All Articles: Fallout: New Vegas

On September 7, 2014, YouTuber “Many A True Nerd” posted the first video of a Fallout: New Vegas run that he referred to as “You Only Live Once.” Yesterday, nearly a year later, the series finally came to an end.

The name of the game is simple, or rather, the rule set is simple. “Many A True Nerd” wanted to beat Fallout: New Vegas, and all of its expansions, with a single health bar. “Many A True Nerd,” real name Jon, wasn’t allowed to heal his character’s wounds or radiation once in the entire series. If he took any damage, it would be a permanent strike on his health bar. His character’s name, Please Don’t Shoot, seemed rather apt.

In the final video, Jon reminiscences about the series and how it’s helped him and his YouTube channel, which grew from 10,000 subscribers to nearly 100,000. He beat the base game in February of this year and spent the last six months completing the game’s downloadable content, starting with Honest Hearts.

Jon admitted to making several mistakes over the course of the series, including underestimating certain enemies and walking into several traps including a bear trap and tripwire rigged shotgun. But he was able to beat the first three expansions, and entered Lonesome Road with less than 100 hit points. Coming into the final battle, he had all of 23 hit points to survive, and was on the verge of getting radiation poisoning, which would have dropped him down to three hit points. After coming so far, will Jon see it through to the end? You’ll have to watch the video yourself, embedded above, to see.

As for what’s next for Many A True Nerd, he wasted no time telling us how much more difficult the next challenge will be… An “You Only Live Once” run through Fallout 3. But hven he’s convinced he won’t get far.

The game where it’s absolutely, definitely, flipping impossible. There are only about 12 weeks left until Fallout 4 […] Honestly if I can get more than 12 or 13 parts through Fallout 3 “You Only Live Once” I will have surprised myself.

He’s laughing as he says this. Granted, he and everyone else said that about New Vegas. However, Fallout 3 is a much tougher game. With no gambling to quickly make money, a limited damage resistance system, a lack of different ammo types, more random events, and Fallout 3’s heavier reliance on combat, it will be truly remarkable if he can get through ten parts, much less beat the entire game (and all its expansions).

Starting next week, we’ll all find out together. Good luck, Jon, we have faith in you… somewhat.