Follow TV Tropes

Following

Video Game / The Someguy Series

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sg2k.jpg

The Someguy Series is the collective name for a series of mods for Fallout: New Vegas by modder someguy2000, providing an overarching narrative that adds new locations, quests and stories to the Mojave Wasteland.

The genesis of the series began with a mod created for Fallout 3, Potomac Breaksnote , which has the player working as part of a group of bounty hunters under the orders of a man known as Marshall Cooper.

Someguy2000 was not pleased with the progress of the mod and decided to remake the mod in New Vegas under the title New Vegas Bounties, which follows The Courier as they enlist in a bounty-hunting operation led by its enigmatic founder, Steven Randall, which puts the player into conflict with a variety of villains and a Greater-Scope Villain in the form of "The Judge", the psychotic leader of a competing company. Though the premise was simple, the mod was well received and became well-known for adding many more quests (filled with pop culture references) and hours of gameplay. Two more sequels followed, which added more bounty-hunter quests into the world and expanded the story to focus on The Courier's search for "Marko", an Ascended Extra (mentioned in Fallout 3) who is running a gang of raiders in the Mojave Wasteland and dispatched several assassins to kill The Courier.

Several more mods followed that tie in to both the Bounties series and other aspects of the Mojave Wasteland, requiring a master file that keeps track of certain plot decisions, even conferring additional content for players who've made the journey through the entire series. These mods include:

  • The Inheritance, a questmod following the player's journey with a new companion named Bradley to discover the secrets of a stash of gold — and the mysterious organization, The Syndicate, that the player will come in to contact with;
  • New Vegas Killer, a non-canon questmod that explores a What If? scenario — what happens if you joined the Judge instead of killing him at the end of NVB 1?
  • Russell, a companion mod which adds the eponymous former Desert Ranger and Bounty Hunter, a cynical man who hates the NCR but nonetheless fights for good, and tasks the player with helping him track down a target named Glanton to a distant canyon. The mod, which is considered content-complete, lacks voices for some characters. Requires Honest Hearts and Lonesome Road DLC.
  • Bad Mothafucka, which adds the eponymous Super Mutant (who has an... interesting Running Gag) to Goodsprings as a recruitable companion;
  • King of the Ring, an arena-based mod (which tasks the player with rising through the ranks in a boxing tournament) made as a side project during development of New Vegas Bounties III;
  • The Better Angels, billed as an "epilogue" to the questmods made up to that point, follows the Courier as they deal with a tenuous situation at an NCR outpost during a Legion slave uprising. The mod integrates content from several planned mods (such as Sinners and Slaves and The Siege of Firebase Zulu);
  • Checkpoint Gary; an "endless arena" mod made by Someguy as a side project to cope with the "burgeoning madness" that he was suffering while waiting for the then-upcoming Fallout 4. The mod puts The Courier in charge of a town in the nearby Grand Canyon where the local garrison is trying to repel a neverending swarm of abominations attacking them.

Someguy has gone on record stating that there are several mods he planned but never released, including the aforementioned Siege of Firebase Zulu (inspired by Zulu and The Siege of Firebase Gloria, among others), Sinners and Slaves (set during a Legion slave uprising in Flagstaff) and Murder Inc (a ''Fallout 4 mod intended to be a Film Noir inspired murder mystery/hitman mod, that was set to include Gray-and-Gray Morality and the return of Bobby Bass as a quest giver), but these projects were never finished for varying reasons.

The master file regulating all the mods can be found here, with links to all the mods themselves in the page.

Other than modding, someguy has also done Let's Plays and mod reviews on his YouTube channel which can be found here.


