Super Mutants aren't the threat I was expecting, three headshots seems to take care of them quickly enough. The first Super Mutant Behemoth would have been tricky, except I had a bunch of frag grenades ready to go. Also, Dogmeat has a lot of health and seems to recover it immediately after any battle which makes him very good for soaking up damage.

yea dogmeat is freakin awesome

also, if youve gone to minefield you can get out of there with about ~30 frag mines in youre quick. sweet for baiting stupid monsters (giant ants, sometimes mutants).

and god blowing up cars is so much fun

The main plotline is a lot shorter than I thought it would be. I kind of blew through it before I had a chance to do most of the sidequests. Sweet ending though... I'm curious to see how it could turn out differently. I immediately started a new character and I'm going to focus more on exploring this time around.

Just found a small ammo cache under an old dock near the Moonbeam Outdoor Cinema, to the North-East. A couple of the boxes are locked, but the hardest one is only an Average. There's little bits of a variety of ammunition, like 10mm and Flamer Fuel.

the money and ammo related scrounging perks are very win

If you're doing the android quest, there's a neat way to get both sides of the reward. First, get quest to the point where it tells you to go to Rivet City. At that point, talk to the old man in the bow of the ship, and talk to him to the point where he tells you everything you need to know about the android, and the code to reactivate his memories. Then, go talk to Harkness (He is a guard in Rivet City), and tell him the code, and warn him that Zimmer is trying to get him. At that point, ask for permission to kill Zimmer yourself. He'll give you a sweet energy gun that sells for around 1,000 caps. Then, go to Zimmer, and tell him where Harkness is, and he'll give you the VATS perk, then, kill Zimmer and his guard as they're going to kill Harkness.

Karmicly, it's a push, but you get a really sweet perk and a nice weapon to boot.

I'm finding the side quests a lot more fun than the main quest line :X

Also, the money / item perks are good for a short term boost, but you'll get more bang for your buck if you go with combat perks + heavy lifting.

I like killing people with swords.

Limbs flying everywhere.

Of, and Bloody Mess is awesome. Every time I shoot someone they totally ****ing explode.

So hmmm,I got the game....why is everyone's skin simpson yellow colored? :/

Because of all the radiation, duh.

Its kinda lame I mean, I guess it makes sense, but I wouldn't have minded a little less "realism" and more normal human skin tones. Everyone's either yellow or brown. Except when in the vault. Its a bit annoying. Especially since those born in the vaults wouldn't have been exposed to as much radition and thus wouldn't be yellow like simpsons!

Hmm... they don't look that yellow to me? Maybe it's your TV.

Every other game and tv show and movie is perfectly fine :/

Why do you care about their skin color anyway?

RACIST!

Because the humans look like they came out of a lego box or from a simpsons cartoon

So I went for the "good" guy mode, AKA, I didn't blow up the town. I'm currently @ level 5 or 6 trying to put the radio antennae from the Technology Museum on top of the Washington Monument. Those Super Brutes are tough. Grenades are saving my life.

After this I'm going to Rivet City to find my Dad I think, or going after the fire ants in that one city.

Thats where I'm at too! Its been so fun so far but I might be starting over because I'm just not happy with the way I spent my points for my character.

I killed Three Dog >>

I did Three Dog's mission, got paid. He then went to bed, I pickpocketed him as he slept, I slipped a grenade in his pocket and kaaaaBOOOOOOOOOOMMM! It was hilarious and an achievement popped up. Now when you listen to the radio, he's replaced by a stroppy cow whining on that "some *******" killer their regular DJ.

I pretty much just gunned him in the head with my Chinese Assault Rifle for not telling me where pops was. I guess the Overseer taught me evil evil things afterall. "When someone wont tell you what you want, kill him!"

(of course I reloaded afterwards because this my 'good' playthrough)

Man, I couldn't imagine playing the game without Three Dog. Whenever I'm feeling down, I just turn on GNR for a few 50's tunes and a "Hey there wasteland welcome to Galaxy News Radio, I'm your host THREEEEEE DOGGGGGG OOOOOW OOOOOOOOOOOOOW"

So who was president in the fallout universe, McCain or Obama?

Eden

I hope I get to meet Eden, I want to punch him in the face like I did the old man in Megaton for being a retard.

I am so God damned sold.

Liam Neeson does such great voice acting for the player character's father. Its awesome.

