Hunting Achievements in the Mojave Wasteland

 A little over a week ago I decided that I was going to clean up the last of the achievements in Fallout: New Vegas. Not my favorite Fallout out of the 3D titles, but one that I don't mind playing again. Many of my remaining achievements were ending and faction based, so there was not much trouble there. The big hurdle was going through the casino bans and caravan games because I had always found them to be annoying and wasteful of my time. 

Much of my early time was sitting at the Blackjack tables or farming Ringo for Caravan wins. Without the helpful guides that have been made over the years and watching Fallout related videos on YouTube, I probably would have left the game unfinished. While Caravan can be gamed pretty easily, getting kicked out of the three major casinos is tedious. This was especially true when the dealer top decks an ace and a face or 10 card. It really made the experience feel like a chore more than an achievement. On the upside, the money I got for this achievement set me up for easy access to armor and implants when going for the endings. So, the other achievement I had to get was Artful Pocketer. For this one, the player has to pickpocket successfully fifty times. 

As this sounds and is easy, the act of pickpocketing fifty items is not fun. There are a handful of methods to choose from, but the one I used was situated in Vault 21. The owner of the vault turned hotel is Sarah Weintraub. Sarah has a pack of bubblegum that cannot leave her inventory. The method involves getting a successful pickpocket exiting the menu, rinse, and repeat. Easy enough, yet everytime she catches you, you have to reload the save. Some people would save every two or three successful attempts. However, I would get one attempt wait an hour and do it again. Having to reload become less stressful and the successful attempts stacked up quickly making this one a breeze. After being liberated from the boring achievements it was on to the fun stuff, getting obliterated by the Brotherhood every playthrough.

Even though I have played New Vegas many times, I had only beaten the game once because I didn't like that the game ends instead of letting the player explore afterwards. Aside from Yes Man, I had to do every other faction questline. For my build, I was utilizing the overpowered melee weapons. My main squeeze would be a Super Sledge with appearances from the Sledgehammer, Lead Pipe, and Thermic Lance. I was playing on Very Easy for every playthrough and everytime I had to kill the Brotherhood, it was a struggle. The gauss rifles ripped through me and by the last run, I just didn't kill the turrets. Even with explosives, it was a pain. Aside from that, the quests are pretty standard and I became really good at beating the game by the time I got to Hardcore.

For my Hardcore playthrough, I did the Goodsprings quest with the Powder gangers and let the townspeople kill them. The free experience helps. From there I booked it east to Hidden Valley to mark for later and to get the Super Sledge from Black Mountain. Even being at Level two was not a problem with my melee being stupid high. From there I headed to Novac and picked up Boone because I wanted someone who could actually kill things in the game. 

In Hardcore you need to manage sleep, food, and water intake. Not knowing where I was going to get water, I was worried a bit. But my route that lead straight North towards the Monorail had the Grab and Gulp on the way. This location sells meat, which is fine, but it sells water as well. I was saved for the rest of the run. I made my way to the Monorail and glitched my way in and got onto the Strip in decent time. 

For those that don't know, if you place a piece of clothing, like a Merc Grunt outfit, on a ledge next to the Monorail you can jump on it and jump again onto an invisible ledge that lets you get onto the rail, then onto the Monorail itself, drop onto the platform, and click to go to the strip. Bypassing the toll at the gate and any unnecessary questing.

From here on, the playthrough was pretty standard for Yes Man. Meet everybody and leave immediately. The only cool thing I did was at Hidden Valley with the Brotherhood. To avoid killing them or starting their questline, you pickpocket one of the guards that come out of the door and get his key to open to the door that they have locked behind you. Afterwards you unlock the door and fire a couple of shots into one of them and leave. Boom, they're done. A big note I would like to add for anyone that wants to beat this game is to max speech out. The speech skill is busted and should be abused in every Obsidian Entertainment game. Play The Outer Worlds and see for yourself. 

I ended up finishing my Hardcore Run at around Two Hours. Ending my Fallout: New Vegas playtime with a really good time for someone that doesn't speedrun games. While the game is not one of my favorites, it was really nice to get the completion. Not too bad and it only took me over ten years.