Tropes from the entire series:

  • Anachronic Order: Averted for NVB I/II, played straight for the rest. NVB II will not start until you complete NVB 1. The others, however, can be played in any order you wish.
  • Ascended Extra:
    • Marko was originally just a mysterious rapist and serial killer mentioned in a note found on the corpse of a wastelander in Fallout 3 who died trying to track him down for revenge. He becomes the Greater-Scope Villain of the Someguy Series, leaving a trail of innocent victims across the devastated USA, and now commands a small army of psychopaths aligned with Caesar’s Legion. Though unseen in NVB I, he drives the plot, as Randall’s bounty hunting career was triggered by Marko’s rape and murder of his wife and child, and The Judge reports to Marko. He’s still the unseen Greater-Scope Villain of NVB II, and finally shows his ugly face in III.
    • This also holds true for Esther, a minor character in a sidequest that takes place after completing The Inheritance. The Courier can initially choose to fund an orphanage she's building, only to find out that she's turned the building into her own personal slavering. The player can choose to let her go free in exchange for the location of the kids she sold into slavery, with the intent that she'll disappear for parts unknown. As a result of player interest, she returns at the end of NVB II, as part of an optional mission that only occurs if you've completed both The Inheritance with her still alive and II. At the end of that mission, she disappears once again... only to become a major character in the finale of NVB III, where she can be encountered living under an assumed identity with her new husband near Frosthill.
    • Bobby Bass, a one-shot character in New Vegas Killer (a non-canon mod), was popular enough to warrant an additional reference in NVB III, officially making him canon to the Someguy Series.
  • Author Appeal:
    • Being a native Texan himself, Someguy's mods tend to have a lot more southern characters around than it would make sense in the setting. This gets lampshaded by Bobby Bass in New Vegas Killer:
      "People say "That's not possible! How's a Southerner-" Motherfucker, I WALKED! I got two legs, I walked my ass here."
    • He also has a thing for creating simplistic title artworks, usually just containing text on a stock image background.
    • Many locations throughout the series have famous classical paintings on the walls.
    • Someguy is a massive Cormac McCarthy fan, and the series is peppered with references to his books.
  • Best Served Cold: The "good" ending of the confrontation with Marko in NVB III. The Courier forgives him and allows him to leave Frosthill... which results in Marko being consumed with terror and regret for the rest of his life over his actions.
  • Big Bad: A mysterious man named Marko plays a big role in all the mods. He's responsible for nearly everything you face and feared by nearly everyone you encounter with his plotline finally being resolved in NVB III.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: At the end of The Inheritance, if the player claimed Zimmer's cache of gold, the Courier will be approached by various people who have heard of their newfound wealth and ask for charitable donations. One of these is a woman named Esther, who asks for ten thousand caps to start an orphanage. She actually uses the money to start a child slavery ring, and forces the player to make a Sadistic Choice between taking their revenge and saving the kids. What's more, she gets away scot-free the ''second'' time she runs across the player, too! And, even more cruelly, the third time you run into her, she is pregnant and married to a character who is arguably good. If you kill her, he turns on you and you are forced to kill him as well! Though according to her ending slide, yes, she really has given up her evil ways for good this time, so if you leave her be (or shake her and her husband down for some cash first) she at least won’t be hurting people anymore.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Most of the mod's best endings fall under this:
    • In the New Vegas Bounties, if you choose, Marko can be ultimately be hunted down and killed at the hands of the Courier, at the cost all of the residents of Frosthill. The Courier is badly wounded and emotionally shaken by these events, but after the battle of FOB Omega, comes to a measure of peace and closure after helping to save the remnants of a slave uprising.
    • In Russell, the heroes manage to save Silverwood from the Legion attack, but Glanton managed to get away with his slaughter of the Sand Wolves, and the aforementioned tribe eventually fragmented, with a few survivors swearing an oath to enact vengeance on Glanton and the Courier who failed to stop him.
