Fallout 3

[PoolMan]

<SPOILERS>

Just curious, because I know there were a few people here playing it, how was your run through Fallout 3? I finished it the other day, and was quite impressed that I had done so without even coming CLOSE to finishing the map... there were huge chunks of map in the northwest and southwest where I had barely taken a step. Obviously, this is a game that would require about 5 or 6 playthroughs to see EVERYTHING.

I played an extremely virtuous character, so I finished with very high Karma, and Fawkes the mutant and Dogmeat as my followers.

Hilariously, at the end of the game, when you're asked to turn on the water purifier, I actually had still managed to not stumble onto the EXTREMELY OBVIOUS combination to the control panel. On my first time through the scenario, it only dawned on me at the very last second, so I got the "you were really nice, but didn't actually sacrifice yourself, jerk" ending. Had to play it again and put the code in within the time limit to get the "wow, self sacrifice is truly awesome, man" end.

How did you finish? Any particularly memorable experiences in-game?

[katoot]

I beat it over the weekend, technically, twice. I was pretty much an a-hole throughout the game (although, oddly, I usually took the good or neutral route in conversations...it somehow was difficult for me to be bad when talking to people, but action-wise, I had no problems). The first time was having Lyon activate the purifier, the second time was me. But both times, I put in the virus. My only follower was Dogmeat, but I did want Jericho on my team. By the time I had low enough karma, he wanted 1,000 caps. By the time I had enough caps, I couldn't find him...then I blew up the town. I'm gonna try to play through being as good as I possibly can, trying not to kill who I don't have to. I also want to put more thought into what skills and SPECIALs I focus on and complete quests that I didn't or wasn't able to before (due to my insatiable thirst for human flesh). This post possibly makes me look like a very evil person. On the contrary, I HATE making other people feel bad if I can help it. I can't imagine myself being even 1/100th the person my character was my first runthrough.
As for memorable experiences...right now the one that sticks in my head the most is tossing Tenpenny's dead body (well, his torso, at least) over the balcony right after the big cloud entered the sky...and Moira's voice...so grating in peppy attitude, yet folksy enough to make me love the character. She was one of the hardest people for me to kill, morality-wise...

[Storm_Rider]

There are basically two ways of hitting all the locations: 1. you get the Explorer perk, if I'm not mistaken it will show all of the locations on the map.2. You find a map on the net with all of the locations on it and go there by foot.

I also played a hyper good character, and had a tougher time doing it, since I never stole anything I needed such as ammo and stimpacks, and there were plenty of times in the game when I had to retreat to Megaton or some other place to heal up and buy more supplies ( when I had the money for it of course), as oppose to my friend who played a bad character and apparently Yahtzee as well who got to steal all kinds of stuff that made the game so much less difficult than it should have been.

There have been a couple of interesting moments through my adventure in the Capital Wasteland: Meresti station - despite the fact that I live in Romania never heard of the place, also the whole vampire thing, freaky; the Matrix-like simulator I think was by far the best part of the game I found; the vault where they tested substances that made the dwellers insane - very spooky; somewhere in the south-west part of the map, if you do the Naughty Nightwear quest you get this location from the guy, there was a building filled with feral ghouls, and also a glowing one, funny thing is, the second you see the glowing one you get a sort of a flash-back to the past and you see the building and probably the glowing one in their original un-tainted versions, just something freaky I didn't explore further.

The endings, oh well the endings all sucked, far too general to actually make it worthwhile watching them, waste of Ron Pearlman's time to tell you the truth, and a far-cry from the rather detailed accounts of your impact on the wasteland from the first Fallouts. Don't even get me started on the level cap.

[remaxwell]

[SPOILERS]


Fallout 3 was equal parts good and bad. I think I understand the reason why most people didn't want to be "evil" in convo - because the "evil" dialogue options weren't evil. It was the character being an outright jerk. As I remember it, in FO1 and FO2, there were truly EVIL, slimy, manipulative and cruel dialogue options that either scared people onto your side or got you into a fight. I think FO3's Karma system took a big step down from the earlier ones - instead of having individual settlement reputations that could tilt back and forth as you worked for different settlements, this had just a karma system.

My main problem with this is that actions taken under any circumstances result in an absolute up and down, and there's little if any room for moral ambiguity. Letting the ghouls into the Tenpenny tower and slaughtering the innocent people inside will get you a +Karma; killing the murderous head-ghoul who wants to slaughter everyone is a -Karma. Killing Tenpenny without ever having heard of him is +Karma, just as much as doing it when you're asked to blow up Megaton. The simulation was the biggest one I had problems with - I think the perma-death karma raise is debatable at best, but nevertheless, if you save their lives you lose karma. There are debates about assisted suicide just for this reason.

