That means the end of the Fallout.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmatian
****.
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That means the end of the Fallout.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmatian
****.
The exact same thing you can do in Oblivion: store stuff, take screenshots, upgrade the decor, and eventually forget about once you get bored.Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Doctor
Oh, and a decoratable house, yes. Fantastic.
I love the fat man and the mini nukes, byfar the most kick a thing ive ever done in the game?
Warning Dont open if you havent faced any major bosses yet
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
I beat it, took me from 3pm to 1 am with a one hour break. I only did two side quest though. Time to go back and do it on an evil karma now.
Well done, but i have to ask what's the point of rushing through the main quest and missing out on most of the game?Quote:
Originally Posted by Veho Nex
Wow...
I was off Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday playing the game from about 3pm Tuesday to 2am Wednesday, 9am Wednesday to 1am Thursday and finally 9am Thursday to 11pm Thursday...
I have not finished the main quest and in fact I am not sure how far along I am...
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
I have not been systematicaly exploring or anything, but rather just getting destracted on my way to a core quest location. The nature of the central story, searching for your father, really plays along with this well. You get to decide how urgent it is for you personally. No one is artifically pushing you along the path with "hurry must save the world now!" as was the case in Oblivion and Mass Effect...
My personal opinion is that it really is a perfect story (so far) for this style of open ended gameplay. You rush out searching for your father but keep getting distracted and and having you priorities tested by what you see. It is a personal journey so the decisions you make and the diversions you take all fit in neatly to the unfolding story...
To me it all really does feel very "Fallout(tm)" in style, content and structure, the Wastland does feel pretty big (I know technically it is not but there is no car and no horse to get around on so it seems like it is). The fast travel works nicely once you have found a location but can't be abused. No fast travel in combat or if you are overloaded with stuff.
One thing that is a bit of a distraction is the music, sometimes it is fine and sometime is sounds just like Oblivion with some extra echo and metalic twangs.
They do have kids in the game but you can't kill them. They react to being attacked and everyone else will come after you but they are essentially immune to injury. Personally I am fine with this, better than not having them in the game at all.
Basically I have the game on my PC, all graphics maxed out and a good resolution and it looks great. Utterly fantastic? No, but very good... The animation is not as bad as has been made out and the AI is decent enough. The intelligent enemies seek cover, change to an approriate melee for the range, pick up better weapons if available or if you have shot their weapon out of their hands. They even run away sometime... This on top of reasonable non-combat activities too...
For my best comparison for how combat works and the general gameplay think back to System Shock 2. Only much prettier, with people you don't have to fight and on the ground. Where as Bioshock took the Survival Horror aspects and built and intelligent shooter, Fallout 3 kept the somewhat awkward RPG/FPS hybrid combat and filled in all the other RPG baggage of NPC's and locations and such.
If you keep in your head that this is an RPG you will enjoy the game more. I recall one event that really got in into the open nature of the story. I was in Big Town and I was talking to the inhabitants. I had rescued some of them and an attack was coming. I was speaking to them as I waited. One of them, Buttercup, started flirting with me and I finished the conversation meaning to talk to her again later. The attack commenced, not a particularly hard one but it was early in the game and both you and the citizens are poorly armed. The the defense went well and the enemy put to flight. NPCs were cheering and very happy. I was speaking to them and soaking up their praise and noticed Buttercup was not there. I went back and found her dead, killed by a random grenade toss I think. I found myself upset for a moment and my finger hovered over F9 (quickload for you 360 and PS3 players). But then I thought better of it and decided to let the story play out, I would save them all on another playthrough (or kill them and steal there stuff maybe). But that momentary pang really brought home to me how much I was buying into the story and my character's role in it...
It is just a computer game, a FPS/RPG hybrid (with more RPG than FPS) and yet, I still feel sad about buttercup. Dogmeat is gone too. I am a hero to the helpless and a deadly storm of violence to the evil and oppressive. But even given those choices, difficult decisions come up. In one case I have now, you know the situation will end badly if you walk away, but the "good guys" are proposing the violent solution and the "bad guys" simply want to be left alone/defended. What is the choice for the boyscout hero type??
I have been rambling about my experiences with the game rather than reviewing it really. My main point, if you like RPG and are not violently opposed to FPS you will like this. And it looks pretty nice...
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
And bob you're about 1/4 done, you've got a long way to go.
And the reason i rushed, is cuz with oblivion I wouldnt rush then I would get too sidetracked and so I've never actually beaten oblivion.
As much as I love LittleBigPlanet, I find myself playing Fallout 3 more. :questiong:
I'm enjoying wandering around the area of DC and seeing what sights I remember from living there.
Currently I'm trying to figure out a way to reach Rivet City, without much success no thanks to blocked roads and super mutants with rocket launchers.
Is it wrong to giggle like a madwoman when I shoot a frag grenade out of a charging super mutant's hand, resulting in its one-hit demise?
:loveg:
No, Kek; in fact that is the essence of everything right in the world.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kekvit Irae
I went with my usual Fallout diplosnipe, with an emphasis on energy weapons. I'm not having a hard time finding ammo -- anybody else gone with either energy weapons or big guns? How's your mileage?
Oh ya! Oh ya! Just got off the phone with my cousine in Cardiff, he's got a copy and he's sending it to me by mail :jumping: :dancing: :birthday2:
I haven't played with Energy Weapons yet, but I keep collecting a load of energy cells from fallen robots and other places, and a laser pistol is available early on. Plus, if you complete a certain android quest, one of the possible rewards is a REALLY nice plasma rifle.
Went with big guns, had slight problems at the beginning but found a flamer quite early, and then there's Rock-It Launcher (which has practically infinite ammo) available from Megaton. Rivet City has a steady supply of most kinds of ammo, getting there is not that hard if you aren't afraid of a few rads - just swim in the river to avoid the super muties.
Well there are two things you should know. No matter which you chose, to blow up to un arm, the bomb in megaton all the people there will be wandering around or in the underground.
I like the music. A bongo bongo bongo! No no I dont wanna leave the congo
The first really major glitch I found (other than the game freezing up on me):
In Big Town...
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
It annoys me so badly to see a good quest gone buggy.
It was a nice decision to edit the title. Thanks.
I completed Dead Space this morning. Fallout 3 will be go in a bit.
I'm aiming for a high intelligence, luck and agility character with small guns, barter and repair tagged. The tonne of skill points I'll get from high intelligence will be used to bump those skills plus some conversational skills, with science and lockpicking a bit further behind. Brains over brawn ... but with a pistol in case people get rough.
I take back what I said about Oblivion-styled scaling. The random encounters you face in the Wasteland ARE scaled to your level. I'm currently level 14 and I'm seeing lots of super mutants and giant radscorpions now when I used to only see molerats and crap when I was a much lower level. THANKFULLY the individual enemies themselves do not scale. Running into DC at level 3 will get you murdered faster than you can say "War never changes," while plowing through slavers in Paradise City at level 14 is a cakewalk.
Meh, Barter early on isn't all that useful. You may want to tag Speech instead. The experience you get from a successful speech check is extremely useful for low levels. I'd hold off on Barter until you get to around level 5 or so when your inventory is bursting with items to sell.Quote:
Originally Posted by frogbeastegg
If Speech isn't your thing (after all, you can always pick up Lady Killer/Black Widow at level 2), you can replace it with Science or Medicine. Sneak is useful if you plan on playing a stealthy character since the first hit you do with any weapon (read: classic sniper archtype) while [HIDDEN] will be an automatic critical with bonus damage. Often enough to kill someone. You can also automatically shut down robots with a certain perk later on.
Even though I don't like where Bethesda has taken Fallout universe, I must admit FO3 is a very decent game. Of course, it's hard not to compare it to its predecessors and in that regard it is the worst in the series by far. As a standalone game, as a post-apocalyptic FPS/RPG it's okay I think. There are occasional moments where the game will live up to its predecessors and bring a smile to a face of an old FO1/2 fan, but those moment are rare...
I've tried playing with a high INT/CHA character with speech, science and repair skills tagged and it was pretty much impossible. The opportunities to use those skills were rare and pretty much any encounter in the wastes forced me to reload. It's very hard to escape, especially if you've encountered multiple opponents with guns. If you do manage, you'll probably lose most of your HP in the process. Tagged skills aren't that important since they improve at the same rate as all other skills, basically you just get a one time bonus of 15 points when you tag a skill.
CHA/STR/END/LCK are rarely useful. There are not many opportunities to use CHA. With each point in strength you gain +5 to how much you can carry (with 5 STR ist's 200, with 6 it's 205 - not that much of a difference) and a bonus to melee weapons damage (which you will rarely, if ever use, except on critters not worthy of wasting ammo). END may be more useful, giving you more HP but it's not crucial. LCK governs only your chances of a critical hit, but there's a perk later on which gives better results.
Go for perception, agility and intelligence, that's my advice.
And, the stupidest thing from Oblivion is back - you have to constantly repair your weapons. I mean, there may have been some logic behind it in Oblivion, where there were no firearms or energy weapons, but it still was silly to have my sword deteriorate after 5-10 hits. Of course, it's even sillier to have your gun deteriorate after 50 shots have been fired. It has deteriorated and it now fires worse bullets? :wall:
Better then Oblivion, but in most ways, the only connection with old Fallout games is the name.
