Spoiler Warning S5E34: Welcome Back!

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Jun 21, 2011

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 104 comments


Link (YouTube)

I just watched the episode. I know we were giving Josh a hard time about the incinerator, but now that I can read the screen I see the incinerator is the least of our problems. Josh is still lugging around a missile launcher. Look at that crawl of items as the episode drags on. It’s an endless list of heavy, worthless stuff we all know he will never, ever use.

Can you talk to him for me? He just doesn’t listen to me anymore.

 


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104 thoughts on “Spoiler Warning S5E34: Welcome Back!

  1. Eric says:

    I think Josh needs an intervention. For… a great, great many things.

    1. Alexander The 1st says:

      “Hello, my name is Josh, and I’m an incineraholic.”

      “Hello Josh.”

      ~~~

      *First conversation tree*

      “Alright Josh, here are the steps to recovering from incin – hang on, my pager’s going off…wait, I don’t have a page-“.

      *Cue dynamite explosion*

    2. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Hello,my name is Josh,and Im a hoarder.

  2. Zagzag says:

    I was actually under the impression that Josh was carrying this stuff around just to troll you! It appears that it isn’t a joke…

    1. Falcon says:

      No, no, no. See in the real world carrying heavy stuff is what makes you stronger. See all Josh is trying to do is make Reginald stronger so can carry around even more heavy stuff. It’s not a troll, it’s an exercise plan.

      1. Hitch says:

        Maybe it’s a Bethesda thing. In Oblivion the more you mindlessly spammed any ability, the better you got at it. So, the more heavy junk Josh carries around the more he can carry. Eventually Reginald will be strong enough to go back to Nellis and steal the B-29.

        1. Klay F. says:

          Not only will he steal it, he’ll pickpocket it off Loyal.

          1. Then he’ll arm the bombs on board and put it back in Loyal’s pockets, where it will explode taking the entire airfield with it.

            Wait, he already killed him. Damn.

      2. Jeff says:

        Reminds me of Jagged Alliance 2. Go Josh!

    2. Sekundaari says:

      I was wondering the same about his comment on the swearing.

  3. neongoggles says:

    the missile launcher I can stand. but the Grenade machinegun? I think he got rid of the Incinerator but I might be wrong. also if the hood had white fur trim then it would be the awesomest hood in brown awesome hood land.

    1. Raygereio says:

      the missile launcher I can stand. but the Grenade machinegun?

      Somewhere a drunken guy in Las Vegas is grinning like a madman.

      1. decius says:

        If you have the ammunition for them. Otherwise a crowbar is better.

        1. Sucal says:

          That’s the same for every gun though

  4. Eric says:

    Glad to see the return of more insightful commentary rather than the moaning during Dead Money.

    I agree, Cachino’s a bit weird in that you can’t blackmail him into helping you, but I guess once you sell him his journal back he’s your friend forever? Or something like that… it’s a minor point and something that doesn’t matter that much in the end, but an extra line of dialogue would have explained it nicely.

    One thing that’s interesting, and that you never learn if you side with Big Sal, is that he’s got masters of his own he’s working for, and it can end up being a minor problem for you later down the road. It’s a nice twist that works into the overall story and kind of makes sense given the political situation in the world.

    On the Securitron comment: I’m of the understanding that while House could theoretically wipe everyone out, even the entire Strip, and eventually replace them just as he initially did, it would set his plans back for a while and considering the status of the Platinum Chip and the fact that he’s now revealed its purpose, time isn’t exactly of the essence for him. Having to start New Vegas all over again would potentially take decades, and he simply can’t afford it at this point.

    1. Hitch says:

      That, I feel, is the biggest drawback to fully voice acted NPCs. Because of the time and expense of recording dialog, they can only provide a limited number* of options for getting through any given quest. Sometimes it ends up with pure guesswork to figure out what the designer had in mind. Some dialog trees end up with the opposite effect you would imagine.

      * (and by limited number I mean very rarely you’ll get more than one.)