    • At the end of Inheritance, the Courier can potentially inherit the Enclave gold that everyone was after, but at the cost of Sean Bradley's life, not to mention the various folks who want a piece of the treasure themselves, most of them have ulterior and/or malicious intentions.
  • Bounty Hunter: Play a big part in all the mods. Bounties follows your career as a bounty hunter, Russell follows you helping the guy with a particularly difficult bounty, and several organizations you meet make use of or are against bounty hunting.
  • The Boxing Episode: King of the Ring solely consists of playable boxing matches in a single area, with increasing difficulty.
  • Bragging Rights Reward: The reward for beating the last opponent in King of the Ring is a unique perk granting a permanent buff to unarmed damage. Considering how much of a juggernaut he was, it would have been very helpful to be able to acquire the perk before beating him.
  • But Thou Must!: There is no way to back out of the treasure hunt in The Inheritance. You HAVE to kill the Syndicate agent, and you HAVE to continue hunting the treasure until Bradley is dead
  • Chromosome Casting: In King of the Ring, a couple of female boxers are training in the gym but the opponents you fight on the ring are exclusively male. The only exception is the Courier themselves if playing as a female player character.
    • The series as a whole borders on this, as nearly every major character is male due to Someguy's difficulty finding female voice talent.
  • Cluster F-Bomb:
    • Bad Mothafucka. The exact description, by Someguy himself: "Bad Mothafucka isn't merely profane - it is a celebration of profanity."
    • Taken to the next level with Cocker and Cutty in Bounties III and The Better Angels. Their rants must simply be heard to be believed.
  • Continuity Nod: Your actions in one mod, and the sequence you do them, affect the other mods. Aside from that, Someguy also makes references to the other Fallout games, as well as the people and events of New Vegas itself.
  • Cut and Paste Environments: Interior maps based on Goodsprings' Victor shack, Goodsprings saloon, and the abandoned Brotherhood of Steel bunker are all over the place.
  • Country Matters: Plenty of characters utter the c-word quite a lot in his mods, including the Courier in select dialogue choices. New Vegas Killer and Bounties III even have a character named Cunty McLean.
  • The Dreaded:
    • The above mentioned Big Bad, Marko, who is spoken of in hushed tones and fear by several people before you finally encounter him in NVB III.
    • This even extends to The Courier themself — once they are rescued in NVB III and go on their Roaring Rampage of Revenge, several characters write logs or have dialogue reacting in fear to The Courier's presence, or outright hoping the Courier gives them a noble death instead of a messy end.
  • Dynamic Difficulty: Starting with The Inheritance, Someguy has put in variables that allow dungeons to change depending on your actions.
  • Foreshadowing: Firebase Zulu, a former NCR firebase now under Legion control, is discussed by many important NPCs throughout every mod, and many know that soon, a war will break out that will heavily influence the Mojave in countless ways.
    • Aborted Arc: Unfortunately Word of God states that we will never actually see Firebase Zulu as it has been scrapped.
    • Marko is also revered by/feared by/commanding many characters in the game. Especially seen in the ending of Russell's companion quest.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation:
    • In King of the Ring, according to the questgiver Dempsey, the boxer "Fifty Balls Brennan" starts his fights by punching his opponent in the nuts, and you're strongly advised to wear protection down there. That's not reflected in his actual fight. Actual New Vegas gameplay doesn't allow Groin Attacks.
    • Despite Someguy stating that NVB III shouldn't be installed or started until both prior installments of the series are completed, this doesn't actually translate to the game — meaning that if all three are installed, a mysterious man (Marko himself) is standing outside the Russell & Associates shack and talks about the death of Steven Russell, even though the player may not have started NVB I to begin with.
  • Grand Finale: The Better Angels, a massive horde mode sequence that pushes the Gamebryo engine to its limits as The Courier comes face to face with a sprawling battle outside a Legion slave camp — and tying together the various threads of the mods released up to this point in the process.
  • Greater-Scope Villain:
