Speaking of which, is there any use playing a charisma/talky character in New Vegas? In other words does it play out like Fallout 1/2 with options to circumvent entire sections of the game, or is it just a few extra dialogue choices and bonuses here and there?
You can get a lot done by talking. I think Charisma just affects your NPC companions this time around, so it’s just down to the speech skill. You’ll still have to kill some folks, but there are speech checks to avoid a lot of fights and solve quests in different ways.
Sepiche
3723
Yup. They put in a lot of speech checks all through the game.
You can actually skip the final battle if you have speech or barter of 100.
Yes, it’s much more like in the old games. Spech / science all the way. What Sepiche said is only a little but important example, it’s more telling the number of quests affected. Dozens of them are affected by a skill or attribute or perk.
Killzig
3725
They aren’t invulnerable, you have to kill them with headshots or take a party member who puts them down permanently with you. You can also shoot them in the head while they’re in their incapacitated state on the ground. What I found more frustrating/challenging was having to scrounge for chems/stims since they’re at a premium early on (your entire inventory will be taken from you at the start). Isn’t much of a problem later on. The stealth/trap parts aren’t that much of a bother, just listen to the instructions the NPCs give you.
I was talking about the invulnerable hologram enemies mentioned in the reviews. From what they said, you cannot damage them - you have to destroy the projector.
I like that sort of thing, actually. The Pitt did this to you as well, and I enjoyed having to deal with the challenges while starting from scratch in terms of equipment.
Speech is definitely helpful, and there are a lot of places where it’s helpful. Overall it’s better done than Fallout 3, since many things can only really be accomplished by passing a dialog check of some kind - usually Speech, but Barter and Science are sometimes alternates, or even raw Intelligence or Luck in a few rare cases.
Yeah, that’s the one negative about Vegas compared to Fallout 3. In Fallout 3 Charisma and speech skill mattered (in fact, I wrote the Wiki page detailing the precise effects after doing some in-game research on it). In Vegas, you can be Charisma 1 and it doesn’t affect speech checks at all, just how much of a boost you give to your companions.
Killzig
3728
Oh jeez, I totally forgot about those.
Soma
3729
Other than the NPCs, Dead Money is just a grind. Run of the mill Fedex quest! In dark halls! It’s Quake 2/1999 all over again! I think they are going for the Bioshock vibe but in Bioshock they don’t TAKE AWAY ALL MY AWESOME EQUIPMENTS AND MAKE ME TOLL AS A PEON AGAIN.
It is a 1-2 hour quest padded out to be 6-8 hours. If not for the raised level cap and new perks, I’d say don’t bother.
I held off on the Fallout 3 DLC until Broken Steel came out, and then did all 3 of them (Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt, Broken Steel) in a single new game. Sounds like that’s the best way to approach Dead Money as well.
I bought it today. But my new character isn’t high enough level, so I probably won’t be playing it for a week or so.
Any recommendations on the level for Dead Money, I heard 20?. My character is focused on energy,with back up of unarmed, guns are horrible 8. Are there a decent number of energy weapons or do I need to pump points into unarmed and explosives?
Soma
3732
Vending machines only sell magnum ammo, and there are plenty of spare guns for repair, so high gun skills help a lot. The monster drops are melee and unarmed weapons, so melee or unarmed route is fine. Energy route is tougher, ammos are hard to come by, and there aren’t many energy weapons for repairs. Though you get a reasonably good energy rifle right at the start, and eventually you get the workbench so you can make repair kit.
Though I think if you play on softcore mode it wouldn’t matter much, because there are plenty of cash for stims. Just a long grind. Playing in hardcore mode (as I did) is tougher, because whenever you are outdoors, your health constantly drops, slowly.
Thanks for the heads up maybe I’ll get the healing implant before I start, that would help.
Soma
3734
Oh yeah, one more thing, though the combat is REALLY boring, the plot, especially that sad story between Vera and Sinclair, is great.
So, I’m probably going to start New Vegas in a few days. About how long is the game? Assume all major side quests, main quest, and no exploration?
I finished the game yesterday, doing exactly that (well, maybe a tiny bit of exploration) and finished in 31 hours.
Cool, thanks. I’ll do some exploration, but that would depend on my mood and would be pretty variable.
nKoan
3738
I think I did it in about 30 hours or so, but I would consider myself doing a fair amount of exploration. But, I’d have to go back and look at my save game logs to be sure.
I would guess doing the main quest only (with limited detours) could be done in under 20 hours.
I don’t understand why guys would pay for a full game then only play 1/3 of it.
I did all the side quests I could find, and revealed 95%+ of the locations and it took me 80 hours.
Mmmm but you have to explore to do the side quests. My game was about 70-75 hours, and i didn’t explore everything. Think 50 hours for a full but not exploration heavy run.
