The end, isn't in sight?

Sorry for the lack of posting there for awhile, it is Finals week and all! :) Gaming segment: 6 hours! Which means, yes, I have fulfilled my 20 hour duty for this project, but, did I finish the game? Not even close. Here is what did happen . . .

So after killing all of the super mutants in the hotel, I ran out of it and looked around at my surroundings. There was a super mutant on a skybridge next to me, the hospital to the left, and unknown area to the right. I decided to brave the hospital again, because I figured there would be a bunch of supplies in there!

When I went in, bam, right off the bat a centaur made his way for me. I took him out with my rifle and ventured around the corner. What I saw wasn't a pretty sight :( at least 6 or 7 super mutants. Deciding that I wasn't quite ready for that, I booked it back out of the hospital! I snuck under the skybridge so that the super mutant wouldn't see me, but turns out that when I walked past the building that was connected by the skybrige, another 4 or so of the mutants were waiting for me. I used a couple grenades and lured them out of their hiding spot and slowly but surely was able to defeat them.
I went down a little alleyway and ended up finding a new Metro station, and Vault Tec Headquarters.

Inside Vault Tec there were, of course, super mutants. I have honestly just come to expect them everywhere in this game haha. I took them down and looked around a little, and found a door that lead upstairs. Looking around upstairs, I ran into a new enemy, a Robobrain:

These things are more difficult than Protectron's, and emit this . .sound wave, or something, that damages you head pretty quickly :/. It hit me with one of those waves and my head was crippled. I luckily had a Stimpak on me so that I was able to cure my head. After firing rounds back and forth I won and kept pushing on. The building was mostly filled with Robobrains and Protectrons on the first two levels. Then . .I got to level three, where a turret took me by surprise. This was also the first time in the game that I had came across a turret. They are attached to the ceiling and have an unlimited amount of ammo. awesome. It weakened me a lot, so I had to turn back and fast travel to Tenpenny once outside.

After the usual curing process and buying of more ammo and Stimpaks, I set out again. I decided to make a quick little detour to Girdershade, the location on the map where the "crazy Nukacola Quantum lady" lives. I fast traveled to the power station that I thought was close to Girdershade and walked up there. Once I was there, I walked inside her place and she
gave me the "nukacola tour" (a very small tour of the inside of her house, not exactly fun). I told her to get a move on it. She ended up giving my 360 caps for 9 Quantums! I was pretty happy with myself. As long as I keep bringing her bottles, she will supply the caps. When I went to leave, I met Ronald Larsen, the towns only other inhabitant. He has (had) a fatty crush on Sierra (Nukacola lady) and would do (did) anything to please her. (funny thing is, he ended up dying soon after, but I will get into that in a minute). He offered me a deal; if i brought him the Nukacola Quantums that she wanted, so that he could give them to her, that he would pay me what she would pay me. When I had the option to respond, I had a new option pop up in the text box. Remember how I said that having the Black Widow perk lets you say interesting things to men? Yeah, so, when this came up, "Tell you what handsome, if you go and get those Quantums for me, I'll make it a threesome with you two." hahahaha!! Of course I said that. He pretty much was drooling like a dog and ran off to go get those Quantums. Now, I didn't really trust that he was going to be smart enough to actually survive the journey, so I followed him. We walked and walked and walked and fought a couple of Radscorpions along the way, and eventually made it to, where else, my favorite Nukalurk infested place: The Nukacola factory.

I bit the bullet and decided it was time to get those suckers once and for all. I turned back to see if he was going to follow, but nope, he just stayed at the entrance. Oh well. I went into the Storage and Mixing Vats again, to find to Lurks in sight. I went into the stairway to the offices and yikes! There was once coming down the stairs at me. After dying about 4 times, I finally set up two mines and gunned him down. I kept going a little and found another Lurk. I was pretty low on health, so I decided to turn back to go get some more Stimpaks. Funny thing about how the building is set up though, you can't go back the way you came in the Storage and Mixing Vats. I had to climb a staircase and drop down to get to the door to the offices, and the bottom area was blocked by debris :( I had no choice, Nukalurk was goin down!! I headed back up and loaded my missile launcher in my hands, this was no situation to take lightly. After I hit him square in the chest he only had small amount of damage surprisingly!! But I was able to finish him off. I finally was done with that floor! I kept going and fought a couple Protectrons, but they were amazingly easy after the Lurks. I was on the factory floor and found a computer that said activate shipping belt, or something like that, and 3 Quantums came out, awesome! With Quantums in pocket, I walked to the only door leading out in sight, and it had a lock pick skill of 100, which mine was 75 :( Frick. Luckily I found a very hard to see switch on the left side of the door that opened it, but If I hadn't of seen that, I would have been soooo frustrated. The doors opened, and low and behold, I was at the entrance again. Oops, Ronald is dead. My bad. Don't know how he died in the 30 minutes I was gone, but, yeah, he did. I looted his stuff, of course, and acquired a great gun! Called, the Kneecapper, it's a shotgun that does quite a bit of damage. With new possessions I left the factory finally feeling accomplished I made it all the way through. Although, by this point, I had used all my ammo and Stimpaks that I had originally bought so that I could back to Vault Tec and finish off those Turrets and Robots, so, back to home base it is!

With the reenergize finished, I fast traveled back to Vault Tec to finish them off! I climbed to floor three again and was able to defeat all turrets and robots. Anndd there really wasn't anything more to do. So that was kind of a waste of time. hmm.

