Yep. And both console and PC gamers suffer. And often it’s the same gamers, since apparently most console gamers also play PC games and vice versa.
Looking at my last couple of posts, I feel I’m in danger of taking this thread into console war territory, so I’ll bow out and get some sleep.
[sub]One more thing, if you haven’t voted do it now. I couldn’t belive the lines at 7am, and this is in a state McCain will win hands down.[/sub]
I’ve just played back through the section and there is an option to tell him to go into the chamber, but Bethesda handwaves it saying he can’t deny you your destiny or some such. Bah!.
I finished on level 18; tagged skills small guns (essential, they’re all you’ll come across at the start, and the hunting rifle is the best weapon in the game, IMO), medicine (I didn’t notice much actual progression, I always had to pop several stims before it made a difference, and wandered around permanently injured most of the time) and repair (essential. Two words - Nuka grenade (Abraxo Cleaner, Turpentine, Nuka Cola Quantum and a tin can - all readily available) . Mine at the end did 500 damage a pop. By way of comparison, the Fat Man nuke launcher does 600-something).
As I progressed I maxed out big guns and explosives, and got energy weapons to 50-odd. In retrospect I would have put more emphasis on energy weapons, by the time you’re getting good in big guns energy weapons are becoming much more prevalent, and ammo is surprisingly common.
For perks, I mostly took em to compliment my chosen skills, tagged big guns as a fourth. Bloody mess is good fun, demolition expert compliments the explosives skill perfectly, Gun nut, swift learner, educated, gunslinger, a medical one I can’t remember.
By the way, there’s supposed to be a PC patch today. No clue what it’s supposed to address.
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=282322
Lockpicking is one of the easiest things to do in the game aside from killing radroaches once you’ve figured it out.
WASD are all the same. They just activate the screwdriver. The “key” is getting the bobby pin into the right position. The closer it is to the sweet spot, the further the lock will turn when you press a key. Position the pointer under the lock so that moving it left to right will sweep the bobby pin from far left to far right. Pick a random location about 45° left or right and try the screwdriver. Note how far the cylinder turns and release as soon as the bobby pin moves. Adjust the pin and try again until the lock turns 90° and opens. The important thing is to release as soon as the pin moves to keep from breaking it.
You should never need to waste more than one bobby pin on a lock, and seldom even that.
Also, if you’re nearing breaking the lock, exit the screen and try again. Maybe you’ll have better luck a second time.
Yep. I’ve gotten more than one Very Hard lock where, on a second try, the ‘sweet spot’ turned out to be having the pin straight up at a 90 degree angle.
The day I started playing this game I was filled with preconceptions, expectations, and grim resolution to prove my agenda that modern games are bloated, over-hyped nonsense.
Unfortunately, the game kicks total ass so I can’t very well complain about that. Instead I’ll just bitch that Bethsoft won’t confirm whether or not we’ll be getting a developers kit. The thought of mods for FO3 that rival what those for Oblivion have accomplished makes me extremely excited. However due to their announcement of planned, paid DLC downloads I feel any possibility for a CS is slim for weeks to months.
Hopefully I’ll be pleasantly surprised - I’m about to finish up my first playthrough and… and… god damn, it’s got so much potential. I can haz mods plez? 
Back in my day, we didn’t have any developer kits for modding our games…and we liked it!
Seriously, mods are already starting to trickle out. Granted, they’re minor at this point, but with the Oblivion engine being a pretty known quantity and the good reception Fallout’s gotten, I have little doubt the trickle will turn into a deluge regardless of Bethesda’s cooperation.
The major problem (from my reading) though is that most of the updated Oblivion development software does version checks on the game and of late, any attempts to recombobulate them to use the nebulously-different-but-kinda-the-same-as-Oblivion-sort-of Fallout3 engine result in spectacular crashes. While I have faith in the modding community, keep in mind that Bethsoft has had problems in the past with mods and has released public statements promising to clamp down on the unintended consequences of modding. I suspect they’re very wary of child nudity or child-killing mods. Minor modifications are, as you said, already on the way, but game-perfecting packages like “OOO” for Oblivion may be severely humstrung if no CS is forthcoming.
Keeping my fingers crossed, though. It’s been a long time since I’ve experienced immersion on the level FO3 provides, and a longer time since I’ve had my expectations so thoroughly exceeded.
Me, I’m holding out for HDR skies and high-rez textures. I’d love to look up to watch bright cracks of sun searing through the ubiquitous radioactive haze as cheerful pre-war tunes echo through the cityscapes.
