Pretty fun game. I’m maybe half way through the main story line, and find myself in no hurry to complete it. I have spent days now getting lost in the metro lines, random vaults, bunkers, museums, you name it. So much detail. VATS is just enough of a crutch to make it convenient when I’m not in a FPS mood. The companions didn’t work well enough to bother with IMO. At first, I paid the full price for Charon, only to have him bug out and disappear on me 15 min later. I reloaded for my money back. If I replay, it seems like Lockpick and Science are the must haves.
I have to say … the Tranquility St. scene will stay with me as one of the creepiest things I have experienced in a video game. The creepiest part to me…
I am playing as a goody-two-shoes perfect karma character. I had to start the Chinese Invasion get out of the nightmare. (Creepy enough on its own.) When I came to, I walked around to all the other chambers and sure enough, a roomful of corpses, as the simulator promised. And I did not lose karma for it! Dunno know if that was a bug or I missed it, but it seemed like it was a Neutral act to wipe them all out ‘virtually’. But making the kid cry in the scenario *did *lose me karma… (Nutpunching imaginary Chinese soldiers? Also Neutral :p)
I had a similar problem with the approach to Tranquility St, namely
Seeing as Dr. SomethingGerman wipes their memories frequently, I didn’t see anything especially wrong with leaving the residents alive in the simulator. Sure, being the Pint-Sized Slasher isn’t nice, but I felt that activating the failsafe and actually killing the residents was a lot less nice than leaving them in the simulator. They’ve been there 200 years and get their memories wiped each time they “virtually” die, and eventually someone’s going to come along and rescue them- it’s a bit hard to do if they’re all dead.
See, this is where I think the originals still trump Fallout 3. I think if Tranquility St. was in F1 or F2 it would have an option like this:
With a high enough Speech skill, you could convince Dr. Braun that his elaborate tortures were ultimately hollow and pointless. Here he was, once a great scientist, and now trapped in an imaginary world of his own design while the real world has begun to move on. With a high Science skill, you could hack the Chinese Invasion program so that it wouldn’t kill the residents, but instead shock them out of the illusion so that they could be revived in the real world.The original games had crazy options like that.
Got this for my PS3. Very fun game. This isn’t much of a spoiler, but DO NOT kill Moriarty. Even closing the door before killing him doesn’t keep the whole town from going crazy on your butt.
Speaking of Moriarty, has anyone had him disappear on them? I’ve done a bunch of side quests, and I’m almost level 9. For the main quest, all I’ve done is run Moriarty’s little collection call…but now that I’m back in town, he’s nowhere to be found. When I select his quest and go to my world map, there’s a dotted line that runs up north to the river, and back to Megaton, so I went up there expecting to find him (or his body), but there was nothing. Is this something I should worry about, or should I just head to the GNR building (which I know the general location of, but not how to get there)?
That’ll work. You need to use the Metro tunnels to get there; if the GNR icon is on your world map, try placing a marker on it (right click). I never tried that with a DC location but it might give you a path to follow.
Or you can skip GNR altogether by going to Rivet City and speaking with Dr. Li.
Thanks!
I’ve got another quest in the second place you mentioned (and it’s on my map), so I can maintain my role-playing facade and pretend I’m going there for that purpose. I don’t have GNR on my world map, I broke down and finally looked at a map on some fan site. I’ll probably try to get there via subway first, then proceed on if I can’t figure it out.
Also, a word to anyone just starting out: there’s a lot of good advice here (and elsewhere) on character builds, but you definitely don’t need to follow all of it – just pick and choose what suits you. For example, my character mainly uses melee weapons, has an INT of 5 and an AGI of 6 (started at 5, but went through some intensive training) which goes against a lot of advice. But I’ve been playing on the hardest difficulty, and still having a great time. I died a lot at first, until I got a better feel for what battles I could win, and which ones I had to flee (or withdraw to a better position). I use a lot of mines and grenades (and stimpacks) to try to even the odds. It’s not easy, but it’s a heck of a lot of fun.
There is another way to jump in at the Moriarty point, and still get the GNR stuff which is kind of fun i thought.
