Episode 307: Fallout: New Vegas DLC

This week, the gang talks about all four of the New Vegas DLC packs!

Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:20

This is The Gorge, the podcast my friends and I gorge ourselves on a specific topic.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Very rarely do we gorge ourselves on a specific topic, but when we do, we go deep. Uh, The Gorge is brought to you by Patreon. That's patreon.com slash thegorge, where for those $3 a month you gain access to all of our bonus content. Everything from pictures of my dog Peanut to any random crap we've done in the past, um, to early access to our TTRPG podcast, uh, the reboot, all of it and more, quite literally, is at patreon.com slash the gorge. We appreciate every dollar you can get give us. Uh yeah, thanks.

SPEAKER_06 0:58

And if you want to get in on the ground floor of our new upcoming patron exclusive podcast, Attention Bajoran Workers, in which we go over all of Star Trek D Space Nine.

SPEAKER_03 1:13

That's right.

SPEAKER_06 1:14

You can uh get in on that early and and and get that exclusively on Patreon.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

That's right.

SPEAKER_05 1:20

And we will start making those uh at some point.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

At some point, soon maybe. We'll see. Watch this watch the space station. Um, I get it. Uh hey, we're talking about the Fallout New Vegas DLC this week because um I knew last week when we did our 10-year anniversary episode that there was no way we were going to be able to adequately talk about Fallout New Vegas and its DLC in a single episode, right?

SPEAKER_06 1:48

Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

Um it just was not possible. And I was right. So, this is the DLC episode where we just talk about that. Because Fallout New Vegas has probably some of the best DLC ever made for a video game, literally ever. Yeah. The DLC might be the reason you should play this game.

SPEAKER_06 2:09

It's about 50-50, I would say.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

I I I think I lean a little more 60-40. I think because the DLC is so fucking cohesive, right? Like, it's all so.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Yeah, because like if you're not if you're playing Fallout New Vegas and you don't want to do the DLC, I feel like you are missing like a core segment of the game. Oh, for sure. It's not like it's not like Fallout 3, where like, yeah, I guess if you want, you can do Broken Steel and like Operation Anchorage or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 2:44

Sure.

SPEAKER_05 2:45

I don't know, I don't know if I would give it 6040 because I do like okay, at least as far as like what is like classic CRPG homework, right? Uh-huh. I do think that a significantly outstretched part of what about New Vegas was influential and its cultural footprint is in the base game.

unknown 3:13

That's totally fair. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 3:15

But I do agree that as far as like quality of presentation and interesting things going on and interesting vibes and things of that nature, a hundred percent the DLCs are more interesting by a mile.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

Yeah, the the hunt- the DLCs are just so like they are so perfectly stitched together. Even the ones that are kind of weak are still like the worst Fallout New Vegas DLC is still better than a lot of other things, other crap I've paid extra money to play in my life.

unknown 3:48

Right?

SPEAKER_05 3:49

You could you could play a lot worse than Lonesome Road on the Xbox 360 in like a normal game.

SPEAKER_02 3:57

There I mean, Mothership Zeta is another piece of Fallout DLC, and it's uh unbelievable that those two things bel like belong in the same franchise. Like, Lonesome Road is I think the weakest of the four, and it still clears pretty much every single piece of Fallout 3's bonus content, right? Like handily.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Uh it honestly clears outside of Far Harbor almost everything Fallout 4 has too often that isn't the base game. That isn't the base game. No, I would, Ben. I despise the the um automatron is such a nothing.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

Like it's such a nothing quest.

SPEAKER_05 4:42

The tech quests is my counterargument, real quick, and my counter-argument for siding with Ben is that yes, all the Fallout 4 quests besides Far Harbor are kind of dog ass. However, Fallout New Vegas never let me customize a robot and have like a death and have like a secure like a like a sentry bot on like little assaultron legs stomping around and like renaming it to the Ghoul Fucker. That never happened. So I do have to give Fallout 4 Automatron that at least. However, New Vegas just has Fisto in a vanilla, so like I'm yeah, but I'm yeah, but like I can't I can't make Fisto a beautiful like a beautiful sentry bot on a Saultron legs vanilla. I would have to mod that.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

I I I don't understand why you would want to reiterate on perfection.

SPEAKER_05 5:36

I'm I'm gonna state my my least woke opinion. I don't think the protectrons are very sexy. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03 5:45

They're not.

SPEAKER_06 5:46

I agree with Saturn.

SPEAKER_03 5:47

Saturn's right. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_05 5:49

It's just like you have to be desperate. And I know they are. I know they are in New Vegas, but you have to be desperate.

SPEAKER_06 6:00

The thing is, the fact that I will say that the fact that Fisto is a Protractron is what makes it funnier than if Fisto were like a Mr. Handy.

SPEAKER_05 6:13

If Fisto was an assaulton, that would not be like a funny thing that everybody remembered. It would be 7th gen video gamer humor.

SPEAKER_02 6:23

I'm sure something unspeakable is in there, right?

SPEAKER_06 6:26

The joke is in the name right there, like, oh, it's Mr. Handy. What do you think he's gonna give you?

SPEAKER_05 6:31

I mean, I don't know, maybe they're maybe they're they're stupid for passing up the obvious Mr. Handy joke. I don't know. Who knows? I would have laughed at it when I was 13.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

It would it still would have been funny, but like nothing quite beats Fisto the Protectron. I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 6:47

Yeah, the clunkiest of the of the machines.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

No, I would be ooh, baby.

SPEAKER_06 6:54

I would not say that Lonesome Road is better than Nuka World.

SPEAKER_03 7:00

I would.

SPEAKER_06 7:01

I would.

SPEAKER_05 7:02

As far as like telling a story with coherent themes, that is like an experience you have that like, I don't know, informs your relationship with the game, like kinda, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 7:13

Yeah, there's more s there's stuff to do in Nuka World. I'm not sure. Is there is there though? Really?

SPEAKER_01 7:22

The only thing I remember in Nuka World that was like doable is running into the Habala chess.

SPEAKER_06 7:28

There's also there's also a Tarzan guy in Nuka World.

SPEAKER_05 7:33

I I feel like they came up with a a funny guy who they had there for ten minutes is like kind of the low bar of like what it requires for content and Fallout to be good. They didn't do anything fun with the Tarzan guy.

SPEAKER_06 7:51

My problem Ben They also didn't do anything fun with Ulysses, so you know.

SPEAKER_05 7:54

Well no, Ulysses' job isn't to be fun, it's to be a hater. We've been over this.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

The problem with the problem with Sito Ben is that he isn't even for the entire DLC, he is for a very small segment of a single level. And that is it. And he doesn't And he doesn't, and like you even if you take him out of it, he doesn't do anything or interact with anything in Nuka World. He's just there to be a f like a funny Tarzan joke. Like my my problem my problem then is that the one-dimensionality of every uh individual thing in Nuka World doesn't create a very a very cohesive whole. It's still just a bunch of cobbled together miniature levels. Whereas at least with Lens and World, their their attempt to make something narrative was at the cost of them sacrificing another open world. They made like a an on the rails series of levels within it, you know? Um but but all this to say, like, I I'm still saying I don't think Lenson Road clears Fallout 4 proper. I just think I just think that it outside of Far Harbor, it kind of clears any other Bethesda's, like, DLC that I that you encounter.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

Um the point hear that, by the way?

SPEAKER_06 9:23

Yes, I did.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_06 9:25

Fucking It's like 830. You can't do that!

SPEAKER_02 9:30

Okay, the point is we're getting ahead of ourselves because the plan for this podcast, at least in my head, is to go through the DLC in a way that I think um kind of makes sense, which is what I think the route that both me and Ben did, which was to do uh Honest Hearts, Old World Blues, Dead Money, Lonesome Road, right? Because to me we're not doing release order because release order was fucking insane.

SPEAKER_06 9:58

It's crazy. It's release the release order is so why did you do it that way?

SPEAKER_05 10:06

I d well. I think I think sincerely, and this is my my belief, because I don't I don't know why I I can't explain the old world blues honest hearts like order specifically, but I'm 100% willing to bet it's like well the thing with that we're doing dead money first, because dead money is like a relatively linear environment that we are confident we can get working like within like two, three months of the game coming out, or how or however soon that shit came out. Right. Whereas even when, and like I was there in the minds, yeah, uh when when fucking honest hearts came out, my god. It it was like it set a record for the unplayability of Bethesda games on a console. There was simply nothing like it.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

There was there was like three times weekly patches. That's how bad it was.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

Brutal. Oh my god. Yeah, no. Um, I understand. I I definitely get plus I think Dead Money coming first is because it was so different from like the main game.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

My my other thinking on that one is is also by the time Dead Money came out, everybody had beaten New Vegas and wanted something new to do. So it would make the most sense to have Dead Money one of the ones that you do last come out first so that people don't have to restart their whole thing so that they can play something at a lower level. They they had dead money to keep them going.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

Yeah, dead money is high-level content, so it's made of people's end-to-end characters. Yeah. Um but we did Honest Hearts, Old World Blues, Dead Money, Lonesome Road, and I think that's a good way to approach all of this because Honest Hearts is the like the I would say the chillest of the five. Oh, easily, yeah. Easily the chillest, one of the more interesting, like, maps in the game, because they were like, oh shit, yeah, we probably should introduce some verticality. So they did uh Honest Hearts. Um and I mean Honest Hearts has its problem. We okay, okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:23

It's um the tribals are uh there's a wonderful blend, uh wonderful used in uh uh the most value neutral way possible of both seventh gen slash bush era. We don't quite know how to actually reckon with like race politics yet. Sure. And also quite literally the limitations of the engine.

SPEAKER_02 12:52

Yes. The plan. Sorry, Saturn, I didn't mean to read it.

SPEAKER_05 12:56

No, so you can continue. You uh you will you will probably have the uh the fuller explainer for what was going on there, so feel free.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

Yeah, the plan initially was for the for the tribes to be less racially homogenous and for the dead horses to be more obviously European because like their weird 200 years language, like 200 years later language is clearly like Dutch, right? Because like the whole idea I forgot that the whole idea is that they're descended from like like European tourists who were stuck in Zion and the and the surrounding area when the bombs actual boers, right? Actual boers, yeah. And then the the sorrows are Spanish Native American, right? Because their language is more like leans more Spanish, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Which was it them or was it the um the white legs that also had like a lot of Navajo in it?

SPEAKER_02 13:57

The white legs are just supposed to be white guys. They they didn't know. Oh yeah, that's right, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

So like the white so the thing about the white legs is they're just a bunch of Mormons.

SPEAKER_02 14:05

Yeah, they're also just like white people. Um and so you know, the problem is that like when the like when everything kind of came down, like these were the ideas they had written down, and you know, I have kind of mixed feelings about this idea of well they planned for it to be better, but then it didn't.

SPEAKER_06 14:25

It's like, well then you probably should have gone back to the drawing board and unfuck it. Yeah, like oh we we planned to do it better, but then we had to do it worse. Why?

SPEAKER_02 14:34

No, you could have done better. Like, Daniel was originally supposed to be more Asian, so it wasn't just two white guys coming to save these.

SPEAKER_06 14:41

That alone would have done a lot on his tarts.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

But instead it's two white guys and uh oops, you know, so but like again, these this is uh uh hand grenades and horseshoes, right?

SPEAKER_05 14:59

Like hand grenades horseshoes and hand grenades.

SPEAKER_02 15:03

Horseshoes and hand grenades, yeah. Like, close enough is only good with hand grenades and horseshoes.

SPEAKER_06 15:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

Um you ever heard that phrase before?

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Every now and then the three of you surprise me with your strange colloquialisms that just don't make it across the Rockies.

SPEAKER_06 15:27

Same with uh same with uh Good Enough for Government Work. I know Sarah said that one a lot.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

I say that one. I picked that one up from Saturn, though, I will say.

SPEAKER_05 15:35

And that makes me upset because God that's a phrase I only ever use to illustrate the fact that it pisses me off.

SPEAKER_02 15:41

I know, but I love saying it.

SPEAKER_06 15:43

I picked up all three of those phrases from Weird Al Yankovic.

SPEAKER_05 15:49

Well, realistically, I'm pretty thinking thinking about it, I'm pretty sure I also picked up uh Horseshoes and Hangrenades from Weird Al Yankovic thinking about it.

SPEAKER_06 15:57

He wrote a song called Close But No Cigar.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Good to know. It's just a bunch of Midwesternisms.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

Yeah, I guess we've just we've just all internalized different Midwesternisms. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:08

Brief sidebar, I do appreciate that his that uh Close But No Cigar, his uh par his stylistic parody of cake is mostly a song about meeting perfect, beautiful women and then finding a single thing wrong with them and deciding that they're worthless. It's a 10, but literally, quite literally the song, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

So funny. Um but yeah, no, that's kind of the thing that hangs over honest hearts um, like literally constantly. And the I mean, you shoulda. It needed a second pass, guys.

SPEAKER_06 16:45

It hangs over honest hearts the way Daniel's hat hangs over his head.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

And Daniel's stupid fucking hat. Daniel's stupid fucking hat. Um But I mean there's neat things. There's good stuff in there.

SPEAKER_06 16:59

There's there are some there's it's it's a beautiful environment.

SPEAKER_02 17:02

It's a gorgeous environment. Um it's definitely the lightest, but I think it's kind of interesting because like it's the Oh go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

I just I love the sorrows.

unknown 17:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

There's something about like I do like how they do go out of their way to like dive into what makes all of these tribes unique and returning to like Fallout 2 fashion of like, listen, we are restarting the world went a lot deeper than some areas were kind of medieval and some people were scavengers and just kind of made it back. But there are places where like it is just tribes. Yeah. And uh, you know, it yeah, there's there's uh there's a lot of like interesting like wrinkles in all of the things that they do. Like the sorrows kind of understand that there is a reason beyond spiritual that these areas are taboo, but culturally we need to worry about you know the spiritualism of it, in part because how else are you going to make it that much more obvious that we don't touch these places?

SPEAKER_02 18:17

Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

You know?

SPEAKER_02 18:19

Yeah, you're you're telling ghost stories to keep the kids out of dangerous caves, essentially. Right. Um And yeah, I think it's interesting. The big like the big the the big one of the big things of of Honest Hearts is uh all the Randall Clark stuff. Because it's all some of the best writing in the game. Yeah. It's all good. Like every single stitch of it is just fantastic. Um just that whole like like really just in-depth kind of you know, doing what, like 60 years after the bomb, like you know, progress reports over the course of like 60 years after the bombs fall.

SPEAKER_06 18:56

It's I really like I I love the Randall Clark stuff specifically because like the immediate after effects of the Great War, something that the games don't really dive into, partly because like that's not the point.

SPEAKER_04 19:11

Right.

SPEAKER_06 19:12

Um, but but also partly because like it would probably be too besides 76, which is explicitly set in an area that's that was isolated from the bombs, like that was not directly bombed, you know, so you can get away with it being kind of close to, you know, immediately after that. But like setting it in an area that had just been bombed would not lend itself to a solid, like like a full-fledged game, I think. But getting these like brief looks like this, and also like we talked about last time, like the the good bits of um Raul's backstory.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

Right.

SPEAKER_06 19:53

Giving this this perspective of like how bad things were immediately after the bombs fell.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

Yeah. Like I think you could, I mean, but the thing is it's not really the point of the series. Like, you could probably do like an immediate, like, you know, bombs like right off the bombs fall kind of story, as like the plot to your Fallout game, but that's not where like the fallout fun shit lives, right? Like that's that's not where that is. Um mostly because it'd be a really miserable experience. Yeah, it's not. Not that I dislike miserable experiences, I love miserable experiences, but it might maybe not kind of what like the series is even about. Um so, but like it's still fun to occasionally get kind of those those uh what's the word those little glimpses into the way things were and to like do all your lore your world building, and it's just that like the character writing for that character is really interesting, right? Yeah, it's it's a it's a it's a good perspective. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 20:53

Getting his his you know his take on certain situations.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Also, he has easily the coolest version of the Riot Armor.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

Yeah. Yeah, he does. The Riot Armor's really fucking cool.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

That shit rolls! The forgive me mama just written on top of the helmet. That shit rolls.

SPEAKER_05 21:13

They're gonna sell it to you in Fallout 76 for $30. And there's gonna be people who buy it, and it's not gonna be me, but I will, like, there will be a demon within me that looks at it and dreams. On that note, actually, I do think it's uh and this might be jumping a little bit ahead for honest hearts. Um I do continue to think it was I forget if it was, I think, I think this was Sawyer who made this decision. I forget if it was Sawyer or Avalon, but I think it was Sawyer. But when you finish the DLC and it kick it kicks you out back, kicks you back out to the wasteland, there is a box with a copy of Joshua Graham's outfit in it.

SPEAKER_04 21:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 21:54

Because they made that character, and I I I do believe it was Sawyer, and he went, I know our players. And I know they will kill him for fashion, and so I left this there. And to his credit, when I was playing this in uh when I was like 15 years old or whatever, because this was yeah, I was like fifteen at the time, uh, I did open that box, find that outfit, and after a couple min and after a couple seconds go, well, I guess I don't need to go back there.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

Well, the funny thing is that those characters do despawn after you're out of after you're out of Zion. They're just not there anymore. Oh, that's so funny to keep you from doing that. Um mostly because that would not be a fun endeavor if you go try to kill Joshua Graham, the funniest character in Fallout uh new.

SPEAKER_06 22:37

I do I do really like honest hearts doing one like there's one like every one of these DLCs I think has one like one standout thing that they do that prevents you from playing it like Fallout.

SPEAKER_03 22:53

Right.

SPEAKER_06 22:53

And I like that in Honest Hearts is if you kill a civilian, the DLC is over.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

Yeah. It's great.

SPEAKER_06 23:01

Like you can't you can't hide from that.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

Story's over. Go home. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 23:09

Joshua Graham will not support you anymore, Daniel won't talk to you anymore, they'll just attack you.

SPEAKER_02 23:13

That's right.

SPEAKER_06 23:14

That's it.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

Um, which is very funny. Because we've been posting about it before, um, but it is really funny to learn that the guy who was lit on fire and thrown into the Grand Canyon, one, has an endurance of 10, because obviously. Uh, and two, has the highest damage resistance of any human character in the game.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Um completely makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 23:36

So funny to me.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Damage threshold of 50.

SPEAKER_03 23:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

With a damage resistance of 14. So whatever makes it pass whatever makes it pass damage hold threat the damage threshold of 50 still gets the damage reduced by an additional 16%.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

That's so funny to me. That's just really, really funny to me. Uh, very funny character. Um I made everybody promise to not make fun of me, and I let me talk normal about this character. Um if you want to be see me be deranged, uh, radio and activity.tumbler.com. But here I'm gonna talk like a normal person. Uh so uh funny character, very interesting guy. Uh Keith Sarabyka could read me the fucking phone booth, and I'd be like, yes, carry on. Um kind of the thing, like that's a character that's carrying this kind of weird DLC just on his back, like fucking Atlas. Right? Because they're just like, oh yeah, he's the guy who co-founded the Legion, and he's got problems. Um, and your job is to solve them. Have fun. It's like, oh, cool, okay. Um I that last confrontation is good. It kind of ends very abruptly, is my only thing, but that's honest hearts for you.

unknown 24:55

Right.

SPEAKER_06 24:56

Yeah, I didn't actually have a confrontation with him.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

Well, I mean the last the last conversation. What did you do? Wait, how did you resolve this DLC? Hang on.

SPEAKER_06 25:04

Yeah, okay, so let's talk about that, because there's a bunch of ways. I did it entirely peacefully. I had Daniel get the get the uh the stars out, and then we just me and uh Joshua snuck our way through uh through the the valley, and uh I put two I put two in uh Salton Wound's head and it was over.

SPEAKER_05 25:28

Well you said entirely non-violently, but I am hearing that you put two bullets in someone's head.

