guess I can't blame 'em.

Well at Hoover Dam, the Malpais Legate finally met his match. Hanlon and Oliver kicked his New Canaanite butt right back over the river. Caesar had to make an example for the others, to show them that even at the highest level, failure wouldn't be tolerated. He had Graham covered in pitch, lit on fire, and thrown into the Grand Canyon. People say he didn't even scream on the way down.

Not long after, some of the slaves and tribals started to talk. Said Graham wasn't dead. Shouldn't have been any surprise. All this talk bothered Caesar, so he forbade anyone from speaking his name. Wanted to erase Joshua Graham from history. He got his wish. Joshua Graham disappeared. And in his place came legends of the Burned Man walking the wastes.

Probably just a tribal ghost story. But New Canaan's been silent for a long time. Maybe it's a coincidence. Maybe the Malpais Legate is dead.

Or maybe Joshua Graham did crawl out of that canyon and finally found his way back home."

-Jed Masterson

Bug

So right as I was about to exit the game, I saw one of the Judge's guards like this.

What. The. Hell.

Sweet Revenge part the second

The Judge's bunker... it's time to end this.
Of course, if you look at my health there, you see that I forgot to sleep and heal myself before going here.
Oops.
Anyway, I step inside and I'm met by four guards... armed with laser rifles and miniguns... Oh dear...
Luckily they decide to leave me alone, one of them telling me to step inside, the Judge is waiting for me.
Again... oh dear...

Now, usually I'd have tried to attack him straight away at this point, given me an edge in the fighting to make the first move, but I'm actually interested in what he has to say. I press F5 and quicksave.
He wants me to work for him, tells me he'll pay me 50.000 caps if I do, yadda yadda yadda. Really, I don't want to work for you, man!
And then he and his guards attack me.
I do manage to kill most of the guards... but then I die. Reload.
And I die. And die. And die. And- Okay! This battle is hard!
I take a different approach, trying to convince him to fight me one on one. I succeed, luckily, and he instantly kills all his guards using a remote. Then it's me against him...
This fight was much easier. I had to keep my distance, the axe he was wielding could do horrible damage, so using the Rising Sun at first wasn't an option. Instead, I pull out the Sweet Revenge revolver and shoot him in the head. Over and over again. Finally, his head being crippled, he bends down and holds it, stunned for a moment. That's when I pull out the Rising Sun and starts hacking away at him.
Finally he collapses on the floor... but he's not dead yet! I do a charge attack against him as h's trying to stand up... and his body disintegrates from the strike.
I've won.

Sweet Revenge part the first

Cormac, a man in the rival bounty hunting agency that killed my boss, is dead.

And with him dead, I've got a lead to the Judge's bunker. Soon it'll be over.
Oh, and if you're wondering how he died? I play dirty.
Sniping is fun in this game.

Rising Sun part the second

So in an earlier post I mentioned that the Rising Sun was probably one of the most powerful weapons I could get. Well, I was right. It's quick, the damage is insane and it has a really long reach.
Plus, it doesn't just cut enemies to pieces like you'd expect a katana to do. It doesn't just fry people to cinders like you expect a laser weapon to do. It makes them explode.
Now, I really wish I had a screenshot of this, but I'd need video capturing software to really show what it's like.
It doesn't happen every time you kill an enemy, but when it does it's always as impressive.
First the enemy starts glowing and disintegrating, like enemies do when killed by laser weapons. But then it glows brighter, and brighter, until you can't even see the outline of the enemy anymore. The glowing body might rise from the ground... and then a loud crack. It's not an explosion like from gunpowder. It's a large flash of light and a concentrated ball of energy is created where the body was. What's left is never a body, it's always white-hot ash.
But the Rising Sun has a serious flaw... It degenerates really quickly. If you want to use it, you have to constantly carry around weapon repair kits, or you'll break it in a few minutes. It's a weapon to use in emergencies or when killing extremely powerful enemies.
In other words, I need another melee weapon as well. But that'll come when it comes. I'm not getting rid of the Rising Sun, I'm just keeping it for when I need it.
Or when I want to basically erase enemies from reality.

Short note

After fighting that in the bunker Leo's note led me to... I found it.

I've got almost the entire armor now. All that's left is the "Assisted Targeting Visor", which is apparently hidden in a cave somewhere in the Wasteland. All I know is... I'm now an amazing cyber-ninja.
Bad. Ass.