I knew that the Metro outside would be valuable to explore, but, I wanted to see what was in that hospital! I walked on back to the hospital, faced my doubts, and walked inside. Guns ready in hand, I took a left down a hallway where I had previously taken a right. I checked all the rooms and boy was I right when It came to supplies! Stimpaks galore!! I ended up looting about 18 in all. Score. But those damn super mutants were still in there. I broke out my mini gun and went at them!!
That thing . .just does work! I was able to take down all 9 or 10 of them within oh, about a minute. Needless to say, I am feeling a bit more confident around them with that gun in hand :) I went upstairs in the hospital and found two more mutants which I took down, and didn't much more in the hospital on that level. I went back downstairs and found stairs that actually lead to a dry sewer? Interesting.

In the sewer, 4 mutants charged me but again, that mini gun makes them no problem whatsoever! I leveled up during this sequence :) Level 8, and the Strong Back perk to follow! I can now carry 50 more pounds. Man, does that help!! I cannot tell you how many times I have had to decide what is really important to me because I was at my weight level and had to drop something. This is going to help immensely. Found some ammo down there, and a door that lead to the metro tunnel. In the metro tunnel, super mutants and a Merc. With all defeated, I do have to say that I am starting to get good at this whole, staying alive thing, for longer. hah :) I came out at Dupoint Station! Raiders galore out there!! :( Seriously though, about 10 of them rushed me. See, mutants are that bad because they are pretty dim witted and even though they are large, they are slow and not the best at aiming (typically). You do get the occasional mutant with a mini gun or missile, and THAT is a pain to deal with. Lots of hiding, attacking, and hiding again. Anyways. The raiders though . .they are typically smarter than mutants, and actually know when and where to shoot. I died a couple of times and then decided the right course of action here is to grenade them first, then attack in the open. That strategy works just fine! It still gets me that they always get down to very low health and then say they don't want to die and run away. Yeah, still going to get you. Not going to let you go. mmhm!

Once they were all gone, I fast traveled to Tenpenny because I actually used pretty much all the Stimpaks I had :( Bummer. I refreshed and took a break from the downtown scene for a minute. I had actually heard from a buddy of mine that has played the game that there is this one Vault that is haunted . .and very much wanted to check that out! I fact traveled to Vault 101 and walked NW from there to eventually end up at Vault 106. Now, don't get me wrong, I LOVE creepy games. Silent Hill? So much fun. But this Vault, wow, freaky. From the minute I hit the "open vault" lever, the noise from the door opening for probably the first time in a long time, was terrifying. I walked inside and the state of the place was in disarray. Barrels everywhere, and various items strewn around the ground. I walked down some stairs and what?

All of the sudden my vision goes purple and I see someone in a white lab coat walking into a room. I go down the hallway towards the room and my vision is back to normal and when I do get to the room, the person is gone. I go outside the room and woah!! a "insane vault dweller" is coming at me in a vault 106 jumpsuit and a knife. I take him out and wonder, what that hell is going on down here? Curious, I jumped on the Fallout Wiki page I mentioned, and looked up Vault 106. The lowdown is that, all of the vault dwellers went insane because this vault was always part of an experiment to see what would happen if the vault was pumped with hallucinogenic gas. Ohhhh that makes so much more sense! But makes for some damn crazy people. With knifes. And swords. Yikes. I kept going down and down finding more insane people along the way, and some purple visions as well. One of those purple visions I hit VATS on the man before me, and ..it's my dad?! It can't be, can it? I never caught up to him . .so I am assuming he isn't real. When I did get to what seemed the bottom of the Vault, another "trip" happened and this time . .it's Butch coming at me with a knife! Remember him? The bully I took out in the Vault? Yeah . .looks like he is back, and wanting revenge :( When this "vision" came at me, it actually hurt my HP. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?!? I knew it was time to get out of there when my hallucinations are actually, physically hurting me. I ran out of there as fast as I could and boy did it feel good to make it out of that creepy place. Can't say I will be going back there anytime soon.

I fast traveled to Dupoint Station, where I had previously defeated those raiders, and walked across a bridge of sorts and found another Metro! I went inside and came across some Ghouls, no biggie there! Although, there were a lot of them. So that was a little difficult. Reguardless, I made it to a new Metro station, and Pennsylvania Avenue :) Getting closer to where I want to be, I just know it! I leveled up again, a new record to level up twice in one gaming segment, and picked the Large Guns perk, where all my rifles and shotguns do more damage. Im so loving that perk, since those happen to be my favorite guns, anyways! With the addition of the Level 9 perk, I called it a day in the world of Fallout.

Overall stats after 20 hours of Gameplay:
7 Quests completed
Roughly- 25 Times killed
75 People Killed
291 Creatures killed
Locks picked: 24
Computers Hacked: 3
Stimpaks taken: 110
Times addicted: 3
Status: Very Evil- Urban Invader (Lvl 9)

Feelings on Fallout 3, gameplay, aesthetics, etc.:

This game, in one word, is . .incredible. One of the best I have ever played, honestly. Besides the random glitches, it has worked like a charm. It draws you in . .makes you want to play more and more. The overall time and thought put into every aspect of the game, locations, characters, plot line, was just so thorough!

Playing the bad character was challenging, but very engaging. I found myself not caring, as much, about stealing and little things like that. When It came to killing a good character, though, I felt more apprehensive, as this wouldn't sit well with me in real life. The freedom to whatever you  like, when you want, is so addicting though. being able to live vicariously through this game, doing things you normally wouldn't do, is part of the rush though, right? That is what I think draws me into games that are so maybe dark and centered around killing enemies. Lets face it . .that is probably what draws a lot of other gamers in as well. Who actually wants to play a game about happy, everyday life things, where is the thrill in it . .the rush? It's simply not there.

Sometime I noticed when playing this game is something I kind of already knew in real life, but is even more so reenforced though this game; is the fact I have to be thorough. I know I can be slightly ADD/OCD in real life, but in a game where you yes, have a storyline, but no, don't have to follow it all of the time, there are many opportunities to start other side missions. When I enter a building, I have to explore every inch of it and know what is behind every door, it is just in my nature. If I don't, I won't feel satisfied. I also noticed that even though I would do or say the bad thing, that it never felt satisfying. Maybe at the time it was easier to be rude and callous, but in the long run it would have made me more comfortable to be the nice guy.

