f13.net

As a long-time fan of the classic Fallout games, my first impression of Bethesda's baby was: what butt-vomit did I just pay for?  It felt clunky, buggy and way too similar to a game that starts with 'O' and ends in "fuckyourself."  Yet soon after I stopped sleeping regularly. And I stopped caring about whether it was or was not truly Fallout.

Yes, this is Oblivion done right.  With guns.  Less fat, tastes great.  If you enjoyed TES4 for what it was, then you will enjoy this game at least twice as much because it has exploding baby carriages and 4000% more needless decapitation™.  VATS is truly awesome--take the work out of Max Payne's bullet time, add some (mostly) well-done random camera work and turn up the number of bloody jawbones flying around.

Bethesda has wrung every last drop of beautiful out of my computer, even shaking off the gross little hairs underneath.  This is one of those games where I can look into the sky and feel some of that old-time religion. The music fits the environment and stays in the shadows.  Sound effects are superb, but random NPC banter does suffer at times from the repetition problems in Bethesda's last first-person RPG.  I grudgingly accept this, however, because all the explosions can and do shake the poop out of my colon. AI vacillates from standard idiocy to how-the-fuck-did-he-get-stuck-in-a-wall, but that's not what this game is about.

This game is about fun, which is surprising to notice while being peppered with random crashes, glitches and really annoying mutated wildlife.  You can dress up like Hugh Hefner and fire a miniature nuke into an old lady's face.  Chunks of geriatric guilt will fly out in slow-motion and pepper nearby children frozen in horror (and slow-motion, did I mention that?).  The story isn't even outright bad yet.  However comma I have the distinct feeling that the game will lose a good portion of whatever has won me over after hitting max level and beating the highbrow voice actor questline.  The upside is that said quest can be ignored for as long as one likes.

Fallout est mort. Vive Fallout.

-

Buy it. Steal it. Do your thing.

Does that character have a powdered wig on or something?

I bet it's one of those poncy English judges!

"WHIG PARTY IS BACK, BITCHES!"

I agree that Fallout 3 is not actually shitty.  If I remember that it's not really Fallout, it's downright awesome.  Unfortunately it has to compete with Dead Space, and after I play some of that, Fallout 3 seems kinda flat.

Apples?  Oranges?

That's like watching Ghostbusters and saying, "Y'know, it was decent, but it was no Exorcist".

Fallout 3 is awesome game regardless of its rather numerous pitfalls. I forgot last time I *enjoyed* something that much and pulled all-nigher playing it. It is fucking awesome, who cares that it isn't Fallout 2?

Is it Fun? Fuck yes!
Is it Fallout? Maybe.

How is it un-Fallout?  I only played a couple hours so far, but thus far it's seeming fairly dead-on to me.  I never played Fallout 2, but I replayed Fallout just a couple months ago, so it's still pretty fresh.

I would say the gallows humor is the major factor. That was one of the best parts of Fallout 2 for me. The whole game was just infused with great writing and characters. Fallout 3 seems to suffer from taking its self just a bit to seriously.

It is still a very fun game in its own right, even if I NEVER want to see another grayish or brownish environment. Especially a subway tunnel.

They certainly have the bleak wasteland thing down pretty well.  Too well, really.  One place that didn't look like the bombs had dropped yesterday would be nice. 

Also, there's all sorts of tidbits out there that would seem to be quests you could follow up on, but I had no luck doing so.  You'd think all that info on the bartender's computer in Megaton would come in handy somewhere, but I couldn't get anything started up after reading it.  It's like the NPCs are more set pieces than characters.  The game's fun, but it's like there's this even better game they started building on top of it but didn't bother finishing. 

I was gonna buy this today for the PC does it need controller (is it preferable) or is it playable w/mouse?

It controls very well on a PC using a mouse.  It plays like a shooter.

Its a toss up for me, Should I buy this or dead space, I only have one game budgeted for the rest of the month.

From what Yego and schild say, Dead Space is a horror/terror masterpiece, but you will likely get a lot more playtime out of this title. I'd likely have at least 2 play throughs, since I'm eager to try evil after going the good route to at least hear Three Dog bitch about what an evil bastard I am.

My wife doesn't want me even buying Dead Space on the off chance she'll see/hear me playing any of it.  The commercials alone scare her.

Yeh actually now that I think about it Deadspace looks a bit better than this I tried to purchase it on Direct2drive but won't allow download to Ireland.

My wife loves horror scary things I might have to get Dead Space since she would probably want to give it a play through.

Yes, and you can get it in-game through a sidequest. I hear you can also get an Abe Lincoln stovepipe hat but I missed that unfortunately.


There is one place that doesn't look bombed out. It's full of crazy people and it's great for a laugh and a free perk.

There are some little quests from these tidbits you are speaking of. Or at least little additions to ongoing quests.

You can blow people away in hilarious ways with overpowered weapons and wear funny hats while doing it?

Fuck, I cannot wait to get some playtime for this game. I've had to sequester myself at work since all the other office gamers have been crowing about it nonstop and spoilers will force me to cut a bitch.

I got my friend fable 2 and fallout 3 for birthday/christmas and he got deadspace. Fable 2 was interesting but of the three its deffinately third on my list. Fallout 3 seems to accomplish a lot of what fable 2 was aiming for with a setting and story I enjoyed more. God there are some hilarious weapons and fun combat stuff in fallout. I hear some not thinking its fall out enough but I was very pleased with the translation and its a LOT better than I was expecting.


