Fallout: New Vegas/Trivia


 * Actor Allusion: James Urbaniak is basically playing Rusty Venture in his role as Dr. 0.
 * Casting Gag: Mr. New Vegas is voiced by Wayne Newton, a.k.a. Mr. Las Vegas.
 * Defictionalization: The collector's edition included chips from the major casinos in the game as well as the Platinum Chip. In a less profitable vein, many fans play Caravan in real life.
 * Fan Nickname:
 * Some people who hate the Legion refer to them as "cosplayers", in reference to the fact that they're just dressing up as Roman Legionnaires.
 * Among some Fallout fans, ED-E has acquired the nickname "Mini DeathStar".
 * Hey, It's That Place!:
 * Yes, Primm is a real place, and it does have a rollercoaster (attached to the Buffalo Bill hotel -- all three hotels in Primm are much larger, but no one really cares), and does have Bonnie and Clyde's death car (not his gun, though, but it does have his jacket, and the car is in a mall attached to the hotels). Hoover Dam, Goodsprings, Black Mountains, Nipton, Nellis Air Force Base, and a lot of other real-world locations are snuck in as well (mostly things only native Nevadans would recognize, like camping sites).
 * This is also played for a joke with "Repconn" which is a very slightly veiled joke to "PEPCON", an actual factory for rocket fuel that was formerly centered in Henderson Nevada... before it blew up on May 4th, 1988.
 * Hey, It's That Voice!:
 * Chandler shoots you in the head in the intro.
 * Also a case of Promoted Fanboy since Matthew Perry was a very big fan of Fallout 3.
 * Veronica, as mentioned earlier is Penny.
 * Raul is Machete, and you better make sure the bad guy ain't you!
 * Arcade Gannon is Chuck.
 * Marcus is once again voiced by Michael Dorn.
 * Mr. House is voiced by Odo.
 * Caesar is Commissioner Rawls.
 * Wayne "Mr. Las Vegas" Newton is Mr. New Vegas.
 * Doc Mitchell is Colonel Tigh, or Armando Bailey.
 * Yosuke is a post-apocalyptic Roman.
 * And he apparently moonlights as a Powder Ganger, having won the only lottery that matters.
 * Grunting tells me he seems to be The Courier, as well.
 * Yuri plays a lot of unnamed characters in almost every group, and almost every named Scribe in the Brotherhood of Steel.
 * Lust is an NCR Lieutenant and at least judging by her grunts, might be the female Courier as well.
 * In Dead Money, she's also Vera Keyes and Christine.
 * Who's that schizophrenic cross-dressing nightkin on top of Black Mountain? It's Saren!
 * The ever-popular narrator is Ron Perlman.
 * Jason Marsden provides the voice for Boone. (Myron Took a Level in Badass!)
 * Dave Foley is Yes Man.
 * Duncan is a human doctor living among friendly Super Mutants.
 * He's also a crazy old man who got stung in the head a few too many times by radscorpions!
 * Gaara voiced many NPCs, including Pacer, Cachino, Major Knight and Jerry the Punk. Ever want to hear Akihiko do an Elvis impression? Well, here you go.
 * Also, if you really liked the sound of Akihiko's voice, stay pro-NCR, cause you'll be hearing him out of the mouths of almost every male NCR trooper you'll run into.
 * Wesley Crusher voices the Robobrains.
 * Travis Touchdown is credited, but doesn't seem to be anywhere. Same goes for Spike.
 * Spike plays one of the Vault 11 inhabitants and most likely other assorted voices.
 * Travis voices Deputy Beagle and the Super Mutants.
 * Chief Hanlon is Whistler.
 * Harbinger has assumed direct control of Joshua Graham.
 * Ulysses is Curtis Manning.
 * Dr. Venture is one of the Think Tanks, Dr. 0.
 * Reed Richards is a communist hating mad scientist/book chute.
 * Dean Domino is Sun Li The Glorious Strategist (or Pontius Pilate).
 * Roger Meyers Jr. is Big Sal.
 * Is that Captain Qwark playing Doctor Klein?
 * Dr Mobius is Liquid Snake.
 * Oh god, Bartz, what the hell did you do to Nipton?!
 * By extension he's also Kid Flash.
 * Jossed: The Epileptic Tree about Yes Man's "assertiveness" upgrade being meant to set him up as The Starscream. Word of God says that Yes Man was not foreshadowing a future betrayal. Quite the opposite, it was him being Genre Savvy and working to prevent himself from being turned against you in the next round of musical chairs.
 * One of Us: Well, they're game developers, so this is pretty much a given, but Lead Designer J.E. Sawyer is known to be a Goon.
 * The Other Darrin: Christine from Dead Money has a speaking cameo in Old World Blues, where she has a different voice. Justified, however, in that it's not actually her voice she's using in Dead Money, but rather that of the long-dead Vera Keyes.
 * Playing Against Type:
 * Jason Spisak, who usually plays heroes, plays the villainous Vulpes Inculta.
 * Jason Marsden, known for playing wide-eyed, innocent young boys, voices Boone, a twenty-six year old hard-edged disillusioned sniper who lost his wife to slavers.
 * Danny Trejo plays a soft-spoken good-hearted mechanic.
 * Prop Recycling: Lots from Fallout 3.
 * Consequently, there is also some from Oblivion, since Fallout 3 recycled some Oblivion props.
