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.

Not gonna believe this...

I was actually looking for an NCR base when I came upon this.

A grave, obviously, but not any grave. It's a grave belonging to someone named "Leo". Inside it was something... pretty amazing.

That would be the first two parts of the Dragoon armor, one of the armors I've added with my mods. Now, I said I was thinking of getting one of my mod armors, but not this one! I didn't even have any idea where this one was, the mod description didn't tell me! Still, obviously I'm gonna use it. The more parts I get, the more powerful the armor will be, eventually giving me a stealth field so almost nothing can see me when I sneak past them.
I swear this was just a lucky coincidence! But the grave did contain a note from Leo talking about some other parts. Obviously I'm going to have to go hunting for them now!

Rising Sun

Now, besides the obvious when it comes to supplies, ammo and such, there were two things other than that I felt I needed.
I've previously expressed my love for sniper rifles, specifically the gauss rifle. So in order to do my best at getting my vengeance I bought an anti-materiel rifle. It's basically the most powerful sniper rifle in the game that isn't a unique weapon, but it wears down really quickly and the ammo is extremely expensive. I probably won't use it all the time.
Next, I went back to see something we visited in the beginning. The Yangtze memorial. Remember it? It's where we saw this.

Under the entire game I've been working to get my strength high enough, getting two perks to heighten it and one cybernetic implant, and raising my melee weapons skill slowly but surely. Finally, I have enough strength to pull it out.
It's called the Rising Sun. It's extremely powerful and fast, probably one of the best melee weapons in the game.

This should be enough for now. I'm contemplating getting an armour from one of my mods, but I know it'll be hard to get for sure. I'll keep playing for now and think about it.

Vengeance.

Something happened in the game, on the bounty hunting questline I'm on.
After killing a... very easy target, really, I return back to my employer's house and go inside. And... my employer's not there.

But on the painting there...

The note is from somebody named "The Judge", telling me that someone made "Javier" is going to be with me soon, and that my employer, Randall, is dead. Immediately after I finish reading the note, a man named Javier Sugar enters and tells me that he wants me to join the bounty firm he works for. The one The Judge is a part of. When I ask what happened to Randall, he tells me that he's dead.
Naturally I tell him to go fuck himself.
What follows is a firefight of epic proportions. He uses a rifle that does massive damage each time it hits and has a chance of knocking me down. Me? I take out my usual close-quarters weapon, a combat shotgun. I finally win and loot him, finding a key to the safe on the wall.
Inside is a note from Randall, saying that he's probably dead. He says that I'm the best damn bounty hunter he's ever had, and tells me that he doesn't care if I avenge his death or not. He just wants me to take vengeance on the man who killed his family. Also inside the safe is a revolver called "Sweet Revenge".
You got it Randall. I'll fulfil your last wish, boss. But first...

I need supplies.

Favourite weapons #1

One of my teachers wondered what my favourite weapon was. Well, it's not an easy question, because it's a toss up between the three weapons I use the most. My Big Iron revolver, the Q-35 matter modulator plasma rifle or my gauss rifle.
Well, if we go by what kind of weapon and not specific weapons? The gauss rifle wins.
It's an energy based sniper rifle that causes a concentrated explosion with each shot. It's amazing.
Here's an example. This is my latest bounty, a man named Jack.

He's supposed to be an expert gunslinger, so I don't really want to come close to him.
So, let's fire the gauss rifle and...
Boom.

The result is a decapitated corpse, and it's been looted too! Amazing! Clearly the gauss rifle did it for me, and I didn't loot before I realized I had to take a screenshot.
Hehehe... hehe... heh...

Anyway, if we're going by specific weapons? The Q-35 matter modulator. It can be charged up and create a plasma explosion, dealing massive damage and killing several enemies.

Awesome.

Results

I had to cheat to get out.
Yeah.
The quest left me on a dead end. My gear was gone, I was locked behind a hard level door and the dead body in the cell only contained one lockpick. So even if my lockpicking skill had been high enough to pick the door, it wasn't, I'd only have one chance.
And yes, I looked around the room, through the bars, at the ceiling, everywhere for an alternative route. I slept and waited for a long time to see if my captor would do anything to let me out. He didn't.
So I had to cheat. I unlocked the door with it, ran to a chest containing my gear and then I shot my captor's head off.
It might be a mod, but that doesn't mean I like having to cheat. It ruins the immersion completely.
Terrible. Absolutely terrible.
But yes, it's possible I missed something. But frankly, after all the looking around I did I should've found it then. This was just... ugh.

