Fallout 3

[DirtyMartini]

I played last night for a looooooong time (wife at work til midnight). I've pretty much got the hang of the combat thing now. I wasn't using the terrain well enough before -- I was just trying a stand up and shoot it out approach for the most part. Now it's snipe and cover.

I think carrying hunting rifle, combat shotgun and 10mm sub (or assault rifle) gives pretty decent versatility and those seem to be the most common types of ammo.

Is there a quick way to toggle between weapons without going to the pipboy? I like walking about with hunting rife out, but it would be nice to quickly whip the shotty or a melee weapon if the situation arises. (Specifically, it would be nice to quickly switch to baseball bat for radroaches and such to save ammo).

[Standup]

I've just restarted but with a couple of mods. The original game is fun but I think even with the mods available after a couple of weeks they make a big difference. Currently using...

Armour and Weapon cross repair - so similar weapons repair each other i.e. 10mm pistol and SMG

Amour and Weapon repair - scrap metal repairs most weapons and 'metal' armour. Feels a bit more realistic and means that I don't have to carry around 5 assault rifles for repairs all the time. Does make it a bit easier with things like the sniper rifle though.

50% degradation - slows degrades. Again makes it easier but more rewarding.

Ammo mod - can't remember what this one was actually called but adds weight to ammo. Makes up for the repairs mods to a certain extent. Also makes ammo rarer.

Drugs mod - ditto drugs. You can still have 100+ stimpacks but they weigh a bit now and are much harder to find.

Better food - increases the values for HP and Rads food. Also has different levels so potato crisps aren't so good for you compared to brahmin steak. Gives you a reason to hunt out and carry food especially if drugs are rarer.

Mixed Armour - enemies don't always have the armour for their type. bit more mix and match so less talon combat armour floating around.

Increased damage from crippled shots (me and the bad guys). Shooting somethings leg out actually slows it down now.

So far the mods probably make things a bit easier than vanilla FO but more rewarding in gameplay. Might add a few more to keep the difficulty level up.

Most of the GECK mods so far seem to be places to hangout while people get the hang of it so haven't tried new locations yet.

And tried a couple of the graphics mods but couldn't get them to work. Ameneded the list but possibly not unpacking them into the right place? Do you put the loose files into the data folder or do they need to be kept in sub folders?

[Quillan]

The hunting rifle can get 3-4 shots in VATS. Ammo for it is fairly plentiful, spare rifles for repair are easy, it does good damage and has good range/zoom. Not to mention if you have the unique version (Ol' Painless), you can do more damage than a sniper rifle. My preferred fighting method is to open with a long distance shot to the head from stealth, continue until I'm spotted, then hide behind cover. I let the enemy come to me, then use VATS at close range to blow them away with head shots. It works well.

By the way, if you get the Commando and Sniper perks, you can get good headshot accuracy in VATS even at range.

[DirtyMartini]

I never played 1 or 2, and I'm sure this is going to considered heresy, but I can't imagine playing this game on my PC (20 inch screen) instead of my console (46 inch screen, surround sound), mods or no mods.

What do I now though -- I bought a PS3 for the blueray and because I loved my PS2. Now the only two games I've played in the past year (apart from Rock Band), GTA4 and FO3, have DLC coming out on everything but the PS3. You know you're sinking back into a gaming addiction when you're seriously considering buying a new console and a second copy of a game just to have the ability to buy additional DLC.

[Dis]

Originally posted by DirtyMartini
I'm scared to read most of the thread -- I have a love/hate relationship with spoilers.

I'm curious and impatient so I end up reading them, but I really would rather get through the game once without cheating. Hard not to surf game guides at work though and think (Oh, maybe I'll just look and see where the is located.

I missed some of the pages. But I do want to get this game whenever I build a new system. I like to read up on it and see if it's good enough to buy first of all. I hope it's better than the disappointment Oblivion was.

[Alinestra Covelia]

My friend is thinking about getting a current level PC gaming rig just for this game. He has already beaten it three times on XBox, but he wants to get the PC version in order to make some mods for it.

He has one pretty ****ed-up idea about setting a level or two in China, or in a Chinese military camp in America.

His idea:

All dialogue, subtitles included, will be in Mandarin Chinese. Even the player's own conversation choices will be in Chinese characters. The only way around this is either to speak Chinese (which Bing and I do pretty well) or to take a custom Perk "Pictographically Literate".

