Spoiler Warning S5E46: Drinking Game

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Aug 2, 2011

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 136 comments


Link (YouTube)

A few more things I wanted to comment on:

Honest Hearts begins with you joining a caravan, which has three voiced, named characters. Each of them are interesting. So much so that I was really disappointed that they died in the first minute of the DLC. I would have liked it if they lived just a bit longer.

I also really like how one of them is wearing a vault suit. If you have high enough medicine, you can out him as an addict of the drug Psycho. I enjoy the idea that vault dwellers appear in the wasteland from time to time. Maybe they get kicked out of their vault for being a jerk. Maybe they sneak out to sate an incurable wanderlust. Maybe they’re chosen to go out on some errand. Some embark on world-changing adventures, and some end up getting eaten by predators, hooked on drugs, or murdered by raiders. And some leave to find their father, only to have adventures so stupid that they ragequit in disgust.

Out of curiosity:

  1. How many of you shot at Follows-Chalk when he was introduced?
  2. How many of you expected Yao Guai to be a lot more dangerous?
  3. How many of you fell off a cliff when attempting to take a shortcut, as Josh did?
  4. How many of you went from, “Oh wow! A beautiful new landscape to explore!” to, “Damn it, another stupid Obsidian rat-maze for me to run” in the first 15 minutes of playing?
 


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136 thoughts on “Spoiler Warning S5E46: Drinking Game

  1. AlternatePFG says:

    1. It was only luck that I missed Follow’s Chalk. That stupid rooting you in place with your guns put away thing that they did in Fallout 3 would have been appropriate at the moment.

    2. Honestly, the Cazadors in the DLC (There are some, don’t remember exactly where) made me more paranoid than the Yao Guai. They were pretty easy but I was at the level cap anyway.

    3. Maybe a tiny bit of damage from falling, but no falling to my death.

    4. Honestly, I enjoyed the scenery enough to forget about the rat-maze like canyon, but I know that was a common complaint.

    At least there were no invisible walls, as far as I remember.

  2. doho7744 says:

    I did shoot at Follows Chalk the first time and killed him so had to do the intro all over again. I really enjoyed HH’s enviroment, especially the survivalists points. The “vault dweller” is a tweaker that stole his vault suit from some dead guy. He reminded me of Myron (It’s Myron baby).

    1. Michael says:

      I did successfully wax Follows Chalk during the ambush, followed the quest markers, and was literally on my way out back to the Mojave thinking that the DLC must pick up back out there and bring me back in or resolve out there somehow when the closing slides appeared, and I realized I’d done something “very” wrong. :p

      Fun fact: Myron was voiced by the same voice actor that voiced Boone.

  3. qwksndmonster says:

    I don’t think I’ve heard one person say that they DIDN’T shoot Follows-Chalk at first. Also, I’m expecting thursday and friday of this week to be endlessly entertaining. Make sure that ambulances are standing by the residences of these two brave souls. If they die of alcohol poisoning, how could you (Shamus) and Rutskarn live with yourselves? You’d be forever guild-ridden and would no longer be able to comment on video games.
    Anyways: Honest Hearts seems very interesting and I’ve heard good things about it. Does anybody recommend a purchase? I’ve also heard that Old World Blues is the strongest of the three DLCs. Can anybody vouch for this? Lastly, it has gotta be too hard to keep track of the constant drinking game anomalies, so for the sake of Josh and Mumbles’s integrity, they should probably just be pounding a beer every five minutes.

    1. Kelly says:

      Honest Hearts really only has the scenery, The Burned Man, and the tragic Survivalist Terminals going for it. It’s very short and sparse otherwise, it’s up to you if a little more New Vegas is worth 10 bucks to you.

      Old World Blues on the other hand is fucking amazing and 10 bucks is a STEAL for it.

    2. krellen says:

      I didn’t shoot Follows-Chalk. I did, however, headshot the White Leg he was trying to kill before he could.

    3. Slip says:

      I thought that the open space of HH was liberating when I played it right after DM. It has entertaining companions and some pretty hilarious quests (like getting your own Yao Guai paw via a ritual and fetching a stray Bighorner calf). It’s also fun exploration-wise, because there are plenty of not-so-easy-to-get-to caves that you can find.

      OWB is a beast, though. Hands down my favorite DLC so far.

    4. Destrustor says:

      Old world blues is definitely my favorite so far. It was somehow bugged in a way that made the game irremediably slow down to 1-frame-per-five-seconds, happening every five minutes and requiring me to save and reload to fix the problem (which often completely crashed my console), BUT IT WAS STILL WORTH IT. more than DM and HH combined, anyway.
      If you are luckier than me you should definitely buy it.

      What annoyed me most was that my brother, playing on THE VERY SAME CONSOLE, never had that lag problem. F U bro.

      1. retas14 says:

        Come on bro the ps3 is going to run like a charm for u one day… yeah good luck with that :p

  4. Irridium says:

    1) I didn’t. Saw him kill one of my enemies, my compass said he was friendly, so I didn’t shoot.

    2) Oh yeah. A giant zombie-looking bear like that… I expected strong as deathclaw fast as Cazadore. Shame they’re so damn weak.

    3) Once or twice… maybe three times.

    4) That’s what I thought at first, but it’s really not as bad as it looks. Though there are a few maze-type areas that are a bitch to navigate, it’s really not that bad.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Fast as cazador?But those are slower than deathclaws.So you were expecting them to be like slower deathclaws?

      1. TheAngryMongoose says:

        Cazadors are slow? You ever tried sniping one of those bastards?

        1. Daemian Lucifer says:

          Thats because they are erratic,but I played a melee character and I had no problem running back and hitting a cazador without him hitting me(unless I ran into something,that is),but I couldnt do that with a deathclaw.

          1. Irridium says:

            They’d always close the distance between me and it in the blink of an eye. Then others would notice, and I would be swarmed, and I would be very sad…

          2. krellen says:

            Cazadors have a very slow attack. Their actual movement is pretty fast.

