Of Deathclaws & Radscorpions: A Fallout Thread

I've stated it before, but the NMA guys are almost entirely unpleasable, anal-retentive fuckwits. I'm a huge fan of the original games too, I've played through the first game in particular several times, but I don't understand these dudes.

Mordy, I'm kinda right there with you on all accounts.

x-posts

anyone stumble on the mad preacher surrounded by mines and nukes? how did you, uh, 'handle' it?

also what armour/clothing get-up do you dudes have?

reading about everyone's abundance of stimpaks, ammo and cash makes me think I should maybe have picked those perks ('scrounger'?) that increase the chance of finding those things lying around : /

also, still loving forks' soundtrack but thinking about compiling one of my own from the other end of the century to switch it up a bit... thinking vangelis and other 'futuristic' music... what else?

i didn't have any of those perks and still found a lot of meds and drugs. Sniper rifle ammo was hard to maintain.

I never went power armor b/c I liked to be sneaky. mostly recon + the stealthy hat.

I am slowly going through again as a big, drug addicted thug.

where do you find the time?

I take a lot of Jet.

never liked the sniper rifle. just got the plasma gun and, with seven levels to go before 20, am planning on putting much of my skill points into energy weapons. In the meantime it's combat shotgun, ghoul mask and talon armor all the way.
I never loaded my own soundtrack!

And just found vault 112 last night before going to bed.
WHAT SECRETS LURK WITHIN??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

I could maybe make a second soundtrack of FUTURE SOUNDS if there's interest?

Just dont unlock the secrets of vault 112 if you're way behind on the main quest, as I bitched about upthread.

I started a new game after beating it as a self righteous patsy on Saturday. Am now a surly super strong be-mohawked young lady who just annihilated megaton after finishing survival guide quests and taking Lucas Sims bobblehead. Im also recently discovering that putting skill points in melee was a big fucking waste.

step off, forks!! joeks; I am lazy and would probably never get round to it anyway :)

i don't know; i think the older stuff works better b/c so much of the game is soaked thru with a sense of loss, of melancholy nostalgia...

"Maaayyyyyy-beeeeeee
Youuuuu'llllll think of meeeeee...."

etc

I just did the lovecraft quest in the southwest and that was one of the most interesting, odd experiences I've had in a video game. I got the ghoul mask earlier, so it was mostly just exploring an abandoned multi-level building, following the storyline and saying hi to zombies all over the place. Really a special in-game moment.
I finally blew Moriarity's legs off with the exploding pants. Not as satisfying as I thought.

Bethesda proved with Oblivion that they were quite willing to support their products long after launch and it appears that Fallout 3 will get the same treatment.

Today Bethesda announced a whole load of exclusive 360 and Games For Windows DLC that comes in the form of three downloadable mission packs released in the early months of next year and the G.E.C.K which will be available for free in December.

The G.E.C.K is the Garden of Eden Creation kit and it "provides the community with tools that will allow players to expand the game any way they wish. Users can create, modify, and edit any data for use with Fallout 3, from building landscapes, towns, and locations to writing dialogue, creating characters, weapons, creatures, and more." Which I'm sure will no doubt please everyone.

The mission packs as planned contain the following missions:

* Operation: Anchorage. Enter a military simulation and fight in one of the greatest battles of the Fallout universe – the liberation of Anchorage, Alaska from its Chinese Communist invaders. An action-packed battle scheduled for release in January.

* The Pitt. Journey to the industrial raider town called The Pitt, located in the remains of Pittsburgh. Choose your side. Scheduled for release in February.

* Broken Steel. Join the ranks of the Brotherhood of Steel and rid the Capital Wasteland of the Enclave remnants once and for all. Continues the adventure past the main quest. Scheduled for release in March.

More missions for Fallout 3 can be nothing but good. Happy days. No word on price yet or achievements but when we know, you'll know

Ten bucks a pop sounds likely and about right... but who the heck needs MORE from this game?

At least they're finally putting out a SDK to let the folks go wild on it. Nice name for it, too.

Found Hubris Comics last night, and the text adventure in the basement. I like having the Explorer perk, as it reveals every single place; I feel like i'm cheating but i'm not! Huzzah!

Also, I did cheat a little and found the UFO crash site and the alien blaster, for what little good it does while it lasts.

As Forks or someone else mentioned earlier, playing this game episodically seems the best way to go, and I like that the best missions each seem to be a short story:

-"Today, the Doctor is trapped in a virtual reality experiment and must outwit its mad controller to escape."

-"Today, the Doctor must rescue a squad of colonial marines trapped on a hotel roof, surrounded on all sides by Super Mutants, and running critically low on ammunition."

-"Today, the Doctor investigates the strange goings-on at the remote Dunwich Building. Will the scattered remnants of diaries and log entries give some clue as to what transpired here so log ago?"

etc

If nothing else, it breaks up the monotony and routine of your standard collection of fetch quests. The guys at Obsidian and Bioware would have probably done a better job of strengthening and filling out the story bits for the quest, but for a big-budget/blockbuster title, I'm happy with what we got.

walking around the wasteland to terre thaemlitz' "D.C. D.O.A." so classic

also "I hear a new world" bridges the gap between forks' GOLD SOUNDS and my FUTURE SOUNDS unOSTs perfectly

post that shit yo

I am really, really thirsty (in RL) and stuck in the middle of class so I can't get a drink - which translates to my thinking about the role of water in this game and I wanted to throw something out there and get all your impressions on it. For me, a huge part of this game is the trade-off between drinking water and getting radiation. Something I actually don't think is severe enough (only a few times during the game did I need to take Rad-Away to decrease my radiation level because of drinking water). This is nothing quite like drinking from a sink or toilet in the middle of a bombed out building because you need to build up your hp - and you know you're slowly killing yourself while you're doing it. And I think this mechanic speaks in really interesting ways to the game world - this idea of every choice you make to succeed being one that ultimately kills you (either your health or less literally, your morality/soul - particularly I think about the choices in Oasis and the choices in Tenpenny Tower Quest). This relates to problems I had with the conclusion of the game (which I won't go into at depth because of spoilers). I think what this game does that is absolutely amazing is offer these sorts of sacrifices throughout the game, and the conclusion fails because it undermines that notion.

