New Vegas Bounties II

Time to pick up where we left off last time, with the second entry in the Bounties series. Ultra-violence, tragedy, and drunken, profanity spewing outlaws await, reader!

This is, as the name subtly implies, the second entry in the Bounties series of mods by someguy2000. It aims to be bigger and deeper than its predecessor while maintaining that whimsical, blood-splattered charm that made his previous mod such a joy to play through. And does he succeed? Well...

First off, if you have the Someguy Series esm loaded, you can only begin Bounties II by completing Bounties I. To begin the second one once it becomes available simply travel tot he Boulder City Jail, where the NCR's best and brightest have assembled to combat the nefarious forces of the Mojave criminal underworld.

NCR's Finest

Get used to those quirky characters in the bounty office, because you'll be going there a lot. This time around there are more bounties to hunt but you no longer receive assignments directly from your handler. This time you have to track down and find actual Wanted posters scattered throughout the wasteland in order to activate the bounty. Most of the Bounties seem to be worth less this time around, but there's a catch: You can take in several of these targets alive.

I know what you're thinking. "Why would I take any of these scumbags in alive?" We're all thinking that. Sometimes it's just too entertaining to shoot a man and his entire gang, drag their corpses into a pile, then discover just how you can turn that pile of sadness into a joyful rain with the power of high explosives. But, just like the buzzkills from the REAL Old West, your handler gives you a greater reward for bringing people in alive instead of turning them into a fine red paste to be used in crafting recipes. Not all targets can be taken alive, but those that can can be captured in a variety of ways. You're given a shock collar at the beginning which, when used on a captured outlaw, "Encourages" them to turn themselves in with the strategic application of 50,000 volts if they select a different course of action. Essentially, once the collar is on, they run from their current location across the wasteland to the jail, upon which you will receive a notification that they have turned themselves in.

To get the collar on them, however, is done in many different ways. Some you can talk down or threaten if certain skills are high enough (Not always Speech. SPECIAL Stats like Charisma and Perception also play a roll at times, as do things like Melee Weapons, Unarmed, etc.) in which case they just end the conversation, put on the collar themselves, and turn themselves in. Other times you have to go through the formality of shooting them a few dozen times before they're willing to beg for their lives listen to reason. It's entirely possible during these encounters to not realize they're running at you to surrender until after you've turned their head into a pile of chunky salsa. To make matters even more complicated, these lowlifes aren't rendered invincible while running to turn themselves in. Yes, after you went through all the trouble to capture them, they can stumble into a nest of Cazadors and become acquainted with the painful end of their stingers. Which means then you have to march into that nest of devil bugs yourself so you can cut off the guy's finger and take it back for a substantially smaller reward.

Add to that that the posters are scattered all over the wasteland, from Goodsprings to Primm to Ranger Stations and even the Strip and the bounty hunting begins to feel like more of a chore after a while. Thankfully the bounty office contains a computer terminal that tells you where each poster is located in the wasteland, as well as the outlaw's backstory, crimes, and if they're likely to surrender or not.

The Face of Justice

But most of the bounties you pursue are just random wasteland trash that you haul in for a reward. The actual narrative that continues from the first mod doesn't begin until you choose to go after a fellow by the name of Red Bear. The hunt for Red Bear is extensive and drawn out, but since he's one of the baddest men in the wasteland (Mentioned in one of the plethora of notes at the end of Bounties I) it fits, appropriately building up to the final confrontation with him. After dealing with him however you wish there are a few more targets to go after before the main story ends, with the final one bringing you just a bit closer to the mysterious Marko, some sort of outlaw boogieman that lawmen AND criminals fear equally. The narrative has a heavier focus this time around as things begin to escalate and build up to the final chapter in the series which is welcome, and the crimes of the main targets genuinely make the player want to bring them to justice. The money earned from the bounties in the main story far surpasses that of the secondary targets, and someguy2000 continues his tradition of setting his Big Bads up with unique weapons and valuable loot, so the player won't be wanting for money if they can survive.