Yesterday I played the game for the first time, and so far I must admit that I’m underwhelmed. I cannot put my finger on it why this is though. Maybe it’s the hype, maybe my expectations were too high, maybe I’ve outgrown the genre. Whatever it is, I didn’t feel the need to play the entire night through, it was easy to put down the game and go to bed. I even had time to watch an episode of Babylon in between.
I just arrived at Megaton, and I’m disappointed with a few things. First, the wooden faces of all characters. The voice acting isn’t that bad actually, but they just don’t match up to the faces you see. I first noticed with the kid Butch, and after that it was just grating with every character I see.
Second, story lines come out of the blue. I walk into the bar in Megaton, and suddenly some sort of radio station is all important. The dialogue options you have suggest that you have been wondering about this station for days, but it was the first time I heard about it.
The quests are up until now also ridiculously easy. I have a repair and science check of about 25 at level 2. Still, it was no effort at all to disarm an 80 year old atomic bomb.
Of course, there are also some good things. The Fallout humor is still there. I really like the VATS system. The character creation part is well executed. They succeeded in having an emotional tie to my father, and I do feel compelled to look for him.
Still, I’m not sure if I finish this game. Maybe WotLK is pulling me away after all.
Well, I went to (a Nyquil induced) sleep really early last night as I’ve got a nasty case of bronchitis, and I’m up now, I figure I might as well keep myself busy and provide interested folks with a list of the perks and (in my view) their relative worth from 1 to 10, with 10 being a true ‘must have’ perk.
So:
Level 2 Perks
Black Widow/Lady Killer (7/3): There are more male characters who you can have more of an effect on with the BW perk if you’re a woman, but the solutions you get can often be worked around, anyway. There are also more male enemies than female, so it does make some sense as a combat perk for women. Not so much for men. I wouldn’t advise taking the LK perk, as there just aren’t enough opportunities to really make use of it.
Daddy’s Boy/Daddy’s Girl (1): Taking perks to improve skills is a waste of a perfectly good perk unless you absolutely need those skillpoints and are already a high level. In general, don’t waste the perk since you should be able to bring up any skill, at all, to level 100 within 4 levels as maximum.
Gun Nut (1): a skill raising perk.
Intense Training (8): this is the perk that’ll allow you to ‘undo’ some of the min/maxing I suggested in one of my previous posts. It allows you to start with 10 points in intelligence and to level up perception and agility to 10 as well. If you level up and can’t think of a perk to slot in, consider raising luck or endurance a bit.
Little Leaguer (1): a skill raising perk.
Swift Learner (3): it has some use if you plan on only playing through the main quest line (still, you should probably get to level 15 or 16 without this perk). If you plan on exploring the wasteland, however, you just don’t need this perk. You’ll cap out at the level 20 level cap anyways just fine without it.
Thief (1): a skill raising perk.
Level 4 Perks.
Child at Heart(3): there are some uses for this perk and it’ll give you some interesting dialog choices with a few otherwise recalcitrant children in the game. Still, it’s not really worth the investment of a perk slot unless you’ve already beaten the game once and just want to see some other possible dialog arcs.
**Comprehension ** (6): this can be a very useful perk, especially if you’re at a lower level and finding a bunch of skill books as there really are a lot of them in the game. Still, this probably shouldn’t be a necessary perk and you can get you main skills up to 100, without this, with no problem.
Educated (8): this is an awesome perk. By the time you reach level 20, you will have earned an extra 48 skillpoints from this. And unlike all the normal skill raising perks, you can devote those points wherever you feel like.
Entomologist (2): Yes, there are lots of giant bugs in the wasteland. But other than the giant radscorpions and some of the giant ants (especially the fire breathing ones), none should give you any trouble once you really get your character started.
Iron Fist (5): with three available ranks, you can end up doing an extra 15 points of damage with every unarmed strike. Of course as ranged combat is far superior to melee combat in this game, you should only consider taking this perk if you’re on the path to becoming the wasteland’s Bruce Lee.
Scoundrel (2): Not just a normal skill raising perk, this does give a few extra dialog options through the game. Still, not really worth taking.
Level 6 Perks
Bloody Mess (7): Okay, I love gore and the spectacular death animations. The 5% bonus to all damage types is also pretty cool.
Demolition Expert (9): going to be using lots of mines or grenades? Put three ranks into this skill. If not, consider it totally worthless.
Fortune Finder (1): by the time you really get rolling, you’ll have more caps than you can spend. Ignore this perk.