So no, I didn't finish the game. I have barely scratched the surface as I see it. I plan to finish it out, finding every section on the map and location to be discovered :) Let me just say, while being evil wasn't my first intention, I would do that route again. Just to get some perspective as to what is on the "other side of the spectrum" than what path I usually pick as a video game character. If you have the time, I would pick up a copy of Fallout 3 and see what I am talking about for yourself! Or if you have it, and have only been a good guy, walk on the dark side for a little! You may come to like it  . .:) haha.

With all that is said and done, I hope you all enjoyed my account of Fallout 3- now get out there and game!

-Kels

Lets go downtown!

Basically I always start out at Tenpenny tower, if I am ever anywhere else and need aid- I always resort back to the tower. So I headed out from the tower and made my way to the west, as Rivet city is in the far right corner of the map.Of course! They never make it easy to get there :)

Speaking of the map, it is SO LARGE! Each cell, what they call a square portion of the map, takes a relatively long time to get across. Not to mention certain enemys only spawn when you walk past their section in the cell, so you have to watch out for that as well. Could explain why on the way to Rivet City I ran into a random Protectron in the middle of no where? The majority of the map is capital wasteland, but there is a good portion that is what is supposed to be downtown DC (the lighter portion in the bottom right corner). The metro system downtown is supposed to be representative of what the subways actually look like in real life. I thought that was pretty cool.interesting! I have only explored . .maybe 1/3 of the map and have been playing for 15 hours . .it's that immense. :)

So before I could get to Rivet City just yet, I found the Nuka Cola plant. I just had to check it out! When I went inside it looked like pretty much every other building in the wasteland; dilapidated. I looked around the front part for a little before I heard an approaching robot. I hid and waited for it to show up in the room and it turned out to be a protectron. After killing it, I made my way towards the factory floor, running into a whole bunch more protectrons along the way. And a few Nuka Cola Quantums! Worth lots of money :) Before long I had made it to a stairwell going down and witnessed a protectron being killed by . .something around the corner? I waited in the doorway for whatever it was to come around the corner. Ahhh crap!! It's a . .Nukalurk?

These glowing, Nuka Cola infected, mutated turtle things, are not to be reckoned with- I quickly found out. :( He charged me and luckily I had a little height on him so I was able to defeat him. But, they are ridiculously challenging because the only vulnerable place that you can hit is their face. Annnnd they only show their face when they are charging you :/. The rest of them is alll shell!

So I made my way past this guy and found two more!! They all but killed me, I would have to run to the water fountain at the front  of the plant to drink some rad infected water for HP after every Nukalurk I would come across. After 3 dead, I came across a computer that needed hacking! I gained 20 XP from the hack. There was some ammo and guns nearby that I was able to take. With the new inventory, I found more stairs that descended into the storage and mixing vats, and into . .some sort of neon blue water? I assumed some sort of Quantum ingredient that leaked into the water. No doubt that it was just full of radiation, too! Yeah, it was. When I got to the bottom of the stairs and turned the corner, Nukalurks everywhere! I was able to lure a couple of them back upstairs to non-infected rad water, and promptly put down a nice little bottle-cap mine to blast them up a little. That did the trick! It took the majority of their HP and I finished them off quickly. I went back downstairs and proceeded to the offices of the building. But, I was severely low on health and stimpaks, so I had to retreat after dying a couple of times, back to the tower.

After some good ol' fashion R and R, I was ready to head out again! I remembered that I hadn't actually gone back to Megaton after I blew it up . .and wanted to go check it out.
I fast traveled to Megaton and wasn't too surprised to see that if you got too close, some heavy radiation was coming your way! I wandered around a little and ended up finding this amazing hidden loot stash! It was in a hollowed out rock, and I found lots of ammo, and a Sniper gun. WOW! That gun is amazing. It worked like a charm! Until it broke :( Now, I am dying to get it fixed. Even though I am sure it will cost a pretty penny to do so. So worth it.

I made my way south once again, trying to finally get to Rivet City! As I ran into some Visious dogs and mole rats, I leveled up to 7! I picked the Black Widow perk- where you get 10% extra damage to male opponents, and you also get "special dialogue" for male characters. Hmmm I'm not sure what that will mean. haha :) I was going along on my way when I saw a super mutant off in the distance, and I was about to pull out my gun when I saw that he was green on the little counter at the bottom that is usually red for enemies. A good super mutant?! What?! I had to see for myself. I went up to him and asked "why the hell is he not a freak?" (or something along  those lines). He responded that he was different from his brothers, and that he tried to teach them to stop fighting and killing, but that they would't listen. Even though I was rather rude when I was talking to him, I could't help but feel compassion for him, a super mutant that was actually able to reckon and reason. When we ended talking he said, "I enjoyed meeting you." I didn't kill him. I couldn't. I didn't really have a reason to. Even though, yes, by technical terms I have "very evil" karma and a "pirate of the wastelands" title ranking, it doesn't have to mean that I kill every single good being that I come across. Evil people can spare people every so often, right?

He walked off and I continued on, finding the Fairfax Ruins along the way. They happen to be infested with Raiders, so after killing a couple of them I grew tired and kept moving. I had better things to do! Walking along I realized that my tactic to get to Rivet City may not actually be the way to get there . I planned to cross the river to the carrier, but there is proooobably a more effective way to do this from north downtown. So with that idea in mind, I teleported to GNR in hopes to explore around it and scope out my traversing options. I did indeed find a new metro tunnel, Fargut Metro, and went inside. Inside I wasn't able to actually go through the tunnel, but I explored the offices and found a handy weapons closet, and lots of feral ghouls! You have to open a gate to get to the ghouls, so after I lock picked it, I shot at the first ghoul and was suprized when BAM! They all caught on fire because apparently there was a gas leak that roasted them all. Hey, that works for me! I kept going and unlocked more door which actually did lead to a metro tunnel.