        2. evileeyore says:

          “Cazadors are slow? You ever tried sniping one of those bastards?”

          All the time.

          But I can shoot a Cazadors wings off ’em at 50 yards so… yeah.

          But melee? Aw hells no. Even when I tried to play a mellee skilled character it’s to fast and confusing, I just die. All the time. SO I just to sneaking and sniping.

          1. TheAngryMongoose says:

            50 yards? I was thinking more far enough that even if a hit is non-lethal they won’t notice you.

            Strangely, Cazadors are the one creature I could never get that to work on.

  5. kanodin says:

    I’m a yes to all of them. Also I was genuinely amazed the first time I saw fish in the stream since I’m so used to dead and static areas in games, particularly post apocalyptic ones. Finally I’ve seen mumble’s drunk twitter feed, this is gonna get interesting.

  6. Moriarty says:

    Actually, the drug addict isn’t from a vault at all.

    I don’t know what skills are needed, but you can get him to admit that he only stole the vault gear from some dead vault dweller. His Pip boy isn’t even working, he just wears it because he thinks it’s cool.

    And to the shortcut thing, I didn’t even notice that, I jumped down cliffs multiple times without dying.

    1. And then you blackmail him into carrying more stuff for you.

  7. Chuck says:

    1. Oh, that’s what was going on. I thought it was a bug where he shoots at you and then doesn’t. But yeah I attacked him, then reloaded when I started failing missions.

    2. I brought my minigun, so I’m not too worried. And I just started playing the dlc and haven’t met a Yao Guai beyond the intro. The gecko’s do suck.

    3. I broke both legs once but haven’t dies yet. I’m being really careful, though.

    4. I don’t know, it doesn’t seem too maze like to me, but I might be more brazen in my cliff hopping than others.

    Also, I like how you guys have good things to say about the dlc. After Mumbles’ breakdown last week I was concerned.

    Oh, and for the next game, do the whole thing playing the drinking game. Rutskarn can be the time-keeper.

  8. Bentusi16 says:

    Fun fact about this ambush: The deaths are scripted, not random. You can kill the ones who supposedly kill the members (the sniper on the cliff with Stella, for example), and they’ll still die even if you wipe out the ambush.

    The tribals also speaking a very changed version of dutch/german language and accent, if you listen carefully. The dead horses anyway, I don’t recall what the other tribes language is. Spanish, I believe. It makes sense since later on you learn that the Dead Horses were descended from German immigrants who had been passing through an Indian reservation when the bombs when off (I think that’s the story anyway).

    Joshua Graham is really an interesting character. He starts out as a translator for Caeser, meeting him in a tribal village while Caeser was there on behalf of the Children of the Apocalypse. They head east to help in Arizona and after the rise of the legion, he decides to train and teach the soldiers of the tribes the best he can, reasoning that Caeser was still a good guy and was simply trying to head off genocide. Eventually he buys into the Caeser ego dream, and then he becomes the Malpais Legate in full.

    He’s the toughest the legion has to offer, with the 1st recon snipers (boones old squad) claiming 5 confirmed kill shots on him. Eventually he fails at the first battle of hoover dam, and because failure isn’t tolerated in the legion, Caeser orders him covered in pitch, lit on fire, and tossed into the grand canyon.

    It is so nice to see a character with religion that isn’t morally superior/inferior to the non-religious. Games tend to go the inferior way so often, painting the religious guy as a hypocrite or secretly evil or just incompetent/insane. Honest Hearts is a great exploration of religious themes without becoming ham-handed or preachy.

  9. Kelly says:

    He’s not a real vault dweller, he took it off the corpse of one. You can also out the fact he has no idea what any monsters are called, and that his pip boy is broken.

    1. Nope.
    2. Depends on your level and what you’ve got on you, when i first played all of them were Giant Yao Guai thanks to my level 35 characters (and all White Legs has Brush Guns and AMRs). On a replay I went in at 18 with This Machine and murdered my way through the whole DLC in 3 hours gaining massive exp, never dying, and seeing only one Giant Yaoi Guai.
    3. OH YES
    4. Well considering that the path is blatantly obvious and requires you to be completely blind to miss it…

    1. JPH says:

      “4. Well considering that the path is blatantly obvious and requires you to be completely blind to miss it…”

      You never fail to have a tone of smug superiority, do you?

      1. Kelly says:

        I can grant there’s rat mazes in this game (oh dear GOD the rocket launch center/the villa in Dead Money) but this is not in any way one of them. Honest Hearts is too small and has too few walls to be one.

        And yeah there’s a path, you can see it in the video. Josh wanders off of it to kill those yaoi guai on the cliff, then you can see him looking back and going over to it.

        1. JPH says:

          I haven’t played Honest Hearts so I can’t comment on that, but my point is that the way you present your opinions makes you sound very condescending and smug. The fact that the path was obvious to you doesn’t give you an excuse to be rude and talk down about people who may have gotten lost in the area.

          1. klasbo says:

            Did you even read point 3: “OH YES”?
            Of course Kelly is condescending and smug, anyone who is that good at falling off cliffs have all the right to be…

            No actually, I think the one who hasn’t even touched the discussion material (Honest Hearts) and is complaining about the smugness of others – thereby indirectly saying that their own comments are in some way superior – may be the rude one. This is a sword that cuts all ways, so now anyone can come in and say the same thing about me. Then someone else says the same thing about them.
            This is so damn unproductive. Talk about the contents and not the presentation.

            Back to work everyone, nothing to see here.

            1. Daemian Lucifer says:

              Well,if you insist.*khmkhm*No you are the rude one!

              1. klasbo says:

                GOD DAMN IT! My nefarious plan! /top-hat

            2. JPH says:

              Actually, I didn’t insult her like she insulted everyone who got lost in the area. All I said was that she sounded condescending. She said that you had to be completely blind to miss the path.

    2. poiumty says:

      Yaoi Guai are the best Guai.

