Fallout 3

[Magister Lajciak]

I am finally playing the game now too!

 

Even better, I just found my first bobblehead, giving me a permanent +10% to my medicinal skills!

[Monte Carlo]

Maybe it's because I'm a klutz, but I'm finding the inventory / barter system (designed as it clearly is for a console game pad) a pain in the arse.

 

Apart from that, having a ball.

 

Cheers

MC

[random n00b]

That's one of the most common complaints. I find it to be generally user-unfriendly too, but to be fair, I suspect the huge amount of different stuff you can grab to be the real culprit. If it's not nailed to the floor, chances are you can put it in your pack...

 

The idea to have the Pipboy operate as the UI central hub is cool in concept, but doesn't work too well in practice.

[Magister Lajciak]

Yeah, the inventory management system does leave a lot to be desired. The sheer amount of stuff one can pick up everywhere is certainly a major contributor to that.

[Pop]

Much better than Mass Effect's inventory system. Not as though that's hard.

[Pidesco]

From the screenies, the GUI seemed pretty awful. It seemed like they pulled the same crap as in Oblivion: design a GUI for the console, and let the PC gamers suck it.

 

How large are Fallout 3's font sizes, by the way?

[Dark_Raven]

Well I'm starting a new game. I finished the first game and left a bunch of things undone. Opps. The ending could use some work on it. How anti-climatic.

[Aristes]

Yep. A great game with an ending that really bites. Specifically, what I hate is

the way the ending movie doesn't really tell you a damned thing. I surmise, from the fact that Lincoln's head is restored in the Licoln memorial, that the freed slaves thrived. However, why not just explicityly tell us what the hell happened with all these communities? It's just stupid.

 

 

Still, after a couple of concurrent runs, I'm just going to start a new game and play it on hard. I don't care that I'll be level 20 super fast. That doesn't bother me and I just want to get my character just the way I want her as soon as possible. Since I played a guy twice, I'm going to switch to a chic for the next run, and that's so I can take black widow or whatever the female equivalent is. I dunno, though. I might just skip all the speech stuff, since I had two big speech people already.

 

I was thinking of something different this time. Maybe I'd pick the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. perks right away and get them to where the bobblehead would make them all 10 and then get as many of my skills up to the max, as opposed to the last runs. Then I'll visit places I never bothered to see in the last game.

 

One thing I have to say is how much fun some of the workbench items are. The

railgun

is my fave, not because it's the most powerful, but because of the sound it makes when you fire it. comedy. I love it. I made four of them and repaired them. While it's not the most powerful weapon in the game, it's pretty damned good. I was one shotting

enclave

with it by the time I'd made it to

Raven Rock.

 

 

The next game, I'm going to be more or less karma neutral. I won't really go out of my way to do bad things so much as I won't completely sacrifice everything to always do good stuff. For example, I never charge for a single scrap metal I found. ...And I turned in tons of scrap metal. I literally lost count of it. This time, I'll charge. That's another thing, by the time the game ends, you have so much money, you can buy out several stores. Just nuts.

 

Another perk I took the last game let me collect fingers from bad guys. I won't be wasting that one this time. I think I'll just take perks that raise my S.P.E.C.I.A.L and skills as high as possible. As close as I came to maxing my skills in the last run, I think it's feasible to literally max out my stats and skills by the time I'm 20, which will be way before the game is over. That will let me do anything. Hell, even super hard computers aren't a problem with a maxed science skill. The words are long, but you only have five choices anyhow.

 

If I have any perks left over, I might try animal friend or something for kicks. I don't care if I have to kill animals. I would automatically take animal friend if it worked on rad scorpions, but it doesn't. The insect one, though? I've got to have it. It's not that rad scorpions are incredibly dangerous, just incredibly tedious.

 

Since I'm not being a goody two shoes, probably more of a gritty good guy, I'm going to off that rat bastard who wants me to

detonate the nuke in megaton

the first time he talks to me. I'll take Arkan's advice and blow it up once just to see what happens.