I have 20 hours of game played and I've just gotten to Rivet City in search of my father. From what I could tell from the walkthrough I checked out (didn't spoil things for myself, just checked how far I was and how much longer there was left) I still a long, long way to go for the main plotline.

For the record : The Family questline, from Arefu (which Jenny West first sends you on from Megaton to deliver a letter to her folk's in Arefu) is aewsome. Its REALLY worthwhile to not go in there gun blazing and actually learn about those folks. Of course, you can do just that and still complete the quest, and if it fits your character either before or after finding out what they are, its brilliant.

For the record : Shiskabob weapon is amazing. XD Flaming sword ftw!

After doing a bunch of side-quests out in the wastes, I went straight to Rivet City without going to see Three Dog because I had two quests to do there (finishing off "Those!" and starting "Replicated Man"). I've decided that blowing off a Super Mutant's head in one Sneak Attack Critical with the Sniper Rifle is just about the most satisfying thing I've done so far. I'm going up to the radio station next to see if I can still do Three Dog's quests, since although I've found the next breadcrumb towards my Dad I still want to see as much of the game as possible.

I think it might be the combat, but the whole game seems far more satisfying than Oblivion despite feeling similar at first. I'm actually interested in seeing the game through to completion rather than screwing around with side-quests until I get bored of the game entirely.

(Very small spoilers below)

Also, if you go after The Family, you have two choices to get to their base. You can go through a tunnel (that you get pointed towards), or you can hike overland. I decided to hike it out since I didn't want to go through a radioactive tunnel. If you choose the path I do, and get to the trainyard above ground, watch out for the GIANT RADSCORPION . The damned thing is huge, quick, strong, and huge!

Three-Dog's questline is actually very very fun!

I can totally get lost throughout the ruins in this game, not even following quests. I've found an elementary school where raiders were trying to dig a tunnel into a bank vault, but feel across a nest of huge ****ing ants.

Last night I found Bethesda Studio's ruins. It was neat and I bet the layout is true to life, though it was disappointing to find no easter egg goodies like Fallout 3 or Elderscrolls posters, no nothing. Maybe there was something on the terminal system but me no hack.

Still, the place was chok full of various schematic ingredients like motorcycle gas tanks / lawn mower blades / fusion batteries / etc.

I'm also starting to run out of space to go on a looting spree because I have so many kinds of awesome weapons. @_@


---

One thing that totally made me laugh. They tried the awe-inspiring "out of tunnel for the first time, behold... our landscape!" trick again when you step out of Vault 101, just like they did in Oblivion.

Except this time, they totally nailed it. My jaw dropped as the lighting readjusted and the distance faded in. My god that was breathtaking. None of that "here's a small river, a pier, and a ****ty hillside with a big LOD texture seam across it"

On my original question of whether this game had popups of not, it definatly does. Mostly with distant trees but occasionally you'll see a junk pile appear against a building, or sometimes even buildings and bridges will pop to their next LOD before your eyes. Its a bit of a turn off to me, but I can stomach them better than in Oblivion, most likely because there arent as many trees and because you generally catch them from the corner of the eye, rather than up in your face.

So I am going to pick this up tomorrow based on this thread alone. I was already excited, and planned to pick it up a few months into modding, but it sounds like the vanilla game is amazing on its own.

I don't think you'll regret it.

This is easily best game of 2008 for me.

Mass Effect was better, in my eyes, but they are not the same genre of RPG, and Mass Effect was released in Nov 2007, even if only I played it mid 2008.

I just learned how to wear power armor. Having high lockpick and science skill is well worthwhile, especially when there's a computer that unlocks a safe - tackle the safe first and you get two lots of experience.

I also bumped into a full-health deathclaw in the wilds, it killed dogmeat almost immediately

Apparantly there are 3 more super mutant behemoths for me to beat for an achievement.

If you have a few weapons/items that you want to keep, but not necessarily carry around all the time, you can throw them in a locker at your house for safekeeping.

Well in terms of weaponry, I pretty much always carry it all with me. Who knows what I'll meet when I'm out in the wild. Though I guess I don't need a Mini Nuke Launcher, Missile Launcher, Flamer, Minigun, Chinese Assault Rifle, 8mm Pistol, 8mm Submachine Gun, .32mm pistol, shiskabob(melee), 32 Frag Grenades, 14 frag mines, 4 bottlecap mines, sawed off shotgun and combat shotgun, all at once.