Deadspace is also an awesome game its very well done with a very neat story. It also gets pretty freaky from time to time its survival horror ish but with a lot less ammo issues. The upgrading of weapons is intersting and the inside and outside space ship areas are amazing.

Sigh due to all three being so good we never got a chance to finish dead space due to us staying up till 3am playing fallout and we did not finish fallout because there is a metric ton of stuff to do in fallout exploration wise.

Nothing brings a smile to my face like rocking and rolling with the railway gun stapling super mutie heads to the wall with high velocity rail ties while it makes a sound like the little engine that could blw mutant heads off.

Have you tried the dart gun yet?  Because instantly crippling the person you shoot while they slowly lose health is fucking FUN.  And the gun looking like a rubber band gun just boosts it that much over the top.

I just picked it up yesterday.  I had the debate of it for 60 or Orange Box and Mass Effect for 30 each.  One 360 game or two?

Well Fallout won, and I am loving every minute of it, especially as I have begun to learn the glory of VATS.  A ganger is running away from me in a supermarket.  I have 2 VATS 13% chance headshots before he is out of sight.  I queue them both up and the second hits, making his head bounce around the aisle as his body falls.

THIS GAME IS SO RAD SO FAR.

And Moira rules all.  I went with 4 STR END, 6 PER, 7 INT LUK AGI, 5 CHA and I am doing pretty well so far.  My first 2 perks have both been to jack my INT up to 9.  High stat points for happy fun!

Are we talking builds now?

I've got everything at 5 with Int at 10. 3xIntense Training for Agility, Perception and Luck.

Action Boy
Better Criticals
Commando
Comprehension
Concentrated Fire
Cyborg
Educated
Explorer
Finesse
Lawbringer
Rad Resistance
Scrounger
Sniper
Strong Back
Tag (to get the Energy weapons to 60 for concentrated fire)
Toughness


I'll be a toilet-drinking sharpshooter when I'm 20.

builds wise, taking INT to the max as early as the game start is probably the best decision since skill pts are premium in early levels.

if you are using guns, STR of 4 is sufficient, END is crap stat, 1 is enough.

As someone who loves exploring, this game is awesome.  I forced myself to finish the plot after getting repeatedly sidetracked.  My second character is already finding new places.  My third encounter netted her sunglasses, a leather jacket, and a sniper rifle so she looks awesome from the outset.

I have Bloody Mess, a hockey mask and a party hat.  I switch out depending on my mood.  I also rock the bright blue hair and beard.  The more I play this the more I like it.

I wasn't trying to directly compare Dead Space and Fallout 3, but rather to say that if you eat some oranges then the apples taste flat.  I later find out that this apple has some sort of addictive chemical in it that makes you crave it fortnightly... smartass.  That chemical is at least somewhat composed of "decapitating Chinese Army remnants" and "using a baseball bat in VATS".

MAN, I HAVE NOT DISCUSSED A SPECIAL BUILD IN SO LONG! :awesome_for_real:
I started with 4,4,4,4,8,8,8 and am now something like 5,5,4,4,10,8,8.  I think I did not go extreme enough, probably would have had fun with 4,4,1,4,9,9,9.  Not sure about my next guy, likely a brawler with 9,2,9,1,1,9,9.  I think fists+grenades would be a fun mix.

Repair is a very important skill.

It sucks not having found any extra laser rifles yet, as I keep having to shell out to pay for repairs on my main weapon.

My guy looks just a bit goofy, rocking an armored vault 101 jumpsuit and a stormchaser hat.

With gear, currently at 5 8 4 6 8 7 6 at lvl 7.

Perks are: Bloody Mess, Child at Heart, Educated, Intense Training x 2, Lady Killer, and 2 quest perks.

I am almost drooling for mods now.

I am trying to shove it as far down in the pile as I can, so that I can play it only after some of the better mods have come out and been community tested.

I'd really like to see a mod that uses all of the junk laying around for repairing. Maybe smaller percentage gains and only available at higher repairing, but it would be pretty neat.

I have to admit I am seriously considering replaying. My first build was:

St 5 Agil 8 End 5 Char 6 Int 8 Per 5 (Agil and Int may have been 7 I don't remember how many points you get.)

By end game I had per, agil and int at 10 and most other things at 6 or 7 from bobbleheads.

I guess I'm either too early in the game or too much of a min/maxer to go for style. I'm in leather armor with a motorcycle helmet that seems like it would be cool but either looks like a white afro or an extra from Spaceballs. Especially since I'm a black dude with the lambchops+stache.

(http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j205/miked1104/Spaceballs.gif)

(Sorry for some reason I couldn't make that a spoiler in this forum?)

I'm late to the party and only installed the game yesterday, I have a question but don't want to read the spoiler thread.  Is there anything important in this game that has a time limit like in Fallout one?  Is the game going to be affected if I spend a bunch of time exploring places that have no real purpose instead of getting their water chip?

Nope.

Once you finish the main quest, the game ends, so you are better off exploring as much as you can/want to before you do that. Its kind of the opposite problem as Fallout 1. I really debated about spoiler tagging that, but I think it is something people should know lest they rush through the main quest first and then want to explore everything leisurely.

