Fallout: New Vegas / Shout Out

This is just a small sampling of Shout-Outs featured in Fallout: New Vegas, a game which carries the proud tradition of its series' tendency of being heavily Reference Overdosed. Here is a more complete list.

open/close all folders

Base game

Most of the quests are named after song titles, such as "Ain't That a Kick in the Head", "My Kind of Town", "Return to Sender" and "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" (while hunting down the sniper in the hills near Bitter Springs). Extra points for the game including the first song in one of the game's radio stations to hammer in the shout-out even further.
- A sidequest in Camp Searchlight is called "We Will All Go Together".
You can find a farm with two damaged farmhouses, a pickup and burnt down house with a dead body. Upon finding all four pages of the body's diary (one on the truck, one in each farmhouse, one in the house) you will learn that his parents were turned into Feral Ghouls, he killed them, and then thought that the animals were plotting to kill him and take over the farm.
A criminal with a love for explosives with the last name Cobb, first initial J? Where have we heard that before?
Your character is Courier #6.
A pretty darn obscure one is the New Vegas Samurai trophy/achievement. Look at the Vault Boy picture.
One of the brains you can heal Rex with comes from a dog named Rey.
A drug addict expresses surprise and disbelief at seeing corn in his... waste.
A domesticated mole rat in Sloan is named Snuffles.
One of the possible perks to gain is called "The Professional," complete with image of a Badass Longcoat, Cool Shades, Guns Akimbo Assassin... and his plant.
Here's a little story about Jack and Diane... two Great Khan drug cooks doin'... the best they can.
One of the lines for generic Freeside Locals references a one-liner from Army of Darkness.
Good? Bad? You're the one with the weapon.
At the REPCONN Test Site, a man berates his co-worker in a terminal conversation for not bringing cake to his retirement party. To make it even better it counts as a double reference since the man's name was Gordon.
There's a very subtle one that they really had to do the research to dig up - there's a minor, otherwise unimportant member of the gang known as The Kings carrying a unique barber's razor called Figaro. Examining the map reveals that the location he is found in corresponds almost exactly to the location of the real life Figaro's Barber Shop in Las Vegas.
- This also doubles as a Shout-Out for the title character of The Barber of Seville.
The Shotgun Surgeon perk alludes to the following Mexican Standoff dialogue from Kill Bill:
The Bride: You pretty good with this shotgun?
Assassin: Not that I need to be at this range, but I'm a fucking surgeon with this shotgun!
During the battle at Hoover Dam, heard over the NCR radio:
"Location Bravo Bravo Charlie, the Doctor is coming."
- This may double as a shout-out to The Flying Doctors.
- He also orders unit 4 to back up unit 8, unit 15 to back up unit 16, and unit 23 to wait for backup from unit 42
You can be forgiven for expecting the first words of House's giant, green-headed avatar to be "I AM OZ!"
- After your first meeting with him, Cass actually advises you to look behind the curtain.
House's obituary contains a small shout-out to Lolita.
Listen awhile to Jerry The Punk come up with poetry he asks himself "What rhymes with indulgent? ...Effulgent?"
Mick from Mick and Ralph's says "Like I always say, a polite society is an armed society."
When protecting the President, you have the option to make a report over the radio after taking down a Legion sniper disguised as an NCR soldier.
Everything's fine here, thank you. How are you?
The unique variant of the Tesla Cannon known as the "Tesla-Beaton Prototype."
La Fantoma is either the female, Hispanic version of The Phantom, or an Expy of an Expy, with the Bowdlerized Latino version of Fantômas, who's portrayed as a sneaky superhero rather than the original source material's villain.
- The cover is also a mirror image imitation of the Adventure Comics origin issue of Black Orchid.
One of the sidequests involves a former Omerta trying to free his "dancer" girlfriend from her life at Gomorrah and running as far away from New Vegas with her as possible. His name? Carlito.
- Even better, according to the game files his full name is "Carlitos Wayne".
Vault 11's premise is heavily based upon The Lottery, although with an additional Take That! to political parties that use an ostensible democracy to undermine the good of its own citizens.
- The specific wordings used to tell you to sit in the chair in the final chamber are based on the Milgram Experiment.
The name of one of the casinos, Gomorrah, could possibly be a shout out to a joke from Sister Act.
Sister Mary Robert: (on seeing Reno for the first time) It's beautiful!
Sister Mary Patrick: And what a lovely name, Reno!
Reverend Mother: ...and Gomorrah!
- Barring that, could just be an allusion to Sodom's neighbors.
Trash wants to be a ghoul.
- Could also be a reference to one of Stephen King's works. Trashcan Man, anyone?
There's a ruthless businessman running a city he views as his own personal property and talking to you in a condescending manner over a speaker.
- And one of the Gun Runners Challenges is to kill him with a golf club. This challenge comes complete with a line from the game.