Gunslinger: (3): an interesting perk, but the best and most plentiful small guns in the game are two handed. A sidearm should be your holdout weapon that you use if your primary breaks or if you need to conserve your main type of ammo. Even the SMG, while nifty, eats up ammo too quickly and really isn’t an improvement over an assault rifle.
Lead Belly (2): you drinking much irradiated water? No, probably not. Besides, 100 caps will buy you a radiation detox at a doctor and there is plenty of rad away to be found. If you don’t plan on gargling with random sink water, don’t take this perk.
Toughness (4) : a 10% increased damage resistance is kinda nice ,especially since it stacks with other bonuses. Don’t rely on it, though. But do consider taking it if you have a free perk slot and nothing else appeals to you.
Level 8 Perks
Commando (8): two handed weapons are awesome, and any increase in VATS % is good. If you use rifles, take this perk.
Impartial Mediation (2): only take this perk if you don’t plan on getting speech to 100 anyways. And even then, only take it if, somehow, you won’t be either good or evil.
Rad Resistance (5) : an extra 25% to your rad resist? Excellent. This, along with the bonuses for completing the Wasteland Survival Guide and getting the Food Sanitizer should allow you to go much longer without needing to remove your rad levels. It also gives you a much greater effect from anti-rad apparel since this bonus will stack.
Scrounger (6): if you’re the type to run short on ammo, take this perk without a second thought. Once you’ve played through the game and are used to its combat mechanics, though, you won’t need to bother with this and you should have more than enough ammo.
Size Matters (1) : a skill raising perk.
Strong Back (4): I personally love this perk, as it’s got the same effect as raising your strength by 5 full points, and I like to carry loads of junk around.
Level 10 Perks
Animal Friend (2): eh, it’s okay. It’s good that it works on the Yao Guai, but since it doesn’t effect Deathclaws, it’s pretty much useless for the kind of enemies you’d actually need it for. Most cases, though, animals simply won’t do enough damage to you or be important enough in a fight that their switching sides would really matter.
Finesse (9): an effective 5 point bump in your luck stat for critical hits? Unless you were silly enough to bump your base luck stat up past 5, definitely take this perk. Even then, probably take it anyway.
Here and Now (-10): yes, negative ten. You just leveled up, the main bonus to leveling up is that you can raise your skills, and choose a perk. Why throw away a perk just so you can level up again? Only take this if you’re just playing the main quest, and even then, only if you decided against the EXP increasing perk.
Mister Sandman (3): there aren’t many sleeping enemies that you’ll come across, but there are a few. Even then, you need a very high sneak skill to get up to them without waking them. Still, if you’re going for the unarmed route, consider getting this simply to add flavor to your character.
Mysterious Stranger (3): by the time you’re really rolling, you should be able to kill almost any single enemy in VATS mode. However, if you’re having trouble with some really big bad monsters (like Super Mutant Masters) then having the ability to finish them off in a single VATS phase, especially if you have the Grim Reaper perk, is probably going to be worth your while.
Nerd Rage! (3): the 50% damage resistance is nice if you’re already in serious trouble. Then again, if you’re already in serious trouble the 50% damage resistance boost won’t really help all that much and you’ll want to shoot up with some stimpacks asap anyway.
Night Person (1): you should have intelligence at 10 from character creation on, and you should max out perception before you really invest in energy weapons anyways. Ignore this perk.
Level 12 Perks
Cannibal (4): there are lots of corpses, and so this is an easy way to get lots of health back. However, you shouldn’t really need to eat corpses as, in most cases, there is a bed around somewhere or you can just fast travel back to whichever home/apartment you own. Also don’t even think of taking this perk unless you’re going for the ‘evil’ side of things.
Fast Metabolism (3): it’s useful to get an extra boost out of stims, and you should consider taking this perk during your first play through if you find yourself running low on (or out of) stims. Otherwise, don’t bother. You’ll only need to rely on stims for major firefights and even then you should have more than enough to keep you drugged up.
Life Giver (2): extra HP are nice. But this amounts to a tiny bump in extra HP and isn’t really worth the investment.
Pyromaniac (7): using the flamer or skishkebab? Take this perk. Not using them? Ignore it.
Robotics Expert (8): this perk can actually be pretty useful if you have a good sneak ability. There are enough robots in the game to justify the damage bonus and enough times when taking out a mechanical angel of death makes sense. Still, if you find yourself blowing away most robots without trouble, or if your sneak is low, don’t take a second glance at this perk.