Ah very good, thanks to you both.

Ack spoilers  :uhrr:

Please elaborate a bit on that, since Dead Space is shittiest fps in the entire history of fps games, and Fallout 3 rocks so much... I don't remember when I sat at one game for 5 days straight and still wanted to play moooooooooooooooooooooooooar (it even makes Civilization IV seem nonaddictive).

For the love of God, what has the world come to. People seriously ask to buy a controller for a PC fps. You don't plug "a controller" to your PC (...), well maybe unless you want to play Deas Space, because that piece of shit doesn't een support the mouse properly (even Q1 did ffs).

Someone needs to start Jihad against consoletards. Preferably with nukes.

I highlighted the flaw in your statement for you  :grin: Some games work better with a controller or at least are preferable to play with and I don't mind forking out for one if it improves the game experience.

What is wrong with you? Dead Space is Great!

And all great gamers can play a FPS just fine with either a KB + Mouse, or a controller.

To be honest I wasn't really sure if this was more an FPS or an RPG or, as it turns out it takes a lot out of Stalkers pagebook (unintenional or not) but much more depth in the RPG element than Stalker.

Well, Dead Space is not a FPS so you're not far off in your assessment.  Also, Resident Evil 4 is - in my opinion - a much shittier FPS than Dead Space, so it's not that bad in the grand scheme.  If you liked Resident Evil 4 but felt the inclusion of unlimited oxygen made the game too easy, you'll enjoy Dead Space.  I think the worst FPS I have ever played was Mario Golf.

I'm pretty sure Fallout 3 is also not a FPS.

It's been a very long time since a non-MMO game has enthralled me as much as Fallout 3.  Last night, for instance, I sat down to play for a half hour before bed and the next thing I know it's 3am and four hours after I was planning to quit. 

The game is so similar to Oblivion, but there's this extra 'fun' factor involved that makes it so much better.  I can't put my finger on it. 

Trying to avoid the spoiler thread. How do you rotate the camera around to get a good look at yourself?

More game than bugs?  Lack of bajillions of cruddy pick-up-able crap lying all over the ground?  More interesting scenery?  More interesting N PCs?  Characters that don't look like they were created by mentally challenged chimps?

Even with the VATs bug and odd crash, Fallout 3 is 100 times more bearable for me.  It might be a bit of a Oblivion re-skin in a lot of ways but it has so much Oblivion's terrible bits removed and some better bits added in.

Middle mouse button or hold F.

Guns.

Yes, guns.  Dude, I wish I could take video of the things I do in Fallout 3 with Bloody Mess and VATS.  I have played for many hours and just this afternoon I made myself giggle again when my sniper shot aimed at a torso missed but decapitated the raider instead.  Shortly thereafter, I used a combat shotgun to liquefy another raider.  I'm glad you only have to find the tiniest piece of meat in order to loot a corpse.

Also, Chinese war-propaganda radio.

There is actually a ton of crap to pick up, but most of it seems to have a use.  Well, I'm thinking a lot of it does if I can find some damn schematics.  Of course, you can use it as ammo if you use the Rock-It Launcher.

My non-meleeing energy user made a super mutant cry and run away with my Tenderizer sledgehammer.

And then I caved his skull in.

I made another mutie run away down some stairs...but since he was gong downstairs, he put his head at Just the right level for me to remove his face forcibly.

This is easily my favorite game of the last two or three years. It's not just the big stuff. So many little things work well.

1) Traps. When's the last time that you played a game like this where the traps seemed: a) plausibly placed b) plausibly implemented and c) actually caught you now and again?

2) AI and pathing. Enemies path in pretty sensible ways. Some of them stay behind cover, others charge you, others use cover while charging you. The way different enemies move is really immersive. Ghouls aren't at all dangerous to me now at level 12 with Small Guns, Commando and a fully loaded combat shotgun, but they still scare the crap out of me with the way that they move.

3) The radio stations. Listening to GNR on your Pip-Boy while scuttling around is beautiful and eerie.

4) The NPCs. They have really vivid, well-imagined personalities. There are more memorable NPCs in this game than maybe any other comparable RPG.

5) The openness. If I want, I can try to go into DC as a level 1 character, and just ignore the main quest entirely. You don't *have* to min-max, though it's fun to take a second run once you know how. You don't have to have the best gear. You can be a melee character wearing lingerie and a stovepipe hat if you like, and you'll do ok.

6) The challenge level of a lot of encounters is just in that absolutely perfect sweet spot--I find myself frantically improvising, running and gunning, sometimes surviving by just a sliver, doing different things. Most combat feels very distinctive: fighting off Super Mutants in some areas of DC feels very different than dealing with Raiders that get the drop on you during overland travel.

7) The visual depth. There is no lazy repetition here: the visual elements which recur are about giving the world its immersive feeling. You get a lot of love from the devs if you take the time to look closely at a lot of places and objects. Also very very consistent with the visual aesthetic of Fallout once you get used to it being 3d.

Yeah, It's Good.

I would say that it's almost entirely succeeded in what it set out to do.