Guess I can add it to my, "maybe when it's in a bargain bin for 10-20 bucks" pile then.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmatian
I'm sure you all have been waiting with bated breath for my post here. /dripping with sarcasm
So crusty cranky ol' Uncle Whacker decided to give it a go, one of my unfortunate friends decided to buy the game, Collector's Ed. Went over to his joint on Sunday and played it for about 2-3 hours. It is exactly what I thought it would be.
What it isn't: Fallout. An RPG (by any stretch of the imagination).
What it is: A "semi-deep" post-apocalyptic FPS with some hopeful potential, once the modders fix it. In other words, Oblivion with Guns.
Let's start with the bad. Bethesda has essentially done exactly what they were expected to do with the Fallout IP. They utterly gutted SPECIAL and the skills system. The vast majority of the "perks" I see on the list are basically related to pumping skills. Characters can become "god" and do any task provided they pump the right skill, just like what Beth did with the Elder Scrolls games. There is NOTHING turn-based about the combat whatsoever, VATS is basically a cheat bullet time mechanism with an annoying "death cam" mode that can't be turned off. Furthermore, the way they did the actual gun mechanics were just horrible. Apparently the "cone of fire" range that bullets can travel off of the crosshair reduces as you put points into the relevant skill, but it does not affect damage. They should have done the exact opposite and reversed those two. If I'm going to play an FPS, I expect my shots to go on target minus recoil and modifiers, like movement (Crysis did this great). Repair... ugh, I can't stand how they implemented the whole repair skill, won't get too deep into it. The interfaces are utterly rotten, but hopefully something like btmod will be released that will fix much of this. Radiant AI makes a great return as well, still waiting for the "I saw a radscorpion the other day!" conversation. Level scaling is also in, but it doesn't seem to be as bad as it was in Oblivion. Another thing that I felt is far too contrived was the setting and landscape. Things seemed far too washed out and drab, FO1 and 2 were actually rather vibrant games and had varied landscapes and scenery. Some areas were rather washed out and drab, like the "dead" cities and the raw desert. Other areas were rather colorful, like the settled places, brotherhood compound(s), LA, Reno, etc etc etc. I also think they did a poor job with strewing random debris and junk all over the place, just to force the landscape to be broken up. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not advocating absolute "realism" when it comes to landscape from an atomic attack aftermath, but the whole thing doesn't sit well with me how they did it. Normally this kind of stuff doesn't bother me unless it's significantly off kilter in my eyes.
Now let's finish off with the good stuff. Humor. Oh man did they get some of the good parts right. The signs out in front of Vault 101 after you exit were great, "Let us in mother:daisy:ers!!" The Deputy Weld bot got a few chuckles out of me, as did some of the other similar model robots in the subways. "This. Is. Now. A. Live. Fire. Zone. Please. Take. Cover. Thank. You. For. Riding. With. Metro. Railways." Gotta also admit to taking some pleasure in the chunky gibs that sometimes result when you kill people or critters. Lastly, I think this game is salvagable, just like Oblivion. Vanilla Oblivion is total garbage, the wow factor lasts for about 5 hours, give or take, and then one realizes how shallow the game really is. Mods completely and totally saved that game and gave it SOME depth and variety that was much lacking. I think the exact same can be said for FO3, mods can save it.
Final verdict. It's not Fallout, and it's not an RPG at all. What it IS, is an FPS that might actually be rather fun if one can get past the "what it's not" parts and the community fixes it. I'll revisit it probably after Xmas when I'm going to guess that the modding tools will have been out for awhile and folks have had some time to work on it, and we'll see what happens from there.
Got it last Friday and my wife and I were playing a good deal over the weekend. It was interesting for us to play as we had both done an Alpha test of the game and there were obvious differences between the release version and the Alpha. For the purposes of this review, note that I am playing on Hard difficulty (will probably play on Very Hard for all other replays).
First off, like others have said, it is not Fallout. Do not go into this game expecting to play another Fallout game. You won't get it and you'll be very annoyed. It is far, far more like Oblivion than it is like Fallout. It is definitely Oblivion with Guns. However, it is also decent fun and I predict that it will be a multi-replay classic after the modders have some time to dig into it.
The Good:
Atmosphere. No, it's not Fallout, but it's still pretty cool. The post-apocalyptic atmosphere is excellent. I actually don't mind the random clutter strewn about the wasteland, as it adds greatly to the feeling of the place. It's all so... depressing... that it really is a monumental event when you finally find some small town, even if it's only got 3 people in it. Finding a trader or a caravan is often a welcome sight, and the bleak loneliness of the place is wonderfully accentuated by the Galaxy radio station, which is a simply superb background. I get actively unhappy when I move outside of its broadcast range.
The World: When I was told in Alpha that the game world was actually a good deal smaller than Oblivion's, I was VERY disappointed. I thought Oblivion was too small as it was, so I expected to be extremely unhappy with the size of the FO3 world. Not so. I don't know quite what it is about the game that achieves this, but the world seems very large. Getting from one side to the other is difficult without fast travel (which I hate and use exceedingly rarely) because you'll encounter all kinds of hazards on your way. For reasons I won't explain due to spoiler, the town of Megaton is no longer accessible to me. This has turned out to be a major inconvenience, as it was a very central location and losing it as a safe-harbor where I could rest, repair, and refill my supplies is a blow to my ability to travel the wastes freely.
The Quests: All in all, not bad. So far, most are far more creative than the usual FedEx style quests of so many games. What you have to do and where you have to go is not always clear, there are usually multiple ways to solve them, and the rewards can be interesting and unique. If there's one complaint, its simply that there aren't enough of them. For example, Tenpenny Tower is a major building with easily a dozen unique named NPCs and probably more than that. However, with the exception of one quest that is related to the Tower but is really a Megaton quest, there is really exactly one quest at Tenpenny. What gives? I expected to be working out of there for a long time, but I finish my single job and that appears to be it for the rest of the game. Such a waste.
The Difficulty: Pretty decent. Surviving can be really hard, especially at low levels. Ammunition is very hard to obtain at low levels, and I have found myself in serious problems due to being stranded in the middle of nowhere with next to nothing left to throw at the enemy. DC itself is absolutely terrifying and my first attempt to penetrate it had to be aborted due to my inability to cut my way through all of the baddies along the way. I am now about level 10 and have just finally started getting enough ammo to serve my needs by buying and stealing every last bullet I see in the game and by carrying multiple weapons at all times so that I can use all the ammo types. The 0 weight on all ammo types may be absurdly unrealistic, but it's necessary for gameplay, so I'm grateful they implemented it. For the record, I LOVE hard games and for that reason will be bumping the difficulty up to the top level on my second play through. Interestingly, the difficulty seems greatly reduced from what it was in the version I tested, at least in the intro areas.
Load Times: Unbelievable. Seriously. Oblivion took forever to load up. FO3 not only loads the game in blazing fast speed, it also loads saved games unbelievably fast. I don't know what they did to optimize the engine, but it's amazing. Whichever programmers achieved this deserve a promotion and should be coveted by any Dev in the industry.
The Average:
Dialog: No where near as good as Fallout, but far better than Oblivion. The conversations are still relatively short, but at least they make sense and the response options have enough variety to allow you to roleplay in a basic manner. From what I read, I expected little humor in the game, but I actually find a great deal. The game is consistently amusing to me, and in an actual comic manner, not in the cheap FO2 pop culture style. The Mechanist/AntAgonizer amused me about as much as I've ever been amused by a game.
Stats/Skills: BethSoft shoe-horned the FO system into Oblivion. It works fine on its own, but it's nothing like FO except in appearance. Still, the system is pretty decently balanced so far and I cannot be a jack of all trades. I always find myself wishing I had higher stats/skills in various areas and deciding where to put my skill points every level is agonizing. I have ended up pumping my Intelligence up just to get more skill points. I may end up re-evaluating this towards the end of the game though since I can't tell how high a level I'll be by then. It's possible I will end up a master at everything, though while that's bad from a game perspective, it's actually on-par with the FO series, since you could become a master of everything in that eventually anyway. Most of the Perks are useless, though that's also very much in the FO style.
Combat: It works. It's not remotely like the AP system in FO and I still don't understand why they tried to market it like that. It's not great, and it's not horrible. VATS works, but it's a gimmick. All advertising that attempts to make it sound like turn-based combat in any manner is a bald-faced lie. It's nothing of the sort and shame on whoever decided to try and portray it as such.
The Bad:
The Interface: I complained about this to my BethSoft friends before and they were convinced it would be fine this time around. Apparently I need to rant at them some more. The interface is abominable. First, you can't bind all keys. The exit Pipboy key cannot be changed (even though the enter Pipboy key can, someone please explain this to me) and the VATS keys cannot be changed. Not only is this horribly inconvenient, it's also apparently an intentional design for reasons I cannot fathom. There is also no button to switch weapons, such as the scroll wheel. Even Oblivion had that! You also have to do EVERYTHING through the Pipboy, which is horrible because the font is too large, the screen size (of the Pipboy) is too small, and the whole interface is just difficult to navigate. Major, major issues on this whole area. A FO3 version of BTMod cannot come soon enough.
Repairing: Simply a pain in the butt. I don't mind repairing in concept, but it's horribly tedious to do in the game and items deteriorate way, way too quickly. Whoever thought the current repair system was a good idea needs to be shot. This will be one of the first mods I download.
