Brian Menze Interview, New Vegas for sale

Brother None

This ghoul has seen it all
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The PA Report offers an interview with Obsidian concept art Brian Menze. Brian worked on Fallout 2 and New Vegas, and while the interview mostly covers other titles, he does have a bit from New Vegas:
<center></center><blockquote>I can’t remember which came first, but this is basically the pistol version of the L.A.E.R. from Fallout New Vegas. Josh Sawyer provided me with a couple of photos (shown in the image) of the type of pistol he was looking for, so I basically “frankensteined” all of those elements together. I don’t normally conceptualize weapons, so I felt a bit uncomfortable doing them on FNV, partly because Fallout fans are very particular, but mostly because I don’t draw weapons much. I was the only concept artist on the team though, so I had to do the best I could.

In addition to weapons I was doing posters, characters, props and Vault Boys. It was my job to get stuff out fast enough for all the artists on the team to have things to work on. A side effect from working so fast however, is that I don’t remember much about this concept at all beyond that. This does illustrate that whenever I get into a pinch, because of time (and in this case out of my comfort zone) I’ll take the easy road and piecemeal a concept. During production and being part of a small team, that is sometimes all you have time for. I’m not necessarily proud of this one, but it did the trick and Josh was happy with it.</blockquote>In related news, with thanks to Alphadrop, New Vegas is part of the Steam Halloween sale. 50% off. 15 bucks or 18 euros (Europeans getting ripped off again), which is not a bad price for the content but it's seen and probably will soon see better sales.

EDIT: Fallout 3 is 50% off too
 
I don't understand the need to redesign the pulse pistol, what was wrong with this one?

Fo2_YK32_Pulse_Pistol.png


I know, it wasn't even used later on, but still the thought process behind it is irritating me.

Still loving the stuff Mr. Menze does!
 
Surf Solar said:
I don't understand the need to redesign the pulse pistol, what was wrong with this one?

Fo2_YK32_Pulse_Pistol.png


I know, it wasn't even used later on, but still the thought process behind it is irritating me.

Still loving the stuff Mr. Menze does!


Honestly, that looks like crap, so I can understand why they changed it.
 
Yeah, I'm with Toront on this one. The old one always looked like a toy gun to me, whereas the new one looks silly but in a very retro-50s kind of way.
 
For me it's the opposite, the old one looks futuristic enough to me, the new one looks like a plastic toy with totally over-the-top of these 50ies elements in. I haven't noticed THAT much of this 50ies Pulp design in the older fallouts and think they went a bit too far on it in the newer ones.
 
Surf Solar said:
For me it's the opposite, the old one looks futuristic enough to me, the new one looks like a plastic toy with totally over-the-top of these 50ies elements in. I haven't noticed THAT much of this 50ies Pulp design in the older fallouts and think they went a bit too far on it in the newer ones.


The 50's stuff is my favorite part of Fallout, so I'm not so sure about that one either. :)
 
Heh, had a similar toy raygun to the original Pulse Pistol except it shot little sparks and went wizz rather than shot hot pulsey death at super mutants.

Fan of both really, though the L.A.E.R reminds me of Captain Scarlet for some reason.
 
The concept looks like the blaster that killed Greedo. ptar likes, and what it does to power armor (and the poor smoothskin within). I'm going to jump on the bandwagon and say the old one (although irritating when you get shot with one /w no armor looking for Navarro) seems like it should have a little flint roller and a 'Zzzzing' sound, like one of those old Godzilla toys.
 
Surf Solar said:
I don't understand the need to redesign the pulse pistol, what was wrong with this one?

Fo2_YK32_Pulse_Pistol.png


I know, it wasn't even used later on, but still the thought process behind it is irritating me.

Still loving the stuff Mr. Menze does!

Maybe it's because they're totally different weapons both lore-wise and in terms of function?

The pulse pistol is an "Electrical Pulse" weapon originally intended as a successor to laser and plasma weapons that fires purple bolts of electricity that disintegrate people. The New Vegas pulse gun is an EMP gun that does relatively little damage to people but a lot of damage to Robots and Power Armor because the electromagnetic pulses fry electronics.

Wouldn't it be even more annoying to see it turn up again, even though the fallout 2 one is a prototype that never went into mass production, functioning in a totally different way?
 
DemonNick said:
Surf Solar said:
I don't understand the need to redesign the pulse pistol, what was wrong with this one?

Fo2_YK32_Pulse_Pistol.png


I know, it wasn't even used later on, but still the thought process behind it is irritating me.

Still loving the stuff Mr. Menze does!

Maybe it's because they're totally different weapons both lore-wise and in terms of function?

The pulse pistol is an "Electrical Pulse" weapon originally intended as a successor to laser and plasma weapons that fires purple bolts of electricity that disintegrate people. The New Vegas pulse gun is an EMP gun that does relatively little damage to people but a lot of damage to Robots and Power Armor because the electromagnetic pulses fry electronics.

Wouldn't it be even more annoying to see it turn up again, even though the fallout 2 one is a prototype that never went into mass production, functioning in a totally different way?

It's already in the game, called the alien blaster.
 
ptar said:
DemonNick said:
Surf Solar said:
I don't understand the need to redesign the pulse pistol, what was wrong with this one?

Fo2_YK32_Pulse_Pistol.png


I know, it wasn't even used later on, but still the thought process behind it is irritating me.

Still loving the stuff Mr. Menze does!

Maybe it's because they're totally different weapons both lore-wise and in terms of function?

The pulse pistol is an "Electrical Pulse" weapon originally intended as a successor to laser and plasma weapons that fires purple bolts of electricity that disintegrate people. The New Vegas pulse gun is an EMP gun that does relatively little damage to people but a lot of damage to Robots and Power Armor because the electromagnetic pulses fry electronics.

Wouldn't it be even more annoying to see it turn up again, even though the fallout 2 one is a prototype that never went into mass production, functioning in a totally different way?

It's already in the game, called the alien blaster.

But that's also a different gun that doesn't really look like either the Yuma Flats Pulse pistol or the FONV Pulse Gun. It is a high end energy weapon but that's about all it's got in common with the Yuma Flats pistol other than both being aesthetically based on old Science Fiction adventure serials.
 
Brother None said:
New Vegas is part of the Steam Halloween sale. 50% off. 15 bucks or 18 euros (Europeans getting ripped off again), which is not a bad price for the content but it's seen and probably will soon see better sales.
Last year, on Thanksgiving day in the U.S., Steam had New Vegas and the DLCs 75% off. That's when I got all the DLCs. 50% off is a good deal. But if you can wait, keep watching.
 
DemonNick said:
But that's also a different gun that doesn't really look like either the Yuma Flats Pulse pistol or the FONV Pulse Gun. It is a high end energy weapon but that's about all it's got in common with the Yuma Flats pistol other than both being aesthetically based on old Science Fiction adventure serials.

Well, technically EMP only exists because of the expellation of atomic energy caused by a nuclear detonation, but anyway now you've confused this old man (with a great deal of help from that old man). Lost me at the purple bolts bit.
 
EMP doesn't come exclusively from nuclear weapons. It can also be generated via non-nuclear means (although it is less powerful that way).
 
Guess I shant be discarding that tinfoil hat afterall, thanks for the clarification guys.
 
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