Fallout: New Vegas (2010)

A serious kick in the head.

Before I get started here, I wanna get something straight. I ain’t stupid. Okay, so maybe I can’t cook fake human meat. Maybe my answer to launching a ghouls’ rocket ship is smashing a keypad. When a dangerous robot asked for a password, I told him, “ICE CREAM!” That worked, by the way, even if I don’t know what ‘ice cream’ is.

I don’t wanna bore you with any tiresome backstory, either. The life I had before I woke up in Doc Mitchell’s office don’t matter much. It ended when a man in a checkered suit sent a 9mm bullet through my brain. When that life ended, another started. The doc explained that, out of kindness and boredom, he pulled out the bullet and stitched me up. Then he handed me a mirror and asked me to review his patchwork.

Oh, I forgot to introduce myself. My name’s Sheri-Lynn. I’m a redheaded Wasteland princess, and on top of that, a survivor. That’s for damned sure. I figure most folks who call themselves survivors say it’s ‘cause they grew up round the Raiders and Radscorpions and whatnot. They probably didn’t get pulled out of their own grave, though.

I told the doctor he’d done alright by me. The next thing he did was lead me over to an old Vigor-Tester Machine in the corner. I’m not sure what that’s got to do with science-stuff, but it ain’t like I got that many points in Medicine.

The Vigor-Tester measured all I was worth in Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck. I put my fingers on the thing, and it pleased me. Perception, 7; I can handle a gun, and the checkered-suit man was about to find that out. Agility, 7; I can sneak up on you and draw my sidearm before you know anybody’s there. Luck, 10? Well, in my experience, luck’s kind of an Old World fairytale.

Intelligence…1.

Huh. You can’t win em all, I suppose.

I got shot in the head, alright!?

With that blow to my pride settling in, I left Doc Mitchell’s office. When the blinding sun cleared my eyes, I found myself in a little town called Goodsprings. I met the big robot who dug me out of the ground, and I knew right away there was something he wasn’t telling me. After that, I discovered I had forgetfulness of a sort, and I had to go around asking folks to catch me up on local news I should’ve known already. And the hot topic on everybody’s minds was a skirmish that had their future hanging by a thread.

What they told me was a tale over 200 years old. In 2077, long before my birth, death, and rebirth, a standoff between the United States and China ended with big bombs dropping out of the sky. In a heartbeat, it was goodbye apple pie America, hello piss sandwich.

Now, in the present 2281, here we went again. It started with the arrival of the New California Republic. NCR’s what’s called a ‘constitutional republic,’ with Senators, Presidents, rules of laws, and other boring stuff. The way the New California Republic works is when it grows enough to cover your area, the New California Republic decides you and everything around you’s now part of the New California Republic. Ain’t that convenient? No forms needed or nothing!

The NCR was expanding into Nevada from the west, as the NCR does. But at a place called Hoover Dam, they bumped into another group of fellas, pushing in from the opposite direction. This was Caesar’s Legion, led by a man calling himself Caesar. Like NCR, Caesar’s Legion makes everybody a part of Caesar’s Legion, except without what’s called ‘human rights.’ They‘re slavers. Hoo boy, don’t get me started on what happens if you’re a woman.

They fought. The NCR pushed the Legion to the other side of what’s called the Colorado River. Now everybody was waiting on the Legion to regroup, and whatever happened after’d be the final answer.

Why were they so hellbent on fighting? Well, in the heart of this sandy, grimy trash pit, there’s a glowing jewel of neon lights they call New Vegas. The power’s still on there. Hoover Dam provides that power, see, and he who controls the electricity controls the Mojave, or some such shit.

Here I’ll skip ahead in my tale. I got Goodsprings out of a bind. Somebody else can tell you about that, I’m sure. I also learned that in my past life, I was what’s called a ‘Courier.’ I’d been carrying a package important enough to get shot over. Something told me getting this thing back was even more important.

Instead of heading straight to New Vegas to confront my would-be killer, I was forced to go south, and then kinda bend a long ways around. Otherwise I would’ve run into the Mojave’s worst critters. I wasn’t some superhero with a holy destiny, or long-haired monster hunter or a magic dragon sortof person. I was a delivery lady who happened to run into the wrong end of a bullet. Down and around I’d have to go.

