New Vegas -- my thoughts

Thank you for letting us know about Niner.  I just finished his quests, and he's become my favorite companion mod.  It's like Fear and Loathing in New Vegas.  My current character is a junkie who is having a ball in Vegas with Niner.

Spoiler:

They look good together.

I've had a blast with Niner and my only regret is that his quest wasn't longer. Fear and loathing in New Vegas is a great way to sum up a walkthrough with this follower.

Apparently, the author is working on a big update with new content. I would like to be able to talk with him about the main quest, so hopefully some of that will be included.

My Niner looks different from the original because I'm using the Fallout Character Overhaul, which replaces the default meshes and textures with more realistic looking ones. I'm also using a smokeable cigarette mod, and my character is addicted to alcohol, nicotine and jet. Naturally, she won't be siding with the Legion.

I really like the Fallout Character Overhaul because after hundreds of hours playing FNV it brings back some novelty to the faces. I do feel that Sunny Smiles doesn't look as cute as she did but that's entirely subjective.

I did side with the Legion once and it's a credit to the writing that they managed to put some moral ambiguity and depth in what could have been reduced to a bunch of psychos in skirts. Despite its limitations the NCR is still a better choice for a female character no matter what.

I still miss the way drugs worked in the old Fallouts. Jet used to be some of the most dangerously addictive substance known to man (loved the talk on that subject with Myron). In FNV jet is just a joke and addiction can be cured with one shot.

I actually did play a female Legion character, but I played her as a brainwashed frumentarius sent to infiltrate the NCR.  The Manchurian candidate, basically.  A female agent would basically be above suspicion, so I figured it would be a smart move by Caesar.

The interesting thing about that character is that I did so many missions for the NCR to maintain cover, that I ended the game with very high karma.

That's a pretty cool idea and I like that. I didn't think about it before but it would make a lot of sense and that would be exactly the sort of devious trick Caesar could conceive in his twisted sick brain of his.

Well, when it comes to karma FNV is a total mess. I've actually disabled everything karma related because it didn't make a lick of sense. You could go all Robin Hood and get an abysmal karma because you stole from Powder Gangers (but didn't slaughter them) and you could go for a psycho cannibal who would butcher the Powder Gangers and end up with a positive karma because you didn't actually steal from them.

I get that stealing supplies from survivors would doom them to a slow unforgiving death but you should get a hit if the owners are dead. Karma should be quest related or triggered by choosing some dialogue options. Besides the whole thing about killing people and getting positive or negative karma wasn't perfect in the original Fallouts (the child killer perk for killing innocents of the wastes did work pretty well and kept the player on his toes) but it wasn't completely broken like in FNV.

Sorry for ranting but as much as I like FNV there are still things that they didn't get right karma being one of them.