      All my enemies had shishkebabs and 12.7mms. Got ten times more ammo for those guns off this DLC than I found in vanilla New Vegas.

      1. Sleeping Dragon says:

        Yaoi Guai are the best Guai.

        Daddy! Daddy! What are the bears doing? (Hint, they are NOT high fiving…)

      2. Rayen says:

        I would say i love “yaoi guai” but that would be a little weird huh?

        1. Daemian Lucifer says:

          Depends.Are you a guai or a guarl?

      3. Destrustor says:

        Yaoi guai are the best except when they are looking for -Ahem- …prey.

  10. Matt says:

    I actually did not shoot at Follows-Chalk, but probably only because I was playing melee weapons. I was gonna run up and hit him, but he got me into conversation first.
    Cazadores are worse, and probably my least favorite enemy ever.
    The cliffs are easy to stay on, it looked like Josh walked off that one on purpose.
    It IS kind of a rat maze of cliffs and rivers, but it’s still pretty nice to look at.

    Honestly, the strongest part of HH is the story of the survivalist, which I doubt you guys will read because it is on terminals. It is very interesting, though, and I put off doing the (in comparison) main quest to search for caves with more of the story.

    Also, they put in an NPC named Two-Bears-High-Fiving just because of you guys? That is hilarious!

    1. AlternatePFG says:

      Actually it’s named off of a mod that was released awhile back. They even showed it on the Bethesda blog, if I remember correctly.

      Edit: Yup: http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/195993412057463335

  11. StranaMente says:

    This week with Spoiler warning is going to Legen…. wait for it…

    1. therandombear says:

      and I hope you’re not lactose intolerant, because the next word is going to be…

      1. James says:

        ….dary

        ummmm all that dary

  12. Kelly says:

    Also
    A: If you get Sneering Imperialist you CAN basically make him the Malpais Legate again at the end by egging him on.
    B: STOP TALKING OVER JOSHUA ASDFASGADHH

    1. Shamus says:

      STOP TELLING US TO NOT TALK IN OUR OWN SHOW DJSAF JDSLSDKJSLDFJKSFDLKJ

      1. Hitch says:

        Yeah. If you want to hear all the dialog and see how things are supposed to go, play the game.

      2. Kelly says:

        It’s not my fault Keith Szarabajka’s voice inspires madness.

        Anyway, I do hope that Josh knocks more things off cliffs in these videos, that was great. Mauler is fun in general, Lanius’ sword has it to.

    2. Daemian Lucifer says:

      At least they have subtitles turned on this time.

  13. therandombear says:

    Damn Giant Cazadors killed me more then anything in HH..in fact they were the only things that killed me. Suddenly getting ambushed by them out of nowhere.

    1. James says:

      Cazadors like Wizard City can go die in a fire (for anyone unknowing Wizard city is an ad that appeared on youtube vids and i sware its the only ad now its fucking anoying and can $£%”£^$”^!£^$&%$!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    2. Ramsus says:

      Cazadors are in fact the only enemy in the entire game I fear. I hear the sound and go “oh no no no no”. Even after my sniping all the Deathclaws and running away (quite frantically) while firing HE Missles at the two giant ones, I still am more afraid of Cazadors. Hmm actually…knowing I killed pretty much every Deathclaw might have something to do with my lack of fear of them. I certainly know there are more Cazadors no matter how many I kill. Might also have to do with my first encounter of Cazadors going something like this: “What’s that noise? I’m dead. What?” “Ok, let’s try this again. Oh, a new fly enemy ok, no pro- I’m dead. What?” “Ok, hard fly enemies ok, time for the big gun, bang bang bang….bangbangbangbangbang omg these things aren’t dying, oh crap they move faster than I can run away, oh look I’m surrounded, dead.”

  14. Vect says:

    Think it’s stated that the Tribal’s language is a mishmash of European languages (Owslander is Auslander) and the English language.

    Speaking of Garrus and Joshua’s voice, both those Voice Actors were in L.A. Noire. Guy who does Graham is also the dude who does Harbinger as well as the cop in The Dark Knight that The Joker goads into a fight.

    Also, Graham isn’t a part of a cult. He’s a Mormon. They just call themselves “New Canaanites” instead. You can actually ask him about the origins of the Legion and he’ll tell you how he was there from the beginning and how he basically fucked up big time.

    1. Shamus says:

      You know, I hesitated there because I was trying to find the least offensive way to put that.

      “Hm. Would Mormons be offended if I said that the New Canaanites are Mormons, or would they be offended if I referred to the nominally-Mormon New Canaanites as a cult? Uhhhhh….”

      1. Kelly says:

        Well New Canaanites apparently believe that Jesus is the mother and Mary is the child. So make of that what you will.

        Speaking of that, that’s the most bullshit line in the entire DLC.

        1. Bentusi16 says:

          They refer to them as a cult in game because it’s not a religion the majority of the NCR follows, I believe.

          1. Deadpool says:

            Which is pretty much text book definition: A cult is just a small religion.

            The negative conotahetion the word has comes from those 70s and 80s death cults…

            1. A cult also has to follow specific behavior patterns to be counted as one – cults are generally more xenophobic and controlling. These are aspects all religions can have, but a cult displays the behaviors far stronger than normal.

              If anything the Brotherhood of Steel is the biggest cult in the game – even the REPCONN Ghouls are tolerant and accepting towards outsiders.

              1. Deadpool says:

                Words change meaning over time. It’s orignal meaning had very little difference from religion was used merely to describe smaller ones (i.e. numbers not counted in MILLIONS).

                For textbook definition:

                http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cult

                Webster’s also uses both the original AND the new definition

                http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cult

                No mention of xenophonic or controlling. Those are negative connotations added to the term after the advent of a large number of cults which WERE xenophonic and controlling.

