I have something important I want to share with you. When you login to WordPress, your homepage automatically displays stats and search info, right? Well, I have discovered that, among other things, people have recently found this blog by searching the following terms:
A) “dragon age porn mods”
B) “downeload zeb alas videos”
C) “amazon”
Unsurprisingly, the Dragon Age porn search led to my first post about Dragon Age: Origins – you know, the one that was 75% me screaming about the mod that gives the ogres giant erections? Is that what you were looking for, random visitor?
Next on our agenda, Google informs me that “Zeb Alas” is probably Zeb Atlas, a bodybuilder and porn star who Looks Like This:
I think this is another visitor who I probably disappointed. Imagine logging onto the World Wide Web, hoping to downeload some of the good stuff feat. your boy Zeb Atlas, only to be waylaid by a blog post about how this one NPC in Neverwinter Nights looks like Shrek with hair and a diaper. Sorry about that. But the viewer who searched for “amazon?” I think they probably got exactly what they were looking for. And now that that’s taken care of, let’s talk about Fallout: New Vegas.
- Fallout: New Vegas is one of those games that makes me nostalgic for how I felt when I played it for the first time. That’s a thing, right? You know what I’m talking about. I wish I could put that feeling into words; there’s just something so indescribably special about wandering the blistering Mojave to the sound of “Big Iron” on your radio, tailed by a horde of Legion assassins and ready for any adventure that comes your way.
- My first piece of concrete news is that, in a shocking twist that nobody could have predicted, I actually liked Veronica Santangelo pretty well, especially the brushstrokes about her relationship with Christine. I think this means that I must declare some kind of grudging truce with my longtime video game nemesis Felicia Day.
- Of all the companions, however, Rex was of course my favorite. He was the first dog companion in a Fallout game that I did not accidentally kill due to incompetence. Feels great!
Furthermore, shout-out to the friend who stated with startling accuracy that Lily is his video game grandma and would probably become mine too. First Drack, then Agatha and now Lily -my dragon’s hoard of video game grandparents is growing at an alarming rate. - While we are discussing companions, I want to mention that I made the choice of downloading a mod that allowed me to have an unlimited number of companions accompanying me at any given point in time. In hindsight this did not lead to what you might call “balanced” “combat”, but… eh. I’ve played it before and I wanted a new experience, and I really enjoyed being able to access multiple people’s conversations and quests at once. Above all, I was beside myself when I decided to have my Courier seduce Benny and therefore make her way to his hotel room followed by a motherfucking cavalcade of friends who then just awkwardly stood around in the living room while they got it on in the next room over. Now that’s loyalty.
- Shout out to Snuffles the Molerat. I raised my medicine skill for the express purpose of healing his leg, and I hope that he whuffles in peace forever.
- I wish I had something more to offer you with this one, I really do. Because telling you that at one point my Courier had a giant bloodstain on her crotch is not the same as showing that to you. I was running away from combat, yes, and then God decided to bestow this gift upon me, and I was so overcome with astonishment, so busy memorizing this moment of perfection, that I was unable to take a screenshot before the stain faded. Seriously though. Biggest mistake of my life. It truly forced me to confront the realities of life for post-apocalyptic menstruators, and I’d like to spend the next few minutes interrogating the complexities of that experience from a post-modernist feminist perspective. Just kidding, that’s only accessible to my highest tier Patreon patrons.
- There’s also this, which I thought was stupidly funny:
Sick graffiti, super hardcore. - You know I carefully and methodically murdered my way through the The Fort, and was deeply, deeply vindicated when an NCR Sergeant had the following to say about that:
Astor: A single woman slaughters an entire camp of legionaries?! Oh, that’s priceless! Considering the way Caesar treats women, that should really put some doubts in his troops’ minds. Wait til the rangers hear about this!
Sorry but this is forever my favorite joke. - There’s a quest where you help a sex worker who wants to quit but is forced to stay, and OF COURSE I helped her escape. But that wasn’t enough for me, naturally, normal as I am about this kind of thing, so once the quest was over I killed all of the casino’s employees to make sure that all the other sex workers could go free if they wanted to. Feeling normal and doing good, thanks for asking!
