Tanya Reviews "Fallout: New Vegas"

Warning: PG-13 content below.

  I finally finished it! And according to Steam's game time counter it took me 83 hours of grinding to complete the storyline. This is by no means because it's impossibly difficult, but because it's so bedazzlingly massive.

  That being said, there's a lot to say about this game. Fallout: New Vegas is the fourth (fifth if you count Fallout: Tactics) in the Fallout series. Built on the same engine as the renowned Fallout3 and boasting it brings back things from the earlier titles it had a lot that it needed to live up to, something I feel it managed to do to an excess.

  The sheer amount of things to do is incomprehensible, of that 83 hours it took me to beat it only maybe 10 was spent doing the main storyline and everything else was just dicking off. I have to admit that I cheated a little by consulting the Wiki, but that's like saying you're cheating at life because you read an instruction guide left to you by your dad, an apt comparison when you consider that the game has about as much content as the average person's life.

  It was on the Wiki that I noticed that this game holds the current world record for dialogue at over 65,000 unique lines. Good Lord, no wonder I was left staring at the screen for twenty minutes at a time listening to a bearded man droll on about his day like so many visits to the old people's home. This by no means makes the game boring because if you pay attention to little hints and notes they drop all over in those hours and hours of audio you start to pick up on subtleties and unspoken truths of this fully developed world. This kind of sleuthing is the sort of thing that NCIS¹ nerds masturbate to.

  So my initial response was one of jaw-dropping awe, but I feel any open field role playing game is only as good as how long it can keep you glued to the screen, and New Vegas understands that in that it has exactly a bagillion and three different places to explore, all conveniently placed just far enough from each other to be looming on your horizon and begging you to investigate them while you're teetering at the edge of how much you can carry, making the precarious decision between keeping your medical supplies or throwing them away to make room for more loot.

  it's only when you drop your mass of consumable food items and go to that thingy on the horizon that you see it's decorative and you can't actually get inside, so you go back to your dropped loot only to find a swarm of deathclaws have found them to be quite tasty. This is basically the gist of the game as a whole; a lone wanderer who just keeps trying to do their thing despite that the entire world seems intent on killing you.

  This sort of treatment is what causes people to go insane, and indeed I did. Right around player level 26 or so I decided I was fed up with obeying the rules so I made a backup save and went crazy.

"what do you want?" why I want to blow your face off good sir! "move along please" not until after I've used your insides on the wall in lieu of paint. And that's why this game had some primal satisfaction to it. It's like yes you're following the rules but at any point in time if you get fed up with how people are treating you then slaughtering everyone in the room is always a viable option.

  so my final consensus on the game is:

1: the crafting system is well done, although I'm annoyed that it simulates the real world in that no matter how long you plan a crafting project you always forget exactly 1 piece you need to finish it, leaving you scouring the ruins of a robot factory because you swear you saw a fission battery there a few hours ago.

2: the reloading system is also great, the ability to tear down 1,000 useless 9mm bullets and turn them into 3 armor piercing rounds that will finally shut up that securitron that's laughing at you has something very satisfying about it, even if the conversion rates from one ammotype to another seem to be more than a little borked.

3: on the same topic as the crafting system and stemming off of the reloading system, the ability to have more than one type of ammo for an energy weapon is rather nice, even if your options are only big bigger biggest.

  I found myself routinely compressing hundreds of regular rounds of ammunition for energy weapons into only a handful of max power rounds just for the enjoyable finger of god feeling when a laser pistol one-shots a raider, which you then find out ten shots later was a bad idea because like any electronic, if you run higher current than it was designed for through it, the magic smoke escapes and it stops working.

4: perks perks perks. while some of the perks have rather dubious benefits, there are others that are obvious right off the bat. two of my favorites that actually compliment each other and serve to directly engorge that part of my brain that triggers violence are Bloody Mess and Corona.

  As the name implies, Bloody Mess is a perk that once taken increases the chance bodies will fall apart upon death. this chance increases by how much you overkill them by, which when you get your hands on the .50 caliber sniper rifle usually means their meat chunks will land in houston some time three days from now.

  The Corona perk is a varient of Bloody Mess in that what it does is when you kill an enemy using an energy weapon their body gives off a blast similar to a plasma grenade. Combine these two together with a high powered energy weapon with a shot impact effect like the Gauss Rifle, which gives a blue flash and lens distortion where shots land, and what you're left with is every shot results in a massive explosion and nothing left but meaty bits. Again, primally satisfying. You pull the trigger, that person is Cntrl + Alt + Deleted from existence.