Silent Running (8): the skillpoint raise is a wash, but the ability to run while sneaking and not lower your sneak chances is pretty neat. If you plan on taking this, don’t level your sneak skill up higher than 80, as you’ll get a bobblehead and then this perk to bring it to 100.
Sniper (10): a significant increase in your chance to pull off headshots in VATS, regardless of what weapons you’re using. Get it.
Level 14 Perks
Adamantium Skeleton (3): if you’re often ending up with crippled limbs (generally from a mine/grenade) then this perk is worth it. Probably, though, it aint.
Chemist: (2): useful if you rely on chems. You shouldn’t have to though, and you should generally have enough in your inventory to simply shoot up again once they wear off, anyway.
Contract Killer (2): if you’re evil and could use some extra caps, take this perk. However, most enemies you fight will be evil, so you’ll really have to go out of your way to make use of this perk much (like depopulating Megaton or something).
Cyborg (8): actually a pretty good perk. You get a good bonus to several of your resists and an extra 10 point buff to your energy weapons skill.
Lawbringer (4): if you’re good and could use some extra caps, take this perk.
Light Step (2): you’re setting off traps? Really? Just use the save-load magic spell (or the load-save magic spell) and you should be fine. Take this if you can’t be bothered to pay much attention and prefer being able to just concentrate on run and gun combat.
Master Trader (1): a skill raising perk, and one which raises a skill that you probably shouldn’t really need in the first place. You should be able to find all the armor, weapons, ammo and chems that you could possibly ever use.
Level 16 Perks
Action Boy (10): use VATS? Take this perk.
Better Criticals (4): most enemies will be dead if you get a critical or two during a VATS chain, anyways. If not, then this perk might come in handy. But even then, you won’t be doing all that many criticals in the first place. The only (major!) exception to this is that you always manage a critical hit if you attack while successfully sneaking. So if you have lots of points in sneak and are fighting big bad monsters, invest in this.
Chem Resistant (4): take lots of chems and don’t want to be bothered with beating the addictions? Then this is worth it. Don’t bother with chems (as you probably shouldn’t?), don’t bother with this perk either.
Tag! (1): oooooh, a skill raising perk. Yay!
Level 18 Perks
Concentrated Fire (3): eh. Chances are, you’ll already be hitting in VATS often enough if you take the right perks. A slight increase in accuracy for low % hits probably isn’t worth it.
Computer Whiz (-10): yes, another negative 10. First of all, you can meta-game and simply save-load. Second of all, you can just abuse game mechanics, since every single computer terminal in the game allows you three free attempts, and then you can log off and back in to get another three free attempts. Ad infinitum.
Infiltrator (2): if you force a lot of locks, take this, I guess. Otherwise, just use save-load or be a bit careful in your lockpicking.
Paralyzing Palm (3): paralyzing enemies is good. Having to fight totally unarmed is bad. Unless you have your heart set on unarmed combat, fuck this perk.
Level 20 Perks
Explorer (10): this is an awesome perk, and if you want to fully explore the wasteland you really should consider picking it up. However, if combat is more important to you, don’t consider this perk for a second, because GRS is a hell of a lot better.
Grim Reaper’s Spirit (over 9000!): the single best perk in the game, it turns you into a one man meat packing factory. Target an enemy, spend all your AP’s to blow their head off, and immediately get all your AP’s back to do it again.
Ninja (9): went the unarmed/melee route? Take this perk.
Solar Powered. (2): this is a level 20 perk? On purpose? To begin with, the heal rate is simply too slow to really make use of. Stimpacks/food will often do just as good if not better, this doesn’t heal crippled limbs, doesn’t work inside buildings and takes up a highly valuable level 20 perk slot. Of which you get only 1.
I believe some guy named Chekhov works at that station. 
If it helps, Aghris, my feelings mirrored yours for the first few hours of my Fallout3 experience. Even without being my “kind of game,” I found it growing on me faster than the facial tumors on a Super Mutant.
I picked up the game a couple days ago and have finished it since then. I hadn’t followed it or read anything about it before I started, so the hype never affected me. I had no expectations. Anyway, I enjoyed the game quite a lot and only found a few quirks such as the already mentioned slow motion of VATS which gets tiring after a while. Another minor annoyance (believe it or not) was that the loading screen was too fast giving me no time to read the useful hints. It took me until well into the game to notice that you could use VATS to set up multiple actions to be performed in a sequence. I don’t understand the complaints about the graphics, as I found them to be fully adequate or even good. Maybe the console versions are terrible but the PC version is not? I played on “high” settings but not “ultra high”.
