Fallout 3 Impressions Thread - Progress: Complete (Main Quest)

I think reviewing the base game should be plenty enough, really

Aside from some story stuff that I shan't mention here, but you'll know about if you played Steel, yeah. The base game is enough to review. All the DLC is basically more of the same.

I changed my mind about Rescue From Paradise. I'm just gonna go for Take it Back. I'll worry about side quests later.

Currently tying up some loose ends before I head out.

Don't even worry about enemies during Take it Back! because a really powerful buddy of yours will handle everything in your way.

Also, be careful because the game might freeze during that quest because of everything that happens.

Don't even worry about enemies during Take it Back! because a really powerful buddy of yours will handle everything in your way.

Also, be careful because the game might freeze during that quest because of everything that happens.

Don't tell him! I want to hear his reaction! Now he's expecting it!

Don't even worry about enemies during Take it Back! because a really powerful buddy of yours will handle everything in your way.

Also, be careful because the game might freeze during that quest because of everything that happens.

Don't tell him! I want to hear his reaction! Now he's expecting it!

Jar Jar is the true Sith lord

Don't even worry about enemies during Take it Back! because a really powerful buddy of yours will handle everything in your way.

Also, be careful because the game might freeze during that quest because of everything that happens.

Don't tell him! I want to hear his reaction! Now he's expecting it!

Jar Jar is the true Sith lord

I hope Donald Trump becomes President.

Don't even worry about enemies during Take it Back! because a really powerful buddy of yours will handle everything in your way.

Also, be careful because the game might freeze during that quest because of everything that happens.

Don't tell him! I want to hear his reaction! Now he's expecting it!

Jar Jar is the true Sith lord

I hope Donald Trump becomes President.

I can't get deported dough so your hopes and dreams are crushed

Don't even worry about enemies during Take it Back! because a really powerful buddy of yours will handle everything in your way.

Also, be careful because the game might freeze during that quest because of everything that happens.

Don't tell him! I want to hear his reaction! Now he's expecting it!

Jar Jar is the true Sith lord

I hope Donald Trump becomes President.

I can't get deported dough so your hopes and dreams are crushed

All right. It's about time to wrap this up, I think.


I arrived at the Citadel and met back up with Lyons, Dr. Li, and Cross. I told them the situation. And yes, I chose to hand over the FEV shit to Lyons. No way I'm submitting to Eden's wishes.

The Brotherhood planned for a full-on assault at Project Purity, with the help of a #GIANTROBOT called Liberty Prime.
Pretty cool, but there was still one more important decision to make:

The ultimate decision between Star Paladin Cross and Fawkes the Super Mutant.

Cross is strong and reliable, but I felt like Fawkes's immunity to radiation would also come in handy.
Plus, he has a laser-firing Gatling gun. I chose Fawkes.


Liberty Prime is pretty awesome...

when he's not standing in place for extended periods of time... and... walking in the wrong direction...

I had to reload the save at least twice, which was annoying.
At least his quotes are funny enough so that I don't mind hearing them over and over again.


Before I make it to Project Purity, I'm given a new quest--"Project Impurity."
It's giving me the option to poison the water instead.

Yeah, fuuuuck that.

In Project Purity, I was prepared for a big battle. I've fought Deathclaws, Giant Radscorpions, Super Mutant Behemoths--I've survived burns, broken limbs, radiation poisoning, mortar shells--I've watched many of my friends and allies die--and it all comes down to this: This one final showdown with the Enclave.

I shoot Colonel Autumn three times in the chest with a shotgun and he dies.


...














THAT WAS IT!?

FUCK!


So after that anticlimactic bullshit (I'm not actually upset about it--I honestly think it's hilarious), Dr. Li explains through the intercom of the rotunda that Project Purity is damaged, and will imminently explode unless someone goes in there and activates it. Trouble is, the room is irradiated, and whoever goes in there will die shortly thereafter.

Ooh! Good thing I brought Fawkes along!

...Wait, why is the game trying to guilt me about that decision?...

Lyons is all like, "Ugh, if that's the way you want to do it, fine."
Fawkes himself was like, "It seems that your destiny was to fulfill your father's wish, but I suppose I can do it instead."

Oh come on. Did I really make a selfish decision there?... Fawkes is the only one who is immune to radiation!
Killing myself wouldn't be noble--that's just silly. I was being practical. <_<

Oh well--the deed was done, and we all made it out alive. Well, I think so. The rest of the Lyon's pride--I'm not sure what happened to them. There was a lot of shit going on during those bombings. Some of them went unconscious, some of them may have died. Steel be with them, and whatnot.


And that's the game. The water's pure, the Enclave's gone, and everything's gonna be fine.

Ended up with the good karma ending, despite my inadvertent naughtiness at Tranquility Lane.

I'll post some fun stats now, then I'll think about what I'll do next.

This was very fun.

