Aristes

I have that critical hit trinket also, Gfted1. That's pretty sweet. It looks like a small noose or something. Even my scrub hunter hasn't replaced a lot of gear. My former gun sucked eggs, so it went pretty fast, but the other stuff hasn't gone as fast as my gear did when I came over to the Outlands when the BC xpac shipped. Okay, for those who didn't know, you can get to Northrend one of two easy ways. The boat from Stormwind takes you to the Borean Tundra. The boat from Menethil takes you to the Fjord. There is a horde equivalent for both places, although I've only brought alliance over so far.

I'm thinking of a list of perks for my next run. Hmmm, I should make a list to share.

Just finished my second run. I did everything I could think of, scoured to find all the bobbleheads. (I did have to cheat for some of them.) I found all sorts of cool unique weapons. (I didn't cheat for these. I just ran across them doing everything else.) And finally did the last of the final quest line. The ending seems better the second time. I think that's because I wasn't concentrating on what it didn't have. The voice over was good. The was quite well done and I found the was actually touching. Excellent game, but I'm taking a break for a while.

yes and no - it has some major problems. Combat is a hybrid between BG, Diablo and SPECIAL, taking the worst from all engines. The story is somewhat lacking, but the setting is brilliant imo. I don't know, it's both really good and really abysimal at the same time - it depends on how forgiving you are, I had a lot of fun with it, playing co-op with a friend. But I never finished it, it was simply too hard (both to play and forgive) at times. I'm an abberation in that I enjoyed the game. The early part is actually pretty good. However, later you're fighting tough but uninspired enemies like "English Footman" or somesuch. Only, it's not like a "haha, some scrub footman that I'm going to smite." It's more like, "wow, I have to kill about a thousand of these tough footman bastards?" All in all, I think the biggest problem is that they used all of their good design ideas on the early game and the last half sucked. However, as a rare treat, you can use speech on the final boss to win the game. My take, like Rosbjerg, is that the setting is wonderful. It could have been a great game, kind of like Badlands was supposed to be the first in a series. Instead, they managed to screw it up enough that we can probably say goodbye to a splendid backstory. I'm getting ready to play "change the cat litter." Believe me, it's not a fun game and it's impossible to win.

The wife and I first went to the Tundra and then one of our friends, probably buying into the hype, wanted us to go to the Fjord. I will say that the Fjord is prettier, but the quests in the Tundra are just as fun. We haven't gone far. We're only 3/4 of the way to 72 so far. I'm not really even playing with any of my other characters, just my scrub hunter. I notice the game has a Lord of the Rings feel to it, but I've never been into the backstory. It's not terrible, just prone to the same sort of hyperbole that I hate in all these games. Still, a lot of fun.

I'm actually a lot more impressed with Northrend than I was the Hellfire Peninsula. Being forced to fight a hellboar every other step while dodging the Fel Reaver sucked. Northrend has good quests, and you can enjoy them a lot more. I came to love Hellfire, but mostly because Fel Iron is soooo plentiful there. The wife and I are hitting WoW again presently.

GD, do you really think there's a chance in hell that Hodler won't be confirmed? Do you really think that the republicans, even if they keep enough seats to filibuster, will choose to die on that hill? It would certainly be a dumb battle to choose. Yes, Holder was involved in the Rich pardon. I'm sure most of us remember it happening at the time. It certainly goes to highlight the Clinton White House, which always had a certain seedy feel to it. However, I argue two things. Practically speaking, Holder will be confirmed without some unforseen turn of events. Reasonably speaking, why shouldn't Obama nominate Holder? He's already been vetted. He's qualified. He's the democrat in the best position to help Obama. I'm a Republican. I'm undoubtedly more conservative than the majority of people here. ...But we cannot, based on unproven allegations, prevent Obama from fashioning his own team. Frankly, he need not give any sort of nod to the Republicans at all. I suspect he will. Not because of any sort of idealism or his expansive philosophy. He simply realizes that the majority of the country is considerably more conservative than he is. I don't think Obama should have won. Inasmuchas we really know his policies, they appear to be considerably too liberal for my tastes, including the huge stimulous package that he currently proposes, somewhat in excess of $175B. Sure, he looks, smells, and feels like tax and spender. Nevertheless, he's the tax and spender who won by over 6% of the popular vote and a huge EC margin. I guess what I'm saying is, he deserves the right to choose his people and, more to the point, conservatives are better off saving their ammunition for real problems as they arise. I forsee a lot of those. I don't hope for them, but I see them anyhow. Like Bush's, some of them won't even be Obama's fault, but he'll be blamed for what happens while he's in office just like every other president. The rose colored glasses with which the American public currently views Obama will darken soon enough. I guarantee you, the reason won't be Holder.

Yep, that's true. Carry on then. Hell, if Walshingham can suggest stuffing yourself silly with Sausage, I guess sleeping with all of her friends isn't really all that weird.

