Fallout New Vegas

It took me three years but I finally beat Fallout New Vegas.  Notice how I said beat and not completed.  I took a long break somewhere in the 2012 era to explore other video game venues but I always came back to good old New Vegas.  In case you have not played the game I will fill you in on some of the broader details because this game has just so much in it that I could not possibly fill you in on all the hidden treasures in New Vegas.  Warning for a three year old game spoilers abound.

Every Fallout game takes place in a post-nuclear "fallout" world where the human race has survived by staying inside massive bunkers called vaults.  Inside the vaults you have no access to the outside world so the society does not know whether it is safe or not to exit the vault.  If you were not lucky enough to make it into a vault then you are either dead or mutated beyond recognition.  Despite the gruesome appearance of most mutations some of these mutants are perfectly well adjusted people.  So now that you have a decent handle on the Fallout universe, our story begins.

The game opens up with you being shot in the head; but don't worry you get better.  Apparently, although the Earth literally exploded we've made marvelous medical advances since the nuclear holocaust.  The doctor who heals you asks you some questions about yourself which is a clever way to implement the character customization screen.  I made my character look like Samuel L Jackson and I think I named him Coffin because that's what I normally do but for the life of me I can't remember.  The doctor mentions that that's a strange name and the rest of the game you're referred to as the courier.  Well why the fuck did you let me name my character in the first place?  Anyway, since your shooter thinks your dead you need to track him down, find out why he did it and see that justice is done.  As you may have already gleamed from the game's title you need to make your way to the big city New Vegas but it's never about the end point is it?  It's about the journey; and boy is this a journey!  Along the way you meet a colorful cast of companion characters who will assist you on your quest as long as you remember to never break the cardinal rule of only one humanoid companion and one "other."  Though I worked with as many of the companions I could find in order to gain experience the team I used the most was a woman named Veronica and a floating eye robot named Ed-e.  I liked Veronica because she worked for the Brotherhood of Steel, an organization that was set on collecting all dangerous technology in the world and making sure it didn't fall into the wrong hands.  I remembered the Brotherhood from previous games and always thought they were an interesting group.  Also Veronica had a great ass and I was hoping there would be a sex scene with her but alas my hopes were dashed.  The reason I picked Ed-e was because... Well he's a fucking flying robot that shoots lasers.  Later in the game I got a cyborg-dog named Rex that I used to replace Ed-e but I got him so late in the game that I may have well have just stuck with Ed-e and skipped Rex's quest entirely.  Aside from the Brotherhood of Steel you also come across two other factions, The New California Republic (NCR) and Caesar's Legion.  The NCR represents the good side of the game by representing the last hope of an army in the wasteland that has become America and most likely the rest of the world.  Caesar's Legion represents the evil side by literally crucifying people, keeping slaves and doing things like holding lotteries in random towns to see who gets to live.  This is one of my biggest problems with the game.  There is absolutely no gray area in New Vegas between good and evil.  You either join the army like you ma and pa or fuckin' crucify people.  What if I just kind of want to be a dick to people?  Or what if I want to be a conscientious objector (you know a coward)?  Well unfortunately I would die pretty quick if that were the case because you stumble upon either an NCR camp or a Caesar's Legion hideout pretty often and if you don't pick a side fast you're going to die fast.  So I chose NCR, I'll be evil next time I play in two years, but at the end of the game it doesn't even matter.  You essentially get to choose which groups of people you want to destroy and which groups you want to live but you can NOT choose the NCR!  They die no matter what.  I also noticed that I could NOT choose Caesar's Legion which means that my next play through will have only a slightly different ending.  But like I said before it's not about the ending it's about the journey.

It may not sound like it but whatever I had to complain about I had to really dig to find.  New Vegas is a great game.  It's published by Bethesda the same company that brought us Skyrim and in all honestly I liked it a bit more than Skyrim.  I do plan on playing through it again someday and seeing what other options open up to me depending on the different paths I take so stay tuned for that post some time in 2016.      

In Case You Missed It The First Time Around!

Not much to talk about today so here's the video of me doing stand up at the Stress Factory in NJ.  I'm sure at some point I will post more of these.  Enjoy!

WHAT TIME IS IT!?

Adventure Time has got to be my favorite show and has been for quite some time and I know that it's incredibly successful as well it should be; but I still feel it gets labeled as that silly cartoon when it is much, much more than that.  Whenever I try to explain Adventure Time to somebody it will usually go something like, "It's the story of the last boy on Earth and his dog in a post apocalyptic world.  Where the world is now divided into kingdoms.  There's the Ice Kingdom, the Flame Kingdom and the Candy Kingdom where all the people are made of candy... Hey where ya going?"

