Much better than Dead Money. It was kind of sketchy at first, with the fake Native American crap and twenty-minute hike to the Dead Horses camp, but the quality instantly went up when I met Joshua and Daniel and the central conflict became apparent. They actually made pacifism seem like the shitty impractical option, which is interesting because the pacifist option is usually the bestest good-guy thing you can do and expected of all good characters.
The dilemma works better in some encounters, but not others. Daniel makes a passionate but not very well-thought-out case for just letting the White Legs have Zion... and then Joshua starts quoting sinister Bible verses at you in that evil voice of his, letting you know to pick him for the Dark Side ending. That was pretty corny.
Poor Daniel gets screwed no matter what ending, which I guess goes to show that Joshua was right all along.
By the end I'd gotten 100 Speech and used it to convince Joshua to spare Salt-Upon-Wounds. It's the first time I've ever done a really difficult Speech ending, and... it was kinda underwhelming. "Yep, your character sheet checks out, here is the most emotionally satisfying ending. Sorry for the inconvenience." Not passing a speech check usually means that you have to pick between several sub-par options, which is more interesting. Having enough skill for once killed a lot of the drama and tension.
I don't regret getting 100 Speech though because there's no way in hell I'm fighting Lanius straight up when I complete all the DLC and finally finish the base game. I couldn't beat him fair-and-square in 10+ tries during my first attempt, fuck that noise.
For gameplay: navigating around Zion was pretty frustrating, but I was just glad it wasn't the fucking Sierra Madre. All the cliffs and hills and valleys did get to be very tiring though, and I found myself fast-travelling incredibly short distances just because I couldn't be bothered.
The combat was mostly alright, no really new mobs to deal with. The White Legs have some interesting tactics, combining melee and long-ranged weapons pretty effectively, but are way too tanky for jackasses in leather and face paint. That's a problem I have with any game that levels to match the player though, eventually everything ends up being generically tough even if it doesn't make sense.
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Topic: How did you last *own*? (Read 1346548 times)