Yes, survive. This entry into the series is much more difficult than the first. You'll face entire gangs, inhumanly strong bosses, and booby traps. If your speech is high enough you can turn the odds somewhat in your favor. Or, if you can only achieve happiness through unspeakable agony and suffering, you can taunt your foes with a variety of profane and obscene dialogue options which makes them even more powerful and gives them even more mooks to fill you full of holes. In the end though, it's up to the player more or less to choose how the fight will go.

A new saloon is added just south of Novac which is home to the new companion added by the mod, Doc Friday, a former orthodontist. A ghoul gunslinger on a vendetta ride for the murder of his brother, Doc is amicable, honorable, and educated. He'll tell you tales of some of his exploits, the reason he took to gunfighting in the first place, and sheds a little light on the elusive Marko while he's at it. Help him avenge his brother and he'll join you in your adventures. He's a decent companion, good for conversation, but I usually leave him in the saloon and go solo. A few of his lines don't have VO which may be a turn off for some players but I'd recommend giving him a chance.

Speaking of the saloon, it receives deliveries of the NCR's very own newspaper reporting on, that's right, you. You can read of your exploits in the Coyote Courier, expertly and honestly reporting on the slaughtered families and dead children you leave in your wake.

Wait, what? 

To say that there is a slight bias in the paper is akin to stating that a meteor only kind of annoyed the dinosaurs. The slant in these papers must be seen to be believed. The reporter paints you as so ridiculously evil it just comes full circle from horrifying to hilarious. You can even visit him in his home and, uh, have a few words with him about his journalistic integrity. Literally, you can talk to him. And convince him to go to the complete opposite end of the spectrum and paint you as the Wasteland's very own Jesus, smiting evil-doers with your righteous .44 Magnum and giving homes to the orphans of the the Mojave. 

Other than that there's a side plot about some Legion gold that's infuriatingly difficult to find (The key is in Sergio's House behind a teddy bear. It opens the safe in Fisk's hideout with the key to the footlocker at the bottom of the lake, near the Scavenger's platform), and that's it. The narrative is even more engrossing than before and the Western atmosphere is even more prevalent, which is always a good thing when it comes to New Vegas. Revolvers and dusters reign supreme here. Despite some of the new features being implemented poorly (Geckos eating your bounty before he turns himself in), they are new features, trying to emulate the feel of bounty hunting from the days of yore. If you enjoyed the narrative set up in the first one (And why wouldn't you) the sequel will more than deliver on your story expectations. It remains engrossing throughout.

New Vegas Bounties

As everyone who even remotely pays attention to the gaming community knows, one of the most hyped games of the year was recently released. That's right, Fallout 4 has graced us at last. Which is why, in honor of Fallout 4, I will be reviewing some mods for... Fallout: New Vegas? What?

That's right. I have a confession. I haven't bought Fallout 4 yet. The Bostonian Wasteland continues to elude me as all my friends dive deep into the wasteland without me. I have been left in the radioactive cloud of dust, slowly ghoulifying with each passing day that I am denied my own opportunity to enjoy the newest set of wasteland adventures.

But enough whining, I need to save some for the other Fallout posts I make. This post will go over one of the more highly acclaimed mods for New Vegas, called New Vegas Bounties.

Author: someguy2000

New Vegas Bounties

Nexus Mod Manager (For quick and easy installation of mods, this is what I use)

Requirement: The Someguy Series esm (This file is required for all of someguy2000's mods, and must be placed before them in the load order).

The premise of the mod is simple, and right in the title. You hunt down bounties. But there's more than just the wanton killing, pop culture references, and excessive profanity, even though those are all you need to be successful.

The way it works is simple. You pick up a holotape in Goodsprings then travel to the firm Randall and Associates just outside of Primm, where you begin taking bounties from the eponymous Randall himself. Unsurprisingly they being somewhat simple, gradually escalating in both risk and reward. Each bounty you kill (No options to bring them in alive) you take their finger back and get paid, and Randall begins to open up to you about his own past as a bounty hunter and wandering gunslinger. The random tales he has to tell are an amusing distraction that come up every so often, when they feel needed.