    • Marko, based off a reference in Fallout 3 in an anonymous note. Steven Russell and The Judge both reference him in NVB I, you get to fight his brother, Sergio, as the Final Boss of NVB II (though there are bounties that can be taken after the one on Sergio, including at least two that can only be taken after killing Sergio), and you finally pursue and encounter him in person in NVB III.
    • Also, Esther, to a certain extent. You might not even know the character exists, as she's only encountered as an optional NPC after the main quest of The Inheritance is complete. Depending on whether you spare or kill her, you'll encounter her twice more, with her story tying in more and more to major incidents in The Courier's travels.
    • The Syndicate, a shadowy organization whose representatives have greater prominence in The Inheritance and Russell (after being namechecked in NVB I).
  • Grey-and-Grey Morality: Though most of the time you can choose to be in the white, even then, the forces you ally and go against have ulterior motives and questionable means and to achieve them. Unless you take the other route, of course.
  • Groin Attack: The fighter "Fifty Balls Brennan" from King of the Ring earned this stage name because he's stated to start fights by hitting his opponent in the testicles.
  • Impaled Palm: As part of the sequence, the Courier is shot in the hand by Marko and his thugs during the climactic siege of Frosthill. Afterwards, the Courier suffers a permanent debuff that lasts even after journeying back to the Mojave Wasteland.
  • Let's You and Him Fight: Near the end of The Inheritance, Zimmerman, head of The Syndicate, locks you and Bradley in a weapons vault primed to fill with nerve gas. He gives you a Sadistic Choice: the two of you can fight to the death, or you can refuse and die to the nerve gas. You can either fight Bradley, talk him into going out on his own terms, or win a coin toss.
  • Motor Mouth: Bobby Bass will run your ear off about plants, dogs, and big titties.
  • Nazi Gold: The closest Fallout equivalent shows up in The Inheritance, in which the eponymous inheritance turns to be a cache of Enclave gold.
    • There's also a stolen shipment of Legion gold you can track down in NVB II.
  • Nintendo Hard: Someguy kicked up the difficulty of NVB II heavily versus the first installment, with you assaulting entire bases filled and crowded with mooks in heavy armor instead of the original's one-versus-one battles. The other mods tone it down, but only barely. God help you if you go into The Better Angels without every game-breaking weapon and companion in your arsenal, or at least a couple hundred land mines. Likewise for fighting Zimmer in a sword duel without dedicated combat skills and perks.
  • Old Save Bonus:
    • Invoked with the creation of the "master file" for the series, which tracks player conditionals across all of the mods (regardless of the order they're completed in) and introduces new dialogue (and sometimes entire new missions!) based on what decisions were made throughout the series;
    • Russell was designed with this in mind, as he will comment on certain mods in the series you've completed to date. As Someguy released mods in the series, both Russell and the master file were updated with additional conditional checks, clearly anticipating this trope.
    • The bonus mission from NVB II, "Enemy of My Enemy", an lengthy scenario which follows the player finally coming into contact with a shadowy benefactor referenced in some of the prior mods and raiding a sprawling Legion slave camp, is only accessible if you made a specific decision in the post-encounter quests from The Inheritance and completed II. Failed to let Esther go after discovering she opened a slavering with the money you gave her? No mission for you! This even extends to NVB III, where Esther makes a unique appearance if you spared her in both prior appearances, now living under an assumed identity in Frosthill.
    • Both Russell and The Inheritance come into play again if they've been completed before NVB III, as you'll have a chance to confront both Glanton (who may have escaped justice in Carruthers Canyon) and Esther (who escaped justice twice before) in Frosthill.
    • If the player has completed NVB I and brings "Sweet Revenge" (the weapon Steven bequeaths to you, as a Take Up My Sword moment after his apparent death) along with them to Frosthill, Marko will have unique dialogue discussing it at both the beginning and end of NVB III.
  • Pokémon Speak: The titular "Bad Mothafucka" is a Super Mutant who only says the word "Mothafucka" with various inflections.