My character continues her adventures in the DC wastelands, mostly helping out Moira who is totally  :why_so_serious: and just plain FUN to listen to.
I like the fact I CAN be a complete asshole but choose not to, mainly because I want to play a hero.
I coulda blew up all of Megaton, but I chose to save it. 
The atmosphere is amazing.  I haven't felt this way in a game since Condemned.  In some places it just oozes dread and decay.

I want to see these designers take the engine and make Battle Royale: The videogame.  A couple locations for the game, and a pile of random students with various missions and scripts.
It would be totally amazing I think.

NO.

Fuck.

They released a patch yesterday stops the crashing when alt-tabbing and exiting.

http://fallout.bethsoft.com/eng/downloads/patches.html (http://fallout.bethsoft.com/eng/downloads/patches.html)

Battle Royale with cheese, motherfucker.

The only thing I don't like about the game is how you really have to read the manual, something I haven't had to do with a PC game in years.  With my first character, I was level 8 before I figured out how to repair my own gear.   :uhrr:

Other then that, this is my game of the year for certain, and that means something coming from a WoW addict. 


Moira rules.  Who else would ask a total stranger right out of the wastes to get crippled and/or irradiated, and have it actually be for research purposes?

Schild, where on the doll did Battle Royale touch you?

Oddly enough, I agree with you, as the game would probably be a linear trainwreck...I was just wondering why you were so against it.

This engine does shitty combat. Battle Royale would need amazing combat. However, that gives me an idea for a crazy fucking awesome game.

Also, I love Battle Royale.

Shitty in general, or just shitty for melee?

Regardless, I pretty much agree with you. You'd need an awesome stealth system as well.

Schild really lives in another aesthetic universe sometimes. What's "good" combat if Fallout 3 is "shitty combat"? I'm having a hard time calibrating your yardstick.

TF2?
Condemned?
UT3?
L4D?
Quake 4?
Far Cry 2?
Age of Conan?
Area 51?
Call of Juarez?
Bad Company?
Crysis?
FEAR?

I don't know. Throw a fucking dart at the FPS genre (or 3rd person sub-genre).

It's so hard to pick just one.

Also, I think you all have it wrong. Over 5 days I logged 60 hours in the game. The flaws are exceptionally obvious. But for an explorer-type, this game is a fucking dream.

You just mentioned Call of Juarez in response to good combat.   :awesome_for_real:  Might as well throw in Lynch and Kane or The Darkness.   

He does have an overall point, but I'm not sure it's an interesting one worth making. The straight up combat in this game is not spectacular.  It's far better than what they managed in Oblivion, but it might also be the best they can do.  Any IP/game that would rely on exceptional combat may be better suited to another engine and designed by another company.

Still, I think the combat here does very well in the greater context of the game.  Several outstanding games have had mediocre to crap combat: System Shock 2, Deus Ex, and VtM: Bloodlines to name a few.  None of those combat systems on their own are going to win any awards, but they allowed the games to be fantastic hybrids and instant classics that really stand the test of time.

VATs does several things: it compensates for some of the overall weakness of the combat as a pure shooter, it allows a hybridized turn-based feeling, allows someone that might not be comfortable playing this game as a FPS to slow it down, and it can also produce a lot of humorous Fallout moments.  VATs might be the best Bethesda can do. It's not great, but it fits the game and its limitations.

Yeh I agree with Schild the combat system in this game is a bit clunky by comparison to other FPS games but I do enjoy the slowmo replays and returning to see someones dismembered body caused by one of your traps is leet. So by way of palm rubbing fun I think this game has something over other fps.

I *really like* the combat in Fallout 3, even though I disliked it in Oblivion.. Giving it true shooter combat, do not want.

That's because, in this context, Guns>Swords.

The other Elder Scrolls worked because the engines weren't very good and the imagination filled in the gaps.  With Oblivion, it's all so ultra realistic that swiping with your nerf stick looks and feels totally retarded. 

It's also why Bow Combat was more fun.

Seconded.  The only way to play Oblivion is to play it like you would Thief.  In that context, it's great.  For people trying to play mages or tanks I could definitely see it sucking.

Magery in TES4 was not bad if you just went with artillery, particularly range attacks with a blast radius.  A bow with select poisons, however, was the Blood Sport of Kings.  Both of those approaches also had the distinct advantage of causing comedic deaths.

I think the single biggest failure of TES4 was LACK OF MOUNTED ARCHERY.  Removing levitation was bad enough, but that was a real slap.  I assume TES5 will have one type of armor, two types of weapons, three stats and five skills.

:heart:

Bartle pegs me at 100% E.

The AI could use an improvement.  And accuracy mods would help a lot.  I got one to make assault rifles a little more accurate (I'm sorry, my first shot should not go flying off into la-la land.  If you're going to model recoil, don't do it by making a random spread from shot one.) and it immediately felt better.

On another note I really dig the music on Galaxy radio shame there isn't more of it, I liked the way it's incongruous to what's going around you.

Would love a mod that lets me browse/play my iTunes library through the PipBoy.  :awesome_for_real:

A warning about exploring, I completed a part of the main quest before being prompted to do so.  Didn't get the achievement for it when the main quest skipped to the next stage.   :ye_gods:

That's one of my concerns as an explorer, I took off exploring when the main quest wants me to go the the radio station. Thinking of incrementing the main plot forward for a way so I don't screw it up. Or just screwing it up and the hell with it. Game is wicked fun.

