The Fallout 3 Thread

[JPA]

We've had a fair bit of discussion on this in the Videogaming topic, so thought we might as well give it its own thread here.

Fantastic game - what were people's highlights/criticisms/general observations?

I mentioned it in the other thread, but I really liked

Spoiler alert

that bit when you enter the virtual reality program and end up as a child, completely stripped of all your weapons. Wasn't expecting it at all, and it had a really sinister feel to it.

[close]

[Lt Plonker]

Ah, yes, the simulator bit is ace. I accidentally stumbled into it well before I was actually meant to, which was a massive shame.

Tenpenny Tower is a good bit.

Spoiler alert

If you aid the ghouls into peacefully getting into the tower, make sure you go back after a while and check up on them. :)

[close]

[Artemis]

I'm still in the vault, about to escape I think. Before I do, I want to get to grips with the compass thing. How is that supposed to work? I see the green arrow apparently telling me where I need to go but I don't get it.

[JPA]

The large green arrow shows the direction of the location you need to be heading to in order to advance your current quest. The small outlines of triangles represent locations nearby that you have yet to discover, and the small solid green triangles are locations nearby that you have already found. A red line is an enemy threat, and a green line represents a non-enemy character or animal.

The two map screens (World Map and Local Map) are accessed via your Pip-Boy.

[Capt.Midnight]

I tried playing it again as an evil character, but couldn't bring myself to shoot all the innocent townsfolk. I'd imagine it would get kind of annoying, what with everyone running away from you all the time, or shooting you in the face.

I had a great dream where the expansion pack completely dwarfed the original map, and I was scouring over miles and miles of undiscovered locations with the original map just a mere speck on the screen. Waking up was shite.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I agree, you can choose your moments to be evil but there's precious little safe havens on the game as it is without causing more difficulty for yourself. If it came to obtaining important items the people may as well have been matchstick men, but I wouldn't just pointlessly shoot someone in the face.

I punched a cow, and that was enough to set all of Megaton on me- fragile thing, society.

[kittens]

I've only played the Broken Steel add-on, are any of the others worth shelling out the money on? I felt Broken Steel was a bit too short. Mothership Zeta looks like it'd be good though.

I absolutely loved this game, and I'm very excited for New Vegas, if it turns out how I'm imagining it.

[Space ghost]

You can choose to be a bit more subtley evil than just shooting everyone you meet. For example, you can convince that Moira Brown that her wasteland survival guide she wants you to help her research is in fact stupid and a waste of time and obtain the ' dream crusher ' perk.

Negative karma penalty but it reduces an enemy's chance of scoring a critical hit on you by 50% and you get a larger discount on goods at the megaton store and increased repair stats.

[Little Hoover]

I loved Moira, everything about her seemed to be designed to be annoying, but for some reason I wanted to help her.

Spoiler alert

Even more so on the turn I blew up megaton and she lives on as a ghoul.

[close]

[Space ghost]

I felt bad about doing that, she didn't seem too bothered about the

Spoiler alert

GHOULIFICATION

[close]

though

[Baxter]

I can't conceive of the sort of bastard that would blow the place up, it's unthinkable!

Plus her guide quests are fun and useful with a few perks along the way.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

It's not unthinkable at all-

Spoiler alert

that mushroom cloud is one of the great moments in videogame history, then of course you get to murder Alfred Tenpenny and his lackey and let the ghouls run riot over their little fiefdom which sort of makes it okay.

[close]

[Space ghost]

Your dad tells you off for it.

[Whug Baspin]

I love the game, my only frustration was how much it crashed on the PS3 requiring powering the whole thing on and off. My favorite play through was putting all my skill towards Melee Weapons and creating that thing with the Death Claw. Also got to the point where I considered Fawkes among my closest friends, never got tired of hearing him shout 'I win again!'.

[Viero_Berlotti]

Plus her guide quests are fun and useful with a few perks along the way.

Spoiler alert

You can still do Moira's quests even if you nuke Megaton, you can find her in the underground city where all the ghouls live and do her quests from there

[close]

[Baxter]

I suppose it has the benefit of being one of the few ways you can kill children.

[DJ Solid Snail]

I've only played the Broken Steel add-on, are any of the others worth shelling out the money on? I felt Broken Steel was a bit too short. Mothership Zeta looks like it'd be good though.

Unfortunately it's a bit rubbish. The environment's pretty dull, what with every room on the spaceship being a very slight variation on a theme, and there's not much variety to the gameplay - they give you an ace gun really early on, which kills virtually everybody in one hit, so you're just running through sparse metal rooms killing little green men really easily. Still, it is more Fallout 3, so even if I'd known what it was like beforehand I'd have still bought it.

[Sexton Brackets Drugbust]

Think I mentioned it elsewhere, but the DLC pretty much demonstrates that what makes Fallout 3 great is a combination of exploration, quests and combat. If you remove an element, the formula suffers.

Operation Anchorage and Mothership Zeta both rely too heavily on pure combat, which becomes dull and repetitive.

Broken Steel's good for the extra experience levels and continuing the story, but because you're revisiting old locations there isn't the same sense of exploration.

Point Lookout was my favourite, as that contains a decent sized map to tramp around - it's certainly the most similar to the main game.