The game itself was good, but the plot seemed kinda tacked on. With Oblivion, at least, you had a tangible effect on the world with your main quest, but with FO3, with the exception of the arrival of the Enclave (who were around very shortly, and existed in only a few areas), and with the exception of a few short radio messages, you saw no effect. And the universally hated ending - why do one of us have to go in there, and die? Can't I just take a hellova lot of anti-rad medication? Can't I send in the ghoul? He gets a nice, warm, feeling from radiation. What about the Mutant who isn't affected at all, while he's talking to me about heroes? Why either me or Lyons? It just seemed to be a bit of a contrived ending.

[TheOogieBoogieMan]

I gave my life to purify the water. I've mentioned it in my facebook status and wear it as a badge of honour.

I had to do that last scene three times. First time I went into the chamber myself, but like Pooly, didn't know the combination and died. Second time around, I told Lyons to go in, since I figured she knew the code. She made a snide comment and asked me for the code, and when it came up as a speech option, I was like "Oh, I knew all along?! Well, forget this!" and I restarted the level and saved everyone myself. True story.

I didn't realize you could get followers, so when Star Paladin Cross started making oaths to protect me, I got confused. I'll definitely give the game a replay (most likely being as evil as possible), now that I know a little something of how the game works.

The part of the game that surprised me the most was the vampires in Meresti station. I went in with tons of ammunition, planning to blow everything away, except the vampires turned out to be...nice. And I could...negotiate...with them. Negotiating... in a... video game? A-ba-whaaaaa?

[PoolMan]

Ha... I remember that feeling in Meresti. You go in completely convinced that you're going to have to gun down all the vampires, and it turns out you can befriend them pretty darn well! I even had them teach me how to get more life points out of a blood pack!

[PoolMan]

Okay, I know probably nobody's playing Fallout 3 any more, but I had to share this trick I figured out... I NEVER find stuff like this!

I found a very big loophole in the game. You can go straight to Level 20 (with all points and perks intact), provided you've got the patience and wrist strength to do it.

I'm playing a good character, fairly early on (high Level 5). I made my way to Big Town (due north from Vault 101, before you hit the river), spoke to all the people there, most importantly Bittercup. I was flattering and friendly with her (side benefit - every time you return to Big Town, she'll give you free stuff), and explored all the relationships she had with the men of Big Town, including Pappy. I then accepted to get the captured Big Townies back from Germantown, and carried out the rescue. (I don't know that this required to do, but I didn't check earlier.)

When I got back, I started talking to all the townies, including Pappy. Pappy has a conversation branch available where you can ask about him and Bittercup - it's a Speech option, with a percentage chance of success. If you fail the Speech, the likelihood of success drops. If you succeed at the Speech, you get an XP bonus, and he'll tell you about him and Bittercup. But no matter which occurs, the option to inquire about Bittercup doesn't disappear.

You can ask as many times as you want. In the event of a failure, the chance of success never drops below 48%. So for every three clicks of the mouse, you get a 50/50 shot at a gain of 5 - 30XP. And it never, ever stops.



I don't see myself clicking my way to Level 20 (the reward for success is never more than 30XP, and the levels start getting mighty expensive), but it's totally possible to do. Which means you could max out your character in less than an hour, plus clicking time.

Weird, and probably useless (the world's playing Borderlands now anyway), but if you ever play it again, it's a nice early bonus, if you choose to exploit it.

[funkymartini]

I just started playing this... there was a doorcrasher sale this week where i picked up game of the year edition for 30 bucks! its very engrossing right from the first moment. has anyone played Fallout 1 and 2? i know its not necessary to understand 3, but is it better to play 1 and 2 first?

[PoolMan]

Actually, Fallout 3 is kind of a mashup of the 1 and 2 storylines... particularly the GECK. Don't worry, playing the first two is not going to bring you anything special out of playing the third, unless you really just want to play the first two (not actually something I'd recommend).

[Storm_Rider]

Dec 18, 2009 13:10:44 GMT -5 PoolMan said:

Actually, Fallout 3 is kind of a mashup of the 1 and 2 storylines... particularly the GECK. Don't worry, playing the first two is not going to bring you anything special out of playing the third, unless you really just want to play the first two (not actually something I'd recommend).

Not that they’re bad or anything, they’re quite awesome, just that they’re isometric and some younger gamers aren’t that used to it, also they’ll eat considerable more time to complete than Fallout 3.