No Custom Radio Stations: I specifically asked for this when I tested the game and while I never expected BethSoft to pay any attention to my request, I'm annoyed they haven't allowed this. The music is one of the best parts of the game, but it gets repetitive quickly. I want to be able to drop new songs into the existing radio station rotations and I want to be able to drop MP3s into a folder for my own custom radio station playlist. This should be absurdly easy, since it's already possible for the background music. I bet they'll release this as a Downloadable Content and make me pay for it.
Summary:
A flawed game with huge potential. Take a look at the list of things under The Good and you'll see why. They've essentially built a game that got all of the critical aspects right. They've built a world that is fun to play in and it's packed full of places to go and people to kill. Modders will have a field day with this game and I expect it will probably end up ranking well above Oblivion on most peoples favorites list. The problems with the game are annoying, but not crippling, though I am now convinced that the day BethSoft understands how to build a game interface will be the same day Molerats land on the moon.
I just wanted to thank my fellow Orgahs for their various enlightening reviews. Seems that I will postpone the aquisition and hope that patches and modders transform and improve this game as or more than they did with Oblivion. :bow:
I have to disagree a little, it is not simply an FPS. It is not simply an RPG either but rather an FPS/RPG hybrid in the style of System Shock's mechanics.
I also have to disagree with the description of VATS as well. Bullet time traditionally has you still in control of the shooting while time slows done. In VATS you completely had over the shooting to the RPG elements of the game. You nominate targets and the dice are rolled in the background and you see the results. I got my character to lvl 20 well before finishing the game and thanks to this, some bobble heads and books I maxed out small arms and energy weapons. Now I am a decent enough FPS player myself, but my guy totally rocks in VATS. Long range headshots, two shotting Deathclaws (which are still scary and dangerous to a lvl 20 character in power armor if allowed to get close) and such. Things that very difficult to do in normal FPS mode.
I am a long time Fallout fan (always have them somewhere on my PC) I do see as above the potential there. The artwork in the game is very true to the style seen in the orginial games. Cars, chairs, tables, computers, buildings, power generators and so on are all very much in the correct style.
The story telling is a little off though, good enough but not the same level of quality as in the originals. They have fallen into the oldschool traps for the GM in a PnP RPG. You have the big open world but have to artifically limit your players interactions to stop them breaking the story. It even drops into direct railroading of events at at least one point. The end of the story feels far to rushed as compared to the begining. It is a shame because by the time the story has unlocked some cool stuff it is starting to shove to in the back to complete the central quest. I really can see how this game can be completed very quickly if you chose too.
It is true that the bear bones of something that could be amazing exist in the game.
That's not quite right. For every odd point in luck you gain +1 to all of your skills. The perk adds on to what you already have, so if you have 9 luck and the perk you get a 14% chance to crit - awesome!Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmatian
My character has 9 luck. I'm critical hitting people's heads with my crappy pistol so much that I feel overpowered. I don't have the perk yet; I'm only level 4.
After the unanticipated high of Dead Space, Fallout 3 is proving to be something of a low. That’s a disappointment; I have purposely kept away from all the hype and panning of this game, and overall done my best to ensure I come to it with nothing except the willingness to see it as a game in its own right. That should have made it easier for it to astonish me.
I've played for around 3 hours, reached level 4, done a few quests and a risky raid, and got my own house.
Character building. SPECIAL is still a good system. I like it. The perks are unbalanced, and some are clearly far better than others. A perk which gives me a total of +10 skill points to pre-set skills, or one which gives an extra point of intelligence which will add up to an extra 18 skill points if I take it ASAP? Tough choice, I do not think. I'm getting 19 skill points per level plus 3 more from the perk I picked on reaching level 4; I doubt I will have problems boosting up the skills I want, especially now I have cut science from the list (see below). I feel a wee bit uber, and mostly like that.
Difficulty. I'm playing on normal. I didn't min-max my character, didn't create a combat heavy build, didn't even do much reading about to see what builds are particularly good. I'm pwning the world. Scarily so. Doubly scary since I have seen quite a few people grumbling about how hard the game is at that level. I have 4 END and crappy starter level equipment and I still manage to survive an encounter with 6 gun-totting nutters without using a healing item or any sort of booster drugs. Not only that, I can then survive fighting them again when the game regenerates them in while I'm scavenging.
Combat. I like VATS, not a lot but like all the same. It works; it's different; it lends some feeling of individuality to the game (see later point). Remove VATS and it's all terribly fast and terribly twitchy. Add in the way stats control whether you hit or not, and I'm missing headshots over and over when I feel I should hit. On the flip side, if you remove that connection the combats stats wouldn't be that important. Hmm.
Economy. Without much effort I have more caps than I feel I need. I have oodles of loot to sell. I have lots of health and rad restoring items. I have something like 60 rounds for my pistol plus other misc ammo and grenades, and multiple items to use for repairing my gear. I have a house. What I don't have is something I want to buy; I haven't spent a single cap. I thought it was supposed to be a hand to mouth scrape for survival? I am most definitely *not* happy to see the Oblivion/Morrowind style shops back again. Trawling around multiple shops and waiting for days for shop keeper's cash to regenerate so I can sell off the next fraction of my loot is not fun. It takes me longer than the expedition.
Radio. Please. Have. More. Tracks! I have access to two stations and they endlessly loop over and over until I could swear they only have 2 songs and 1 ad each. I killed the radio on my pip boy, and now it's too quiet. Oh, BTW, Bioshock called. It wants its soundtrack back. Yes, I appreciate other games have used this style of music, and yes I know it's not something Bioshock invented. It is something Bioshock made its own to my mind. Each time I hear that one about not wanting to set the world on fire I expect a Big Daddy to turn up, complete with Little Sister and dancing splicers.
Voice acting. It's average at best.
Controls. The default xbox controls are not what I'd consider to be the intuitive setup. I keep doing things I don't want to when attempting to do something else. Having the pip boy on B in particular does not feel logical. There looks like there might be an option for rebinding the buttons; I shall investigate.
Mini games. Lock picking is ok. It's easy, straightforward, and I can live with it. Hacking. I love it so much that I have cut the plan to add points to science, and will now ignore every last terminal in the game. It's times like this which remind me that, while my literacy based skills are mostly unscathed by my dyslexia, I'm by no means unaffected. Picking words out of a screen full of gibberish? Only if I laboriously shift the cursor about until it highlights the words buried in the mass. Trying to remember all of those words while trying to work out which one is the right one based on remembering letters and their positions? Sorry, but it's so difficult for me it took half an hour it took to hack that terminal in the vault, and in the end I only passed it through luck.
Colour. Thanks for offering me a choice of several colours, that's excellent. However, when I set the interface to blue I wanted it all to be blue. No green. It's another dyslexic thing; certain colours make our lives harder, and green is right up there next to bright yellow for me. Blue. I want blue. So why is half the world still in green? It robs me of my usual ultra high-speed reading fluency and demands I concentrate, and that makes me feel like a semi-illiterate idiot. ~:mecry: Oh and that hacking mini game I have so much difficulty with? It's green. :furious3:
Regenerating enemies. Ok, I understand why. Yes, I don't have a problem with it in theory. Overall I consider it to be a sound idea and necessary part of the game. When the gang of thugs I recently slaughtered regenerates with no warning in the same area I'm wandering about in then the agreement wavers. It could be argued that this is another gang sneaking into the building while I'm scooting around looting. Another gang, made up of exactly the same character models and numbers, taking up exactly the same patrol routes, as if I had never gone through and killed them all. Hmm.
Feel. No, I wouldn't call it Oblivion with guns. I'd call it a Bethesda game. It feels like Morrowind and like Oblivion, from the static talking head conversations to the peasant types with rakes. Heh, it is nice to see them making a game without the fabulously broken character creation system from the Elder Scrolls games.
Robots. I like them.
The vault. Once you hit 19 there's a single word for it: boring. I also felt I was railroaded down a particular path, one I didn't want my generally heroic character to take. The childhood sections were cute, if a little lengthy for the content.
Technical. It crashed my xbox within the first hour of play. I now live in fear of walking around corners in case it happens again.
I had planned three playthroughs for this game, one as the smart average type I am now, one as a stealthy type, and one as a combat crazed gun nut. Now I revise that to reaching level 20, completing most of the quests, and finishing the main quest. It may grow on me enough that I play again. It may not. I do intend to give it chance. Once the moral ambiguity and less straightforward quests turn up I will probably like it a lot more. Right now I am finding nothing but clear cut quests which could be in any game. Do this thing which is good, or do the other thing which is evil.
Some of my collected thoughts:
It is apparent that the makers of the game were Fallout fans and read the Fallout Bible. Playing through the game normally just makes it seem like Oblivion With Guns, but the real treat are the very minor things that pop up like the computer logs, holotapes, and conversations about the backstory of the Wasteland. eg: Greta in the Underworld talks about being over 200 years old, living before the bombs fell. Her backstory confirms what happened to the Necropolis in Fallout 1, where Vault 12 was never meant to be sealed and thus the radiation changed the inhabitants into ghouls.
However, there are some contradictions... Why are there Chinese soldiers in the Capital Wasteland? You find corpses of them (in surprisingly good condition) just outside the Super-Duper Mart, along with a Chinese Radio signal. The corpses are in surprisingly good condition, which leads me to believe that they invaded DC after the bombs fell 200 years ago. But weren't the Chinese repelled by American/Canadian forces in Alaska? How did they get all this way into the heartland?
