Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Doin' Goodsprings in the Neighborhoodsprings

Welcome back; stay a while and listen!

Last time we met, I had just exited Doc Mitchell's sprawling abode, ready to take on a harsh, unforgiving world.  The town of Goodsprings was mine to explore and begin leaving an indelible mark upon the wasteland itself!  ONWARD WITH THE EXPLORIN'.


Shooting in the eyes will definitely be happening

Random house had a BB gun outside, all ripe for the pickin'.  Cool.  YOINK.  Let's go see what's inside this abandoned nobody's there at the moment house.


I took everything.  Including the teddy bear.

Sweet.  Another BB gun.  I used it immediately to repair the previous one; wear & tear (especially on pre-war items) is a significant part of this game.  Everything you find is for the most part broken, or on its way to be broken.  I effectively scavenged one bb gun for the parts, improving the first one marginally so!  It's still however, a bb gun.  Which means its about as useful as harsh language in a knife fight.  Now to go traipse around that abandoned school...


THE KID FROM M.A.N.T.I.S.

WELP School's overrun with Mantises.  Mantis?  Mantii?  Whatever.  To save ammo (a precious precious commodity in the Wastes) I decide to get a little scrappy and toss some punches their way.  I figure Frank's gotten into a few scrapes in his hey-day, why not test out them dukes while the stakes are relatively low.


Time too retire, time too hax

A secure terminal, from which I could concieveably glean information from?  Gyoh-ho-ho-ho but wait, it's locked.  What does that even mean?


Follow the white rabbit, et cetera.
 OMG SO MUCH HAXX0rING!!111!!1one! w00t w00t.  The 'hacking' minigame is essentially Mastermind, with letters.  Varying levels of difficulty (Very Easy, Easy, all the way up to Very Hard) based on how much Science skill you have.  Each tier of difficulty, the security questions gets more and more complex, and you have less chances to get it in.


Aaaaaaand open!

Success!  Opened the safe, which had a gun in it.  In a school.  Well, as much as I don't agree with that, I do like that at least it was locked away from easy access from children who would be unable so solve a password request in 4 tries with hints given each attempt.

Ok that didn't make me feel better at all.  Off to the local watering hole, to satiate my thirst... my thirst for KNOWLEDGE!


Easy like Sunday mornin', lil'missy.  *WINK*

Well the welcoming committee is a crazy old man who has a dynamite fetish or something.  He's a former prospector, who in the Fallout universe, means he just scavenged what he could from rummaging around the remnants of the old world, bombed out and ruined.  Cool man cool.  I am a delivery boy.


OH BEHAVE!

'Sunny' Smiles, if that's her real name, comes recommended by Doc Mitchell.  Cheyenne was never mentionned, in that Cheyenne is also a pretty large mutt who immediately growls upon you entering the bar, getting into an attacking position.  Thankfully Sunny here doesn't let her get any further than that.


How do I wasteland?

Sunny's somewhat of an expert as to roughing it out there in the wilderness.  if Doc Mitchell's to be believed she'll give me a few handy lessons as to let me keep the vast majority of my vital organs and blood and limbs secure and stuff while venturing out past the secluded borders of Goodsprings.  But first, she needs to see what I can do.


Go. Hunt. Kil Botlz.

She hands me a Varmint Rifle, and tells me to have at them bottles.  Again, this is part of the game's slow introduction to game mechanics; Tutorialsville.  I could skip all this, but I like it!  It makes me feel invested in Goodsprings growth as a community, or alternatively ultimate downfall (if I so choose, mystery mystery hrrm hrrm hrrm!)

Satisfied I am able to murder innocent immobile bottles with impunity, Sunny asks me to follow her down to the wells, and hunt us some geckos.  Car insurance be damned in the future, gecko is back on the menu!


They're comin' right for us!

