War. War never changes.

[Ryan Ruck]

More new video and description of features.



Less than a month to go!

[Ryan Ruck]

[Malsua]

My Fallout 3 New Vegas arrives today!!

[Ryan Ruck]

I'm still waiting for mine despite pre-ordering.

[Malsua]

Newegg for the win.

I was on Vacation last week so I missed the 19th release day. I ordered it Monday from Newegg, it showed up Tuesday. Free shipping. They overnighted it from California, free.

I played the first bits of it. Now, this is clearly a premature statement but there's something missing with the story. I can't quite put my finger on it yet, but it seems like something isn't quite up to the standards of the other games. I only got in 2 hours so it could just be my astronomical expectations.

[Ryan Ruck]

Yes, Newegg is great. Have ordered parts from them and have always been happy with the price and shipping time.

I ordered mine through a program we have at work. We get "points" worth about $.20 each when we make certain goals. Used to be we'd get almost 1000 points a year for making all our goals. They've cut payout on that about 75% and we still have to make the same goals. You then take these points and order things out of the catalog and it gets shipped from Amazon, Best Buy (as with FNV), or other vendors.

I sent an e-mail complaint 2 days ago but haven't heard anything back. So much for pre-order...

As for FNV, interesting you should say that. All of the reviews I've read say that this story is more well written than FO3. I'd love to see how they compare.

[New Guy]

i finished the main quest this weekend. it's very good overall. no huge spoiler here, but you can't keep playing when the game is done, so make sure you have all your fun before you get to the end. i reloaded from a save point so i can keep on terrorizing the wasteland!

i got mine off of steam directly, works great.

[Ryan Ruck]

you can't keep playing when the game is done

WTF?

I thought they would have figured this out with FO3 and how they had to re-write the end with Broken Steel. Unless that is their plan to sucker people into getting planned expansion packs. Seems unnecessary though since most people would be likely to get them anyway.

[Malsua]

Well, I've already determined that I'm going to be a good guy. The powder gangs attacked so I had to kill them. One thing that pisses me off is that after I've killed them and stripped their bodies naked...I lose Karma for stealing their shit? WTF?

[New Guy]

WTF?

I thought they would have figured this out with FO3 and how they had to re-write the end with Broken Steel. Unless that is their plan to sucker people into getting planned expansion packs. Seems unnecessary though since most people would be likely to get them anyway.

yep tell me about it. on the plus side though, it has a little popup that says "are you sure you want to end the game" basically. so you aren't blindsided by it like in f3

[Ryan Ruck]

HELL YEAH!

Look what the mail truck literally just dropped off!

[Malsua]

See you in a few weeks. I did play for a bit last night and starting to get invested in the story.

[Ryan Ruck]

Good God this game is like crack.

"Oh I'll just go check out this location and then shut it off. Okay, I'll shut it off after I go trade in this loot. Oh look, this shop has a weapon I've been wanting to get but it's expensive so I'll have to go get more caps... I'll just go loot this one place and get some more caps. Hmmm... A side mission at this place, eh, shouldn't take too long. Hey, I just found a new location during this side mission, I think I'll check it out..."

And so on and so forth. Before you know it, it's 7 hours later!

Oh and I've now got the Alien Blaster and Archimedes so I'm pretty much unstoppable. Working on getting the Power Armor training right now.

Just out of curiosity, who all are you guys using as companions? I've got Boone and will get Rex eventually. Boone pretty much rocks with his Hunting Rifle and fast followup shots. Plus with him you get the Sniper Spotter perk which highlights your enemies in red when you sight down a weapon.

[Malsua]

I've got Boone and rex...no alien blaster though.

I'm not really having any trouble killing anything. Not sure what Archimedes is...I did get some named weapon but I sold it. Was a rocket launcher I think. Useless.

[Ryan Ruck]

Probably Annabelle. I collect all the unique weapons and leave them at my place (Victor's Shack)

I don't want to give too much away for anyone else but Archimedes is related to Helios One. Do you have the Wild Wasteland Perk? That is the only way to get the Alien Blaster.

I did have a little trouble around level 8. For some reason the game thought I should run into a Deathclaw on my way to get the Alien Blaster. After I died about 3 times, it finally didn't show back up.

[Malsua]

So I finished yesterday.

Here's my stats.

[Ryan Ruck]

A couple days ago I completed a side quest on FNV and was awarded a unique weapon called This Machine, an M1 Garand that uses the .308.

I looked it up on the Fallout Wikia to get the details of it.

The name is apparently a reference and play on Woodie Guthrie's guitar which had a sticker that said "This Machine Kills Fascists".

This Machine has scratched on the left side, in response to the guitar's slogan, "Well This Machine Kills Commies". I LOVE THAT!

I am, in all seriousness, definitely considering getting "This Machine Kills Commies" etched into each side of my XCR's upper.

[Ryan Ruck]

Something you Fallout fans will appreciate...

I finally got some free time this evening to get most of the work done on a little project I've been working on for a while.

My Nuka-Cola collection!

From left to right: Nuka-Cola, Nuka-Cola Quantum, Nuka-Cola Victory, Nuka-Cola Clear, Nuka-Cola Quartz, and Sunset Sarsaparilla.





Nuka-Cola, Quantum, and Clear are from FO3 though, Clear was only mentioned in a side quest and never actually seen. Victory, Quartz, and Sunset Sarsaparilla are from FNV.

I still need to put the finishing touches on it with some labels and some wood stain on the base.

If you're curious as to how they were made, here's how. The Nuka-Cola is just an unopened bottle of Mexican Coke. The rest of the bottles are also Mexican Coke bottles, with the labels scraped off, except for the SS which is in an empty Bell's Oberon beer (my favorite beer!) bottle. Quantum and Victory are UV reactive dyes in distilled water. Clear and SS are just plain distilled water. Quartz is whatever flavor the white Poweraid is. The Quantum is illuminated up with 16 UV LEDs. I tried Victory with UV but it looked too yellow. So the Victory, Clear, and Quartz are just lit up with plain white LEDs. The white LEDs are a little bright and I might try to knock down the brightness with a somewhat darker translucent material, not sure what though but I'll think of something.

I do also still have to get the items that came with the FNV Collector's Edition to complete the setup.

[Ryan Ruck]

You know, sometimes I really hate how damn buggy Fallout can be.

I got the new Honest Hearts DLC on launch day and just started playing it several days ago. For this DLC your companions cannot follow you so I sent both Boone and Rex back to the Lucky 38. Figured it would be easier than rounding them up from their separate places.

Fast forward to today where I've beaten HH. After getting back to the Wasteland I head straight to the the Lucky 38, go up to the Presidential Suite and... Surprise! No Boone or Rex!

Tried waiting over a week in game and nothing. Tried the Vault 22 elevator trick, nothing. Go to Novac and check Boone's room, nothing. Wait until the middle of the night and check the dinosaur, fucking nothing!

Pissed, I figured I'd swing by Freeside and take a look at the Kings' HQ. Thankfully out comes Rex from the back area.

Tried going back to Lucky 38 to see if Boone was back now and of course, nope.

So went and picked up Veronica for a companion for now. Sucks not having the Sniper Spotter perk. At least I was able to get a beret from Boone before I lost him but, I think he's still got the T-51 or T-45 I gave him. Good thing I'm pretty sure he didn't have anything else valuable.

What makes me even more mad though is that my brother played through HH with his profile on the same Xbox and HD, goes to the Lucky 38, and there are Rex and Boone just like they should be. Of course, he had problems even getting HH to load on his profile for a bit until Xbox support had us try a few things.

[Ryan Ruck]

It's OFFICIAL!