Another contradiction is when you talk to the old adventurer in Tenpenny Tower (the only one who doesn't hate ghouls). He's a human (couldn't be a day over 80, I assume), and he mentions that he was adventuring with his ghoul manservant before the war. Wait, there was another war? Considering the current year is 2277, the only war I remember was the Chinese war 200 years ago which wiped out most of the world. There are big pieces of the story missing, and this makes me sad, seeing as I'm a BIG Fallout fan.
I specifically asked my friends at Bethsoft about this. They indicate that once the modding tools are released, it should be pretty easy to both add new songs to the existing radio stations and to add in completely new radio stations.Quote:
Originally Posted by frogbeastegg
Yeah, I admit I spoke before quite understanding the game mechanics, actually not reading about attributes. I just thought SPECIAL attributes work in the same way as in FO1/2. Perception doesn't cover all ranged weapons in FO3. END - big guns, PER - energy, AGI - small guns. So if you want a character to go around with rocket launchers and so on, END is for you, although I found considerably less ammo for big guns and that might be a problem if you go that way. On the other hand, it may be that the game balances what you find depending on your specialty (like NWN) but I doubt it...Quote:
Originally Posted by frogbeastegg
Could be that I just didn't bother with looking under every stone, but I didn't find too much caps. Ammo neither. It may seem much now, but believe 60 rounds for 10mm pistol is not much. It's practically nothing. When you had out to the wastes, you'll find that your ammo disappears rapidly. In fact, I've had several situation where I used up all ammo and ended up in a bind. Now I carry sniper rifle, chinese assault rifle, shotgun, pistol, laser pistol, hunting rifle (and lot's of ammo for each) and I still don't waste ammo needlesslyQuote:
Originally Posted by frogbeastegg
***Minor spoilers, but don't open if you are less than half-way through.***
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
I'm still undecided on whether or not i'm getting, but 4chan /v/ had a rather disturbing topic in which they figured out how to kill children. Unfortunately, their characters already looked rather creepy (skinny, face stubble). This was made even worse when they're walking around wearing childrens clothes such as pyjamas and scout uniforms. This is even more disturbing when the clothes don't actually fit.
And oddly enough, it just made me want the game more...
:clown:
Quote:
Originally Posted by CrossLOPER
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
**** Please read only if you have finished ****
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
You have to wonder, if the mod tools come out, if they will be flexible enough for someone to redo Fallout and Fallout 2 in the Fallout 3 engine. That would be sweet...
I just got to level 21 and when i hit enter to select my perk game crashed any one else getting this issue?
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
That's because the game is designed to stop giving you exp once you hit level 20. How you got to 21, I'll never know.Quote:
Originally Posted by Veho Nex
Cheats :D
At level 20 i get bored so i wanna cheat it up a notch, didnt work:/
Okay, you Orgah folk did it... convinced me to order Fallout 3. Fedex delivers tomorrow.
I want to compliment everyone on this thread for great reviews, pro and con! Especially the gripes about the game.
Somehow I never managed to play the original Fallout games (probably too busy with combat fllight sims), and I didn't play Oblivion either. So I'm not carrying any baggage or expectations into this. I don't like pure shooters, but if there's some RPG elements and good atmosphere, that's enough for me. I've been in deep Witcher EE immersion lately, and I'm ready to bail out of swords and sorcery and into some sci-fi and guns. It was this or Dead Space (which I'll play eventually), and I think the semi stop-time combat here will be more friendly to my current PC hardware, and my geezer lack of twitch reflexes for realtime shooting.
Anyway, thanks again for the great comments, and also a big thumbs-up for hiding spoilers, while still letting us all know what the overall flavor of the game is like.
I have decided to do a second playthrough with Energy Weapons. On my first playthrough, I managed to get the Wazer Wifle in Little Lamplight, and never bothered with it until the final epic battle when I was low on .32 ammo (Ol' Painless is the superior weapon for Small Guns for the sole reason that it costs far less AP to shoot than the sniper rifle). When I first used it, I was drooling at how useful it was, even with only a crappy 35 points in Energy Weapons (that's WITH the bobblehead). Five shots with full AP? YES PLEASE.
Has anyone ever been walking along and seen a streak appear in the sky then suddenly explode? When you goto to the "area" of the exlosion you'll find alien battery cells. But what is the alien gun?
A quick tip for those who don't like the default repair system: there's a console command to access a NPC-style repair screen, but using the player's repair skill. You won't need to use other items for repairing, but it does cost caps like usual. For this reason it's quite not cheating. ~;p
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
:gasp: Yay! :grabs gun, runs out into wastes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmatian
Another factlet I've found about criticals. According to the official guide, being in VATS mode gives you a 15% chance to critical. Add that to my character's 9% from luck and it's no wonder heads are exploding all the time. Once I collect that +5 perk I will have a 29% chance at a critical hit. That is crazy!
Don't forget the perk that adds an additional 50% damage on a critical hit!Quote:
Originally Posted by frogbeastegg
Sneak + Sniper + Commando + Finesse + Better Criticals = Oh my god.
Yeah, with Sniper + Commando + Better Criticals and 100 in energy weapons I was killing ghouls (feral obviously with me being the boyscout hero of the wastes) in single headshots with my laser pistol (in VATS).
Later on it is the only way to keep your ammo usage remotely reasonable. I mean when I made the switch to energy weapons I had over 1500 rounds for the Laser Pistol. I though I would never run out, but some of the later enemies take a lot of killing.
The fact that picked up weapons only have 8 rounds of ammo really helps the balance and prevents things getting silly. And that you use them to repair your equipment is good too. I mean, repairs by merchants can get expensive and there are big advantages at keeping you weapon 100%. Also with the limited carry capacity you get into the habit (especially later on) of simply leaving anything you don't need to repair your stuff.
Also note that ammo has no weight, unrealistic sure, but at least it avoids the inventory shuffle from Fallout 2...
I blew up Megaton and...
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Finished the game. I must say I'm a little disappointed. Considering the scale of the game, how many locations and NPCs there is, there should have been far more quests, and they should have been more interesting. Actually, not that they aren't interesting, but they usually involve huge dungeon crawl in complex labyrinths. While doing quests, most of my time was spent on figuring out which freakin' corridor to take to get to the next level.
I've also found energy weapons overrated. With 100 invested in them and 90 in small guns (level 17), I've used guns far more often, even against opponents in power armour. Chinese Assault Rifle, Combat Shotgun and Hunting Rifle are much more versatile. Not to mention that it's far easier to repair them and get ammo for them.
I guess I'll try a female melee/big guns build next. There's nothing sexier than a scantily clad chick with a flamethrower :laugh4:
Some first impressions after starting the game last night (this is the PC version, BTW). There are some annoying things here and there, but overall it's a fun game and I'm looking forward to diving back into the post-apocalypse tonight. I never played the earlier Fallout games, or Oblivion. Lately I've been playing the Witcher EE, so that's an inevitable reference point for some things, since they're somewhat similar games.... sort of a RPG/FPS hybrid.
Good Stuff:
The post-nuclear world feels right, and it's fun to move around in. I love the trashed and rusting "1950's idea of a 2000 future" cars and trucks. The radio music and the graphic design on the faded ads and billboards feel a bit like a Bioshock ripoff, but it still helps establish the setting.
I'm using an older PC (Athlon 64 3800+, 2 gigs RAM) with a newer, but not state-of-the-art video card (GeForce 8800 GTS). The framerate is very smooth with full effects on, at 1024x768. I haven't tried running it at my monitor's native 1600x1200 yet, but it might be okay there too.
I like the way your hit points don't replenish automatically between combat events, like they do in the Witcher and some other games of this type (including "rest anywhere" variants of the D&D games). Auto-healing has a tendency to reduce the feel of danger and risk. You take more chances, and enemies are less scary. In Fallout 3, I'm being much more cautious about initiating combat, I'm being careful about my supply of food, water and meds, and that's good.
The interface is pretty good. The main screen isn't too busy, and the wrist gadget thingie works well to handle all the inventory, quest info, maps, etc.
Not So Good Stuff:
I don't like how fast weapons and armor deteriorate and need repair, but I can live with it until someone mods a reduced rate. A little deterioration over time would feel realistic, but this seems over the top... just a game mechanic to force the player to spend money or invest in repair skills.
The over-the-shoulder 3rd person view of your character isn't very well animated. The combat moves are okay, but I hate how your avatar rotates like he's on a turntable when you turn around. It just breaks immersion. Would it have killed them, to animate the character taking steps while turning in place? The transition from standing still to running is a bit wonky too. I've gone to the full frame/shooter view so I don't have to watch my guy move around.
The text display for conversation is MUCH LARGER than it needs to be, for a PC game. Probably due to it being a cross-platform game, but I still think it looks a bit cartoonish. Maybe there will be a mod for this.
I started at Normal, like I usually do with a new game, and might have to re-start at a higher level. I'm leaving the Vault with more stuff (gun, ammo, armor) than I thought I would. I had this image of having to get by in a very hostile environment with just a crowbar and a T-shirt and jeans. I feel awfully buff for my first encounters with the outside world, and combat so far is going a little too smoothly.
The combat design works pretty well, although it's disappointing that there's no cover system, as in Mass Effect for example. It's fun to watch the "bullet time" animations after you've selected actions in the V.A.T.S.