What a bunch of doofuses. He doesn't want revenge on the chic. She didn't dump him. He just wants to get over having the mutual hots when the lady is currently married to someone else. Where's that rolling eyecon. And drinking is fine until you end up with Cirrhosis.

The wife and I are doing the WoW thing right now.

Obama won the election and he can pretty much choose his people. In particular, he should have wide lattitude in choosing people who serve at his pleasure in the first place. If these folks screw up, then he'll deal with the fallout. Since I'm seriously worried about the country right now, I hope whoever he puts in place does a good job, because it's pretty damned grim right now. Run for the hills and create a compound grim? I don't think so. I hope not. ...But I don't like the recent trends.

I'm closing in on my second run. That's probably around 100 hours of gameplay between two runs that were more or less concurrent, and then a fresh run after I finished the first time. My addiction to the game is starting to wane, but I think after 100 hours, the title has been more than worth what I paid for it. I imagine I'll start another fresh run later, probably play it on medium settings, and goof around. I've played this latest one on Very Hard throughout and I've gone a roll playing route by trying to get my stats and skills as high as I could. I made an early mistake, but I think I've got everything pretty damned high, including several 10s in stats and many 100s in skill. It was a fabulous waste of perks, though. I think I would focus on VATS perks next time, since you don't really need to invest in a large variety of skills and even without focusing on skill perks you end up with a lot of high skills by the time you hit 20. Barter is pointless. Even on very hard, I didn't need anything more than the points I naturally gained in barter and ended with well over 10k bottle caps. I don't think the game is too easy on very hard. Sure, the humans and super mutants in later stages tend to be pushovers. The beasts tend to be a pain, however. In particular, the largest rad scorpions, yao guai, and deathclaws cause me grief. Before someone beats his chest and says that he went through the game armed with nothing better than a butter knife and clothed in nothing more than sexy nightwear, let me just say this: I don't care. You are gamerzilla. You are a real man amongst men. You are the god to whom gamers pray. Whatever. I got through the Yao Guai tunnels/den and the Deathclaw sanctuary without reloads, but not without planning my moves. I couldn't, at the hardest setting, go in with guns blazing and just mop the floor. I had to be careful about sneaking and choosing my targets. It was time consuming, relatively speaking, to make sure I gave myself plenty of room to maneuver. With that in mind, I think the difficulty was just fine. If you're careful, you'll live. I like that. If difficult enough means several reloads, then I'll take easy any day. On the other hand, different perks would have made combat much easier, but I like being able to pick every lock, get every dialogue option, hack every computer, use the vast majority of weapons, make the most out of every stimpack, and repair to the max on every item. For that reason, roll playing, that is, I eschewed combat in favor of skills. I guess I might have been one of the folks griping about game difficulty otherwise. As far as your beefs, DR, I agree with you on most of them. I do think that weightless money isn't much better than weightless ammo, but Fallout 3 has both weightless ammo and money, so go figure. While it didn't have a big impact, I have to be honest and say that the way Bethesda chose which buildings survived and which didn't struck me as strange while I played. Some of it was clearly design constraints. You know, subways/sewers to mask zone changes and rubble to create barriers. I had no issue with those. I did think it was kind of funny that the Washington Monument, the Capitol Building, and the Lincoln Memorial all managed to remain more or less intact in a city was allegedly the target of multiple warheads. Once again, wasn't a huge stumbling block, but it really did draw my attention.

Heh heh heh heh They should make me a moderator! I *know* how to use *power*. I would look at everyone's IP and hunt down/root out the folks who offend me. That would be pretty much everyone. Soon, I would be the only person left on the board except for my cadre of boot licking sycophants.

Holy Crap, the wife did not appreciate that one. hahahaha I didn't get past the "like an animal" part. lolol Okay, won't be getting this any time soon, although it was funny as hell.

How many positive reviews does this guy give? I mean, it's entertaining more than informative. You really can't get a good idea of any game based on Yahtzee reviews. A good laugh? Sure. Pass some time? You bet. Information that will help you make an enlightened decision? Not really. Not most of the time. Personally, I don't care about folks buying Fallout 3. Apparently, enough folks have bought it that I'm fairly confident we'll see Fallout 4. If folks want to miss out on a good game because it's Fallout not made by St. Timmy, fine by me. That's not really aimed at you, though, Mesh, because I've never actually seen you go crazy in one of these Fallout debates. That puts you one ahead of me by my count. All that said, while I don't think that it really tells you much about the game, I laughed a lot during that review because it really captures some of my praise/complaints about the game.

There certainly is a disconnect in the ammo weight. The big thing about ammo weight is that the ammunition is literally infinitely more valuable than the weapon itself. I can, and often do, carry over a thousand rounds for any particular weapon, and sometimes have several thousands of rounds of ammo altogether. For me, it's a huge boon finding ammo caches. Especially flamer or mini gun ammo, since I know it's pure profit with no drag on inventory. I don't see it as a significant detraction, but I can see why folks might not like it as much. Likewise, the VATS system makes combat much easier, although I tend not to use VATS as much as others seem to. It makes combat easier, but I'm too impatient to sit through the extended bullet time routines. EDIT: Hell, mini-nukes are weightless and you can sell them for big money.