      1. Sleeping Dragon says:

        And even when there actually ARE multiple options they are often an illusion of choice, something like:

        Option 1: I agree and will help you.
        NPC: Glad to hear that. We have to blablabla…

        Option 2: I hate you and everything you stand for, I won’t help you.
        NPC: We don’t have a choice but work together on this. We have to blablabla…

        At least in NV you actually have an option to antagonize people or factions. The thing became really painful when doing para and rene playthroughs of ME2 in quick succession. I understand the game is, in fact, pretty linear, and the actual phrases made about the same amount of sense for both options (which is to say: sometimes none). It was just painful to listen to them again when you had them fresh in memory as answers for the OTHER option. It wouldn’t be that hard to write a different dialogue leading to the same final result but having to include a recording drastically increases the amount of work and money needed to do it.

        1. anaphysik says:

          Hmm… actually I was quite surprised by ME2. It seemed like every option in dialogue *did* lead to a different statement (not a different outcome, but different talkings), pretty much the opposite of many conversations in ME1 (I think there was about 1 time in ME2 where I noticed very similar or the exact same dialogue as another option, but I can’t remember it… as opposed to the prob. dozens of times I recall such dialogue from ME1). ME2 also had Shep talking and responding more (prob. because the faux choice between 3 mini-statements when there’s only one actual dialogue was simply cut out of the middle and the dialogue plays automatically). Probably not to everyone’s taste, but I actually found the way ME2 handled dialogue quite refreshing. (Now, some of the idiotic things Shep says I take issue with….)

          1. Sleeping Dragon says:

            To be perfectly honest I never replayed ME1. I’m not normally much into replaying games, even if there are different outcomes or major choices I usually just watch the alternative paths on some LP or something, I only really replayed ME2 because SW motivated me. It was probably painful for me because I don’t have the comparison to other games and am thinking along the lines “man, this is so much repetition” rather than “this is so much LESS repetition than in game X”. Still, I have a good audio memory, I tend to remember phrases as I hear them so hearing them again when I was expecting something else was, for me, somewhat annoying.

        2. Soylent Dave says:

          I find that Bioware usually treat ‘choosing a different option’ as ‘play the responses in a different order’.

          It is frequently quite impressive, the way they structure conversations so that a sentence moved from the middle to the beginning turns an NPC from ‘grudgingly helpful’ into ‘friendly’… but it’s still more than a bit tedious when you remember the conversation from a previous, supposedly different, playthrough.

          (this may also be why so much Bioware conversation comes out as hokey as it does)

      2. Daemian Lucifer says:

        Theyve managed to do it pretty well in alpha protocol.

        1. Adam says:

          Obsidian did Alpha Protocol, not Bioware. AP is actually REALLY impressive in this regard because there is very little repeated dialogue between the three (sometimes four) stances, and different applications of said stances can lead to entirely different conversations. (I’m pretty sure the only times dialogue is reused for different stances are during pure-dialogue missions like with the arms-dealer in Moscow, and some bosses.)

  5. Zukhramm says:

    The Gauss gun is definitely is definitely pronounced as in Carl Friedrich Gauss who probably has five things named after him in all possible subjects, including guns appearance.

    1. neon_goggles says:

      well he formulated mathematical descriptions of the magnetic effect used by magnetic accelerators.so the appearance of the gun most probably has nothing to do with why they are called that.

  6. Dude says:

    HEY JOSH! SELL THE MISSILE LAUNCHER! Or else I will chop your moustache off when you’re not looking and sell it to Rutskarn. He desperately needs manhood. (That is not a pun, you perverts! NOT A PUN, YOU PERVERTS!)

    1. Sleeping Dragon says:

      Maybe he could take that other half of a dick from Cachino?

  7. Jarenth says:

    Shamus, take this advice from a man who cares:

    The sooner you stop caring about the Incinerator, the Missile Launcher, or whatever over-heavy piece of junk du jour you’re getting upset over, the better your life will be. Really, it’s quantifiable.

