Fallout 3 fallout
Nov. 18th, 2008 07:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
progAfter on-the-dot two weeks of calendar time, I finished Fallout 3's main quest.
I think I drilled down through the main quest with a narrower focus than most. I ended at level... 16, I think, with "Very Good" karma. I tried hard to stay Neutral, and got by mostly through stealing everything that wasn't nailed down, but went off the charts after getting huge Karma bonuses later on. In particular, I was a little surprised that halting Dr. Braun's manipulations by killing all his test subjects nets you super-mega Karma - I thought I was doing to break his control over my character, and to hell with everyone else - and I think that's when I stopped trying to balance it out.
I never found the doggy that everyone talks about! In fact, I had no allies for most of the game. I picked up Paladin Cross right before going into the vault containing the GECK, and then befriended Fawkes inside that vault itself. Cross vanished when I was captured, but I ran into Fawkes again, and he stuck with me for my last hour or two of play. Having no friends worked well with my sneaky-sneaky play style, though. Sidekicks become very excitable when hostiles are nearby, and I was constantly telling them to stay put so I could sneak around properly.
I am surprised that the game flat-out ends when you compete the main quest. I picked the super-duper goody-two-shoes ending where you sacrifice your own life to save the city, and honestly expected that the next scene after the credits rolled would have you waking up in a hospital. I can always rewind to a previous save and explore more if I want, but somehow I'm less inclined to do so right away. (Which, really, is just as well.) (And, yes, I tried the ending over again by telling Lyons to hit the button instead, and the only difference is that Ron Perlman calls you a selfish jerk in the closing voiceover.)
We'll see if I end up starting a new game, creating a completely different kind of character and seeing how much that affects gameplay. I've never bothered to do that with a game before, but I was so impressed by Fallout 3 that I'm really tempted to try. Just not right now.
I think I drilled down through the main quest with a narrower focus than most. I ended at level... 16, I think, with "Very Good" karma. I tried hard to stay Neutral, and got by mostly through stealing everything that wasn't nailed down, but went off the charts after getting huge Karma bonuses later on. In particular, I was a little surprised that halting Dr. Braun's manipulations by killing all his test subjects nets you super-mega Karma - I thought I was doing to break his control over my character, and to hell with everyone else - and I think that's when I stopped trying to balance it out.
I never found the doggy that everyone talks about! In fact, I had no allies for most of the game. I picked up Paladin Cross right before going into the vault containing the GECK, and then befriended Fawkes inside that vault itself. Cross vanished when I was captured, but I ran into Fawkes again, and he stuck with me for my last hour or two of play. Having no friends worked well with my sneaky-sneaky play style, though. Sidekicks become very excitable when hostiles are nearby, and I was constantly telling them to stay put so I could sneak around properly.
I am surprised that the game flat-out ends when you compete the main quest. I picked the super-duper goody-two-shoes ending where you sacrifice your own life to save the city, and honestly expected that the next scene after the credits rolled would have you waking up in a hospital. I can always rewind to a previous save and explore more if I want, but somehow I'm less inclined to do so right away. (Which, really, is just as well.) (And, yes, I tried the ending over again by telling Lyons to hit the button instead, and the only difference is that Ron Perlman calls you a selfish jerk in the closing voiceover.)
We'll see if I end up starting a new game, creating a completely different kind of character and seeing how much that affects gameplay. I've never bothered to do that with a game before, but I was so impressed by Fallout 3 that I'm really tempted to try. Just not right now.
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Date: 2008-11-20 04:13 am (UTC)http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/420-Fallout-3
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Date: 2008-11-20 04:43 am (UTC)The problem is compounded by the fact that you can carry around as many health-packs as you can find - they have an in-game weight of zero - and at any time you can bring up your menu (which freezes in-game time), chow down on as many as you want, and then jump right back into combat. This makes you effectively invulnerable. I have been wondering how differently the game would play if it, say, restricted your use of recovery items when you were in line-of-sight of someone attacking you. Shrug.
I actually _didn't_ say "Hey look Oblivion" very much after starting, mostly because Oblivion is boring and has a completely noncompelling setting. Fallout 3 is a vast improvement on both counts.