SPEAKER_06 25:32

It was a little I mean a little violent. You couldn't I couldn't not, like, there's no way to talk him down.

SPEAKER_05 25:37

I know, I'm just giving you a hard time.

SPEAKER_06 25:38

Like, like uh you know, I I snuck through, I didn't kill a lot of I didn't kill as I killed as few enemies as possible. Uh we got him out, and that was the wrong decision, but you know. Uh lessons for later.

SPEAKER_03 25:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 25:52

You should you should never listen to Daniel.

SPEAKER_03 25:55

Never listen to Daniel ever!

SPEAKER_06 25:57

Uh look, I I told you last time I played my character as pacifistically as possible. I know. I know. And so when it came time to be like, yeah, we can you can either uh kill kill all the white legs in violent combat, or you can just sneak all the sorrows out. And I was like, well, that one sounds more appropriate. And then the game's like, you idiot! No, yeah, I was trying to be nice. But uh but yeah, so I didn't I didn't really have like any kind of like conference, like Joshua wasn't even mad at me for doing things peacefully. He's like he was like, yeah, okay, whatever. Well let's sneak our way through. You're you're the boss.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

That's so funny. Like he must be even like a little bit upset. So you the that segment is significantly more extended if you choose to go to war, right? And it culminates eventually so like as soon as you decide to go to war, you start on a rampage working from the southeast all the way up to the northwest going through the Sarah, alright? And like how how to word this? It soon becomes very obvious, Ben, that you are the deuterogonist of the story and that Joshua Graham is running the shots.

SPEAKER_03 27:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Interesting. Because if you try like if you open up the companion wheel, he doesn't let you do anything.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Yeah, you can't do anything.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

Um skill trait is for him, and you get a little bonus on the s you get a little bonus on the side where he benefits.

SPEAKER_06 27:39

That's how it was in peacefully as well. Like when you're s when I'm just stealthing, like if you talk to me, he's like, we got work to do.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

Yeah, yeah. But it's uh because you start like basically like on a war path, um, it eventually culminates in you going into a dungeon, him splitting off away from you so that he can continue to do more killing while you just kind of watch on and then you reconnect with him to deal with Solapon Lands.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

Right.

SPEAKER_01 28:07

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 28:09

Yeah, no. Um the DLC was way more sorry, dude. I hate to tell you this, but the DLC is way more interesting if you don't listen to a word Daniel says.

SPEAKER_06 28:18

Because I was I I finished it and I was like, well, that was really short and not a lot happened. Huh. This is I was like, this is the DLC everyone talks about? I mean it was fine, but like I mean, like I didn't it didn't really like blow my mind.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

Unfortunately, Daniel Daniel tricked me into into getting the short ending.

SPEAKER_06 28:40

Folks, uh I'm I'm gonna be honest with you. I'm already like, I'm gonna play another round in New Vegas. I am I am so mad at Daniel.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

Uh Daniel fucking sucks. Daniel is one of the most like infuriating characters I've ever met in a video game.

SPEAKER_06 28:55

Um did you at least get to do um the quest with uh um Waking Cloud?

SPEAKER_03 29:05

Yeah, of course. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

Yeah, you still get to do her and the Fuck Daniel still.

SPEAKER_06 29:10

Like, don't even get me wrong.

SPEAKER_02 29:11

Oh my god, what's the other what's the what's the other companion guy's name?

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Follows Chalk Shock.

SPEAKER_02 29:15

Thank you. Follows Chalk, my sweet baby bird, um, who has no good endings. Who has no good endings?

SPEAKER_06 29:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

That's a Lily situation where Yeah, I mean you could you could read one of his endings as like neutral at best, but like the unfortunately the script outright like the the script in game, because you can you can actually like people data mined and the the everybody's like scripts of dialogue also have a text attached to it that is the way you're supposed to read it. Like for the like like lines for the di for for the actor. It's it's not good. Uh no matter what the ending slide is supposed to imply that he disappears because nobody ever finds the body.

SPEAKER_02 30:00

You know, it's uh it's kind of brutal. So I'm I'm sorry, kiddo. Um but Waking Clouds is good. I like Waking Clouds a lot as well.

SPEAKER_06 30:09

Yeah, no, fuck fuck Daniel for sure. It's just that I had to do things peacefully. That's the only thing. I it was my my character quirk.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Sure. Yes, yes, yes. Your your challenge run.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

Your challenge run locked you out of a really interesting uh final conversation with Joshua Graham.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

Great news, Ben. You get to do it again the good way.

SPEAKER_06 30:30

Yeah, oh yeah, for sure. I want to punch things now.

SPEAKER_02 30:32

Yeah, do it again the good way, because that last that last chat is really is is good and interesting. Um it kind of makes you realize that like the reason Assault Upon Wounds is like a nothing character is because the secret villain of Honest Hearts is Joshua Graham. The secret villa this may shock you, but the secret villain of honest hearts is the guy who co-founded the fucking Legion.

SPEAKER_06 30:57

Um turns out you can't just walk away from that.

SPEAKER_02 31:00

No, actually.

SPEAKER_05 31:01

Um you simply can't like move to Argentina.

SPEAKER_02 31:05

You can't you can't move to fucking Zion and be like, I feel really bad about it. It's like, do you really? Because right now it sounds like you just kinda want to start killing people again. And I don't know, man. That's not very Christian of you.

SPEAKER_06 31:19

Just like Josh, you can't unfuck that Brahmin.

SPEAKER_02 31:22

No.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

Just like Megatron more than meets the eye, no matter how many good you add to that scale, it will never fix the it will never fix the balance.

SPEAKER_02 31:30

It's literally, and thing is, the whole point of like the last chat of the last conversation of the DLC is to be like, you're just because again, I've been waiting to get to this. The whole idea of all of these DLCs is that you gotta let it go. Right? You gotta let it go. And if you don't let it go, it's gonna kill you. And that's literally what happens. If you don't talk Joshua Graham down from doing a bad thing, um he it all just starts again. You you it's a man trapped in a time loop. Yeah. He basically turns the he turns the the dead horses into his new extremely warlike tribe, and they start fighting with all the other tribes in the area, and you go, hey, wait a second. Um so yeah, no, it's uh it's the idea, you gotta let go of how mad you are that like everybody you know died. Sorry, dude. You actually don't get to be angry about that when you founded the Legion? Like, wow, it really sucks when it happens to you, huh dog?

SPEAKER_06 32:42

Just that that fucking family guy bit where the guy in prison stabs himself and he's like, is this what I've been doing to people?

SPEAKER_02 32:48

This is.

SPEAKER_06 32:49

I deserve to be here.

SPEAKER_02 32:51

Yeah, no, that's the whole point. And it's like you gotta you gotta work through all that shit. Like, yeah, you're mad. Um, but you gotta let it go, dude. Because otherwise you're just gonna keep doing it forever. Yeah. Um it's an extremely good like last talk. But I mean, you know, it's an interesting character.

SPEAKER_06 33:10

Yeah, I had a feeling I missed out on something because like Sarah, I know you mentioned like you you talked about like the the the 90 skill check, speech check.

SPEAKER_04 33:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 33:19

And I was like, I finished the DLC and I'm like, hey, wait a minute. What speech check? I didn't have to talk to Joshua Graham at all. No, he was just like, alright, I'm done. Bye.

SPEAKER_02 33:29

Yeah, no. You have to if you if you want to get the good ending for that character, you literally have to have almost a maxed out speech to make it happen. Because it's really hard to talk somebody out of the ways they've been set in for 30 years. Like, it you actually do have to have an absurdly high charisma to make that work. Um and yeah, it's interesting, it's really good. Uh it's kind of the thing that carries this DLC on its back because otherwise it's very light. We we will not be talking about Honest Hearts much.

SPEAKER_06 34:04

No, it was it was very light.

SPEAKER_02 34:06

I like it a lot, but it is very light, it's very beautiful. I really like a remake of Fallow New Vegas specifically for uh the Majesty of Zion National Park uh in a video game. Yeah. Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 34:20

Um there is one thing I disliked about uh Honest Hearts, and that was trying to navigate the sorrows camp.

SPEAKER_03 34:32

Where the fuck are the stairs?

SPEAKER_01 34:37

It's one of those things where it's like, ah, yeah, seventh gen uh like pathfinding. His quest objectives are not gonna tell you where the hell it is at all.

SPEAKER_06 34:47

Daniel is above me. How the fuck do I get there?

SPEAKER_02 34:52

I gotta tell you, there's a tweet, because we all played Viva New Vegas for this most recent thing. There's a tweak in there because like the Viva New Vegas gives you, instead of like, there's a there's a new option or a new menu in there called tweaks, and they are predictably little gameplay tweaks, little things like your care, like adjusting your carry weight, all kinds tons and tons of little small things. One of the things the tweaks add is a directional indicator for like a quest objective on your map. So on your little compass. So it'll tell you, like, well, they're above you, or they're below you, or they're on the same level as you're right. And it is, I I wish I had installed it before I played Honest Hearts because it would have helped. Um but that's like a game changer, by the way. Yeah, so that thing makes that game so much more like bearable to try and find things. Um but yeah, no, the sorrow's camp is a fucking nightmare. And they're like, you know, like I like honest hearts, but it does have a lot of kind of tacky Native American jokes.

SPEAKER_04 35:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:56

Uh it's got a fucking guy named Two Bears. Like two bears high-fiving, you know? Um, it just has a lot of kind of gauche things in it, and you're just like, oh, 2010. Aw, 2010. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 36:14

2010.

SPEAKER_02 36:15

Yeah. Um it needed another pass, guys. There's a lot of neat stuff in there, and I think if if it had gotten another pass with all of its like tribal shit, it would have been an all-timer. Um but as it stands, it's just still pretty fucking good. Because all of the DLC on New Vegas is pretty fucking good. So um that's kind of it.

SPEAKER_06 36:43

That's I I even I even looked after I finished finished Honest Hearts. I looked to be like, did I miss a bunch of side quests? And I didn't.

SPEAKER_02 36:52

Not really.

SPEAKER_06 36:53

There's just not it's it's it's very linear, it's very straightforward.

SPEAKER_02 36:57

It's very light. Um, but that's funny because now we talk about old world blues, which I know is Ben's favorite.

SPEAKER_06 37:03

Yeah, I mean it's don't it's close. Like Dead Money is is right up there, but like Old World Blues has uh James Urbaniac in it, so like it has to be my favorite.

SPEAKER_02 37:13

Of course it has to be. Uh Old World Blues kicked ass. It's so fucking good.

SPEAKER_05 37:18

It's my second favorite over Honest Hearts uh because it has the uh Mark II stealth suit in it.

SPEAKER_06 37:23

I love the Mark II stealth suit. That's what I wore for the rest of the game.

SPEAKER_05 37:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:26

Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

SPEAKER_05 37:28

I don't I don't care about whatever uh I they got like liter literally the voice actor for that is uh was some girl who was uh doing fucking I can't even remember the name. Some gamer TV show, literally.

SPEAKER_03 37:40

Like Oh really?

SPEAKER_05 37:41

Yeah, it was it and like not it was like a like a I don't think it was like G4, but it was like a a similar like spectra of like it's game it's gamer TV, right?

SPEAKER_03 37:50

It's so funny.

SPEAKER_05 37:52

Just a funny stunt cast. But like the the Mark II Stealth suit and her performance are just so charming. I adore her. Uh that that's my friend. That's my best friend in the whole world. If I played Fallout New Vegas again, I would literally probably be like, alright, I'm gonna do like a modded higher difficulty playthrough, uh, but I am going to allow myself to have the the the Mark II Stealth Suit to start. Uh just so I could have her around the entire time.

SPEAKER_02 38:17

Have a friend with you at all times.

SPEAKER_06 38:19

She also plays the original voice of Christine Royce in uh in um uh Dead Mind. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_02 38:27

That's right, because there's there's uh cascase, the um audio logs with Christine's original voice. I forgot. Yes.

SPEAKER_06 38:35

Uh yeah, no, the stealth suit is is adorable. I didn't I never took it off uh after getting it. Um it's got Urbaniac in it, so it's gotta be good.

SPEAKER_03 38:47

Of course.

SPEAKER_06 38:48

Um It's I think pound for pound, Old World Blues just has the most stuff out of the DLCs.

SPEAKER_01 38:59

It is a DLC in which if you get to this point playing the video game and you walk into Old World Blues knowing what kind of like what kind of content it's going to be, and you don't have the Wild Wasteland trait, what the fuck is wrong with you?

SPEAKER_06 39:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:19

This was made for the Wild Wasteland. Because like you're missing like 70% of all of the random chatter that happens. Um like as you're walking around in the wasteland. Like it if you don't have Wild Wasteland, you very quickly go, okay, I get it. This is the third time you've made this line. Um if you have Wild Wasteland, you will probably redo the entire DLC and have only heard each line once. Yeah. There's that it adds that much.

SPEAKER_02 39:56

See, it's funny because like now I also need to do a new another New Vegas playthrough because I did not play with Wild Wasteland on. Um I wanted two traits. I wanted two two traits more than I wanted to play with Wild Wasteland on.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

I will s I will say, in tweaks, you can't just turn Wild Wasteland on.

SPEAKER_02 40:12

It's true, but I was afraid of doing I found that option like kind of late into my playthrough. And I was like, I feel like turning this on now is gonna break something. So I'm gonna.

SPEAKER_06 40:22

And the thing is, Sarah, you can get two traits uh as well along with Wild Wasteland if you do World World Blues.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

That's true.

SPEAKER_06 40:30

Because one of the upgrades you get just gives you a new trait.

SPEAKER_02 40:33

But it is it this like another one of the like the character gen traits?

SPEAKER_06 40:38

Yeah, you just go back to that menu and get to pick another trait.

SPEAKER_02 40:41

Oh! God, I totally forgot. Well, that's good to know. Then I guess it probably would have been fine to turn on Wild Wasteland mid-playthrough if that doesn't break it for old world blues.

SPEAKER_04 40:52

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 40:53

Oh well. Good to know for the future.

SPEAKER_06 40:56

Um In fact, there's a there's a great way to um cheat skill points with that.

SPEAKER_04 41:03

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06 41:04

Uh, because if you pick the one that gives you like uh Is it the one that gives you like plus skilled, but just gives you like plus five skill points to a bunch of different stats.

SPEAKER_02 41:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 41:18

Pick that in the character creator in the beginning of the game, and then when you leave Doc Mitchell's house and you get the option of like, hey, do you want to make any last-minute tweaks? Deactivate that skill. You will keep the five skill points you got.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

That's so funny. I did not know that.

SPEAKER_06 41:38

And then in old world blues, pick it again. And just get another five skill points for free.

SPEAKER_02 41:50

I thought I knew you.

SPEAKER_06 41:52

I mean, I didn't do that because I found out afterwards, but I was but I read online people like strategies like, oh, yeah, I guess you could do that.

SPEAKER_01 41:59

Yeah, it's it's one of the it's one of the workarounds for if you decide to play a low-level intelligence character, that's how you're able to get extra skill points to make things work. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 42:11

Yeah, because the the downside is you gain five skill points but suffer 10 per negative 10% experience gained.

SPEAKER_02 42:18

Right.

SPEAKER_06 42:19

But getting a plus 10 to every skill. Who fucking cares about negative 10% experience at that point? Sure.

SPEAKER_02 42:27

That's funny. Okay, that makes sense, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 42:30

Um but yeah, no, it's the whole DLC is just full to the brim with stuff to do that I think, not to say the other ones are are lacking in content, but like this one is the one that's like it feels like this is the one where they wanted to put a lot of stuff they didn't get to put in the base game.

SPEAKER_02 42:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 42:50

Like having like a a hub center that is actually a hub.

SPEAKER_02 42:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 42:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:56

Um that it's very funny. Uh like, because like to be, you know, and I don't want to skip ahead too far, but it is funny because like the hub rules, for one, um, and for two, it's funny that like they give you they they you can come back to it whenever you want, right, with a transporter ponder.

SPEAKER_04 43:13

Right.

SPEAKER_02 43:14

Um that's a very funny decision to make in 2010 when everybody's still playing this fucking game on on hard drives, right? Um and equally it's a funny decision to replay it in 2026 with a solid state drive, because then I actually did use that bitch as my main home. Because you can go to it whenever you want. Like, I could not imagine using the hub as like your player home on the 360 because of the low time nightmare, right? Like, complete fucking nightmare.

SPEAKER_06 43:50

It's like 10 seconds to go out through a door on the 360.

SPEAKER_02 43:54

But on my PC running a fucking solid state drive in 2026, fuck yeah, baby, I'm there too. Two seconds and back. It's a great uh huge recommend. It's a great place to keep everything because you getting there and back is no problem. Um and you get to hear voice lines whenever you uh whenever you get there and back because old world blues is extremely fucking funny. It is so fucking funny. Like and video games have a hard time being funny, right?

SPEAKER_04 44:26

That's true.

SPEAKER_02 44:27

Like comedy video games are few and far between. They're like video games that are humorous, but they're not comedy video games, right? Like there's moments that make you laugh, but they're not explicitly trying to be funny. Old World Blues is trying to be funny and uh knocking it out of the park. It is so fucking funny.

SPEAKER_06 44:47

The first thing you do when you get to Old World Blues is you walk down in from the from the sink and you go into the hub with the with the doctors, and then you are locked in a 30-minute cutscene.

SPEAKER_03 45:02

Yes!

SPEAKER_06 45:02

And it oh with five people just talking, and you want to listen to every line of dialogue because they're all so fucking funny.

SPEAKER_02 45:17

Don't touch me with those horrible penises or whatever.

SPEAKER_06 45:20

Are those penises growing on the hands?

SPEAKER_03 45:25

Oh, it's so good.

SPEAKER_01 45:27

I don't remember them ever looking so big.

SPEAKER_02 45:33

Uh, like a little teddy bear. My teddy bear. It's so good.

SPEAKER_06 45:38

They're all s all of the doctors are so funny, all the fucking big ass brains and jars that are just a bunch of TV float TVs floating around are great. Uh they're all so stupid.

SPEAKER_03 45:55

They're all so stupid.

SPEAKER_06 45:57

They're all so stupid.

SPEAKER_03 45:59

It's stupid, it's incredible.

SPEAKER_06 46:01

Who's your favorite, Ben? Uh Doctor, who do you think? It's Dr. O. It's the one that's just Dr. Venture.

SPEAKER_01 46:07

It had to have been either him or Dr. Mobius. I I felt like there was a not I like nothing else was an option.

SPEAKER_06 46:13

Look, the thing is, if if Dr. O was not James Urbaniak, it would be Dr. Mobius. But like getting to hear Rusty Venture again is just like it I can't.

SPEAKER_02 46:24

It's so funny to learn that they that like when he was first doing the lines, he was trying to not just do Rusty Venture. Like he was trying to do something else, and they were like, actually, no, can you just do Rusty Venture? Which is kind of what you do, Rusty Venture's character.

SPEAKER_06 46:40

We're gonna put Venture Brothers references in this DLC. You can just be Rusty Venture. It's me. It's literally what happened when uh when uh Doc and Jackson got uh um uh uh Batman in the voice. Like, just just do your Batman voice.

SPEAKER_02 46:59

Just do your Batman voice, yeah. When they got Kevin Conway.

SPEAKER_06 47:02

Kevin Conroy, yeah, Kevin Conroy in there. Just sound more like Batman. It's okay.

SPEAKER_02 47:07

It's fine, it's cool. Um yeah, no, it's I so fucking funny.

SPEAKER_06 47:14

Like, the thing is, like, if if it was if Dr. Mobius was voiced by like Bill Corbett, I would I would be like, I would have to divide myself in two to decide which one is my favorite.

SPEAKER_03 47:27

Ben stabs himself with fucking Yamato.