I was in the metro tunnel below Chevy Chase, which is where I surfaced. I looked a little around that metro entrance and found another metro entrance, Metro Junction. Sounded promising! I explored the various tunnels and found Dupont Circle Metro, and two entrances to Vernon Square. Once outside there just seemed to me super mutants everywhere! Yuck. I snuck around them and went into Our Lady of Hope Hospital. There were a bunch of mutants in there, too. So back out I went! I walked around the corner and found the Statesman Hotel (pic to the right). A bunch of mutants in there, of course. What do they do, breed all of the time? I decided to "woman up" and just take them down. After some "Jet" and stimpaks I was able to take all 5 of them down. Searched around the hotel and found aid, ammo and some Jet! Overall good Haul :) I decided from there to call it a day!

Overall Stats (always means up to this point in the game (except for my deaths))
2.5 Hours played
Killed 10 times

43 People killed
188 Creatures killed
(random) 14 locks picked

Thoughts so far:
The thing that stuck out to me in this game play was that even after killing anything and everything in my way, is Uncle Leo, the nice super mutant, got to me. I couldn't kill him! my overarching question would be, is it possible to be purely evil and not feel anything? Did the worst, evilest rulers in history, Hitler, Stalin for example- feel no compassion at all? Could they, did they, simply turn their emotions off? Did it not bother Hitler that he was the single cause of so many innocent deaths? The mental level of someone that doesn't feel pain and guilt . .is incomprehensible to me. I would never be able to not care, become so jaded. If the case was that it honestly, truly, didn't bother me . .I would think I would have something wrong mentally. Because to not care in my current healthy, mental state, would be in-human.

Mole Rats, Ghouls, and Centaurs . .oh my?

Gaming segment: 4.5 hours!

Part of the quest concerning the fire ants was to find a boy named Bryan Wilks. I decided that when I traveled back out the Metro tunnel that i would fast travel once outside to Tenpenny before finding him, so that I could sleep off some of my HP (Health) damage, and so that I could make is daylight outside. The fact that time is always moving on and that there actually is night and day in the game is really impressing to me! I do prefer playing in the daylight, though, because it is physically easier to see the detail in the game screen (as well as lurking enemies ready to pounce!) I haven't actually made any observation that certain enemies only come out during day or night, but, I wouldn't put it past Bethesda!

Side track for a minute!
Talking a little about the detail of the game is actually something I haven't done yet! Just to throw a couple things in here to show Bethesda's attention to detail: when creating the idea of a "retro-post apocalypso world" they included cars according to the 50's era, advertisements, music selection including The Inkspots, Billy Holiday, Bob Crosby etc. (mostly all real artists from the 50's era), and era clothes.

Check out some songs from the game! Ridiculously catchy I find:
"Way back Home"

 "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire"

When it comes to actual items, creatures, people, and places in the game, all are pretty vivid images- that for people and creatures especially- include accurate facial expressions according to what it happening.

I have been doing some in depth researching about Fallout and where it's origins came from, and stumbled upon this amazing site:      

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Portal:Fallout_3

Basically a Wiki page centered all around Fallout! Anything and everything you want to know about any Fallout game, the original, Fallout 2, Fallout 3, or Fallout: New Vegas, is on this site. It has info on characters, creatures, factions, locations, DLC (downloadable content), items, quests and more. I have only looked into what I have seen thus far in the game, not wanting to gain foreknowledge of what is to come- but to just better understand what I have already been dealing with :) But what I have already looked into- has blown my mind! For instance, check out the factions and the Brotherhood of Steel for example. There is just so much depth and thought put into the history and storyline. Honestly, it makes any FO plot line sound like a real event in history. The fact that really amazes me is how well the storyline between the first 3 Fallout's have been. Even though the first two were made by Interplay, since Interplay started the development on FO3 and it was later acquired by Bethesda, Bethesda (while putting their own creative juice on it) did well in keeping some ties to the two previous games.

The first two Fallout's were actually PC games made by Interplay in 1997 and 1998. (Picture to the right shows a screen shot via the first one, I believe) Both games received high praise and reviews, with some countries however needing to either alter quests and/or "substance" names due to being deemed too violent or "scenes too similar to real drug use." Yikes! Two places in particular that I know for sure had different versions that the US one, were Australia and Japan. Japan's version was altered to exclude a nuclear bomb quest (in Fallout 3 specially (not sure about Fallout or Fallout 2)), and Australia's version was altered to exclude scenes depicting similar drug use methods and to exclude any killing of children. As far as I know, the US versions are "how the company  (either Interplay or Bethesda) originally intended the game to be played." In other words, not altered. Not sure what that says about our culture, that we maybe tolerate violence more than other countries? Or maybe we are just better at differentiating "augmented realities" from reality? In any case, I won't know the full extent of how "violent" either of the first two games, until I get the chance to play them!

Anywho, side tangent done, and back to the game :)

When I arrived at the tower, I made notice to write down a conversation with one of the tower residents. She said that "she doesn't have time to be worried about the ghouls (that I already killed) because she has higher priorities. Such as dying her hair." Wowwwwww vain! The people that live here are just so ridiculously walking around with a stick up their ass. Not one person that I have talked to has actually treated me like an equal, but rather they all look down at me from their pedestal. I went up to my room and sleep for a long, long time! Fully recharged, I decided to ditch the plan to find Bryan Wilks, and decided to wander around for a little by the tower. I made by way tot he southwest corner of the map just to see what it would say when the map "ended" (game edge). Simple enough, it said "you cannot proceed this way." Turned my direction to the Southeast and killed a protection robot that randomly spawned when I came close.