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Jacob
Level 19 - Saint
Play time: Approx. 80~ hours

Quests Completed          :  20
Locations Discovered      :  46
People Killed             : 185
Creatures Killed          : 450
Locks Picked              :  65
Computers Hacked          :  11
Stimpaks Taken            : 249
Rad-X Taken               :   2
RadAway Taken             :  15
Chems Taken               :   8
Times Addicted            :   0
Mines Disarmed            :  35
Speech Successes          :  16
Pockets Picked            :   0
Pants Exploded            :   0
Books Read                :  37
Bobbleheads Found         :   4
Weapons Created           :   2
People Mezzed             :   0
Captives Rescued          :   3
Sandman Kills             :   0
Paralyzing Punches        :   0
Robots Disabled           :   0
Contracts Completed       :   0
Corpses Eaten             :   0
Mysterious Stranger Visits:   0

To clarify, the only "chems" I've taken are radchems, and Nuka-Cola Quantum (if that counts).

Supposedly, you were to follow James's example of selflessness and sacrifice your life for the betterment of the Capital Wasteland.

Supposedly, you were to follow James's example of selflessness and sacrifice your life for the betterment of the Capital Wasteland.

I mean, I know I would've survived anyway, but I mean...

Supposedly, you were to follow James's example of selflessness and sacrifice your life for the betterment of the Capital Wasteland.

I mean, I know I would've survived anyway, but I mean...

SACRIFICE, VERB

THAT'S THE THEME OF THE GAEM

i thought it was perseverance and utilitarianism

Well

YOU THOUGHT WRONG

Who the fuck cares about those people. They're not important at all to the game.

you realize the game is literally built so that you can be a good guy or a bad guy, right

some players like to be good guys
some players like to be bad guys

i want to be a good guy--it's not complicated

You understand that activating the failsafe is a mercy kill, right? That's the objective good option. By going along with Braun's game, you failed to save the inhabitants of the VR. You allowed him to torture and abuse innocents for hundreds of years after the end of the game.

You understand that activating the failsafe is a mercy kill, right? That's the objective good option. By going along with Braun's game, you failed to save the inhabitants of the VR. You allowed him to torture and abuse innocents for hundreds of years after the end of the game.

hey class, you realize you're responding to a post that was posted fucking ages ago

i already know this

i'm over it

it's still stupid that you can't save the people, and i consider that a story flaw, so there
"mercy killing" is an extremely unintuitive "heroic" action in a video game about saving people's lives

if the game gave me the heads up that i cannot kill braun and save the people (which is exactly what i expected to be able to do after i got out of tranquility lane), then i would've went with that option, but i thought that was the obviously evil option because of the way it's set up

You understand that activating the failsafe is a mercy kill, right? That's the objective good option. By going along with Braun's game, you failed to save the inhabitants of the VR. You allowed him to torture and abuse innocents for hundreds of years after the end of the game.

hey class, you realize you're responding to a post that was posted fucking ages ago

i already know this

i'm over it

it's still stupid that you can't save the people, and i consider that a story flaw, so there

It's not really a story flaw. If you hypothetically did release them from the VR, they'd all instantly die as soon as they left the lounger. They were all 200+ years old.

It's not really a story flaw. If you hypothetically did release them from the VR, they'd all instantly die as soon as they left the lounger. They were all 200+ years old.

i did not understand this at the time, and the game probably could've made that clearer

instead, they made it a passing mention--even though that's an extremely important bit of information

It's not really a story flaw. If you hypothetically did release them from the VR, they'd all instantly die as soon as they left the lounger. They were all 200+ years old.

i did not understand this at the time, and the game probably could've made that clearer

instead, they made it a passing mention--even though that's an extremely important bit of information

I don't really see how you didn't understand it. Braun was explicitly introduced as a Vault-Tec scientist who made the vaults and the GECK. Both of which were pre-war inventions. And if you somehow didn't connect the dots there, Braun's logs were openly plastered in the failsafe terminal, which gruesomely describes his treatment of the citizens for the past two hundred years.

Did you just...not read them? When you came across the failsafe? I just don't get how you thought mercy killing was the evil option, it was pretty clear to me when I first played that it was the moral thing to do. You get the highest single karma boost in the entire game by activating the program.

I don't really see how you didn't understand it. Braun was explicitly introduced as a Vault-Tec scientist who made the vaults and the GECK. Both of which were pre-war inventions. And if you somehow didn't connect the dots there, Braun's logs were openly plastered in the failsafe terminal, which gruesomely describes his treatment of the citizens for the past two hundred years.

I read the logs, but I just didn't read the dates, I guess. I really didn't expect that to be a important information, considering that how the fuck are these people living this long anyway

if mercy killing them was such an obvious option, there wouldn't be a stupid military simulation where the people all suffer as they die violently--if they just died peacefully, that would've made it a lot clearer that this is just an insidious game that needs to end--but no, both choices are sadistic

it was just a bad, poorly-written quest, and they could've handled it wayyyy better

You get the highest single karma boost in the entire game by activating the program.

wow

that's really really dumb

Not to mention--the general thing with the quests is that the "good karma" option always tends to be the one where you, the player, have to go out of your way to do something you don't want to do. Something that takes effort.

