Hardcore Fallout: New Vegas is Backed Up

I’ve recently gotten back into Fallout: New Vegas with the release of the Dead Money DLC this past week (it’d been an Xbox 360 exclusive up until February 23rd). I’d gotten a bit overwhelmed with the game and had taken a month or so off, but the increased level cap gave me new incentive to play as well as bringing to light some questions I’d forgotten I’d ever pondered.

The call of nature

I’d killed thousands of mutated animals, plundered derelict military bases and traveled through hostile lands but the one thing I’d yet to do was something that’s an everyday (sometimes multiple time) routine that I honestly take for granted. I was single handedly about to decide the fate of New Vegas and my character had yet to poop.

This may seem a strange concern, but take into consideration that I was playing the game in Hardcore mode, an addition to the series that required my character to eat and drink to stave off hunger and dehydration in a semi realistic way. For those not in the know, eating tends to equal pooping, and based on the diet my FNV character was eating (irradiated fruits and meat in addition to heavily processed boxed foods leftover from the nuclear apocalypse) fecal matter was definitely in production. Then, take into consideration that the average human being poops at most three times a day to around once every three days, so we can safely say at least once a day is an average that people go number 2. Finally, let’s say that one real time hour equals a day in Fallout: New Vegas (this is an estimate you nerds, bear with me) and I’ve played about 71 hours. This means that after consuming all the food needed to stay vertical, my character had gone 71 days without any sort of bowel movement.

Forget what you know about toilets, they don't work the same in FNV

A little extra weight won’t hold me down

Now, if all my character had been doing was sitting around twiddling his thumbs, such an observation may be easily ignored but the fact is I was causing a ruckus in the Mojave wasteland. Imagine the times in your life that you barely made it to the toilet or were totally constipated then imagine solving mysteries and fighting monsters in that condition. Before this article I went on a run and at mile four got the belly gurgle that preempted a potty break. Safe to say, I immediately stopped what I was doing and tried to find the nearest restroom. My character never stopped fighting, even after consuming pound after pound of giant gecko meat. Really puts things into perspective doesn’t it?

The one time I thought to give my guy a chance to drop the kids off, he decided to drink out of the toilet instead. Sure toilet water is a decent source of hydration in a nuclear wasteland, but that’s what the ten or so odd bottles of water were for. Pooping was never part of the equation. Even when questioned by the many doctors wandering around the wasteland about my character’s health condition, never once was digestive regularity brought up. Sure broken bones take priority, but that still leaves time for a laxative prescription or at least a pro-biotic yogurt suggestion.

Well Doc, there was something else I was having trouble with

A different kind of difficulty

I know there are times where realism gets fudged on to avoid the monotony that saturates real life, but I still cringed every time my character took a leap off a high cliff and landed without a single sphincter hiccup. I guess I should congratulate Bethesda and Oblivion on creating a truly hardcore mode for their game, not pooping makes the higher difficulties on other games seem childish.

Sources:

Giant Bomb (images)