- There’s a lot that can be said about the bureaucratic morass of the NCR and its inefficiency in managing its territory, and one good vignette can go a long way. I completed a quest where I regained Nelson from the Legion, and the NCR moved back in. Then shortly afterwards, I received a quest where a nearby ranger asked for my help in mercy-killing the people that the Legion had crucified there. Lo and behold, all of these NCR soldiers were just puttering around while people asphyxiated on crosses in the center of their camp. COME ON, GUYS.
No good will come of this GIF usage. And yet my nature compels me. - There was a little nugget of story-telling goodness in every quest that I played in this game, and I played all of the Wild Card main quests, faction quests (minus the Legion) and side quests minus like 2 that were annoying. I was organized about it. I had a checklist. Please forget I told you that. There were so many good ones! Stopping the cannibals at the Ultra-Luxe! Helping Marcus cure the nightkin! Recruiting a sex robot named Fisto for the Atomic Wrangler! One of my favorites was “I Don’t Hurt Anymore,” where you help convince a NCR sniper named Betsy to seek therapy after being sexually assaulted. Obviously I think everyone in the world should go to therapy and I care a lot about this kind of stuff, and it was so refreshing to complete a quest that addresses the aftereffects of the violence you regularly encounter in these games – the rage and shame and denial that comes with being sexually assaulted- and shows that it’s possible for things to get better with the right help.
- Hey guys? Guys? Why are there so many forum-dwelling edgelords who think that the Legion is legitimately the Right! Choice! for the Mojave? As in, “I’m not siding with them out of curiosity or the desire to experience different sides of the story or because I want to play an evil character. I genuinely believe that this will create the best world.” I’ve seen 3 main arguments put forward:
1) “TAXATION IS WORSE THAN DEATH. COME AND TRY TO TAX ME, NCR. I’LL BE READY.”
2) “There aren’t any Raiders in Legion controlled areas, and this is proof that brutality is the necessary response to chaos.”
Okay. But. What these people fail to realize, it seems to me, is that there are no small groups of hyper-violent marauders who have no respect for human life and terrorize civilians because those are literally the characteristics of the people in control. This is kinda like saying “I think North Korea is a good place to live because they have so much control over their population.” Right?? Am I missing something here??
3) “The femoids are treated like animals and I think that’s good. ”
Well, obviously. Totally on board for this one. - I fucking loved the Great Khan dude who decided to run away and live with the Followers to pursue his dream of becoming a poet. One of his poems:
Rainclouds wrap up my heart in sorrow black as silk
My empty scream does not echo, even though we’re in a canyon
My soul aches, but not as much as my limbs, because I’ve been beaten severely - Hey, is this expression normal or not?
(Yes, some of my companions inexplicably joined me for Dead Money. That’s mods for ya, baby.) - There’s nothing like that stand-off with the NCR at the end of the Wild Card story-line. You’ve played everyone and successfully seized power for yourself, and you have the Securitron army to back it up. This honestly made me feel like my Courier was the coolest character in the world!! Until I realized that I’d been having her wear her rebreather on dry land for the past 15 or so hours. Ah, well. You can’t win them all.
- My only real complaints are regarding the bugs I encountered and the near constant crashes and loading screen loops. Those were absolutely hideous, but everything else delighted me as much as it ever has. This is my favorite take on the Wasteland yet, and my heart is already full at the thought of another playthrough. PLUS! I somehow, miraculously, did NOT get “I’ve Got Spurs That Jingle Jangle Jingle” stuck in my head while playing, despite that happening to me for the entire duration of every game up to this point. 9 out of 10 Snuffles-es. Snuffles-i?
Isn’t it great how I went to all the trouble of polling you guys to get an idea of what you wanted me to do with this blog, and then I promptly ignored your responses and decided to do something completely different instead? Well, we’re almost done with Fallout which means I get to blatantly ignore your wishes again! Elder Scrolls here we come, once I’ve managed to figure out how to build walls in Fallout 4!
zeb does bioware (and beyond) 