                Example of current, non xenophonic and controlling cults: Most Cargo Cults. Not many left mind you, but they’re still there…

                1. Deadpool says:

                  Hate replying to myself, but this IS an entirely different thought derived from reading my own post…

                  Wouldn’t a variation on cargo cults be a pretty natural development in post apocalyptic society? Kinda surprised it HASN’T been used in all six Fallouts…

                2. I’m more referring to the cult mentality – The difference is, you don’t have to be a religious group to have a cult mentality – Amway and other pyramid schemes have it, despite not being religious, but the behavior and attitudes are similar enough that it makes sense to describe them as such.
                  The Brotherhood as well has a cult mentality, but they’re not a religious organisation they just really like technology.

        2. James says:

          for anyone interested here is the origin of KEISAR’s!! legion as written in the apendacies of the Col Edition Guide by Prima. ill shorten it down somewhat as it is quite long

          Keisar was once a Scribe for the Followers of the Apocalypse (you know the guys in freeside who live in a fort and bitch about the NCR constantly), he was on a 9 person expidition across the Wastes after leaving Bonyard (not far from shady sands) (where the Original (drink) Dogmeat is). he was disgusted by the primitive condition of the tribes they encountered and saw them as inferior (so essentially is a asshole from point a to point dead by josh) they found some preserved books about Rome, he read one about Julius Caesar and his strategic brilliance. then they got caught by some tribals who were weak, and under threat form people surrounding them. he taught them to fight and maintain weapons, they made him their ruler, and he then attacked the weakest of their enemies and used the tactic of total war in which you kill everyone, men women and children, some get to live as slaves, and then several years later the Legion is what it is.

          So Keisar started as an asshole who was “fed up with his lot” and so he enslaved and killed lots of people, you know cus he can. so basically he has no redeeming qualities.

          Joshua Graham was on the expedition he was a translator for them, joined Keisar in his training locals (the followers objected to this i think they were killed) and became the Malpais Legate, lost hoover dam to the NCR, got set on fire and thrown in to the Grand Canyon.

          1. poiumty says:

            For anyone interested, here’s pretty much everything about Caesar:
            http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Caesar

            Funny how the internet works like that.

          2. Deadpool says:

            *nitpick Dogmeat was in Junktown. Not Shady Sands or Boneyard.

            Boneyard WAS where you first meet the Followers, and fairly certain it was their birthplace…

      2. Vect says:

        New Canaanites are just the new name for Mormons since they live in New Canaan, aka Ogden, Utah.

    2. GiantRaven says:

      The worst thing about the Burglary desk being cut from LA Noire is that Garrus would’ve been your partner during it.

      I really hope it gets released as DLC….

  15. Hitch says:

    Please tell me that at some point Josh puts on the ranger hat and gives us a nice view of Smoky Cuftbert with his fire axe. Then he can use his incinerator to start a forest fire.

  16. Airsoftslayer93 says:

    1.yes, but he didnt die

    2. yep, but then i went exactly where josh went, and killed a bunch with my ballistic fist

    3. yeah, so many times

    4. yep, and i couldnt find the angel cave, spent 10 mins running around the cliffs in that area, finding lots of hollow rocks and punching bighorners.

  17. Raygereio says:

    Rutskarn: @9:25 Dutch tribes? Whu? o_O

    1. Sir Broccoli says:

      The Dutch tribes: Noble savages who spend their days with carving wooden shoes, farming hallucogenic plants and not tipping their waitresses.

      1. Raygereio says:

        not tipping their waitresses.

        Well, the woman does have a salery.

        1. lupus_amens says:

          shut up Pink.

  18. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Really Josh,shamans are what you find hard to believe?You live in a country where after one small economic crisis(it is small when compared to the ones we had in the beginning of 20th century)a governor of a state asks people to come en masse to pray to a god to fix all their problems,and you find it hard to believe that after a real apocalypse people would start believing in shamanism?

    But then,I guess reality is unrealistic.

    1. Bentusi16 says:

      If your talking about the New Canaanites, the Mormon “family” (Pretty much the entire religion as based around Salt Lake City) bought the Vault that was being built there and filled it up with themselves, so they are literally just Mormons with a new name. They are still using the original books.

      As for the tribes, if you assume that they simply forgot a majority of science for awhile there, or were isolated from it, the human cycle begins again and you have to have something to explain the wind and the storms and the gigantic things that want to eat your face.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        They dont even have to forget it.I recently read a serious statement saying how science is just 50 years old,while islam is as old as humanity itself.

        1. Falcon says:

          Which makes your head spin when you consider that many of the sciences and technologies that brought Europe out of the Dark Ages came from Islamic countries!

          That said my own religion hasn’t exactly been a paragon of scientific understanding…

          Perhaps we should curb the Mormonism discussion, this could get out of hand, and fast.

          1. NonEuclideanCat says:

            Also, pretty sure the first instances of using an experimental scientific method to figure shit out were by Islamic scientists.

        2. acronix says:

          And don`t forget dirt was invented yesterday.

        3. Deadpool says:

          People still believe the world is FLAT. Or that the Holocaust was faked.

          Also this:

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGuXCuDb1U

          Is a SURPRISINGLY accurate description of a small party I went to at a friend’s place… Except I’m better at biting my tongue than he is.

          People are stupid

    2. Raygereio says:

      Right, because most monotheistic religions don’t have serious problems with shamanistic views so it’s naturally that the former would evolve into the latter.
      Oh wait.

      I’d have to go with Josh; unless Fallout’s pre-war US has a seriously different religious viewpoints then it just doesn’t make that much sense. Then again, what really does in the Fallout lore? For me the tribes’ far greater offense is just being really silly.
      Personally I’d have gone with Christian elements alongside the tribal motive. But I can understand why the developers would have shied away from doing that.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        But religion isnt science and you cant really piece it up from the scraps you find.And how well versed in any religion an average person is?You really expect them to teach their children everything perfectly while trying to survive after the apocalypse?Not to mention that its not just the adults who survived,but also children who lost their parents,and why should they be knowledgeable about a religion?I doubt that praying and believing in your god would take priority over survival in the first days after the apocalypse,and once it does get reestablished,would it really be one of the religions we have now?Sure,some would preserve the old books like the mormons in this dlc,but to expect everyone to do it would be just silly.