 The best way to get these guys, is to first wound the legs (for some reason it damages their HP considerably) and then take them out via laser pistol or laser rifle. After defeating him, I found a diner, VAPL-66 power station, and a radscorpion! Yeah, that one actually killed me . .oops! Retreated back to the tower after I respawned, fixed my HP, and then went out wandering again. Stuck a little closer to home this time and checked out the local RobCo building close to Tenpenny tower. The building was impressive! All the floors were virtually empty of enemies, besides the occasional Mole Rat and RadRoach. But it was pretty interesting to navigate, because it resembled a large maze! Once I got the hang of where I was going, It was an amazing resource of food, ammo, and random items that could be used for weapon making. (Since I don't have any schematics for making weapons yet, I wasn't able to make any). With that, I headed out into the Wasteland again.

I Fast traveled to Grayditch, and instead of going towards the Metro, I decided to try crossing the river. Once I stepped in, heavy radiation central! luckily I had on my lab coat that the Ant scientist gave me that was somewhat more radiation resistant than not wearing the coat. Once I crossed the river, some raiders sought me out and since it was a melee attack towards me, I may have died. Oops! Next time I regenerated next to the river, I was ready for the raiders and came up from behind to take them out. Once they were down for the count, I realized that I was close to GNR- my original task to find my dad. With that info in mind I proceeded in the direction necessary. It lead me to a scene where a robot and mercenary were taking down a super mutant. This is the first point in the game where I have seen a mercenary, and they aren't exactly easy to be reckoned with. I made my way onto an overpass where I was able to proceed to the edge and use VATS.

I am not sure if I already covered what VATS is- but for a refresher (or the first time knowing), it is a precision mode where you are able depending on your AP available, target certain parts of the body to shoot. If you have a full bar of AP you can usually get 3 or so hits (depending on the gun) before you have to let AP recharge. You can see your percentage of how likely you are able to hit the area you are going for, and obviously that number would improve with closeness, and decrease with distance. Certain areas have different perks; such as head shots and super mutants (usually severely crippling) Antenna for fire ants (causing them to frenzy and attack anything nearby even other ants) or maybe a robot's leg (hurting their mobility). When you decide on what part to hit, you press the trigger button to line up the shots, and then exit VATS with the X button. When VATS is exited, a slow-mo scene with you shooting the enemy plays, and sometimes, shows them receiving a very gore filled, exuberant death. Mostly the head comes clean off with a good VATS shot to the head. Anyways . .

I used VATS when up close, and then backed up to let my AP recover. Certain "enhancers" (video game drugs) such as Jet or UltraJet, improves your AP recovery time considerably up to a span around 5 minutes or so. After the robot and Merc were dead, I hopped on down and scavenged myself some power armor! Although, I don't have the training to use it yet :/. For later then. I was about to leave when a particularly nasty couple of super mutants came out from their fort and found me. A couple sawed off shotgun VATS to the head took the first one down. The second one, however, needed a little more persuasion. It was a super mutant brute. And he had a missile launcher. Successfully avoiding his missile, I was able to hide and retaliate against him until I won and took his missile launcher to fix my own :) Awesome! 

I left the fort and went around the block as that was the only way to proceed. When I came around the corner I ran into only what I can call a super mutant's pet.

Yeah, that's a Centaur. Straight out of Silent Hill, right? Part of the FEV (Forced Evolutionary Virus) experiment that involved messing with people and creatures alike to see what they could handle in wasteland circumstances. It was somewhat difficult to kill, but definitely do-able. I also came across two hostages: one dead and one alive. The prompt on the trapped hostage said that if I released him I would receive some caps, and if I didn't- that the mutants would most likely killed them. Being the type of person I am (in the game) I left him to his fate. Out of sight, out of mind. With the killing of the Centaur, also came the advancement to level 6! I chose the perk of toughness- which made me a little more invincible to defeat when it comes to damage inflicted and radiation. 

Made it to Friendship Metro Station, where I was met with some raiders. I still find it funny that after they engage combat and I have severely weakened their HP to almost death- that they run away and say "I'm outta here! I don't want to die!" Haha, you started it! Really? I am still going to get you. Sorry. 

Shortly after, a cutscene played where the Brotherhood of Steel swept in and saved me from 3 or so super mutants. I asked them why they did that and they said that that was their job. They were headed back to the GNR building and could show me the way. I chose to follow them and watch as they took down more mutants along the way. We finally made it to the GNR square and thought it was over, when all of the sudden a super mutant behemoth charged his way in!

 Being at least 35 feet tall he was no walk in the park. I was prompted to grab a "fat man" bomb (coincidentally the same bomb that had to have it named changed in the Japanese version) from a dead Brotherhood member and aim it right at the beast. After some heavy hitting from everyone involved, he went down. And what loot he had! Large amount of ammo and weapons. I was finally able to enter and see Three Dog- the infamous GNR host. I would recognize that voice anywhere! Funny thing about GNR, whenever I do something particularly bad, they always mention it on air ..and it makes me feel pretty damn evil. That is for sure. After talking to him though, he reported to me that my dad has made his way down to Rivet City, a large run-aground aircraft carrier that is on the southeast part of the map. With that, I left the building and saved my game. 

Overall Stats: 

38 kills

163 Creature kills

Died 7 times

Overall thoughts thus far:

This game is ridiculously intriguing. I am seeing new things and wanting to play more all of the time. The lure of the dark side may be compelling? While I don't know if that is true, I will be able to fully comprehend everything when I add one last post after my gaming segment is done- where I plan to reveal all thoughts about my gaming experience. 

See you next time, in the capital wasteland 

-Kels

Picking up where I left off . .