But it all worked out, since I got to taste what life would be like under both the NCR and Caesar’s Legion. The Hoover Dam battle, and the struggle to control the land, crippled the NCR. Stretched thin, starved for resources, they couldn’t even clear Giant Ants off the highway without my help. Drug crazed Fiends were raiding farmsteads and disrupting the trade routes, with nothing strong enough to stop ‘em. The NCR’s territory was a complete mess, and they’ll be easy pickings for the Legion if things keep going the same way. Plus, as I discovered later, the NCR had their own dirty secrets. Just ‘cause they had a Constomtushion didn’t make ‘em angels.

Then there was the Legion. My first run-in with them gave me the worst impression. Severed heads on poles, crucifixions. That kind. They were, oh yeah, a different beast from NCR.

But the Legion had one advantage the NCR didn’t: safety. In their locked down world, caravans wouldn’t fear danger. There was no such thing as a raider or a Fiend. In other words, the Legion was for anybody putting security above freedom. You’d be crucified for breaking the law, and your daughters might become an officer’s whores. But at least the roads would be safe to travel at night!

Skipping ahead some more, I fought my way to the New Vegas lights. It was time to get my package back, settle a score, and finish the delivery. You can guess how I handled the checkered-suit man; turn the other cheek in this world, and you turn up dead. I got the thing back. Turns out I went through all this trouble for a poker chip with some computer stuff on it.

That sounds like it could end my tale, but there’s more. The fact I was a hired Courier before all this meant somebody hired me in the first place. So my next task was to meet the man—er, face, doing the hiring.

Of course it couldn’t just be the NCR and Legion fighting over New Vegas. Of course there had to be somebody else, too. Mr. Rupert House talked with this great deal of sureness, using big, big words that hurt my head wound. He talked like he was the smartest man who’d ever lived, and I wouldn’t doubt it. What I pulled from all the talking was he had this great plan for humanity, one he’d spent the last 200 years coming up with. He wanted to be the number one, no questions asked, ruler over New Vegas, and he needed that poker chip for it.

Once again, I found myself at a crossroads. Mr. House wasn’t evil. He didn’t have regular human needs, like money or coochie. He just wanted to see his ancient plan carried out, where he ruled over everything but stayed quiet and out of sight.

But…how much of this was about all of New Vegas? I’m not just talking about the gambling and hookers. I mean everything outside New Vegas, too, like Goodsprings. Mr. House had done lots to make his close friends super rich. Would it just be them that benefited in that wonderful outcome, or would it include the little people like me?

So we had the NCR, the Legion, and Mr. House. Who was right? Who was good? Who was evil? That was a question with an answer lost a long time ago. This wasn’t the Old World. Like me, this was a world that had been blown to Hell and come back meaner. Who was to say the NCR or Mr. House were the best choices, or the Legion was the worst?

While I was going dizzy sorting all this out, I found a robot in the back of the checkered-suit man’s old room. He called himself Yes Man. He agreed with everything I said and did, no matter how much it hurt him.

Yes Man offered me a fourth option: kick the big three out of the Mojave and run this damned place myself. New Vegas could be, once and for all, independent. Except kinda not, I guess, since I’d have control over an unkillable robot army. But look here, you get it. It’s a choice that says “fuck these people, ‘cause even a dummy like me can do it better than them.”

And that‘s all my rambling about the past. Now we’re in the here. I’ve got lots of power in my hands now. Power to decide the future. Sometimes that aches more than a bullet.

Since nobody uses those things they used to call ‘cars,’ you got to hoof it on foot from one place to another. While I move between towns and outposts, killing Raiders, looking out for Deathclaws, and running errands, the stars are my only friends. There’s something about a big open desert at night that’s as comfortable as it is creepy. The quiet soothes you, and it makes you wanna find a campfire to crash beside. But there’s always that tickly feeling where you think something’s creeping up on you. It’s never wrong, neither. I’ll turn around and there’ll be a Radscorpion or a Fiend. The air cracks with gunfire, and then there’ brains in the sand. Hopefully not mine again.

And in the end, all I can say is...damn. We sure made a mess of things, didn’t we? With the way things are going now, there’s no guarantee we won’t do it again. We’re still willing to kill over poker chips, and we’re still having wars. But whether it’s brains or Wastelands, you work with what you got, and you do the best with it. I can’t worry no more. I’m just gonna have fun.

Final Grade: A-