One man’s journey to skip all dialogue in Fallout: New Vegas

It’s probably obvious, but I love to read.

And so it pained me, deeply, both emotionally and physically, to watch a good friend of mine play some Fallout: New Vegas over the weekend. Why? Well…he ran through dialogue options with Sonic the Hedgehog-like speed, more often than not just selecting the top dialogue choice to get through the entire tree with the push of a single button. Optional quest objectives popped up on the left and faded just as fast, and he even ended up turning in a quest, too, with little interest in hearing what so-and-so had to say about the job he did.

On the flip, that’s what I care about most.

Take, for instance, the quest Ghost Town Gunfight, wherein the Courier is tasked with either siding with the dangerous Powder Gangers or protecting Goodsprings from them. I played the part of Guardian Angel, wanting to help out the town that helped me out. But there’s more. By speaking to a number of townspeople, the Courier could convince them to join the fight, thus turning the tide greatly. This took some charm and quick work, and I got everyone’s help except for Easy Pete’s. All attacking Powder Gangers died during the attack, and no one from Goodsprings lost their lives. I was so proud of this that I immediately went to each and every one of them to chat about the fight, to see if they cared at all that I went above and beyond to save their dusty skin. To dig as deep as I could.

Most merely said a line or two of dialogue, and that was it. We’ve never spoken of the incident since. However, it was still important to me to find out.

Now, this post’s subject line is a bit misleading. I wouldn’t say it’s my friend’s journey to barely invest in the story and spoken words of the Mojave Wastelanders; heck, it might have just been because Tara and I were over late and he didn’t want to bog down the gaming time with a lot of sitting around and listening to exposition. His dude looks a bit like Tony Stark with a beret, and I was eager to see him shoot some raiders up. I’m sure every now and then he takes the time to get into the quests from more than just the quest log descriptions; if not, alas, there’s a lot to be missed.

Or maybe that’s just me. I love words, after all. And when compared to Fallout 3‘s 40,000 lines of recorded dialogue, Fallout: New Vegas really does give me a lot to take in with over 65,000 lines.