If you take that perk, the voice acting remains the same, but the subtitles are now in English, allowing a non-Chinese speaker at least some chance of actually interacting with the game.

He wants to put in various bits of Chinese pop culture too. "The March of the Volunteers", the Chinese version of the "Internationale", and even little snippets like Deng Li Jun's folk songs and love ballads (Teresa Teng).

I asked him what the main game objective would be and he said something like "You play as a US sniper sent to kill a Chinese colonel, and you've been given a photo. But the problem is all Asian men look alike, which is a scientific fact, and so you have to actually interact with people to find out who he actually is. During the course of this, you figure out reasons why you should and shouldn't kill him. And then the Chinese drop nukes on Japan so it's all good in the end."

He also said something vague about nuclear pandas so I'm guessing he's mixing tongue with cheek a fair bit.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia

His idea:

All dialogue, subtitles included, will be in Mandarin Chinese. Even the player's own conversation choices will be in Chinese characters. The only way around this is either to speak Chinese (which Bing and I do pretty well) or to take a custom Perk "Pictographically Literate".

If you take that perk, the voice acting remains the same, but the subtitles are now in English, allowing a non-Chinese speaker at least some chance of actually interacting with the game.

He wants to put in various bits of Chinese pop culture too. "The March of the Volunteers", the Chinese version of the "Internationale", and even little snippets like Deng Li Jun's folk songs and love ballads (Teresa Teng).

I asked him what the main game objective would be and he said something like "You play as a US sniper sent to kill a Chinese colonel, and you've been given a photo. But the problem is all Asian men look alike, which is a scientific fact, and so you have to actually interact with people to find out who he actually is. During the course of this, you figure out reasons why you should and shouldn't kill him. And then the Chinese drop nukes on Japan so it's all good in the end."

He also said something vague about nuclear pandas so I'm guessing he's mixing tongue with cheek a fair bit.

That is pure awesome.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Quoting from Bing's notes about nuclear pandas (which I think I may actually have posted on this thread for laughs earlier):

The Chinese were trying to smuggle pandas into the D.C. area as part of a secret plot to irradiate the entire US capital. Before the pandas left China they had been given radioactive strontium tablets mixed with bamboo. This made them nuclear pandas but also gave them really bad constipation. When they got to the US they all took a massive synchronized panda dump (they had special training for this, from the same coaches that help the Chinese keep winning medals in synchronized swimming and diving). The total atomic energy they shat out, mixed with the fiber in US bamboo, turned the American capital into the American CRAP-ital overnight.

Only, after the fallout had settled some politically correct people thought that "Crapital" was offensive to turds and so they changed the name to WASTE-land instead.

There is some consensus among my circle of friends that Bing should be allowed to make a mainstream video game, fully funded with a real design studio.

Just to see what happens, from a scientific viewpoint.

[UnOrthOdOx]

So, Q:

Based solely on limited play from my rental.

Are big guns pretty much a waste?

My first character went big guns and explosives. And, was pretty much useless as any big guns I found either lacked ammo or broke constantly. Even after getting the Rockitlauncher (uses junk for ammo), and being able to keep it repaired, ammo was an issue after I ran through all my spikes and darts.

A second character I only played for a day before taking the game back went stealth and small guns and was able to just tear through everything. While I freely admit a part of that was due to better understanding of the game, I never had any issues with guns or ammo shortage that I did with my first.

Just curious.

[Alinestra Covelia]

It's hard to routinely find people who carry big guns, so getting ammo and repair parts on your own can be hard. But the gun merchants in the game usually do carry them in stock, so a Big Guns centric run should be doable. It may not be as easy as Small Guns and Energy Weapons, but don't let it stop you if that's what you'd like to do.

[Spaced Cowboy]

I think you'll have to have at least two or three areas where you are good to be effective.

Hand, melee, small guns, big guns, energy weaps, and explosives.

[DrSpike]

So, Q:

Based solely on limited play from my rental.

Are big guns pretty much a waste?

My first character went big guns and explosives. And, was pretty much useless as any big guns I found either lacked ammo or broke constantly. Even after getting the Rockitlauncher (uses junk for ammo), and being able to keep it repaired, ammo was an issue after I ran through all my spikes and darts.

