The new one doesn’t come out until the fall, at best, so you have plenty of time to work through Fallout 3. If you like it enough to try some of the downloadable content, Broken Steel and Point Lookout were both great. The Pitt was ok, and I didn’t like Operation: Anchorage.
I don’t know if your definition of best means ‘most effective and practical’ or ‘HOLY SHIT! FIRE!’ but if it’s the second one then do this quest and then go get the MIRV. You are as likely to kill yourself with it as your enemies, and you’ll run it out of ammo quick, but when you see all those explosions going off at once it’s just… so… beautiful.
You’re right though, she will still give you the quest in Underworld. I didn’t think she did but I looked it up and she does. That is unless you tell her that you blew up Megaton. At that point she turns hostile and you have to kill her. Which isn’t a bad thing.
This is my first playthrough where I blew up Megaton so I wasn’t sure. Also my first playthrough using the mesmetron to catch slaves. That thing is fun. Some wacky things can happen when you hit someone with it. Including, rarely, the person your shooting’s head simply exploding for no good reason. Scanners style.
Aw, I like Moira. I like to think of her as a digital Sarah Palin that I can shoot in the face with a shotgun everytime I save and am about to log off.
Speaking of shooting people in the face, check out the quest “Gotta Shoot 'Em in the Head” on gamefaqs.com on how to get a sweet set of unique power armor. (You’ll learn how to wear the power armor about 1/2 way through the main quest - so make sure you hold off until then or after you blow up/disarm the nuke (which is when you get a house/apartment to live in) so you have someplace to store it.)
You get a house for blowing up Megaton so storing it isn’t an issue. It is a great quest though. You can do some fun manipulating of the people in the quest.
I definitely recommend Broken Steel, if only because Bethesda remembered that Fallout 3 is a sandbox game. It fixes the ending, and as far as I can tell it’s the only one that allows you to come and go as you please, instead of being stuck in some hellhole for the duration of the DLC.
The Pitt might have been good, but it wasn’t enjoyable. Halfway through I was finding it rather depressing, wishing I could return to the Capital Wasteland and never look back.
Mothership Zeta wasn’t very good.
I haven’t tried Point Lookout or Operation: Anchorage.
Yup, but getting from Underworld to Quest Location X and back is a pain in the ass. If you don’t use fast travel, that is. I think it’s kind of cheaty - it would be fine if random encounters were included in it, but as it stands it’s fast and safe, when the whole point of the Wasteland is to be frickin’ murderous.
I didn’t mind it much in Oblivion, when you could handwave that your character used the main roads and rode shotgun with a knight or something, but in FO3 ? Very jarring.
Plus, you miss out on junk collection for the Rock-It Speaking of which, there’s a mod out there that disables the vacuum cleaner sound it makes whenever you’ve got it out. If you intend to use it at all, and happen to not want a splitting migraine, I recommend it.
LOUNE, if you really want to blow through the game very quickly, then cheat. There are legion cheat codes for this game out there, and the list of codes themselves is very lengthy.
I played it straight the first time through, and then the second time I wanted to be an evil bastard, so I opted to cheat, gave myself alien weaponry, the best armor, a bazillion bottlecaps, pretty much infinite ammo and unlimited encumberance. That was a lot of fun for a quick few hours of mayhem.
But as others have said, the real beauty and fun in the game is actually poking around and discovering, which you have pretty much unlimited time to do within the game.
I’d have to agree with the others…don’t blow through it. It’s a game that really is meant to be played through slowly, so you can get the full effect. It’s a shame you have the 360 version, as I don’t think it’s as easy to mod…and some of the mods REALLY (IMHO) make the game a hell of a lot more enjoyable. I would recommend getting at least the Operation Anchorage DLC though, so you can play with the Chinese Stealth Suit and the Gauss Rifle. You’ll have to be careful with the latter since without mods you won’t be able to repair it, but it’s a fun weapon to play with. I’d also recommend the other DLCs as well, if you like the game…they also add a lot of cool content to the experience.
You can play through the main quest in a couple of hours if you really know what you are doing and know where to go, but you’ll miss a lot of the cooler (named) weapons and stuff. If you want to go that route there are plenty of FO3 walkthroughs on the internet, or you can do what I did, which is buy the Prima guide to the game…it will walk you through the main quest sequence and give you hints and such on what to say and do to get through.
BTW, Fallout Vegas isn’t going to use your character from FO3, it will be an entirely new game (of, according to what I’ve read, approximately the same amount of content as the non-DLC added version of FO3), so there is no real point to rush through FO3 IMHO…Vegas won’t be out for a bit, and it’s going to be using the same engine, so if you like FO3 then play through and you’ll probably like Vegas. If not then no point in getting the new one as it’s going to be more of the same.