SPEAKER_05 47:30

So he's gonna be like, they're they're they're they're waiting on doing the uh the Fall in New Vegas remaster so that they can add a wild wasteland option that you don't quite know what's going on with at the beginning, but then when you get to old world blues, you realize that your character voice has in fact been replaced by Mike Nelson. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:53

Mike Nelson doing all of his fucking like all of your pain sounds and shit like that. Yeah. Ah!

SPEAKER_06 47:59

Ooh! Ooh!

SPEAKER_03 48:00

Ah!

SPEAKER_06 48:02

Um, but no, I love I love Dr. O's quest as well.

SPEAKER_03 48:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 48:07

Um, and I'm mad that I didn't have enough intelligence to solve it.

SPEAKER_02 48:12

I cheesed it so fucking hard.

SPEAKER_06 48:14

I couldn't I was I was too I to I took like um I took mentats and uh I got the plus one uh boost from the light switch, and it was still not enough.

SPEAKER_02 48:26

I think well, it's cut I had um night person or whichever it is, nocturnal, the one that gives you an intelligence boost when it's nighttime. I just waited for it to get dark and then went and talked to Dr. O.

unknown 48:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:41

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 48:42

Alright, baby, let's do it now.

SPEAKER_01 48:43

Uh no, I meant um uh I'm sorry, Ben, I meant Dr. Boros, who is voiced by Bo Weaver.

SPEAKER_02 48:49

Oh yeah, Boros is a very good thing.

SPEAKER_01 48:50

Boros is good too.

SPEAKER_02 48:52

That's what I was that's what I meant to say. Although I will say Mobius is probably my personal favorite just because I think daughtering old man pretending to be an evil scientist is a really funny character type.

SPEAKER_01 49:02

He's 100% my favorite. Mobius.

SPEAKER_06 49:04

Yeah, I love- I love Mobius for the the revelation at the end that he is just humoring them and trying to keep them in line. Uh and I I love I love the busted monitor eye patch. That's such a cute, like, character design thing. And the fact that his is the only one that's like like his dome is the only one that's like clouded because he hasn't had time to clean it. It's so good.

SPEAKER_05 49:31

I think I think Mobius is my favorite, but I do have to give a shout out to Dr. Dalla for being a Saturn character. Oh no, 100%.

SPEAKER_02 49:42

100% Saturn would play, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 49:45

Saturn would roll would would definitely play a character uh that you can seduce by breathing.

SPEAKER_03 49:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:54

This happened to Pluto.

SPEAKER_03 49:56

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 49:58

I just I adore Dr. Mobius' like one, the line Would you like a mentat? Yeah, like the same way you would the same way he would offer like a little grandpa candy. Yeah, a butterscotch or one of those little strawberry candies. And then um at the very end of the very opening cutscene where uh he is talking about his forbidden zone forbidden zone.

SPEAKER_00 50:21

That is his forbidden to you. Uh goodbye.

SPEAKER_02 50:29

Oh man. It's so good. Uh I'm devastated I couldn't I I did not manage to save the dog. I'm really sad about that one. I didn't have a save I could reload to help Rocky. Well, it's because I was just kind of screwing around. This is Sarah doing things. This is like classic Sarah behavior. Um I was just kind of screwing around, and I didn't realize that the dog was like an NPC I needed to keep alive for a little while. Um so I was just pressing buttons, and then I looked up and the dog had gotten killed by the fucking Robo Scorpions. Christ. They are a problem.

SPEAKER_06 51:02

They are scorpions.

SPEAKER_02 51:04

The robo scorpions are a huge problem because I had not spec'd my character for energy weapons. I was not having a good time in old world blues for a while there.

SPEAKER_06 51:15

Sarah, I did spec my character energy and energy weapons, and those things still sucked. They still suck.

SPEAKER_02 51:20

They still suck.

SPEAKER_01 51:22

I went in specifically as a crit like with a crit build using hollow points, and that was the only way I was able to survive is by using the the 357 Magnum. Uh and just hoping, hoping every time that my shot was like, please be a crit, please be a crit, please be a crit.

SPEAKER_02 51:40

I I eventually just had to rely on uh Elijah's gun, actually, because you can get two of those in the in the DLC. Um there's there's two laying around. I grabbed both and repaired it, so I'd have that all the time. Um and that helps. That makes it a lot easier. Um But I mean still it in the beginning you're just getting fucking eaten a lot. You're just you're like the you're like the cover of a lad's life magazine. You're just covered with fucking robot scorpions like biting your flesh. You're like, stop it!

SPEAKER_06 52:12

You know, like I'm picturing like the standard like pulp fiction like pulp burly man, but he's wearing a tattered like lab coat instead.

SPEAKER_02 52:21

Yeah, and he's covered in robot scorpions, yeah. Like that's what it felt like.

SPEAKER_06 52:26

Um, so you didn't get Roxy's ending though.

SPEAKER_02 52:29

No, I did not.

SPEAKER_06 52:31

Which is one of the funniest.

SPEAKER_02 52:33

I know, I'm really sad about it.

SPEAKER_06 52:36

She wanders to the Mojave and finds Rex and they have a litter of Cyber Dogs.

SPEAKER_03 52:41

Yeah, this is not how that works at all.

SPEAKER_00 52:45

A new breed called Boston Terrifier.

SPEAKER_05 52:49

Now, here's the thing, Sarah. You you say that's not how it works, but have you considered that with except in certain extreme circumstances, that there's no such thing as the truth? And that perhaps only with love can it be seen?

SPEAKER_02 53:06

Maybe you you can't be trying to I So I'm gonna finish it with Echo someday, Saturn, okay?

SPEAKER_06 53:11

Were they were they born with cybernetics? Well, obviously, yeah, they're inherited. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:17

Clearly. Of course.

SPEAKER_06 53:18

Uh I love I love the uh the fan theory that dog meat in four is one of those puppies, and that's why he's so strong.

SPEAKER_05 53:28

You can't see it, but he's got a cybernetic skeleton.

SPEAKER_02 53:31

Yeah, absolutely. That makes perfect.

SPEAKER_05 53:33

If his genetic expression had come out just a little bit differently, he'd have laser eyes.

SPEAKER_02 53:38

You know what? I am immediately incorporating that into my belief system. Thank you. 100%. Yeah, no. Uh, without question, that makes perfect sense.

SPEAKER_05 53:46

I will say, if I do ever go back to Fallout 4, I don't think we brought them up in the last episode. Sure. If we do ever go back, if I do ever go back to Fallout 4, 100% finding a mod to replace Dog Meat's model with one of the uh the what are they called? The night crawlers? The Night Stalker Night Stalkers, those little those little snake, the snake coyotes. They're so cute. They're ootie cootie. They're they're like the ootie cootiest thing in they are my scrimblo of 7th gen. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:17

They're extremely high quality like 7th gen scrimblo, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_06 54:21

They're a real dorky looking creature. I love puppy mouth. I wanted to like them, but I could not because in old world blues, they're fucking everywhere.

SPEAKER_03 54:30

They're also fucking everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 54:33

But yeah, because that's because they know how how good how good and cute they are.

SPEAKER_03 54:36

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 54:37

Ben, if you made it to rank two of Animal Friend, they become friendly.

SPEAKER_06 54:41

I didn't have enough survival to do that.

SPEAKER_02 54:43

I uh Animal Friend build would be really funny, actually.

SPEAKER_06 54:47

Yeah, it would make things would have made things a lot easier.

SPEAKER_02 54:50

Damn, okay, I'm already constructing a new playthrough of Fallen in Vegas and Yeah, that that's gonna that's what's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 54:56

I uh I uh I'm just gonna just gonna hit you with uh have you considered uh these little guys?

SPEAKER_02 55:07

You sent you put that in in our in DMs not to put that.

SPEAKER_01 55:12

Uh I uh I uh I meant to do this one. I was uh I was a tap down. Uh shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.

SPEAKER_02 55:17

Look at these little guys!

SPEAKER_01 55:18

Look at 'em!

SPEAKER_03 55:19

Look at 'em! They're so cute. They're fluffy.

SPEAKER_05 55:22

The ideal creature.

SPEAKER_03 55:23

Yeah, a high quality dog.

SPEAKER_05 55:26

One of the only fallout creatures where if you made it in real life, I would still adopt one.

SPEAKER_02 55:32

100%, yes.

SPEAKER_06 55:33

Um, old world blues is phenomenal.

SPEAKER_02 55:39

It's so funny.

SPEAKER_06 55:40

All of your all of your maintenance things have obnoxious personalities that rule. Muggy.

SPEAKER_02 55:47

Muggy is my boy.

SPEAKER_06 55:49

Muggy. I I love that the only one that doesn't get a good ending is the toaster.

SPEAKER_04 55:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 55:57

Because everyone gets sick of it and they throw it in the bathtub.

SPEAKER_01 56:01

Ben, that's because it the all of the endings are based on your karma. If you have a bad karma, everybody else suffers because he not only makes it out alive, he does end up killing uh the sink.

unknown 56:13

Right. Oh man.

SPEAKER_06 56:16

Um I I love um God, what was it? Like, yeah, Muggy, Muggy, the light switches hate each other. I love that. They're jealous of each other.

SPEAKER_02 56:31

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 56:32

That's gank over in room one.

SPEAKER_02 56:34

Uh-huh. The the cat the catty bitches as light switches. Um, your kind of cool Southern drawl auto dock guy.

SPEAKER_06 56:45

Yeah, who passes out all the time, who falls asleep all the time.

SPEAKER_02 56:48

Yeah, constantly falls asleep. It's great.

SPEAKER_06 56:49

It's really blind blind Dio Jefferson.

SPEAKER_02 56:56

Oh. It's uh it's so good. That's I mean, because like that that DLC is really fun because like it's got the whole um like comedy and like kinda I guess I don't want to say horror, but like kinda? Right?

SPEAKER_06 57:14

The lobotomites and the trauma override harnesses are fucking nightmarish.

SPEAKER_02 57:18

Yeah, and then like the stuff with like the school, um, the uh the the village where all of the doctors live.

SPEAKER_01 57:25

The little Yangtze.

SPEAKER_02 57:26

Yeah, Yangtze is terrifying. Um, the village where all the doctors live back when they had human bodies. Um it's doing that fun kind of interplay of like being really eerie while like funny shit is happening that I'm gonna be.

SPEAKER_06 57:41

It's very like it's very much like a fallout microcosm.

SPEAKER_02 57:44

Yeah, totally. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_06 57:47

Combining abject horror with this just in your face dark comedy. Because like as funny as the doctors are, they're still constantly abducting people and ripping their brains out.

SPEAKER_02 58:00

Yeah, they're monsters, is the thing, right? Like the docks are funny. I mean, you know, it's so easy to want to just call them the mads because you know They kind of are, yeah. They kind of are just MST3K mads. Um but like they're monsters too, right? Like Boris talks about like torturing his dog basically to death. Um, and he feels bad about it because he's just like, oh, but I was like a little psycho kid. Oh no. Um there's like all kinds of shit like that.

SPEAKER_06 58:27

Yeah, it there's a concentration camp on the west side.

SPEAKER_02 58:31

Yeah, like they're bad people.

SPEAKER_06 58:35

Yeah, that's like the ending is the good ending is you isolate them in the big MT because you cannot dare let them out into the wasteland.

SPEAKER_02 58:44

Under no circumstances should you release these freaks onto the wasteland. It's your job to make sure they stay there forever and don't tear your brain out again, right? Yeah. Like, because they're too dangerous. Like they're too, like the the kind of science that they're like they are the guys that make you even a little bit understand the Brotherhood of Steel's mission, which is that, oh god, everybody in the old world were sicko's, right? Uh, and they should all be put to the sword. Um and they're kind of right. You play Old World Blues, and you're like, oh shit, oh shit, maybe they're right.

SPEAKER_06 59:21

Yeah. And then and then Ulysses almost fucked it up for everyone.

SPEAKER_03 59:26

That's right.

SPEAKER_06 59:26

With one question.

SPEAKER_03 59:28

That's right.

SPEAKER_06 59:29

See, that's this is the other thing I really like about New Vegas' DLC as a whole, is they they weave all of the DLCs together, not in like a significant way, but like just enough hooks to tie them together.

SPEAKER_03 59:46

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_06 59:49

Like it's not like you're you're like, and then you go to this area and it's the next chapter of the story. It's like, oh yeah, Ulysses was here, and so was Christine.

SPEAKER_02 59:57

And so was Elijah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 59:59

Yeah, and you're just like, oh, oh shit, just like a little bit of crossover.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:03

And it to me, like, that's really interesting because there's um. It means that one, you can play these DLC truly if you want. I mean, playing Lonesome Road first is fucking insane. Yeah, don't do that.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:14

But like the other thing you can play in any order.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:15

You can play in basically any order you want. I mean, you can still play Lonesome Road first if you want. I mean, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:20

Play Lonesome Road before you do literally anything else in the entire game. Rage Vang's bottom text. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:28

Uh, but to me it's interesting because the two four DLC are like interesting little counterparts of each other, right? Like Old World Blues and Dead Money are both um kind of are like ensemble cast pieces, right? That are set in these kind of like very rich lots to do kind of worlds, right? And they're both kind of have like a spooky element. And they're also literally tied together by like the bio suits and like Elijah was there in uh in the big MT, right? Like all the these things are all tied together. And then like Honest Hearts and Lonesome Road are likewise tied together because they're both about they are both pretty much about one guy, and that one guy's baggage is I used to be part of the Legion and it fucked up my life, right?

SPEAKER_06 1:01:19

Yeah, you're absolutely right. Like, I I noticed that playing these is that like old world blues and and you know and dead money are the like they're parallels of each other. Like there's and I I like that because and then they still have these elements that connect to the other two DLCs.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:35

Yeah, absolutely. Everything's woven together very like smartly and and very interesting. Like this idea that Ulysses kind of kicked off the plot of old world blues just by asking the mads a question, right? Um I I like that a lot. I think it's very there's something very compelling. That's why like there's these DLCs are really really good to me because of this kind of thing. Where it's this whole uh thing that I brought up before uh kind of clarity of intent, right? Dead money is the most that. And we'll get to dead money.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:14

Right, oh yeah, in a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:15

Just hold on. Yeah, but clarity of intent still exists for all four of these things, even if I think Lonesome Road is kind of the weakest because but that's because they were taking all the shit they had from a character idea that they kind of had to scrap. But they were still able to turn it into something that I've I hated initially, but I've kind of softened on now. We'll get into it. Um But like all of these are made with so like we know what we want to make, and we're we're doing our best to make it. And old world blues and dead money are the two that feel like they made exactly what they what they wanted to make with with no compromises whatsoever. Right. Right. Um the other two are a bit more compromised because of stuff kind of outside of their control. But it's what makes these DLCs so good and so special, and why they're so like they're to me the most compelling part of Fall in New Vegas is this idea that they are made with such like intent and they know exactly what they want. And they're doing everything they can to make it just that and nothing else. Um that I just think like the old world loses is a really great distillation of that idea. Like they wanted to do their their kind of high concept, wacky, like super science goofy DLC and B movie schlock. Yeah, they wanted to make a B movie, basically. Yeah. And they and they tell you that they want it to be a B movie, they want you to think of it as a B movie because the fucking quest starts at a drive-in movie theater.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:49

Yeah, exactly. At midnight.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:51

At midnight. Like you have to go to the midnight showing at the theater to like start old world blues. So they're they're telling you exactly what kind of thing this is right now. It's goofy, it's corny, it's kind of a horror. Um, but it's it's ultimately kind of schlocky, but it's still a thing you're gonna come away loving, right?

SPEAKER_06 1:04:10

And I what I really like about it is that just these hooks of of specifically like Elijah and Ulysses, right? Not only are they good for tying into the Breath of the DLCs, they also do their part to like legitimize old world blues. Sure. Like, this isn't a weird, campy side adventure you're going on that is like I in this isolated area, and it's where we're gonna shove all of the weird, goofy, funny, haha, mad scientist, you know, B-movie schlock. It no. This is tied into the overall plot.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:51

Like Ulysses is here and he almost ruined everything by asking these brains a question. Like you they they they were in conversation with each other. You Elijah broke into here and uncovered the bomb-collar schematics and ran tests on those, and like it it helps bridge the gaps and make sure that you are in fact taking this plot seriously.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:20

Yeah, like none of this stuff exists in a vacuum, right? Yeah. Like all of it kind of, and then you know that that's tied thematically to like New Vegas is like a thing. Right? Which is why it all slots together so perfectly. Um like because New Vegas is about how you know the world keeps going and history keeps happening. We talked about it last week. We talked about it last week. Oh, why wasn't that um and like the DLC are also about this? Everything is tied together because like all of this stuff, like this goofy shit exists and like it is happening in this world, and if you had to live in a world With all this goofy super science shit, it'd be a nightmare. Yeah. Right? Like, you wouldn't want the mads to ever leave the big empty, right? Like, you would want them to stay there forever because they're a fucking danger to themselves and others. Uh, and that's awesome.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:14

It is it is the DLC that is explicitly named after one of the big themes of New Vegas.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:22

It is c it is the old world blues!

SPEAKER_02 1:06:25

It's the old world. Everybody's got the old world blues, and that's what this is about, right? Uh, and I love it. I think it's great, you know?

SPEAKER_06 1:06:33

Phenomenal writing on every metric.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:37

It's crackin'. It's it's just absolutely fucking sizzling from start to beginning. I I mean, it's so good.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:42

You get some of the funniest gags, you get some of the best wild wasteland. Like, wild wasteland is in its fucking element. You get dogs playing poker, but they're cyber dogs. It's great!

SPEAKER_01 1:06:54

Every now and then when you fight one of the trauma harnesses, when you kill them, you'll hear a guy go, hey, her turn out the lights. Yeah! That's awesome.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:04

God, it's so good. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:07

I love all the world blues. It's so good. Wasteland elevates it to like, this is pretty good too. Like, this is one of my favorite things to play ever.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:15

Oh, so you do know that's a Doctor Who reference, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:18

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:20

Well, I don't know what all what all like Doctor Who you guys have seen. Yeah, so you know.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:25

I don't know if you've seen all those seasons, but yeah, like that's that's what I I heard that and I and I like literally like got goosebumps. I'm like, oh shit.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:32

Pointing at your screen, like, I know that joke!