V.A.T.S.!  Or better-known as Vaul-Tec Assisted Targeting System.  This is the somewhat melding of Fallout's original turn-based strategy/RPG element in 3/4 isometric view heyday, brought over to the three dimensional free-roaming shooter RPG genre Bethesda have excelled at with the Elder Scrolls series.  Essentially it allows me to pause mid-action, and target specific body parts as shown, with varying degrees of success based on my stats/skill/environment/etc, for AP (Action Points).  Each shot costs X amount of AP, and its really self explanatory.

I could also go full-on first person shooter and use the gun's iron sights, but right now, I feel like letting the cinematic sweeping camera angles of VATS tell the tale of how this Gecko and I are gonna have a Jon Woo gunfight and stuff.


"I've made a huuuuuuuuuge mistake."

95% is the maximum chance available when in VATS, because who knows, life is weird that way, YOLO SWAG et cetera.  This one got close enough to start biting, but that means the closer we are together, the better the chances I have of hitting him in the noggin.  Combat is very much like love, in that respect.  Closer you are girl, easier I have it to hit you where it counts.  Mmm da heart.  YEAH GURL.  UNH.


Behold and despair; my handiwork at killing reptiles of peculiar size.

Well those two are dispatched; but wait! What yonder cry for help do I hear!?


MY HERO!

Ellen DeGeneres sure is happy I saved her!  She refuses to take a selfie with me though, which makes me sad.  But y'know, at least I did something nice for someone, which is cool.  I'm cool like that.


+ 500 Reputation with the Wildhammer Clan (Neutral)

Yay I'm finally accepted somewhere, and all I had to do was save someone from being eaten alive by sizeably large reptiles!  If only getting respect and acceptance were that easy in real life!  I'd be going places I would.  Oh well, I can dream!  Hey what's that thing over there...


Lead-lined my ass.

Wild Wasteland hard at work.  It references this infamous scene, as there's a length of rope with the skeleton in there too, and an iconic hat as well.  Which is now my hat.  I'm wearing it right now.  Its quite comfortable.


GRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAVEDIGGERRRRRRRR

By chance I wandered off to the Goodsprings cemetery where I was left for dead not too long ago, looking for clues.  All I found was a shovel and some graves that what needed diggin' up.  Inside those tombs, nothin' but ammo.  Which I gleefully looted.  GHOST BULLETS!  Who knows?!  Maybe I'll need'em to kill ghosts?  (Note: they're just regular bullets.  Any ghost-slaying properties I attach to them are solely fictitious in nature and have no outcome in regards to slaying the recently departed.  Furthermore, who knows what truly can kill a ghost, or if they can be killed at all.)


Nuclear Winter in the palm of your hand!

On the list of weird things I didn't expect to find in a graveyard: a snow globe of the town I'm currently in.  Somehow I think I should keep this, as it's just way too random to be here without having any purpose whatsoever later on.


A clear message in regards to what's in the distance, perhaps?

Bright Lights, Forbidden City.  New Vegas gleams on the horizon, lit up in neon splendor as a a sign tells me to not advance any further.  To be fair, the sign is because 20ft beyond it is Deathclaw territory.  If you don't know what a Deathclaw is, imagine the most horrible nightmarish creature you possibly can, then add more teeth and claws to it.  That.  Might as well head back to Goodsprings proper, maybe get some rest as it's night out now.



 Trudy's the owner of the Prospector Saloon; and she's mighty glad I helped out Sunny and saved Ellen from them Geckos, so she's not shy about letting me sleep on a cot in the back.  I notice her radio's busted, and she admits being unable to suss out why its broke.  Maybe I should take a look at it?  No harm in that!

Wait... what's that beyond the Radio there...


Swiggidy Swooty lookin' fo dat Boozy.

AAAAAAAAAAALL MIIIIIIIIINE

And so, that's how I stole everything of value in the Prospector Saloon after fixing Trudy's radio!  Next week, we deal with my favorite Beatle:  Ringo!

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