You do if you're jim7

Who's that?

I guess if I were to level one complaint at Fallout 3, then it'd be the lack of variety in the guns. I mean it's understandable when you take weapon condition into account, since more variety would mean a less constant supply of weapons for use as repair parts, but I do kind of miss the choice you had in Fallout 1 and - to a greater extent - 2 and Tactics.

My current load-out is a 10mm Pistol, Chinese Assault Rifle, Combat Shotgun, Hunting Rifle, Frag Grenades, and a Sniper Rifle*. I went through a brief period thinking that the Hunting Rifle had become useless, since it was slow and hardly causing any damage, but I just used it to clear out a ruined school full of Super Mutants and Brutes, followed by a couple of Masters, so I'm in love with it again. My Small Gun skill > theirs, although why most of them tried to out-snipe me is anyone's guess. Most of the regular Muties didn't seem too keen on charging across the playground. Saw my first Brotherhood Paladins, too But I think they got killed by the Muties

* I've also got A3-10's Plasma Rifle, but I don't use it.

I'm just selling my laser weaponry and ammo this time around. I'm focused on Small Guns and Big Guns. I generally walk around with my chinese assault rifle equipped when I'm on dangerous missions. If I'm just exploring and/or scavenging, I'm usually using my weakest weapon, the .32 pistol, and switching to my sawed-off if I need more fire power, or greater yet if its something big and mean.

I totally love this game, but I know nothing of the past fallouts.

Sell the frag grenades. I keep 6 of each type of grenade with me at all times (Frag and Pulse), and sold all my mines except the bottlecap mines. The weight of the grenades / mines stack up quickly. I recommend taking the heavy lifting perk, though, it makes everything easier.

I carry a minigun (melts super mutants like butter), rocket launcher, Xuanlong Assault Rifle (repairs with assault rifles), Ol' Painless (pretty good all around rifle, repairs with hunting rifle parts), The Terrible Shotgun (repairs using Combat Shotguns), Victory Rifle, and Lincoln's Repeater (omfg best weapon in the game).

I think I might sell the missile launcher, I rarely ever use it. I wish there was more .44 ammo around so I could get rid of Ol' Painless and only use Lincoln's repeater (two rifles seems redundant, especially since one is vastly superior). I did a lot of research into where to find the unique weapons, because repair was one of my main skills (Repair, Lockpick and Small guns), and keeping them maxed out makes them really powerful. I've stopped doing the main quest, it almost seems like the least fun part of the game. The side quests are done SO well, I'm having much more fun doing them than the main quest. Although the most fun is just exploring around, finding new places, messing with the locals.

I tried rigging the vote in the Republic of Dave, but he wouldn't let me run for president, and I tried to rig the vote by taking the ballots away, but I got caught, so I just massacred the entire town. Because polygamy is wrong. Or something.

My one gripe is that stealing is always karmicly bad, even if you steal from bad people. I could understand if I lose some karma from stealing from slaves, or the Brotherhood of Steel, but stealing from Tenpenny after he tried to nuke a f-ing town seems right to me.

I got lit up by the first one I encountered. Fortunately I saw it from some distance off and saved before I attacked it. The second time I landed a sneak attack critical to its head and was able to kill it before it got close.

Those things are even worse than the damned yao guai.

I haven't met a yao guai or a Deathclaw yet. Then again, I haven't ventured too far north either. Can't wait to meet a Deathclaw, even if it ends in my horrific, bloody death.

I just finished this quest last night.
I'm trying to keep a mental note of where I remember seeing a motorcycle gas tank (the scientist for the fire any quest, in his lab).
BTW, what level of repair do you need to build stuff?

I still need to go to Rivet City sometime.

Hmm I'm not 100% sure of the requirement. I believe when I built my Shiskabob weapon, I was at 45 repair. I think you can build them any time, but your repair skill affects the condition of the weapon. The higher the repair skill, the higher the condition.

Note : There is a motorcycle gas tank, motorcycle handbrake and a lawn mower blade in the Bethesda Studios (Make sure to check both Western and Eastern buildings). (Assuming you want the gas tank to build the shiskabob). I ended up buying the pilot light from the vendor in Megaton, but you can get one in pretty much oven you find.