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.

Location 22: The Strip - Ultra Luxe

Puttin' on my white gloves

I stayed in the Mirage last year, which seems to be the inspiration for the most luxurious hotel on the New Vegas Strip, the Ultra Luxe. Admittedly, there's probably a lot of the Bellagio's dancing fountains mixed in, but remember, the game universe isn't ours, and the New Vegas casinos were principally inspired by what Vegas looked like a few decades ago.

(The restaurants in real life presumably serve less interesting steak than the Ultra Luxe, too, although - this is Vegas...)

You want a piece of me?

The clue for me was the hinged architecture, which is somewhat more flowing in the game than the Mirage's angular blocks. But the foilage out front - including water features - seem to chime, and of course the Mirage is famous for its indoor rainforest. Score 3.

I can't delay this any longer: it's time to visit Mr House at the Lucky 38.

Location 21: The Strip - Tops

The Tops takes a bit more sleuthing. I could be wrong here, but its closest parallel (in both nuance and geography) in Las Vegas seems to be Circus Circus, a showing-its-age resort where I last stayed ten years ago. (Big Top, geddit?)

The most obvious relationship is with the swirly front overhang, although it's a bit tenuous. If anyone has a better idea, comment below.

Time for something a bit easier to classify. Let's put on some white gloves and visit The Ultra Luxe.

Location 20: The Strip - Gomorrah

The sands of time

And so to The Strip! The casino photos were surprisingly hard - while each in-game casino has a real-world equivalent, it's also where the game designers took the most artistic license; they're not the same places. (Of course, the game's not quite our future, but the way people in the 50s imagined the future would be.)

Anyway, first up's the Gomorrah. The scruffiest and dodgiest joint in New Vegas (and that's saying something), it's based on the oldest and most faded casino in the real world: the Sahara.

Meet the family

The Sahara's been in business 52 years, and is shutting down next month. Sad, but that's Vegas for you: constant renewal. I went inside, and the pool area (which looks surprisingly like the game) was closed off; otherwise there's little relationship between the interiors apart from the odd bit of North African inspired decor.

Nearby is the enigmatic Tops Casino.