Oleh: Muhammad Rafif Izzuddin Arkan

 

 Image Source:Fallout New Vegas Steam Page

 

Ain’t That a Kick in the Head?

The Fallout series is a series of video games first developed in 1997 by Interplay Entertainment for the first few entries and later on was sold and continued by Bethesda Game Studios. The series features 9 Action Role Playing Games (aRPG) including a Squad-based Tactical RPG, a Dungeon Crawler RPG, and a simulator game, set in the distant future of the year 2077 and beyond, on a post nuclear apocalyptic setting.

Fallout New Vegas is the 6^th entry in the Fallout series, the 3^rd entry that’s not part of the mainline entry, also known as the spin-off entry, and the 2^nd entry of Modern Fallout. Released in October 19^th 2010, Fallout New Vegas was developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Bethesda Game Studios. The game is set in the year 2281, 120 years after the events of the first Fallout. Located mainly in the Mojave Desert/Wasteland, a nuclear post-apocalyptic wasteland located in the state of Nevada, USA.

The player plays the role of Courier Six (referred to as The Courier), a courier working for a mailing company, the Mojave Express. The game starts with Courier Six being shot in the head twice by a casino manager named Benny in order to rob the courier out of a specific package. After a few hours left for dead in a shallow grave near the town of Goodsprings, the Courier was rescued by a robot called Victor and was nursed back to health by the town doctor, Doc Mitchells. The Courier wakes up in the doctor’s house, seemingly lost all of his recent memories regarding the perpetrator that shot them in the head.

Determined to search for clarity, retrieving the package, and to an extent, reprisal, The Courier is determined to look for Benny and demand answers for the actions he had done. The first half of the game revolves around The Courier searching for Benny, meeting multiple characters, factions, and the most important of all, decisions to make along the way.

Let Every Bettor Stake Their Claim

The quest for finding Benny however, is not the main point of the storyline. Along the way on his quest, The Courier will encounter a lot of factions. The bandit group Vipers and Jackals, the benevolent helpers of Followers of The Apocalypse, the paranoid hoarders of Brotherhood of Steel, and many more.

There are however, 3 main factions that seeks total control of the Mojave Desert. One of them is the huge and ever expanding New California Republic (NCR), symbolized by the Two-headed Bear in their flag. They seek to rebuild the Old World United States of America, with democracy as their main philosophy. The NCR is afflicted with the same disease that also plagues their predecessors, the USA. That is governmental corruption. Their main objective in the Mojave Desert is to defend the Hoover Dam and take full control of the city of New Vegas.

Their main counter-part is Caesar’s Legion. A slave nation made to rule with an iron fist in order to establish order among the chaos of the wasteland. Symbolized by the bull on their banners of war, Caesar’s Legion is led by a man known as The Caesar. They seek to control the Mojave Desert and bringing order by violence, where the strong shall rise above the ranks and the weak shall be enslaved. The Caesar does not tolerate failure and will punish even the highest ranked officers with cruelty and death.

There is a third faction. The mysterious and the de facto ruler of the city of New Vegas, Mr. Robert Edwin House. Robert E. House is an old world businessman and scientist that owns the robotics company, RobCo. House is over 200 years old, preserved in a tank at the top of his casino, the Lucky 38. With an army of robots called the Securitron, he aims to push the capitalist agenda to bring order, where the rich shall live comfortable as long as they are rich, and the poor shall receive the same comfort in exchange for servitude.

The game ends at the Second Battle of Hoover Dam where, depends on the player’s decisions and dispositions towards the main factions, one of the three main factions shall rule the Mojave Desert for good. There is however a fourth option, The Courier can decide to take control of the Mojave for their own. Disposing all 3 main factions and establishing the Mojave Desert a place of true freedom. Freedom that, if unchecked, has dire consequences.

My Moral Compass is Spinning, and It Won’t Stop Anytime Soon

One of the reasons Fallout New Vegas is highly praised is because of the flexibility on the storytelling. The player can do whatever they wanted to do within the limitations of the game. Multiple choices with multiple ways to execute them, dozens of groups and faction to help or to eliminate, the karma system of being good or evil, Fallout New Vegas gives the chance for the player to play by their own style and whim, whether they want to play as a savior of the Mojave, helpers of the needy or as a barbaric, cruel, evil slaver jerk, the game accommodates those decisions.

There is no “right” or “wrong” in Fallout New Vegas, there is only decisions and the consequences that follows it.

Final note

Fallout New Vegas is a game that gives you an option, a decision to follow where your heart moves. It’s a game that lets you choose which path you will take, that gives you decisions that can help others or bring them down, that lets you rise to the top whether with people by your side, ready to help you with smiles on their face or under your boots, ready to answer to your whim.

It’s definitely a must-play game. Whether you’re a casual gamer, a hardcore gamer, or just there for the fun of it, you will not be left disappointed.

 

Written by: Muhammad Rafif Izzuddin Arkan