[Clone Army]

Fallout 3 is poor in many many ways. In fact I'm so spoilt for choice, here are only the bear-related criticisms.

• Being killed from behind by a bear I can't hear because my Perception isn't superhuman.
• Aggroing a bear from the other side of a river and having it chase me halfway across the world map.
• A badly written story with a bear minimum of player interaction.

Ok, that last one was a bit labeared.

[jutl]

Fallout 3 is poor in many many ways. In fact I'm so spoilt for choice, here are only the bear-related criticisms.

• Being killed from behind by a bear I can't hear because my Perception isn't superhuman.
• Aggroing a bear from the other side of a river and having it chase me halfway across the world map.
• A badly written story with a bear minimum of player interaction.

Ok, that last one was a bit labeared.

The pun in their name surely made up for all that?

[Consignia]

The pun in their name surely made up for all that?

Bearly.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Just grin and bear it.

[Mustow Green]

Having played it to death last year one of my favourite timewasters was to go into the wilds, armed only with a sniper rifle and no armour, and go Bear hunting.  Northwest of Tenpenny Towers was good hunting, near the camping grounds.

I was pissed at, (after replaying, and completing, the evil path), the Game Of The Year editions DLC stuttured, ran slow and crashed so many times I started from the top all over again.  Although this had it's fun.  I got out of the vault and sprinted up to the mothership marker, chased by Scorpians, Yogi Bears, Mirelurks, Mole Rats, Dogs, Raiders and Super Mutants.  Upon approaching I feared a bloody Deathclaw would appear and ruin it all, but I got there.

Mothership Zeta is easy fun on such a lower level.  Try it when you're 20+ and it can be stupidly hard.  I found the yokels in Point Lookout insanely tough on any level.

Annoyingly at this point my PS3 had it's second bout of YLD and I can't yet recover all my old data.  Bit of a pisser but I get to start these DLC again, so all's not lost.  I've never heard of the negative Moira perk until now, something else to try.

I think this has been my favourite game on the PS3 so far, got to give it a few months rest though, it becomes scary how many hours it can eat up.

[Consignia]

I was pissed at, (after replaying, and completing, the evil path), the Game Of The Year editions DLC

I had the 360 versions of DLC downloaded on release for each one, and they were all buggy bastards. To the point that Point Lookout was pretty much unplayable and corrupted my save. In general, it's been a right royal bugger the add ons. A shame, because PL was pretty much my favourite, and I didn't get chance to explore it.

[Mustow Green]

I had the 360 versions of DLC downloaded on release for each one, and they were all buggy bastards. To the point that Point Lookout was pretty much unplayable and corrupted my save. In general, it's been a right royal bugger the add ons. A shame, because PL was pretty much my favourite, and I didn't get chance to explore it.

If you can be bothered to start the game from the beginning and get enough money together to pay for that first trip out, (and make it down to the riverboat), it is worth replaying.  Just knowing that the game isn't going to freeze up on you and break the spell is more than enough.  That expansion feels short but i can think of a few great moments, (as well as tracking/hunting the yokels through the marshes), that more than makes up

Spoiler alert

fighting the zombie hirdes in the graveyard for one.

[close]

[Consignia]

Yeah, I completed it, and half of the side-quests, but I had to re-do it. I got to do it a bit of exploring through the marshes, which were grand, but I missed loads of other bits, like apparently a mansion which links to the Dulwich building in the main game, evil book and all.

[Second Burner]

I've just reached Level 20 without knowing that Level 20 is as far as you can go (without the DLC).

I've spent the last few weeks just wandering around pretty much ignoring the quests and killing bears and scorpions.  Seems a bit pointless doing the missions now knowing I'll get no experience from them, boo :( 

Still, MASS EFFECT 2 soon, YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[thehungerartist]

I'm still mooching about in Megaton, tooling up and bothering the locals. One thing which is a pain is the autosave frequency which means if you make a fuck up (like breaking into the Armory and pissing off an unkillable bot) you're mostly screwed. Makes it more realistic I suppose.

Still, it's the first console game I've played in years which has really lived up to the hype, the last being Shadow of the Colossus.

EDIT: will be ignoring this thread from now on you spoilerific cunts ;)

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

One thing which is a pain is the autosave frequency which means if you make a fuck up (like breaking into the Armory and pissing off an unkillable bot) you're mostly screwed.

I think if you go back after two days the townspeople will have calmed down.

Still, it's the first console game I've played in years which has really lived up to the hype, the last being Shadow of the Colossus.

Rargh! I hate that game.

[niat]

I'm still mooching about in Megaton, tooling up and bothering the locals. One thing which is a pain is the autosave frequency which means if you make a fuck up (like breaking into the Armory and pissing off an unkillable bot) you're mostly screwed.

Save it manually then! I've got loads of saves (probably far too many), which meant I could go back and get some of the bad karma achievements after I'd completed it as a saintly good karma chap. You can save anywhere as long as there are no enemies present, so save frequently and you can restart without too much back-tracking.

I was spoilt by the manual saves on this game, as my single autosaved game of Arkham Asylum got corrupted when I was about 75% through the game, and I haven't gone back to it since. Really spoilt my enjoyment of an otherwise excellent game.