[Dark_Raven]

My new game.

 

Found the scrap yard finally. I don't know how I missed it in my first game. I explored everything around it and some how missed it. Got Dogmeat finally. Had fun in the scrap yard, so many cars to blow up. I turned that place into a fiery hell.

 

Animal friend perk is a must have for me. I explore the wilderness areas a lot and I would prefer not to be attacked by those mutated bear thingies. If you get a second level in that they come to your aid when you are being attacked. My last game I was attacked by some Enclave soldiers and those mutated bears happened to be nearby. They joined in and ripped apart those soldiers for me.

 

Anything that deals with criticals and sneaking is a must have. I like to do sneak attacks in VATS with headshots. Those usually are one hit kills.

[Strix]

How large are Fallout 3's font sizes, by the way?

 

About the same as Oblivion's, although it's easy to mod -or install a mod if you do not want to mess around with the files yourself- a fix that shirks it to reasonable, PC-sized font.

[Gorgon]

I found I had to uninstall the thing, knowing just how easy it is to start the game instead of the work I'm supposed to be doing.

 

Anyway this is a step up for Bethesda. A few things I wanted to see but didn't.

 

1. A More adult approach, the 'all ages' idea leaves the game too sanitized and lacking in some areas, and no I'm not talking about porn. Take the silly super villain quests as a for instance. Yes the overall design of Fallout is cartoonish, but not the Walt Disney kind.

 

2. I don't know if this is a limitation of the engine, as to how many actors can be in play at once, but a proper city. New Reno size.

 

3. Less generic content. The DC metro and sewers are the same level 30 times over, it gets very repetitive. I can think of a few things to spruce the monotony up just off the top of my head.

 

4. More challenging combat. I suppose the non existent enemy AI is at fault here as well, would be nice to see them try to flank you or cut you off.

Edited November 10, 2008 by Gorgon

[Hurlshort]

1. A More adult approach, the 'all ages' idea leaves the game too sanitized and lacking in some areas, and no I'm not talking about porn. Take the silly super villain quests as a for instance. Yes the overall design of Fallout is cartoonish, but not the Walt Disney kind.

 

 

I killed the crazy ant lady. I didn't really have a choice, she was nuts. I'm not sure how Disney it is to tear her head off with a shot from my .44.

 

[Maria Caliban]

1. A More adult approach, the 'all ages' idea leaves the game too sanitized and lacking in some areas, and no I'm not talking about porn. Take the silly super villain quests as a for instance. Yes the overall design of Fallout is cartoonish, but not the Walt Disney kind.

 

 

I killed the crazy ant lady. I didn't really have a choice, she was nuts. I'm not sure how Disney it is to tear her head off with a shot from my .44.

 

 

 

I used Speech to convince her that she should give humanity a second chance. She game me her costume and headed for town. The next time I saw her, she told me I was in the presence of

Edited November 10, 2008 by Maria Caliban

[Gorgon]

I mean a gritty rather than harmless atmosphere. The game is a bit overrepresented in cute and cuddly. Often you are the only mean bastard in the dialogues.

Euli Jones

is one of the few examples, the rest are merely comic, or have no purpose other than to shoot at you.

 

Too bad I Killed whatshisface who wanted me to blow up megaton. Hearing him say 'misunderstanding' gave me the giggles, and reminded me of the 'the dark brotherhood' questline in Oblivion, same voice actor, exact same delivery.

 

I do love the voice of president Eden though, Malcom McDowell aced that one.

Edited November 10, 2008 by Gorgon

[mr insomniac]

I'm just starting to get into the game now... my games of the witcher, company of heroes, and nwn 2 are now on hold indefinitely. So far, and let me stress I've only just arrived in Megaton, i am very impressed.

 

When the game was announced i kept an open mind. i enjoyed the first two fallouts, but i wasn't rabid about them. Fallout 3 has captured the essence of the first two games as far as i'm concerned. infinitely more enjoyable than the agonizing twenty minutes i spent trying to get into morrowind.