  • Red Boxing Gloves: Each King of the Ring match starts with the Courier automatically equipping a pair of Vanilla (brown) Boxing Gloves, and the opponent wear them, too. You don't keep them between matches.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The ending of NVB III, if you so choose. After being buried alive and then being rescued, the player gets the chance to wipe out all of the enemies who've eluded them up to this point, including Marko, Glanton and Esther, from The Inheritance, along with the remaining thugs in Frosthill, in particularly vindictive ways.
  • Sadistic Choice:
    • The player gets thrown into this by Zimmer during The Inheritance, as he forces you to duke it out with Bradley, with only one winner intended to be left alive, while you're trapped in a room with gas flooding in and sixty seconds on the clock.
    • Encountering Esther (if you left her alive) in NVB III requires you to choose between letting the character in question (a ruthless slaver who at that point had escaped justice twice) go free in their new life with a family and a home — or kill the character in question for their misdeeds, which also ends up causing you to have to kill the character's husband, an unambiguously-good person, in the process.
  • Self-Deprecation: The Better Angels include a conversation between Crocker and Cutty that boils down to dunking on the final act of NVB III, namely how Virgil being Marko was an obvious twist, and how Marko was "a big fucking disappointment" and an idiot that didn't kill off Courier properly.
  • Sequel Hook: All of the mods end with you getting closer to finding out who Marko is, and foreshadow your meeting with him. Best seen in Russell's ending, which shows EXACTLY what's happening in NVB 3.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: While it can vary from moment to moment the Someguy Series is very cynical.
    • Its at it's darkest in The Inheritance after you get the Enclave gold. If you donate to the Rehabilitation Clinic, some of the former Fiends relapse and start killing again, while those who do rehabilitate and stick with it end up getting murdered by Westside Militia when they are recognized as former Fiends. Meanwhile the Orphanage you donated so much money to turns out to be a slave operating ring taking in orphans from the Followers and selling them to the Legion. Finally, if you convince the store owners to take pity on the hobos and give the hobos jobs as clerks the hobos repay the kindness by murdering the husband, raping then murdering the wife and daughter, and the young boy is taken by the hobos to be sold to the Vipers.
  • Shout-Out: Nods to the works of Cormac McCarthy, namely Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men, are prevalent in most of Someguy's mods. Many bounties are references to film characters such as Tony Montana, Freddy Krueger, and Mr. Joshua from Lethal Weapon. He also gives several nods to AlChestBreach in his mods.
    • A quest in New Vegas Bounties II has the Courier storm yet another Fiend drug den and it's possible to encounter and kill Jesse Pinkman and Walther White who work for the Fiends as drug producers.
  • Take That!: Several scathing rants by various characters are aimed at the Lonesome Road DLC villain Ulysses, calling out his tendencies to be wholly self-centered and to ramble on about political anarchy.
    • New Vegas Killer has a few:
      • Jorge Martin is a food-loving novelist, who has been taking forever to finish writing his popular fantasy series, and owns a pair of dogs named Jon and Tyrion. Sound familiar?
      • A couple of Bobby Bass' comments about Dexler are clearly poking fun at one of the more reviled story arcs in later seasons of Dexter, and its effect on the title character.
      • Bobby also takes a jab at the NCR soldiers' tendency to relentlessly complain about the local weather in the main game.
  • Those Two Guys: Cutty and Cocker.
  • The Syndicate: And guess what? It's called The Syndicate.
  • The Western: NVB and Russell definitely count, with all the main antagonists and even some of your allies cowboys of the highest caliber. And yes, they all use revolvers and knives and wear dusters and cowboy hats. Even in the other mods, where the effect is lessened, you can't deny the Western feel of it all.
  • Wham Line: During the main quest to track down Red Bear in NVB II, the player is guided to a destination in front of the Sunset Sarsparilla Headquarters, with a solitary note lying in the middle of the courtyard outfront. What follows is a highly-charged battle with a sniper, Charlie Halfcocked, who is permanently cloaked and wielding an Anti-Material Rifle.
    I have you in my sights. RUN.
  • Wild Card: Russell and Bradley, two of the main characters in the mods, really don't like the NCR leadership and find many doubts over whether they can hold the Mojave. Russell especially, if you ask him, says straight upfront that he supports an Independent New Vegas.

Top