        Heck,look at the legion:One guy who had some knowledge about the romans attracted followers and instructed them in some of the ways of the old.Thats not implausible(though some other things about them are,but thats not important).So if some charismatic guy who believes in the wind,or the river,for example,starts preaching to ignorant people who know no better,why cant that develop into a cult of its own?

        1. 4th Dimension says:

          You are forgetting one thing about religion. It offers one thing necessary as much as water and food in that kind of situations. HOPE! (And for those cynical one could argue that religion might ofer some peope suitable group of people to blame everythng that has happened on) Hope in better tomorow, hope that somebody is watching over them, and that all theis suffering is part of a plan, and they will be awarded for it in life after death.
          Also most religions services are collective thing, and would bind people together, and they would need to get together and work together to survive.
          Now I’m not arguing major religions would have survived with doctrine intact, but CORE beliefs would survive.

      2. They do have Christian elements! At one point you can tell Daniel that his preaching about God has been interpreted as referring to the survivalist, who they already kind of worship as the “father in the caves” or something.

    3. Ziggywolf5 says:

      I think Josh’s point is that ALL the tribes seem shamanistic. You have a bunch of supposedly unconnected groups descended from (presumed) Christians turning from monotheism for pseudo-animism for no obvious reason other than “we’re primitive now”.

  19. Eärlindor says:

    I. I don’t think I shot at Follows-Chalk, but if I did it was a pot-shot. All I remember was I thought he was a White-Leg and all the while when he was talking to me I was rude to him. I don’t think I figured it out until after I met him again at the camp.

    II. My recollection on that is really fuzzy as well. I guess I might have expected more.

    III. Dang it! This is another fuzzy area; it’s been a while since I played this DLC, but I don’t think I died (assuming a did jump off a cliff).

    IV. I liked the scenery. I think I only got lost a couple times.

  20. cadrys says:

    Wait wait wait. Y’all are playing FALLOUT and complaining about stereotyped situations? SRLSY? Of *course* any barbarian-leaning tribal in North America will turn “Native American.” At least we’re not getting “How!” and “Ugh!” for greetings.

    [Paragraph exploring likelihood of successful “Fallout tribes” arising from a core group from a tribal _reservation_ removed.]

    1. Bentusi16 says:

      They’re dutch.

      The other tribe is Spanish.

      White Legs are generic raiders.

      As Shamus points out, all tribal cultures tend to share certain aspects.

  21. Slip says:

    Joshua becomes kind of an arsehole once he’s your companion and you’re locked into the final quest. He keeps saying things like “now is not the time to stop for a chat” or whatnot if you try to bring up his companion wheel. Which is somewhat annoying, because I had no interest in hearing his innermost secrets, I merely wanted him to LUG STUFF for me. The perks he gives you are rather useless, too, especially if you’re unarmed/melee.

    Yao Guai might not have been too bad on their own, but I got cornered by a pair of them and two Cazadores at the same time once. Suffice to say that was a little stressful.

    Follows-Chalk is hilarious, by the way; I found his random comments on things very entertaining.

    1. Gale says:

      Yeah, I didn’t think I’d be thrown directly into the final sequence after talking to Daniel, so I started the quest overencumbered by almost 150 points. Had to dump a lot of gear, just because Joshua didn’t care to carry any of it.

      Which is fair enough, I guess. I mean, it’s not he ever agreed to be your pack mule. But I gave up a lot of gear in that moment…

      1. In his defense, his skin is constantly in pain and he’s covered in third degree burns all over his body. I don’t think he wants to have a heavy pack pressing down on him.

    2. Ringwraith says:

      Although, the perk he gives doesn’t need to be good, as he’s a complete monster in combat.
      He managed to inflict this on a poor guy before his body had even hit the ground.

  22. Dante says:

    “some end up getting eaten by predators, hooked on drugs, or murdered by raiders while trying to find their father, only to have adventures so stupid that they ragequit in disgust”

    Which is exactly what happened with Reginald Cuftburt

    1. Keeshhound says:

      Don’t explain the joke.

  23. Zastrick says:

    I never had issues with dying going down cliffs. It’s kinda consistent in Bethesda games that you can press against walls you’re going down to trick the game into thinking you’re not falling. I remember doing this in Vivec all the time in order to make my exit trips faster. I abused this frequently in this DLC to speed up travel.

  24. Myth says:

    I avoided shooting Follows-Chalk (and was proud of myself for spotting that he wasn’t an enemy!)

    I did, however, reload half-a-dozen times trying to keep Stella and Jed Masterson alive. Before realizing it was a scripted event.

    Yao Guai didn’t scare me (since I was in the high 30’s and actually got to keep my gear in this DLC), I didn’t fall off any cliffs, and I found the trek to the camps long but not too difficult to navigate.

    However, I must confess to one thing – not being a melee character, I never equipped the fire axe, and up until this episode, assumed it was some sort of crazy flaming weapon like the Shishkebab. Not, you know… a perfectly ordinary fireman’s axe.

    1. Raygereio says:

      assumed it was some sort of crazy flaming weapon like the Shishkebab. Not, you know… a perfectly ordinary fireman's axe.

      I’d laugh at that, if it wasn’t a completely reasonable assumption in a fallout game.

      1. Hitch says:

        Yes. Until I saw it, my thought process was, “Fire axe — flaming axe — typical Josh weapon.”

      2. Sumanai says:

        I laughed while thinking that it was a reasonable assumption. It makes it all the more amusing.

  25. Ryan says:

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Joshua Graham also the voice of Harbinger?

    1. Raygereio says:

      Yup; Keith Szarabajka.

    2. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Assuming direct control of these guns!You cant take any of them courier!This gun is just a vessel for my clips!

      1. Keeshhound says:

        It would be great if Joshua Graham had a “this hurts you” taunt when in combat.