 

and i love 'bullet-time' cams in VATS mode in combat.

[Calax]

I was happy today, I found the fistoff (I think thats what its called... either that or Fisty!) it's a steampowered glove that hits really f'n hard.

 

Then I tried to clean out the slavers from the Lincoln memorial.

[Aristes]

I don't think it's all that Disney, and I don't mind some of the campy humor. I especially liked the super hero/villain quest line. Sure, it's the sort of humor that draws attention to the game design. I'm also sure that it will draw a lot of fire from the more vocal fans, but I don't always trust the more vocal fans, even when I'm one of them. haha

 

Seriously, though, I did think it went a bit far sometimes. It's great to think it's funny (or even *gasp* cute) but when you roll your eyes, you know it's over the top. I was rolling my eyes about that chic from the

nuka-cola challenge. If the guy really wanted to have sex with her, he would have said something. Let's face it, guys, if eveything else fails, a direct appeal sometimes carry the day. He didn't even need to say, "I want to have sexual intercourse with you." He could have explicitly laid out that he wanted to have a romantic relationship. The fact that she pretended not to know what the phrase "in your pants" meant just sounded silly. I mean, the only argument I could think of is that she is literally insane and refused to acknowledge the situation. I guess you could say that the phrase doesn't mean the same thing any more in the fallout world, but that's a pretty shaky argument considering the language in the game.

 

 

So, yeah, I agree that it sometimes came across a little sanitized, but that's not really all that bad. Some of it was silly, but overall it did a great job.

 

EDIT: I also cranked up to the hardest setting but it's still pretty easy. They should have kept the exp the same for every difficulty level.

Edited November 10, 2008 by Aristes

[kalniel]

Are you crazy? The landscape is dead on

Crazy about saying the landscape is great for the atmosphere but isn't a place I want to spend a lot of time in?

[Walsingham]

Huge spoiler for ending, and gripe. I completely lost traction with the storyline, given my character had intelligence 10.

 

 

I had the supermutant as my bodyguard in the final sequence so when I heard about the lethal radiation I laughed aloud and said "Ha! Sod you, you moron knight lady. Neither of US are going into that chamber. My stalwart companion here isn't affected by radiation and can input the three letter code no problem." I go across to said mutant and to my utter astonishment the devs had seen this coming but the unspeakable ****hole refuses to do it! On the grounds that it is my 'destiny'! My reaction to this was incandescent fury. Thus in fact I have never finished the game, because I unloaded every single one of my explosives into a neat pile of the floor, then set them off with a grenade, shredding our accursed bodies into a fine spray of organs and poor writing.

 

 

Also I reiterate the frustration at there not being custom endings. Custom endings were clearly written in from the earliest stages. They had the voice actors in some sort of cage, doing voiceovers for almost every dialogue. Why no ending voiceover covering the various sub-plots? Pshaw.

[newc0253]

ha! my main complaint at this point is the levelling.

 

the levelling in and of itself is actually pretty reasonable - the main problem is that the game is just so damned big. like several others, i've held off doing much of the main quest and explored.

 

although i've completed several of the main side quests (e.g.

stealing the declaration of independence, rescuing the rangers, completing the wasteland survival guide, moving the freed slaves into lincoln's memorial, etc

), i'm aware of plenty of other areas and sidequests i've yet to come across myself and i'm already at lvl 16. while i salute bethesda's attention to detail, they could have cut out more of the cookie-cutter locations (the endless metros and service tunnels), making the more distinct areas sparser. i've probably gone up 5 levels just from wandering tunnels and shooting ghouls...

 

but for every same-y metro, i continue to be impressed by the more idiosyncratic, off-the-beaten-track locations that seem ordinary but turn into something a little more (e.g.

the red racer factory looked like just another ghoul-pile until you run into the mad scientist guy, or the food-processing plant with red army remnants

).

Edited November 10, 2008 by newc0253

[Dark_Raven]

I got my own place. I didn't know you could.

I guess defusing the nuke in Megaton they thank you with a place there.