I will, forks, I'm still putting it together

You know, I never used the toilet/waterfountain/sinks after I tried to use the urinal and got zapped; too frightened by the rad issue and lack of radaway in game. That heals you? I never even knew!

Last night I got the level one animal friend perk and with that, plus the ghoul mask, I've suddenly got about half as many enemies in this game. If I can figure out a way to effectively deal with mirelurks and giant scorpions, I'm pretty much home free.

the water mechanic doesn't feel properly developed enough for it to have any significant or meaningful impact on the way you play the game and so the way you interpret its meaning - however I do agree that the end of the game does seem to undermine a lot of what's gone before (inasmuch as its somewhat redemptive)... for me, it's the finality that jars (I know, right? the game has to end) as so much of the game is about the world and its inhabitants scratching through but for the most part slowly wasting - memories wasting, and bodies wasting physically (psychologically, and emotionally)... I would have preferred something a little more elliptical, less obvious, more elision less bang

Weren't you ever deep in a building, or something, and not have enough stimpacks? XP

(don't know where that second set of brackets turned up from)

I went through the dunwich building pretty early in the game (picked up some of the holotapes but am yet to listen to them) and only saw some of the spooky stuff I learned about from googling it just now

a toilet with doors that open themselves?

anyone seen the plunger room of death building?

Oh, things wasting away definitely important motif in my playthru. Starting with the rush of voices in the white-out screens during cgen. And then the experience in the vault with the hallucinations. Other places as well - finding people lying on the street asking for mineral water (and you can never give them enough that they can stand up and start their lives), not to mention that besides the main quest, much of the game seems to be in holding pattern. No one is trying to take over the world (like the mutants in the first game) and in fact, if your father had never left the vault, the Big Bad Guys would never have involved themselves in the city (presumably). It's a world where everything has already happened. Certainly aesthetically (and my Townhouse experience, which I think I described above, was so powerful for that reason).

Mordy, I've always horded stimpacks and shot my way out of most situations. Even on hard, it's not that hard... at least I thought so.
But I did clock my #100 save game last night, sooooo....

And incidentally, why DID the game have to end? Oblivion/Fable II/GTA4 doesn't, right? So why stamp the thing shut? Or is it spoilerish to discuss?

The G.E.C.K is the Garden of Eden Creation kit and it "provides the community with tools that will allow players to expand the game any way they wish. Users can create, modify, and edit any data for use with Fallout 3, from building landscapes, towns, and locations to writing dialogue, creating characters, weapons, creatures, and more.

Okay, I just processed this. If this is available for Xbox, oh boy oh boy. ILXOR apocalypse a go go! HOOS ghouls! Some Dude fetch quests! Killer Eukyarotes!

But did Bethesda ever provide user gen scenarios for xbox oblivion? Is this likely to not happen on the console version for F3?

Btw; the poem that the robot reads to the children is "There Will Come Soft Rains."

(To tie back the idea of wasting away with the importance of water/rain in this game.)

I mean, it's not a secret that this is a game about water. The final puzzle/solution (and interestingly the only Myst-type puzzle in the game) is dependent upon recognizing that as the major game motif.

don't think the g.e.c.k will be available for xbox... : (((((

I do hear you though Mordy; it's not like you're really working to make a difference or "save the kingdom", you're just exploring a planet that was fucked long before you came on the scene. I dig that the mainquest seems to be engineered towards culminating in a 'heal the world' scenario, but I'm much much less interested in fixing things than I am in being the best equipped endtimes tourista.

Geck really DOES need to be available for xbox; they're all fired up about community and this is a community that would be huge.

I had such strong reactions to so many moments in this game. And I'm still working a bunch out. Have any of you done the return to Vault 101 quest yet? That broke my heart.

Bastards still won't let me back in. What starts it?

After bringing the scientists back to Project Purity in the main quest, you go near Megaton and pick up a distress signal coming from the vault.

oh. not really near there yet.

is there anyway to export an itunes playlist as MP3s? this seems like something that should be easy to do : /

haha brilliant, I love this game! came across a town cut into rocks at the end of a train line, with a massive behemoth caged up in the center of town... stalked round the perimeter of the town, trying to see if I could get the lock on the behemoth's cage open from a distance with my rifle... ended up shooting the generator next to the cage: cage door opens and the raiders and behemoth then have a MASSIVE set-to while I sit above it all watching it unfold : DD

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Cultural_references_in_Fallout_3

A good starting list.

seriously i come to this thread and i don't know what the fuck you guys are talking about half the time. but i love this game and obviously need to put more hours in. hello thanksgiving.

game of the year though, right?

I've read everything on this thread, despite the fact that I've never played it, and won't get a chance until mid December. I'm dying to play this.

At this point, I'd go game of the year. Trying to think of what else comes close...

Yeah, it's my pick.

same here.

is there anyway to export an itunes playlist as MP3s? this seems like something that should be easy to do : /

One convoluted way is to burn it to CD and then rip the CD to MP3, but there's got to be an easier way.

It's definitely my game of the year. Maybe my game of the 00's.