- It gets even better once you realize that the voice actors for both House and Andrew Ryan worked together on a certain space station.
When speaking to Loyal about his sonic emitter, if your Science skill is too low to help him figure out how to make it work, you can say "Oh. Does it have a dial or something? Turn it up to 11!"
You can find a BFS made of a car bumper that's about seven feet long. What's it called? The Bumper Sword.
A dead prospector located in a heavily irradiated area called the Devil's Throat bears a strong resemblance to Duke Nukem.
Those versed in US finance will recognize the NCR's bear and the Legion's bull as symbols of the stock market, the bear and the bull traditionally representing a falling and rising market respectively. The NCR falling while pushing east, and the Legion rising with their conquests.
- Alternatively, in Gold-rush era California, bear and bull fights were a thing. It's not at all related to the stock market terms, as in most cases, the bear won the fight.
A unique weapon in the game is "This Machine," named after Woody Guthrie's guitar "This Machine Kills Fascists." In response to that name, the phrase "WELL THIS MACHINE KILLS COMMIES" is written on the side of the gun.
Speaking of weapons, "That Gun" got its name because... well, it's "that gun from Fallout 1 and 2", as fans used to call it — the .223 pistol (5.56 pistol in FNV), a handgun that fires rifle ammo. Which in turn means it's also, once again, an expy of Rick Deckard's gun in Blade Runner. One of a kind in the first game and New Vegas, it was available for sale or loot in the second (...and New Vegas, as part of the Gun Runner's Arsenal DLC).
During the quest "How Little We Know" you meet a man who's indebted to the Omertas because they helped him cover up his accidentally killing a prostitute during a drug-induced blackout (which was actually set up by them in the first place). Now why does that sound so familiar?
The Bright Brotherhood ghoul cult is preparing to embark on a "Great Journey" to the "Far Beyond", and refer to the Nightkin attacking them as "Demons".
With the Terrifying Presence perk, you can scare off some rogue paladins by threatening to "cast down their Codex" (their doctrine) and destroy the Brotherhood of Steel. After the BoS members run off, Veronica worriedly asks if you were joking about the Codex. It makes sense In-Universe that Veronica doesn't want you to destroy her home and family, but her voice actress Felicia Day's character in The Guild goes by the handle of "Codex".
Mr. New Vegas's news blurb about the simmering tensions in Freeside consists almost entirely of him quoting the King's Incredibly Lame Puns referencing various Elvis songs.
During The King's task for you to deal with a certain NCR attack, you speak to three victims of that attack: Roy, Wayne, and Farris. Put those names together and you have the real name of the most famous wrestling Elvis impersonator in history.
One that relies on you completing a Stealth Pun to get: Julie Farkas is a frontier pharmacist.
The unique variant of the gauss rifle is named "YCS/186", a reference to the defunct Something Awful subforum "Your Console Sucks", which had the ID number 186.
The Powder Gangers' founder is named Sam(uel) Cooke, after the singer of the 1950's song "Chain Gang".
The achievements Master Blaster and You Run Bartertown are references to Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.
When crouching with Cass in the party, she'll occasionally mutter "Shhh, we're hunting shitheads" like a foul-mouthed Elmer Fudd.
When you return to George after making it to the Boomers, he exclaims "Jumping Jesus on a Pogo Stick! You're the first one to make it through alive, let alone manage a return trip!"
One of the loading screens features a sheriff dressed exactly like Lucky Luke.
In the game's data, your companions fall under the DontTazeMeBro Faction. It's there so that they don't get attacked by securitrons in New Vegas.
There's a song in the score titled "Jacobstown Ladder".
The passwords to the two reflector terminals at Helios One are strings of hexadecimal numbers, which converted to ASCII read "My voice is my passport" and "Too many secrets".
Hadrian, the ghoul comedian from "Talent Pool", is a physically unattractive rapid-fire insult comic brought in to work in the suave Tops Casino. Who could that be?
Lily, one of your potential companions, is ordinarily a kind and peaceful person but is constantly being urged to commit atrocities by a voice in her head named Leo, and more than once has blacked out and succumbed to his influence to go on a killing spree.
The achievement for doing enough damage with explosives is named "Love the Bomb".
The sacrificial chamber in Vault 11 resembles the euthanasia booth from Soylent Green.
After you start the Wang Dang Atomic Tango quest and enter Mick and Ralph's, the first thing Ralph say to you when starting a conversation is Pimpin Ain't Easy
The Garrett twins in Freeside are loathsome.
There's an unmarked quest in Goodsprings Source in which a guy named Barton Thorn asks you to save his girlfriend who is trapped in a ridge full of geckos (it turns out to be lie to make you clear the path to a cache left by a dead prospector). The title of this unmarked quest, when viewed in GECK, is Barton the Fink.