SPEAKER_01 1:07:34

I know what that's from you you can come across a walking eye in older world books.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:40

It's so great. And if you and if you have uh Wild Wasteland on, then you get uh you get dialogue from from uh Dr. Venture about uh washing the walk the walking eye.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:50

There's a really great one where when Dr. Mobius is talking about like uh the his overall like method of keeping the other doctors pacified, he in normal dialogue he calls it plan B, but in Wild Wasteland he calls it plan nine.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:04

Yeah. Of course. Of course.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:07

Um of my favorite things, speaking of how they get they just told James Urbaniac to play Doctor Venture again, they told the actor who plays the courier's brain, yeah, just sound like Stewie Griffin. Just do your best Stewie Griffin impression.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:26

So I'll tell you, another reason to play New Vegas, Ben, and I'll send it to you after we're done, to replay New Vegas, I mean, um, is that there is a set of mods, uh, it's like a mod pack that adds little additional animations to shit. Ooh. When you Don't you spoil this for me. Um like so like when you get the uh like when you get the platinum chip, you look it over and then you flip it. When you pick up um um like snow globes, you'll look them over and you shake them. Little cutesy things like that. Tons and tons of little fun details like that. When you get your brain back, um you take it out of the thing and you kiss the jar it's in and it plays uh Careless Whisper.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:10

You gotta link me to that mod right the fuck now.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:14

I'll send it to you, Ben. It's in my it's it's in my favorites.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:18

It's on my three of them because it's for different, like, different stuff. It adds. It was such a funny joke that I just thought it was part of the game. Like, it is so perfectly integrated that I, if it weren't for the careless whisper part, I was just like, oh yeah, no, this seems like something New Vegas would do.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:37

Oh, like um it's the sexy sex started playing in the background.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:42

Yeah, it's great! Uh huge recommends. Uh great series of mods, like vastly improves that game. A game that I already think is great. Uh, that makes it even better. Um and it's just a little thing, but it helps a lot, honestly. Um, I love I love beefing with your own brain. It's so funny. It's so funny. It's so funny. It's such a good j- it's such a good joke. Uh your brain does not want to come back because your brain thinks you're an idiot and it got you shot at. Yeah. So, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:17

I love my favorite version of the argument is throwing it right back in its face where it's like, well, you just You're doing all these things because of hormones. You know, like all the glands in your system, and then you and then if your medicine is high enough, you go. You're responsible for 80% of that unless you're blaming all of it on the hypothalamus. It's like, how dare you use that against me?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:39

It's so good.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:43

Oh, I love it. Uh you keep your organs, by the way, or did you swap them back out?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:48

Uh I think it was a mix of both, however.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:52

I don't think so. Both. I think I kept some of my dope ass cybernetic orbans, but I don't I don't remember which one I put back. I think I kept my actual brain.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:01

I kept the brain, but I didn't I didn't kept the cybernetic spine and uh and a heart.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:06

Yeah, because I was playing like a low strength and low endurance character, like a really low strength and endurance character. So I needed every single one of those points the game would give me. I'm like, yes, give me the metal spine. This helps so much more.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:19

I also I can't help it. I am a sucker for Wizard of Osmotif.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:25

Yeah. I mean the main game is a wiz is just a big Wizard of Osmotif.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:29

It is, for sure, but like this one makes it explicit when you know you got your your brain, uh, heart and courage. So, you know, it but like uh it just I'm always a sucker for that.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:42

I I loved I loved when Mobius just kind of put a little it's a nice little little cherry on top by going like yeah it was it was a horror film about these these four maniacs just killing a rant a random lady Yeah and it turned out that they had that their they had their brains their hearts and their courage spine all along Yeah it's really good I I love his quirk of mispronouncing certain words uh like raisin instead of reason and quiet instead of quiet yeah yeah yeah it's really good uh there's just I mean shit I don't know it's just it's so special it's so funny it's really good um I it also And it's funny because I think it's like I I of like the three good ones it's my least favorite but that doesn't mean I dislike it.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:38

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_05 1:12:39

Like I There's just not as much there to like latch on to as far as like like stuff that interests me personally.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:47

Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:48

Yeah, like I like like when I think about like old world blues, I remember the the the not the twist, but like you know the ending when you're with your confrontation with Mobius and him explaining what's going on. And I remember that, and I'm like, that's a cool thing for this, and like I don't fucking remember anything else really that happens in that DLC. And it's like there's not much to latch on to vis-a-vis like the like thinking about the politics or intrigue of the setting, really, besides like godly super science weirdos are really horrible.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:16

Yes, absolutely. It's very much you get the opening thing that's again like 30 minutes of of riffing between these five brains, and then you go out and do all of the tasks, and the environment is full of bits and like little vignettes and stuff you can do. Because what I like about Old World Blues compared to the others is that you are it's full of little research stations that you can go into and it's like a set piece, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:42

Yeah, it's all very self-directed in a way that's very interesting, absolutely.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:46

Um, and then you get all the stuff, and then you go confront Mobius, and that's kind of it as far as story goes. It's just that the atmosphere in Old World Blues is so packed to the brim with stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:58

Sure, totally. Um, and and I I mean it's still, you know, it's my least favorite of the of the three. Um, not counting Lonesome Road, because Lonesome Road is kind of its own fag of cats. Um and like, you know, mostly because like, you know, that kind of you know, that kind of humor is funny, but it's not like my favorite thing in the entire world, right? Right. Um it just is what it is. Um but I still love it. Like I still think it's great, I still think it's fun, and there's a lot of interesting stuff going on. I think like all of its like external like connections to everything else are interesting and it gives you that glimpse of like just like the horrors of the old world. Yeah. Right? Um, and I love all that shit, so you know.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:44

It's I I also really, really love that again, it's the only DLC that you can go back to. Only environment that you can well or can you go back? Yeah, you can go back in Lonesome Roads.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:54

You can go back to Lonesome Roads, you just can't interact with any like all of the like characters that you would interact with, they despawn.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:00

Oh, so is it so is it just dead money that you can't go back to?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:04

It's just dead money.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:05

Huh. I thought you could.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:06

Which makes sense because dead money is like a fairly linear environment with lots of like complicated set piece rules.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:13

Because I downloaded a mod pack that allowed me to keep some a lot of the um companions that uh were exclusive to the DLC. I thought they added Um a door because I know they add the pack I downloaded added a door to go back to Dead Money. I thought they added a pack to go back to uh Honest Hearts as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:35

No, you can go back because if you Because otherwise you can't like you wouldn't be able to do like any of the Randall Clark shit, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:15:43

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:44

Like you can still do it while you're like doing the main quest of that, but if you want to like put and just admire the beauty of Zion, right? Like you can still just go back.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:53

Um Yeah, because like the the point of like the the plot for Honest Hearts is eventually you get a map that allows you to come back and forth. Okay. So of course you can come back.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:03

I figured it was because like the the because the the canonical text for honest arts that it takes like three weeks to get there.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:09

It is, I think.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:10

So they wouldn't just let you go back.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:12

No, it does take three weeks, but like, yeah, yeah, they don't they're not too concerned about that.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:16

Yeah, but once you finish Honest Hearts, it's no longer canon when you go back, so you can just teleport there. Right. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:21

But like I well, the thing I love about the ending of Old World Blues is that it's the only it's the only DLC pack where it's like if you do like a lot of things right, like keep all of the scientists alive, like make peace with with uh uh you know all five of them and with Mobius as well. The ending is that the courier just kept going back to check on them.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:44

Yeah, you gotta keep an eye on those fuckers.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:46

Yeah. You gotta go back to the old folks' home to make sure grandma and grandpa and grandpa and grandpa and grandpa and grandpa and grandpa are all doing alright.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:53

Yeah, you're not inventing new death weapons that can kill everybody, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:56

Yeah, it's it's just kind of nice that like like the sink kind of does become the courier's like quote unquote canonical home after the game.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:04

Yeah, it's cute.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:05

Yeah, I think that's just a really nice thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:07

I just like I like the resolution of being able to talk the to talk the doctors down and like you know you do enough work for them and you can actually help those poor bastards. I like that.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:18

Yeah, work work with Mobius to give them little projects to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:23

I think it is sad to do it this way. But the ending slide for killing the think tank, except for Mobius, results in in Kadala and um Oh to basically go the courier slaughtered all of these complete and total doors exactly as easily as you think it would. It was a sad, pathetic thing. Because if you do we are all we are all a better place for these losers having all been basically wiped out with a f like flicking their foreheads.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:59

Yeah, because it it is it is kind of heartbreaking because like if you do have to fight them, they can't fight.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:05

No, yeah, they have no weapons. They're not any weapons.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:08

Now, they do have weaponry and they do have a lot of health, but they don't put up much of a fight. They mostly just cower and run.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:16

Yeah, they don't know how to do anything, and you you feel really bad for having to kill them. I love it. I I I I love God, I love old world blues. It's just such a it's just exactly everything I love specifically about Dumps B movie science fiction. That being said, that being said, let's talk about Let's talk about the best deal, the best piece of Fallout DLC ever made.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:42

Holy shit.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:43

Dead money is fucking oh boy.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:48

I'm really glad that we have arrived like all independently at this conclusion. Because I remember thinking this in 2010 when I was a 15-year-old. Like, damn, that dead money shit is just really like the best thing they made for this game. Like, it's kind of crazy, and like never meeting anyone else who was really as enthusiastic about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:11

Sure.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:12

And it's like, no, yeah, that shit was the best thing I ever played.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:18

The thing is, the thing is that like you are brought into dead money and you realize that Fallout can be scary.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:29

Fallout can't be the the exact moment I realized that dead money was something was not just something special, but the best one. Um, even over my beloved far harbor, which was my previous the best one, um was when you when you first talk to dog. Right? It's the first time you're talking with dog and swapping between him and God with like a with like an inventory item. And I don't know, something in my brain just clicked instantly, and I went, oh, this is the best one. This is just the best one. They're just doing they're they're just so how did this guy write this one and Lonesome Road? What do you mean?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:16

For me, something about it for me was the initial like realizing, oh my god, I'm like in a like I'm in a Saw movie forced to do an Oceans 11, and then you meet the guy who's on all of those fucking movie posters who looks an awful lot like one of the actors in the original Oceans 11.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:41

I I think more simply for me, uh, when I was going through this uh for the first time back in like 2010, I think, uh was just getting into combat encounters with like what was effectively like ghouls, like just like ghouls, and being like, oh fuck.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:02

Oh fuck.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:03

Oh fuck, there's like two of them.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:05

Oh no, no!

SPEAKER_06 1:21:07

It was for me, it was the moment where it's like because I had I was a stealth build. I'm like, alright, cool, easy peasy, I'm gonna stealth through all this thing. You're not, and then they're like, hey, you gotta you gotta cut off a limb to kill them. And I'm like, I look at my stats and it was uh 10 melee. And I went, oh boy.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:27

So I will tell you this. My first build for any of these Fallout games has always been an Angus build, which meant for once in my life I encountered a survival horror game where I was not afraid. Sure. I got the bear trap fist immediately, and then I got a bunch of gas bombs, and I went. Oh, I'm the slasher villain.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:48

You're tricky, you're locked in here with me.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:52

I I think the ghost people are the most terrifying thing Fallout has ever created.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:02

They're so good.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:03

They're so good they basically ripped them off in like three or four different ways across the lifespan of Fallout 76.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:10

What a horribly fucked up thing to have. Like the lore behind them, the fact that you can't actually kill them until you sever a limb.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:24

The descriptions of like, from a dog, especially, of how they don't it doesn't feel like flesh when you bite into them. There's like and it bursts like with gas every time he bites into them. This is like, what the fuck is that?

SPEAKER_02 1:22:44

It's so not to beat a dead horse, but again, we were talking about like clarity of vision, and this is the it's the most, it's the mo it is the most like because that was like when I was talking to dog slash god, you're like like oh, they're just they're just firing on all cylinders with this one. I don't know, something about just like that first conversation where like you under, like you can see kind of like even early on, like God's frustration with a dog, like even when he's being like an imperious asshole to you when you first meet him, but you can still like hear like the frustration of him trying to make himself understood to this other half of himself, and like he just can't and he, you know, he doesn't know what to do with it. You can just like you feel it in every dialogue line, and like just this I like that idea of like these extremely broken people being forced to do something and and like kind of that interplay of personalities and stuff, and you being so like feeling like so much of a character despite not really like having you know like a lot of personalized characterization, like you get in the road, like but you still feel so much like a part of this with all of the different things, all of the like the little things, like Christine Royce, my fucking beloved, um Christine, Christine Royce my my my darling, um like reading all of her stuff, and one of the things I ended up having to do because I'm not good at being able to just like read somebody describing, you know, she described like the game describes because they didn't have the motion capture for it because the game is made in 18 months. Um so the game instead is just describing what she's doing with her hands, and I found myself having to do what the game is describing in order to understand what she's saying, right? And it's great. That rocks, that's the equivalent of like having to make your own map in a video game, like when you have to hand draw a map, like in fucking blueprints, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:25:03

Having to make your own map for a conversation with an NPC.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:07

Yeah, that rules when you're having to physically do something with your own body to understand what she's saying, is like that's the game like reaching through the screen and grabbing you by the throat and shaking you because it just wants you to connect with these characters so badly, and they nail it. It's so great.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:24

Also, the audacity, uh, and this is like why I really like this. Like, I'm not I don't like this character, but he's still one of my favorite companions uh or equivalent in the Fallout game. Of like, there's no amount of liking you that you can make Dean Domino do that will not make him still try to fuck you. It's great.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:46

Absolutely. The only way you have to like truly just roll over and show your belly to him at all times.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:52

If you screw up even a single time, even if everything else you've done perfect, he's just like I'll remember that. Dean Domino will remember that. I will remember that.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:02

The thing is, the thing the thing that really sucks is that if you're nice to him, if you try to like uh like pacify him at the beginning, that's n that's a negative point against you.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:14

Yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:15

Because he doesn't he doesn't like you trying to like prostrate yourself on the s the second you meet him.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:21

Yeah, because he understands because at that point he processes you as just like a little sycophant, right? Right. But like if you if you big dick him in the beginning and then kind of defer to him, then he will be more like amenable to you. But no matter what, you can't let Dean finish his story when you finally have the confrontation with him in the theater, right? Yeah, because if you let him do the whole thing, you lock yourself into having to kill him.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:49

And you still have to well, you also still have to thread the needle too. Because if you try and big dick him too much, he goes, They're trying to lord one over me. Yes, I will remember that. You can there is you actually have to hit the one right in the middle, and he'll just be like, Huh. I guess I guess there are smart people in this world after all. Alright.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:09

I uh I did not get to save him. Oh, I didn't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:13

No, I did not, I did not thread that needle even a little. Frankly, I didn't feel bad about it. I didn't need to be able to get it. He's I mean, I love Dean as a character, but what a fucking dickhead, right?

SPEAKER_06 1:27:25

I didn't feel bad.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:27

He's my favorite thing is the ending slide, if you manage to do it correctly and save him, is he finally learns what happens to Vera Keys, and he feels this pit in his stomach that he can't quite describe. And then turns to New Vegas and goes, Well, time to fuck somebody else over.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:46

That's it.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:46

What a piece of shit.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:48

Lesson uh no lessons learned. Carry on with your life. What a huge shit. The end, no moral. Um, tremendous piece of shit, and that is what makes him compelling, of course. Um Just to be just like this absolute monster and to stay that way for 200 years needs to be said, Dean has not left the Sierra Madre the entire time. Like he's been there the whole goddamn time. Right?

SPEAKER_05 1:28:13

They say the hardest part is letting go, but they don't think about the actual hardest part, which is understanding the shape of the thing you were holding on to and what it is that says about you.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:26

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:27

I think it's I think it is very uh fitting, of course, that speaking of letting go, Dean is the only clean speaking ghoul.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:38

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:39

And I want to believe that was by choice for him.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:44

Oh yeah, like he just powered through the city.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:45

Oh, yeah, he's an actor. He's got training. Yeah, like he he somehow managed to power through the decay of his vocal cords.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:52

Yeah, totally. I I choose to believe that, much like everything else about him, Spite allowed him to go, I refuse. Yeah, he just sound like some kind of guttural zombie.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:10

It's man, uh it's just he was supposed to have hair originally, but they couldn't actually get it to work, which pisses me off.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:19

They could have just done the Fallout 4 trick of making a wig hair item.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:23

Yeah, they should have done it. I it would have been extremely cool to have like like to come across a ghoul who's just like full head of hair, normal voice.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:32

Just holding on via spite the whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:35

Because he won't let go.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:36

He won't let go. He can't let go. Nobody can let go.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:40

And and I'm gonna by the way, I'm gonna say something really I'm gonna say something really mean here about Dean Domino and his pre-war thing. Kinda looks like Drill. You mean Jack Nicholson? But like, it's specifically like the distorted picture that Drill uses. Like, it's very drill-coded to me. That's true.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:07

I get it.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:08

You know, I am thinking about it, doesn't um I because I forget you'll have to remind me because I haven't obviously done Dead Money in a very long time. Isn't part of that like the autodoc fixing fixing Christine's vocal cords, right?

SPEAKER_06 1:30:22

The opposite. They ripped those out and she had to replace them with uh Vera's.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:28

But she replaced the but like, yeah. Do we think that maybe Dean Domino just at some point had his vocal cords replaced with fake Dean Domino vocal cords?

SPEAKER_02 1:30:40

I believe that a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:42

Yeah, maybe he maybe used them to repair like like this vocal cord specifically.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:49

That is a thought.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:50

I buy I buy that 100%. Yeah, no. Because I mean, yeah, he he would stubbornly try to like keep his voice, and that means, you know, there's an auto doc laying around kind of close to where you meet him. Um so yeah, I buy absolutely that he just repaired like he just constantly was repairing his vocal cord to keep it from.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:11

The only thing that makes me suspicious about that is he botched Christine's voice the first time around. And he didn't he didn't think it would be able to fix it when they got into the casino and went, oh, okay, good, my plan did work. I was completely gambling on that.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:34

I I kind of do like to prefer to believe that he's that Dean Domino is just kind of like Dennis Reynolds, and it's like, no, I simply will not allow my vocal cords to decay.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:46

It it could go either way, is what drives me insane. I just like it.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:50

I mean, because both are kind of the they're they both speak to the same character flaw. Yeah, yeah. Like, whether it's auto doc or whether it's sheer willpower, it's this idea of refusing.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:01

I would 100% believe that Dean Domino does, in fact, care enough to get his own correction right and doesn't care enough to get Christina's so accurate.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:11

Totally. No matter like, no matter what, it just kind of so the kind of the the kind of guy he is, which is the kind of guy who stayed in the fucking Sierra Madre after the bombs fell for 200 years because he didn't want to give up on his dream of getting one over on Sinclair, even though Sinclair's been dead the whole goddamn time. Like Sinclair was dead from the word go. And and he still was just like, no, I'm gonna show that. And the thing is, by all accounts, Sinclair was perfectly nice to Dean.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:48

Yeah, the revelation at the end of it, where it's like, yeah, I built this originally to trap you, and then I realized that would be really shitty.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:59

So I mean he built he built it to trap, he built it to be to trap Dean, and he kept it that way. But like it was more this like pity and just how pathetic Dean is. Because like he just thinks that Sinclair is looking down on him when like I guarantee you Sinclair does not even think about him.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:25

Ever. Right? It's the it's the it's the you ruined my life. I don't think about you at all.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:30

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:32

Like, that's what that is. Um, like what an incredi I mean, all-time or hater, you kind of have to respect it to a certain degree to be like that kind of generational of a hater to just not be able to let it go for 200 years.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:47

Um Avalone's greatest strength as a writer is haters. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:52

Yeah. Chris Avalone understands the soul of the hater, right?

SPEAKER_06 1:33:56

Because he himself is the biggest hater of everyone.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:59

So I'm thinking about the fact that that I'm thinking about this fact that he is specifically responsible in his only contribution to this game is in prey 2017, he was the writer for Morgan's ex. That like they sourced him to write that character.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:16

That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:18

That's so funny. Like, I I love how the way the the the the heist is set up is done such that, like, at any given point in time you can turn that haterism onto you.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:34

Because like Christine is maybe not necessarily a good person. She's still a member of the Brotherhood of Steel.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:42

She's a member of the Circle of Steel, by the way. She is part of the Brotherhood.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:47

Yeah, she's part of the secret police of the Brotherhood of Steel. Yes. Right. But like, she's still you can still have all of these nice tender moments of you having a friendship with this person. And she will still turn on you if you so much as block her attempt to get her vengeance.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:05

Yeah, if you try to stop Christine, like if you tell Christine, like, no, we need to let Elijah live, right? If you tell Christine, like, I will handle it, you just help me. She's okay with that, right? Um, but if you tell Christine, no, I think we should let Elijah live, she's like, absolutely not. Not after everything he's done to me and to Veronica and to everybody who we've interacted with the whole time we've been here. No. Um she won't abide by it. Like you can still like have her turn on you. Um it's like what good, like what good fucking character writing in Dead Money, man.

