Wow: New Vegas Mod Restores Heaps Of Cut Content
Fallout: New Vegas was a glitch-ridden, unwieldy beast of a game, but it's a testament to the wonderful (and very Black-Isle) world Obsidian crafted that - in spite of rampant instability and a fiddly engine - it still stands as one of my absolute favorite games. And in spite of the couple-hundred-some-odd hours I've put into it, I want more. Semi-recently, I had quite a joyous time with the harder-core-than-thou JSawyer mod, but now I'm getting ready to dig into an official-unofficial project that positively dwarfs it. In short, a modder by the name of "Moburma" went sifting through New Vegas' code and excavated scrapped bits and bobs of all shapes and sizes. The end result? A restoration project that borders on insane.
Admittedly, no one individual piece of the cut content is game-changing or anything like that. But, taken together, these bits and pieces stand to transform New Vegas into a far more impressive locale. For instance, one mod restores the Vegas Strip to its original vision - as opposed to the cramped, underpopulated consolation prize we got in the original game.
"The Strip Open is an attempt to restore the Vegas Strip worldspace in Fallout: New Vegas to what was the developer's original intent; namely a large, visually spectacular open area. The Strip as found in the retail game is not the original plan for the area, and the checkpoint gates that make the area so clumsy to navigate are sadly a technical compromise - to quote Obsidian lead designer J.E Sawyer: 'Memory problems caused crashing in both The Strip and Freeside, so they had to be split up.'"
Other portions of the project, meanwhile, bring back New Vegas' original, in-engine opening, add multiple choices and stages to some really interesting quests, and make many scenes and scenarios more consequential. For example, here's a really cool bit involving the main quest affecting the game world permanently.
"Post attack events. If 'We Are Legion' is successfully completed, The Legion storm the camp and kill anyone left, and dump the bodies in a mass grave in the graveyard. After two days it will then be infested by Cazadores. Nelson will now actually be occupied by NCR troops if they take the location back."
You can download everything Moburma's restored so far here, or - if you don't actually play games, and instead prefer to torture yourself with the amazing time you could be having - there's a giant forum post to sink your brain into here. Now then, time to leap in and hope Obsidian's original vision didn't include my nightmare: a Cazador/Deathclaw hybrid, henceforth known as a Deathdor. And also, it'd make that sound giant ants do when it moves, because ewwwwwww.