Wild Wasteland

On a cliff overlooking the Goodsprings source you can find a body of a dead prospector named Johnny next to a table with five aces on it, and next to that, four balls on the edge off a cliff. It's all a reference to Johnny "Five Aces", a character from an abandoned game project incessantly mocked on the Something Awful forums.
Just outside Goodsprings, you can find a refrigerator with a skeleton in it. It's wearing a brown fedora. May double as a Take That!, since many people couldn't get over the fourth film's nuclear explosion.
In a cave you must visit during a quest, you run into some rodents of unusual size...
A random NPC will mention Maud's Muggers, a vicious gang of old ladies. You may then get attacked by three of them.
- On the wall in Cottonwood Cove is graffiti reading "Romanes eunt domus."
- If your reputation with Freeside drops to "Vilified", citizens may accuse you of being a witch who turns people into newts.
- In the basement of the church in Searchlight, one can acquire five... er, three Holy Frag Grenades.
In Nipton, you find a pair of clothed, charred corpses outside of a house named Owen and Beru.
One of the more subtle Wild Wasteland occurrences is when you're exploring a disappearance in the casino of the White Glove Society: you discover the body of a fellow detective, a sunglasses-wearing man by the name of Crusoe.
During the battle of Hoover Dam, one NCR soldier will scream that the Legions' troops are "...coming out of the goddamn walls, man!" Even better, you can also hear "Game over, man, game over!"
The Securitrons guarding the Freeside entrance to the Strip will say "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!" when in combat.
If one of the Kings tries to flirt with Cass, she may dismissively say "Ain't nothin' but a hound dog."
Securitrons may be heard saying "Your move, creep" (instead of the standard "Move along") when closer to the courier.
- Likewise, if the courier chooses to frame Heck Gunderson for his son's murder, the Securitron will say "Dead or alive, you're coming with me" before shooting him dead.

Dead Money

In a wine cellar filled with Ghost People, the phrase "I AM NOT YOUR MUMMY" can be seen scrawled on the wall. Well, looks like we know where the ghost people came from!
With Wild Wasteland, Dog will OM NOM NOM on Ghost People.
Again with Wild Wasteland, the first time you kill a ghost person with Dean present, he'll remark: "He's not dead, it's a trick. Get an axe." The best part is that this isn't just idle chatter, it's solid advice — Ghost People will come back to life if you don't dismember the corpses somehow after taking them down.
The plot involves robbing a great treasure from the Sierra Madre Casino. Bonus points for it causing previously amicable seekers to grow greedy and kill each other over it.
- Besides that, the casino contains the Tampico Theatre (named after the town Bogart and company set out from in the film) and the Cantina Madrid (where Bogart and his partner... negotiated aggressively with their fraudulent boss). The "Police Pistol" added in the DLC is also the same model of revolver used by some characters in the film.
The entirety of the Sierra Madre itself — an abandoned 'town' surrounded by an ominous fog, populated almost exclusively by unkillable Humanoid Abominations, and people who're trapped there without realizing they're dead, where radio static warns of imminent danger — will seem very familiar to certain players.
- Don't forget the very, very unsettling ambient music.
What's the one sure way to kill the creepy mutants roaming the villa? Dismemberment
Sinclair's revenge plan for Dean Domino is a reference to Edgar Allan Poe's short story, "The Cask of Amontillado." In it, a man entombs a fellow nobleman alive. Sinclair even refers to Dean as Fortunato, the nobleman from the story, in the note he leaves in the vault, which is programmed to slam shut and lock after it's read.
One that was actually missed by Obsidian was the eerie similarities between Dead Money and Hotel California's lyrics. When someone pointed this out to J.E. Sawyer, he was actually rather upset, since they lost an absolutely amazing chance to explore that reference.
- There's a similar thing with the lyrics to "Under the Red Cloud" by Amorphis.
Elijah's speech to the Courier through a circular green screen in the vault is also, much like your introduction to House in the main game, obviously based on the eponymous wizard of Oz.

