Thinking over New Vegas and I'm still not sure why the fuck people like Ulysses so damn much. Even though I always try to be the good guy and talk him down a very large part of me just wants to blow the brains out of the overgrown angsty teenager.
Seriously, I just can't get this image out of my head.
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Edit: The more I think on it the more I realize that Lonesome Road is my least favorite Fallout DLC. Even including the DLC for Fallout 3.
It's the same problem with Kreia; they're author avatars, and a lot of Obsidian fans suck up to this kind of stuff. In my mind, Kreia is just someone who failed at being both a Jedi Master and a Sith Lord, and while she has some legitimate complaints about both sides, she's just being bitchy because she failed with both of them. Same thing with Ulysses; Avellone uses him as a mouthpiece to say what he thinks is wrong with the Fallout universe, and Ulysses whines about the Legion, the NCR, and the state of things in New Vegas, but he comes off as whiny, especially since he's bitching about you accidentally destroying his hometown, yet he's the one who trained and sent the White Legs to devastate New Canaan. Being a staunch Joshua Graham fan myself, I can't sympathize with Ulysses in the least, considering that he rags on me for accidentally destroying a place he could have settled down in after deserting the Legion like a filthy coward, but he knowingly destroyed a peaceful community for the Legion without an ounce of shame.
I like Lonesome Road for its gameplay content and atmosphere, (they really capture the essence of Fallout, killing monsters gave me a good adrenaline rush, and the gear I loot from the Marked Men has high value and can be sold for ammo, guns, and meds) but I hated its story. The fact that they were trying to give the Courier a past when the Courier was supposed to be a blank slate for roleplaying purposes irked me. Hey, at least Skyrim didn't try to shove some random story plot where the Dragonborn had to deal with some past shit they did before the game started. The most you get is people putting bounties on your ass for doing stupid things, or the Thalmor/Dawnguard sending hit squads after you because you committed the crime of going against their agenda in-game. They don't have some know-it-all blame your ass for something you didn't do in the game.
The Courier was supposed to be this blank slate character that you can roleplay as having been anyone else before the events of the game. They could be some Enclave officer who survived the events of Fallout 2 or 3. They could be some NCR citizen seeking a better life in the Mojave after raiders killed their family. They could be some woman running away from Legion turf so she doesn't get turned into a sex slave or a baby maker. They could even be someone from the Old World like the Sole Survivor, having emerged from cryo-stasis in a vault, and they chose to deliver something for Mr. House because they remember the name of Robert Edwin House from before the bombs dropped.
The Courier is not supposed to be Darth Revan or the Jedi Exile, pre-made characters who already have their own backstories. Roleplaying is supposed to be the strength of New Vegas, and yet, here they shove in pre-made stories about your blank slate of a character. And here I thought making James your dad in Fallout 3 was not a good idea. This was far worse, since the game is blaming you for something YOU DID NOT DO. At least in Fallout 3, when the Regulators or the Megaton survivors go after you, it's because you nuked Megaton. And you actually get to choose to nuke it ingame, which I did, and seeing people come after me for it shows that my actions affect the game world.
Shit, my Courier isn't even supposed to be the original Courier Six; in my own roleplaying story, she was some chick from another dimension who happened upon the real Courier Six after the latter was fatally stung by cazadores, and she chose to try and finish the delivery of the Platinum Chip for some money after her ship crash-landed on the Fallout Earth. How the hell that story could fit in with Lonesome Road is beyond me.
I mean, I haven't played it in ages but at least Lonesome Road has ED-E.
Mothership Zeta just has corridors and corridors and corridors and corridors corridors and corridors and...
Mothership Zeta at least has a place where you can stock up on super-medpacks, alien guns, and repair kits. That, and the main battle was actually awesome, even in its story premise; a few guys taking over an enemy warship and blowing up another enemy warship. That shit reminded me of Republic Commando, which was cool. ED-E is cute, but that doesn't make up for Ulysses whining about how you blew up his potential hometown by accident when A) that place would have been destroyed anyways due to the fact that it would end up being a warzone between the Legion and the NCR, and B) Ulysses is throwing stones from his glass house when considering the fact that he WILLINGLY trained and sent the White Legs to destroy Joshua Graham's hometown.
Zeta is the weakest Fallout 3 DLC, that is true. Only really great shit it had was some weapons and Toshiro Kago. I guess I'd consider them comparably annoying if Zeta had an angsty dickhead spewing his sophmoric takes on philosophy at me while acting as a mouthpiece for the author and avoiding pronouns like he's a fucking tumblrite.