SPEAKER_06 1:35:47

What Dead Money is, I think, of these DLCs, one of its strengths is kind of like kind of like a bunch of words, like every DLC has like a thing that you that like makes it different from Fallout.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:35:59

For this one, I think it is the fact that you have to thread a lot of needles that aren't obvious to get the outcome you want, which is not something that New Vegas on the whole does. And I think that's and it's it's fine there because like it's such a big game, you you like, and you have so many options you can make. Like, you want to make sure that your intent is actually guiding you towards the result you want, right? Like, you it would be bullshit if the game like pulled these kind of twists throughout the main game all over the place. Sure, because you were nice to this guy, but it turns out that was the wrong decision, idiot.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:32

Right.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:33

But like it works here because it's only the three characters, and like you are automatically put in this defensive, like suspicious place where you do have to really like see through the facade.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:48

Yeah, you have to like really talk to these characters and like get to know them, and getting to know them kind of screws you in the case of Dean, but like that's also interesting. Yeah, right. That in and of itself, the fact that you can ask too many questions is interesting. That's an acceptable outcome for that character in my mind. Like the the kind of that play is I think the most fascinating part of dead money. Like this, like the horror stuff is great too, don't get me wrong. I I love all the sneaking around and the trying to throw up on my carpet. Please don't know. Thank you. Um I have to talk to my cat sometimes. Um but like I think like the horror elements of dead money are cool and interesting, absolutely. But I think to me, the most interesting part of dead money are the people that you interact with over the course of it because like you really get to get into their heads. Like you have these very extensive conversations with them, you can you supply them with questions constantly. And like even with you know, Christine, my beloved, you even when she can't speak to you, you can really like get to know each other. There's a part that I just love when you're asking Christine about Veronica, and she kind of like she gestures, you know, two people walking together, and you ask like your boyfriend, and she makes this face at you like are you fucking stupid?

SPEAKER_05 1:38:35

Just eh.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:36

And you can ask her, like, if the buzzed hair was intentional, and she kind of like signals it, like, no, it's not, but she likes it, right? Like, you can kind of you can kind of press her on these little things, like, no, she doesn't want to have a shaved head, but now that she's got a shaved head because she's God's angriest, shortest little butch, she's like, Oh, actually, this is kind of nice, never mind.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:58

Um very funny, by the way, that Christine is the butch when Veronica's the one who has a giant metal fist and can knock a guy 20 feet.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:08

That's right, because Veronica Sant'Angelo has girlish whimsy judgments.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:11

And she wants a pretty dress.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:12

And she wants a pretty dress.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:14

She wants to wear lipstick. And I I think I think it's it's it's 2026, even though it was 2020, even though it was 2010 when the game came out. I think it can be girlish to have a big metal fist and punch a guy 20 feet away.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:28

That's correct. Rocket him 20 feet into the air. I think that's normal for girls, actually.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:35

I'm not saying it can be it can be manly and and butch to be a stealth archer in Skyrim.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:43

To be a stealth archer and to be the shortest character in the game. Good for Christine.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:47

Yeah, I did notice that where I'm like, something feels off about Christine. Wait a minute.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:54

They they set scaled her to like 0.8 or some shit.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:57

Do you want to know something fully interesting about that, by the way? Speaking of set scale. Dog is a 0.9 height. So he's a short is shorter than God.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:07

Oh, that's fun.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:09

It's because when he switches to God, he gets inflammation and all of his his he does a Superman thing where he stands up straighter.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:16

Oh, makes sense. Uh no, God and Dog, um, they kind of are like my sleeper faves. Like, I love Christine, obviously. Christine is in there. Christine's the best character in the DLC, but like my secret, my sleeper's second favorite character is Dog God. Um, because I just I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:34

Dog is in the name, obviously.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:36

Well one dog is in the name.

SPEAKER_06 1:40:37

Well, look, I'm a sucker for an intellectual super mutant, okay? You got you got your Marcus, you got your Fox, okay? Their Fox is the best character in three. That guy from four who's like, alright.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:51

Erickson, the uh the guy the guy who raises dogs in Far Harbor, of course the best D the second best DLC in uh in Fallout also has a smart super mutant in it.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:05

Not even the smart not even the smart super mutant I was talking about, but you're right, that one is more Ericsson is more worth mentioning.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:10

Ericsson is much much more interesting.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:12

He's a good thing I was talking about the fucking Enclave scientist from vanilla.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:16

No, no, Virgil doesn't he sucks ass. Um, but Ericsson is extremely fun. But yeah, no, I love a smart super mutant. I love, I don't know, I just like the conversation. One of my favorite parts is the bit when you're like trying to save them, right? And you have to stealth your way through that whole area or get lit on fire. Yeah, because they cannot see you or they will explode all of you. Um I just really love that voice performance. Like, I think it's really good. I love the bit where he's like, I just can't keep trying to protect you, dog. And and you can like again, you hear that frustration, you hear the the anger, like in both of like both of them are so angry at each other and angry at themselves, obviously.

SPEAKER_06 1:41:59

I'm gonna say something, Sarah. If you're a fan of these two individuals who despise each other but have to cooperate to keep to keep the self alive, uh, this dynamic of like I would just kill you, but I actually don't want to kill you thing. Uh you should read The Immortal Hulk. Because that's the dynamic between Hulk and Banner. Like intentionally, like in that one.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:29

I love The Immortal Hulk. It's like the it's the only like Marvel thing that I'm like really invested in is that that single.

SPEAKER_05 1:42:37

It it also kind of seems like that'll be the dynamic of the upcoming Warframe update.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:43

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah, it is. My eyebrows are amazing.

SPEAKER_05 1:42:48

They're they're adding a new they're adding a new warframe that is Dante and Virgil.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:42:55

And all of your moves are based on swapping between them, and their ult is them getting sick of each other's shit and having a fight that gets people caught in the crossfire. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:04

The very end of their ultimate is literally them just doing a jackpot butt with two sides, like hooking into each other and then just swirling around.

SPEAKER_06 1:43:12

It's so fucking that reminds me really quickly, like very loosely, but I want to point out one of my favorite things, one of the only creative things that multiverses did, which is Tom and Jerry as a character. Which their dynamic is they are playing out an episode of Tom and Jerry, and their attacks are other characters getting caught in the crossfire.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:30

That's hysterical.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:32

That's like the actual interesting way to do any ice climbers. Like the ice climbers is kind of boring, but any version of a character that is that is funny and fun.

SPEAKER_06 1:43:40

Uh, who did what how did you resolve the the dog god situation?

SPEAKER_02 1:43:44

I mer I I I made a whole new person, baby.

SPEAKER_06 1:43:48

Uh I you two vixed them. Yeah, I two fixed stories. I too I two fixed them as I did I did two vix as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:54

Yeah, I had to. I like them both too much. I couldn't I couldn't bear the idea of killing both of them.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:58

So I think it's so sad. Like their ending is really sad if you can't get them to like coex like if you can't get them to actually meet in the middle of becoming another person. Like becoming themselves the whole thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:44:10

And that person's name is Dodd. Dodd or Gog. Or Gog. Good old games.

SPEAKER_06 1:44:15

Uh yeah, I I emerged them and like, yeah, they did become a different person, but like that brought them peace to not have that conflict anymore.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:25

Yeah, I think it's I think it's like the best option. I mean, because like other because like I think part of it is that like dog on his own is completely helpless, and God is so defined by his like need to protect dog, yeah, that not having dog would probably undo him in a certain way, right? Like he resents you know, he resents having this kind of burden on him, sure, but like he does ultimately care about a dog, right? Like you can tell that he loves dog, and he's like the frustration comes from like the inability to communicate, right? Right, and and so like he wouldn't want to be without dog. So of course the answer is to get these two to kind of come to an understanding and make something new. Because like, yeah, it's sad that they won't know who you are anymore, but like that's fine. If you love somebody, if you if you love a friend, you help them and you go, like, it's fine that you don't know me anymore. We can be friends again. It's cool.

SPEAKER_06 1:45:29

But they have that line in their ending that like almost brought me to tears.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:33

Which one?

SPEAKER_06 1:45:34

Or like the where because I'm looking it up now. The new voice did not think of the courier again until the battle at the divide reached his ears. The mutant prayed the courier that had saved him had been saved in return.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:46

It's so good. Oh good.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:52

Real quick, not to detract from our conversations about how good this the writing for Dog and God is, because it is. Uh Dog and God is one of my favorite uh like combinations of of Fallout characters, right? Um, but the specific way we are talking about them does just keep perpetually reminding me of the intro to uh Heavy Rain, where or not Heavy Rain, excuse me. I I I just had a momentary Freudian slip of uh Deadly Premonition, where uh uh York is talking about uh the relationship between Tom and Jerry as a fundamentally homosexual DSM relationship.

SPEAKER_06 1:46:36

No you can't fucking compare them to the conversation York's having.

SPEAKER_05 1:46:42

You can't you can't compare them because because that is what is Fran what is Francis Morgan if not also dog new I don't now I will say believe it or not, I don't think New Vegas is as misogynist as Deadly Premonition.

SPEAKER_06 1:47:06

Ooh, that can't be crazy. You would have it really hard.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:14

Oh god, what were we saying, Oaks?

SPEAKER_01 1:47:17

I lost it.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:18

Damn it! I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_06 1:47:20

Saturn completely just fucking God. The train has has fallen completely off the tracks.

SPEAKER_05 1:47:29

I I'm so sorry. It's just it wouldn't leave, and I had to express it before it escaped me. I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:36

It's train of thought derailed dozens killed because it's 11. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:47:40

This frequently happens when I'm in a podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:43

I can never get I can never get it out.

SPEAKER_06 1:47:45

Ah I I I will follow up on that and say, I mean, like, Dog and God just as a concept feels like one of those like spark of genius ideas that someone had for a character in the Fallout world. Like split personality, super mutant. One is intellectual, one is dumb.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:05

And controlled specifically by inventory items, which I think is very compelling to me. I don't know. Something about having like an actual you have any degree of control over which one you're talking to at any moment. Um, I think is a very interesting kind of hybridization of story and gameplay. Yeah. Um to like make you like it's a kind of a layer of interactivity that they didn't have to give you. It could all just be scripted, like sometimes you're talking to God, sometimes you're talking to dog, right? But like giving you the option to control who you're talking to, and to like actually do kind of this betrayal thing, because at one point you're talking early on, you're talking god, and he won't do something for you, and you're trying to insist that you guys are allies, but he won't do the thing you need him to do, and he's being fr he's being stubborn about it, so it's like, well, okay, I can just switch you over to dog, and he'll do it without question, right? But that's like kind of a shitty thing to do.

SPEAKER_06 1:49:04

Yeah, and he calls you on on that, and he's like, Yeah, you could do that, but then that would prove my point that you that it's not a partnership, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:49:11

That like I don't actually have any agency in this shit, and like, yeah, you still have to do it because you want to advance the thing, but like it's that layer of interactivity that is what gives it its depth and makes you feel like a piece of shit for doing it, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:49:27

Um, and and like it's uh real quick, it's just like you don't get that from like any other Fallout characters ever, basically.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:34

Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:49:35

This idea of like the companion is not just someone you have to talk to, right, but also like has game mechanics that you have to interact with in a way where like you can just be a bad friend and bad person to them. Yeah. Right? Anyway, I'm sorry, Otsy. Continue, please.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:53

It's okay. Um I was gonna say, like, my other favorite part is that if you do the dialogue. Correctly, you can basically you can basically do the ah, but I was thinking what you were thinking that what I was thinking, which is just you going like, yeah, but I haven't done it yet.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:11

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:12

So I mean, we can we can the the playing field is still even, we can still talk on even terms. He's like, okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:22

But yeah, it to me that is still interesting.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:25

That like it it's very it's kind of meta in a way. And like, I know this is weird, but it's the idea that like it's like what like Toky Doki Literature Club is playing with, right? This idea that you are a real person, you have any degree of control over your life that like a video game character inherently cannot, does not, right? And like it's it's another kind of you know, and we we were talking about it with Christine, and even kind of to an extent with Dean Domino, but it's a very breaking the fourth wall kind of thing. It's the game kind of confronting you with its own gaminess and like what you're going to do with that, right? Yeah, like the game is like it's it's showing you like the artifice and asking you to say, like, well, what is like what does interacting with this artifice make you feel? Every time, you know, you ask Dean too many questions, that's going to backfire on you. Anytime you're acting out the shit Christine is doing, you are kind of creating like a physical connection with the game. Anytime you switch dog and god, you're you're explicitly doing like a you have more agency kind of thing. You have more control over your life. And I don't know. Uh, that's really cool. It's so like well thought out and well considered, and it I mean, I don't know. I don't know the author's intent. I would love to read a whole fucking book about just Dead Money's development, but it feels intentional. It it feels like that's what they were going for was the idea of pushing what kind of the the meta-narrative of how players interact with Fallout games, right? With specifically New Vegas.

SPEAKER_06 1:52:18

It's very what I really love about Dead Money is that they are doing the thing where they they are making the player question their own motivation for doing something without being it without it being like, well, you killed those people, you didn't have to kill them, but you did in order to progress. Aren't you a bad person?

SPEAKER_02 1:52:43

Sure.

SPEAKER_06 1:52:44

It's it's in a way like removing God God and Dog's agency, right? Because you kind of have to do it to progress the game, and like having dialogue about it of being like, well, yeah, I can just switch you if I want, and then God goes, Well, then I don't have any say in this, I don't actually have any say in this, do I? If you're asking me, but then you can just force me to do it anyway, then you're not really asking.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:09

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_06 1:53:10

Like, or or when the game, like frequently, Elijah or Dean or the carry will ask, like, well, why are you here? Why are you doing this?

SPEAKER_03 1:53:19

And why are you here? What are you doing here?

SPEAKER_06 1:53:22

One of your options can be like, I don't know, I I I walked in here. I've I found a place on my map and I walked in and I wanted to see what's here, and I got gassed.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:31

Christine raises her eyebrow incredulously.

SPEAKER_06 1:53:34

Like, I didn't I didn't come in here for any purpose. I was exploring, and I found a new location that I hadn't been to before.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:41

Yeah. Christine raises her eyebrow further.

SPEAKER_05 1:53:44

Everyone just like, why the fuck are you exploring for? Don't you have to eat? And you go, well no, and they go, huh?

unknown 1:53:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:53

I love like specifically, one of the things that like really made me like what made Dead Money stick in my craw is they know because of how New Vegas vanilla conditions you into wanting to gamify your your dialogue, you want to pick, obviously, the best choice, which is the skill check choices. And Dean Domino consistently like throughout the entire game, like interacting with him, you know what kind of person he is and what his motivators are, and speech checks do not motivate him.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:37

They don't. Like they are not ways to incentivize him to want to do something, ever.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:43

Because he feels like you're trying to manipulate him, and he's the manipulator in this relationship, goddammit.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:50

He he doesn't he never wants to be on he never wants to be on the back foot. So you never ever under any circumstance make it seem like you're the one proposing a bargain.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:04

It's it's a phenomenal. Yeah. It's so good. Like it's the one that stuck like that just kind of hung out in my brain just for weeks after. Like, I don't know, it's like a thing you just think about constantly. You go back to it, ironically, um, considering it's about letting go, but you still find yourself going back kind of mentally, because like there's just there's just so much. It's very dense for being a relatively small area, right? But there it's just packed to the brim with stuff. And I mean it even it's got like it's got the pre-war stuff because you know it's about kind of the horrors of you know getting ready for the war and type shit. Um, you know, there's the actual like the Madre herself, which is so like imposing and in immaculate on the inside. Um there's like the horrible life and death of Vera Keys, Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_06 1:56:06

Oh my god, you when you're walking around the hotel and just her hologram is just playing that conversation over and over again. It's so scary.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:17

It's so scary and so sad, right? Like just the constant, like Sinclair, I'm so sorry, please let me out, right? Um and like he had no control over it. Like the like the the tragic brutality of it all is he built this thing, even knowing pretty early on that she was using him, um he still built it for her because he loved her, right? And it all went horribly wrong anyway. All of the the the security systems malfunctioned, and the the gala announcement was tied to the same radio wave as the the distress signal so nobody was ever coming, nobody was ever ever going to come to save them. And like it's devastating. It's so good, but it's so tragic too. Um just to have it end like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:17

But the fact that he never knew you never knew that she was dying. And that neither did Dean Domino.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:29

It's just so like there's it's so tragic on every end.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:33

It's horrible.

SPEAKER_06 1:57:33

It's it's it's like the the one time Dean actually feels like some level of like guilt or remorse. When you find yeah, and then it's gone immediately, but it's like for for one brief moment something actually pierced his heart.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:53

Yeah. And it's just like, man.

SPEAKER_05 1:57:55

The only thing that should pierce his heart is uh spear.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:58

Uh yeah, this fucking this fucking throwing spear I picked up off a dead guy outside.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:02

Uh this flak jack this this is this flak round that I got for the shotgun. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:58:06

You know, Fallout 76 has been a game that's existed for a very long time. Sure. And I can't help but notice that they have never stolen the hollow rifle yet. What's up with that?

SPEAKER_02 1:58:17

Hey, that's a really good question. You've got so the other things.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:21

There's so many New Vegas guns that have never made it in, and it drives me crazy.

SPEAKER_05 1:58:26

And like, but I think the people of Fallout 6 would appreciate a gun that shoots cubes.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:58:34

I know I would, certainly.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:38

I would have I would have loved the automatic rifle that you get there instead of the the the the one that you get, the light machine gun that you get in in 76, honestly.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:49

I uh oh, I guess the other question is, I mean, we've been talking about dead money for a little bit.

SPEAKER_06 1:58:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:56

Um but one last question is what did you do to Elijah, Ben? Did you just kill him or did you lock him in there?

SPEAKER_06 1:59:01

So I spent I must have tried 30 times to stealth him into locking himself in the vault.

SPEAKER_04 1:59:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:59:12

And I finally managed to pull it off. It's a huge pain to do correctly, though, because you gotta be quick. You gotta be quick. I did I did that on my first playthrough, I remember. You know what helped? I had the stealth suit mark two and the 20% speed sp uh boost when you're stealthing.

SPEAKER_05 1:59:30

I wish I had that when I did it the first time, but I played these in release order.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:38

Also, that's you can't bring the stealth suit in anymore. Oh, that's right, no, you can't. That's why I didn't need to be.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:42

You're wearing Christine's stealth suit. That's what you were wearing.

SPEAKER_06 1:59:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:46

Which still helps a lot, make no mistake.

SPEAKER_06 1:59:47

It's not as good as Mark II, but like I didn't I could have used that 20%.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:51

Yeah. Um I had a st I found a stealth boy. That's how I did it. And it took me, it still took me like two tries, I think, because you gotta be you gotta be quick to like time it perfectly.

SPEAKER_06 2:00:00

Well, I was it turns out I was going, I like I had to watch a video of it. Like I was going in the wrong direction for a lot of it.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:06

Ah, uh yeah, because um it's scripted such to imply that there's motion sensors on that side. Yeah. So you can't you can't take that route. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:00:14

But no, I I eventually got it, and then I uh you can listen to the radio and watch and listen to him suffocate.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:19

It's so great. He he will be on loop on the Sierra Madre broadcast for the entire rest of the video game. And it is just him just cursing you constantly. It is so good.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:33

It's great. Um how many gold bars did you take? How many did you take? Oh yeah, I was about to ask that the most. How many did you manage to get?

SPEAKER_06 2:00:43

Get four, I think.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:46

I want to say because I got noodle arms. I think I only managed to get about two or three.

SPEAKER_06 2:00:52

Um I managed to get four because I also had like a lot of stuff that I could drop. Because by the time I had done dead money, I was pretty set in terms of like my armor and weaponry. Right. Like I didn't. Yeah, I could drop all that, and like I didn't really need a lot of healing items anymore that I could get rid of, and I did manage to get out four. Um did Does Viva New Vegas did they nerf the uh worth of the gold bars?

SPEAKER_01 2:01:26

No.

SPEAKER_06 2:01:27

Huh, because I only made like three three thousand caps off of them each.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:31

If your barter is really low.

SPEAKER_06 2:01:33

Oh, that might have been it.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:35

Yeah that affects your like sell price.

