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16 April 2011

Location 34: Hoover Dam

Anyone for skateboarding?
Hoover Dam is an amazing piece of civil engineering, and it's fitting it's both my last photogaphed location and the end of the game.

A shorter drop in-game
It's no longer possible to drive directly over the dam on its top edge; a new bypass bridge came into effect in summer 2010. This means I was one of the last foreign visitors to drive over the Dam itself (last year!) when construction was finishing up.



That's a lot of concrete
Looking over the dam! This is the only location where I've been forced to use different image heights to compensate for the wider aspects in the game (it's a scale thing.)

Everything's wider and lower
But as you can see the game captures the sheer immensity of the 1930s masterpiece quite accurately.A sharp intake of breath at the audacity of those engineers... both civil and software.


Isn't there a shotgun in there?
Seems further to walk
The towers that house the hydroelectric turbines are reproduced faithfully, although without the "Arizona Time" and "Nevada Time" clocks that denote the different states the dam spans.


 
A glass box in the canyon...
...but concrete suits the NCR better
A point of difference, though, is the Visitor Centre. I suppose the in-game building takes its cues from the 1950s; the current building is quite new.




A couple of wingsuiters
A bit shorter in-game
The angels monument near the visitor centre is also nicely graphic'd up, including the gold-leaf inscription (almost readable in the game - try it!)











Come on in, the water's lovely
Bit too chilly perhaps
This picture showcases a serious point. See the "clean" rocks for a couple of metres above the waterline, leaving a neat bathtub mark around Lake Mead?

 That's how far the water level has receded - possibly due to global warming. You see signs of this all over the West's lakes and forests, and it's worrying.

And that's my Fallout New Vegas Tour! It's been a great trip; thank you for joining me on it. GAME OVER!

30 comments:

  1. A truly fantastic contribution to Fallout community! When I bought the game, I had no idea that so many locations had its RL counterparts.

    PS. I believe New Vegas Strip casino have more than one inspiration. For instance, Ultra-Luxe also resembles Bellagio, The Tops Sands Hotel & Casino(Rat's Pack), and Gomorrah Dunes.

    Once again, fantastic work!

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  2. Awsome work really enjoyed watching the vids and reading the info on all the locations great work !!!!!!!!!!!!

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  3. I would have concluded veni, vidi, vici... Despite that, I am impressed sir.

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  4. Lake Mead isn't dropping due to global warming, it's dropping because it's the fresh water reservoir for a population that is quickly outgrowing it.

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  5. You can still drive over the top of the dam, you just have to take the exit to do it now.

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  6. This was great! Thank you! I thoroughly enjoyed taking this tour with you!

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  7. The "bath tub" ring as seen in Lake Mead is not a result of global warming, but more as a result of Las Vegas using more water than is being replenished by mountain runoff/aquifers. Nice try to blame it on "global warming".

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  8. How could you not have visited Jacobstown? It's the Mt Charleston Ski lodge!

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  9. Deadwind Cavern? LOL

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  10. Great work! Thanks for posting this blog. I enjoyed it very much.

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  11. love it, appreciate the work you've done...

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  12. I now live in Australia, but I was a resident of Kingman, AZ for years when the old highway was still a working road...I crossed the top of that dam 3 to 5 times a day pullin' up to 70ft of oversized loads, mostly roof truss kits for new homes in Vegas...Lemme tell ya, you think the approaches are tough in a CAR, try crossin' in a single drive Ford tractor with a 60ft roller deck trailer without runnin' over any damn TOURISTS! Some days, a fully charged plasma rifle woulda come in real handy...*l*

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  13. Fantastic series - thank you so much! I plan to do similar for Assassin's Creed II/Brotherhood :-)

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  14. Great stuff!I was thinking about doing this journey myself, which lead me to your adventure.

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  15. Very cool dude, all that and you didn't check out Helios One?? Killer trip tho mang, cool pics

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  16. I moved to Las Vegas about a year ago and took it upon myself to start playing this game again. Fantastic job capturing all those images. One thing I also noted was one of the major roads I live near is named, Cheyenne, the same name as Sunny's faithful furry friend.

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  17. I've noticed lots of little touches like that in the game. I bet Gibson's dogs enjoy similar riffs!

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  18. Enjoyed that, thanks for the trip.

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  19. @ Anonymous5/22/2011 3:03 PM Yes that's totally what he's trying to do.

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  20. I very much enjoyed going thru this New Vegas travel log and had thought to do something similar if I ever go to the US in the future. Thanks for that, good stuff :)

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  21. Wow! I really enjoyed time watching this. Great job! (any chance about Fallout 3 - real trip? :)

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  22. The bathtub effect is because all those lakes are reservoirs, which are managed for hydropower. Whenever you visit in the late summer, the water level will be lower than in the spring, when the snowmelt is stored up.

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  23. my son wants to join me on a vegas trip to do the new vegas tour. we have both gone from goodsprings to the dam repeatedly an I amazed him a couple of months ago with a google earth tour that showed most of these locations as well as helios one and the solar arrays at nellis

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  24. I read all the way through, great job and it was a nice trip!

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  25. I'm almost speechless. Awesome work.
    Cheers f'um Finland!

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  26. Thanks so much for this! Very interesting read. Glad I stumbled upon it :)

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  27. Very nice! I was in Vegas and decided to try and go see some of the things in the game, and this site site came up. I squeezed in a couple of things including the old Mormon fort. Turns out I hate the strip, but I had fun traveling to a few of the national parks and Hoover dam

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