Location 23: The Strip - Lucky 38

The Stratosphere at ground level

Time to meet Mr House! At the fourth and final casino on the New Vegas Strip, the Lucky 38.

The equivalent view of the 38

While The Vault (at fallout.wikia.com) says it's based on the demolished Landmark Casino, I think the game's Lucky 38 looks more like the existing Stratosphere - with its slimmer tower and angled-outward windows up on the viewing platfom.

Besides, most of the design team would have been in school uniform (at least) when the Landmark imploded (1995). Of course, it could be a mashup. Believe what you want.

The only way is up

The Stratosphere seems a bit of an odd choice to house the most powerful guy in New Vegas: in reality it's a bit of a dump, cheap and sparsely inhabited in the rougher end of town (up north near Fremont St.)

Check out the view

Stepping back, the visuals seem to confirm it though. Here are my reasons...

Slim concrete tower without any inhabitable space in it (all it contains is the elevators) topped off with a large viewing floor containing a couple of bars and the best views in Vegas (unless you count the front row seats at the better topless shows.)

All hands on deck

But the clincher for me lay inside the viewing deck. Look at these two shots - they're clearly of the same place, even allowing for the 38's 1950s-era decor. The radius of the two rooms feels about the same, and the infrastructure lifts) occupy the central area so you can walk around in in a complete unbroken circle.

Are you feeling lucky?

The game only skimps on one aspect: you can't look downwards out of the windows to see the whole Strip arrayed before you. (That would've taken serious computing power of course.)

I'm not a gambling man, but I'd bet money on this. To finish up, here's a 360 degree video walkaround of the viewing deck...

All this gambling is making me dizzy. Let's head out of town to Callville Bay.