    3. Jakale says:

      Did anyone else get the feeling that Joshua’s character design was a nod at the Princess Mononoke gun designing lepers?

  26. Archaic says:

    it took me a long time to realize that some of the geckos in this dlc poisoned you. it took a couple of ” how did i die deaths” to realize that :(

  27. Annikai says:

    I didn’t realize that Shishio Makoto was in the fallout universe.

  28. Mersadeon says:

    Hey, Spoiler Warning Crew, if I’m allowed as a guest commentator in a future episode, I’m going to play the Drinking Game with harder alcohol than beer! ;D

    On the episode: Well, I haven’t played Honest Hearts yet, but I kinda expected a more… epic first meeting with Joshua, a bit more cinematic.

  29. poiumty says:

    1. Oh man, I think I almost killed him. Shot him in the head with my standard anti-materiel rifle. HA! TAKE THAT YOU TRIBAL PIECE OF SH… oh wait he’s friendly and he’s supposed to talk. Wa-hoops.

    2. Yes. Though I didn’t expect them to do much against my equipment either way.
    3. Guilty as charged.
    4. Guilty as charged.

  30. Ringwraith says:

    1. I didn’t have a decent scoped weapon with me as they tend to weigh a bit much, and as the White Leg initially there had a SMG I tried to get a bit closer before shooting, so I saw Follows-Chalk rather clearly and didn’t try to shoot at all.

    2. I actually found the Yao Guai to be pretty much second only to Deathclaws, as they swiped my health almost as fast, and came in packs. The only saving grace I had was their lack of DT so I unloaded with my And Stay Back-enhanced Dinner Bell into them. They’d still kill me in two or three swipes however.

    3. I abused the heck out of fast travel, so I didn’t need to fall off many cliffs, I just fast travelled away from the cliff Josh just got stuck on. Any others I tend to do the wall-hugging trick honed from being in Vivec too much.

    4. I didn’t have trouble getting around it, and didn’t find it very mazy. Although I did like the use of the verticality of the space.

  31. Avpix says:

    I have a funny feeling that if someone tries to make a mod of Joshua moving incinerators across the room it would glitch and he’d never put them down, he’d just pick up incinerator after incinerator.

  32. GTB says:

    I did all of those things. The survivalist terminal stories and (then later finding his bones, set up to watch the sunrise as he finally died) made up for everything.

  33. Starwars says:

    1. This happened to me. It’s really unfortunately set up the way it is now. I appreciate that the DLC does provide the freedom to basically eradicate everything in Zion though.

    2. Didn’t really have any particular expectations with the Yao-Gui. Just one of those enemies that I figured would be better handled by shooting them from afar I suppose.

    3. Never happened to me. In fact, if you’re careful (yes), then you can really get around in Zion, most high-up places have ledges big enough so that you can sorta ease down.

    4. This I seriously don’t get though. It’s not a rats maze at all, the place is really simple to navigate. The only place that’s even remotely confusing is the camp in the Narrows and that’s only because of the verticality/different levels of it.

  34. Even says:

    1. Sure did, but I got cut off by the dialogue hijack before I managed to do too much damage.

    2. I wasn’t expecting much.. I actually managed to miss the whole “Yao Guai kills Green Gecko” scene the first time.

    3. Couple times, but it’s often possible to glitch your way down by abusing the geometry. You gotta go it slowly, wedge yourself against the wall as you fall and try to hit an invisible ledge to break your fall. That only works though if the wall curves away from you, but it’s pretty easy once you figure it out.

    4. Never really had that problem to begin with. Give me a Compass and the Local Map and I’m good almost anywhere. The Narrows took me a while to get around first though.. I mean, they could have made it a lot simpler by just giving some more logical means to access to the higher ledges from below other than having to go through a zillion caves first to find the right one that actually leads up. And more bridges. Stupid tribals.

  35. Zombie says:

    Is it just me, or does it seem like really bad game disign to show an enemy, and then replacing him with a friendly, in the span of a few seconds, which if the players arn’t paying attention to their radar thing, they will try to kill, and If they do, they fail the quests?

    1. Starwars says:

      The lead designer on the DLC seemed to regret it as well, saying that it suffered because it was not a thing planned out from the start. It was implemented late in the DLC development and consequentially not tested enough (or at all, wouldn’t surprise me given the smaller budgets on DLCs).

  36. Dev Null says:

    Nitpicking – and nitpicking a DLC pack that I haven’t played, based on a single screenshot from your playthrough that I haven’t watched yet, because I don’t want to spoil it for when I do play it, so I’ve possibly reached some previously unplumbed depths of unjustified meta-troll-nitpicking – but what the heck is Reggie doing with that axe? In the shot he appears to be holding his hand up in front of his chest, with the blade of the axe pointing halfway between out the back of the knuckles and down along the back of his arm. Is he doing forearm curls to stay in shape? Is he trying to scratch his ear with the spike on the back? Maybe he’s swatting flies and is using the flat of the blade for a larger surface area? He’s certainly not threatening anyone or in any way using it like an axe…

    1. Gale says:

      Yeah. I guess it was economical to just use Fallout 3’s sledgehammer animations for the fire axe or Dead Money’s knife spears, but it does end up looking kind of weird. And I can kind of understand why they chose to point the blade towards the crosshair/enemy, but, like you said, when you actually stop to look at the position of the hands, it’s just completely bizarre.

  37. Avatar says:

    I wasn’t really happy with Honest Hearts. Granted that it’s better-looking than the rest of New Vegas. But I actually went hiking in Zion Canyon a few years back, and the game does not do the place justice. Beautiful, beautiful country. And the scale is a lot different – I never really got the impression playing the game that “oh, this is actually kind of a deep canyon!” until I got into the Narrows. Where did Angel’s Landing go? It’s only a 1200-foot-tall mountain smack dab in the middle of the canyon, how do you forget that?