So- I basically just  had a crazy gaming period where I gamed for 6 hours straight! I am beginning to find this game addicting . .and always want to know what is right around the corner .. :)

First thing I did, after having gotten all the bottle caps from the woman, was I headed back to megaton. Soon as I walked in to Moriarty's saloon, I met a certain Mr. Burkes. He made me a proposal . .if I was to detonate the nuclear bomb that sat at the bottom of Megaton, that I would receive a hefty reward. Being evil and all, I decided I just had to do it! He said to meet him at Tenpenny tower. With that I wandered over to Moriarty and received information that my dad was somewhere over at GNR (Galaxy News Radio) for the fee of 100 caps. After leaving the saloon I made my way to the bomb, and tried to set it off, but realized I was not at a high enough level in explosives :( I changed objectives from the bomb to finding my dad for the moment, and used whatever bottle caps I had left  to buy some Stimpaks (overall health boost) and Radaway (radiation eliminator).

Moriarty said to go to the big city and to Galaxy News to find dad, so thats where I headed! After wandering through the wasteland for a bit, I came up to the city of Grayditch and realized they had giant ass fire ants everywhere! Not necessarily fun :/  I found for the ants that a good technique was to first throw a grenade at them, then hit them with a long range gun, and keep backing up as they come at you. If you don't- hello barbicued Kelsey! With some time, rifles, and keeping my distance, I was able to work through them to an entrance to the Metro system. I saved often, as they were a pain and died at least 5 times within 5 minutes when I tried defeating the first ant i saw.


In the Metro- a little box popped up and told me that I had gained the ability to fast travel! So anytime I look at my map- that I am able to click on a location I had already been at and "teleport" there. The only exception, of course, is Metro tunnels. For some weird reason, you can't teleport in or out of them. Reallllly big pain in the ass! As you have to hike in or out of them to teleport for aid (ammo, health). gained the ability to fast travel. Anyways, in the Metro there weren't too many different ways you could go, but there were fire ants everywhere :( After using the aforementioned technique, I made it through them and to Falls Church Metro! (which is actually a station, not tunnel, so teleportable). Soon as i stepped outside I was met with this beauty:

Efffffff, I hate Super Mutants! Really radiated ghoulish creatures with shotguns, awesome. So I picked up some ammo I found and hid behind some poles till I knew how many I was up against, turned out to be 4 of them! Way to many for my lack of dealing with them at this point. I killed 2 out of dumb luck shooting, no technique involved, and the other two killed me more times than I could count! Somewhere between 7 and 8 times. I knew I was out-ammoed, so I made a break for the Metro tunnel door where I knew I could backtrack and fast travel from Grayditch to Megaton for supplies. I should mention, too, that once you kill an enemy- I am 99% sure that they don't regenerate!! Other enemys might travel into the area where you killed the initial one, but, the initial ones don't regenerate! So nice :)

After replenishing health and ammo, I headed back to take the Super Mutants down! But low and behold, when I got there, they were all dead! In the immediate vicinity, that is. I looked around and found a couple dead Brotherhood of Steal members and then it made sense. When listening to GNR I had heard the the Brotherhood members were dedicated to taking down the Super Mutants around the city. For these guys, it didn't end well though :/. I was able to take their armor though, but not able to use it! Because it requires training . .and I am not exactly where and when I could be trained how to use it? hmm.

I continued on for a little bit to find more Super Mutants. The best strategy I could find was to get some height on them, on top of a building worked for me, and then to snipe them from afar, right to the head. Head shots are the only thing that works because they have armor everywhere else! I ended up killing 5 of them with little health damage to me, before I ran out of ammo and needed to retreat to Megaton one again. I then leveled up soon after killing the fourth Super Mutant, to level four, and with it came the skill points I needed to become a level 25 explosives! I also picked the Scoundrel trait- where every time I level up I get some extra points towards speech so that I can schmooze people better ;)

Fast traveled to Megaton and made my way down to the bomb! I clicked to activate it and it said it is all ready to be detonated from a safe distance. I knew then that I would have to make my way over to Tenpenny Towers, and so I did. On the way I didn't run in to many enemies except for a Yao Gui! Giant radiated bears that can do some serious damage. He ended up killing me actually. And the next time I ventured over that direction, I made sure to alter my path just a little so that I didn't have to run into him again! Walking up to Tenpenny tower was like seeing a skyscraper not in the middle of a city. Easily the tallest building around for miles. (Not to mention when I actually got there that the inside (pic to the upper-right) was jaw dropping stunning for being in a nuclear wasteland) When I was next to the gate, I man asked me for water, and I told him "to find your own damn water." This really stuck out to me, I felt extreme guilt being rude to someone so helpless :( I left him and walked up to the gate to see a terrible looking creature trying to get into the tower. The creature, which turned out to be a Ghoul, was trying to neonate entrance but the security guard just would't have it. The creature, Roy Phillips, left in a huff and I walked up to the gate and told them I was here to see Mr. Burkes. They let me right in!

I asked the security guard what all the problems were with the Ghouls and he said that they are trying to get in but it just isn't the right place for them and they they shouldn't even exist (in so many words). I told him that I would take care of their little Ghoul problem in exchange for some bottle caps. He heartily agreed. I made my way inside and up to the penthouse level where Mr. Burkes, Mr. Tenpenny, and a detonator was waiting for me. With little to no hesitation I blew up Megaton and watched as the giant mushroom cloud lit up the sky. Both of the men were so impressed with my work that they offered me my own penthouse suite! I couldn't possibly turn that down, so I went and checked out my new digs. It came complete with a balcony that offered amazing views of the wasteland, bed, storage and my own personal flying robot that gave me water, or a joke, or just help in general. After sleeping for 12 hours, my health was refreshed and I was really to take on some Ghouls.

