Glitch Plays Fallout

More frustrating to complete, and certainly not as entertaining as TPP, it was at the demand of a former co-worker that I bought Fallout 3 on Steam during a holiday sale of its Game of the Year edition. While I was at it, I also purchased a handful of other titles that included Fallout New Vegas and the enhanced version of The Witcher, but my priority was Fallout 3, and my first playthrough was relatively straightforward: I went in, acted the hero, and focused heavily upon completing the main quests. Excursions were basically the result of me either getting lost along the way or poking my nose in the lives of those I came across while trying to find the Lone Wanderer's father. The most notable waste of time involved helping Moira complete her survival guide. Since she was my go-to vendor for supplies and repairs, I felt like I needed to return the favor by acting as her assistant, but not enough to genuinely care, so I lied a few times and half-assed the rest of it. I was more thorough my second time playing through the game, so we published a much better version of the guide. Also, I turned her into a ghoul and lied again so that she blamed herself for the Megaton incident. Yep, she's my go-to vendor... now located in Underworld.

A deadly combination of Diet Nuka-Cola with Mentats. Also, you're gross.

Prior attempts to blog about my initial experience were unsuccessful simply because I soon realized through my research that I missed A LOT of content. I managed a similar playthrough of New Vegas with minimal side-questing, obtaining an achievement for taking over the robot army and ruling the desert myself, then fumbled my way through a small chunk of Bioshock before bringing myself back ro replay Fallout 3 with the intent to check out all that it had to offer, or most of it, I guess.

First impressions are hardly the most important with me, as I am well aware of the fact that life isn't perfect, people are not perfect, games not called "Chrono Trigger" are not perfect, and that shit can occur because of these imperfections. Fallout quickly reminded me of this as it refused to launch. No problem. There's actually a shit-ton, buttload, and/or surplus of glitches, but most are minor annoyances at best. Flipping screens is where the real fun comes in, because there's a strong chance that the game will crash. There's also the possibility of a crash even when I don't flip screens. I'm sure there are fixes to all of this, but I'm not computer savvy. I can't find some of these file names that possible solution threads type about. Hell, my issues might not be the exact problems being addressed in the posts. Most Google results were just different sites typing the same answers to the launching glitch I mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph and I didn't realize it until the end when the post finishes with something like, "... and this should allow you to launch a new game...." *shrug* I can cope with this. It's been a long time, but not so long that I don't remember the second most important bit of advice for any gamer: Save early, save often, and don't override saves. Thank you, Sierra. 

Fuck you, Sierra.

Even without the glitching... the overabundance of glitching... the "How the fuck does this become the game of the year with all of this glitching?!" amount of glitching... I would highly recommend multiple save files, because one of the biggest draws to this RPG is that there are numerous choices to pick from as one makes his or her way through the wasteland and one never knows how much of an impact a particular action or response will make (unless they visit the Wiki page). I replied to a bratty child in a similar bratty manner and now Three Dog is blasting me for it on the air. Then, I abruptly ended the Rivet City wedding by dropping a mini nuke in the middle of the room and not only does Three Dog say nothing about it, but the survivors stopped caring after three days. In addition to the default choices, others become available based upon your stats and perks. If that's not enough, there's all sorts of special items, locations, and backstory to be gained for putting in that added bit of effort in exploring the Wasteland, and the ending will change based upon certain decisions, karma, and race/sex. Provided it's included during the next holiday sale, I'd definitely recommend picking it up if you're more knowledgeable about how to effectively patch the more problematic issues I've had to suffer through as a result of my ignorance. If you're not, well....

As I sort of hinted at when mentioning the endings, Fallout begins with a pleth... a bunch of options for personalizing your character's features. All of them are ugly, just like everything else in this game that isn't Dogmeat.

Unfortunately, every time Dogmeat was killed, the action would slow down dramatically and Sarah McLachlan's "Angel" would begin playing.

Expect a lot of recycled visuals:

Rubble, rubble everywhere.

With exception to a landmark here and there, it'd be difficult for a casual player to tell one part of an area from another. I've gotten lost inside a building or while traversing the metro tunnels on numerous occasions. It doesn't help that this "open" world has an awful lot of choke points that force specific routes to be discovered in order to reach many areas around the D.C. area. There's also a limited selection of enemies, despite the size of this post-apocalyptic playground, and it's a shame to see the same creatures and people coming after me fifty hours into it. 