Hack his computer in the back room and read what it says, it’s alternate to listening to Moriarty. Gives a minor karma hit though, sinne it’s red… Going to Rivet city Cuts a good bit off unfortunately
Killing Moriarty is as already mentioned not a problem. If you could justify killing him, it’s not so hard to justify accessing his computer
I’m on my second play through now, playing evil instead of good. The first thing I did upon entering Megaton after leaving the vault was cracking the sheriffs head with the baseball bat and squishing all resistance with his chinese assault rifle. It was not so surprising that most people in the city turned to attack me, but it was quite surprising that after walking into the saloon and out again, people had calmed down and were friendly again after my initial killing spree.
[rhetorical]Why do so many gamers, whether video of pen-and-paper, equate evil with mass-murderer? Not that the games are nuanced enough to allow “evil” without being a mass-murderer, but the two do not necessarily have to go hand-in-hand.[/rhetorical]
Actually, mass murder should never work in any pencil and paper RPG. Mass murderers are typically hunted by the law.
Evil is not any eaiser to play than good, contrary to what many would say. Not if your Game Master has a clue. If anything, evil should be harder to pull off.
Mostly because computer games rarely have nuanced forms of doing evil. And let’s face it, most real evil is done “while good men sit back and do nothing,” and that’s not exactly cinematic.
It was not my intention to equate them, but to illustrate some bad game mechanics (the extreme forgiveness or forgetfulness of the citizens). That my player was evil was mostly unrelated extraneous information.
Ok, that was mostly in defense of my post. As for the rhetorical question… I don’t have a good answer close at hand. As you mentioned, the games themselves often force this connection. For example, the two main things causing Fallout 3 to judge you as evil are killing and stealing, so in this case they go mostly hand in hand. A notable exception in most games is killing and stealing from other “evil” characters.
I am tempted to say that you pretty much answered your own question, since murder is most commonly the main immoral act available in games. In real life as opposed to in games it is harder to label things as good or evil as there exists more variation and gray areas. Games tend to caricaturize good and evil a lot more in an absolute sense, and many other kinds of evil committed in real life aren’t exactly video game material.
BTW…in Fallout you can get evil karma without whacking anyone. There was one quest I recall where if you let some drug guy continue to do his own thing you basically get a notice that your karma has dropped. I don’t remember the details all that well, but I remember thinking ‘Damn…my karma dropped and I didn’t even kill anyone!’.
My character is basically neutral on karma…I generally play the middle ground between do-goody and evil-do-er types.
One of the reasons I found Vault 112 to be so interesting was just that. Aiding the good doctor in tormenting his vaultdwellers caused a loss in karma (and was incredibly amusing, to boot). Putting them all out of their misery after 200 years of psychological torment, did not. I would’ve liked to be able to somehow outgame the doctor and save the residents, but we’re not presented with that option. I can’t decide if it’s good that the writers won’t give us a happy ending to everything, or if that was just lazy. There were so many possibilities in there, but only two were explored, which left me a bit disappointed, even though that’s one of the coolest game levels I’ve been through in recent memory.
My money’s on lazy. There really, really needed to be a “You do know I’ve got a buddy with a crowbar and high explosives standing outside my pod, right? Now, how about you let me and Daddy out of here and in return we don’t crack your life-support system open, drag you out into the wastes, and feed you to the mirelurks?” dialogue option.
Were I in charge, there should have been tangible reason to enter the VR system, but there also should have been a way around it (fighting your way through the vault and disabling its generators, say).
I was really surprised that the only options available to you were “Kill the inhabitants” or “Torment them”. I figured that by activitating the failsafe I’d have the option to just “slip out” without killing anyone or doing Betty’s quests.
Morally I still think the best quest option is the one which involves doing Betty’s quests and ultimately leaving everyone alive in the simulation. Even if they are being tormented by Dr. Braun, as I said earlier someone will eventually be able to come along and be able to rescue the inhabitants even if you can’t.
I’m hoping the expansions fix some of this sort of thing…
I don’t have GNR on my world map, I broke down and finally looked at a map on some fan site. I’ll probably try to get there via subway first, then proceed on if I can’t figure it out.