Captured

...The bastard is watching me...
I tried looking around the room for some kind of key. No luck. Nor could I find any kind of hidden door. So... I guess my only choice is to follow this madman's orders...

Okay, let's be polite to this freaking madman, don't want to rile him up.

Oh, god damnit! This is not going well! Where is he taking me!?

YEAH! NO more being nice to this guy! Lemme out! I'm too young to die from a stereotypical mad scientist's scalpel!
He turns around and goes back to his work, leaving me alone in the cold cell. My gear is gone and all I can see is a dead guy in here... Lets see how this goes...

Snipers and bunkers

Turns out the base? It WAS whoopdeedoo! Inside it was a shop that sold pretty much every non-unique, non-DLC weapon in the game! Sooo pleased. I didn't have enough caps for everything I wanted, but I did get a sniper rifle and a gauss rifle. That way I can kill those pesky Cazadors without even going close to them!
And speaking of which.

A whole pack of them...
Ten minutes later, only their shredded remains are left! HA! In your face insect bastards!
After that, I pretty much just kept bounty-hunting, which got me locked up in a bunker by my target...

...Crap.

Cazador.

 

Do you see this?
This is a cazador.
It's fast, hard to kill, hits like a truck, and extremely poisonous. Get hit once by them at my level, and you can basically just reload, because unless you use all your healing supplies, you're gonna die.
They've been the bane of my existence for the last hour.
I want to kill them all. With fire. This is my first personal vendetta in New Vegas. I will kill. Each. And every. One. Of. These. Bastards.
Anyway, I found my base...

Whoopdeedoo...

Bounty Hunting

One of the mods I've added is one that lets me be a bounty hunter, hunting down special targets across the wasteland. that's what I've been mostly doing today. And my lovely new unique plasma rifle has been a great help.

First thing that happened when I started the game was that I was approached by a man. Just out of nowhere in the wasteland.

He admits that he's been following me for a while, since I picked up some Sunset Sarsaparilla bottle caps. Apparently these special caps can lead me to some kind of hidden treasure in the Wasteland,  guarded by a man named Fergus who's been alive since the war that devastated the US, ergo for 200 years. After telling me this, he ran off, and I got down to my bounty hunting.

The first one wasn't that difficult. He was being attacked by a whole bunch of Geckos, big lizards, and I decided to take care of things while he was otherwise occupied. I took out my new plasma rifle, charged it up, and fired. Massive green explosion. This is the result.

Yeah. His body is just GONE.

I went back to my employer and got my money. Immediately I get a new target and I had out. I need some information first, so I go to a place called Boulder City. In the middle of town is a soldier standing in front of a memorial. He explains that his brother was killed in a battle there. Aww... Well, I'm sorry to hear that, Private, but I have people to kill.

After getting my information I head north towards my target, and... wait... what's that so- OH JESUS SHITE!

...Yeah, I died... I'll see you guys next time.

Technical Issues

So, this is a quick description of what I went through yesterday because I made a, let's be honest, really stupid mistake.
Around 2 PM yesterday the game crashed. This happens, it's a Bethesda game. But when I tried starting it from Steam again, it wouldn't start. My first thought was to restart Steam and see if that fixed it. And when I did... Steam wouldn't start. My first idea: uninstall Steam.
Yeah. That's where it started.
The idea that Steam would remove ALL my games with itself did come to me, but I assumed that it would at least warn me if it did that. It didn't. Everything with New Vegas except the saves got deleted. Which includes the mods.
If the mods hadn't been deleted, this wouldn't have been a problem. I'd just reinstall the game, problem solved. But figuring out exactly what mods I used is nigh impossible if you look for them the regular way. So I downloaded an undeleter program to, in a feeble attempt, get the game back. It didn't work. But I did manage to get a list of the mods I used back, so I actually COULD reinstall them. So in the end, I managed to solve it. Things work as they should now.
But this took eight hours of my day yesterday... Not too happy about that. But hey, that's how things go.

