And for bonus points in its sheer creep factor, it's also a Suspiciously Similar Song to "Grass" by Aphex Twin. It's basically the official Bleak Level theme of the west coast titles. As if steady beat of tribal drums paired with ghostly whispers and an ethereal choir didn't already make the song menacing enough on its own, it's almost always played in locations associated with extreme, even by the standards of the Wasteland, suffering, death, or cruelty, such as The Boneyard, Golgotha, The Fort and other Legion-controlled locations, and The Divide.
It doesn't help matters at all that in New Vegas, it's used in the areas around Camp Searchlight and Nipton, and will be playing during what will likely be the Courier's first encounter with Caesar's Legion and Vulpes Inculta. Add some metallic screeching sounds to top it off and and it's one disturbing track. You can hear ghastly wails interspersed with the music along with a loud, droning noise dominating the song, simulating the sound of an emergency siren.
Desert Wind, the theme for wasteland maps, sounds like lost souls screeching in the wind.It wouldn't sound out of place in a documentary about the Cold War or the Holocaust or something of that nature. Subdued strings and intermittent piano notes mixed with nuclear raid sirens and a background Drone of Dread giving way to military drums to perfectly encapsulate the setting. Perfect for setting up the bleak and horrifying tone of the opening narration, of how everything went wrong and ended in nuclear war. At the very end of the track, there's an odd creaking noise, like something swinging from a rafter. It isn't just an ambient track, it's an echo of what the Vaults used to be like: methodical, garbled talk of the past Vault scientists running amoral tests that would spell doom for their inhabitants. It's also possible for a keen ear to hear computer keys clacking. Then deep, mumbling voices and hissed whispers become audible. A track that features steam hissing and metal clanking, while an eerie metallic tone plays. The soundtrack of Fallout, reused for Fallout 2 and Fallout New Vegas in certain areas and cutscenes, is bound to keep players awake at night.Take some time to think about it while their detailed death animation plays out. And were you feeling like a big man and started a shootout in a populated area? There's some chance of accidentally hitting those kids if you miss. You could blow them up, disintegrate them, put out both their eyes, set them on fire, and leave them a limping, bleeding mess with a single remaining hit point. The newer games have done away with it, but the first two let you target children.Eventually, the mutants will however take over areas of the map.
Although a later patch replaces the 500 day limit (to a maximum of 13 in-game years for limit reasons), so you can take about as much time as you want.The Overseer gets his entire left half blown apart, his intestines dragging behind him as he tries to crawl away before twitching violently and dying.Critical hits from certain rifles or even punching can put a very large hole clean through someone.Bursts from automatic weapons will dismember a person in seconds, leaving little more than just a pair of legs.Alien blaster and pulse weapons will turn your target into pile of ash or outright disintegrate it.Shot from laser rifle can cleave you in half, revealing the protruding stump of your spine.