Stupid question:  I got the game via Steam, and have no idea how to access the manual.  If it mentioned it during the install, I don't remember.  Anyone know?  Also, Steam keeps prompting me with a CD key that I have to enter in order to access the "multiplayer content"... Can't find anywhere to enter it, and I was fairly certain this game is single player, anyway...

Its refering to the 'Live' option on the main menu screen, which asks you to create an account on MS Xbox Live for the sake of tracking your achievements. As far as I know, there is no multiplayer content, other than being able to look at other player's stats and achievements through the web's version onf Xbox Live.

*semi spoiler*
I love GNR: splatting brains while listening to 50s music in a post apocalyptic world is priceless.

So if you want to listen to this radio everywhere on the map, you have to proceed in the main quest at least till the radio station before start to explore.
*end of semi spoiler*

My biggest concern is about melee combat system. Ok, it's a bit cluncky, but not being able to target location in VATS is a major downside to a melee character. As said above, i find assault rifle too much erratic, so that it's more a bigger SMG than a rifle...if you have to snipe someone, use hunting or sniper rifle.

That soundtrack is exceptionally well chosen. Plowing through raiders while listening to GNR elates the game to a whole new level. Nothing underlines shotgun to the head like "I'm in love with a wonderful guy" or " Lifes worth living"...

Yeh totally the title track is awesome too "I don't want to set the world on fire" fucking class.

Too bad it's the same 5-6 songs repeated.

Seriously, after 20 hours it was unbearable.

Yes totally agreed they should have put few more tunes in, I meant to add that.

I still await the mod that will let me play my iTunes library through the PipBoy.

The scourge of the wastleland demands Louis Armstrong!

That would be a sweet addition indeed.

I mostly listened to podcasts while playing.  So a heavy amount of my wanderings had Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier giving me TMI about their lives.

Oh yeah.  The ending of Fallout 3 sucks oozing herpes sores.  (Well the 3 I could get to easily due to end game actions anyhow.)

You do not make a 40-75 hour RPG and make the ending about 2 minutes long with sepia toned pictures.

And basically barely allude to anything I did in the game other than "YOU DID GOOD/YOU WERE A DICK" as an acknowledgement.

What a shit way to end what was a pretty fucking good game.

I fucking love the soundtrack and yeah, had to turn it off at about the same point. I only turn on the radio when the fiancee is in the room, because she hasn't heard those tunes a gixillion times already.

I'm not sure stringing together three decap headshots from the Lincoln Repeater ever gets old. Or sniping out a security bot's combat inhibitor in an Enclave camp.

It does. 60 hours was my breaking point. I'm done with the game.

60 hours is pretty damn good for any game. I've got it on hold for now while waiting on the mod tools. Plenty in SR2 to keep me busy for now.

I still haven't finished. I dinked around a lot with one toon, doing the quests all the way to vault 112, then doing side quests. Then I created a new toon with a sneak/energy weapons build, and I think I'm finally at the end scenario.

This game has legs, more than just about any other RPG I've played in recent memory.

~75 hours in, I'm loving it.

The combat is fun, moreso now that I'm playing on Very Hard since it's more challenging, but that's not what is keeping me in there.

The game starts over again for me when the GECK comes out in the next few weeks. Sometimes modding is more fun for me than the games themselves. Building a complete revamp of classes/abilities in RunUO was the most fun I ever had in UO.
:dead_horse:

Assault rifles rock - once you get SG into the 70s, the Commando perk, and AGI at 7+ you'll crit just about every time.  And have a new trophy to mount over the mantel with each luscious hit.

The best SG gun is Lincon's repeater (museum of history) until you get the named Chinese assault rifle (going to the diner outside the metro station as directed by the meeting notes from the museum of technology). Lincon's repeater must have some sort of hidden crit stat, because it crits twice as much as any other gun I use. Other than that, the shishkebab and the assault shotgun round out the weapons I used. I used the laser minigun thing, but that was more for fun at the very end of the game. It eats ammo.

I think the sound that the combat shotgun makes in VATS might the most satisfying sound effect I've ever heard from a gun in a FPS

Dead Space has AMAZING sound. And normally I don't care too much about sound like that.

About charisma, i keep asking myself "why have they put in an automatic shotgun and a sawed off one, but forgot the old classic pump-action-dooming-piece-of-cake shotgun?" ç_ç Even if Caron is pumping his one (but, sadly enough, same skin as normale combat shotgun).

But i'm quite happy killing slavers with Lincon's Winchester. Karmic in every way.  :drill:

EDIT: typos.

Yeah, I'm using lincoln's shooter as my go-to gun when overland. I'm finding the combat shotgun and assault rifle are both kinda meh indoors, so I've been using the flamer, but I take way more damage because it's less of a 'pop out of cover and shoot' type of thing. My main weapon for encounters like the enclave or bandit dens is the missile launcher.

I'm finding that encumbrance is beginning to annoy me. Normally I don't mind it much, but there are so many fun weapons and you'll never know which one you'll want to use at any particular time. If only the big guns weighed at least half, I'd probably be ok. And I agree with schild's earlier comments on power armor, it's too damned heavy.