SPEAKER_02 2:01:37

Yeah, I got I got a tidy little chunk. I didn't take I didn't worry about dropping too much shit. Like I dropped some shit because yeah, like Ben, I I had a I had a medicine stick waiting for me back in uh back in Vegas, and I was like, I don't need this piddly little gun I picked up here. Uh I have my I have my big girl gun back home. Um so I dropped a bunch of that shit. Um but I kept a few things, but I was still noodle armed. Um but I also had a shit ton of caps anyways because I banned from three casinos at that point.

unknown 2:02:07

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:02:08

I I do think it is very funny that, you know, the hardest part is letting go, and it is like the thing about like, yeah, there's all this gold in this vault, but you know, it you it you don't really need it, it's whatever, but it's like I'm not fucking leaving without that gold. Are you kidding me?

SPEAKER_02 2:02:23

I do it a lot. Listen, I'm not gonna listen, I'm not gonna try to take all of it. I understand, right? Like you can't take all of it that's pointless. Obviously. We all know it.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:34

But it is.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:35

But but I did all this work. I'm taking at least two bars with me, a few.

SPEAKER_05 2:02:42

Speaking of uh, I mean, A, first, not judging, when I played this one in 2015, I was also like, I'm getting rid of everything that isn't the hollow rifle so I can fit as many gold bars in my inventory as possible. And if I can, I might even over-encumber myself to see if I can sneak out while still covered in like 500 pounds of gold.

SPEAKER_03 2:03:03

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 2:03:05

Um but also, hey, if we want to talk about 2010 video games that are about the uh the pain and misery of folly and of trying to get gold bars that you probably don't really need. Uh Umineko Nonakuka me.

SPEAKER_06 2:03:25

It all comes back to Umineko.

SPEAKER_03 2:03:29

I keep walking into that trap. Patricia's trap.

SPEAKER_05 2:03:34

The thing about Dean Domino is that is that Kins of Ucheromia did permit him to wear the family crest of Monotar. More than anything, Dean Domino needed a lot of money right now. I apologize for my conduct on this episode. Uh I had um so a a couple days ago, I went to the liquor store and I I I saw I I went to the Japanese import section because I do like the Asian import liquors quite a bit. Uh, and I did spy, I did a spy with my uh with my eye, a uh green tea umeshu.

unknown 2:04:17

Ooh.

SPEAKER_05 2:04:18

Which sounded delightful.

SPEAKER_02 2:04:19

Lovely.

SPEAKER_05 2:04:20

Now, I didn't unfortunately look too closely at it before I spent good money on it, but uh I was despaired to find out when I brought it home that uh the ABV is in fact seven. Uh however, I have discovered that this problem is correctable by simply adding a spirit of a higher ABV to it until such a point where you feel satisfaction.

SPEAKER_02 2:04:45

Um but no, I I love dead money.

SPEAKER_01 2:04:50

I I just I always make it a point to see if I can carry every single gold bar out every run. And I gotta tell you this time around, much easier than I thought. Adelaide just carried them all out, no problem. She just walked out with 500 bar 500 pounds of gold like it was nothing.

SPEAKER_06 2:05:18

Letting go of this debt.

SPEAKER_03 2:05:20

That's right. Letting go of poverty.

SPEAKER_00 2:05:23

It would be so nice.

SPEAKER_05 2:05:25

All this gold.

SPEAKER_00 2:05:26

All this gold would be so none of it'll let her buy back Christine's love. That's weird.

SPEAKER_05 2:05:32

I don't know. 500 pounds of gold can buy you a lot.

SPEAKER_01 2:05:36

You can hold that girl's hand. Um can't buy you a sense of direction to fucking find the place again.

SPEAKER_06 2:05:41

Fair enough. I'm a I'm gonna be honest. I did download the uh the DLC companion mod specifically so I could reunite Christine and Veronica.

SPEAKER_00 2:05:48

That's fair. Reunite nothing. I want that I want that too for myself.

SPEAKER_03 2:05:54

I want that short butch for myself. Veronica I'm not caring about Veronica, this works shit for me.

SPEAKER_05 2:06:01

So, real quick, because I was curious, and that is the kind of thing we do on this podcast. Uh one ounce of gold right now, as of today.

SPEAKER_04 2:06:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:06:12

One ounce of gold. $4,476.10. Okay, good. So we multiply that by 16 to get $71,617.60 a pound for gold.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:28

So how many pounds is a gold bar?

SPEAKER_05 2:06:29

$32. Is a gold bar 32 pounds? It's New Vegas it is. Okay, uh, so a gold bar then would be in New Vegas. Uh $2.291 million dollars.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:43

God damn it.

SPEAKER_05 2:06:44

Oh boy. And then uh however many gold bars are in that vault.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:49

Quite a few. It's like oh my god.

SPEAKER_05 2:06:52

I don't actually remember off the top of my head. I think I used to.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:55

16, right?

SPEAKER_05 2:06:56

There's yeah, 16 or so, I think, yeah. It it's it's well if it's 16, that's still a $36.67 million vault.

SPEAKER_06 2:07:05

Yeah, because there's stacked I think there's stacked pyramid style. So I think, yeah, 16 you can uh how what's the size of the base of the pyramid and how many pyramids are? I'm trying to picture in my head. I don't know for sure.

SPEAKER_01 2:07:16

So I'm I'm I'm gonna I decide to look this up. A uh a standard gold ingot or good delivery bar, typically held by central banks, weighs 400 troy ounces, which equals about 27.4 bounces.

SPEAKER_02 2:07:30

Okay, so they're a little bit heavier in New Vegas. That's fair.

SPEAKER_06 2:07:33

Oh, okay. So there's 36 gold bars in the vault, and they weigh 35 pounds. And they are valued at 10,500 caps.

SPEAKER_02 2:07:50

Damn. Yeah, I made a I made a tidy chunk of change just off the three that I stole. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 2:07:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:07:55

Um that's that's you know, listen. The hardest part is letting go, but you don't have to let go of all of it, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_05 2:08:03

The hardest part is letting go uh of these gold bars because boy howdy, do they transmit into some liquid value even in the post-apocalypse?

SPEAKER_02 2:08:12

Listen, gold is useful even the post-apocalypse. It's one of the only metals, it's it's one of the only metals that is a conductor that does also not rust or tarnish.

SPEAKER_05 2:08:23

So it's it's a rare example of a weird like human trade good actually being highly valued for the fact that it is objectively a valuable material.

SPEAKER_02 2:08:34

Yeah, no matter what, gold is uh just an extremely useful metal, even if you don't care about it being jewelry, it's still very useful.

SPEAKER_06 2:08:43

And it is a phenomenal carrier of Latinum. Please look forward to attention Majoran Workers coming to Patreon.

SPEAKER_05 2:08:54

Um that being said Here's the thing, the longer it takes us to actually getting to recording a single episode of Majoran Workers, oh, the funnier this bit gets.

SPEAKER_06 2:09:06

Um okay then like if Arangian looking to profit at any corner, any turn regarding our podcast.

SPEAKER_02 2:09:12

Yeah, anyway to make money. Um Okay then. Let's talk about Lonesome Road, the most contentious of all of them, I would think.

SPEAKER_06 2:09:21

I didn't like it.

SPEAKER_02 2:09:24

I didn't like it, and then I came around on it. Uh it's a weird one, folks.

SPEAKER_06 2:09:29

I also thought a lot about it and I don't like it.

SPEAKER_05 2:09:35

I did not like Lonesome Road.

SPEAKER_02 2:09:36

That's fair.

SPEAKER_00 2:09:36

That's fair.

SPEAKER_05 2:09:38

As ever, um I am dealing with the uh handicap of I blast played this uh a very, very long time ago, and so I am personally going off of my memories from back when it came out more or less. Because I don't think I ever replayed it when I did later New Vegas playthroughs. I think I literally only ever did it the first time. Um on one hand, it's bad, and I remember even at the time being like, damn, that's the last one. That kind of fucking sucks. That one was was pretty not good. Um, however, A, uh spotlight's ED, and and ED was do not be Eddy look, yeah. Uh that is, but like my favorite protagonist. I love a little robot or my favorite uh uh companion uh boy at the time. I love a little robot who goes beat boop, and I love when you give that robot who goes beat boop plot importance and like character development. Sad fact.

SPEAKER_04 2:10:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:10:31

Um B, as I went over uh last episode, uh, I think it's really interesting as because you talked about like, damn, how the fuck did Chris Avalone be the writer for Dead Money and then also make this shit?

unknown 2:10:45

Right.

SPEAKER_05 2:10:46

Um and the idea that like Dead Money is a unique project with a pastiche, and this is him like cataloging all the shit that he couldn't use from like the scraps of the vanilla game and trying to turn it into something that is like kind of standalone. Sure. Right. And it has value to me as like the look, this is the stuff I wanted to do and didn't have time to do because it's an obsidian RPG in 7th gen. Uh and so it's interesting to me. Um, however, it is very gray, and it's annoying to encounter enemies ever.

SPEAKER_02 2:11:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:11:27

And the environment design is really boring, and I don't like being in it. Yeah. And then also, even though I kind of like the stuff with the couriers, like kind of like forgotten backstory and the divide and all that. Um Ulysses himself is kind of misdelivered as the Chris Avalone hater character in the context of him being the DLC capstone bad guy. Right. Yeah. I And so it ends up still coming in pretty low for me, despite the fact that I like him.

SPEAKER_06 2:11:58

It's I agree. With that, a lot of those points, and I guess this is one of the very rare times where I have the lowest tolerance for something. Yeah, that doesn't really happen. I'm usually the hater on this podcast. Like, I'm usually the one that is willing to give things a lot of rope.

SPEAKER_04 2:12:19

Sure.

SPEAKER_06 2:12:20

And be like, yeah, it was bad, but like I prefer to focus on the good things, but like I I just did not like playing Lonesome Road.

SPEAKER_02 2:12:30

Understandable. I I don't know. It's a thing, it's one of those things where I I didn't when I was done with it, I was like, this is dog shit. Um and I compared it even uncharitably toward like Mothership Zeta. In retrospect, that's unfair. Nothing is worse than Mothership Zeta. Literally nothing.

SPEAKER_06 2:12:52

I'm not gonna go I'm not gonna go that harsh on Lonesome.

SPEAKER_02 2:12:55

I was at the moment I was quite angry, okay? In my defense, I was very insane about about what Lonesome Road is. And Twitter isn't. I think Saturn is right. I think a lot of it is very interminable. Um I think I kind of come out still. I mean, like, I don't think it's bad, but I don't love it. Right. It's weird.

SPEAKER_06 2:13:19

I think it's incredibly boring. And I don't think it's- I don't think it's boring.

SPEAKER_02 2:13:24

That's the thing, I don't think it's boring.

SPEAKER_06 2:13:26

Compared to the other three DLCs, sure, there was nothing compelling in it for me.

SPEAKER_02 2:13:33

I thought it was.

SPEAKER_05 2:13:36

It's the opposite of like Sarah's thing with like not rating, like old world blues is good, but doesn't rate super highly for her, right? Because there's not like a lot of the things she's looking for in Fallout. Like for like there's no real like other characters or like whimsy or intrigue, it's just kind of you having like a my dinner with Andre type of like prolonged survival horror conversation with a guy who really hates your ass, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:14:02

And when I kind of reframed it like that, where like the whole DLC is like this back and forth conversation, I don't know. I kind of came around on it. Like, I don't love it still, it's still my least favorite of the four, but something about it kind of clicked in my head, and I I understood the will of the boss in that moment.

SPEAKER_06 2:14:24

It's uh for for me, for me, it really is one of those things where I just feel like that meatwad quote of, no, I get it. It ain't making me laugh, but I get it. Yeah, you know, not not I'm not saying I'm not saying that to you, Sarah. Like, I'm like I I'm just saying, like, I understand what this DLC is trying to do, and like it's trying like it it met its intention of trying to tie these other three DLCs together to create this this antagonist that is a reflection of you, the courier, you know, trying to make your Virgil in in a way, like someone who is your counterpoint.

SPEAKER_02 2:15:01

But I don't think that's what it's about. I I I actually don't think like the more and more I think about it, I don't think this is about like the about Ulysses being your counterpart. It is about Ulysses being your biggest hater, but those are two different things. Um to me, like when I kind of had like I take step take take a step back and like really look at it, it becomes more because again, this is to me, like in my mind, it is tied to lonesome or to honest hearts or the story about one guy very specifically. Um it's more like Ulysses is taking all of his problems out on you, like you're actually not the problem here. And if you want to like totally disregard everything Ulysses has to say about if you want to play along with Ulysses and accept that this is your backstory, you can. That's fine. If you don't, if you want to at every turn tell Ulysses he's wrong, that's not me. I don't know what your problem is. Um and even if it were me, it's still not my fault, right? You can do that too. And and as you do that, he is getting more angry at you because he's not angry at you, he's angry at himself.

SPEAKER_06 2:16:18

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:16:19

Like he's working, and like that is compelling. His problems with like Eddie and with you, and with uh, you know, the fucking the bull and the bear. Um like all of that shit, those are his hangups, and he's projecting them onto you because he sees he sees a foil in you that might not actually be there, right?

SPEAKER_06 2:16:49

And that's that's what I mean. Like he is projecting his the idea of him being your counterpart.

SPEAKER_02 2:16:54

Yeah, and I when and like when I started to like think about that and like really chew on it, I I don't know. I came around on it. It's still not my favorite. I still think it's the weakest of the four, but I don't think it I still think it's better than like automatron or something like that. I it it's to me it it it is written. I'll tell the one thing, the biggest fault with a lot of these other DLCs, like from the Bethesda DLCs especially, is that a lot of them don't feel written with intentionality.

SPEAKER_04 2:17:30

Right?

SPEAKER_02 2:17:30

They don't feel they don't feel like they were written with like a specific thing in mind. They were not trying to get like a deeper idea across. Right? Themes are for like the famous Game of Thrones quote after Game of Thrones are over, which is themes are for eighth grade book reports. It feels like the guys who wrote some of the Bethes DLCs, like which again is crazy because these fuckers also wrote R. Harvard, which is my favorite, my second favorite one. Like it does it just doesn't feel like there's any kind of intent behind it. Whereas, like Lonesome Road for All Its Flaws, its flaws has an intent behind it. Is it always good? No. Um, but I still something about it still kinda hooks me. I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 2:18:16

It's I it's it's a respectable DLC. And like it like it's it's I didn't play it and go this is poorly written, or this is bad, or it's not fun to play. Like, or it or it's got like problems with with its overall gameplay. It just it didn't. I don't know, it it wasn't compelling the way the other DLCs were. It didn't ensnare me like the other ones. And I think I wonder if part of the problem is that I kind of felt my interest wane when the game was like, well, you can just walk away from this one when if you want.

unknown 2:18:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:18:57

You can leave. Like, the other three DLCs were great because, like, you get trapped and you're locked in to this area until you complete it. Right? There's something very compelling and very immediate about that. And in this one, it's like, well, yeah, you can turn around if you don't want to do this one.

SPEAKER_05 2:19:13

No, but well, I I I think it's great because I think I think it's good because this is also the the the one of the four that is like the Amaro, I'm doing something extremely wicked if you can sense me come to my location. Like, this is this is the one where you are going to have gay sex, Coda. Yeah. Right? So it's like it's okay, like it makes sense to me. They're like, hey, if you want to back out, you can. Ulysses will still be here fuming because it's what he's going to do until the end of linear time until you solve this problem, you know?

SPEAKER_01 2:19:43

For me, like a lot of my I've warmed up to Lonesome Road a lot over the over the years, because very simply, he has because all of his dialogue is inexorably tied to your progression, he is always at any given point grasping at straws to try and find his reflection in you. And the multiple playthroughs show just how flawed and how assumed like how bad his assumptions are. Because all he ever wants to see in you is what he sees in himself. Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:20:28

So his logic is flawed from the word.

SPEAKER_01 2:20:31

Yeah. Yeah. So like he's a much more interesting character the more often you do it because you see, like, throughout all of his like, I I know exactly what kind of person you are, and he just like gives us a list of things and you go, What the fuck are you talking about? Yeah. He's just caught he's always just talking about himself, and it's just more and more obvious the more the more times you do it a little differently. Um and I think I think what makes that really compelling is that like it is an NPC who desperately wants you to be as Virgil.

SPEAKER_06 2:21:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:21:06

And and then, but the problem is he's not Dante, he's not even Nero. He's like he's like a mook.

SPEAKER_05 2:21:16

Oh, Otsy, your description of Ulysses in this way has made me realize something very important about Ulysses that might be the thing that makes me actually go, no, Ulysses is one of my favorite characters in New Vegas.

SPEAKER_01 2:21:29

Oh no.

SPEAKER_05 2:21:31

Ulysses is the guy that Kodaka puts in all of his visual novels who's the weird freak who's psychologically like psychosexually obsessed with you.

SPEAKER_02 2:21:42

Yeah, absolutely. He's Ato.

SPEAKER_05 2:21:46

He's also Kokichi. He's also uh Komaeda from from DR2. He he is the he is the Don Gon Rompa, like weird kind of like vaguely menacing twink who just wants to fuck you so bad it turns him into a serial killer kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 2:22:05

Yeah, he but like the and I guess like the saddest part is that he's just no-named cut NPC like meta-narrative. Right. And he's like, he's livid that he is unable to live out his non-existent story except through the shape of his hate of you.

SPEAKER_02 2:22:23

Yeah. And like, I don't know. When I started to kind of contextualize Lonesome Road in that way, I was like, and which I think is me giving them too much rope. Like, I maybe being too charitable towards Lonesome Road. I don't know. Um, maybe it's just because I like Fallout so much, like Fallout New Vegas so much that I want to like every part of Fallout New Vegas equally.

SPEAKER_06 2:22:48

I understand I understand that entirely, Sarah. Trust me. Yes. I have diluted myself in a lot of different things.

SPEAKER_01 2:22:55

That's now is my is my like of Lonesome Road full of like is my love for it fresh? No, it's kind of lukewarm and running. Yeah. But it's still there.

SPEAKER_02 2:23:06

It's still I don't know. There's something, there's still something kind of there, like in the shape of it. Not so much what it actually is, but the negative space around Lonesome Road is where the the interesting stuff exists. Because Saturn is right. I think like the exploration part is kind of dog shit. There's a lot of things. And every fight is fucking interminal. It's a straight line, right? Which is a hell of a way to end your fucking DLC pack uh in your expl in your like, you know, nominally exploration game, right? Yeah. Because the other three are so open, right? They're so much more, like, even more so than the base game, that those three other DLC are so like kind of based around like navigating these unique spaces you find yourself in, right?

SPEAKER_06 2:23:54

I I guess that's kind of my bigger disappointment about about the DLC is that like and I'd say this knowing that changing the DLC changing what Lonesome Road is mechanically would changing something would make it different. You know what I mean. Like I do, I do changing and you changing what what the structure of Lonesome Road would mean that it's no longer Lonesome Road versus you know trying to fix, you know, to add more to it. Like if you added more NPCs, more situations, more of that scenario, it would no longer be your confrontation with this character who you've been getting hints about in the previous DLCs, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:24:45

Right. It's literally not a lonesome road anymore. It's like right there in the title. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:24:50

Yeah, it would it would stop being like the the thing that Lonesome Road is.

SPEAKER_01 2:24:56

So that's also a problem for like why they very early on went, well, we can't have it be another miniature open world because it would ultimately destroy the vibe of you walking the Lonesome Road, right? Which is a problem because it's still a Fallout game.

SPEAKER_06 2:25:12

Yeah, and that's it it's it's just that the thing they've made is not uh uh conducive to what Fallout is, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Like you can Games have for forever been uh having segments where you are forced to do something that is not the main game, right? Like, hell, I like I said, the other DLCs do that, where like they turn they're like dead money is like you didn't put points in stealth, well, sucks to be you.

SPEAKER_02 2:25:42

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:25:44

So like it's not inherently a bad thing. I just it's just like it's it's a a rough situation for Lonesome Road because if you change anything about it, it's no the intent is no longer there. Like the the the clarity of intent is no longer there.

SPEAKER_04 2:25:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:26:00

It's just that I didn't really like the intent they had.

