Fallout: New Vegas

If you want my reading on Benny as a person: Benny is, of course, a snake. He betrays literally everybody he works with: the Khans he uses to get to you because he doesn't want to pay them, the Follower he tricked into helping set up Yes Man^note Emily Ortal: "I wound up helping Benny a lot more than he helped me. Once he had access to the Securiton's memory banks, he kicked me out of the Tops.", Mr. House who was training him as his protége, and the player character in any route where they fall for Benny's attempt to "recruit" them. Outside of the game, in that tie-in comic they did, he gets Swank to quietly overdose a Chairman singer with Psycho, as said singer wanted to return to the pre-Vegas days.

He is on the surface, essentially, all show, dressed in a cheesy Las Vegas suit spouting out sweet nothings; he affirms that he's going to look the character in the eye before shooting them, but it's not really sincere beyond that general showmanship. The PC's still tied up, and he shows no hesitancy in running away and springing guards on the player later. The charm only really serves to slightly cover his ambitions and mask his origins as a more ruthless, survivalist tribal. (This kind of shallowness-mixed-with-cunning is highlighted later: Benny is crafty, tricksy, and he almost manages to sneak through the Legion completely undetected... except he doesn't change his smooth obviously-Vegas hairstyle.^note Caesar: {amused at Benny's stupidity} To go through all that effort and fail because you're too vain to muss your hair...")

Of course, as a character, this is all pretty fun. The biggest problem he had for me is that his voice actor is kind of painful to listen to, and doesn't sell me on any of that. He just sounds sort of flat. For the record, I generally rescue him from the Legion because I tend to play ridiculously forgiving All-Loving Hero types; I have had more shady characters just ignore him or once even crucify him, though.

edited 1st Oct '17 1:35:26 AM by Lavaeolus

I use Black Widow on Benny then kill him after sex. It's the right thing to do. What's even funnier about it is that Benny know's there's something seriously wrong with what you're proposing to do but if your Speech is high enough, he's got no way of backing out.

Should be allowed to adopt the homeless psychic kid like you can adopt the kids in Skyrim. It's better than paying him to not take medicine.

I feel bad for him.

edited 1st Oct '17 3:00:23 PM by Nikkolas

I think Perry said he was trying to channel Sinatra. It just didn't work.

Yeah, but we've all seen Chandler do impressions. They're not generally dead-on, but they're usually enthusiastic, at least. This was not.

Yeah, he should've really been hamming it up, just to really bring out the overall personality of the Chairmen more.

Yeah, but people are saying he "phoned it in" as if he got lazy, when I think he honestly thought that was the best way to get across the totally nonchalant "This was nothing and still is nothing" attitude he was trying to go for. As if it really ddin't matter what happened to him because he thought he could outwit the situation no matter what.

Even when you're about ready to kill him, he's still got the tone that he thinks it can't possibly happen.

I do think he phoned it in. I think we've heard Matthew Perry do better.

Plus if you've seen him in interviews since Friends, the guy is depressed. That's not his fault, but I just don't think he was that into this role for a video game he'd probably never heard of. Which is a shame, because I think he could've knocked it out of the park.

I heard he was given the role precisely because he had heard of it. Namely, on a talk show, he mentioned really liking Fallout 3. Someone saw this, called him up and asked if he wanted to voice a character in the next Fallout.

edited 1st Oct '17 8:07:26 PM by Nikkolas

I'll admit he's not an actor I follow, so I'll accept your judgment on the situation and move on.

I had not heard that.

He's not actually someone whose career I follow, just someone who seems to show up in entertainment media a lot. He was like the Xander of that show, though, I was kind of rooting for him.

It's probably worth noting here, interest or no interest, Matthew Perry is an actor who traditionally works in live-action. I think this might have been his first appearance in a video game, and I don't know if he ever had any appearances in animation or the like. It's a fundamentally different way of working, and it also takes away one of your key ways of expression. To some extent, this applies even more to games like New Vegas than most animation: characters only emote in the most perfunctory ways. For a little fun experiment, have a look at Christopher Plumming voicing a Greybeard. It's not really a perfect performance, it's maybe a bit cheesy, but how does it compare to the voice in-game? My personal experience was that nigh-everyone in Skyrim was slightly bored. Apart from Cicero, of course, that guy's having the time of his life.

Benny doesn't really come off as non-chalant. He comes across as monotone and expressionless. His sex scene is hilarious in all the wrong ways for it. He sounds the same when he first shockingly yells "Hello!" at your unexpected sight, and the same when he mutters "Oh shit" to himself. I don't really blame Perry for this, but that's how it worked out for me.

edited 1st Oct '17 9:51:15 PM by Lavaeolus

You didn't find Ulfric's voice-acting convincingly passionate and charismatic?

No, no, most of the time he sounds kind of bored. They are all bored. It is a nation of bored people. Sometimes they are merely depressed. Some of them are gruff and bored. There is a subset of them who sound smug; I treasure them.

(This isn't really a complaint about Skyrim for the record. Most of the voice actors are shared and each have to do God knows how many roles; and if you ever want to experience the bizarre world of shared hammy voice acting, you can just jump into Oblivion and try punching a guard.)

edited 1st Oct '17 10:34:09 PM by Lavaeolus

So I still don't like any of the options in New Vegas.

I was thinking about what if there were more "main endings."

What would you guys think if the Lyons' Brotherhood was an option to side with? Don't ask me why they are there or how, just assume the FO 3 Brotherhood was a group to side with in New Vegas. Would you take them or still go NCR? Would they at least be your second choice?