The further you get though, the more apparent it becomes that there is someone working against you. You begin to find notes on targets or in random encounters from a mysterious rival bounty hunting firm that seems to have it out for both you and Randall. And here is where the true appeal of Bounties arises. The writing.

There is an underlying story to Bounties that shows itself gradually as you traverse its profanity spewing dialogue trees, referencing characters and events from both the past and future that gives the player a sense of other forces besides the ones in the Mojave making moves of their own. Add to it that all of the characters are well voice-acted, complete with full lip syncing while they immerse you into a brand new, well crafted storyline and you begin to forget that you're playing a mod. After a while it feels like a full-fledged DLC, minor audio issues notwithstanding. The narrative itself starts off in a similar vein to most in Fallout, but as it goes the tone shifts to something darker. Not dark for the sake of darkness but still more unsettling than most of the quests in New Vegas. I won't say any more on the plot. I believe that spoilers contain a power far more destructive than any nuclear missile, but rest assured that the story in Bounties is worth experiencing, even if you aren't a fan of particularly bleak narratives with a heavy Western atmosphere.

I spoke above of profanity and references. From what information I've been able to gather over the development process, the author assembled this content purely from pop culture references, alcohol, profanity, extreme violence, and more alcohol. There is a lot of swearing in this mod. So much swearing that I began to suspect that the author learned English exclusively from Tarantino movies and reruns of Full Metal Jacket. But I can't say that that in anyway detracts from the experience. You are, after all, hunting down drug dealers, slavers, outlaws, and hobos. Many of these assorted ne'er-do-wells are ripped from famous movies or books (One drug dealer by the name of "Tony Idaho" wielding an assault rifle named "My Little Friend" comes to mind), but in the strange and at times whacky atmosphere that Fallout is known for these aren't entirely out of place, though your mileage may vary on this point.

The bounties themselves aren't particularly difficult to bring in, aside from a few that throw a couple of twists your way, but several own unique weapons you can use or sell for good amounts of caps. The pay for the bounties, coupled with the junk you find on their corpses is enough to set a Courier up for a long while. One weapon acquired toward the end, a custom modeled revolver found in a safe, became my primary weapon when its good stats were rolled into a gun that brought you back to the days of the Old West.

If you enjoy Westerns, get this mod. If you enjoy good writing, get this mod. If you enjoy a well crafted experience from a talented modder, get this mod. This mod earns its recommendation.

In a day or two I'll set in on the sequel, Bounties II. Will it live up to the hype or do we need to string it up for failing to deliver? Well, there's only one way to find out...

Beside playing it for yourself. Or looking it up on Youtube. Or- actually I guess I was wrong. But come back here anyway. Please. It's lonely.

Introduction

Welcome, one and all! Come in, sit down, stay a while and listen. Listen to what, you may ask? Well, sit back and prepare yourselves.

I'm a college student. As with most college students, I don't like to do work. Even the strain of declaring the extent of my own laziness takes an immeasurable toll on me. Then, to my horror, this semester I was assigned a project. An undertaking of my own choice that would be due at the end of the semester. So I thought, what could I do to turn the tables? To actually make this interesting?

Why, make my project entirely about playing video games, of course. I've been gaming since the olden days of Diablo 2 so I'm not good at anything else gaming comes naturally to me. How would I make a project based around video games, you may ask? As a reviewer. But not a reviewer of games themselves, no, because someone else in my class was already doing that because I wanted to do something different. I'm reviewing mods. Yes, user created content for video games. Those beautiful additions that truly make PC gaming the envy of all others (Sorry consoles). 

So, yeah. Over the next few weeks I'll be putting up reviews for mods that I've played. The only focus I can claim to have is that all the games will fall into the category of "Games that I own" because I couldn't convince my instructor that a project like this needed a budget. My hope for this project? To get an A. And, maybe, get some of these talented modders a little more of the exposure they deserve for slaving away to create these gems for us to enjoy. To give back, just a little, and show my appreciation for the joy and wonder these people have brought into the lives of gamers everywhere.

But mostly the "A" thing.