I should really explain what Ghouls are before going any farther. There is the friendly, just highly radiated Ghoul that can still talk and act like a normal human, but has the chance that they might transform into a feral Ghoul at some point? Example of a Ghoul:

Feral Ghouls are straight up brainless, zombie like creatures. Feral Ghoul:

And let me just say, those F***er's are fast!!! Luckily they are always unarmed though, so relatively easy to kill. I made my way into the Warrington Metro Tunnels where they hang out, as well as Roy Phillips. Eventually I made it up to Roy and offed him and the other Ghouls along the way. Feel kinda bad for killing him as I know that he would never have had to harm me :/. After finishing my quest I went back to the security guard at the tower and he paid me 500 caps for my work. Starting to feel a little rich and greedy! But hey, at least I will fit in at the tower, where everyone is a bit rich, snobby and greedy. With all tasks finished concerning Megaton and the tower, I resumed my task to find my dad!

I fast traveled to Grayditch and went back into the tunnel. However before leaving the tunnel to go to Super Mutant land, I found there was another part of the tunnel I hadn't explored. I then was shocked to meet a scientist who said that he was the one at fault for creating fire ants. He had done an injection that went wrong, and thus they mutated into ants that shoot fire. He asked for my help to kill the Queen's 5 nest guards so that he could get in to his equipment in the nest to make sure that the next generation of ants would be less flame-y. I only agreed to help because he offered a special mutagen for me if I helped him out. And being the greedy person that I am, I jumped on that offer! Making my way towards the Queen and killing the guards was pretty hard! I died 3 or so times, but finally had all the guards finished. After reporting back to the scientist, he injected my with Ant Might. Which allowed me to carry more weight and also be affected by the any fire 25% less than I normally would be! Pretty sweet deal i'd say. With 6 hours under my belt, I decided to call it quits for now!

Overall Stats:
Still 21 kills (haven't killed any humans for awhile)
72 Creature Kills (Super Mutants, Fire ants, Feral Ghouls)
I died at least 13 times

How I feel:
Somewhat empowered! Not in the, i am going to turn evil bit, but, It sure is nice to be able to take what you want, whenever you want it! On the flip side however, when I do have to kill innocent people It does bother me . .They didn't deserve that. Saying the mean thing in conversations is hard sometimes too, as that is just not what I would ever say to someone! (at least not to their face). Being evil is hard work! That is for sure.

Starting Out

Welcome to Vault 101! Where you are safely shielded from all the nuclear wasteland that is the "real world" above you, and above ground. Right off the bat you choose whether you want to be a girl or a boy, then your name, race, face, hair style and color. I stuck with what I actually look like, I mean- just because I am going to play like I normally wouldn't, doesn't mean that I have to look any different than I do in real life, right? In fact I think it hits harder to home for me because I will be able to actually see a character that looks like me do all these bad things, bringing forth true emotion.

After the "birth" scene, it's now one year later and you learn how to walk and talk. Cutscene- nine years later, and it's your birthday. Everybody came out for your birthday, old . . young . . and your dad. The most important gift is the presentation of pip boy 3000 from the vault overseer. 
 The pip boy is crucial to gameplay as it is what you access for weapons, attire, aid, maps, etc. Due to choosing the rude and mean route throughout the game, when I had the option to talk to my fellow party-mates- I was a flat out ass to them. Please excuse the language, but there really isn't any other way to put it! Every option to pick the straight up meanest thing I could say, I picked. While it was somewhat funny, I am not sure how I actually felt about treating all the characters that way :/

Six years later, it was time to take the GOAT exam. So naturally when the prompt came, I told the teacher that I thought "the test is bullshit"- and I made him to do it for me. After the test I didn't have to take, I was prompted with a skills select screen, I choose: lock pick, repair and sneak. All those skills would start out a little higher than the other 15 or so choices.

Three years later, turns out my dad up and left the joint without me! After being violently woken up, I decide to follow him outside the vault and into "the capital wasteland." On the way I had to kill some Vault Security agents and some 'rad-roaches' (radiation infected cockroaches). I also killed one of the boys that called me names as a ten year old kid at my birthday party. After, of course, I refused to help save his mom from the roaches. Eventually I killed the overseer himself, and was able to open his secret tunnel to the vault door. Freedom was mine!

Newly acquainted to the outside world, I was offered some perks. It seemed only fitting to add the thief perk to my collection I had going. My main mission now is to go to megaton to find my faja.

Outside the vault is desolate, barren land. Most of the landscape is large rocks with dying grass, charred trees, radioactive pools of water and killer zombie-like-animals. Some of the animals, if you can even call them that, consist of mole-rats, boat-flys, viscous dogs and I am sure there is more I haven't even seen yet. Among the priorly mentioned in the landscape, there are still dilapidated buildings, freeway overpasses, and whole cities just wanting to be discovered.

First place I did discover was that of the city of Springvale, small but pretty much abandoned. Soon after I found a sign that was spray painted and said megaton with an arrow underneath it. On my way to Megaton I found the Super-Duper Mart! It was filled with raiders! Downright evil bastards, who shoot you as soon as they see you. But, eventually, I killed them all, of course. I especially want to note that I even decapitated someone! One shot to the head and there it went. I also picked my first lock in the Super-Duper Mart! You use both of the joysticks to rotate a bobby pick and the lock.
After looking around their stuff, I found the key to the back room and picked up some nuka colas, (radioactive cola) that are worth a lot in the game- but hard to come by.