However, I think the realism suffers from the number of bullet hits it takes to bring down even a lower-level "soft" enemy, like a human Raider with minimal armor. If a V.A.T.S. sequence shows 3 direct hits to the head (no helmet), you don't normally expect a standard human to keep running at you. The number of allowed hits may be related to the way the player's character can also soak up a lot of damage. Or maybe it's to make the starting weapons weaker, so there's room for the damage inflicted with better weapons. But either way, I'd prefer a more "realistic" game like Bioshock, where one single shot to the head from a revolver will take down a splicer. And you're equally vulnerable, more or less. That matches real-world expectations better than what I'm seeing, so far, in Fallout 3. Maybe this will change as I get deeper into the game.
Speaking of head shots...
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
I'm still very early in the game so take this with a grain of salt, but what I've seen so far of the enemy AI during combat, isn't very impressive. It's mostly just bum-rushing the player with no apparent tactics or use of cover, and the occasional scripted surprise (locked door behind you suddenly opens and they jump you). I've see too many human enemies rush straight into my gunfire, bringing the proverbial knife to a gunfight. You expect that from critters, not humans. About the only impressive thing I've seen in the AI so far, is one Raider bailing out of a fight and running away, after taking some damage. It's not a game-breaker, but in a game that relies fairly heavily on combat, I was hoping for more.
Bad Stuff:
I ran into one area that triggered constant crashes to desktop. I avoided that area, then came back later and it was fine. I'm hoping that's rare, or will be cleaned up in a patch soon. My current gaming rig is very stable and never crashes with a well-programmed game.
That's enough for now. Gripes aside, I'm glad I bought the game.
I've noticed that the longer each individual session of playing becomes, the more likely I am to suffer a CTD. To combat this, I save often and if I'm in a marathon session, I restart the computer periodically. I remember similar issues with Oblivion and memory leakage.
I love the Winchester-esque "Repeater" I found. To bad I haven't found a Cowboy hat to go with my Regulator duster, so I could properly wander the Wasteland dispensing Kinetic Justice.
We've received patches for your major CTD problems.
:sigh: 9 hours play and character level 8; it still doesn't catch me. I've done quite a bit of exploring in the wastes and got some major and minor side quests completed, and the game isn't working.
I still have way too many caps and little to buy. 4,000+ caps and growing. If I didn't have a couple of bits of gear which require me to pay others to repair them then I'd have much more. The one thing I would like to buy I can't find anywhere selling: bobby pins. After the initial handout at the start of the game I have had to collect all others from the corpses of feral ghouls.
I still have far too much ammo and easy sources to get more. 160+ 10mm, 70+ for my rifle, 120+ for my shotgun, and a whole locker stuffed full for guns I don't use.
I still have more loot than I can sell without tedium. I've taken to leaving everything except the better items lying in the dirt.
Combat has changed a bit; now it is either numbingly easy or I die in two hits. Numbingly easy is the most prevalent. I stormed a camp of super mutants at level 4 with a pistol, empty shotgun and a broken rifle and won, admittedly just barely and with the use of a couple of stimpacks. Even so. Multiple super mutants. Pistol. Empty shotgun. Broken rifle. Wimpy level 4 character with 4 endurance. No use of stat boosting drugs or explosives. I won. I'm on 'normal' and it feels like I accidentally selected 'very easy'.
I'm still waiting for the much talked about moral dilemmas, unexpected results and grey areas to appear. So far it has been depressingly black and white.
The atmosphere will dash through the door and apologise for being late any minute now. Maybe it’s stuck in traffic? Maybe it was involved in a fatal car crash on its way over? Someone try calling its mobile and see what happened.
It's crashed my xbox again.
Dungeons. Didn't I spend 60 hours running about badly lit, confusing and repetitive tunnel/cave based dungeons in Oblivion? Yes, I did. Didn't I hate that? Yes, I did. And didn't I spend a lot of time doing that in Morrowind too, and hate it? Yes, I did. Didn't I clear out this set of subway tunnels an hour ago? Yes, I di - oh, wait, that was the other one a bit further to the east. Or south. Or in the city. Or ...
The experience itself leaves me cold. I don't care about - or like - the people, the quests, the setting, the world, or any of it. I don't care about quest rewards or finding loot. The one thing I do care about is gaining XP; levels are the only reward which feel valuable in this game. Skill books are ok; I get 2 points from each and that's enough to create a minor blip of almost excitement each time I discover one. Bobble heads do manage a minor blip of excitement; 10 skill points or a skill point make a noticeable difference to my character. I've found 4 so far.
There doesn't seem to be much to look forward to as you advance in the game. Better armour? I'll take power armour, all the rest is minor stat variations on the same old boring. Guns? The ones I have are plenty good. Having another +3 to damage on my shotgun won't make much difference. Other misc items? I barely use them as it is. Levels. It's all about levels and the stats gained thereby.
Why do I fail every speech challenge where I have a success of over 60% but succeed frequently on those where I have between 40% and 59%? The law of percentages must be warped by my character's unnaturally good luck :inquisitive: Should be the other way around: failing most of the lower percentage ones and passing most of the higher, with some losses on both because even 99% doesn't mean guaranteed win.
The voice acting continues under whelming. Hurrah for the option to advance to the next line at the press of a button; I can read far faster than these people can drone. The robots are the only good voices thus far.
Is it a good thing when you’re wandering around the wastes and classifying all the inhabitants as lazy good for nothings who would rather wallow in filth then try to nail a tile on a roof and not get doused in radioactive rain? Yeah, the food and water is irradiated and civilisation as we know it is dead, but does that mean you can’t sweep that pile of rotting radioactive junk out of your shack? Because that might, you know, help stop you dying from disease and radiation poisoning.
I do love my combat shotgun and rifle combo. :loveg:
The one thing the game is doing an excellent job of is making me want to play as an evil character. That's highly impressive - I always have a halo early on in any RPG. I can't stomach being evil, and struggle to play that way. Here, oh give me a shotgun and let me loose! So many NPCs would benefit from a head exploding critical! We'll see how long the froggy ethics last; I have a shiny halo and like people running up to me in the streets to give me gifts to support my heroic efforts.
I am shocked with my feelings on this game, a little horrified too. Oblivion was a game filled with problems and built up around the most broken character system I have seen, yet I managed to enjoy most of the time I spent with it. Fallout fixes some of those problems and brings an awesome character system, and then completely fails to engage me.
Maybe I should restart on hard, dial down my intelligence and luck, and play to be pure evil. :considers: That would mean repeating 9 hours of stuff I didn’t enjoy the first time around, with a character build aimed at skills I don't want.
Over 24 hours now since I installed this, and I've played it for 17 hours, and I'm feeling very sleepy, still I could not resist sharing this, the funniest thing happened when I was playing an hour back....
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
I just reached level 7, and aside from one difference of opinion with Froggie (I do like the feel of the world, and enjoy roaming around in it), I'd agree with everything else.
The combat is still feeling a little too easy on Normal... maybe due to the Sneak-Sniper-Commando etc. spec I'm using. But I'm not feeling like re-starting the game at a higher level, now that I'm in this deep. Maybe if there had been fewer dungeon crawls. There really are too many of those, and I have a feeling there are plenty more to come.
So far, the conversations and choices are... meh, about average for this type of game. Meaning, it's not cringingly adolescent in the writing of the plot and the dialogue, but so far it's no literary masterpiece either. It's a little too predictable (so far), in terms of where I know I'll have to go and what I'll have to do. There are a few surprise twists, but overall it's missing that element in a good RPG of not know what's going to come next.
I'll probably finish the game on Normal, set it aside for a while, and then see if I ever want to re-play it with a different spec and moral alignment in a few months (or years). I am still enjoying the post-nuclear war atmosphere... all the ruined buildings and junk lying around. Maybe it's because I've overdosed on medieval and sword & sorcery games in the last year, so I'm primed for this.
The combat dynamics have a few good things, like the slow-mo animations in the V.A.T.S., and some tactical considerations in targeting. But other aspects seem flaky. The manual says V.A.T.S. shows a percentage to hit. However, a higher-end opponent like a Super Mutant will show reduced percentage to hit than a weaker one (like a radroach), using the same ranged weapon, at the same distance. I don't understand this. It's like the V.A.T.S. is factoring in inherent toughness or something, and that's causing more chance for me to miss the shot? Whatever it is, it doesn't feel right. I don't care if I cause less damage to a tough target, but it shouldn't be harder to place a bullet on a big, lumbering target like a Super Mutant than a smaller, weaker, faster one.
Another thing getting to me is the need to engage with guns at very close range, to have a decent chance to hit. I'm at level 7 with a good setup of S.P.E.C.I.A.L., skills, and percs for small arms and energy weapons. To get a decent chance to hit, I still have to either run up close to the target in spitting range, and start firing away, or wait for the target to run close to me. And then there's a silly dance where I fire while backing up, just to keep a charging target close enough for decent percentages in the V.A.T.S.... when I should never have had to get that close in the first place! That can involve some interesting and challenging uses of cover at close range, but it just doesn't feel like guns should work this way.
Maybe the devs are trying to leave room for improvement in your targeting skills in the upper levels. Or maybe it's a concession to smaller console game screens, where they want you to see the enemy up close, instead of a dot hiding behind a bush. Whatever the reason, it just just feels dumb to have to get so close to enemies in a gun-based game.
Related to that, there doesn't seem to be a big difference in accuracy (chance to hit) between guns that should have a pretty wide spread, like pistols vs. assault rifles vs. long guns like the rifle.