So Far Today

So I've been playing for a couple of hours already today. There has been development!
     Honestly, Primm wasn't that interesting. I got in, discovered some convicts had taken over the town and that the town's deputy, naturally having been captured, had the information I needed. So I got into the building they occupied and shot all of them. Except the deputy. Him I freed and got some information from. The man who shot me escaped to the east. So... naturally I decided to head north!

     On the way north I found something very interesting at the Yangtze Memorial. A high-tech katana buried in the ground.

     Sadly... I couldn't take it. I need 8 strength, I had 5 at that point but I've gotten 6 since then, and 75 in melee weapons. I only have 40 in that. So... the katana will have to wait. But one day it will be mine!
Continuing north I came upon a quarry where a worker informed me that there were deathclaws if I kept heading north. To avoid them, and really, staying away from something called a deathclaw seemed like a good idea, I veered to the north-east. But I could still see them. I did the good thing, for sure.
     Finally... I see something...

Civilization at last! Running at full speed at the thought of the side-quests that could await me, I came upon a large building. A factory from the looks of it... Ah, great, I HAVE to explore it... Well, it's just a factory, I doubt it could have anything dangerous at all!

...I really should learn my lesson.
Exploring the factory I came upon a million dangerous things. Robots wanting to kill me, traps, parts of the building collapsing, and worst of all... A guided tour of the facility! Aaaaah!
But finally... the way lead to a room deep within the factory. And in it... a weapon of untold power!

Oh yes. I'll be training my energy weapons skill, methinks.

Summing Up #1

To sum up my adventures for today:
After making sure that the world wasn't ending with a weather machine, I started looking around the small town Goodsprings for things to do and maybe, just maybe, things to shoot. I managed to find both. First I rummaged through a school building and found... well, nothing of particular worth. But it did give me a bit of money. After that I discovered that some gangsters were after a trader hiding in the town. Being a good girl, I immediately offered to help him. After gathering supplies from people around town and creating 'a makeshift militia, the gangsters came to the town to take him. They didn't do so well since we just happened to have a crate of dynamite, and I also had my trusty revolver. It was at this point that I discovered that the bullet time mod I had added wasn't just a fun thing, it was actually really handy.
After saving the trader and getting a nice reward I headed south, the people who had shot me apparently going that way. And I was thirsting for revenge. Revenge would have to wait, though, as I came upon a building with a man inside. He wanted to hire me as a bounty hunter. Killing people for money? Of course! With a target in mind, I went outside. However, I was again distracted from my quest by a pack of coyotes. By sneaking around I took out the entire pack on my own without them discovering me. It was glorious. And I found a small shack containing a ton of grenades. Those will be fun to use for sure, hehehe...

Behind the coyotes den I found a small wreck. From what I understood this will lead to the Divide, one of the areas added by one of the DLCs I have.

Not wishing to go to a DLC area just yet, I decided to wait. After roaming the Wasteland for a bit longer I found the town Primm. Next time I'll be exploring it and see what secrets that lies within... Well, I lie. I explored it a bit. It had mines.

Yyyup. Lovely start.
Oh, and as a final note, I also found a cowboy robot.

Bizarre...

Weather and the End of Time

I found an item in my inventory that lets me manipulate the weather of the Wasteland. I decided to play around with it. But first thing I did? Reset back to normal weather, rather than this gloomy atmosphere.

Much better. But... there are a ton of options for "special moods"...? Okay, lets have a look at this...

"I Dream of Visari"? Okay, I guess I can check that out... I have no idea what it is, but hey, I'm just experimenting.

...That's kinda gloomy and not all that interesting. Let's try something else... How about Toxic Overload? That sounds like something fun!

That's... actually... really unnerving. It looks... like a toxic overload. I'm going to have to change this... End of Time? Okay, I guess. I mean, it's not like it could be worse than-

...mommy...

First Impressions

Well, my character's been created and I've played through the tutorial. I'm still playing, but I thought I'd do a quick update with some impressions and screenshots.
So, I'm not sure I like the introduction this game has compared to Fallout 3. Rather than watching yourself grow up, learning that Vault 101 is your home and getting to know the people around you, you just wake up at a doctor after having been shot in the head. All you know is that you're a courier. You don't know who you are, where you came from, what experiences your character's had, you're just a courier who's been shot. For some people this blank slate might appeal to them, but I don't feel like I know my character. Who is this girl? Who am I playing? Why do I care? I have no emotional connection to my character, she's just... there. It doesn't appeal to me and it doesn't set a first impression. The way of forming your character being a medical exam rather than, as I mentioned before, growing up and such... it just feels tame.
Now on some positive notes, I do like the traits. It's a way of shaping your character in a more personal way to suit your play style. It also introduces an element of strategy that's really nice to see in a game. Rather than piling positives on you, you also have to deal with a negative thing, work around it. It's just a nice idea. And I'm, obviously, a sucker for roleplaying, so it's possible to shape a bit of a backstory, since a proper one is missing, for your character. I also have a mod that adds some more traits, so my character was a ranger. Gives me a nice revolver to start with, though no ammo, and gives another point of agility. But now I have a rudimentary idea of who my character is and how she works. Though I know for a fact that most players won't care about that.

Anyway, I step out of the doctor's house and- HOLY BUMBLEBEES ON A BOWLING COURT WHAT IS THIS!?

Well, this gives me a chance to show my character, but... what is this? I have a weather mod, but... should it really make things this dark? I need to look at this, because this is not the Wasteland I remember!
And no, it's not night either. I'll post again in a bit.

Oh, and my opinion on the tutorial? Not as good as Fallout 3. Again, feels like it lacks a lot of the character from that game and instead it's just a straight out tutorial. Fallout 3's tutorial didn't feel like one. This is so... cookie cutter.

Modding Adventu- oh, GOD I'm bored...

I'll spare you the know-how and how-to when it comes to modding, because frankly it's boring as hell. Suffice to say that it took four hours to mod, and I didn't even use that many mods. I'll also spare you exactly what mods I'm using, but I can give a short list on what the mods'll do and why I decided to go with them.

Graphics Enhancements:
Let's be honest, Bethesda Games can look amazing. But when it comes to details, they're not that great. The mods I'm using here will add weather effects, enhance lighting effects and simply enhance the overall graphics of the game. The easiest part to mod, really.

Character Enhancements:
Bethesda character models suck. There, I got that out of my system. The character models are always the worst parts of Bethesda games. Yes, it's Fallout. People are grimy, sweaty and dirty. They're not supposed to be fashion models. But neither do they have to look like they were born with some kind of horrible deformity. The mods I'm using will simply make the models a bit better looking as well as add a ton of hair styles and eye colours.

Perks:
One of my favourite parts of Fallout 3 were the perks. I like perks, an' talents an' all stuff like that. So I added a mod that increased the number of perks by a ton. I also added another mod that could be a bit controversial.
One of the biggest changes from Fallout 3 to New Vegas was reducing the number of perks you get from every level to every second level. I hate this change with a burning fiery passion. So, I added a mod that gives me a perk every level.
Yes, I know! It's technically cheating! But the perk thing is, as I said, one of my favourite things and getting a perk every second level would bother the hell out of me. I'm the one playing, so just deal with it, kay? Kay.

Equipment:
More weapons, armour and cybernetic enhancements are always great. I made sure to only get equipment mods that I have to earn, not just go to a chest in the starting town and become completely overpowered for level 1.
One of the mods is a laser revolver. Really. Considering the title of the blog, I had to get that. And I will love it.

Hideout:
A base of operations is really necessary. Rather than picking a random house in the middle of the Wasteland, and they're few and far inbetween as it is, I'm using a mod that adds an actual underwater base. It'll take a while for me to get there, I expect, so it shouldn't unbalance things too much.

And that's basically it. There are also a few compatibility things to make sure things work, but I'll spare you the tech talk. Next time we'll be making our character.

Have fun!

In the year 2077 in an alternate history Earth, where people never quite got over the fifties, the world is plunged into a nuclear Armageddon, a fallout which, a two hundred years later, has given rise to a ragtag society mainly comprised of steampunk enthusiasts.

 In the Mojave desert on the west coast of the former United States a young courier is shot in the head over a mysterious platinum chip. The young courier survives however, mainly due to the great and mystical power of plot convenience, and is now after revenge. The courier must fight through the Wasteland, kill hordes upon hordes of the mutated remnants of the natural wildlife and the formerly human inhabitants.

The courier will gain allies along the way, but not many, because people in a post-apocalyptic wasteland tend to be dicks and would sooner kill you for a few bottlecaps than help you out of a radioactive crater.

And that's Fallout: New Vegas. Let's get started, shall we? We've got a lot of game to get through. But first... let's do some modding.