    Us Season-2-Commenters call this the ‘Energy Weapons’ effect.

    1. JamesF says:

      Failing that, just close your eyes every time he opens the inventory screen.That way you can pretend he doesn’t have them. Then you can imagine a scenario where he sells them, buys lots of heavy (but useful) things, that are the new cause of his overencumberance.

    2. Sekundaari says:

      I prefer the “Gauss Rifle Effect”. According to my memory, Reginald was killing stuff left and right with the Metal Blaster.

      1. Jarenth says:

        But that doesn’t synch up as well with the many, many cries of “Josh, for the love of Harold put some damned points into Energy Weapons already!”

        1. Reet says:

          Yes but as I remember it he eventually did. I guess that means we should shout at him more?

          1. acronix says:

            The problem might be that we need to invoque someone else. Evidently, Harold isn`t doing his thing.

            1. Well Harold’s a tree over in DC, so I guess that explains his lack of influence on the events in the Mojave.

              I vote we invoke the mysterious stranger instead.

              1. Alexander The 1st says:

                Or maybe the Mojave desert that makes us wish for a nuclear winter.

  8. Hitch says:

    I’m sure everyone knows (but I’ll say it anyway because I’m so often wrong), but there is a mod that changes Veronica’s face to a reasonable facsimile* of Felicia Day.

    *(Or as good as the game’s face engine can manage.)

    Also I’ve noticed a pattern with Fallout DLC. “Buy it for the story which will inevitably disappoint you. Enjoy it for the completely overpowered rewards that unbalance the already precariously shaky game.”

  9. JamesF says:

    Am I the only one who now finds it strange to be back in regular New Vegas? It just doesn’t feel right.

    I fear I may never reintegrate succesfully into this society. Dead money changed me.

    1. Littlefinger says:

      I felt like this after I finished Dead Money. I felt out of place and bored back in the regular wasteland. I deleted New Vegas about 2-3 playing hours after finishing Dead Money. (30 minutes were spent hauling my gold-loaded encumbered ass ever so slowly to my shack at Primm Pass).

      1. Milos says:

        Oh my God, I thought I was the only person stupid enough to do this. I crawled allll the way back to prim my pockets bristling with gold instead of like maping there and back two times and finishing it in 2 minutes. I don’t know why… it just felt right? This might have been the only time I sort of RP’d in FO:NV outside of game’s constraints.

        1. Littlefinger says:

          In my “defense”, I did have all 35 gold bars with me, as well as a truckload of new weapons, armour, repair kits, and other useless junk.

  10. dromer says:

    The hardest thing about the Incinerator isn’t finding it…
    It’s learning to let go.

  11. Museli says:

    Josh at 17:40: “Where did you get that? You didn’t hear me pulling it out of your pocket?”

    This probably shouldn’t have followed Rutskarn talking about dicks. I got confused and rather unnerved for a moment there.

  12. Littlefinger says:

    About disproportionate amount of lesbians: this game is nothing compared to Vampire the Masquerade – Bloodlines. For the uninitiated, in that game, you had 3 conversation stats, intimidation, persuasion and seduction. Now, there were probably about 75% male npcs in that game, and if the pc is male, seduction was almost worthless, because only about 2/3 male npcs were receptive to male seduction lines. By contrast, all but one of the female npcs were bisexual, and almost all the men fall for a female pc, making seduction an actually useful skill for a woman.

    1. John R. says:

      The whole “disproportionate number of bisexual women” thing was also in Fallout 2. The designers of New Vegas are just respecting continuity.

      1. Deadpool says:

        The two hicks were both bissexual, so they cancel each other out… Mrs. and Ms. Bishop were bissexual, I guess (never tried). Anyone else I’m missin?

        1. ehlijen says:

          Every prostitute in every brothel? Including the head lady at the cat’s paw?

          Mrs Bishop is bi, but Ms Bishop is not. As a woman it’s also almost impossible to talk to her at all without turning the whole building hostile.