SPEAKER_02 2:26:03

Sure, and that's perfectly like that's completely valid. Yeah. Like, like that's if you don't like Lonesome Road because of the sh like the bricks that Lonesome Road is made out of, that's fucking fair. Because there's a lot of Lonesome Road I don't like either. And like when I was done with it, I was still like, I don't think I liked that. And then I gotta go finish Fall out New Vegas with like this fucking paw over my head. Um but you know, like that's fine. You know, this is truly the one time where like what you know what we actually can just agree to disagree. It's the one time I'm not gonna try to like like convince you to see the good in something. Because normally when you and I are like on kind of opposite sides of something, we'll talk for six hours until we come to some sort of like consensus. Until the bridge has been built. Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 2:26:58

I'm gonna be real. I think it's honestly really funny that of all of these, that Lonesome Road is the one that we have been the most divided on opinion on when my thought coming into this was gonna be the one that was like, yeah, fuck our Lonesome Road. Fuck it.

SPEAKER_02 2:27:11

Right? Like, I thought we were all gonna come in. But the thing is, between when I finished Lonesome Road and when we did this podcast, I had a lot of time, because like we it's been a while since I played New Vegas. And in that lot of time, I had a lot of time to think about it. And I was like, well wait, okay, hold on. Maybe they're cooking. I still don't think it's great. I think it is I think it has a lot of problems. It's like, like there's there's there's something in there. There's something in there.

SPEAKER_06 2:27:36

And the thing is, I wanna clarify, like, it's like I think Lonesome Road is like a five out of ten.

SPEAKER_02 2:27:42

Sure. Like it's the worst.

SPEAKER_06 2:27:44

It's just like like yeah, I mean, I'm not gonna count that it's worse than fucking Mothership Zeta or like uh fucking not even not even automaton. What's the what's the fucking the vault one?

SPEAKER_02 2:27:59

The vault one for vault was the shitty vault one, yeah. The vault tech one is fucking stupid. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:28:03

Like, no, I mean like there's there's like a lot of like pretty much everything but uh broken steel is worse than than Lonesome Road.

SPEAKER_02 2:28:14

Sure.

SPEAKER_06 2:28:15

It's I just like we we you can't get me to see another side of it because every point you would make is the thing where I'm like, yeah, I get that, it just didn't do anything for me.

SPEAKER_02 2:28:23

It just didn't do it for me. And that's fine! Like that's completely fucking fine. I'm an adult, I am 30 to 40 years old, and I can like acknowledge when you know what? This is just a complete total difference of opinion.

SPEAKER_06 2:28:34

I d uh I'm just saying, like, I did not care for Lonesome Road.

SPEAKER_01 2:28:40

It's insistent on itself.

SPEAKER_06 2:28:42

From from from Ulysses does insist upon himself.

SPEAKER_01 2:28:47

It's true. It is true. But it it is literally all four of us going into like a movie theater, and we can only choose one candy between the four of us and a popcorn. And one of us goes, No, we should have the good and plenty. It's not good otherwise. And everyone else just like, we have to agree to disagree and find a compromise and move on.

SPEAKER_02 2:29:10

Yeah, so we have to pick something. But you know, like we're, you know, like it's fine. I get it. I do. I literally do. Um I, you know, and again, like reframing it kind of this idea that it is tied inherently to honest hearts, a DLC that I I did like a lot. Um, with this kind of running theme of it being specifically about one guy. I kind of like those little like ways of changing my thinking, you know, flipping the chessboard around if we're gonna keep making um references all night, Saturn.

SPEAKER_05 2:29:42

Um also uh real real quick before you continue, I did uh make an icon for uh this episode.

SPEAKER_03 2:29:52

Oh my god, I'm so excited.

SPEAKER_01 2:29:57

I was hoping for so Saturn, what what I was hoping for was um a picture of um This picture of Sammy Davis Jr. with uh the drill sunglasses.

SPEAKER_00 2:30:21

What were we supposed to know to think of them? I genuinely thought that's what we were going for.

SPEAKER_06 2:30:29

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 2:30:30

Because I've been staring at the I've been staring at Dean Domino for like a points of an hour.

SPEAKER_02 2:30:37

Uh but no, like just kind of like flipping my thinking, like my thought process about a thing, you know, I kind of was just like, well, I can see, I can see its value, I suppose, is what it is. And a lot of people whose opinions I respect really like Lonesome Road. So I had to take a step back and be like, alright, what are they saying, right? Um you have to have the moment that you never. Like, that's her favorite Fallout DLC. And I had to be like, huh? Damn, alright. Huh?

SPEAKER_04 2:31:18

Really?

SPEAKER_02 2:31:19

Yes. Which is not surprising considering her love of like going on road trips and shit. No, yeah, that explains a lot.

SPEAKER_05 2:31:27

That's true. I I will say, as someone who's made the 10-hour drive from St. Petersburg, Florida to Birmingham, Alabama, uh, and found it quite uh like the effect it has on your mental, like just the very like disconnecting from everything and just feeling your brain truly completely reset. Uh God, I am lucky that I don't have more money because there is a world where I could be someone who's a, yeah, let's go blow like two, three thousand dollars on gas and just do a big cross-country road trip. Why not?

SPEAKER_02 2:31:59

I would love to do that.

SPEAKER_05 2:32:01

I would love to do that, but unfortunately, two to three thousand dollars in gas. Well, you know. I don't want to talk about how much that 10-hour each-way drive to and from Birmingham costs being gas.

SPEAKER_01 2:32:11

Gas is so fucking expensive. Maybe someday. I'm just thinking about how much more expensive it'd be if you use an RV instead.

SPEAKER_02 2:32:18

Oh Christ, could you imagine in 2026 where gas where gas is four dollars a gallon in Birmingham, Alabama? So imagine.

SPEAKER_06 2:32:31

I put over $50 in my tank the other day.

SPEAKER_00 2:32:36

Gross. My tummy hurts is thinking about that.

SPEAKER_02 2:32:40

But no, I mean, you know, so like uh hearing like people like that who who who say Lonesome Road is their favorite. I was like, okay, I gotta see some value in this somehow.

SPEAKER_06 2:32:49

And um Maybe Oates is right, and then I'm like on my second playthrough with a new character, I will I will start appreciating it more.

SPEAKER_02 2:32:55

But like right now, in the moment, you know. That's fine.

SPEAKER_06 2:32:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:32:59

That's good. I think it is perfectly fine to just continue hating on Lonesome Road, because like the vibe of your first impressions of Lonesome Road is pretty bad. Pretty bad. It just it's just that it's just that like over time experience and seeing how radically his dialogue changes, even if the story itself doesn't, did kinda like form like reform my opinions of him. Yeah, absolutely. And it it might not do the same for you. You might just be like, No, I still hate it.

SPEAKER_02 2:33:30

Nah, fuck him.

SPEAKER_01 2:33:32

This is so annoying to have to listen to. That's fine. I I just, you know, like it's percolated a lot.

SPEAKER_06 2:33:40

I I will say, um very funnily, uh, the first time I went like the first time I confronted him uh face to face, I accidentally went into combat. And then uh reloaded that save to try again. And not because it was thematically appropriate for my character to try to talk him down, but because I didn't want to do that fight anymore. He's got his fucking regener what what fucking 76 raid bosses is shit where he's got regenerative ibots flying around him and shields and whatnot and a bunch of mooks swarming in and are like, nah, fuck this!

SPEAKER_01 2:34:21

My favorite bit then is two things. One, again, if you run through Lonesome Road, like a psychopath, before you even make it to the Mojave Outpost, before you even make it to Prim, you can't talk him down because he is psych he is on s he is psychopathically like he is made insane by your decision like your complete lack of choices and thinks that you're a wild card who will kill everybody. Hardcore hater mode, yeah. Hardcore hater. The second is because it is such a long long walkway, and there's a lot of time spent building up to the actual conversation, you can just snipe him in the head once and be done with it.

SPEAKER_05 2:35:12

Let me show you my secret technique I call El Presidente.

SPEAKER_02 2:35:17

Call it the I I call it the ol' uh you'll know when it happens special.

SPEAKER_06 2:35:23

I did I did this move in the jungle in the 60s to an old man in a wheelchair.

SPEAKER_05 2:35:30

Much like much like the end, uh, you can actually get an alternative ending to old world blues if you simply uh when confronting uh uh uh Ulysses for the first time, just turn off the game for two real life weeks and then be back up later, and he will have starved to death waiting for you to acknowledge him.

SPEAKER_02 2:35:49

Yeah. Oh man. Um Vegas DLC folks.

SPEAKER_06 2:35:58

Uh what did you do, Sarah, at the end of it with the noob?

SPEAKER_02 2:36:01

I I I disabled both. I disabled the noob.

SPEAKER_06 2:36:05

Yeah, I sacrificed Eddie.

SPEAKER_02 2:36:07

I'm sorry, little guy, but I'm not I'm not about that life.

SPEAKER_05 2:36:11

We have discussed my choice. I saved my little robot buddy and made sure to burn as many NCR and Legion as I could in the process. Fuck them both.

unknown 2:36:24

Fuck them both both.

SPEAKER_05 2:36:25

Fuck the flag, fuck the troops, fuck the cops.

SPEAKER_01 2:36:28

Fuck the ball, go to hell! Now, obviously, I did the same thing as Saturn, but it was Adelaide's, so you know it was hers in accident.

SPEAKER_05 2:36:39

Oh well, let me just press both these buttons to make sure I don't fire at the moment. Oh no! Control alt delete, oops.

SPEAKER_01 2:36:48

I um I may have accidentally broke the control panels, so there's no real way to stop them, so I guess we're just gonna have to climb up to the tallest part and just watch the firewall.

SPEAKER_05 2:36:58

I do also think, you know, we didn't comment on it. Speaking of funniest hater behavior in the world, my favorite detail from Ulysses from the from this DLC, they never do this as and as far as I know in any other Fallout game, including when they brought his outfit back in 76 as like a fucking like tiny microtransaction thing. Um the emblem on the back of his jacket changes. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 2:37:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 2:37:26

Based on what faction you have chosen to ally with.

SPEAKER_04 2:37:29

Right. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_05 2:37:31

Specifically to taunt you. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 2:37:34

Yep, yeah. Yeah, rules.

SPEAKER_01 2:37:38

So that his back can be turned to you for like the cool final boss fight that you've sniped him in the head for before he could even turn around.

SPEAKER_00 2:37:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:37:44

Because he just did it down a long fucking hallway.

SPEAKER_00 2:37:47

He's so fucking stupid. Oh, Ulysses.

SPEAKER_03 2:37:50

Oh, Ulysses. Got a great voice actor, though. Got a dude actor. Great voice actor.

SPEAKER_05 2:37:56

Perhaps the aura farmingest man in all of Fallout. It's true.

SPEAKER_03 2:38:00

Nobody's aura farming harder. Yeah. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_05 2:38:05

Ulysses are saying, I gotta stay in my office or a courier's gonna beat my ass.

SPEAKER_00 2:38:09

Now, is he doing a good job? No. Piccolo, he is not.

SPEAKER_02 2:38:13

No. Speaking of aura farming, though, I did learn just by like reading the uh the fucking wiki that the uh the the Joshua Graham reloading animation is one, motion captured, which is neat. And two, uh, that's Josh Sawyer doing it with his own personal 45.

SPEAKER_06 2:38:31

That's pretty dope.

SPEAKER_05 2:38:33

That is made, I will say, A, super cool. B, this is maybe the least surprising thing I have ever learned about Josh Sawyer.

SPEAKER_03 2:38:42

I know!

SPEAKER_02 2:38:45

Just to learn that, like, yeah, of course, he's the one doing the dope ass reload animation with his own personal 45. Of course, of course, right? Great. Why wouldn't it be? Why wouldn't it be?

SPEAKER_05 2:38:58

Look, the greatest RPG content in all of existence, be it in video games or elsewhere, uh, is made by people who are dorks.

SPEAKER_02 2:39:07

You are dorks, hundred percent. You gotta be a stone cold dork to to love Fallout New Vegas as much as I have come away loving Fallout New Vegas. That's the real message.

SPEAKER_05 2:39:18

And to be and to be clear, Josh Sawyer, because I know you're listening because you love us.

SPEAKER_02 2:39:22

Tony for Patreon.

SPEAKER_05 2:39:23

And you love Fallout.

SPEAKER_02 2:39:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:39:25

If I owned my own M1911 and could do a sick-ass like gun cleaning on it for purposes of a mocap to put in an RPG, I also would. Zero hesitation. I understand you jumping on the chance to be like, no, you don't need to hire a guy.

SPEAKER_01 2:39:42

I will do this for you. I would do my own M1 Garand reload, I promise you.

SPEAKER_06 2:39:47

Look, listen, I may have gotten through all the dialogue prompts on that thing and not really paid attention because I was too busy watching that sick ass reload animation.

SPEAKER_03 2:40:00

It was so dope. It's so cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:40:05

Uh it's dope. It's sick. I love Fallout New Vegas. That's the moral of the story. We need two episodes about it. Final questions of tonight.

SPEAKER_01 2:40:17

When you made it to level 50, did you pick that last part? I didn't. I didn't make it to level 50.

SPEAKER_05 2:40:23

I didn't make it to level 50 either. I think when I did my first playthrough, uh, I only ever got to like uh 37 or 38.

SPEAKER_02 2:40:30

I capped out at around 35, I think. Because it was not killing a lot of people because I was trying to do it as fast fistly as possible. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:40:37

Uh in my I I in my next playthrough, I think I'm going to aim to get to level 50.

SPEAKER_02 2:40:44

Um god, I did I did as much fucking content in Fallout New Vegas as physically possible.

SPEAKER_06 2:40:54

I picked Swift Learner twice.

SPEAKER_02 2:40:56

Wow.

SPEAKER_06 2:40:57

And I still didn't get to level 50.

SPEAKER_02 2:40:59

Yeah, no. Cause like I I mean I did as much as I could, uh, you know, pacifistly. But it's just like, you know, even with just your baseline experience gain from doing I even did the thing where I put off picking a faction for as long as possible so I could get experience points from all of them, right? Like from doing shit for for the NCR and for house and you know, talking to Caesar, doing all that stuff because I was like, I want to see as much of this video game as possible. And I still only came out at about level 35, I want to say.

SPEAKER_05 2:41:34

Um What is the level 50 choice? Because I'm not actually familiar.

SPEAKER_01 2:41:39

Oh, um, so at level 50, um, if you choose to, you can always just pick any of the other perks. Um but uh New Vegas uh allows you to pick one, but you only get it you only get a choice of three of them based on your karma, like when you hit level 50, it it snapshots your karma level at the moment you hit 50, and it'll offer you one of three perks. It is eight like that now. Just lucky I'm alive, and I thought you died.

SPEAKER_02 2:42:12

So what do they do?

SPEAKER_01 2:42:14

So each one of them increases your uh your base stats permanently. Um if you're evil karma, um uh it resets your karma to zero, so you increase it in neutral. Uh it gives you an attack speed increase, uh faster AP regen, and an immunity to critical hits.

SPEAKER_02 2:42:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:42:39

Uh just lucky I'm alive is the neutral one, where it actually uh it you go from zero karma to it, it'll do a lucky coin flip and then add or decrease your karma by 50. Um and it'll give you bonus critical hit damage, 50%, immunity critical hits, and plus four luck for three minutes if a fight has ended with less than twenty-five percent health. And then uh finally, uh Thought You Died is uh if you're if you have good karma, you gain plus ten HP for every one hundred karma points you had before it reset to zero, uh plus ten permanent damage against everything, um, and immunity to critical hits and poison.

SPEAKER_02 2:43:22

Damn.

SPEAKER_05 2:43:22

That's this this this may be hard to believe considering the thing I mentioned about my second playthrough being the one where I made a a conscious effort to kill literally every single intelligent life form I ran into. Um, but in an average Fallout playthrough for me, the last one would have been the only one I actually had access to. Yeah, I tend to be a goody two shoes.

SPEAKER_02 2:43:44

I tend to be a goody two shoes. I mean, I had like fucking dessianic karma by the end of my playthrough because like I am, you know, a turbo goody two shoes in these fucking Fallout games. Why not? You know?

SPEAKER_06 2:43:54

It's it it's it really is like and you know, it's actually kind of hard because you have most of your factions are quote unquote good besides the Legion.

SPEAKER_02 2:44:07

Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:44:08

Like So killing killing Legionnaires doesn't actually grant you good karma.

SPEAKER_02 2:44:12

No, it does not, but it also doesn't take away from your karma either.

SPEAKER_06 2:44:16

Yeah, but I mean but I mean like it you know, you'd have to align with the Legion to really rack up evil karma, like, quickly.

SPEAKER_02 2:44:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:44:26

Because those quests are what's are what's gonna get you evil karma.

SPEAKER_02 2:44:29

Yeah, and I feel like I don't even know if you can get enough evil karma from doing a Legion playthrough to actually get yourself into having like truly like bottom of the barrel worst karma, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:44:43

Believe it or not, it's actually kinda hard. The easiest way to get evil karma is by doing you guessed it, the wild card ending. Oh, that makes sense. That tracks.

SPEAKER_05 2:44:55

Yeah, oh yeah, because that's the one where you just go, no, I'm just gonna go kill everybody.

SPEAKER_02 2:44:59

Yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_06 2:45:01

Very interesting, by the way, uh, regards to karma. There's only one companion that is affected by karma.

SPEAKER_02 2:45:07

Who is it? Cassidy.

SPEAKER_06 2:45:08

It's Cassidy. She will leave you if your karma is negative.

SPEAKER_02 2:45:12

Funny. I had no idea.

SPEAKER_01 2:45:13

She's the only person who has like a genuine literal, like bleeding heart. She doesn't like she doesn't even like it if you manage to get down to neutral karma. But like she'll stick around with you, but she'll like comment. She'll comment and stop c like stop whatever you're doing, just being like, hey, listen. I don't You're stealing, you're kinda shooting innocent people. This is really like I don't like it. This is this doesn't feel right. Like, I'm really kinda this is stressing me out.

SPEAKER_02 2:45:45

You know? Uh shit. Fucking it's almost been three hours. I love Cass. I love New Vegas. Um fucking it's the best one.

SPEAKER_03 2:45:58

It's the best one.

SPEAKER_05 2:46:00

I know I know it hurts.

SPEAKER_02 2:46:02

It hurts.

SPEAKER_06 2:46:02

Vindicated by history. It hurts. Listen.

SPEAKER_05 2:46:06

But now, but now I'm just the thing is, much like Voyager, I'm so glad you understand why I have been like a gibbering hermit psychopath like the entire time you've known me about this, that, and the other. Where it's just like, no, it like, don't get me wrong, I like Fallout 4.

unknown 2:46:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:46:23

But it hurts. No, it hurts to know that it has been literally 16 years since we have gotten. I don't want to say a real Fallout game. I mean, you can Fallout game, it's since we've gotten something on the CRPG narrative caliber of New Vegas at the very least.

SPEAKER_02 2:46:43

No, you can you can listen. Uh my opinion of Fallout 4 is that if it didn't have Far Harbor in it, uh it would I would literally think way, way worse of it. That game is saved by Far Harbor. We can't have this conversation right now.

SPEAKER_05 2:46:58

Um but it's our it's our anniversary. We can we can relitigate, like, yeah, that tends to be just how we think about Fallout 4. It's like, damn, it is good they have that one really narratively strong DLC to make it feel like a like real Fallout 4.

SPEAKER_02 2:47:11

Not only is it narratively strong, but it also does a thing where it recontextualizes the but the rest of the game behind it in a way that makes it compelling instead of nonsensical. Um you know, so there's that too. Like it's like that Far Harbor is carrying Fallout 4 on his fucking back, is what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_06 2:47:29

There are certain mechanical aspects of 4 and 76 that I wish were in New Vegas, which is why I just want there to be a New Vegas remake.