5: Factions! This game takes the factions of Fallout3 and takes them to a whole new degree. should you choose to be a nice person and talk to people instead of decapitating with a chainsaw before taking their wallet, you quickly find yourself in a lot of political positions. Helping person A will make person B hate you unless you explain to person B you're helping person A because person C wants to kill you. it gets very complicated if you want it to, but if at any point in time you just say "fuck it" then killing everyone and everything, as I've said repeatedly now, is always an option.

6: guns. oh god so many guns. I spent 83 hours perusing this game in detail, and even googled the locations of a few unique weapons like the Telsa Baeton Prototype shoulder cannon, which is like a personal ion cannon for all extents and purposes. Through all of this gameplay, I still haven't seen all the guns, especially not all of the unique ones. Again, it's the sheer content of this game that keeps a person going.


  If you're a person that likes games with deep immersive plots, this is for you. if you're a person that likes big gunfights but is okay with waiting hours between engagements, this is for you. If you only like pointless carnage and you're not willing to work for it....GTFO. This game is designed so that should you so choose you can just kill everything you see, starting with smaller and weaker things like wildlife and working your way up to civilians, then soldiers, then robots, then main characters...but that's kinda cutting out all the pure substance that makes the game awesome.

  Bethesda has found the sweet spot between pointless shooter, exploring free-roam, and deep plot RPG. And for that, I give this game a 4.8 out of 5. that 0.2 taken off is because you can't duct tape a minigun to E-DE.

Oh, almost forgot, gotta end with a quote.

"war...war never changes..."

¹NCIS is actually a very good show that I enjoy greatly.

Enjoying life and why it matters

  I know times are tough and there's a lot of messed up schist going on in the world, but I'm gonna shift from my normal super serious attitude to address something slightly more important than religion, politics, sports, or even the next year's line of iFails.

  And that thing is enjoying life.

  Something I see quite often in this world is people stressing out over stuff, especially stuff they can't control. Why? I'm sure you could give me a list of about ten things right off the top of your head, but stop and think, how many of those can you honestly tell me are of world-shattering significance?

  No general has ever won a battle by panicking, no great inventor was remembered for being paranoid about people stealing their ideas...well except maybe Edison, but in all fairness he stole about half of his ideas from Tesla. No, what set them apart was their coolness. Their calmness and logic is what made them great.

  I know that there's probably a lot going on in your life right now. You're worried about that bill that was late, you're afraid a family member won't be accepting of something you feel or believe in, or maybe you're worried somebody you know has a viewpoint you can't accept. Why worry? Does it do anything? All it does is keep your mind racing too fast to work out the problem and makes you blurt out things you may not mean when crunch time comes and you have to do something.

  So relax, chill out, take  breather and laugh at life.

  I'm not exactly in the best of affairs, but I don't let myself worry over them. I just lean back, take a nice deep breath, and then laugh; because that's all you really can do when there's nothing you can do.

  When you laugh at life, suddenly it doesn't seem so bad. It's a great high and doesn't cost a dime. This is something that a lot of people could benefit from, namely people in Washington.

  Day in and day out, all I see is worry and mud slinging. I see people going "but he's gonna ruin america" "but he's atheist" "so what if I'm athiest, he's a fundie and wants to kill gays!" Does this really get us anywhere? Is this really how mature adults should act?

  Get one thing straight and clear. We all have mud. Every single person on this planet, including you reading this and me writing it has done something they're not proud of. Does it really benefit us to be throwing that mud around like monkeys at the zoo?

  I say we don't throw that mud around, we own up to it. We laugh at our problems and worries. We bake that mud down into bricks and make a house we can be proud to call our own, because that's the true mark of being a mature adult.

  Being an adult is not the ability to make a good argument, but the capacity to benefit others without needing one.

  "Courage is not the lack of fear but the ability to face it."
---- Lt. John B. Putnam Jr. (1921-1944)

Digitigrade Shoes? Yes!

An old project idea of mine finally made it to a finished prototype!

  These things were a pain and a half to make, but I still enjoyed every moment of it. The leatherworking was by far the hardest part. Between the leather punch bending and breaking on me and the thread getting tangled it was impossibly tedious fixing all the broken stitches and patching in the new bits.

