Fun Stuff > CLIKC
Fallout: New Vegas
Storm Rider:
--- Quote from: Johnny C on 12 May 2010, 00:25 ---
--- Quote from: Storm Rider on 11 May 2010, 19:06 ---I also didn't get the association between 'Mr. House' and gambling until they used the phrase 'House always wins'.
--- End quote ---
i groaned when i read that, it's some b-level batman villain shit (but also very clever and funny)
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Fallout 2 especially was loaded with that kind of clever but campy humor, so this definitely seems in line with the old Black Isle vision for Fallout. John probably has more intimate knowledge of the leaked design docs than I do, but from what I read of them Van Buren seemed a lot darker and closer to the original Fallout in tone. New Vegas seems like it's kind of striking a balance between the two.
Alex C:
I'm fine either way. The original Fallout was pitch perfect and dark, but it didn't really seem to be screaming for a sequel; my initial experience with the Vault Dweller felt too definitive for me to even get much mileage out of replays. So unlike some of the NMA grognards, I was pleasantly surprised and somewhat grateful when it turned out Fallout 2 was kind of like a vast and Easter egg filled victory lap/bookend to the first game rather than a return to the grim wastelands played straight. What it lacked in heft it made up for with maximum fuckin' around and giving sass potential.
KvP:
--- Quote from: Storm Rider on 12 May 2010, 02:19 ---Fallout 2 especially was loaded with that kind of clever but campy humor, so this definitely seems in line with the old Black Isle vision for Fallout. John probably has more intimate knowledge of the leaked design docs than I do, but from what I read of them Van Buren seemed a lot darker and closer to the original Fallout in tone. New Vegas seems like it's kind of striking a balance between the two.
--- End quote ---
Van Buren was really dark. It took out a lot of the satirical Fallout winking towards the Science! of 50's sci-fi and replaced it with a lot of existential dread and paranoia, taking on the tone and sensibility of the actual sci-fi that expressed the fears of the Cold War era. There were a lot of nods to classic films / stories of the time - The Andromeda Strain in the Boulder Dome, The Island of Dr. Moreau in The Reservation, The Omega Man in Boulder / Denver, The Manchurian Candidate in the C.O.D.E. system, a lot of Philip K. Dick in the main antagonist and the rogue BoS guys, etc. Josh Sawyer / Ferg have both said that in terms of tone at least, New Vegas has very little to do with Van Buren. The tone seems much lighter. The story seems less personal (in that your character is less unique and important in the story, he/she is just some person that gets roped into the saga via bad luck) VB was going to be the most epic of Fallout games, and New Vegas definitely continues the new trend of there being one gigantic central location that most of the game seems to revolve around.
So yeah, as I always say, I'd give a lot to see Van Buren, but it'll probably never happen (best case scenario is that Obsidian gets to switch off on the license ala Call of Duty pre-ModernWarfaregate and we get all-new stuff continually). Given what we do know about New Vegas there are a couple of things that do seem to have crossed over from Van Buren. Not whole, but piecemeal. For example, in New Vegas the nightkin mutants are schizophrenic through prolonged Stealth Boy use. In Van Buren, the main conflict at the Hoover Dam was caused by a rogue group of Brotherhood of Steel knights who were waging a guerrilla war on their own, as they were driven to insanity via prolonged Stealth Boy use. In New Vegas, Mr. House is (allegedly) a pre-war scientist frozen in stasis and unfrozen post-war, never interacting with other people. In Van Buren, the original idea for Big Bad Dr. Presper was that he was a pre-war scientist frozen in stasis and unfrozen post-war. Additionally there is a pre-war scientist at Los Alamos who became a ghoul when the bombs fell and turned the facility into the Reservation, and he didn't interact with people except via a video monitor outside his compound. Caesar's Legion and the Powder Gangers are from Van Buren as well - Caesar's Legion is more or less taken wholesale from VB, but they were infrequently encountered. Their base of operations was in Texas beyond the dustbowl and they were to be the antagonists of a proposed Black Isle Fallout 4. Their leader was originally a Follower of the Apocalypse. Powder Gangers were NCR convicts given clemency in exchange for paid labor building railroads east from California. In VB, Dr. Presper blows up the NCR Congress while in session and blames it on the Brotherhood, starting a war, and thus the money and orders stop coming from NCR and the Powder Gangers become outlaws. In New Vegas none of the NCR / Brotherhood conflict or expansion via railroad happened, and the Powder Gangers are just dynamite-happy escaped cons.
That's about all I can think of. Hoover Dam was in both games, but it was less pivotal in VB. It was actually a secret bio-weapon test facility where aliens were experimented on, and the water it dammed was full of horrible monsters. You could venture into the waterlogged ruins of the complex and find the stealth armor released as part of the Anchorage DLC for Fallout 3. There was also an NCR city built at the base of the Dam. You could prematurely end the game by blowing up the Dam and flooding the city (with you in it). You might still be able to do something similar.
Johnny C:
i basically spent a day reading through the vault's files on van buren and i gotta admit that while i still have an aversion to turn based isometric anything the game itself would have been absolutely stunning, and if nv does well and obsidian get the opportunity to tell more stories in the fallout universe again i'll be extremely pumped
Storm Rider:
Yeah, it seemed like Chris and Josh had a lot of really good ideas that we'll probably only see traces of in New Vegas and any other Fallout-related properties Obsidian gets to make.
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