Fallout 3

[Andrew]

The DLC will probably get you to Level 30, though exploration might do it too. If you go looking for the skill books to max out your character, there'll probably be enough experience from discovering locations and fighting enemies to get a fair amount of XP; maybe avoid fast travelling for a bit so that you can encounter some Deathclaws and the like. You can also do repeatable sidequests like finding scrap metal or pre-war books for caps and XP.

Downloaded Mothership Zeta yesterday, haven't had a chance to play it yet but I will do soon enough. The plan is to get in, get it done and enjoy it, then put it aside before the addiction takes hold again.

[StupidBoy]

Downloaded Mothership Zeta yesterday, haven't had a chance to play it yet but I will do soon enough. The plan is to get in, get it done and enjoy it, then put it aside before the addiction takes hold again.

Oh, don't worry about that. You'll want to get over with Mothership as soon as possible.

[dopeboy]

Why? What's so bad about it?

[StupidBoy]

Why? What's so bad about it?

It's rather short, the whole ship looks the same, all enemies are practicly the same (no diversity, just one type of aliens), all the new weapons looks very similiar, the quests are kinda stupid, it has no story whatsoever. The only good thing are the samurai and cowboy armors. And about that spacehome? Yeah, you don't get to go to any cool places. 70-80% of the ship gets blocked.

Just nothing as they hyped it.

[Andrew]

I actually thought it was pretty good. I think anyone who tries it before building up their character is going to find it a bit more difficult because of all the alien technology, which makes for some pretty good loot. I wasn't expecting anything more than/different to what we got, so I don't have any complaints. It does have a story, not a particularly deep one but probably about as detailed and long as The Pitt. It is very much another shoot 'em up kind of add-on though but it was different and the weapons are great to take back to the Wasteland since you get something pretty handy to deal with the Albino Radscorpions (if you've got Broken Steel installed) as well as the Deathclaws. A fair amount of ammo, too.

In any case, I did play it all the way through so Fallout 3 is back on the shelf for now.

[Lean]

I'm very much into getting that Samurai armor.

[el badman]

I'll still get Mothership at some point, but from the mediocre reviews it's getting, it seems to be more of a straighforward action DLC like Anchorage, rather than new compelling quests like The Pitt and Point Lookout.
Kinda disppointing to end with this I guess.

[Lean]

I'm starting to side with those reviews now. The ship is a very big area and at one point I can't go back to the Engineering Core and what I did is to just go in a random direction, and I was back out.

[Andrew]

The only disappointing thing for me was that you don't really find out what they're up to, not explicitly anyway. Personally I think the reviews are a bit harsh, but then as I said it was pretty much what I was expecting it to be so I don't feel let down by it.

[Lean]

Finished Zeta just a few hours ago. Not much plot, except for the escape plan of the random people frozen in the chamber. And that Samurai guy too. Although I wasn't able to reverse-pickpocket him -- yet.

Tried to kill him and there's no negative karma so it won't affect my goody character.

And the Alien Epoxy, it's the greatest item in Fallout history in my opinion.

[Andrew]

And the Alien Epoxy, it's the greatest item in Fallout history in my opinion.

Absolutely. The new weapons aren't too shabby either, though I was hoping to find some more ammo for the Alien Blaster.

[Lean]

The Disintegrator is teh shit. Though the Power Module is very limited as that of the Alien Blaster ammo.

[Lamrock]

Has anyone else played Fallout 1 or 2? I picked up the trilogy boxset, and after getting used to the controls and isometric view have been enjoying them. Fallout 3 is a great game, but I'd imagine hardcore fans must hate it, since Bethesda merely paid homage to them. They are very different from Oblivion in post-apocalyptia.

[Lean]

I've played Fallout 2 and I understand why fans complain about the differences between F3 and the older games. First look on Fallout 3 and I already thought that "what the hell happened here" because I felt that America was thoroughly destroyed (that even cans and books was affected by the holocaust) -- compared to the other games wherein you see that there's still left of the old structures before it was struck by the nuclear war.

[Andrew]

I picked a collection with Fallout 1 and 2 in it but I wasn't as big a fan of them. On the whole I prefer the mix of action and RPG of Fallout 3.