If the encounters weren't fun to try in different ways (ok, this time I'll lay a minefield and shoot out the combat inhibitor, flushing the enclave back to me through the minefield and finish them with the flamer), it wouldn't matter. In most shooters I pick one or two guns and go with them for most of the game (and they don't even have encumbrance!).

(Small Guns/Big Guns/Explosives build)

I'd like to see them tackle the Shadowrun, or even Cyberpunk 2020, license with this engine and style of game.

The Lincoln has a 2% chance to crit with 50 critdam and zero spread and since it is a hunting rifle it's a single shot. The XuanLong (my choice) has 1%, 12 critdam, and 1.5 spread but since it is an assault rifle it hits three times per "shot".  I don't have Bloody Mess and crits are already as necessary as I need. :-)

I'm not a min/maxer. I just now pulled these stats from the wiki.  Early on I assumed an assault rifle was better for medium to close ranged combat and haven't really experimented with the Lincoln hunting rifle.  Now I'm curious...

My impression just seemed to me the XuanLong took more baddies down faster with enough AP to spare that I could go into VATS three to four times. Useful when being mobbed. :-)  I use the sniper rifle for long to medium so between these two guns waste wandering is Great Joy.  When underground I mainly use mines and the assault rifle.

I use the sniper rifle only for a few precision shots, instead I mostly use Lincoln's...simply because the sniper rifle degrades in condition so quickly and there's not a ton of them around, whereas the Lincoln last for a long time in good condition and lots of raiders carry hunting rifles.

The Lincoln is more accurate out to a longer range (in VATS) than the Sniper rifle and uses less action points.  You can do better shots 'on the fly' with the scope but if you are going to VATS it the Lincoln is always the best option.

With Action boy I get off 4 VATS shots of the Lincoln, this is more than enough to drop a Deathclaw.

A fully repped plasma, particularly the named, may be better but since I just got one and it's not fully repped I don't know for sure.

I don't have good Energy skills, so I dunno. Also missed the named assault rifle, woops. Deathclaws, don't need to take 'em down with the long-range gun, just cripple a leg. Then take them down as they hobble toward you. I'm a leg-crippling mofo.

At 85ish energy, the named Plasma one shots Enclave soldiers via headshots. It's funny.

For shits and giglles I just made a new character. The first time through, I snuck my way out of the vault. This time, I ran around with the baseball bat and beat the crap out of every security guard in the place.

I think that with a bit of stealth, at that point of the game, almost every weapon one shots Enclaves:D At least, a hit to the head from lincon's repeater or assault rifle from stealth 1hit almost everything. I halso had 50% more damage on criticals anyway.  :why_so_serious:

Oh holy mother of god, I just picked up this game -- late to the party as usual -- and this is everything I want in an RPG. I played a bit of Oblivion and thought "meh." I played a bit of Fallout 3 and went "OMG I SHALL NOT REST UNTIL I EXPLORE EVERYTHING!"

It's very good to know the game ends when you complete the story. That was the first thing on my mind as I was sitting there in a semi trailer, baseball bat in hand, waiting for the dawn. I was so immersed mere moments into this that for the first time since Ultima 7, I used my real name for my character name.

Sucks that I had to turn visuals way down to make it playable. That's my only complaint so far. Well, better physics would be better too. Like shooting an empty bottle and watching it go *smash* instead of nothing. And a hotkey for swapping weapons. Nitpicks. I highly recommend this for folks who like open-worldy RPGs.

There are.

Nuh uh.

Click and hold on the weapon in your inventory and a circular set of quickslots will appear just like the ones in Oblivion.  It works for stimpacks and drugs as well.

Thanx! ^_^

Just finished a 2nd playthough on the PS3, I got the trophies urge...

Went heavy weapons this time and played on Very Hard. Big guns are shit. Really. Small guns & energy weapons piss all over them. All the heavy weapons do too little damage for the APs they use in VATS, they degrade too fast and are too hard to get replacements to repair them with and they use too much ammo. I had my big guns skill maxed out but level 14 or so but from level 15 onwards I switched mostly back to small guns because it was so much more effective.

Anyway, another playthrough at some point is going to be required to complete the trophies  :why_so_serious:

If you get your hands on Vengeance you can pretty much turn anything into laser hamburger.

Yeah I went and got that from the deathclaw sanctuary (having Charon & a dart gun helped a lot there). Still wasn't overwhelmed, mainly because it degraded so fast. The Terrible Shotgun actually has a higher damage per action point and is a lot easier to repair and get ammo for, although you have to be right in their face with that  :why_so_serious:

Plus, single-shot weapons like the Reservist's Rifle and Lincoln's Repeater have far higher crit multipliers and bonuses and zero spread, so even on very hard you can kill most things much faster than with Vengeance, especially with Commando/Sniper/Finesse perks.

The only times I found big guns better than small guns were against the super mutant behemoths, and then the Fat Man ruled all  :awesome_for_real:

You're calculating damage per ap?
What the fuck is wrong with you?

No, I was looking at the damage per ap numbers on the Fallout wiki (http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_3_weapons) because I was wondering why the Big Guns seemed so crap.

It's just yet another part of Fallout 3 that is very un-Fallouty. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great game, but it doesn't really feel like a Fallout game.

You could've just said that they should've added a Bozar.
Downside was that the bozar's ammo was heavy as fuck.