Honest Hearts

With Wild Wasteland, one of the tribals is named "Two-Bears-High-Fiving." It's a reference to a rather peculiar New Vegas mod. The mod's author was apparently very bothered by the fact that there's no dialogue that states one of the Rorschach ink blots Doc Mitchell examines you with looks like two bears high-fiving. Said mod is solely dedicated to adding that single dialogue line in.
- Also with Wild Wasteland, asking White Bird the shaman to clarify what you do for the Rite of Passage causes him to say "Take drugs, kill a bear," a reference to the Advice Dog Image Macro.
Joshua's line "If you harm Daniel or any of the Sorrows or Dead Horses, I will find you. Make no mistake. God willing, you will not leave this valley." sounds a lot like the iconic line from Taken said by a man sharing many traits with Joshua.
According to Chris Avellone, Joshua Graham's design was based on DC Comics' Unknown Soldier.

Old World Blues

Yet another Oz reference: the Courier has his brain, heart and spine replaced with cybernetic prothetics and is given the corresponding perks "Heartless", "Brainless", and "Spineless", referencing (respectively) the Tin Man, Scarecrow, and Lion's predicaments.
- When you finally confront Mobius to get your original body parts back, he says it reminds him of a story about "a band of murderous thugs" went on a journey to get "brains, a heart and courage...spine." For bonus points, the interior of Mobius's lair is emerald-tinted.
- And finally, because Old World Blues plays it just close enough to the hip to not be a Whole-Plot Reference to The Wizard of Oz, you're pulled up out of nowhere to Big MT in manner similar to the twister that snatched Dorothy and took her to Oz; and yes, that is a faded yellow road that leads from where you start the DLC all the way to Mobius' lair.
With Wild Wasteland, Dr Mobius will mention that he has several 'Plan 9s in place.'
The Y-17 Trauma Override Harnesses (with Wild Wasteland) will occasionally say, "Hey, who turned out the lights?"
The Book Chute telling you how to do your own "re-indoctrination" which needs "a cage that fits over your head and a bag full of mole rats." You also find his backup Personality Module in House #101. Plus, he's one big shout out to Fahrenheit 451.
Once again with Wild Wasteland, Kilroy was here◊.
Quite a bit of Old World Blues makes subtle reference to The Venture Brothers, with Dr. 0 being voiced by James Urbaniak (the voice of Rusty Venture) and having his personality and many of his lines lifted directly from the show.
- With the Wild Wasteland trait, you can even find miniature versions of the Walking Eye in the magnetohydraulics complex. Dr. 0 will also sometimes announce over the loudspeaker a request for the Lobotomites to wash the walking eye.
- Dr. Klein, although not voiced by the same actor, sounds suspiciously like Jonas Venture from the same show.
Dr. Borous said he created Nightstalkers and Cazadores back before the war, he can't remember exactly when, but he remembered it was Tuesday.
In the doghouse behind Dr. Borous's house with Wild Wasteland, you can find a miniature Deathclaw named Stripe.
With Wild Wasteland, in one of the research labs, you can observe a room with Cyberdogs sitting around a table... playing poker.
The food source of the Think Tanks is Salient Green, although it's made from plant matter, not people.
X-13: A stealth training course with a familiar-looking sneaking suit, patrolling Robobrains, laser tripwires, and landmines.
- Bonus points since, Dr. Mobius, the supposed Big Bad of the DLC, is voiced by Cam Clarke.
The revealed origin of Cazadores; they were genetically modified to be giant deadly creatures, but were never intended to leave the lab, nor did the scientists acknowledge they were still able to breed. Sound familiar?
The Big Empty may be a reference to a 2003 film of the same name, which takes place in Baker, CA, halfway between LA and Vegas. ^note
A minor one, but if one searches, they'll find that there are three locations within the US referred to as Big Mountain. One of them is Black Mesa.
- The sort of experiments and "SCIENCE!" mindsets going on within the Big MT also make it a more twisted version of Aperture Science.
The Think Tank regularly mispronounce impossible as "unpossible," which is what Ralph Wiggum said in The Simpsons when told he was failing English.
- Dr Mobius also says "raisins" instead of "reasons," like the brain in Fry's crummy novel from Futurama.
A cave can be found (and you're required to visit it for an optional side-quest) that's home to a number of toaster-worshipping Lobotomites, including the first Lobotomite test subject. The name of the cave? The Cuckoo's Nest.
One perk introduced here makes it so you can never get addicted to chems and they last twice as long, but your level cap is set to 30. The perk's name? Logan's Loophole.
The DLC contains several references to the original Wasteland:
- The Proton ax was the single best melee weapon in Wasteland.
- Doctor Mobius sends robotic scorpions after the player, while in Wasteland there was a single powerful similar enemy called Scorpitron.
- The Toaster is a reference to the odd "Toaster Repair" skill. Successfully repairing toasters would provide the player with valuable energy weapon ammunition, which is also what the Toaster produces upon tearing up other toasters.
- "Them's Good Eatin'" perk gives a random chance to find a blood sausage or thin red paste on defeated enemies. Both of these items reference death messages in combat in Wasteland.
The code to unlock the container for an advanced hazmat suit is a string of hexadecimal numbers, which translated to ASCII spells out "dontpanic".
If you have the Wild Wasteland trait, you might find a sign reading "WOLVERINES" hanging in the high school testing area of X-8 Research Center.
The creepy eye on the movie screen could be a reference to the cover(s) of Roger Waters' Concept Album Amused to Death.
Doctor Mobius is a wa... er, floating Shout-Out to "The Brain of Morbius".