The point is, don't hold up Fallout 1 and 2 as paragons of game design. Some folks find the game too easy, and thus they present it as an issue. However, if the complaint about ease comes as part of a diehard diatribe based on the differences between 3 and 1/2, then I contend that all three have their flaws. Where folks have cited the ease as part of a review of the game in its own right, without invoking the originals, then I don't have an issue. For my own part, however, I don't think Fallout 3 is so easy I don't enjoy it and I loved those random, reload causing crits in 1 and 2.

Hey, with Walsingham and Gorth, you've got one of the craziest and one of the sanest people as moderators. *Thinks for a moment* Well, Walsingham isn't necessarily crazy so much as zany. *Thinks a while longer* Nope, he's nuts alright!

This is my biggest problem. When I see the lists of complaints, I'll often agree with many of them. The disconnect is someone will cite something like, say, inventory control as a major detraction from the game. ...But, even though I can see their point about inventory control, I can't understand why it's such a huge problem with the game. Some of these things are certainly big issues for some folks, and I can understand and respect that. However, most of the time, the list of issues contain such picayunish details that I have to wonder why someone would cite them in the first place. Even worse, some of the details that folks present as part of a review in comparing FO3 with the previous titles are things that detracted from those titles as well. For example, if Fallout 1's inventory and trade between the PC and companions were perfect, why did BIS change it for Fallout 2? ...And all three games forced players to decide on what to take and what to leave. Sure there are tons of junky items. That's not a design flaw. I rather like it. If you, as the player, fill up your packs with paperweights, then I have very little sympathy that you didn't have room for better stuff. Another example is difficulty. Fallout 3 is relatively easier than Fallouts 1 and 2. ...But that ease should be no less irritating than the completely capricious crits that were part and parcel of the first two Fallout games. Personally, I always loved the crits in Fallout, but you could, completely at random, take enough damage to kill your character several times. The other type of complaint that just makes me laugh, and I'm not trying to start world war three over this but it's something a number of folks have said, is the charge that it's not really a Fallout game. Some folks actually made these statements before the game shipped. What the hell? Bethesda bought the license. It's a Fallout game. Whether some folks like it or not, it's Fallout 3. Sure, some diehard fans hate the fact that it sports the '3' in the title, but at least concede that many long time Fallout fans are perfectly comfortable with taking in the new title as part of the Fallout family. At least understand that we long time Fallout fans who loved the first two games are going to the minority of Fallout fans in the future. From now on, like it or not, Fallout 3 is the Fallout franchise. You want another Fallout game with an isometric view, better and more dialogue, and the same skills and perks? So do I. We can't always get what we want. ...But I'll gladly take Fallout 3 and hope for a Fallout 4. It's hard to wade through the sheer mass of petty little grievances to get to an honest discussion about the actual game outside of the "hardcore Fallout" debate.

I was seriously surprised. He's not always that kind to RPGs. He does have a point though. Why bring in excellent voice actors and then shove them offstage? I have to admit 3 Dog does do a good job. ...And he's right about the Oblivion thing. It's one of the first things I noticed, and mentioned here. FO3 is like Oblivion, but the setting and SPECIAL, as well as other general design improvements, make it a million times better.

If you like Asian literature, I would suggest 'The Sea and Poison' by Shusako Endo. It's relatively recent history (WWII), but it's a gripping tale.

Hey, I think it's comforting. After a lifetime of doing stupid things, I'm living proof that you can live and thrive as long as you refrain from self-destructive thing! haha And I've even done some of those self-destructive things also. My rule of thumb? If it's some silly nonsense that makes for a good story later, I'll call it even. Hell, my dad was in World War Two, Korea, and Viet Nam. He's an old timer now, but he still does silly stuff every now and then and he still complains about it. If you aren't making mistakes every now and then, you aren't trying hard enough, kid.

Aw, don't worry about it too much. No matter what stupid assed thing you've done, there's always some other stupid thing waiting up ahead for you to do later.

Founding Brothers (Joseph J Ellis) John Adams (Page Smith) & (David McCullough) The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (The History) (Gibbon) The History (Herodotus) History of the Peloponnesian War (Thucydides) War Letters (can't remember the eidtor, but the letters are all recorded, colloquialisms, typos, misspellings and all) A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (Winston Churchill) The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (William L. Shirer) This is a good list. Keep in mind that all histories are written from the peculiar perspective of the historian. For example, like most Christians, I take issue with Gibbons on several points, but it's an important work by an excellent scholar.

Hey, even that wouldn't have been so bad if they just would have had the voice over ending like FO1/2 that explicitly said what happened to the various places.