Pop

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Making good use of RACE, and I've got a selection of 120 songs, including Mark Morgan's FO2 remasters and the Aphex Twin ambient pieces that inspired them in the first place. Beats hearing "Jingle Jangle Jingle" for the 400th time. I guess you can PM me if you're interested.

Fallout 1's silliness was abrogated to some extent because it was treated with a straight face in the world of the game, outside of easter egg encounters, anyway. 50's B-movie monsters created from radiation, giant ants and scorpions, two-headed cows, etc. Fallout 2 started the still-going trend of meta-commentary on the ridiculousness of some elements of the game. But all the games, including FO3, had pitch-dark irony in common, which runs through the whole Americana aspect of the series. Vault 11 is a perfect example. It's depressing but it's also quite comedic in a coal-black sort of way.

People keep talking about it like it's super depressing but I actually found it to be a sterling example of the setting's none-more-black humor.

Also for energy weapons playthroughs this mod is quite helpful. It de-nerfs energy weapons quite a bit. It doesn't increase their damage, but it does allow for better armor piercing. This removes the propensity for my 20 Guns / 50 Energy Weapons character to regularly break out a shotgun instead of a plasma gun.

Pretty sure the addons can be disabled in the "Data Files" app from the launcher.

Also, NV topped FO3's first-week sales in the UK by a third or so.

That pretty much ruined Arcanum for me.

So at this point I'm going to make an educated guess and say that the first DLC is going to take place in New Canaan and have something to do with the Burned Man (The Hanged Man in VB). Both were in Van Buren and are mentioned in NV (the former is talked about by the Crimson Caravan, the latter appears in the occasional loading screen) and both are, apparently, not in the core game. Remember that NWN2's expansions were teased in loading screens.

Veronica leveling fix

I'm pretty sure it's a Wild Wasteland quest reward. You get it in Freeside somewhere.

Here is a Tag mod that doesn't break the game, unlike other mods that make skill point usage functionally identical to FO1/2's systems, which is quite stupid. I'm posting it so that I can use it when I get home.

Ripten has 5 essential PC mods, most of which look pretty good. Nothing gaudy.

Ran into my first serious bug, and it's a doozy. I can't work for Mr. House - all his bots go aggro when I enter the Lucky 38, even though I was invited there. It seems to automatically list me as having sided against him, though I never made that choice. It doesn't ruin my playthrough (I was leaning towards Wild Card anyway) but still, hopelessly broken critical path quest 25 hours in! **** you, Pop! That's what Josh is saying right now to me, in my mind. From what I can tell the issue may be something to do with Victor the Cowbot - When I enter the strip for the first time I run into a Securitron that has Victor's face and talks like him, but when I leave dialog it switches back to the cop face (the bot's also named "Securitron MkI" instead of Victor). Victor's lifeless robocorpse is lying on the steps leading up to the 38, but when I enter, Victor is there and he's out for blood. (this is on the 360. I might have been able to fix it via console on the PC) *edit - Turns out this is a thing that got fixed, but you need a save from before going through Vault 11. I did that over 12 hours ago in game time, and I have no saves from that point! Sad faces.

It is quite nice how, on Hardcore mode anyway, VATS is a liability if you're not in single combat. I really thought VATS was a fundamentally lopsided game mechanic, but I guess I was wrong. Backtracking while frantically blind-firing seems to be a much better tactic against large groups.

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Metacritic's always been kinda bull****, one in that it makes arbitrary scores even more arbitrary and also in that it "converts" non-percentile review score systems, which distorts what scores would have been (for example, Gerstmann's pretty glowing 4-star review becomes a middling-by-gaming-press-standards 80%).

Most explode-y cars have two phases - the engine *pops* and catches fire (which is your signal to put some distance between you and it) and then the whole thing goes up. I don't remember the first phase ever doing damage, though, so it sounds like you hit the dynamite.

They don't make 'em like they used to. Both the articles and the photos. Playboy always used to have the best interviews.

IT'S ON YOU MOTHER****ERS see you in two weeks

Joystiq sez jus like Fallout 3 hur dur. 3.5/5.

Gerstmann sticks to the Obsidz review narrative. That damned developer just can't handle bugs! 4/5.

Second "review" is up, hard to tell if this is a legit reviewer (I'm assuming not) but they go the opposite direction from the pageview-bait first review and give it 10/10.

Steam pre-loaders have reported a pre-launch patch download to the tune of 4 megs or so. What it is?

Anyhow, while you all are bleating about DRM or some ****, I'm waiting 6 more hours and then playing the game I've literally waited half of my life for. That is, of course, assuming that decryption works when they say it will, and it might considering this is one of the first high-profile "Steamworks only" games. They opened up pre-loading 4 or 5 days early, as opposed to, say, AP's 2-day pre-loading. One hopes they get their **** together.