The Little Things

Yes, I'm alive!

I'm sick, but I'm alive.

Fifteen hour sleep and being out of breath walking up a hill has been the norm while nursing a stint of Bronchitis, but it's almost done passing, so its time for me to play catch up around here, starting with...

The Little Things

I could've sworn I already wrote a Randomly Mine titled this but... fuck it.

So I've Finally Played... Fallout New Vegas…

For longer than three hours.

I've made multiple attempts over the years, as a basic bitch who enjoyed Fallout 3 coming off The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, I bought New Vegas, got to strip payment checkpoint and... I don't even remember why I stopped.

Maybe I was annoyed at having the game lock me off from the strip forced to do side-quests, but I think it could've just been having burnt myself out on Fallout 3+ All DLC, and hadn't delved into New Vegas enough to appreciate its nuances.

I think it's worth remembering, New Vegas didn't always have its current reputation, back around the time of its release, it was considered little more than $60 expansion-pack with somehow, even more bugs than its predecessor.

Back in 2013, that was still very much how I remember it being viewed as.

However, not long after that, I'd heard SuperBunnyhop mentioning in his video about Modding that New Vegas became one of his favorite games, as did MrBtongue (both I still consider legends), so I was curious to hop back on and give New Vegas another go.

Trouble is... Viva New Vegas didn't exist yet.

And I broke it after 2-3 hours of play with all the mods I overloaded it with. Funny enough, whenever my current mods break, the game launches with my old-saves from that playthrough. It's kinda funny to watch the amount of error messages pop-up.

To make a long-story short, finally being in this position wasn't from lack of interest, attempts, or respect for Obsidian... that last one, I definitely have. Ironically, I had even finished The Outer Worlds, the game hyped up due to its Fallout New Vegas linage.

I liked that game a lot.

I liked Fallout 3.

I liked Alpha Protocol...

I am probably going to like Fallout New Vegas.

So this article isn't a review, nor a prediction, but just something I noticed in my time modding New Vegas for this playthrough.

Goddamn, we take a lot for granted.

These 150+ mods are not texture packs, new weapons, or entire quest-lines made by the community, but things like…

3D Rain.

Cookable grenades.

High-Refresh Tick Rates.

Female Nuka-Cola Drinking Sounds.

And that's just what was packed in Viva New Vegas, let alone the extra quality of life improvements I started adding, like Weapon Melee, loot-menu icons, sneak vignette, shell-casing permanence, ragdolls, selective fire, and well…

You can see the list.

I'm probably going to add more too, given enough time.

Now, some people would argue that this just demonstrates how lacking Fallout New Vegas (and by extension Fallout 3) was in its combat and general-immersion, and… perhaps that's not entirely unfair, especially by modern standards, I get that criticism. However, without context, I do think there's some deserved credit that gets lost in the wind.

One of the reasons why Fallout 3 was so acclaimed in 2008, despite lifting so much from Oblivion, is that most games weren't like Fallout 3 back then. Most games didn't have a world of that scale with that many quest-lines seamlessly integrated into one cohesive 3D world with first-person combat and notable RPG design.

Just ask Obsidian how hard it is to build those things from scratch (Outer Worlds), let alone to make them all work.

Perhaps it speaks to how far we've come as an industry that now, those some games with that scale, complexity, and open-world immersion are expected to have such relatively microscopic features as inspecting walking inertia, and our standards increased to the point where I make the effort to add in something so relatively microscopic, and immediately note how much better the game feels to play with it.

What's really illustrated by modding New Vegas is how much game-mechanics work together.

By itself, most people probably wouldn't notice the improved Geometry Meshes allowing you to make more precise shots through objects without them being blocked by large hitboxes... but when it combines with aligned iron-sights, enhanced bullet-impact effects, reworked character progression, higher LODs, aiming animations, view-model recoil, leaning, and literally 100+ other mechanics/presentation…

It's impossible not to notice, and appreciate them.