    Was going to pass on OWB until I heard reports from friends that it was as good as it turned out to be. Toaster…

  38. ps238principal says:

    On the up side, having those people die in the first 15 minutes DID affect players, I think. I mean, normally Faceless Caravan Guard #2 and Caravan Merchant #5 only have a place in our hearts because we can sell things to them for caps. It’s also kind of unusual to have named NPCs with voice acting behind them to get offed by someone who isn’t the player.

    I was more upset with them biting it in a scripted event instead of just having them follow you and not being indestructible: That usually takes care of companions pretty rapidly, especially if they’re prone to diving in front of my line of fire or just charging headlong at whatever has triggered their threat detectors.

  39. ps238principal says:

    RE: The Fire Axe and mob corpse ballistics.

    Shamus probably can wax more eloquently on this topic than I, being a coder, but here goes my theory based on what I’ve seen in this game series. My theory (which is mine*) is that the creatures’ corpses become ragdolls the instant you kill them, and their resulting trajectory and velocity (or that of their dismembered parts) is calculated by how fast and in what direction the mob was moving at the time of death along with what direction the killing blow came from and how hard it hit. There’s probably an “overkill” factor as well, where if you do damage beyond that of a mob’s HP level, that damage is transformed into velocity and dismemberment effects. Thus, if you kill something with only 1 hit point left with a powerful weapon, it’ll be like you swatted a Whiffle Ball using an aluminum bat swung by an unnamed baseball player hopped up on steroids.

    I base this largely on a bug I encountered in the “Broken Steel” DLC for a while that’s been fixed, I believe. Whenever I encountered Feral Ghoul Reavers initially, their limbs moved like the creatures were agents from “The Matrix.” I believe some developer forgot to carry the two, and the game was giving their body parts velocities approaching the speed of sound. These running blurs would not only be a pain to kill, but when they got blown apart or died, their corpses and/or parts would fly like missiles, sometimes killing me or even taking out nearby securitrons as they blew past. Other than the frustration of reloading my saves, it was kind of cool to watch. It made me wonder why nobody had thought of that being a trait of some mob when it died, showering the area with flying body parts of death.

    * apologies to John Cleese and Miss Anne Elk.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      One problem with that:The axe launches even the living opponents sky high.It probably just has knock-back trait and some obscene value for it.

  40. Kresh says:

    Yes, Yes, No, and Yes.

    The canyon maze made me want to snap, especially after I explored the end-game area and though “What a cool place! Look at all this debris! I wonder where it’s coming from?” Then, when there was no source for the piles and piles of old-world junk, I was sad. That canyon needed a bunker, or something, or anything to explain away the piles of junk.

    I was also sad at how easy it was to bug out the ending, leading me on a 30-minute google chase to complete the end in JUST THE RIGHT WAY, so as not to bug the whole thing out and leave me stranded in the middle of an endless death-loop auto-reload nightmare.

    Of course, the less said about the boss loot footlocker, the better.

    On a tangential note: I think the Sorrows tribe, based on the messages from the Survivalist (and after playing the high-school survival maze in OWB), is descended from children who escaped from Big MT.

    More tangents; The Dead Horses are from a reservation, as only the Sorrows are a tribe native to Zion. Which is weird, seeing as how Follows-Chalk talks about how the Dead Horses and the Sorrows mark the caves of the Father, yet Graham and Follows-Chalk talk about how the Dead Horses came to Zion at the request of Graham. Of course, Follows-Chalk could be merely mentioning the similarities on how the Sorrows and Dead Horses treat pre-war sites, seeing as how he’s so darn excited to go exploring. Obviously, Follows-Chalk should have been renamed to Follows-Courier and followed the player back to NV.

    I’m sure the strip would have amazed him.

    1. Even says:

      Having him follow you to the Mojave is indeed a missed opportunity considering his personal quest where you have to tell him either to stick with his family or go out exploring the world. Considering his naivete, it’s fairly obvious that letting him go alone is not necessarily a good idea. I really wanted an option to tell him that he could come with me when I’m done with the place (Zion), but alas..

      I remember the devs saying something along the lines that they’d generally love to add more depth with the DLCs, but it’d be either a massive pain with the existing scripting/coding of the Mojave area and/or too expensive (having to hire voice actors again etc.)

  41. Nasikabatrachus says:

    The question Rutskarn asks about people named “josh” is very incisive. Joshuas tend to have a lot of weapons up their sleeves, even in ancient literature. In the Hebrew Bible, the Joshua who conquers Canaan carries around sun-stoppers, wall-toppling horns, and probably an incinerator since he burns some cities up. All in all, he’s very much a Cuftbert. In the “New Testament”, a less action-packed sequel to the Hebrew Bible (sort of like how the Odyssey is to the Illiad), this Joshua guy gets really pissed off at some money changers in a temple and–get this–makes his own whip to drive people out of the temple. He was also hacking evidently, because he was able to give out thousands of fish-and-bread meals and was able to eat himself back to good health after being brought down to one HP by Caesar’s Legion. He was also very much like Cuftbert, as his blood was evidently high enough in alcohol content to qualify as wine.

    1. And yet the guy named after me in the DLC is a peaceful, naive missionary helping out a bunch of tribals and afraid to get his hands dirty, and his biblical equivalent is some pious fool who got himself thrown to lions and was saved by a deus ex machina. There is no justice.

  42. Destrustor says:

    1 : No, I didn’t even get the chance. Mister Follows-chalk-and-engages-in-small-talk-across-canyons grabbed my camera from the other side of the bridge before I even noticed him.
    2: Yes. In fallout 3, those things were so bad that I was extremely reluctant to go in caves where I knew they lurked. I guess I just got de-sensitized to them after having to deal with cazadores.
    3 and 4; Meh, not so much.

  43. Jokerman89 says:

    1)How many of you shot at Follows-Chalk when he was introduced?

    I didnt, tbh for me he came well after i had dealt with the enemy

    2) How many of you expected Yao Guai to be a lot more dangerous?