Lonesome Road

The Other Wiki claims the title and general plot of the DLC are based on a line from Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:
"Like one that on a lonesome road / Doth walk in fear and dread, / And having once turned round walks on, / And turns no more his head; / Because he knows a frightful fiend / Doth close behind him tread.”
Nuking both NCR and the Legion at the end of Lonesome Road with Wild Wasteland on will turn a part of Ulysses' closing narration into an almost word-for-word reference to the infamous ending of Planet of the Apes, as well as showing the Mojave Outpost Monument half-buried in sand like the Statue of Liberty.
With the Wild Wasteland trait, the Fist of Rawr Deathclaw Gauntlet becomes the Fist of the North Rawr.
You can find Seymour with Wild Wasteland.
The bad guy from Ralphie the Robot, General Winter, in addition to being an Internal Homage to Fallout 3's Colonel Autumn, is also a Russian figure of speech referring to the harsh Russian winter's ability to stymie invading armies, most notably those of Napoleon and Hitler.

Gun Runner's Arsenal

Fan Film Fallout: Nuka Break got a nod in the DLC — before the fan film was even released! — a new unique rebar club, called the Nuka Breaker, with a special VATS move called Nuka-Break.
- The Nuka Breaker then went on to appear in the background of one scene in the Nuka Break sequel series as a shout-out to New Vegas, because the creators didn't realize that the Nuka Breaker was actually a shout-out to them and thought the name was just an amusing coincidence. After they found out, they had the main character use it in the second season finale.
One of the One-Star Challenges added is A Slave Obeys. For those who never played BioShock, you kill Mr. House with a golf club, which is how Andrew Ryan met his end.
- Another assassination-related Challenge is "Even A God-King Can Bleed," which you get for nailing Caesar in the head with a throwing spear.
invoked Two of the other One-Star Challenges added — namely, "The Same Could Be Said of All Religious Weapons" and "You Don't Belong In This World!" — are taken from the (in)famous intro of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
The special move for the Katana is called Unlabored Flawlessness. Unlabored Flawlessness is one of the most powerful weapons from the first game of the Xbox Ninja Gaiden series.
One of the challenges is "A Benefit or A Hazard," for destroying robots with That Gun and the 5.56mm Pistol, which were designed to resemble Deckard's gun from Blade Runner.
There's a challenge for killing either NCR or Legion assassination teams with cowboy-style weapons called "Dyin' Ain't Much of a Living."
The challenge for killing Caesar with a knife is called "Historical Propriety," as it's a repeat of how the original Caesar went down. Bring Arcade Gannon for added bonus, as he has the historical knowledge to appreciate your effort.
Everything from the White Line Nightmare unmarked challenge — kill 20 Fiends, Vipers, or Jackals with tire irons, baseball bats, lead pipes, machetes, .44 Magnum revolvers, and/or sawed-off shotguns — is a reference to Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior: killing punkish-looking post-apocalyptic raiders in cobbled-together leather armor with the movie's most iconic weapons. The name of the challenge comes from the introduction:
Narrator: Their world crumbled, the cities exploded... A whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear... Men began to feed on men...On the roads it was a white-line nightmare. Only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage would survive. The gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for a tank of juice.
- It goes back even further to the base game, where Raul's default weapons are a .44 magnum and a lead pipe.

Shout Out / Fallout: New Vegas

Previous

Index

Next

Shout Out / Fallout: New Vegas

Edit Locked

Previous

Index

Next