 * Various non-radio music from the series gets reused as well. Besides the reused Fallout 3 various songs from the first two games are used at different points (i.e. the Shady Sands theme from Fallout in the Old Mormon Fort or the Redding theme from Fallout 2 playing when you encounter the Wrecked Highwayman among plenty of others).
 * Refitted for Sequel:
 * The DLC is based around this. Originally, it was going to be another partner named Ulysses, having been part of Caesar's Legion. He was removed from the main game, but was expanded to being hinted in the first DLC and then becoming a major character in Lonesome Road.
 * Fallout: Van Buren was canceled, but some minor plot elements and Caesar's Legion was incorporated into New Vegas.
 * Saved From Development Hell: Caesar's Legion was going to be part of the stillborn Van Buren game following Fallout 2. Some NPCs from Van Buren were also recycled and given slightly different roles (Alice McLafferty and Arcade Gannon for example). The setting of Old World Blues, the Big Empty, came from the original design concepts of Van Buren's opening location, the Tibbets prison facility.
 * Screwed by the Network: In a now-semi-famous contract incident, Obsidian agreed to produce the game as contracted by Bethesda. Bethesda included a provision for a very, very large bonus in the contract if the game scored a specific score on Metacritic. The game scored literally one point less than the agreed upon score, and Obsidian was essentially screwed out of the majority of their paycheck for the development of the game, in addition to running themselves absolutely ragged getting it out by the release date, in a buggy state that they were then not allowed to completely fix. Needless to say, Obsidian has shied away from big-name producers ever since, with their next announced project Pillars of Eternity being self-published and funded through Kickstarter, and South Park: The Stick of Truth having a much more lenient development process.
 * Though it is worth noting that the entire development team at Obsidian still has a good working relationship with Bethesda and has repeatedly stated they would be happy to do another Fallout game, with lots of enthusiasm. This incident may have made them more cautious in business dealings, but for Fallout, it's Doing It for the Art.
 * Talking to Himself: Pretty much inevitable in a game where all dialogue is voiced, and there is a huge cast of generic NPCs. It becomes especially noticeable, however, when the actor in question has a distinctive "neutral" voice. Take the four male Remnants, for example, as three of them are voiced by Peter Renaday.
 * What Could Have Been:
 * Romances were considered, but scrapped early on in development. A remnant of this can be found by looking at the available companions: of the four human companions, there's two men and two women, and one each of the men and women are gay, so hypothetically speaking, a player character of any gender or orientation would have someone to pursue.
 * There were early plans to extend the game beyond the final battle, but the amount of variables (i.e. programming a Mojave with the victory of four possible factions and numerous minor details) made it too impossible to program within the deadline.
 * Ulysses, the antagonist of Lonesome Road, was originally intended to be a companion in the main game, but was cut due to time constraints. He would have been unique among the available companions as actually being sympathetic to the Legion and especially untrusting of the NCR. Much of that personality remains in his Lonesome Road appearance, but if he'd been in the main game as originally intended, there might've been motivation to actually work with the Legion. As it stands, you can earn a pair of Luck-boosting sunglasses...but you lose the loyalty of Craig Boone and Arcade Gannon, and you'll likely end up killing at least a few factions/settlements that you actually liked. Of course, Ulysses could be persuaded to reluctantly serve the bear or another cause and will tells you about the battle of Hoover Dam.
 * Word of God states that there were originally more Legion territories planned east of the Colorado River, but they were cut due to time constraints. These would have included mainly civilian settlements, while all Legion settlements that remain in the game are primarily military camps.
 * The image on House' monitor was originally this, but was changed due to making House look too Obviously Evil.

Arcade's Allusions

 * "Caesar can quote Cato to his purpose" is a paraphrase of a line from The Merchant of Venice: "The Devil can cite Scripture to his purpose." (Though Shakespeare is pithily reflecting much older wisdom.)
 * "Am I playing Vergil to your Dante?": The Divine Comedy, where Vergil serves as Dante's guide through Hell.
 * "Why don't you make like Odysseus and get lost?" The Odyssey, natch.
 * "Victrix causa diis placuit sed victa Catoni." is from Pharsalia by Lucan. Translated it is simply: "the winning cause pleased the gods, but the losing cause pleased Cato." Considering its context, it fits very well.

Miscellaneous
"The latest "Fallout" game takes place in this city after your character is left to die in a Mojave grave."
 * Was a Jeopardy! clue on 2/24/2011;