    Yea i didm they go down way to easy…

    3) How many of you fell off a cliff when attempting to take a shortcut, as Josh did?

    I outright jumped off a few thinking i could survive it, and fell off a few trying to “cut the knot”

    4) How many of you went from, “Oh wow! A beautiful new landscape to explore!” to, “Damn it, another stupid Obsidian rat-maze for me to run” in the first 15 minutes of playing?

    Yes i did that, Took longer than 15 mins though :D

  44. Milos says:

    I killed the shit out of that tribal the first time around, but the much worse part is I didn’t notice the quests failing (I guess I didn’t pay attention and thought new quests were being added) so I went around and looked at the scenery exploring every nook and cranny for 4h before I went up north to Daniel’s camp and only then noticed something was strange. I thought it was a bug and I looked around wiki for another half an hour but the DLC just came out and there was no new info. So I spent more time trudging through forums and only then I noticed some other people having the same problem and it was explained to us we killed someone we shouldn’t have. We were also called stupid for making that mistake but if so many people made it then that’s bad game design. I mean, you could almost deduce Obsidian doesn’t play test their games enough.

    I had to restart the DLC and this time around I was sick of it so I went straight for the story parts and got through it pretty quickly and was left feeling almost cheated.

    As for the other 3 questions, no I can’t say I had any of those expectations.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Well,if the dlc had the same treatment as the original game,then its bethesda who didnt play test the game properly,which isnt surprising either.

  45. Rayen says:

    Damn i wish you guys didn’t have to do these in bunches… I’d like to say “hosts whenever we need to drink please say so cause i’m playing with you.” Instead i think i’m just gonna say are we working off the old fallout drinking game rules? are there any additions? and haven’t played HH so can’t comment.

    I got all the way through my bottle of heineken this episode. course i modded the game so i drink every time 2 people talk at once.

    1. Deadpool says:

      We’ve been kind of adding to it with time, so it’s a bit hard to follow…

      Josh screams: “Stop shooting me!”
      Reginald ingests more than 3 things in a single inventory visit.
      “in the original –”
      4 people speak at once
      Reginald dies

      That’s all I remember…

      1. Entropy says:

        When Reginald gets addicted to something.

  46. 1. Yeah, I used him as target practice for the .45 SMG. Hell, I’d be more surprised to find someone who DIDN’T blow his brains out
    2. Actually no – because I think the intention was the Yao Guai are big and scary for the tribals, but they’re really only a mid level encounter for an average player. Follows chalk actually says (a lot) “I bet you never get anything as dangerous as Yao Guai where you come from” which I figured meant Obsidian knew they weren’t that threatening.
    3. Yeah, and mostly I’m pretty good at abusing the strange sticky properties of Gamebryo cliffs.
    4. Yeah, I figured pretty quick the starting area was about as open as Operation Anchorage. Luckily it opened up a bit towards the middle.

  47. Bodyless says:

    1. Yeeah i did

    2. Yes but most of the time, you only fight the small cubs. There is a quest to get a bear fist and then ghost Yao Guai and that thing murdered me so hard, i had to abuse my companion to tank the damage while i shot it.

    3. Not me, i was actually impressed that the comanions where able to follow me down the cliffs and not go running around it like in rest of NV.

    4. Only a few parts were bad, its alot better than Dead Money maze insanity.

  48. Andrew B says:

    1: In the words of the Sniper, “boom, headshot.” (Yes, I did lug both the AM rifle and my heavily modded .308 with me, along with almost nothing else other than ammo and armour.)

    2: Not really, but at level 35 with top end weapons, armour and perks I don’t expect ANYTHING to be a challenge! I’m playing for the fun at this point, not the challenge.

    3: Yep, but not to my doom.

    4: No, I liked the environment here. I didn’t find it too confusing either for whatever reason. (Paths and signs helped me.) I also loved the plentiful resources for craftig food, water and healing kits, as I’d blown my weight limit on things to make people dead. It makes hardcore mode seem more meaningful, especially with a decent survival skill.

  49. Sydney says:

    Josh leaping from a cliff and snagging a cactus-flower thing on the way down was pretty classy.

  50. Chris says:

    I shot Follows Chalk the first time, it was basically the same as Rutskarn described it. I saw fire coming from that ridge, and in the time it took for me to put the smg away and pull out a scoped gun I had missed the transition. It took me like half an hour or so of wandering around to figure out how badly I’d broken everything, it wasn’t until I got to Daniel’s camp and fortunately new enough about the DLC to realize they shouldn’t be hostile that I ended up going back to reload.

  51. Vipermagi says:

    I fired a missile, realised my mistake before it landed, and then shot one at my feet (which didn’t kill me; derp).

    Did fall off cliffs, but skipped the dieing part.

  52. Some Jackass says:

    I killed FC bout 6 times before i realized he wasnt a White Legs…

    I was rocking the Animal Friend perk at the time so I went fearlessly charging passed my first group of Yao Guai assuming theyd leave me alone…I was very wrong.

  53. kingcom says:

    I dont exactly understand Josh’s anger about the Fallout 2 tribal start. They lived in tents, remarkably similiar to modern camping equipment (without the metal and fibres obviously) not tepees. They didnt have a medicine man, they had a shaman, a man who knew how to make healing powder (which is basiclly a natural painkiller, like the stimpacks that do the same thing), seems like most tribal cultures had a spiritual leader who could mix the whole science with religion thing. I honestly found absolutely no connection to native americans whatsoever, no particular language patterns or attitudes…just generic hunter/gatherer society.

  54. Phantos says:

    I am so glad I’m not the only one who shot Follows-Chalk the first time, not realizing he was a friendly.

    I spent the rest of the DLC on the run, scavenging what I could, under attack from pretty much everyone and everything. It was a pretty intense experience. Alone in the wilderness, having to live off the land against people and creatures who know the land better than you.

    I’m glad I gave it another go, doing it the proper way with the questline and everything. Although the way you’re supposed to play it never really lived up to the same tension as that first accidental playthrough.

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