These are relatively minor gripes, I suppose, because I'm still having fun just being in this game world. And the range thing isn't as glaring a flaw when fighting indoors. Close-quarters combat can be intense, and feels about right (other than numbers of hits a human enemy can take to the head... sigh).
The ranges are definately truncated. But I have to say, with my Sniper rifle and my high lvl character and 100 in small arms plus the right perks and I have hit guys on the catwalks of the large satellite dishes from a pretty fair distance away...
Mind you it is in keeping with the original Fallout, percentage to hit could drop at a ridiculous rate given the ranges possible in FO and FO2...
Well, maybe it's for scaling reasons then, to allow for improvement in the upper levels. Between the short practical engagement range for guns (at least in the first half of the game), and the way you can soak up a fair amount of damage... I'll be tempted to try a melee specialist spec if I ever make another run through the game. Toss a grenade, then run up and beat the tar out of the enemy. Not sure how that would work with multiple opponents though, or the tougher mutants and robots.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob the Insane
It didn't work too well for me. You're handicapped since enemies can start shooting before you close up to them. One on one encounters are doable, but they're doable with almost every weapon. When you try to deal with a group, they will spread out, even if they were tightly packed. Basically, you get shot at while you're moving towards them, when you get to them, you can pummel one while the others move in opposite direction and shoot at you. When you kill the first one, you have to move to get within striking distance of the second one and again you get shot at. Also, when you're running, you can't use cover and so on. Melee just isn't worth it. Although I have a 10 strength character with 75 in melee, I use my small guns with 30 skill rating and 6 agility.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zenicetus
Anyway, I know we've had our fair share of first impressions and reviews, but for those still interested, this is by far the best, most objective and most hype-free professional review I've found.
Hmm. I'm not thrilled with the game but I don't find myself in agreement with that review. It's very ... ah, well if I say it's very no mutants allowed does that make sense to other people? Far too hung up on the fact that this is a new game, and therefore it can't possibly be much good because everyone knows new games are shallow, dumbed down, derivative and aimed at people with an IQ of 3.
Even my limited (not quite 10 hours now) playtime proves some of his points inaccurate. Teleporting about the map without penalty? Sure - until you drop into an area which has repopulated with enemies. Dead on arrival isn't that much of an understatement for the time I dropped into the midst of a raider group via fast travel. Fast travel out into the wastes is a gamble; you'll be fine most of the time and you don’t know disaster awaits until it is too late. The spoiler point about the sheriff? If you're good enough then you can intervene and stop that - I managed it. Karma does have an effect: I noticed NPCs being nicer to me after I started to reach higher karma levels, and my halo-sporting character gets random gifts from people for "being a hero". I've been attacked on sight by evil folk, and had assassins sent after me.
Other points are nonsensical. As unimpressed as I am with the voice acting, the comment about "characters in a post-apocalyptic world spoke with the same tone (and occasionally, the same pronunciation) as the fair gentle folk of the Victorian age." is pure hyperbole. The ability to choose whatever path you like at the ending regardless of the moral alignment you have taken throughout the game? It's been in nearly every western RPG I have played, including those classics which people like this reviewer don't class as dumbed down for the idiot masses. It's present in games for a reason: player choice. Even the evilest of characters might have a change of heart when they find that pushing the big red button fills the world with fluffy bunnies. You're unable to create your character for the long run because it's impossible for you to regret perk choices? Amazing; I regret 2 perk choices already. Planning is vital for the better perks: they have pre-requisites. I tried to plan ahead from the start, and I have still made quite a few decisions I regard as mistakes.
If I were going to do a melee character I think I would go for high END and average STR. Close combat will mean you take more damage, so your health needs to be sky high. STR only has a small effect on damage (.5 per point). Perks and skills would drive most of the killing ability. AG could be ignored or robbed for points because VATS isn't much use in close combat. I'd keep a good luck score too; every build benefits from more criticals. With good intelligence you could pump up unarmed and/or melee very quickly, then flesh out your support skills. A high medicine score would be important; anything to make your stimpack stores go further. Sneak would be a handy skill as it would enable you to pick and choose your fights and start the combat from a more advantagous direction. Maxed iron fist for unarmed ASAP, a level or three (depending on what other perks you want) of toughness, fast metabolism, possibly adamantium skeleton or life giver if you find you're more fragile than you like, chemist if you use them a lot, probably cyborg (damage resist!), better criticals, maybe chem resistant if you took chemist, paralysing palm, ninja. The first few levels would be the hardest; survive them and it might start to shine.
As far as combat goes, I think a variation on my current tactics would work. In my current game I try to get quite close before calling up VATS and opening fire so my accuracy is maximised; zigzagging about and running from cover to cover gets me to the range I want without taking too much pain most of the time (my 4 END character is made of tinfoil). Sometimes I need to plan my approach a bit, sneakily loop around to better ground before letting the enemy spot me. I'd hotkey stimpacks for quick, seamless healing. Landmines and grenades would be very powerful when faced with tougher foes or groups. Going for an ultra-pure close combat build would be much harder IMO.
In a way unarmed might even be easier than a ranged character. You wouldn't need to lug an inventory of guns about, would have more caps from selling off guns and ammo, and you would never need to worry about your favourite gun running out of ammo or breaking. All you would need is stimpacks, good armour, possibly some explosives, and a sprinkling of chems for tough situations.
Sounds like fun; I'm almost tempted to try it. If only the game were as enjoyable to play as it is to theorise about. ~:(
That build reveals the biggest flaw with Fallout 3's character generation IMO: INT and luck are so good I can't see any build where I wouldn't pump them.
In contrary to Froggy's comments, I have never once had any trouble what so ever with fast travel. Once a static enemy dies, they stay dead for the entire game. Unless you're playing a total pacifist, you won't have any trouble going back to areas that were previously explored. The exception to this is apparently Deathclaws, which repop every time I traveled to that area (Old Olney, I think).
Playing a close combat character is world's different than playing a run-and-gun character. In contrary, again, early levels are surprisingly easy for a CC. It's the later levels that will kick your butt, as everyone and their grandmother will have rifles and variations of combat or power armor. The worst are the missile launcher-equipped enemies or enemies with frag grenades. The choice of playing either Unarmed or Melee is up to the player, but it all boils down to how early you can get a Ripper/Super Sledge or a Deathclaw Gauntlet. Another choice is if you want to spend perks on Iron Fist increasing your Unarmed damage (by a HUGE amount), or go Melee and spend those perks elsewhere. Either build you choose, building up both skills for Ninja is a requirement. Paralyzing Palm may seem cool, but having to throw away your Unarmed weapon (Deathclaw Gauntlet, Power Fist, etc) just doesn't make it all that worthwhile.
Another thing to note about close combat characters is that followers = life. They kill things often more quickly than a ranged character, and have a ton of hit points. Keep them alive, and they will keep you alive. If you have good karma, picking up Fawkes at the end game is a VERY good idea. He can mow down anything in his path. Both ends of the karma spectrum can pick up the ghoul follower in the Underworld.
And I've never once bothered with Luck, except for purposes of getting the 6 Luck requirement needed for a few perks. An extra 1% critical chance is not worth sacrificing an additional 10 to your carry limit. Besides, with a good sneak, you will get an automatic critical with bonus damage if you land a sneak attack, often enough to kill the enemy outright. I usually start with 4 Luck, spend a perk to increase it once, and find a bobblehead.
awesome game. they just need to fix the memory leaks that drops my framerates from 25 to 10 within fifteen minutes of play.
It has been a long time since a game made me laugh, but I did when I found the Board of Education weapon. :gring:
I'm pretty sure that Power Fist works with Paralyzing Palm. My Big Guns / Unarmed character with Fisto! has gained several "targets paralyzed" stats, and I'm quite sure that I've only been using Fisto! (for "unarmed") since I picked the ParaPalm perk.
On a side note, it's quite fun to sneak attack Super Mutants and gib them into pieces with a single power fist strike. :laugh4:
I get your "NMA" point but I'd say the review doesn't suffer from that syndrome. It acknowledged good points of the game. It awarded it 72/100, which is a fairly good game. The game you play through once or twice and then forget about it. Contrary to other RPG legends like BG or original Fallouts, which hardcore gamers played again and again.Quote:
Originally Posted by frogbeastegg
Teleporting without danger refers to the fact that nothing can happen to you while you travel. There is no danger of a random band of raiders and things like that. Sure, every once in a blue moon you'll teleport somewhere where bad guys are, but that can hardly be called consequence.Quote:
Originally Posted by frogbeastegg
People giving you several caps, bits of food and 10 bullets isn't what I consider "karma having an effect". When you're good, bad guys randomly spawn to kill you, when you're bad, good guys randomly spawn to kill you. Not because you've wronged someone or something. They just want to kill you. Again bad game design.
Voice acting is generally bad. Alistair Tenpenny has the perfect British aristocrat accent. Where did he acquire it when was either born in the Vault on the east coast or in the wasteland, remains a mystery.Quote:
Originally Posted by frogbeastegg
Change of heart is possible, but unfortunately in FO3 most of the times it's used as an excuse for bad game mechanic.