Not to mention Avellone's insistence on the Tunnelers as a reset button because he just wants to remake Fallout 1 with a different villain over and over again makes me hope Bethesda decides to retcon that shit out of sheer spite with the force of a powerfist to the face.
"Oh, the tunnelers? Yeah, no, they're extinct. The Courier killed their queen so they're all fucking dead now. SorryNotSorry, Chris."
I've always considered the Tunnelers to be wildly played up as a threat by Ulysses (or more accurately Avellone) because he was wanting to make it seem inevitable enough that there was peer pressure to let them wipe things out. Except if you turn Ulysses' opinion away from just nuking things he can single-handedly contain the Tunnelers by watching the path into the Divide.
If a single (admittedly tough) person can stop the spreading of a subterranean 'doom' mutant swarm then they're clearly not that big of a threat. Especially since outside of the Divide their natural weakness to bright lights and noise would see them constantly suffering, I don't know why they'd try to fully migrate from their lairs.
The Mojave has already survived the unleashing of multiple whackadoo murder mutants and all they've done is make the mountainous passes more nasty. I can see the Tunnelers showing up, mostly getting wiped out by whoever owns the land then hiding out in a few caves where they may have displaced something else.
Ulysses just mostly pissed me off to the point where I didn't even bother to talk to him by the end. I just crouched and shot him in the face to knock off half his HP, then I destroyed his med-bots and made his repair bots frenzied by shooting their combat inhibitors. He was shooting at his own bots as I popped his head like a melon. Someone like him, who blames others for the destruction of his home, while having destroyed the homes and lives of others, doesn't deserve any mercy from me.
The Tunnelers won't stand a chance given their natural aversion to sunlight and noises. I can just imagine them invading the Mojave, and whomever's in charge (Legion, NCR, House, or the Courier) would simply use massive solar lamps along with loud radios to confuse and paralyze the Tunnelers as Legion troops, NCR soldiers, or Securitrons pepper them with rounds or blow them to hell with explosives. Hopefully, Bethesda outright forgot about them.
That, and I don't get where Ulysses says they can take down Deathclaws. He obviously has never been to a Deathclaw nest where those bastards hang out in large packs. Those things would eat Tunnelers alive for breakfast.
I loved exploring and listening to all the alien holotapes. The Salem villager's account of Earth from space is still beautiful. And the Abominations were legitimately disturbing, Jesus Christ.
The Pitt is overall the best Fallout 3 DLC but the others shine their own way. Anchorage's crisp, non-apocalyptic aesthetic was pretty nice for while it lasted.
That part of Mothership Zeta was very interesting for me. That Salem villager thinking he's going to heaven only to meet the aliens was disturbing, and those abominations were freaky and disgusting, perfect for a short horror segment.
The Pitt, I wouldn't say is the best of the DLCs. I spent more time there scavenging for iron bars and killing trogs. Then when I got all the good loot from getting all the metal, I cheesed through the gladiator matches and talked the rebels out of rebelling, then got a pat on the ass by Ashur as I left with all the good loot to drag back to my Tenpenny Towers suite.
There is something about Lonesome Road that keeps me in awe of it. Perhaps it was the hype. I remember that FNV's base game and DLC were all hinting at a confrontation with the previous Courier 6. Especially with the DLC having connections with each other, something not common to most DLC that had been made in video games.
It had some challenge, nice action set pieces, but what I think I really took away from it was this line:
Lonesome Road concluded the Fallout series by answering its premise. War never changes, but did it have to result in nuclear armageddon? The Old World said yes, because it did not know what it would lead to. The leaders of the past ruled nations that supposedly believed in freedom and prosperity, but decided to abandon those values for short term victory and power. However, the Courier has lived in the world created by the mistakes of the past and has the ability to understand how it can happen again.
Did the Master have to create his super mutant army, did the Enclave have to develop genocidal plans, did the Institute have to use Boston as a testing ground, did Caesar have to attack the NCR? They were all following Old World values, thinking that they would avoid the catastrophe that happened the first time.
And if the Courier chooses to not launch the Hopeville missiles? He has refused to follow the past and has set the example for the future. Fighting may continue, just as it had in the Old World. But perhaps the Courier has ensured that the Great War will never happen again.
I really didn't feel any of this from the DLC. All my Courier felt when she went through the Divide was that some random shit dragged her all the way there with some idle threats, then when she got to Ulysses, she was so pissed off about all the crap she had to put up with during her journey, that she just killed the SOB without even talking to him. The gameplay and loot were cool, though, especially the NCR and Legion armors, though having to nuke both sides to get them was bullshit, in my eyes, hence why I always play it early so that I can kill Benny and be forgiven by both sides after I nuked both of them.