SPEAKER_02 2:47:38

The one yeah, the only thing I mostly think when I was like thinking about a New Vegas remake is two things. One, I want to see Zion in all of its natural splendor. Um, and two, that opening cutscene of Old World Blues where they're yakking at you for 30 minutes. I want it to be like a real cutscene where they're all like poking and prodding at you, and instead of it just being like the camera is just locked on Dr. O even though everybody is talking, and it's not even like jumping between them.

SPEAKER_04 2:48:05

Right?

SPEAKER_02 2:48:06

Like it those are that's the only two things I want from fucking New Vegas remake.

SPEAKER_06 2:48:11

The one thing I would like to see in New Vegas is the ability to talk to two people at once.

SPEAKER_02 2:48:16

Or even just have the camera kind of swinger. I mean, there's no like there's no like reason for that system to exist because they built the game around the fact that you can't talk to two people at once. Um but again, that old world blues uh cutscene conversation is the one time where you'd want the camera to be a little bit more free, right? To at least be able to be bop between a couple people at once or something, I don't know. But like that's all I want from a Fallout New Vegas rebake is I want Zion to look pretty and and I want the Mads to have their own character portraits. Um and you don't have to change anything else about New Vegas because it's perfect, it's so fucking good.

SPEAKER_06 2:48:55

Christ getting getting some of those things like the the from in Vigue of New Vegas, like being able to sprint and being able to uh loot free in like a free window.

SPEAKER_02 2:49:06

Yeah, like in Fallout 4. Yeah, Fallout 4 loot window, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:49:09

Which that's like 50% of what I needed in the first place.

SPEAKER_02 2:49:13

Yeah, absolutely. Huge game. Oh, dedicated grenade button.

SPEAKER_06 2:49:17

That would also be nice, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:49:19

Yeah, dedicated grenade button would be really nice.

SPEAKER_01 2:49:21

That's on me. I should have included that in the mod last because that that was in there and I left it out because Sarah was like, eh, it didn't really need it.

SPEAKER_02 2:49:28

I didn't really need it. And I mean, for the most part, I don't use explosives anyways, because like it's a little too unpredictable for my taste. But every now and then you've got all these explosives and you need to use them.

SPEAKER_01 2:49:36

Um plus throwing dynamite is so much fun compared to a grenade. Yeah, it's a good thing. I'm sorry. Just delighting a stick of dynamite, just it's very satisfying.

SPEAKER_02 2:49:45

Um but that's like that's kinda it. You know what I mean? Like, otherwise, New Vegas is is pretty fucking perfect. Yeah. Um just a tremendous game. Oh, real quick, shout up. Um, there's not that many good New Vegas plot mods out there. I haven't played the Long 15 yet, so I can't speak authoritatively about it. But if you want to play it follow- but I've heard it's really good. Like, I have heard it's genuinely good and it's quite large. So um it's in my mod list. I'm gonna get to it eventually. But if you want like a like a an amazing, I've talked about it before. If you want like an amazing, self-contained, very thoughtful, very quiet and interesting plot like quest DLC like mod, Autumn Leaves. Go play Autumn Leaves. That thing is really good.

SPEAKER_06 2:50:33

I'm going to um I'm excited to do a second playthrough because now I can explore mods a little more.

SPEAKER_02 2:50:40

Yes, and I mean like you don't have to add like a truly there are not that many like genuinely great like quest mods for Fallout New Vegas because a lot of the a lot of them kind of suffer from you know writing for a game from 2010. Right. So, you know. Um writing for a game from 2010 by gamers.

SPEAKER_06 2:51:01

So look, listen, you know there's not a lot of good plot mods for Fallout 4, so.

SPEAKER_01 2:51:07

Now now, we can't be too mean about B. Dylan Hollis's first mod ever.

SPEAKER_02 2:51:12

Hey, I actually I've never played that one. I bet it's decent. Um I will say, I think there's better plot mods for Fallout 4 than there are for New Vegas. There's more, there's way more of like way higher quality in Fallout 4 versus New Vegas, which really appears to only have the two that I actually give a shit about, like looking through the Nexus. Um but Autumn Leaves is genuinely great. Um, it's quiet, it's thoughtful. It's mostly about talking to Protectrons for six and a half hours. Um but they they don't have Protectron voices, they have like normal style voices, so it's fine. Uh and they're all very interesting characters. So yeah, it's very lightweight. So yeah, that's my thing. Uh play Autumn Leaves. Other than that, uh Fallout New Vegas.

SPEAKER_06 2:51:54

Fallout News.

SPEAKER_02 2:51:55

Fallout New Vegas.

SPEAKER_05 2:51:56

It it is very funny to be like I remember when we were going through Fallout 76 really early on, just being like, you know, I always kind of wondered, like, what's the like internal like text-to-speech stuff they do for the Protectrons? And looking up, it's like, no, it is actually just a single voice actor who's just doing literally every single Protectron they have ever made across like fucking like now at this point uh nearly 20 years of of 3D Fallout.

SPEAKER_02 2:52:23

The no, because the Protectrons in New Vegas are voiced by a different guy because the Protectron guy in 3, 4, and 76 just kind of lives in the area.

SPEAKER_05 2:52:34

Oh, right. I forgot to I forgot the New Vegas one was different.

SPEAKER_02 2:52:37

New Vegas one is different, same for the Mr. Handys. Um Mr. Handys have a different voice in New Vegas. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_05 2:52:43

I know they're not getting uh Steven Russell to come out to uh to wherever Obsidian is somewhere in California, I think.

SPEAKER_03 2:52:51

So Steven Russell lives in Maryland, that's why he does work for Bethesda, baby. He can just drive up to the city.

SPEAKER_05 2:52:56

It is the unfortunate thing, it is the truly unfortunate thing, like you can you can destroy Emile Pogliarulo however you wish, but in doing so you will lose Steven Russell. Because the only reason that Steven Russell continue is in here is because he is because Emile Pogrular Emile worked with him on Thief, and so he's the one who reached out to him for the Fallout game.

SPEAKER_02 2:53:21

That's so funny. That's hilarious. Well, I don't know. Price that might be a price too high. Who knows? We're never getting a Fallout 5. We're never getting Fallout 5 anyways. That man's gonna get a Fallout. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:53:32

The thing is, then you hear Steven then you hear Steven Russell's attempt to do an Irish accent in 76, and you're like, I don't know, maybe it's okay for him to retire.

SPEAKER_02 2:53:39

He's cool, he's funny. Listen, by the time Fallout 76 comes out, that man's gonna be dead. Or 76, excuse me. Saturn said it. By the time Fallout 5 comes out, that man's gonna be dead anyways. So uh don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Um Yeah. Happy 10-year anniversary. I love Fallout. That's the main takeaway from all of this. The thing is, that's right.

SPEAKER_06 2:54:02

The thing is, you know what? I'll play I'll probably play Fallout 4 again at some point.

SPEAKER_02 2:54:08

Well, they updated the fucking PC version again out of nowhere, so my mod list is fucked again.

SPEAKER_01 2:54:13

So I'm not Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:54:15

I'm gonna work.

SPEAKER_01 2:54:16

Not playing Fallout 4 anytime fucking Sam is.

SPEAKER_02 2:54:27

Shockingly stable, I've been gonna be able to get it. That game's also really easy to install mods for, which I appreciate.

SPEAKER_06 2:54:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:54:34

It's not nearly as much of a pain in the ass as modding Fallout 4. It's very, very light. I like that a lot. You know, granted, I'm not trying to do anything too crazy to that game. I'm not trying to break it in half and make it look like like it came out in 2025, like something. Right. I don't have a computer for that.

SPEAKER_01 2:54:52

Because it's like the way the way New Vegas works is you can only pick two of the four options, and that is I want the game to have good lighting, I want that game to have good textures, I want to have quest mods, and I want to have guns. Like like new weapons. You can only pick two of them. Period. That's it.

SPEAKER_02 2:55:12

Okay. Are we done? I feel like I actually am quite content with the like normally when we do these episodes, sometimes I feel like I didn't say enough, but I'm actually quite content with the amount I had to say about each DLC.

SPEAKER_06 2:55:24

Listen, when at least two of us replay New Vegas, we'll uncover a lot more to talk about with New Vegas.

SPEAKER_02 2:55:34

Oh, I'm sure. It's a good game. I'm giving I am giving it a break for a little while though, because I was pretty I pretty thoroughly fucking played that game, so you know.

SPEAKER_06 2:55:50

For now. For now, yeah, I think I think I'm good. Are we all good?

SPEAKER_03 2:55:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:55:55

Alright. I think I'm good. I can't think of anything else uh I urgently need to say. Uh scroll scrolling my brain.

SPEAKER_06 2:56:02

I don't think it's uh so that'll do it for us then. Happy 10-year anniversary, the Gorge. We did it.

SPEAKER_02 2:56:08

We did it. We actually finally talked about Fallout New Vegas on the Gorge. Yay!

SPEAKER_05 2:56:13

Now finally, I can I can finally say it. I'm so sick of all of you. I've wogged them off forever, and you're never gonna fucking hear from me again. So unprofessional. I hate that fucking podcast, and everyone listens to it.

SPEAKER_00 2:56:24

I can't believe they ever said Fallout 4 was the game.

SPEAKER_05 2:56:30

If you give us money on Patreon, you're a shmuck and a shmo. You should send me money directly on PayPal instead, where I'm gonna start my own podcast called The George.

SPEAKER_06 2:56:44

Listen, listen. A lot of people who see our name call us that without actually like hearing the title.

SPEAKER_02 2:56:52

You know, we're the George. It's it's chill. Don't worry about it. Patreon.com slash the george.

SPEAKER_06 2:56:59

Uh thank you to uh Visager for your sort of background music. Email us at thegorgepodcast gmail.com. Thank you to the person who sent us fan mail the other day. I've been meaning to respond to you, but every time I click on your email and read it, I get so overwhelmed with emotion that I don't know how to respond.

SPEAKER_01 2:57:17

And then Ben wakes up on the floor like unconscious ten minutes later.

SPEAKER_05 2:57:22

Person who sent us the fan mail, my response to you is it it will happen when all that game is out. Uh I I I I will say I have played the uh first the the literally only the first episode before when it came out. Uh and seeing the pace at which they have been coming out, I'm just like, no, I'll just wait for six or seven or whatever the last one's supposed to be. I forget. Um but whenever and whenever everyone says it's finally done, then I'll I'll do it all in one s in one swoop because I can't afford to be I I have done my time in the homestuck minds. I can't be affording to have any uh like parasocial relationships with like the unfinished uh highly fandom driven media just makes me feel like sick. Understandable.

SPEAKER_06 2:58:06

Um yeah, you can email us uh at the gorgepodcastmail.com, follow us on all our social medias. Uh again, patreon.com slash the gorge. The reboot is on a hiatus until um and then we'll pick back up with a mini-series played hosted by Saturn.

SPEAKER_05 2:58:24

That should hopefully be happening sooner rather than later. Oh, we had originally intended to start uh recording it uh pretty imminently, but uh my writing stuff for Project has been uh kind of hampered, so I'm trying to focus on that before I worry too much about uh the new thing, but I have ideas, so we're gonna be getting to when we get back to to that, it will be with a slightly it'll it will still be reboot, but it will be a different system and some different characters for the interlude, let's say. It'll be the New Vegas of Reboot.

SPEAKER_02 2:58:54

That's right.

SPEAKER_05 2:58:55

Oh, you're you're really you're really uh putting uh I have some expectations to live up to if this is gonna be the New Vegas of Reboot.

SPEAKER_06 2:59:02

It'll be considered the best one for a very, very long time. Um, and then anything that comes afterwards by the original, uh by the current owner, will be pretty good, but kind of railroady.

SPEAKER_05 2:59:14

Yeah. I mean, honestly, it would be it would be kind of like if it had the inverse relationship where Bethesda made the first Fallout ever, and then New Vegas made the made the new one that everybody loved, and for some reason nobody ever loved the Bethesda Fallouts literally ever again. And I don't think that's going to happen, nor would I wish that upon you. Well, I appreciate that, but we'll see what the fans think. Uh the fans will at least uh acknowledge that it is a different uh RPG with uh different storytelling priorities and my own my own GMing voice coming to the fore, which I have not had opportunity to practice in a couple of years.

SPEAKER_02 2:59:52

Yeah, I'm excited.

SPEAKER_06 2:59:52

Yeah, I'm very excited. Uh and then uh simultaneously, or a little bit after that, again, uh attention Bajorn Workers, our Star Trek DS9 Deep Exploration Podcast. I'm very excited about it.

SPEAKER_05 3:00:13

Uh presumably, I guess, just rebegin from the beginning, because I kind of stalled out the bell riots in season three.

SPEAKER_02 3:00:19

Yeah, you might as well just restart. Yeah, old.

SPEAKER_05 3:00:22

Yeah, it's been like two, it's been like three years at this point.

SPEAKER_06 3:00:25

Twist my arm to watch all DS9 again.

SPEAKER_05 3:00:27

Oh no.

SPEAKER_04 3:00:28

I mean, I'm also just gonna rewatch DS9 to into preparation.

SPEAKER_05 3:00:31

It's not like either of you two have any other Star Trek left to watch that's worth watching.

SPEAKER_06 3:00:37

Or my you know, I'm I'm I'm probably like like I'm like, my watch. Oh, there's no Star Trek lab.

SPEAKER_05 3:00:46

This is why I just let things go until the spirit grabs me, because it's like I've been sitting around, like, once I finish DS9, like, I still have all that animated series to go through, and it's been so long since I've watched either TNG or Voyager. I could probably rewatch those series and not remember a fucking thing that happens in either. Even though we talked about them on podcasts relatively recently.

SPEAKER_06 3:01:09

Alright, well, that'll do it for us here. Thank you to everyone who listens. Thanks to you three for sticking by me this whole time.

SPEAKER_01 3:01:19

Of course. Always happy to be here.

SPEAKER_05 3:01:22

It's great to have this. Thanks to you, Ben, for doing uh 100% of the hard work that goes into this particular operation.

SPEAKER_02 3:01:30

I tell people all the time the gorge exists because Ben wills it into existence. I am just it's it's really Ben's podcast. I am just here to be the yapping the yappingest voice on the podcast. Um, because otherwise it wouldn't exist. Ben does all the editing, Ben does all the hard work, I just show up, he points, and I show up where he wants me to show up. You know what I mean? Like that's it.

SPEAKER_05 3:01:56

The the sum total of like two or three gorge things that I have done the audio editing on is mostly just stolen valor to keep Ben from saying that he has been the editor on literally every single piece of audio that has gone up for Gorge.

SPEAKER_04 3:02:12

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 3:02:13

The number of times that I have, instead of passing the audio files to one of you three, just been like, don't worry, I'll edit it on my laptop in this hotel room.

SPEAKER_02 3:02:22

Yeah, you know, it's fine. It so truly the person who deserves all the thanks is Ben, because Ben does all the work. Like, if Ben wasn't doing all the work, this podcast wouldn't exist.

SPEAKER_05 3:02:33

So you should all be like, No, we'd just be we'd just be talking to no one and you wouldn't know us.

SPEAKER_02 3:02:39

It's weird. We wouldn't have the fucking Discord where I talk to people literally daily about dumb horseshit. So yeah, no, it's been a it's been a an absolute net positive in my life for 10 years. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 3:02:51

Without the without the Discord, I wouldn't have all of these losers getting into Warframe.

SPEAKER_02 3:03:01

Like we wouldn't be hanging out together. It's just exist because like the goobs exist because I started playing Final Fantasy XIV at the urging of the Discord. Yeah. And and that that was like the formation of the goobs, you know?

SPEAKER_05 3:03:16

And like besides that, it's like I mean like Sarah and I like would occasion will occasionally do some big gay nerd stuff, and like that's it. Yeah. Also, I will say without the Discord, uh, I would have never so actually no, not without Discord. I have to specifically thank Shia. Uh without the Discourge, I never would have read Uminko, which I would qualify as one of the singular, most brain rewriting, life-changing pieces of fiction I've ever considered.

SPEAKER_06 3:03:39

One of the pillars of your development, yeah.

unknown 3:03:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 3:03:41

Uh yeah, at at age like late 20s, instead of like, you know, in high school or college when I expect to read most of those things. Right. Uh and I would be a signific I think I would genuinely be a significantly different person with a significantly different end of worse perspective on writing if I hadn't gone through that. So it has been a it has been a net positive for me, like, not just in terms of socially, but also in like cultural development, which I appreciate significantly.

SPEAKER_02 3:04:08

Crazy. Weird, weird to think about. Like the the impact. It's a very warm and fuzzy way to end this podcast. Maybe we don't end on a fuck for once. Uh you know what a very warm and fuzzy way to end the 10-year special is to just be like, no, the Gorge has been uh tremendously helpful to me in my life. It gives me an outlet to talk about all this stupid horseshit I like so much, and I get to hang out with my friends, who I now see physically almost once a year, which is quite nice.

SPEAKER_05 3:04:39

So uh, you know what we can say? We can say this time for our 10-year anniversary, it's not the final fuck you. No. It's the final thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Except it's not the final one because it's not the last time we'll ever. Thank you. Uh it's just the last one for this episode.

SPEAKER_02 3:04:56

It's gonna be the last time we say thank you at the end of a podcast for a while.

SPEAKER_05 3:04:59

So from now on, we're gonna call you suckers and thugs.

SPEAKER_03 3:05:04

Tell all your own. We're gonna tell you pay up bozo because subscribe to our Patreon.

SPEAKER_01 3:05:09

Don't we don't Don't be Don't be sad that it's ending.

SPEAKER_05 3:05:12

Be sad that be glad that uh it's we made it to the the tenth the Be sad that it continues ceaselessly forever with no end in sight.

SPEAKER_03 3:05:23

You'll never be free, fuck you.

SPEAKER_05 3:05:25

And as you trying to pull yourself free of my grasp, you see my grey withered hand has calcified to stone around your fingers.

SPEAKER_00 3:05:32

I can't I can't be a wordsmith like Saturn. Just j just just take my emotions. They're full of love. That's right.

SPEAKER_06 3:05:39

We can we can end it on thank you, but before we do that, I want to say, you know what, after ten years, it's still fuck Dima.

SPEAKER_02 3:05:46

God, it is still fuck Dima, is the thing. Even if even at the end of everything, we start all this shit, we finish Far Harbor, talk about it, and it was like, man, fuck Dima. And you know what? Even after ten years, I like that character a lot, but man, what a tremendous asshole. Still.

SPEAKER_01 3:06:03

So fuck Dean Fuck Dima and fuck Dean Domino.

SPEAKER_05 3:06:06

Yeah. Now, I think you could fix everything by simply using a teleportation time space gun to swap the places of Dean Domino and Demon. So everyone in Dead Funny's like, what the fuck's up with this sick robot? And everyone in Far Harbor is like, who's this fucking Hollywood freak? Get him out of here.

SPEAKER_03 3:06:31

Go to hell.

SPEAKER_01 3:06:32

Oh god, Dean Domino and Far Harmor Woodwhip because uh the the fucking vault with all of the moves, with all they're all movie stars down there.

SPEAKER_02 3:06:41

One of that star Dean Domino would murder all of them.

SPEAKER_06 3:06:44

One of those uh starlets down there is a rival for one of Vera's rivals.

SPEAKER_03 3:06:49

That's right.

SPEAKER_05 3:06:49

Yes, if she's one of one of all the roading, it's like, oh my goodness, your skin looks just incredible.

SPEAKER_02 3:06:57

And then he's just like, I have to kill all of you. You're looking down on me. I see how it is.

SPEAKER_06 3:07:02

Oh my god. Thank you, everyone.

SPEAKER_02 3:07:05

Thank you, everyone. Happy ten years.

SPEAKER_06 3:07:08

Happy ten years. Good night, everyone.

SPEAKER_02 3:07:10

Good night.

SPEAKER_06 3:07:12

Good night.