Gameplay manages to stay true to the Action RPG tradition of simple, repetitive combat: find the enemy, shoot the enemy, and loot (possibly teabag) the enemy. Remember those moments in a traditional RPG where you'd find a town and just sort of chill out for a while because you just spent the last hour and a half surviving random battles that occurred every three steps and are reluctant to go through that same shit again so soon? A bit of Fallout questing should jog that memory! With my first playthrough, Kickle did just fine imitating Gallagher with a Fawkes' brand Super Sledge-o-Matic. Then, in my second playthrough, Iuppiter was kinda doing the same thing with small guns and energy weapons. I seldom bothered with dodging and hiding. It wasted too much time, and only the behemoths required any real strategy. I tried to change things up with silent kills and sniper action, but, again, it was an awful lot of effort just to take down another generic raider or mutant. On the other hand, nukes and missiles are a wonderful distraction, so long as you don't kill yourself in the process. There's also a bunch of karma-dependent (with two exceptions) companions who will tag along, block your path, ruin stealth, step into the line of fire, and quickly die to just about anything. The only two worth a damn are Fawkes, because he can actually survive, and Dogmeat, because the Puppies perk allows for the infinite reincarnation of the lovable pooch.

I wish I could post some of my screenshots, especially the one where I shot a member of the Talon mercenaries in the face with a railway spike and his detached head was stuck to the door of a nearby building. Unfortunately, this also requires a fix of sorts and my attempts to follow directions offered on help threads have proven unsuccessful. Over a hundred of them were taken before I realized I couldn't access a single one for the sake of this awful blog. I guess it doesn't matter too much. Most of them were of the various glitches I encountered, including detached body parts still moving, my companion and I walking through solid objects that occasionally resulted in getting stuck in invisible holes, and floating bodies/items/debris. There was also one of Initiate Pek whom I had rescued long ago. While going through that area much later into the game, he suddenly appeared behind my character, staring straight at me, and was still talking about how I needed to escort him back to Hoss and the other members of the brotherhood.

Every move you make, every face you break... I'll be watching you.

Yeah, I was freaking the fuck out.

With the GotY Edition, I was able to gain an additional ten levels, earn new perks, see new sights, and complete quests involving slavers, aliens, hillbillies, gut-flinging ghouls, and Chinese holograms. While this means there is much more to do in a game that already had more than enough to begin with, none of it really feels new. Just more of the same shit, which is also the reason I got tired of playing WoW. At least Warcraft has plenty of lore to witness and take part in. With Fallout, the bulk of obtainable information is just pointless bits of, "Hey, that's neat, I guess." Outside of the main quests, most of what I found to be interesting came from exploring the other vaults. Well, the reappearance of Harold was kinda nice, too, even if he wasn't as joyous as he used to be.

"Hey, life's not so bad."       "Somebody kill me."

If you insist upon seeing all that Fallout has to offer, it's best to start with high Intelligence in order to maximize skill points and quickly learn the Intense Training, Educated, and Comprehension perks to further bring out the full potential of your wanderer in the long run. If you plan on just speeding through the main quests like I originally did, just grab whatever helps your primary choice in weapons and traits, then blow the rest of your leveling on the goofy crap like Animal Friend, Mysterious Stranger, and anything that adds special dialogue just to make the brief experience a bit more entertaining.

I tried to play through the entire thing. Hell, I did explore every area of the original game. There's a bunch of subtle references, like the Snatcher shout-out found in the Capitol Post building, and a few not-so-subtle references, like the haunted Dunwich Building which, of course, takes its name from the short story by Lovecraft. Three Dog's GNR news station provides a surprisingly catchy selection of licensed 40s music, and Three Dog himself is quite charismatic. What he says will change depending upon what you do and how you do it, though all of it will eventually grow tiresome if you choose to hang around for Fallout's entire experience. It's also possible to kill the guy, but his replacement's whiny remarks are far less varied and the station becomes unbearable that much sooner. I'm likely going to buy most of the playlist, starting with "Civilization (Bongo Bongo Bongo)," thanks to this game, though I can't imagine enjoying it half as much without hearing Three Dog's howl and news segment afterwards.

Overall, I want to tell my non-existent readers to add this to their collection, but the constant problems soured every happy moment I had. Whenever something brought a smile to my face, an error pop-up immediately removed it. There wasn't quite as many issues with New Vegas, so I might go back and do more of that after I finish Bioshock, which feels like a depressing version of Fallout that compensates with a far superior atmosphere and story. I'm genuinely on edge at all times thanks to the sound, lack of ammunition, and creepy surroundings. Then again, I'm not too fond of stuff like that. I think I mentioned something along those lines back when I blogged about Revelations, remember? The only reason I played that game was because Josh recommended it. You know, he's the one who bought me Bioshock for the PS3 as a Christmas present. *Note to self: ignore all other gaming suggestions from that misery-inducing assclown.*

Time once again for an important public blogging announcement!

Don't feed the yao guai... unless you brought them Agatha.

That is all.

And now, some music!