Recruiting all companions in Fallout: New Vegas only took three playthroughs

Man, I have to imagine that if you’re not a fan of Fallout 3 or Fallout: New Vegas and that you’re still following my blog day in, day out, you must be sick of me blathering about these games by now. I know I am. No, not really. Never ever evah. They are great for musing. There’s way too much to this franchise to explore–both good and bad–and considering I still have at least two more playthroughs left (for a sickening lump sum of five playthroughs) before Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim takes over…well, expect more Fallout-based posts. Sorry, haters. Congrats, lovers.

But yeah, check this baby out:

The Whole Gang’s Here (25G): Recruited all companions.

Got it last night. Only took three playthroughs, and I’ll explain why, as it’s actually a simple Achievement to get, but requires the Courier to do things in a certain order or to grow a cold shoulder. There are eight companions to recruit during one’s time in the Mojave Wasteland, and they are are: Arcade Gannon, Craig Boone, ED-E, Lily Bowen, Raul Alfonso Tejada, Rex, Rose of Sharon Cassidy, and Veronica Santangelo.

During my first playthrough, I collected all of them, but I only managed to pick up Veronica after a certain incident, the kind of happening that’s unforgivable, the kind that involved me wiping out everything she ever knew. Once she was “recruited” she quickly realized who I was and what I had done, and that was it. She left, never to join my forces again. I’m guessing the game didn’t consider that one to two minutes she was on Team Jareth enough for this Achievement. Oh well.

During my second playthrough, the same thing happened without me realizing. I murdered all her BoS friends before recruiting her and didn’t even bother attempting to track her down. Besides, my second playthrough character was Samantha, a fiery redhead, and there wasn’t room for competition.

Now, my third and most recent Courier, that creepy Kapture, he went after Veronica as soon as he could. Well, right after getting Boone and ED-E, of course, but long before the main quest got in the way. And then he still murdered all of her friends. Only this time, we kept our distance. Sent her off to Lucky 38, never spoke to her again. Harsh, right? Nah. Saved her a lot of pain and trouble, I suspect. After that, it was just a matter of time and getting a high enough Speech skill for Arcade, after which…ping. Achievement unlocked!

This Achievement is notorious for being buggy. Glad to know that during playthrough #4 or #5, I won’t have to worry about getting everyone and keeping all neat and happy. Also, no more Lily. She freaks me out. It’s mainly always going to be ED-E and either Boone or Rose.

So yeah, three playthroughs and nearly a year later. Closing in all finishing up all the Achievements for Fallout: New Vegas, but I know a few more come out tomorrow with the next DLC, Gun Runners’ Arsenal. Mmm…guns.

Cass was murdered in Fallout: New Vegas by accident, I swears it

I’m tepidly hopping back in and out of Fallout: New Vegas. This second playthrough of a very straight evil run is not as exciting as my first playthrough was though I do love Zelda’s skills with the Rebar Club; currently, I’m stuck on the Render Unto Caesar quest, which gives The House Always Wins a run for its money in terms of being the longest, slowest quest in the game. Given to the Courier by Caesar, Render Unto Caesar is made up of eight parts: Part 1, use the Platinum Chip to downgrade the security bots; Part 2, dealing with Mr. House; Part 3, gaining the Boomers’ help; Part 4, gaining the help of the White Glove Society; Part 5, dealing with the Brotherhood of Steel; Part 6, Caesar’s Illness; Part 7, taking out President Kimball; and Part 8, protecting the Legate’s Camp.

Yeah, that’s a lot of parts. What makes things even worse is that each part might very well be made up of several other quests, making this a neverending story of sorts from a gameplay perspective. For example, getting the Boomers to help means getting them to like the Courier, which also means doing at least five nice tasks for them. I got bored after solving their ant problem that I just went and slaughtered Loyal and that old grandma with a Power Fist. And now I’m stuck on dealing with the Brotherhood of Steel, which leads me to the main point of this blog post…

I accidentally murdered Cass, and she’s dead dead! Can’t get her back. Whoops-daisy.

See, I’m trying to do the alternate method of Part 5, wherein you just kill the Brotherhood of Steel patrols outside the bunker at night. For some reason, according to the world of wikia, this works and will trigger Part 6. The problem is that these BoS dudes take Zelda and ED-E down rather fast, and I’d like a second fleshbag in my ranks to absorb some heat. Can’t have Boone as I’m BFFs with the Legion; can’t use Veronica as I doubt she’d like to help murder her BFFs. Cass was my next best choice as I’ve already visited with her before, but that was back when the NCR and I were pals. Now they shoot on sight, and I guess Zelda was swinging her Rebar Club a little too wildly–and a little too closely–to Cass as she sat at the bar drinking her woes. She died. Quest failed text scrolled by. I looted her body nonetheless and put a bottle of scotch atop her corpse out of sorrow, out of respect.

It’s weird that once they become your companions, they can’t die (at least in vanilla Fallout: New Vegas), only go unconscious, but until you recruit them, they are fair game. I guess I could go after Raul or Arcade next. Not sure if they’d want to join my forces though. We’ll see. I really don’t want to have to do that whole sneak through the Brotherhood’s bunker and sabotage it phase as I’m a level 15 character and have point ZERO points into sneaking. It just can’t be done.

As I mentioned before, this second Fallout: New Vegas playthrough is not as grand as the first one. In fact, it feels like a lot more work. I wonder why that is.