Although there are few good points, it still boils down to: uninteresting quests that in 99% are simple dungeon crawls, half imbecile dialogues, boring NPCs and uninspiring main quest. Pretty much everything that makes RPG an RPG. Not everything is that bad, it's an enjoyable game. But compare that to Fallout 2 which is a legend, classic, even a cult game for some, and you'd see that just an enjoyable game is a big step back. Yes, FO3 is a new game, it's not FO2, but you can't make a sequel and expect people not to compare it to original. That would be silly. It will always be done. We can't say "hey, let's not compare prequel Star Wars trilogy to the Original, those are new films". No, we can and we should.
My thoughts on the Oasis quest:
(no spoilers within, just an image)
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Being a hardcore Fallout fan, it both saddens me to see a legacy end, but it also makes me happy that the developers have obviously spent time reading the Fallout Bible.
Funny thing is that when Fallout 2 was released the fanbase hated that game, calling it not a sequel to Fallout 1 etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmatian
Now they love it.
Kinda reminds me of TW community.
People hate the new game until the next game comes along and then all of the sudden the previous game is being loved.
I suppose when Fallout 4 comes out, people will call Fallout 3 a classic.
Overall I think Fallout 3 lives up it's name and I enjoyed the game just as much as I did with Fallout 2 even if it lacks the adult nature of Fallout 2.
But it's still good to be back in the fallout world and in FPS mode as well.
I played a bit more this afternoon and got killed twice when fast travelling back to areas which I had entirely cleared. The first time I spawned in the middle of a super mutant mob, including my first mutant master. The second I was surrounded by raiders. Hehe, the super mutant spawn was so bad that the space between the area loading and watching my head spin across the landscape was so short I didn't have time to draw my weapon. Lots of areas in the wasteland respawn; I see it when I'm wandering on foot too. It seems to take around a week of game time, and the new enemies will be scaled to your current level. For example, when I originally cleared the area which had the super mutants, I faced bloatflies and mole rats. There weren't any super mutants for miles. Indoor locations don't respawn in my experience, with the exception of a single respawn in the super duper mart.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kekvit Irae
If it moves and is coded in red, I kill it. XP - it's all I care about. I collect all that I can see. Every. Last. Point. I'll chase a fleeing enemy halfway across the map rather than let its points escape.
Heck, last weekend I spawned in the middle of a raider mob when I went back to Tenpenny Towers and that's a) not territory which had enemies immediately by it, and b) surrounded by well equipped human guards.
Increased carry limit is something I haven't felt the need for. I've got STR 5, increased from 4 with a bobble head. If I were using heavy weapons then yes, I probably would want more. In that case I'd go with the bare minimum to get the boosting perk, as the perk provides a better return than spending special points. Then again I might not: I'm carrying 5 weapons plus heavy armour plus a spare to repair my two favoured weapons plus grenades and other supplies, and still don't feel the need for more capacity. I leave low worth loot behind because I've got over 6,000 caps I can't seem to find a use for. The plentiful criticals, on the other hand, bear much of the responsibility for making combat a breeze. Stealth gives you one critical; luck gives you a whole chain of them on groups and on tough monsters.Quote:
And I've never once bothered with Luck, except for purposes of getting the 6 Luck requirement needed for a few perks. An extra 1% critical chance is not worth sacrificing an additional 10 to your carry limit.
I did that one this afternoon. Same pictures apply, though possibly not for the same reasons. (vague spoilers ahoy)Quote:
The Oasis quest
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Funny thing: If I'd walked I would have survived both of the encounters which killed me this afternoon, and I'd have done it with ease. Fast travelling killed me. I died, had to reload, and then needed to change my plans. That's a consequence. You lose the chance to gain additional XP and loot by fighting as you travel. That's a consequence. Time passes too; the well rested bonus effectively lasts for less time when you fast travel because a part of its duration is taken up by a period where you don't do anything.That's another consequence. You lose out on the chance to see a blip on your radar or some ruins in the distance and wandering off to discover a new location. That's a consequence.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmation
Loading due to dropping in on a super mutant party might not sound like a bad thing. It can be. I've noticed that the area's population sometimes changes when you load. I can be killed by 4 raiders at a specific location, load, go right back to the exact same point, and now it's populated by rad scorpions and dogs. Or super mutants. Or - in one rapidly fatal and very messy case - those incredibly lethal mutant bear things. You can end up losing potential XP and gear, or end up stuck with a situation you aren't able to deal with. This applies to mobs found both fast travel and ordinary travel, and it's made me curse on multiple occasions. :weeps for that raider group with combat shotguns which got replaced by a single mole rat:
Hmm. On reflection, most of my 'getting from A to B' deaths have come from fast travelling :sweatdrop: If I walk then I have a far higher survival rate, since I can sneak, snipe, pick my approach, and am aware that I'm heading into a combat situation. When I fast travel into danger I rarely have time to start VATS up, let alone counter attack. Taking the traditional route allows me to run away too! Hard to do that when you're in the middle of a mob, disoriented, viewing the world through a screen splashed with blood, and unsure what is attacking you, how many, and where from.
You know I sort of wonder why I use fast travel at all.
Hmm, another thought. The only difference between fast travel in older RPGs (the first Fallouts IIRC, also the Infinity Engine games) and what I'm experiencing in Fallout 3 is that the combat comes on arrival, not in the middle of transit. If anything the older games handled it in a less harsh manner because you had chance to react. Fallout 3 has the bad habit of dropping me in completely surrounded by enemies with powerful close range attacks.
As opposed to most other RPGs where nothing at all happens based on your good/evil stat? Except perhaps determining whether you do flavour A or flavour B on a single sidequest? I didn't say it was a good effect, merely that for once there is one.Quote:
People giving you several caps, bits of food and 10 bullets isn't what I consider "karma having an effect". When you're good, bad guys randomly spawn to kill you, when you're bad, good guys randomly spawn to kill you. Not because you've wronged someone or something. They just want to kill you. Again bad game design.
It's Hollywood wannabe British. No, it doesn't make sense. Yes, it is rubbish. I still say it is hyperbole. Hyperbole in that it is a single character, not an entire world. Hyperbole in that Queen Victoria's accent was entirely different to the 'classic' British accent people think of (that would be BBC news reader circa 1940), which in turn is quite different to the one predominant today. Fallout's world is full of people who say :shivers: "y'all", a word that was surely created for the purpose of making the English cringe. Fallout's version of DC is full of Americans, who use American slang, have a tendacy towards aggressive phrasing, and who swear and curse frequently. I don't see how else they would sound.Quote:
Alistair Tenpenny has the perfect British aristocrat accent.
It's always a bad mechanic. Always. The point was, it's a staple bad mechanic, and one which has appeared in the classic games this reviewer has such a fond opinion of. The way it is included in the review feels like a case of selective memory. I've seen plenty of spoilers for Fallout 3's ending; if half of them are true then it has a tonne of problems and a change of heart mechanic is by far the least of them.Quote:
Change of heart is possible, but unfortunately in FO3 most of the times it's used as an excuse for bad game mechanic.
My earlier posts on the game in a nutshell. At this point I don't know whether to go with a ~:) for "I am not trying to be a smart idiot" or a ~:( for "I wish it wasn't so"Quote:
it still boils down to: uninteresting quests that in 99% are simple dungeon crawls, half imbecile dialogues, boring NPCs and uninspiring main quest.
While I am an avid player of RPGs and a vet of many of the classics, I'm not a Fallout fan, in that I played them both and found them to be good but not awesome. I avoided the pre-release hype and the wailing, avoided previews, read only one review, and did my all to go in with an open mind and very little in the way of expectations. I wanted the game to show me what it was. I'm still stunned that I have ended up disappointed. That shouldn't have been possible - I've completed and had considerable fun with games like Two Worlds, a buggy, lower budget "I want to be Oblivion too!" game which needed huge patches before it was remotely playable.
Looking at it with an analytical eye I can see it should be good, if flawed. I know it has fixed many of Oblivion's worst problems and is a better game for it. I can see it should be a good game. I know that a lot of care and love went into it. I can tell that some of it is meant to be funny, touching, whatever. In practice? Total disconnect.
I have been struck 4 times by a particularly nasty bug which has the potential to be a game breaker. If you fast travel into a horde of enemies, press the right trigger to draw your weapon and/or right bumper to enter VATS, then die, all in a very short space of time, the game sometimes glitches when it reloads your autosave. You get stuck with your character attacking all the time, and nothing stops it. If you put your weapon away it gets pulled out again. If you swap to another weapon then that fires continuously instead. If you run out of ammo your character continues to attempt to attack. If you manage to change locations and force the game to load the glitch nearly always continues in the next location. If you load a save game then the glitch often carries over, even if the save dates from hours ago. If you pull the batteries out of the controller, replace them and turn the controller back on then it does not make a jot of difference. You can't talk to people. You can't go near people without hurting them. You can't pick up objects. It's very difficult to activate doors because you have to time it between the attacks. You burn through your resources pointlessly.
The first 3 times I got struck by this bug I managed to wriggle out of the endless attack cycle by forcing the game to load many times in short succession; entering and leaving areas, loading and reloading saves. This afternoon, after another death by fast travel, I got stuck in the cycle yet again, and no amount of loading would fix it. Fortunately shutting the console down did. I hope that means the problem is something which lives in RAM, because if it isn't that means that there's the possibility your game can be stuck with your character permanently attacking, rendering it unplayable.
I did find the majority of today's playtime to be more fun than any of the previous. Why? I didn't play it like an RPG, and I ignored most of the main content. I went on a scavenger hunt for bobble heads and skill books. I checked a list for the name of a bobble head's location and got a very rough idea of where in the wastes it was, then set out to find the location and search for the bobblehead with no further spoilerage. It's post apocalyptic Challenge Anneka. :laugh4:
I'm beaten to submission by the sheer weight of text :surrender2: :laugh4:.