          1. Deadpool says:

            Bah, they don’t even have dialogue trees, I barely count them as people. I’ll give you the Cat’s Paw lady, but there’s also a male Super Mutant in Broken Hills… Women lead 3 to 2, but it’s not really THAT much of a landslide…

            1. ehlijen says:

              Well, if you don’t count the brothels (which is fair as they wouldn’t do it for their own fun), than yeah, it’s fairly even.

              But “I barely count them as people” is hopefully meant as “I barely count them as characters” :P

              1. John R. says:

                Okay, a fairer way to put it: “of the female NPCs who will have sex with the Chosen One, a disproportionate number are bisexual.” I think that covers everyone but Ms. Bishop.

    2. Simon Buchan says:

      Not that it really makes the lack of male/male seduction any better, but the stat descriptions (as well as the whole PnP rulebooks and vampire lore in general) make it pretty clear that vampires have a limited form of mind control. So I don’t think the majority of people you can seduce really think you are *just that sexy*.

      1. ehlijen says:

        That would be an argument if it worked both ways or actually required vampiric powers in VtM:Bloodlines. The skills are just that, skills anyone, even mortals, can acquire. Mind control (called dominate just for extra dodgyness) allows extra conversation options, but they are almost never necessary.

    3. BenD says:

      I have no idea about V:TM, but in FNV I really don’t read every woman that the female Courier can get into bed with as lesbian (or bi). They’re just readily seduced by a woman with a sufficiently badass reputation. Experimenting, or whatever.

  13. Jjkaybomb says:

    Mumbles was pretty quiet this episode, I was actually surprised to hear her the few times she did talk!

    Was there not enough cannibalism and/or puns to catch her interest?

    1. X2-Eliah says:

      Clearly she was too shocked and dismayed at the rampant lesbianism lean that the game had.

    2. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Im surprised she didnt say something about cachino,a guy who swears almost as much as she does.

  14. Sleeping Dragon says:

    RE: Veronica

    You know what they should do with her model? They should have modelled her after Day. They should have made a separate, custom model to make her look more lifelike than other characters. Oh, and give her some kind of bodytight amour. Oh, and add some animations where she leans against objects in the environment when there is nothing going on and the camera moves so it shows her ass. And make her an obligatory companion for a few plot quests. Ideally it should be that player has to work with the BoS and Veronica is their representative on the team…

    1. anaphysik says:

      “You know what they should do with her model? They should have modelled her after Day. They should have made a separate, custom model to make her look more lifelike than other characters.”

      I predict she would end up looking like…. I don’t know, Quasimodo.
      (Shrek’s obviously taken already.)

      Also, don’t forget the near-impervious plot armour.

      1. Jarenth says:

        Your suggestion that someone would want to kill this character, modeled in this way, presented in this sort of setting, is entirely baseless and also crazy.

        1. anaphysik says:

          Someone is either very serious or very facetious here. Problem with the internet is that you can never tell…[/ignoring usage of fauxTML tags]

          (EDIT: tags which for some reason fail to show when using angled brackets, despite there being no opening tag…grumblegrumble)

          1. Simon Buchan says:

            <lern2hmtlnub>You need to escape < with entities: &lt;.</lern2htmlnub>

            1. anaphysik says:

              Thing is, I’ve never had this happen to me when I was using *actual* tags and closed one incorrectly. Maybe it’s some ‘in my day’ stuff.

  15. Slip says:

    20:09 — Exactly, exactly! That is totally what I wanted to do. I wanted to double cross everybody and wipe out the Omertas entirely, the little twats that they are. Instead, I got roped into working for the bosses and losing positive Strip rep on my attempting-to-be-a-decent-shmuck playthrough. Oh, how I raged.

    1. kanodin says:

      I’ve never done the “Give Sal the journal” path, but couldn’t you just shoot him right after doing so?