  Despite how hard they were to make, I absolutely love the things. My main reason for making them is that I have never liked the feel of shoes. I guess I'm a real tomboy in that I prefer going barefoot, and my furry side shows in that I often walk on my toes. This really freaks people out when they see me walking digitigrade while barefoot on gravel. Apparently that's painful for some people, but it feels just fine to me.

  These shoes let my feet breathe, they don't feel constrictive, and for the first time ever I can both walk on my toes and wear shoes at the same time without looking silly or wearing uncomfortable high-heels.

  I plan on replacing those ugly straps with something smaller and elastic, but for now they work just fine. I also uploaded to DeviantArt as well as made a video of them in action on You Tube

  That all being said if you have project ideas for what I should make next or questions and comments on these, just reply here or the other two places I've posted them.

America and Free Speech

  The general theme around the internet today is SOPA and PIPA and how they're affecting the future of the internet, so I figure that while I'll touch off on those a little, I'm going to get to the meat and bones of why they're such a big deal: free speech.

  To those reading this from overseas I doubt it comes as a surprise to you that Americans, namely those in the United States, value their freedom of speech even higher than their guns. We value it so highly that when the constitution and bill of rights were made, the very first amendment to it was freedom of speech and of the press...closely followed by the second amendment right to bear arms.

  Now, you may be asking yourself; how does a bill that suppresses piracy impede my free speech? Well, if it was designed right it wouldn't. The problem is that it isn't. the Stop Online Piracy Act uses the suppression of copyrighted and user generated content. While this will stop about 10% of piracy, it'll also stop 90% of creativity.

 To give you an example of what I mean; the very man who composed and introduced this bill, Lamar S. Smith, could be charged with criminal acts under it because his website was found by an independent research team (AKA: 4chan) to contain a background image that while licensed under Creative Commons was not accredited to the photographer in the page footers nor the page source code.

  This means that he failed to attribute the art in the manner specified and could be fined or jailed and his entire website forcefully shut down for criminal copyright infringement. I don't know about you, but that's some pretty scary schist right there. It's scary because it could happen to any of us over simple oversights.

  In my personal opinion, this bill and its sister documents have only made it as far as they have because Americans are afraid. We can't hide it, and it's pointless trying. Look at airports, look at police, look at the most recently passed laws *cough* NDAA *cough* We're afraid to go outside and afraid to speak up in many cases. Peaceful student protests are maced in the face, Occupy Wall Street stand-ins are literally shoved out with bulldozers.

  This nation is crumbling under its own paranoia. People keep coming up with new excuses to trade freedom for a feeling of safety, and then have the nerve to look you in the eye and say "we can't let the terrorists win" look at yourself you simpleton. You're jumping from your own shadow. Terrorists act by using fear or terror to promote or force a religious or political viewpoint. Do the math. By allowing yourself to fear the dangers, they've already won.

  America, you've gone soft. That's the cold, hard truth. SOPA is the final straw. We've been addicted to laziness this entire time, taking it like a drug. When we're encouraged to learn about the sciences, when we're encouraged to learn about religions other than the Judeo-Christian family, when we're encouraged to eat right and exercise, even when we're encouraged to be more efficient with our resources. When the world screams at this fat and lazy drug addict, we shrug, tie that rubber band tight, and shoot up another needle of fear and complacency.

  We're on the verge of a massive heart attack that we will not recover from. The screams of protestors and the outcries of the internet are our doctor, warning us if we shoot up one more time, if we get high on laziness again, we'll die. I don't know about you, but I love this nation, every fat, flabby, lazy, arrogant, varicose vein covered hairy inch of it. I love what it used to be and what it's capable of, but dammit you've let yourself go America, put down the needle and stand up, be strong, be proud.

  Don't be afraid of people pirating your work, it's free advertising. Don't be afraid of plane bombings, we all have to die some time. Don't be afraid of disease, if you kept yourself healthy instead of hiding in your house you'd actually have a decent immune system. And don't be afraid of speaking your mind, it's a god given right for all humans, even atheists.

  And most of all. The big one. The one that many of us seem to have an instinctual fear of even discussing.

  Don't be afraid of your government.

  There is no evil too great to be uprooted, no challenge too immense to conquer. If you find a corrupt person, stand up, speak out, even if it means death. If you see something broken, if you see something wrong; fix it. Get off your lazy, complacent, sunlight fearing bloated rear, and DO something about it.

  If everyone stood up, if nobody feared pain or retaliation, if nobody cowered and hid, there would be no corruption, there would be no oppression, because there would be nobody to oppress. Only the weak let somebody rule them unjustly, so don't be weak, be strong. The only difference is initiative.