A second character I only played for a day before taking the game back went stealth and small guns and was able to just tear through everything. While I freely admit a part of that was due to better understanding of the game, I never had any issues with guns or ammo shortage that I did with my first.

Just curious.

Small guns are the way to go. Energy weapons are on a par late game but early on they are weaker and there's very little ammo. Big guns is overkill most of the time (though worth levelling up later on to take out Deathclaws and mutants easily etc): what you really want is an easy way to kill to the hordes of normal enemies on quests. And melee doesn't cut it for long (although it's ok very early on).

[Solver]

Real men completed the first two games with unarmed/melee only

[DrSpike]

Random musings on Fallout 3

I finished earlier this week; I think that despite some rough edges this is the best game I've played for a while, and a worthy winner of it's many GOTY awards. The combat model is fun, the story is engaging (with some reservations below), and the world feels large whilst still having stuff in it (in contrast to say Morrowind where there's a massive world but it just isn't at all interesting). This is a tough one to pull off and I think the way they've gone for small interesting settlements over more realistic big ones contributes a lot.

The kicker and biggest achievement (and slightly irritated that this is never mentioned) is that this is the first game to really nail the dynamic levelling which previous games have tried and screwed up in various ways. You have freedom about where to go but not absolute freedom, and you do get subtly more powerful even when creatures level with you through finding better weapons (and having a higher repair skill). This leads to a real sense you are in control of your adventure, even with a main quest, which does have some constraints in terms of level needed etc. Hats off to Bethesda for finding the delicate balance so well.

That's all the good stuff. It's a real shame about the rough edges because this could have been right up their with KoTOR/BG2 etc on the all time greats list. My top 3 for discussion:

Spoiler:

1) The end (I see others have beat me to this). What were they thinking? The pacing of the last couple of missions is way off and doesn't gel with the rest of the game. Also, they spend ages building up an immersive and interesting world, for it all to end with a stupid original Star Trek series cliche about a computer who took over, who you beat with....wait for it...a logical paradox. Someone needs shooting. Then there's a potentially interesting conflict between the computer and his lieutenant that just arrives from nowhere, is never really explained, and soon ends when you kill him too (I know there are variants). The Autumn character needed more time to develop I think. It's almost as if they ran out of cash/time and just decided what the hell, we've got GOTY already, let's just end it there.

2) Difficulty curve. Although as I said above I think they've done really well with the dynamic levelling I think the game is a touch rough early on when you're still finding weapons & ammo and working out the skill system, then a touch easy post level 5. By the teen levels if you've made good choices it's much too easy. I know you can change the difficulty on the fly but I think they could have had a couple more hand-holding quests at the start (like the Supermarket one you can do at a low level) to get you going, then ramped up a little more later.

3) One character. This game is pretty open in terms of where you go, but in terms of character you just choose good v evil, and there is very little scope to mould the character. It appears there is but you pretty much need to build your character around small guns and repair to be really effective throughout, with science/speech/lockpicking/medicine steadily levellling. Melee & Unarmed aren't very useful at all, sneak and explosives potentially are but are such a pain to base a character on. Big guns are good but overkill for most situations (and therefore a waste of points early game) and energy weapons are ok but there just isn't enough ammo for the early game to make it viable. Barter isn't necessary because you'll be sitting on a pile of caps by the time you are level 5 in any case.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Yeah, the levelling is a bit uneven. But all the same it's an interesting progression from the no-limit levelling of Fallout1 and 2. Part of me is still sad that FO3 has a level limit at all, but at the same time I realize that the enemies in FO3 are much easier individually than the ones you face in FO1 and 2 once you get to very high levels. Bethesda would have had a very tough time with scaling those encounters if you were, say, level 64 in one runthrough and only level 13 in another.

Yes, the skills are not created equal, and that's been another feature (failing?) of the FO franchise. The Unarmed and Melee skills are basically there for completeness' sake, as playing the game with a pure focus on them makes it a lot harder. The diplo-sniper is pretty much the time tested, time honored best type of character to play, and this game is no different.

Also I agree that there seems to be some severe acceleration of plot development near the end. The Raven Rock level seemed especially prone to this. My only guess is that they ran out of development time and rushed Raven Rock and the very last challenge. If you have certain NPCs as allies after the Liberty March, the last challenge develops some really big plot holes.