It turns out I was right. It only took me about a half-hour to defeat Dr Mobius' giant robot scorpion. After that, it was almost solid dialogue straight to the end of the DLC. It was all pretty solid. Dr Mobius created his whole persona in order to distract the other robots so they would not spread their mad science across the world, but wound up getting lost in his own deception due to his own aged befuddledness and massive drug addiction. Your brain has little interest in reuniting with your filthy, filthy body, and you have to sweet talk it into coming back. In the end, Dr Klein wanted to use my brain to escape the Big MT, but I was able to fool him with scientific gibberish.
And that was it. The closing slideshow started up, and I learned the fate of all the different characters I met during my sojourn to Big MT. The thing that surprised me the most was that all the individual appliances in my quarters got their own little send-off. I can't believe I forgot about that. It makes me really happy to see that all of my new friends wound up happy and successful (except the toaster - he got what was coming to him). The only part that bugged me was the fate of the sexy light switches (yes, seriously). There are only four female voices in the DLC, and it distresses me to learn that three of them are defined almost entirely by their sexuality. That the thought of a light switch trying to have sex cracks me up is completely orthogonal to this issue.
So, now that I'm moving on, how would I characterize my experience of Fallout: New Vegas as a whole? I guess I'd say it's the right game at the wrong time. I deeply, deeply love Fallout: New Vegas, but coming as it did at the end of two months of me playing Fallout games exclusively, I had less patience for it than I normally do. I rushed through things that should have been savored, and failed to explore areas that are incredibly rewarding.
I'm not too broken up about it, though. Playing it on the console, I did wind up exploring almost the entirety of the game (I still need a couple of the DLC achievements, but I managed to visit every marked location on all of the maps). Maybe that made me feel like I could safely neglect it this time, but if so, I never consciously thought that. My biggest concern was actually just collecting enough material to justify a blog post without doing so much that I'd wind up writing too much (how well I did with that goal, I will leave as an exercise for the reader). I found, more than any of the other Fallout games, that I cared about New Vegas' world enough to have strong opinions on the relative merits of the various factions.
It's a strange phenomena, when you think about it. For me, at least, it's only the really good games that get their hooks in me enough to make me mad. The only thing I remember from Ride to Hell is that ridiculous sex scene with the fully clothed auto mechanic. When it comes to the actual antagonists, all I can really muster is a "meh, whatever, they sucked." Nothing at all like the hatred I have for characters like Vulpes Inculta or Lee Oliver.
I guess that's what you want from a villain, but it still strikes me as odd that, in a game I like, I would spend a longer time being angry than in a game I disliked. Do I enjoy being angry? Or does the anger come specifically because these unlikable characters are such a stark contrast when placed next to things I enjoy? I'd be lying if I said the satisfaction of delivering righteous fury wasn't an element, but on the other hand, I had no particular animus towards the things I killed in Old World Blues, and that's the most fun I had in the entire series.
So I'm going to cop out and say "it's complicated." You can't really take elements of the work as a whole and try and isolate your reaction to them. Those reactions will always be informed by the context in which they occurred, and thus my urge to immediately kill Vulpes Inculta cannot reasonably be separated from the fact that it is difficult to do so, or that I later got a chance to go all Friday the 13th up on his boss and friends.
My biggest regret in playing Fallout: New Vegas is that I didn't think to install any mods. This game was the first of the Fallout series I bought for PC and I specifically did it because I played it so extensively on the console and wanted a new experience. Yet I didn't do it this time, because I'd already played all the other Fallouts "pure" and I didn't want to ruin my streak. Was it the right call? Only if, after I finish the other 80 or so games in my library, I remember to come back to this one and replay it (given the fact that I haven't touched my Super Nintendo in five years, despite owning some all-time classics that have yet to be surpassed even to this day, my hopes are not high).
When all is said and done, Fallout: New Vegas holds a special place in my personal Fallout canon. The two major pillars are Fallout 2 and Fallout 3, because they both taught me, at very different points in my life, to expand my assumptions about what video games could do. New Vegas is not nearly so influential, but in much the same way that you never forget your first love, but marry the person you're actually compatible with, this is the game that's closest to my heart. Fallout: New Vegas is Fallout to me. It's everything I want from the series, gathered into one unforgettable package. I love it so much that it's not until the end of my blogging about it that I bother to mention the numerous aggravating bugs that wound up repeatedly crashing me to desktop or corrupting my save files. This game may not be perfect, but it's mine.
At least until Fallout 4 comes out . . .
Mmmmm, Fallout 4....
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