  I'm going to end this entry with a quote from a very great actor (Peter Finch) playing the role of a very great man (Howard Beale):

  "I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!'"

Speech for the LBGT

  I've been having a bit of time to think on life, the universe, and all of existence...42 minutes of it to be exact. (the sad part is that's not the meme, that's actually about how much time I spent pondering this topic) And in that brief moment of meditation I made a few realizations.

  The first and biggest one is that I had no clue a year ago where I'd be today. On December 1st 2010 I officially came out of the closet about wanting a gender change, now just over a year later I'm still not on proper hormones yet because of financial problems, but even without them I've been enjoying myself and living reasonably well.

  When I came out and when I stopped being Daniel and started being Tanya I had to change nearly everyone I associated with because of how many had negative, unkind, or in some rare cases, violent reactions. A year hence I'm unemployed, taking care of my sick mother, and trying my best to not let my relationship with my boyfriend crumble.

  But, despite all that, I wouldn't change a single thing. I'd leave it all like it is if I could go back because I know I'm stronger for it. All of those pains I've gone through and I'm still going through have made me a much more durable person.

  This post is for all of my LBGT friends. It's a damned tough road for a transgender, but I want to tell you all this right now; Whether you're M -> F or F -> M or one of the very few who's a hermaphrodite. I want you to know that that pain, that suffering, that hell you go through to stand up and be who you are, that's what historians will remember about you. Through history, it's always the oppressed who are remembered, and those who stood up against oppression and said NO.

  I'm not gonna say you should rub it in people's faces, because that's sinking to their level. What I'm saying is you should stand up and be proud. You should keep going no matter what. If somebody says harsh words, grin right in their scowling face. If somebody says "You'll never make it." give them a smirk and reply, "Watch me."

  Just remember this, those who don't understand, those who don't appreciate your struggle, they're humans too. We all are. If you're atheist, and they say you're going to hell and they're going to heaven, just smile and nod, you know they'll be proven wrong. If you're religious, and they say you're a horrible person for being gay, just smile and nod, you know they'll be called on their hatred and ignorance once they reach the other side. Death is the final decision maker for all of us, no matter what we believe or don't believe in, so let him deal with taking care of those annoyances, you'll just stress yourself out by raging back at them. And those who stress, and yell, and rage; Those who view the world through hate filled eyes, they're far more likely to die young from stress based disorders. Those who confront life with a smile and a nod, they live longer healthier lives.

  So go out there, go out and be happy. Remember, the happier you are, the more it pisses off your haters, and the angrier they get, the more likely they are to pop a capillary. If you smile back in the face of a person who yells instead of giving them the satisfaction of seeing you cry or scream, then you're getting the last laugh.

  As a certain purple equine once said, "I'm gonna love and tolerate the shit out of you"

Friends and Phobias

  This is an old topic for me and hearkens my earlier years. It seems that we as a global society have lowered the threshold for what defines a "friend" and we seem ever more afraid of losing these friends. This is a problem that's always held a slight annoyance to me because what this means is there are a lot of instances in which somebody will label somebody a friend without really knowing the person.

  What I see happening more and more is that the word "friend" is rubbing the emotional attachment intrinsic to it off onto people who you've merely shared contact details with. I'd love to live in a world in which simply sharing contact details with somebody makes them not want to harm you, but let's get real, shall we?

  Just because somebody says they're your friend or just because a bit of software crams them into the same group as friends shouldn't be a reason to become too attached. Things happen, life happens. The internet may be the entire world to some people, but to other people's worlds the internet is just a toy.

  For every person out there who's only contact with other intellectuals, you know who you are basement geeks, there's at least two people who only get on to have fun and to harass anybody who has a conflicting viewpoint. This was made painfully obvious to me when in the span of one day I had three of these fairweather friends all admit to causing unrest deliberately and for the sole purpose of annoying, stressing, and aggravating others.

  This is the internet after all. Despite the fact that nearly all those names on the screen are real people with real feelings, the internet itself isn't something that can stab you or give you a wedgie. The internet is only as serious as you let it be. Remember that. For every one truly nice and honorable person you meet, you're gonna run into a dozen who see it as the most intricate and fun computer game ever made. These people who just see the internet as a game are going to treat you just like any NPC they encounter and not give a damn about how you feel, so don't ever give them that satisfaction.

