I was running a series of what felt like somewhat-routine checks for the New California Republic. Update the comm frequencies at Alpha, Bravo, etc., down the line. Doing this task made me feel again like the “Courier” I was in fact supposed to be portraying.
When I came across Ranger Station Alpha, I did take a moment to pause and gaze in to the space just beyond the camp.
Is that… fresh water? And clean?
Fallout 3 could certainly tell me, a lot, that fresh, clean water was special, but as I’m playing New Vegas in “Hardcore” mode, fresh clean water is actually special. It’s pleasant every time I can plunge my head under the spout of a non-radioactive sink and reset that all-important hydration meter. It was worth it, at that moment, to go running down in to the clean lake and stick my avatar’s face in it, even if I had to be mindful of the Lakelurk monsters crawling around a nearby shore.
It occurred to me later that the small joy of running in to the lake for a clean drink would have been lost to me if I hadn’t been tracking my dehydration meter in the first place. I suppose that this situation is much like the people trying to get more meaning from Far Cry 2 by playing it without dying, or the default “ironman” settings in roguelikes like Nethack that mean every single action really matters. By playing a game in a different way or often a more-challenging way, smaller mundane moments take on new meaning. Risk and reward are heightened, and clean water is special in a way it wasn’t before.
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