I have my place set up retro 50's. Awesome.

[Arkan]

ha! my main complaint at this point is the levelling.

 

the levelling in and of itself is actually pretty reasonable - the main problem is that the game is just so damned big. like several others, i've held off doing much of the main quest and explored.

 

although i've completed several of the main side quests (e.g.

stealing the declaration of independence, rescuing the rangers, completing the wasteland survival guide, moving the freed slaves into lincoln's memorial, etc

), i'm aware of plenty of other areas and sidequests i've yet to come across myself and i'm already at lvl 16. while i salute bethesda's attention to detail, they could have cut out more of the cookie-cutter locations (the endless metros and service tunnels), making the more distinct areas sparser. i've probably gone up 5 levels just from wandering tunnels and shooting ghouls...

 

but for every same-y metro, i continue to be impressed by the more idiosyncratic, off-the-beaten-track locations that seem ordinary but turn into something a little more (e.g.

the red racer factory looked like just another ghoul-pile until you run into the mad scientist guy, or the food-processing plant with red army remnants

).

 

Pick up the Slower Leveling mod on FalloutNexus. It took me a day to go from level 6 to 7.5.

 

As to the "Disney" feel of the game, I just don't agree, especially when there are holotapes scattered across the wastes that record peoples'/friends'/families' last moments....even in one instance you find the skeleton of a child holding a teddy bear and that of a couple in a final embrace with large amounts of drugs on the nightstand. Both poignant and somber at the same time.

[Strix]

I got my own place. I didn't know you could.

I guess defusing the nuke in Megaton they thank you with a place there.

I have my place set up retro 50's. Awesome.

 

 

I've got an army of Garden Gnomes in mine....

[Aristes]

The biggest problem on the hardest setting isn't that individual battles are super tough. The real problem is that it take much more ammo. I have to say that I should have pumped more points into small guns. No biggie. The biggest bummer is how many of my resources it took to off the

ant queen in Marigold Station, but I couldn't just leave her there. She had to die, I'm afraid.-

 

 

I think the skills are excellent in this game. Usually you only take science for more of a roleplaying aspect, but I find that having a lower science skill actually makes the game tougher.

 

I'm slowly building my resources up, although it's tougher with no points in barter. Ha. Maybe money will mean something for a while in this game.

[Azure79]

I've been playing Fallout 3 all this past week starting from last Tuesday. Its a great game. I actually finished the main storyline in a Bethesda game!

 

I was in the same situation as Walsh at the end with intelligence 10

and the same super-mutant companion and was stupefied about the lack of options. The totally radiation proof guy is right there and he can't go in to input a 3 digit code and come back out? Stupid.

 

 

The overall game was excellent though. I loved the devastated landscape, the VATS system and the overall feeling of wandering around with only a canine for a friend.

 

I did eventually get bored with the samey metro stations, underground bases, vaults and buildings which was when I started pursuing the main quest. I can't help but think that the relatively short main plotline was a deliberate design choice so players had the option to quickly see the game to an end when they eventually got bored.

 

Gotta agree with Newc, that Beth should really cut down cookie-cutter areas with the same enemies. Its fun for the first few times, but later just gets tedious even though there might be interesting encounters in some of them.

 

I also think they should reduce the wide open areas. I appreciate the work and care that went into crafting the world, and it does look impressive, but ultimately I don't think it really serves a great purpose. I did go out of my way to explore the first few hours but then I usually made a beeline to the next map marker that a NPC had given me. If something popped up on the way I would investigate, but after one too many similar areas I would just run past. Later I would even fast travel to really close areas because I didn't want to deal with the tedium of walking and running into radscorpions or moles or dogs and other minor annoyances.

 

I would rather they have a larger hubs for more involved quests instead of scattered settlements with a population of less than 10 people. That was a real immersion breaker for me. You'd think that in an apocalyptic wasteland people would band together in greater numbers for safety instead of scattering.

 

But still...first Beth game I ever finished!

 

Now I'm looking forward to Storm of Zehir!