      1. Slip says:

        I don’t remember exactly how you get locked into place with the quest – it’s been quite a while – but there is definitely no satisfactory method of backstabbing. Yes, you can kill the Omertas, and I reserved a time slot to slaughter the whole casino before going in for the very last quest, but as soon as you surrender the diary to Sal, you’re a bad guy. You’re part of the Omertas, and there’s no way to pull out clean.

        1. Destrustor says:

          but doing the quest as the henchman of big sal is what allows you to get the PIMP-BOY!!! The PIMP-BOY! the pimp-boy is so awesome that even my good karma dude helped the omertas screw the whole strip over just to get it. (it does nothing more than a normal pip-boy, is easy to miss unless you know exactly how to get it and is somewhat buggy, but it is golden and diamond-studded and so cool!)
          Thanks to rutskarn for mentionning it a while back. I owe you 1000 awesome points.

  16. bit says:

    Did you steal that key while he was looking down at you and TALKING TO YOU? Wha-?

    1. X2-Eliah says:

      Josh was so good that he gave the phrase ‘in the blink of an eye’ a literal meaning.

      1. bit says:

        Or maybe he just has terribly short-term memory.

        1. Reet says:

          You mean like the woman from Rutskarn’s hitman LP?

          1. Andrew B says:

            There was a woman in his Hitman stream?

          2. Alexander The 1st says:

            Or…um…what’s-her-face…from that DLC…for this game…

    2. SlowShootinPete says:

      Real life pickpockets usually do it by “accidentally” brushing up against/stumbling into someone to distract them from the hand rooting around in their pockets.

    3. Cookie Of Nine says:

      I don’t see why he needed to steal the key since Cachino JUST GAVE HIM ONE A SECOND AGO, and told the guards to let him in.

      Then again, it is Josh…. So Yeah…

  17. Nasikabatrachus says:

    “Gamorrean” is the name of an STD, while “Gonorrhea” is the home planet of the pig-men in Star Wars. Gomorrah, on the other hand… Well, you know the city Sodom? Gomorrah is named after an even weirder move.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bar3GOzDNzg

    1. decius says:

      I hope you were trolling for people who actually know their STDs and/or Star Wars trivia.

      1. Simon Buchan says:

        Not to mention: Gamorrean is the race, Gamorra (or close) is the planet. Wait, does this count as falling for it?

        1. Adam says:

          Totally does. Also, the planet you’re thinking of is Gamorr.

          *Is a SW nerd*

  18. Daemian Lucifer says:

    The dlc breaks the already broken economy of the game.Like you actually need more stuff by the 20th level(well maybe you need more ammo,but hardly anything else).

    I think they tried to model veronica to look like felicia day,but with this engine,this is the end result.

    What is that Shamus is talking about at 11:20?What comic are they talking about?Was that the lame webcomic from the guy who didnt play baldurs gate I keep hearing about?

  19. Hey Shamus, any chance you guys could extend the left and right side of the Spoiler Warning title card so it too is 16:9 aspect?

  20. The Hokey Pokey says:

    I hope Josh picks up the pimp boy 3 billion. It would make the time he spends in the inventory a little more enjoyable.

  21. Eärlindor says:

    Oh wow, I did not know about the chips and the vouchers. I’m going to have to go back for that. Thanks Josh.

    I also didn’t know about the message for Veronica on the computer, I completely missed that. It’s really nice to see they did at least something because I didn’t think they did anything at all. I was really annoyed that I couldn’t talk to Veronica about Elijah, or Christine for that matter.
    Now I see they did a little something for Elijah, but still nothing for Christine.

    1. bit says:

      But to be fair, does Veronica ever mention Christine by name? Or vice-versa? So although that can be extrapolated from the plot, it’s not necessarily something you’d know outright enough to really mention it.

      1. Eärlindor says:

        I disagree. Even if she was never mentioned by name at first, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be able to bring it up later. They already did half the work, they could easily have recorded more dialogue. And to say my character didn’t pick up on it is bullcrap. I’m the player. I picked up on it. You’d have to be clueless not to. It felt like the two events were in separate vacuums, which I greatly disliked.
        There is no reason why we can’t ask more of games. Especially when we know it’s easily within reach.