I've enjoyed our "little" discussion but it's getting too painful to argue. There are many complicated point that I would like to get across, but my English isn't that good. Actually, maybe it is, but I don't want to spend half an hour or more to write a response. Respect.
So I'm just going to post a link to a short video on youtube, called Greed Never Changes.
I too have been wondering about accents, I haven't come across Tenpenny(just his goons trying to kill me) but Moriarity's accent baffled me. How did he get an Irish accent? Is it even an Irish accent? What on earth is it? Are Bethesda just mocking me, perhaps everybody who buys the game has a character who makes a woeful effort at their accent?
Yeah, Moriarty jumped out at me as well. His weird faux-Gaelic thing had me shaking my head. Really threw me out of the game.
It's strange that Bethesda lavishes so much detail on, say, a floor texture, then drops the ball so badly with the voice acting. And there are still too many repeat voices. Here's a thought: Don't hire expensive Brit actors to do bad impersonations of American accents (did nobody tell Malcolm McDowell about how we pronounce "schedule," among other words?), and instead hire a slew of low-cost voiceover actors so's you don't have repeats.
Take, for example, their wheezy old man voice. He shows up over and over again. And there's a Redguard voice who sluts around from character to character. It's quite irritating.
When I played the alpha version, a lot of the voiceovers were done in deadpan by the Bethsoft employees. While not exactly quality voice acting, they were bizarrely humorous. I encouraged them to keep a few of the Bethsoft voiceovers, but apparently they did not.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
:gring: :laugh4: Large posts are an old froggy trademark. They aren't seen as often nowadays as they were when I first registered.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmatian
Monkey Island. I loved those games. Adored them. Played them repeatedly. The 4th game does not exist :puts fingers in her ears and refuses to listen to anyone trying to tell her it was good: The Infinity Engine games too. I hate AD&D, and because I'm dyslexic I had a huge struggle understanding the character system, spells, combat, and so on. It was incredibly tough to play them. I completed all of them and loved them dearly. Planescape: Torment is still my favourite RPG of all time. Mass Effect nips closely at its heels.
I had flashbacks to Atlas from Bioshock. Except Atlas' acting was good.Quote:
Originally Posted by johnhughthom
Speaking of voice acting, was I the only one who was completely under whelmed by Liam Neeson as the father? The birth scene and the scene where you toddle around and look at the SPECIAL book were atrocious.
He's in there? I don't think I have encountered him yet. Unless ... is he the one on the Enclave radio station? He's done a lot of work in games I've played, and he is frequently at the better end of the scale. Pity if he isn’t here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
It's more bizarre when you think that they use a fake English accent and a fake Irish accent, despite having actors on the crew who have real versions of both.Quote:
Don't hire expensive Brit actors to do bad impersonations of American accents, and instead hire a slew of low-cost voiceover actors so's you don't have repeats.
Voice acting is something Bethesda has always struggled with IMO. There are so many games in recent years with good to great voice acting that there's a large stable of quality actors to draw upon. You'd think Bethesda would look at games like Mass Effect, sneak a peek at the credits to see who provided all those excellent voices, and get on the phone to try and hire some of them. Celebrities don't tend to make very good voice actors. However good they might be as an actor, they are not used to conveying everything with their voice alone. Properly trained voice actors are.
I have to say my interest in Fallout 3 started to wane when Lucien Lachanche popped in for a visit in a dirty suit after plastic surgery calling himself Mr Burke. I had been looking forward to meeting Mr Burke, thinking a mission to detonate an atomic bomb and blow up a town had to be fun. Then that annoying, pretentious fool from Oblivion arrived. It took me four goes at Oblivion before I did the Dark Brotherhood quest because that voice acting made me kill him and I certainly don't want to hear anymore of it. So basically Lucien Lachanche and a bizarre Irish accent in the same room were too much for me.
Yuppers, that's Alex sans droogs on the radio. His American accents is ... unconvincing. I hope Bethesda didn't spend too much on him.Quote:
Originally Posted by frogbeastegg
Maybe they should just fire whoever's been in charge of the voiceovers and start fresh. Your average small-town community theater director could do better, after all.
-edit-
Zero Punctuation has weighed in. Usual disclaimers about his reviews, since they all seem to contain bad words.
Me too, but for a different reason. Unless there is frequent travel and immigration across the Atlantic in Fallout's post-apocalypse world (and I don't know canon, maybe there is?), Moriarty shouldn't have that strong an accent. Non-local accents would flatten out quickly in the second and third generation in the kind of small survivor communities Fallout depicts, after 200 years or so. Maybe he did wash up on the beach from an exploring Irish shipwreck or something. But it just didn't feel like he belonged there, and they just stuck him in like a stereotype Boston pub owner from a 1940's Hollywood movie.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
On another note.... I've decided that if I ever do replay the game, I'll avoid putting too many points into Perception. That may be one reason why the game is feeling a little too easy, and I don't think it's just a case of playing at Normal instead of a higher level (unless Perception scales with that). I'm only level 13 but I can spot enemies stainding in the street a block away, with a large multi-story concrete office building standing between us. That's a little ridiculous, unless post-apocalypse tech includes something like neutrino shadow radar. It's just an overpowering advantage for the player. As long as I remember to occasionally turn and scan behind me, and outside of a few surprise/scripted scenarios, I just never get jumped by surprise. I can always initiate the attacks on my terms, from good cover (which bad guys seldom use). I think if I played it again with low Perception, the game would be more fun. The world would feel more dangerous.
I've tried playing with a melee/big guns build character (STR and END, plus unavoidable INT) and I'm getting owned. It wasn't the problem at first, but later (10th level or so) it became quite hard. Enemies start getting better and better weapons like missile launchers, assault rifles, shotguns, energy weapons. I'm usually dead before I close in. Also, going in melee with deathclaws or yao guai-something is suicide. They're too fast and manage to disrupt my attack too often, not to mention they're often found in groups. Now, it could be that I'm just bad at it, I suck at FPSs generally, but I pretty much abandoned that build because it was too hard/annoying. Also, even if successful, my character usually loses much of her HP which forces me to travel often to rest which is annoying. I've gotten into a habit of exploring the wastes and using stimpacks until I find a new location and then fast travel back to Megaton to rest and fast travel back again to that location to continue exploring...
Big Guns are a disappointment, too. Using minigun means wasting ammo. Sure, they're useful at times, at close range and with big targets, but combat shotgun is much more efficient and powerful. Missile launchers are rare and ammo for them is rare, which means crappy condition of the weapon (NPCs can max repair it to 54%) and buying a lot of missiles (which is expensive). Flamer is useful and fuel isn't so scarce but again limited to close range and generally much worse than combat shotgun. although it's useful against slow and moderately armoured critters like radscorpions and those overgrown crabs.
For me, it wasn't fun at all. Small Guns/Energy Weapons combo rulez :2thumbsup:
Yeah, as I get closer to the endgame, playing a sneak/small arms/energy weapons type, I realize why a melee specialist build wouldn't work. Getting mobbed by three mercenaries and a robot at close range is insta-death, because there is no specialized combat style for group melee, like there is in The Witcher (for example).
As good as the sneak skills are, they're not anything like the uber-ninja'd Rogues in D&D style games, where you can literally walk up behind an enemy without them noticing. Aggro ranges are still fairly long, whatever your sneak skills. At least at the level I'm at right now. This game wants you to use guns. The melee weapons are just a crutch for the lower levels, before you start accumulating more ammo than you can use.
not entirely true my lvl 20 chatracter uses unarmed (deathclaw gauntlets) and I can usually 2 shot a death claw and with 100 sneak and silent running i can quite litterally get to melee range with most things
late game melee takes off again (mostly thanks too paralazing palm) but up until then your going to want a shotgun and a hunting rifle as backup as mid game is dominated by the small arms
And plenty of grenades. I'm now playing an Unarmed build, and I cant stress enough how useful grenades are in comparison to a ranged build.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir Moody
Hehe. Yeah, but it's something I've come to expect from Bethesda...Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
Tried it at a friends house during the week. It's pretty, and although some of the clutter seemed a little out of place it has remained somewhat true to the series. The combat system, alright, having looked here before playing it, (which I'm glad I did), I knew to expect an Oblivion style game. Fairly fun, and the quests are decent (where I got up to atleast).
It seems like there's a lot to do, fairly big world with many quests. Yet, despite having so much stuff to do, I had so little motivation to do it. I just couldn't will myself into playing longer. And despite liking the game, I don't think I'll be buying it any time soon.
have done 100% everything I could from evil to neutral to good.. Took me well under my expected 100 hours mark, I think barely over 40 hours for all side quest dungeons and the like. Its way more fun to be evil, but more rewarding(Money and weapons) to be good... For example the law bringer perk, you can rake in the cash by just visiting all the raider spots you know of and taking their ears.
Ears for Contract Killer, fingers for Lawbringer. :tongueg:Quote:
Originally Posted by Veho Nex
Another good side effect of being Good or Very Good is the ability to recruit Fawkes and Cross late in the game. I love how Fawkes mows down people with his gatling laser, and Cross can wear any armor you give her.
Plus being good gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.
Interestingly, the Washington Post has an article on FO3 voice acting today.