I finally got round to completing Bethesda/Obsidians Fallout: New Vegas this week. Now, considering I pretty much bought this when it first came out, it has taken me a very long time to complete it. This has got little to do with the size or complexity of the game (of course, it is quite big and the main storyline is quite long.)
My main reason for taking so long to complete the game, is all due to the perk called ‘explorer’. For those who don’t know, the explorer perk which you can obtain at level 20 puts a marker on your map for every explorable location in the game.
In essence, the perk shows you everywhere you haven’t been. For most people this would not cause so much of a distraction, but for an OCD freak like me (I actually have OCD, so I can call myself a freak) it just stopped the main storyline right there because I’m also a completist who with a very strong desire to discover everything.
As soon as I saw what could probably be near 100 extra places to go on my map, I had to explore them all. Like some kind of geographical Pokemon, ‘I had to visit ’em all’. This did have a good side of course, the main story may have been halted but I did get to discover the secrets of Vault 11 which is a side-quest well worth exploring, as well as all the other side-quests I wouldn’t have found.
Don’t do it! There’s a lot out there.
So, with my new Fallout game just started, my evil housewife-looking psychotic has already joined with the Powder Gangers and taken over Goodsprings.
”¦but what lessons did I learn in my first playthrough of Fallout New Vegas that are gonna help me in my second playthough”¦
Don’t take the explorer Perk, there are a lot of other Perks out there which are of far bigger benefit. You could always just get a map off the net somewhere. You can’t instant travel to those explorer locations anyway.
Ammo, don’t carry with you every bit of ammo that you find on the off-chance that you’ll need it. Unless, you’ve been playing all the way up to max level (or cheated) you’ll probably only be skilled in one or two weapon groups. Storing Plasma ammo when you have no skill in Plasma weapons is just a waste of inventory space.
Use the crafting benches more. I hardly used this in my first play through, and I feel like I’ve missed out on a lot. As I’m not carrying around so much ammo I might be able to carry around me with me all those spare parts to make something cool.
Don’t Cheat! Yes, I’m almost ashamed to say it, but on the final part of the game I cheated. I was quite under-level and Caesers troops were making mincemeat of me. For those who want to cheat, there’s a lot of ’em out there from increasing your stats, adding items instantly killing an opponent or as I used the God Mode. God Mode makes you invincible with infinite ammunition. For god mode if you press the tilde key (which is the key just under escape with ` and ¬ and | it). Then in the console type ‘tgm’. Press Enter and then the tilde key again. I wouldn’t recommend it though, there obviously was no challenge when playing the game this way.
Write notes, if you find a safe you’re not skilled enough to crack or a computer you can’t hack, a robot you can’t repair etc. Write down where you saw it and what you needed. Then when you are skilled enough or have the right parts to open/hack/repair it return to that place. It seems kinda obvious I know, but I didn’t do that and there must have been so many things I just ignored / couldn’t find.
Here endeth the lesson.
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Jim Franklin
Jim Franklin is a freelance writer, living in Derby UK with his wife and his player 3. When time allows he likes nothing more than losing himself in a multi-hour gaming session. He likes most games and will play anything but prefers MMO's, and sandbox RPG's.
We completists are our own worst enemies! I have been playing Oblivion for over 200 hours and still not finished the main story (Just keep seeing something out the corner of my eye!).
I am currently playing NV on 360 (about 100 hours in) and keep toying with the idea of getting that perk (I never got it in Fallout 3 and wondered if I had missed anywhere).
Maybe I will leave it and use a map when I have completed everything else.
Good tip about the note taking too, I have been doing that since first playing text games and the habit seemed to have stuck!.
That perk is definitely a double-edged weapon. Once you know there’s all that stuff out there it’s very difficult to just leave it. The fact that there are all those side quests is excellent, If you don’t get through them all on in game, then at least you’ve still got things to head to on your second play-through. I found some that some of the side-quests were a little too tedious to do every single time so maybe that is the best way.
I think that because I never got to the end of Oblivion, I was more for just getting to the end of the game at the expense of a lot of the side-quests. The lure to complete this just became too strong in the end.
We completists are our own worst enemies! I have been playing Oblivion for over 200 hours and still not finished the main story (Just keep seeing something out the corner of my eye!).
I am currently playing NV on 360 (about 100 hours in) and keep toying with the idea of getting that perk (I never got it in Fallout 3 and wondered if I had missed anywhere).
Maybe I will leave it and use a map when I have completed everything else.
Good tip about the note taking too, I have been doing that since first playing text games and the habit seemed to have stuck!.
That perk is definitely a double-edged weapon. Once you know there’s all that stuff out there it’s very difficult to just leave it. The fact that there are all those side quests is excellent, If you don’t get through them all on in game, then at least you’ve still got things to head to on your second play-through. I found some that some of the side-quests were a little too tedious to do every single time so maybe that is the best way.
I think that because I never got to the end of Oblivion, I was more for just getting to the end of the game at the expense of a lot of the side-quests. The lure to complete this just became too strong in the end.