[Lean]

How can I forget that Fallout 1 and 2 are both turn-based RPG's. A simple combat in random encounters outside town may lead up to a few minutes of gameplay.

[Lamrock]

That definitely can be considered to some people as a flaw. It can be pretty tedious. However, F3's combat is pretty flawed. Its an RPG with mediocre FPS elements, as there is no skill outside of stimpak use and VATS required, and for some reason all guns (even the sniper rifle) are ineffective from a distance, and outside of the plasma rifle, shotgun and laser cannon are utter weaksauce. What I hated about Broken Steel was that it was all shooting, even though the shooter elements are not what makes the game fun.

[Lean]

Agreed, though I enjoy the game, I'm much into the original RPG elements. Like in combat, it's more on how fast you press your shortcut key for the stimpak and not how you actually fare your stats in it. There was an instance that I had the Bloody Mess (for the additional damage) and Sniper (for headshot accuracy) perks and I couldn't kill a Raider EVEN with a Gauss Rifle.

[Andrew]

To be fair, I think I would have a greater appreciation for the original approach had I picked up the games when they were released. I was really taken in by Fallout 3's approach the first time I played it so I found I wasn't as big a fan of the turn-based approach (though I do like turn-based games, Defender of the Crown was one of my favourite NES games and I loved the updated land battles in the remake of Sid Meier's Pirates). Fallout 3 is easier to pick up and play and I guess that's what turns the longtime, hardcore fans off but being a more casual RPG player I think it's a good approach. I understand the criticism of it though, even if it doesn't bother me personally.

[fumanchu]

can i put my QUANTUM HARMONIZER in your PHOTONIC RESONATION CHAMBER?

But would that cause a PARABOLIC DESTABILIZATION of the FISSION SINGULARITY?

[Lean]

I played a few minutes ago and got my save corrupted as the game crashed Windows and did a forced reboot of the PC. When I loaded my most recent saved game, my character (level 22, finished Operation: Anchorage, Point Lookout, and Zeta, just finished the Tenpenny Tower quest) was reverted (well not actually reverted) to a plain looking character, without anything on, without any items, or quests, and even radio signals. This character spawned just in front of Vault 101.

So I just have to reload the autosave for that matter.

[Andrew]

Is that a common occurrence with the PC version, or more just a result of the mods? I've been pretty fortunate avoiding some of the nastier bugs playing the Xbox 360 version, the initial glitched version of The Pitt being a notable exception.

[el badman]

The game was quite unstable with or without mods installed on PC, but yeah, tons of mods certainly didn't help me. In my 3rd playthrough, I had to commit suicide each time I would load any of of my saved files, otherwise I would not be able to save any further progress afterwards. It's like they were temporarily corrupted until I would kill myself and let the game restart the last save, then it'd work fine (well, until a lockup or crash to desktop)...
Still, absolutely no regret. Best game ever.

[fumanchu]

am i doing this right? in megaon, i talked to moriarty and was told my dad was going to Galaxy news...before leaving megaton, i told sherrif about burke...and burke killed him before telling me that i made a grave mistake and to watch my back hehe...

then i went outside and met a boy i forgot his name but i was supposed to help him get his dad back...but on the way to the quest, there was a big fire-breathing bug...i was killed...am i doing this right? or is this quest way off my level?

[Andrew]

am i doing this right? in megaon, i talked to moriarty and was told my dad was going to Galaxy news...before leaving megaton, i told sherrif about burke...and burke killed him before telling me that i made a grave mistake and to watch my back hehe...

It's one way of doing things. I usually kill Burke and save Lucas Simms. If you deactivate the bomb, Lucas' son Harden will give you the reward.

then i went outside and met a boy i forgot his name but i was supposed to help him get his dad back...but on the way to the quest, there was a big fire-breathing bug...i was killed...am i doing this right? or is this quest way off my level?

Yeah, that's part of the quest. You need to go through Marigold Station, find Doctor Lesko and get rid of the fire ants. It's one of the side quests but it's all experience if you're looking to level up and if you're going for 100% completion, you'll obviously have to complete it along with all the other quests.