I can never get into VATS. I tried it, and I liked the shaky camera angles, but it just slows things down for me. Maybe I'll find important fights later on that call for it and make it more fun. I've only been playing it about a week now.

Try it when you see someone holding a grenade.

Yeah shooting the grenade in the air is  :awesome_for_real:

I'd probably use VATS less if I was playing on a PC rather than trying to aim with a controller.

Not in the air.

In their hand.

Finished the game using only hand to hand weapons (primarily spiked dusters) and explosives. This was after taking a character to level 16 using guns and realizing VATS and the very limited mob AI felt like cheating. Like all Betheseda games the game balance is dodgy, the combat is clunky and the complexity scales poorly. I ended the game with about 500 stimpacks and 16k caps allowing me to buy anything the game contained and pause the world to heal myself to full anytime I actually ran into something challenging. The ending was a massive disappointment when I realized it was on rails and the final binary decision was an insult to the open ended stories fallout 1 and 2 had. Not being able to continue exploring with your character just being a final blow.

However, I still liked the game. Wandering through the well-realised wreckage of our world (though odd that the power is still on) and just absorbing the atmosphere and scenery was awesome. Lots of nice little touches and scenes sprinkled over the map to keep you entertained. That and splattering any raider foolish enough to interrupt the tranquility.

Stealth seems almost entirely useless to me, except...when I tried stealthing and then using VATS for my first round of attacks. That seemed to work pretty well. All other cases, it seems to have no effect on gameplay. With about 45% stealth right now...am I doing this rite?

The grenade tricks sound  :awesome_for_real:

Depends.  Are you trying to sneak up on things in plain sight?

I don't recall having excessive problems, but I always try to keep something between me and the target, and I move very carefully and deliberately.  Sneak is something I boost rather high, too.

I was, but then started using cover. And then I realized that they wouldn't be able to see me anyway...which confuses me. Why have a stealth skill if it only works when there's no line of sight? It's like saying I have the power of invisibility, but it only works when everybody in the world closes their eyes.

Sound makes a difference, and not all cover is perfect.  It gives you the edge when it could go either way.

Check to see if you have the always run toggle turned on too. Stealth doesn't work very well when you're running until you pick up the perk that lets you do that.

I stop running when I'm sneaking. I read somewhere that you should turn your Pip-Boy off too; how do I do that? Or does that mean I just shouldn't use it?

So now, stealth is useful for getting that critical stealth hit during VATS. Not so much sneaking around. It's up to 60 now, so we'll see how it goes. I'll keep increasing it just because I'm curious!

Hold Tab to turn your Pip-Boy light on or off.

On that note, I agree about the fact that the world is powered.  Wouldn't things have been more interesting if there were only a few underground locations with light?  I would've liked the difficulty and atmosphere that darkened, Pip-Boy-lit Vaults and caves would have presented.  The Yao Guai caverns and Deathclaw Sanctuary wouldn't have been nearly such a walk in the park.

Stealth becomes awesome once it's maxed out and you have the perk that lets you run. Once I had that I stealthed everywhere I went.

The death claw sanctuaries that I visited, along with several other locations, had to be iluminated completely by the pip boy. Was frustrating as fuck. I'm quite glad that most locations have electric lights. Darkness for a 40 hour long game would be very boring.

I just picked this up last week for the 360 (my computer has no balls), and I'm loving it.

Way more fun than Oblivion to me, and I think because of what previous posters stated -- guns / ranged combat / VATS. 

Melee combat is just not good....in fact, it sucks ass.  Guns are everywhere, in many different flavors, so use them.

My first time through I am playing the stereotypical goody two shoes.....but I cannot wait to play again as an evil asshole....which can easily be done in this game.

Whats up with the expansion? I run around for two game days now and the hook to the Anchorage quest never happens. Have they screwed up their Windows Live marketplace?

Shit, at least you could download it. I couldn't even log in to 'doze live to get the goddamn thing.

Did you get the new radio signal?  Listen to the broadcast and check your PipBoy for a new quest.

Did you enable the ESM data files?

No new radio signal, the only ESM data file available was the original one. I'm trying a complete reinstall now, hope that helps.

Edit: They really ARE retarded.


Copied the three files into my Fallout Data directory and it seems to work, EXCEPT UNLIKE THE REST OF THE GAME IT IS IN GERMAN. Way to make me avoid you whenever possible in the future, Windows Live!

Edit2: Beyond retarded.

2 Emails with Bethsoft, and 1 Chat and 4 Phonecalls with Microsoft and MSN later (round 2 hours of my time, waiting excluded), I finally snapped and got the English files I needed over a torrent site in about 5 seconds. Way to make loyal customers question their willingness to give you money, you fucking idiotic douchebags. "You should go to your vendor and replace the version if you got the wrong language. Microsoft does that, we don't have anything to do with it" "We have nothing to do with that, its MSN you want to talk to" "Oh, maybe the WinXP support hotline can help you"  "We only do support for the installation for Windows XP servicepacks, try this number, which will cost you 12cents per minute"

Theres where I drew the line. Assholes


And now, thanks to those evil evil pirates, I have the content I paid for in the language I specified. And it works. Man, I wish software developers were as competent.

Yep.  They went through a lot of hoops to encourage people to not give them money.  Well, they at least got yours, but I know people who tried and gave up after an evening of failure.