  22. Casper says:

    The solution is obvious- he must then USE the missile launcher! Shoot the next creature you come across.

    1. bit says:

      At point blank range. It’s a melee weapon, right?

    2. Alexander The 1st says:

      But only that next creature, and not a single other one during the entire playthrough.

  23. Deadpool says:

    You know what the saddest thing about Bethesda Sprites are?

    http://fallout.wikia.com/index.php?title=Marcus&image=Marcus-jpg

    http://fallout.wikia.com/index.php?title=Marcus&image=Marcus_highres-jpg

    He looked better TEN YEARS AGO… I know, I know, it wasn’t his in game model, but still… TEN FRIGGIN YEARS!

    1. Sucal says:

      Of course he looked better. Hes gotten older

  24. ehlijen says:

    I have no problems reading Gauss as both Gawss or Gowss. But then, bilinguality does that.

  25. Irridium says:

    Something Fallout related…

    Interplay titles on GoG.com are half off. So all Interplay titles are $3.

    Games like, Freespace 1/2, Descent series, MDK2, and Fallouts 1/2 are all $3 a pop.

    So yeah… buy now, beat the rush!

    1. ehlijen says:

      Wait, they’re selling Freespace again? I thought the game and source code were officially released for free?

      1. Irridium says:

        They were, but from what I’ve researched, they didn’t play too well with current operating systems(Vista, 7). So GoG got it, optimized it, and is now selling it. Or something, I don’t really know that much…

        Suppose it was a way to make it easier for people who don’t want to faff about with code and operating systems to get it working. Like if you wanted to just go and get the game for free, you could and they wouldn’t mind, but they’re there in case you don’t want to do all the hard work.

        Just speculation on my part though…

  26. mixmastermind says:

    3:23 to 10:56.

    That is six and a half minutes spent on just adding to your inventory. Good God.

  27. jokerman89 says:

    That was a weird episode

  28. CalDazar says:

    Oh yeah, got the best companion in the game.

  29. deiseach says:

    “Can you talk to him for me? He just doesn't listen to me anymore.”

    Was there a time when he did listen to you?

  30. Vect says:

    Veronica I thought doesn’t really want the Brotherhood to become the Followers. I just thought that she just wants them to do something useful with their technology rather than just hoarding it while getting themselves killed.

    Basically she’s a heretic who believes in Lyons’ dogma and must die.

    Also, funny thing about Cachino: He stops swearing like a motherfucker when you sell his fucking journal back to him and make him your little bitch.

    I think House and the Three Families have a rule about how he can’t storm Casinos with his Securitrons because even it’s bad for business and he comes off as a psychotic tyrant to everyone else. House is pretty big about keeping a good image and trying to to be an overtly evil overlord, preferring things like this done as subtle as possible. That and whatever Cuftbert does to them is far worse than any robot he sends in.

    1. Shamus says:

      Trivia: I had this in mind when I wrote the title:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVS3WNt7yRU

      Yes, I’m old.

      1. mixmastermind says:

        I also had this in my head and I’m 20. Maybe I’m weird.

  31. xXDarkWolfXx says:

    Josh i think you need to admit you have a problem. The first step to solving your problem is admitance. You need to admit that your addicted to carrying heavy weapons for no reason.

  32. Myth says:

    Yeah, I was a bit bothered when dealing with the Omertas meant backing either Cachino or Big Sal. I think I managed to make it work for me by going the Cachino route. However, at the end, I convinced him to back me when we confront Nero and Big Sal… Iand then I let them kill him off first before finishing them. Everyone was dead, the goons in the place didn’t seem to ever really acknowledge their lack of leadership, and I could walk away happy.

  33. Fang says:

    What? No comment on Shamus not cutting himself off? MADNESS.

  34. rasmusernst says:

    What were you eating Shamus? :-)

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