The big disappointment was the ending of the game, which really came too quickly and seemed to force your actions. Not to spoil for others though I’ll describe my complaints like this:
As mentioned, your big radiation resistant mutant Fawkes gives some weak reason for not taking on the easy task of typing in a 3 digit password because it is your own destiny or whatever (which kills you from radiation even though you have plenty of protection).
But that wasn’t all. I took the choice of injecting the FEV into the purifier, since I thought it was the good choice that would remove all nasty mutants from the world as well making the water safe to drink. As it turns out, it turns the world into a graveyard and you get scolded for it in the final cutscene. What the hell? I really felt cheated by this.
I’d like someone else who has finished the game to weigh in on my disappointment of the ending, since I must have had some big misunderstanding of the choice I made.
You’re bang on about Fawkes, as I brought up, although I can understand the FEV ending; everyone else had been living in the irradiated wasteland their entire lives, drinking irradiated water, etc. They’re bound to have at least minor mutations; I thought it was very interesting to see the whole of Rivet City drop dead after wandering around there for so long. In fairness, the president even tells you this will be the case, saying that the only survivors will be vault dwellers and the Enclave (the established Big Bad of the Fallout series (in past Fallout games it’s revealed they purposefully started the war and used vaults to experiment and whatnot) - it’s no surprise that obeying them leads to bad things). Although I can see your point, if it just killed super mutants and feral ghouls it’d be perfect.
At about the same point in the game, I’m with Aghris so far.
I don’t feel connected to the world or the people. It’s not engrossing, the storyline thus far isn’t particularly compelling, and the NPCs are wooden and boring. Character interaction is particularly disappointing-- everyone, including my character, is fugly as fucking sin, the facial movements are unconvincing, and the voice acting largely uninspired. Character creation was somewhat cute, but honestly, I’d like the option to just skip the bullshit and tweak it all through a damned character editor. The lockpicking game and the hacking game would be fine if they were optional, but they’re not, so it’s just fucking annoying. Combat is everything I hate about FPS, the only redeeming value being VATS, and it’s not as nifty as I was expecting. Honestly, if they’re going to make me play FPS, could they at least make it less clumsy? Or give me a fucking built-in option to, I don’t know, HIDE?
Maybe it’s because I just got done with Mass Effect, which blows this game to smithereens. Maybe it’s because I hated Oblivion, and this is basically Oblivion with less color, lamer enemies, and cooler weapons. Either way, at this point, I’m unimpressed.
I don’t really understand these complaints. I thought the characters were quite varied in looks and not worse than any other game I’ve seen (granted, I havn’t played many lately). I found the voice acting to be ok.
Character creation? I think the bullshit was quite minimal, and I think they let you tweak even more than necessary, by letting you change a large amount of facial measurements and the texturing of different parts, as well as choose from a long list of beards and hairstyles. Starting the game as a newborn cracked me up.
The lockpicking was fine in my opinion, quick and easy. The hacking was a bit silly, but there are not many ways to make it rather simple and still convincing. Being a computing science student probably spoiled it even more. Anyway, I never really found these annoying, and usually you could choose to skip them and handle the problem differently.
Eh… What was so clumsy about the FPS part? I think it was no worse than any other FPS, even though it comes from a RPG background. I think they implemented this just fine. Where is the clumsyness? It’s a standard FPS plus the added convenience of VATS, which I found clean and very functional, with the minor annoyance of the slow motion that does get old rather quickly. I don’t know what you were expecting from it. Finally, how could you possibly miss the hiding? It requires a press of a button and gives you critical bonuses if you succeed at attacking an opponent while undetected. There’s even a skill and perks related to it. I believe they even display hints about it during the loading sequence.
I thought it would only kill mutants and ghouls and such things. I must have missed some speech option where the president tells this. I thought all characters that were regular humans would survive, pretty much undoing the effects of the nuclear war. It’s a bit silly of the game to base the virus on any mutation as you explain, as mutations are a natural course of evolution and takes place all the time in the genetic code.
I suppose my problem also stems from the fact that I have not played Fallout 1 or 2, but I thought that wouldn’t be a prerequisite to understanding this game. Maybe I just wasn’t attentive enough since I didn’t get such an evil vibe from them. It was a bit confusing that the president told guards to let you see him, while Colonel Autumn gave the order to take you out which made me believe that the Colonel represented the evil part of the Enclave, and the president to be ok. Additionally, some good people even praised the enclave.