Whereas the "evil" options are quicker and more obviously destructive. Little effort involved.
Oh, don't wanna pay this guy to give you his key? Just kill him, and it's yours.

Tranquility Lane flips it over. The low-effort option is the good karma option--so, not only is the information poorly conveyed, it's inconsistent with the rest of the game's themes. That's some shit.

it's safe to say it was my least favorite quest overall
just... bad, all around

The reason there's the military thing as the program termination is because it was designed by Braun, a sadist. He wanted his last moments of life to be watching others suffer. But because he registered his Vault-Tec ID with the simulation while designing it, the failsafe can't kill him, because his station overrides the failsafe. Hence, why he would never, ever let his prisoners go, be it 100 years or 1000 years. If he let them die, he would still be alive, and he would only have AI to entertain himself with. When you activate the failsafe, everyone but him dies, and he's left alone in Tranquility Lane, forever.

A major theme of the Fallout series is relative morality, about greyness. There's no "free the prisoners" option because it wouldn't make sense in the lore of the series. I'm kinda curious what you would change about the quest, though, other than making it more clear that the mercy kill is the morally right option.

The reason there's the military thing as the program termination is because it was designed by Braun, a sadist. He wanted his last moments of life to be watching others suffer. But because he registered his Vault-Tec ID with the simulation while designing it, the failsafe can't kill him, because his station overrides the failsafe. Hence, why he would never, ever let his prisoners go, be it 100 years or 1000 years. If he let them die, he would still be alive, and he would only have AI to entertain himself with. When you activate the failsafe, everyone but him dies, and he's left alone in Tranquility Lane, forever.

A major theme of the Fallout series is relative morality, about greyness. There's no "free the prisoners" option because it wouldn't make sense in the lore of the series. I'm kinda curious what you would change about the quest, though, other than making it more clear that the mercy kill is the morally right option.

I mean, it's easy to blame me for simply not being receptive enough to every little piece of information that's thrown at me, but at the same time, it's just not really what I expected. All the other quests have been generally clear-cut--it's just this one that I had a problem with, because it required that you retain all this information being thrown at you, and it wasn't like anything else in the game.

Normally, bits of lore are given to you in case you're interested--not because it's necessary to making large, impactful moral decisions. It's a read-at-your-own-leisure type of thing.

You talked about how Braun had already been established as the guy who invented the Vaults, but I honestly don't remember ever receiving that information. I guess I just need to pay attention more, but fucking hell, if I wanted to learn about history, I'd pick up a world history textbook and read it. I'm not really into the whole you-must-know-everything-about-this-game's-lore thing. The game's lore isn't that interesting, I'm sorry.

As for what else I'd change with that quest, I mean, I don't know--other than those two things you mentioned, I don't really have much else of a problem with it. Even if that old woman who tells you about the failsafe said something like, "Oh, please, I wish God would just end my suffering already, just please end this,"--that one sentence would've prompted me to end it all. But she never said anything like that--she just told me about the failsafe, and she didn't really seem to know what the failsafe actually did. I wasn't sure if she was expecting to be saved, or if she wanted to die.

So yeah, give the old woman a line of dialogue stating that she has no will to live anymore.
That's what I would change.

It's just a small detail, but it would've changed so much. For me, anyway.

Or maybe I'm just dumb, I don't know. I'll try not to bring this up in my review.

I guess it's not really a "flaw"--it's just something I didn't like, and think could've been executed a little better.

It's hard to defend yourself when you're given the information you need to understand the circumstances.

I just don't think it's reasonable to expect every player to give enough of a fuck to memorize a bunch of meaningless facts, and sorting out the significant from the insignificant, like I'm back in history class or something. That kinda sounds like the opposite of "fun" to me, unless I'm just super invested in the lore, and I just... wasn't, really.

But I haven't let this quest sour my opinion of the rest of the game, though. The game was solid.

Oh, that makes sense. I guess I have the advantage of being a meticulous player; I like to search every nook and read every log and such. A normal player could conceivably miss all that pretty easily. Come to think about it, with the scope of TL and how much it's talked about, it really should have more than two choices. A third one would be pretty essential if the game came out today. I'm glad you enjoyed most of the game, though, and I'm excited to see your review.

In the end I'm glad you gave the middle finger to The Enclave and Eden.

Oh, that makes sense. I guess I have the advantage of being a meticulous player; I like to search every nook and read every log and such. A normal player could conceivably miss all that pretty easily. Come to think about it, with the scope of TL and how much it's talked about, it really should have more than two choices. A third one would be pretty essential if the game came out today. I'm glad you enjoyed most of the game, though, and I'm excited to see your review.

thanks

i'm glad you see where i'm coming from

In the end I'm glad you gave the middle finger to The Enclave and Eden.

i remember you telling me to destroy every enclave eye-bot, and i questioned it at first

now i understand why

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