Fallout: New Vegas: The Divide

Ulysses. He's the courier for The Courier to look up to. The Courier's elder.

Okay, here's what I know about him so far--he knows everything, he knows me, he sees through me, he wants to kill me, he doesn't want to kill me, he'll let the world kill me, and everything he says has to do with walking and roads and history, and he sounds like he's a chain-smoking death metal vocalist who's permanently pissed.

This pussy stays hidden and talks through an eyebot, which he despises.
When I find him I'm gonna punch him.

Oh, by the way--I'm finally playing Lonesome Road, the fourth and final DLC Bethesda launched for the title. This is the third time I've been to The Divide. The first time, my save file had gotten too large--the whole game beaten, plus the first three DLCs beaten and fully explored.

On Hardcore Mode. It was awesome.

The first time I ventured into The Divide ...

   the game would lag intolerably, invariably leading to freezing. After some obnoxiously heavy internet research, I found the only thing I could do was start over.

So I did. That hardcore mode game was the second time I'd played through the main storyline. Before I purchased any of the DLCs, I had already played through the game twice.

To say the least, I was more than ready to enter The Divide. All through the main storyline, and in each DLC, hints are dropped about this other courier. This Ulysses. This guy who's maybe out to get me, asking questions about me, and sounds really important.

And the thing is, the DLCs are all made to go in chronological order, in the order they were released. So by the end of the third one, you've got all the hints they're gonna give you about Ulysses and The Divide and what happened there, and you know it's intrinsic to you as a character.

And FURTHERMORE, The Courier, your character, can be customized to the letter--male or female, and the shape of the face. I mean, you can change nose sizes and eye widths and shit. It gets intense.

The point of this customization talk is that your character is basically an extension of you. And you can make you into whatever you want. So you play this you character all the way through the main game and the first three DLCs, and right before you can end it all and do the fourth and final one, it starts to lag on you and slow down and grind to a halt?

It's The Most Insulting Thing a Game Has Ever Done to Me.

You're fucking invested by that point! You want to know what's going to happen to these characters! And it's better than a movie because you're involved! (your avatar is anyway)

I took it pretty hard. I played other games for a while. But I came back. 

The way in which they leave the clues is so cool--you just have to play it, I'm not going to give you examples and spoilers. If you have--you know what I'm talking about. How Ulysses helped Christine with the thing, and they left recordings about it in the Big MT, and in fucking Sierra Madre he was talking with Jacob... ah. It all equals good writing on the part of the game developers. Thank you, Bethesda, for making such a quality game.

The second time I ventured into The Divide ...
   (read in Ulysses' gravelly, smoking whisper-speak) I was weak. Level 10. The Roads I walked... not far enough. The history ... not finished playing out. Couldn't make any speech requirements. Had to go back. Leave the Divide. Back -- to the Mohave. Where HISTORY would have its WAY with me--in a grain silo ditch by a fire ant mound.

It was my current, third playthru.

First time I went with House, my avatar a caucasian male, looking like James from Fallout 3, same hair, grey, white dude. Second time I was NCR's bitch, a smoking hot caucasian redhead named Elizabeth Alexandra Knightingale. Third time, my current game, I'm Ceasar's weapon, Mexican male, dark-brown pomp & sportin a sweet 'stache.

So yeah I went in there, failed all Ulysses' questions, and was like, "Fuck this. If I'm gonna have The Divide experience, I'm having it all the way."

It was one of the Hardest Gaming Decisions of My Life. I was eager, to say the least, to jump in there and get my hands dirty. But I had been too hasty going in there. It was too soon. 

I turned around; walked away; gained levels. Did a few more random quests. Got stronger.

The third time I ventured into The Divide ... 

   ... everything went smoother. My avatar is finally strong enough to handle The Divide, and smart enough to handle most of that weirdo Ulysses' speech challenges. My game loads levels and terrain and enemies smoothly, giving me the Lonesome Road experience I have been craving for so long.

Oh, wait, let me take my helmet off.

There ya go.

Say hello to Abeladro el Martillo Gundisalvus

My lockpick skill is low, but I made sure to have Abeladro's Speech up to 90, the Repair really high cause that's always the most valuable thing to me, and my Science up to about 40. I've been ignoring all levelup perks except Intense Training the last three levels--putting points into my Intelligence, so there's more skill points to distribute per level.

Today I played it in front of my kids, for criminy's sake. I'm so amped about it I can't even play Skyward Sword or something a little more kid-friendly. New Vegas isn't totally violent, but the imagery is shocking. Destroyed lands. Nothing pretty. Nothing but rubble everywhere. Plus superscary monsters and fucking DEPRAVED CHARACTERS and so many WTF-Did-That-Just-Happen moments you begin to crave them, to seek out the next Fallout Fix. (sweet song title)

For the past year or so I've been a Skyrim devotee, taking my redhead Nord female through Sovengarde and slaying that bitchass Alduin with ease. He didn't even put up much of a fight. And the game didn't end, and I'm all, wft?

At that point, I saved the Skyrim universe, and I felt it an appropriate time to finish The Divide once and for all. So I just arbitrarily started playing New Vegas again. I'm glad I did, this game fucking rules.

It is the logical route to go for one who grew up when I did--the Era of the Rise of the Video Game--and liked the early Final Fantasy titles and other role-playing games as much as I. Fallout is better than Final Fantasy right now.

I'm still gonna get FFXIII-2 when I get a few extra bucks, though. Going through the Faultwarrens on my current FFXIII game--stuck on that C'ieth at the end with the really normal-sounding name ... Gabriel?

And I really have to stop typing and live my life now.