Finally after exhausting my ammo supply, food and health from the Mart, I made it to Megaton!
 So, first thing in the door . .apparently I said the wrong thing and had to kill the Sheriff? oops. After that I wasn't sure if I was going to be welcome in the city. But, it seems that the other townspeople didn't hear of the death- so, dodged a bullet there. literally. Megaton visually is what living in a large hole would be like. The sides of the hole are lined in walkways and houses, and at the very bottom is what appears to be a bomb. A large bomb. Not sure how it got there? But I am sure there is a story behind it. So I talked around, stole some food (made a woman mad I stole her food), and eventually found out that after providing some bottle caps to a man my dad had talked to, that I could find out where he went. The unfortunate thing for me, was that I didn't have enough bottle caps to pay the man, so I needed to go back to Springvale to talk to a woman who owed the man bottle caps. I said I would, but then here is where things get interesting! Turns out my game and/or controller glitched right there and then. I 'accidentally' shot at the guy trying to help me and caused a whole uproar of a giant floating robot trying to kill me with another guy as well trying to kill me. Lets just say, I died a lot in between that house and the door to Megaton. About 5 times. Finally I outran them though, and made it outside the doors! Hopefully he will still want to help me when I get back . .? :)

I ventured over to Springvale again and talked to the woman needed for the bottle caps. With some smooth talking, and the speech skill, I was able to talk her into giving me her entire bottle cap collection! 400 caps pocketed :) With that, I hit the save button and turned off the system.

My stats overall are:
2 hours played
21 kills
14 times dying
14 creature kills
3 locks picked
Multiple bad acts and stealing completed

Overall feelings so far:
Intrigued by the evil lifestyle, but needing to play more to really see some true feelings coming out!
-Kels

Fall into Fallout

Hello! I am the other half of the this two person team, Kelsey. Here is a little demo of what my gaming experience will be like:

So that in a nutshell, is Fallout 3! You may ask, why pick Fallout 3 instead of Fallout: New Vegas? (which happens to be the newer one of the two). Simply because I first had the chance to watch my roommate play Fallout 3 before she tried New Vegas. We both came to the conclusion that FO3 was the superior game due to the layout and overall plot line. 

Curiously enough, it wasn't until I lived with my last roommate that I actually got into gaming! She has: Xbox 360, N64, wii and PS2, so with all those consoles it was only a matter of time before I was hooked :) When she bought Zelda: Twilight Princess in 2010, I literally went to class, came back and played, ate, came back and played, went to sleep, and eventually in the morning resumed playing. For two weeks! Nothing but Zelda. It was amazing :)

I currently have a PS3, which I got an amazing deal buying for black friday 2011. The games I own are Bioshock, Bioshock 2, Laura Croft: Tomb Raider, Need for Speed: Carbon, Silent Hill: Homecoming, Demon's souls, and of course, Fallout 3. I tend to find myself drawn to darker games (with the exception of NFS) and absolutely love games with some element of steampunk, and/or great music selection. The music in both Bioshocks and FO3 can be thought to be from the 1930's, taking you back to another era! I have always felt I was supposed to have lived in the 20's and 30's, so I find the music suits me quite well :)

Onto the more technical aspects of FO3, what needs to be broken down is what you can actually do in this game that determines the path of good or evil. In the video above, you see that items can be taken from anywhere in the wasteland, for instance: a refrigerator. When the words are in red, that denotes that you will lose karma for taking  the object, however if the words are in green, then you gain karma. Other ways to "become bad" depends on the decisions you make in the game interacting with people, as well. 

As the video says, there is over 100 hours of gameplay in this open map setting, I am only conquering 20 of it! And with that final thought, I am off to game it up!

-Kels

Why We're Here

Welcome to our blog!

This is Melissa (also referred to as Mel), half of the two-person team who will be posting here. As I mentioned in our About Me section, we're here to take an in-depth look at Mass Effect 2 and Fallout 3. But why? What purpose could we have at studying video games? 

First of all, the latest and greatest technology has given us the opportunity to create insanely innovative and visually mesmerizing games. Even if you're not much of a gamer, it's hard to ignore how amazing technology is simply from viewing a trailer for a new game as a commercial. We've come a long way from Pong and pixels. Personally, I'm a huge fan of the ME franchise and I'm stoked for ME3 to be released next month. 

Let's take this one step further, though, and look beyond the graphics. If we can make games this visually realistic and fascinating, what else can we do with technology? Why do artists and programmers go to such great lengths to invent a fictional, three-dimensional world? Why do gamers such as myself feel so compelled and connected to these games? What's the deal with the stereotypes of female gamers? What do all of these things suggest about humanity - where we used to be and where we are today? In the next few weeks, Kelsey (the other half of the brainpower behind this blog) and I will attempt to answer these questions and many more as we explore the worlds of ME2 and F3. 

Here's the overview of our game plan. I will be playing Mass Effect 2, and Kelsey will be playing Fallout 3. Our levels of difficulty will be set one bar higher than we typically play. (For instance, I usually play on the Veteran setting with ME2, so this time I'll play on the Hardcore setting.) What's the point in a video game experiment without a challenge? Also, both of us will be playing as the "evil" character, making not-so-moral choices that result in a higher death count and a decidedly worse-off environment. The reason for this is because we tend to play as "good" characters, and we'd like to see how making uncomfortable choices affects not only the game itself, but us - the players. Other goals or things we may be taking note of as we play are as follows:

• visual aesthetics of the game (description of the environment)
• plot (what happens in the game, what actions our characters take)
• our reactions to each segment of gameplay
• time spent with each segment
• death count (including our own characters, should it come to that)
• critical reception of game (what others think of the game and how they reacted to the same/similar situations)

There's a good chance we'll cover a lot more than that. The sky is the limit. Feel free to give us suggestions or questions to answer and drop us comments on what we post. 

The title of this blog refers to three core concepts that relate to what we're searching for and will be investigating: humanity, video games and their technological advancements, and the world we live in with life as we know it. Hopefully, by the time we've finished our playthroughs and made our last posts, you and I both will have a better understanding of how these three things tie together. 

Two gamers, two games, one mission. 

~ Mel