(I'm guessing NCR is still the vastly preferred option on this forum.)

Ultimately I'd still side with the NCR.

The NCR is a stable, democratic governing body. And while Lyon's Brotherhood is an incredible and important charitable force in the Capital Waste, it isn't a government.

This whole thought experiment is of course ignoring that Lyon's Brotherhood was ultimately taken over by Maxson and his ilk.

Yeah, I might give this to the NCR over the Lyon Brotherhood, discounting other endings for a sec. Assuming the Brotherhood stays roughly as depicted in Fallout 3, I think they could probably bring some degree of order to the Mojave, and I don't think it'd be a hilarious bad outcome or anything. But they can occupy moreso than they can really govern. They're a military force, and likely that could be adapted to an extent, but they don't really have the structures to outright becoming a governing body.

Then again, maybe that's what the citizens of the Mojave would prefer? A lot of citizens, both in Vegas and otherwise, are ambivalent at best at the idea of joining the Republic, or being beholden to their homeland. But would they prefer semi-rule by the BOS instead? Any governing structure that arises (or has already arisen) would have to lean heavily on them. Imagine if the police or military were completely independent of the government; not necessarily the same situation, but you can see how that kind of thing could be problematic, depending on how it plays out. (I assume the larger Mojave settlements would still establish their own local law enforcement forces.)

We're not given much detail on how the BOS manage the Capital Wasteland, are we? I think MacCready mentions that they're "running the show", but that's pretty vague.

edited 2nd Oct '17 2:48:45 AM by Lavaeolus

Ideally I'd support the Followers, but this isn't an ideal sort of game. You can ultimately come away not really liking any of the four major ending choices, while still being able to see the merits of all of them. That's what I enjoy about it.

As for Lyons' BOS, he Mojave is a lot more stable that the Capital Wasteland. In DC, any help at all is probably appreciated. If a whole town like Arefu or Grayditch can get killed off without anyone even noticing, a bunch of almost literal knights in shining armour showing up with food, water, and guns are probably going to have your average wastelander all but drop to their knees and worship them.

The BOS both expect this kind of awe everywhere they go, yet do nothing to earn it outside of Lyons' Brotherhood, so in places where the world actually is moving on, they resent people not needing them. They won't contribute unless it's on their own terms, preferring to sulk in their caves instead. They all look like the knights of yore but the western BOS act like the dragons of myth.

I would have like to have seen Lyons' BOS survive out east and make it back west. I don't think they should rule, necessarily, and I actually suspect that Lyons himself would've felt the same, but they could have been a good influence on whoever actually did take power. Ideally you want a joint government made up of all the people of the Mojave— you want what the NCR is supposed to be, but without becoming a drop in that particular bucket. Vegas and NCR should ultimately join up again, but not under the current circumstances, not until Vegas can be assured of retaining its own voice. It's important for the soul of the NCR, too, that they not simply snatch the Dam out from under the people of Vegas just because the NCR is bigger than they are. Paternalistic foreign policy generally does not lead to freer countries.

So I usually go Wild Card and try and make peace between all the different factions as best I can.

Edited by Unsung on Oct 19th 2018 at 12:40:20 PM

I only just realised. Benny is Chairman. Of the Board.

And he wears a chequered suit.

The man is a walking pun.

I didn't find him too bad. I left him to run to be honest. STILL need to Finish HH. But finding it dull.

I'm working on an essay about how Fallout: New Vegas functions as a jeremiad and conversion narrative and I needed some help with the factions.

Obviously the player gets introduced to the Legion via Nipton and Mr. House is your ultimate goal for Act 1, but I can't think of an instance where the player is really directed towards interacting with the NCR and being persuaded to their side. Sure, you can ultimately be given Things That Go Boom and then Vulpes talks to you after you leave the Tops, but I don't think there's really a single good event to be all 'We're the NCR and you should support us'.

The NCR's ubiquity is both their greatest strength and the biggest mark against them. They're the default, the closest of the factions in terms of values and organization, and foibles and hypocrisies, to modern America. The game never really steers you toward the NCR because it would be hard to avoid them. Ambassador Crocker does send a runner when you get to the Strip, but I think the idea that the NCR takes its support base for granted (and so the game doesn't really give them a showcase of their own) is a statement unto itself.

edited 16th Nov '17 10:05:42 PM by Unsung

I suppose that's fair, but if you had to cite any point where 'NCR = Modern America/Lawful Good' (accuracy notwithstanding) is introduced to the player, when would it be?

The best I can really come up with is that early game quest with the NCR hostages from the Khans and even then I don't think that's a particuarly brilliant example.

Boulder City, right? Well, that is an obligatory quest and it does force you to interact with both the NCR and Khans. It doesn't really force the history between the two on you, but it's there, if you can manage to get anyone talking to you about it.

Yeah. Its a bit of an odd point.

Not to mention that my 'Jeremiad' argument falls though if we take a 'Caesar's Legion' playthrough as that's rather blatantly not making the world better at all and a bunch of other things... Yeah, I'm probably going to just brush off the Caesar's Legion playthrough in my essay.

Your first initial contact with them is around Primm - with their little outpost; then the Mojave Outpost near the statues - your initial view is of a jaded, stretched, but dogged group of people, I'd argue. Dusty, dragged out, but still persevering in the shadow of two giant statues - meant to symbolise unity and progress, but rusting in a desert sun.