It is with great frustration and disappointment that I make this announcement: I’ve dropped ED-E as a companion in Fallout: New Vegas. Not that I wanted to; the blasted thing worked hard as heck to make me hate it, and hate it in a way not like the opposite of love it, because I do love it, especially the sounds it oozes during battle, but it has to stay with me long enough to find battle, and that became a frequent problem after awhile. I hate ED-E because it is constantly getting “lost.” What does that mean? Well…
When you take on a companion in Fallout: New Vegas, you gain a special perk. ED-E’s gives you a longer range for spotting enemies, as well as targeting Nightkin in V.A.T.S. It’s a good one, especially when tag-teamed with a sniper like Boone. Anyways, ED-E likes to trail behind and alert me to dangers, but sometimes–and by sometimes I mean nine times out of ten–ED-E gets stuck on a piece of landscape or ends up unmovable. I’ve tried to talk to it, get it motivated, but alas…nothing. And then I’ll fast travel, and only Boone will come along. Yet ED-E’s perk is still activated. It’s frustraging, especially during the last few quests in which I was relying on it to help kill a hive of cazadors. Finding ED-E again is a guessing game; I’ve found it inside Lucky 38’s casino once, another time I had to go back to Primm, and another it just randomly came back to the party after several fast travels.
So, the little flying bot that couldn’t…is gone. And Rex, the cyber-dog, is in. Not a huge fan of the dog (as it’s not a huge fan of Jareth and his hat collection), but we’ll see how him and Boone work together as I close in on the…whatever the end battle thing is gonna be.
Hopefully, all above problems (and more) will be fixed with the upcoming patch, which has hopes of doing a number of good things. Such as:
- Companions now show up as waypoints on the map
- Companions will always fast travel with you, unless told to wait or sent away
- Fix: DLC error/save corruption
- Fix: Entering the strip after Debt Collector causes crash and autosave corruption
- Fix: Using Mojave Express dropbox can cause DLC warnings
- Crafting menu now filters valid (bright) recipes to the top of the list
- Weathered pistol no longer glitches when applying mods
Map waypoints for companions is going to be super sweet. So long as it works, naturally.
Grinding Down 
From everything I’ve heard, Obsidian and Bethesda should be embarrassed about the product they put out.
Yes, it is rather embarassing. I mean…Fallout 3 was never this bad! Obsidian should have tested it more before releasing.
It was so bad on my machine i actually had to force myself to finish. It froze 5 times during the final showdown in the NCR quest line alone.
Yeah, I’m eager to finish the game, too. While there’s more to do in Fallout: NV, it does not succeed Fallout 3 as a good game. Too many bugs and crashes. A real shame…