As I said before, Adventure Time gets labeled as that silly cartoon when in reality the fact that it's a cartoon should not matter at all.  It is written so well that it should be thought of as a comedy first and foremost.  Unlike most comedies that I have been a fan of, Seinfeld, The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, Adventure Time actually gets better with age.  Nearly every episode is better than the last and yes it is good enough to compare to Seinfeld.

Now I know what some of you may be thinking, 'Why all the love for Adventure Time? What about Regular Show?'  Well shut your mouth holes imaginary critics I was getting to that.  Regular Show is a show that started shortly after Adventure Time on the same network and has a similar comedy style and it's also pretty great.  The only criticism I have with Regular Show is that all of the episodes have the same formula.  The main characters, Mordecai and Rigby are either at the park or the coffee shop, they then discover they need to accomplish some seemingly normal task, some sort of supernatural force shows up to stop them but they succeed in the end.  Although I just described nearly every Regular Show episode that is not necessarily a bad thing.  The situations may not be entirely original but the jokes are always fresh and entertaining and it's fun to watch the characters interact.

I realize in this post I talked about Regular Show about as much as I did Adventure Time but they go hand in hand in my mind.  And everything that needs to be said about Adventure Time has already been said by others who are much more fanatical than me.  All that's left to be said is that it is one of the best written shows on television with true character development and satisfying story lines.      

The Name of The Doctor (Spoilers)

Recently I watched the season seven finale of Doctor Who entitled "The Name of The Doctor".  First off I would just like to say that this was a really solid episode that I really enjoyed. However, the entire second half of the seventh season just kind of left me feeling empty and wanting more.  It all seemed like a big drumroll leading up to the fiftieth anniversary special.  One of the biggest problems I have with season 7.2 (as on demand calls it) is Clara Oswin Oswald.  Now I wanted to like her I really did and she has some moments when she really shines and she seems like the perfect companion for the doctor but that's kind of the problem.  Aside from a few scenes here and there where she questions the doctor's humanity she seems to just follow him blindly expecting everything to turn up roses and of course we know it will because he's the doctor but why does she know that?  We are supposed to accept this relationship that seems rather forced all because the doctor has seen her die and she is the "impossible girl."  Alright I'll admit that the mystery was intriguing and had a really satisfying ending but when the doctor met the original Clara she really had no reason to trust him or go with him.  Think about it, Amy was the girl who waited for the doctor so of course she would go with him and Rory would follow Amy anywhere.  Donna actually tracked down the doctor to become his companion and I'm sure Rose had something too but whenever I think of her I see her stupid face and forget any plot line she was in; but Clara has none of that.  The doctor just shows up and shows her his box and off they go!

I think maybe I should talk a little about the episode now.  It opened with Clara traveling through time and interacting with all the past doctors.  This was a really cool scene and certainly grabbed my attention.  Long story slightly shorter the great intelligence is going to kill all the people that the doctor currently cares about unless he goes to Trenzalor (yes I know I probably spelled that wrong).  So why Trenzalor?  Well it turns out that is where the doctor is buried, y'know cus time travel.  It is then revealed that when a time lord dies there is no body just a manifestation of their timeline which the great intelligence promptly enters so that he can fuck with the doctor throughout history Reverse Flash style.  Clara goes in to save the doctor and then the doctor goes in to save Clara.  Now quick point here, the doctor entered the room with his timeline and because there were events unfolding that he had not yet experienced he collapsed from pain due to the time paradoxes; but then he goes into his own time line and he's like, "Yeah I'm fine high fives all around!" Well anyway while in the timeline we learn of another regeneration that the doctor wants to keep secret and is ashamed of.

So yeah pretty big reveal at the end and Clara saved the doctor and since the doctor is responsible for entire galaxies she saved them as well so that's cool... Why do I still have this empty feeling? Oh maybe it's because in an episode entitled "The Name of The Doctor" we didn't learn the name of the doctor!  I did a little bit of digging on this subject because I honestly thought I just missed it.  I mean there's no way Stephen Moffat would spend years telling us the name of the doctor is the most powerful secret in the universe then name an episode the name of the doctor and then not tell us the name of the fucking doctor!  What I found through my research is that either this episode was to teach us that the doctor's name is unimportant and that he has so many other secrets that it doesn't matter.  To the people who believe that I say DUH they made fifty years of shows without telling us his goddamn name that wasn't the point.  What I think the title was referring to was the acts committed in "The Name of The Doctor".  The current doctor even says this to the new big reveal doctor.  So I am still holding out hope that we will learn his name.  I mean we have to right? Right?