Personally, I can’t wait for the new game. And, though I’ve finished FO3 and all of the DLC’s, I STILL enjoy firing it up and roaming the wasteland in search of little places and interesting things I still haven’t seen. I’ve managed to get to nearly every location on the map, but I still find stuff now and then that I haven’t seen…plus, of course, there are all those mods out there just waiting for me to try out…
Well, without the mods you’ll never be able to keep that really cool Gauss Rifle up to scratch, unfortunately. Nor will you get the really kicking vault of your own, with display mannequins for all your really cool armor sets and wall of weapons…
(If you have the DLC, definitely do Operation Anchorage as soon as you are high enough to make it to the Outcast outpost though…it’s worth it for the loot at the end IMHO. If you like stealth, that Chinese Stealth suit rocks, and of course there is that Gauss rifle…
ETA: And DON’T attempt Point Lookout until you are seriously bad ass enough to take on the mutant rednecks and horrible undead from hell. I found that out the hard way)
This is one game where I really do envy the PC gamers as so many of the mods sound so damn cool. My systems the better part of 5 years old though and it just can’t keep up with FO3 once I leave the vault. But the 360 version is better than nothing.
I have to second what others have been saying, take your time and smell the roses. This really is a game you can get lost in, it really does reward patience and exploration, there’s so much you’ll miss if you just rush through the main story. Once I had my character leveled up a little bit and well equipped I would take “breaks” in between story line quests and just go exploring. Pointing myself at the random arrows on the compass and just start walking.
Also, recommendations for the DLC since you have it all. (The GOTY edition includes all 5 packs.)
Operation Anchorage - Do this as soon as possible. It’s fairly straightforward compared to the rest of the game, but it doesn’t take to long to get through, a few hours at most. It’s a good challenge for a low level character, but you’ll get some weapons and armor way better than you’d otherwise have access to at the beginning and it can give you a good head start.
Point Lookout - Very Difficult. Wait till you’re around level 20 before tackling this. I did it post ending and I was around 24/25 with some of the best equipment in the game and it still kept me on my toes.
The Pitt - I don’t recall this being very difficult. You can probably do this whenever you want. It will take you out of the wasteland for the duration though, probably for a good 4 to 5 hours at least. Set aside a night or two for it. It does contain the best melee weapon in the game though so keep that in mind based on what kind of character you’re playing.
Broken Steel - Post game content. It rewrites the ending.
Mothership Zeta - Not too difficult. But I would highly recommend waiting till you finish everything else first, including the main quest. Tackle this just as you’re getting burnt out and are ready to put the game down for awhile. It’s meant as a sort of “coda” to Fallout 3 and everything else will seem anti-climactic afterward.
I’d do The Pitt just after Operation Anchorage as you get one of the coolest silenced weapons in the game to go along with your shinny new Chinese Stealth suit. It’s not very hard, as Jihi says, and you get a pretty decent melee weapon (which I sadly never use) and also a unique set of power armor for your collection (assuming you have a collection as I do).
Other than that, get the perk that shows all of the hot spots on the map…it gives you something to do once you’ve done the majority of the quests. If you’ve ever been to DC you’ll have fun finding all the real places that have been modeled in the game…it was one of the cooler aspects IMHO.
I used to live in Vegas as well, so it will be fun to see how the new one translates. Kind of bummed I won’t be able to use my character from the first game, but he’s so seriously over powered that it wouldn’t be fair anyway…
Yeah, Explorer is so damn much fun. It’s not the most useful perk at level 20, (I’d recommend Grim Reaper’s Sprint first), but definitely grab it at some point afterward. You’ll be surprised at how much you’ve missed.
In the original game if Dogmeat died he stayed dead.
Once you reach level 22 though there’s a perk you can get called Puppies!, it spawns a new dog at the Vault 101 entrance that you can go back and get. Your Dogmeat might not be dead though. He has a tendency to wander off frequently. Personally, I think his AI is a little wonky, as he’d just disappeared on me for extended periods. If you think he might be dead just quicktravel somewhere, if he’s still alive he’ll appear behind you.
Gameplay trivia - Dogmeat is immortal until you recruit him. If you accidentally shot him during a random encounter, (He normally appears in the junkyard near Megaton), he’ll still show up during a random raider encounter… I think, I’m not entirely sure on that.
If you recruited him and then shot him, then yeah, he’s dead. How did he die? Was he a member of your party already?
Naw…it’s no big deal. Once I got my house in Megaton I basically just told him to wait for me there. If you want to get a new dog you can expend a perk later on to get a Dogmeat puppy. I never bothered, but then I never really used the other NPC’s followers that much either.
I found him in Scrapyard. We found a couple of raiders the very next encounter. I took out one and Dogmeat wanted to get the other. Dogmeat lunged for the other Raider when I was in VATS and, well, he caught an autoshotty right across the spine.
Speaking of which, there’s a mod out there that disables the vacuum cleaner sound it makes whenever you’ve got it out. If you intend to use it at all, and happen to not want a splitting migraine, I recommend it.
Nor will you get the really kicking vault of your own, with display mannequins for all your really cool armor sets and wall of weapons…