  When somebody online hurts you it may be painful, when an online friend leaves you it feels like a part of your soul has left, but there are a hell of a lot more people out there, and there's always new people to meet. Jerks are gonna be jerks and just because a person is nice in real life doesn't mean their internet persona isn't douchebag incarnate. Life's gonna bend you over and give it to you hard so long as you take things like them seriously. Learn to laugh when somebody tries to hurt you, learn to let go when friends have to part ways or move on.

  Nothing you can say will hurt that annoying person like they hurt you. Most likely rage will only entertain them, and nothing you can do will make a lost internet friend come back any sooner. Stressing over either will only lead to tears. So buck up, move on, and try to crack a smile once in a while, because we're all just hairless apes on a spinning rock. And no matter how you live your life, we all have to die some time. So spend less time worrying and more time enjoying yourself. To do anything else devaluates those brief moments we call a human life.

About Steampunk

!!!INCOMING RANT!!!

  Out of all the genres of science fiction I see, I have a particular affinity for steampunk. This isn't so much for the reason that it's almost as endangered a species as Cyberpunk and space dogfighter games, but moreover for the reason we already possess the technology for it.

  We as a species and as a people have the technology to make a good share of the creations seen in Steampunk stories, movies, and artworks. But we don't. Why is this? The only conclusions I've been able to come up with are because it's cheaper and more compact to use alternative technologies such as electricity and internal combustion.

  But these technologies, not to say they aren't magnificent in their own right, have inherent problems. If society collapsed, if our economy finally snapped instead of bending like it has been, where are you gonna get refined gasoline for your car? Sure you could distill some grain alcohol to run it off of, but when you consider the consumption versus growing and brewing rates, you would only be able to use your internal combustion vehicle on occasion. Plus you have the problem that burning straight alcohol is hard on the engine and would make it require nearly twice as much maintenance.

  There's the old standby of Diesel and running it off vegetable oil, but you still need to find that or refine it, taking you back to square one, fuel availability. Sure while you're pillaging the scraps of humanity you'll have some fuel, but that stuff is gonna start running out and decaying, and those who hold it will start charging a lot for it and defending it with guns.

  And the third and fourth options of our modern society fall hand in hand, hydrogen fuel cells and electric cars. Both of these are quite viable, would allow you a low profile, they don't generate much noise, and in general have lightweight fuel storage...but they need electricity, and a lot of it.

  Generators are simple enough to make, you just need some lodestones, copper wire, and a spinning iron bar, they've had those since the dark ages, but how are you gonna regulate voltage? and for that matter, how many people know that by using zinc and copper anodes in an electrolyte solution that can be made with household ingredients can be used as a power storage medium? Or that by forcing electricity through salt water with extraction pipes and compressors over the cathodes you can harvest hydrogen and oxygen in their gaseous state? Not many I've met.

  Solar panels would give you predictable voltage and wattage based on surface area and light levels, but they're more than a little rare. Plus all of the above options once an internal precision component breaks you're screwed, it won't run without it. Steam is an amazing alternative to this in that the level of precision, while still high, can be achieved with nothing more than a blacksmith's forge and a decent level of skill. Well, except the refined copper and piping, those would take specialty tools.

  Steam power also has the benefit of being able to run on anything that burns and common, even non-potable, water. Seampunk is a type of technology that is apocalypse-proof. Sure, it's bulky, resource intensive, and not as efficient as modern tech, but to have something you can run off stuff laying on the ground, and that looks simply awesome, why wouldn't you?

  I am Tanya Sapien, and I approve this message.

Getting things rolling

Well I guess I should make my inaugural blog. Just gonna establish a few points. I know I titled this "the mad science kitchen" but that by no means means I'll only be posting death rays or glow in the dark pastries.

  This blog is going to basically be all of my musings. This can include but is not limited to concepts and ideas, political rants, motivational speeches, art posts, plot overviews, and maybe even questions for my viewing public.

  That all being said, if you've been directed here from my DeviantArt page, don't worry, this doesn't mean I'll stop posting journals there. I'll still post there routinely and if I feel up to it I'll just copypasta and post the most recent blog entry as a journal.

  Deviantart is where I got my start, and the community I've met there has been absolutely awesome in the long run. For every day I had to put up with trolls there were ten days of nothing but laughs with friends, and I don't just forget that kind of welcoming attitude.

  That all being said, welcome, stay a while, put your feet up and relax, and don't be afraid to comment.

Up and Running!

This girl finally made a blog, wooo!

I'll start using this as a replacement for my facebook and skype updates, and maybe even in the place of DeviantArt journals.