Wow, thanks for the reports. I was looking forward to Anchorage because I lived there most of my adult life, and holy crap a video game set there! Now I'm not gonna bother.

Meanwhile, yeah I took that stealth running perk, and yeah, it's getting better. It seems that if you want to be a stealther, you can't just dabble in it. You have to build your character around it, which I'm fine with.

Your PIPboy light will still give you away but I found that after I went into graphics options and turned up the gamma a bit I didn't need it much.

Heh, I never knew it lit up, so I wasn't turning it on anyway.

IGN has a quick look at The Pitt expansion.  Looks to run 800 pts ($10.00).  Release is March 24 I think. 

Also, GFWL is fucking retarded.  I tried to dl Anchorage last night and gave up after 20minutes of updates and crap.

I'm hoping that once Microsoft gets their pound of flesh the DLC is sold as a normal boxed expansion. I probably shouldn't hold my breath, but a guy can hope.

I would totally pay regular money for those expansions if they were sold on shelves. I will not buy 1,000 MS points for something that costs 800, then fail to download it for hours.

But digital distro is TEH FOOOOTURE!

It is., just not from MS. At least not until they pull their head out of their asses.

The reason I don't pay for anything in RMT games and I gave up completely on XBL, WiiWare, and countless online games was the use of fake money. Real money or nothing, I don't want my money to disappear into the ether of fake currency for your digital distribution scheme. Steam, Impulse, and the PSN can have all the money they want though.

After nearly a year of no decent games on the Wii, I broke down and spent $20 on Wii points for some old games.  Only then I find out that the games I'm looking for are $5.00, $5.00 and $8.00.  So now I got that bastard $2.00 in points staring me in the face every time I log on.  I can't buy anything with it because nothing is priced so low.  Every time I play I am kindly reminded that I've got two wasted dollars there that I can't get back... unless I spend more to even that out.  Dammit. 

I'm leaning towards waiting for these addons to hit some other form of distribution. 

So due to the general opinion that the expansion wasn't worth it, I decided to restart using one of the big new mods. It's a full balance overhaul called FOOK, which includes about 80 new weapons and armors, including quite a few new models.

First thing I noticed was that all armors had some degree of stat bonus, which I though seemed a little overdone, but I kept going. Killed a couple super mutants that had new melee weapons with a hunting rifle in an office building. Found a Tommy gun, which was fun because it will unload 100 rounds in a matter of a few seconds.

Came around a corner and saw a mutie's back too me, so I popped him in the back with the rifle, knocking him to half. He turns around and I see he has a a big fancy looking minigun - figure I better shoot him quickly before it spins up.

I hear whiiiIIR, followed by BRAAAAAAAAP (new sound effects), and two seconds later my arm flies in one direction and my head flies off in another. My body decides that it doesn't function well without a head and I die. Wish I'd thought to screen shot it.

Link: http://fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4448 (http://fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4448)

This might actually be an interesting mod.

Looks good i quit midway through my first play through in expectation of mods. This seems to be a good start.

Speaking of paying for things....

I had heard that Operation Anchorage was a free download, but it shows up as 800 points through XBOX Live.

Did I hear wrong, or am I doing something wrong?

It's not free.

Anchorage is 800 pts. 
The Pitt is expected to be 800pts.
Broken Steel (lvl 30 and no end-game) is expected to be 800pts. 

*Hopefully* with Steam announcing DLC capabilities the other day we'll see these xpacs show up there.  I'd give money to Steam on these, but not GFWL. 

The Pitt launched today (or close to it).  Xbox version is reportedly hosed a bit due to.... you guessed it:  GFWL issues. 

I can't wait till they bundle them all up for retail sale, or I can buy it on Steam. 

Why would the 360 use GFWL?  I believe you mean XBL, although the statement from Bethesda simply said that the file they put up was corrupted.

It's all the same Microsoft shit, imo. 

But yeah, I was wrong. 

I'm enjoying The Pitt much more than Anchorage so far. Why they felt the need to put even more annoying ghouls in...I just don't know.

Is The Pitt XBox/PC only again? I.e. no PS3?

None of the DLC was announced for the PS3.  I wouldn't really consider Anchorage or the Pitt that big a deal, but it sucks for people playing on the PS3 that they won't be getting the next DLC pack which ups the level cap, and lets you continue past the end of the main quest.

Well I paid for a PS3 copy, if they're not going to release the DLC for the PS3 then fuck 'em, I'll pirate a PC copy and the DLC packs. Fuck. Them.

I would possibly buy for a small price (in dollars) a small expansion direct from the site, but having to sign up to yet another service and go through all the points bullshit doesn't interest me at all.

Screw them, I'm not falling for that Microsoft bullshit a second time. Bring it on Steam or in disc version or choke on it!

I just saw that DLC is coming to the PS3 in summer.  They're staggering the launches starting with Anchorage, but it looks like they're launching all of it at some point with a GOTY version in October for some or all versions of the game. 

I was really disappointed with the DLC Operation: Anchorage and The Pitt.  Both of the DLC packs felt really small and it felt like there really was no choice for me to make at all.  If anything this has reinforced in my mind that Bethesda really needs to hire good writers.

Hmph, they're making shooter mods for RPG game. That'll sell well imo.  :why_so_serious: