This is a game that I love but that I don't really love to play, if that makes any sense. Though a masterpiece of storytelling, it's sadly flawed, and even if most of those flaws have been more or less corrected and the overall game can be greatly improved with mods, it's still not really a game I particularly love playing these days. I dunno why but immersion and escapism are, ironically, escaping me, so I can't really lose myself in a game the same way I used to during some of the happier days of my ever-fleeting youth... But I digress. My point is that, though I don't really play this game anymore, I still think about it a whole lot, and that is because it is so expertly written that it's almost scary, and certainly enviable. So many aspects of this world are so deeply layered and rich with meaning that it's almost a crime that the creators didn't get enough time to complete their true vision. I'd go as far to say that they were set-up for failure and still managed to deliver big time. And though it's sad that the game was essentially incomplete upon release, the fact that Obsidian managed to write such a masterful story in so little time is almost insulting to anyone who tries to do the same.
On that note, I suppose I could mention gameplay. Not really gonna do that though. If you're reading this post it's likely you already know what Fallout is all about, and if not, then you'd do well to discover on your lonesome road. Sadly, the game itself is unfinished and difficult to get newbies into, and when it first came out it was rampant with glitches and bugs, some of which made the game a tiny bit unplayable. As for me, when I first did play it, on the PS3 no less, I liked the game quite a bit but I found it tough to play for those technical reasons. However, the story was always interesting to me, and looking back now, it was an absolute masterpiece. Indeed, pretty much any line of dialogue in New Vegas makes Fallout 3 and Skyrim look like hot garbage in comparison. The complexity of this story is something I most assuredly haven't yet fully grasped, and the fact that ten years later people still talk about it should be a sign of its inherent depth.
That depth was mostly lost on me the first time around though. Playing a tiny, tiny bit of it in 2011 and then a bit more in 2013 as I waited for the advent of college, I didn't really understand the game. It was certainly more complex than I expected which made it kinda daunting and, due to its sheer size but also due to some bugs, it was a total OCD nightmare... Still, I did take my time to discover some things. I remember running around the maze that is the REPCONN building, what with the deranged nightkin and Jason Bright and his followers, I remember the glitchy quest for the White Glove Society and their refined tastes, and I distinctly remember running through hoops to try to find monster eggs for Red Lucy, a task I was wholly unprepared for but hey, who can resist that sultry voice?... And yet another great moment that comes to mind was the dangerous ransacking of Vault 34, all in hopes to find its heavenly armory with the great All-American. But once again, I digress.
The first great moment that marks this game as something far greater than most games is the fate of the town of Nipton, which the game forces us to witness and to memorize every detail. That moment is when we are truly introduced to Caesar's Legion and we begin to discover, not only their sheer brutality, but also the absolute conviction they have in their strange ideology. Through Vulpes Inculta, one of the many great characters in this game, one that was weirdly added later on in an amazing clutch play, we learn that the Legion, though barbaric, actually seems to adhere to a strict moral purity. The legionnaires don't see their atrocities as evil at all, indeed, they see them as salvation to the wasteland. And Vulpes himself, though possessing one of the lowest karma levels in the game, firmly believes in the moral justifications of his actions. He's a sly and very manipulative man, extremely confident in his powers, a man capable of twisting everyone to his will, not necessarily by force, but by cunning. If Littlefinger from Game of Thrones is already a great character, then Vulpes is him with the added capacity of getting his hands very, very dirty. As far as evil and manipulative character archetypes go I'm very willing to mention Vulpes in the same breath as any Littlefinger of literature or cinema.
Along the way, and if the courier returns to Novac, as I for one did, he might meet a rugged professional sniper named Boone. Now, Boone is a man of very few words, and soon enough we learn why – his wife was betrayed and sold unto the Legion as a slave, and Boone, unable to prevent such a wicked thing, was forced to shoot her from a distance... It's a heartbreaking story, more than enough to make Boone a protagonist of any other piece of fiction, but here he's one of many brilliant characters, one you could totally ignore, should you wish to. But if you do meet him, his pessimism then becomes something you can help with by trying to draw him out of his spiral of guilt and self-hatred, or it's something you can persuade him to embrace, thereby having Boone fall deeper into his warpath against the Legion, to which he eventually succumbs, though in some style... Boone explains his whole worldview in such a blunt way by coming up with a casino analogy for the world, almost as if pain and suffering are being created by an unseen entity with its own rational mind, a seemingly unstoppable force which exists specifically to make us suffer. And because I personally have tendencies to think in the same way, I have to quote him when he says – Life has a way of punishing you for the mistakes you make. Big enough mistake, punishment can take a while. Mine's not over. The courier then tries to comfort Boone and to offer him some kind of hope in the future, some kind of strength and a clear refusal to give in to senselessness and even suicide, to which Boone responds,
That's what they tell you in the casinos, too. Because it's the only way to get you to buy back in. If people knew the truth, that something's watching you, waiting to take it all away from you, and it never loses... That's all it's doing now. Waiting for me to buy back in.
Moving along, the courier is eventually granted access to the Vegas Strip where he meets Mr. House, the mysterious overseer of Vegas who resides in the Lucky 38, a casino no one has entered for hundreds of years. Mr. House is an entirely rational, yet almost mad genius with a clear vision for the complete rebirth of Vegas, from which a new civilization will arise. The fact you only speak to him through computer screens and securitrons adds an amazing mystique to the man in a Big Brother kind of way, not to mention the fact that he was alive even before the war. Because of that, he's a true eccentric from a bygone era, a time he desperately longs for with a love and nostalgia that would almost be unseemly of such a rational man... Still, and to mention one of his eccentricities, I'd be remiss to neglect the fact that Mr. House may or may not be a mecanophile... That is just one of those details that make this whole story so bizarre but also so damn interesting you can't look away. And it's only if you do chose to betray him that you are granted a glimpse into his true nature – he's actually a shriveled and weak centenarian being kept alive by an unholy machine of his own creation. In his genius, Robert Edwin House foresaw the end of the world, but in his selfishness, he kept the the secrets of immortality all to himself.
Regardless of what the courier chooses to do, he has to travel to the Fort where his friend Benny is being held by Caesar himself. I have to admit, in my first playthrough I legitimately believed Benny would join me in the suite, I totally bought it... Anyway, when you finally do meet the mighty Caesar you get the first of many subversions in the game. You expect a strong and imposing man, an almost godlike, a bloodthirsty dictator, and though he is that in one way or another, what he really is at heart is an intellectual, though one who curses like a sailor. The man known to the Mojave as Caesar was once an anthropologist named Edward Sallow, who on a fateful day was captured by a primitive tribe and, in a self-serving decision, decided to help them, to show them how to engage in warfare. In doing so, he helped them achieve victory over their enemies and was promptly elected their ruler, a seemingly small act which gave Edward his first taste of power, after which he never wanted anything else ever again... And like Ulysses says, yet another member of the amazing New Vegas cast, after laying eyes on the Hoover Dam, there was nothing Caesar wanted more. The Colorado River became his Rubicon, the symbolic conquest after which his power will be set in stone, and his triumph will last forever. Caesar is absolutely consumed by his ideology of will to power, his fierce dedication to do whatever it takes to achieve his goals, his unbending ambition of a true empire... He's the kind of larger-than-life individual we find all throughout history, and his uncompromising ideals put him at a stark contrast with the rest of the Mojave, which has been sadly, and understandably, plunged into a pit of pessimism from which they see no light.
And whatever little light they may occasionally find is constantly eclipsed by the colossal shadow of one man, an almost mythical figure whose name echoes all throughout the wasteland, a man whose arrival could bring about the end of Vegas as we know it. That man is Legate Lanius... From the courier's first step out into the wasteland, all everyone talks about is the Monster of the East marching with his army for the second battle of Hoover Dam, a man of such unspeakable brutality and ferocity that everyone trembles before his very name, everyone except Craig “Big Iron” Boone, who after being captured in a suicide mission against the Legion, earned Lanius' approval and then spat on his face... So we rightly expect Lanius to be a monster, but in typical New Vegas fashion, instead of a roaring buffoon only interested in swinging his sword around, we get an exceptionally eloquent man, much more intelligent and mindful of tactics and geopolitics than we'd expect, and one who carries himself with such a strange yet refined sense of honor that we can't help but admire. And in fact, he's so attuned to the finer points of warfare that you can, if you choose to, convince him to back down by revealing the pyrrhic nature of the battle, that is to say, Lanius can be convinced that by taking the Dam and subsequently Vegas, the Legion would be spread too thin and thus begin its slow death. And though this masked man vows undying allegiance to Caesar, he will still back down if convinced, revealing his slight apprehension at forsaking the east in order to conquer the west, which he eloquently sees as a bear trap. And the fact that this monster is not only highly intelligent but also strangely honorable is one of the many twists in writing that make this game a total masterpiece.
In essence, the reason I find New Vegas so damn good is because if any of these characters existed in any other story they would have been enviable already, any one of these guys, and then some, would have been a fine ace character. And yet, in this game we find them all crammed together, knowing of each other's plans and ambitions, interacting with one another, and thus in perfect sync. It's almost annoying how even with a rushed development, Obsidian managed to write such a colossal powerhouse, and it just goes to show how, though the game is flawed, its story is so damn brilliant that we keep returning to it, time and time again.
And now you may wonder why in this little post in which I analyze, or rather gush over, some of my favorite characters, I somehow managed to forget none other than Joshua Graham. Rest assured, I didn't forget him. In many ways he's the main reason I find myself returning to this lore, in a way as if it's real life history, and in another as if it's the future... The reason I didn't mention Joshua here is because I believe he is an integral part of my next essay, which will be an exposition of my personal, and perhaps controversial view that the Legion is the best option for the Mojave. If you care to read it, then I hope my writing will, as this game so often does, immerse you.
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