I'm playing Fallout tonight for the first time. I've played Morrowind and Oblivion for years but never Fallout. Anything to keep in mind? Similarities? Differences? I've heard that it's just like Oblivion but set in a different world.

Fallout will feel similar to Oblivion. Same way to access your menus and the like. Menu functions in terms of numbers of items, is greatly improved. I don't think it's just like Oblivion, but they do have similarities.

There are similarities between FO3 and OB in the way the game plays, since both are sandbox first person action RPGs made by Bethesda Softworks. FO3 has less magic and more guns though.

The base attributes are different and most of them don't really do much. You mostly only need your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. to qualify for perks and those need at most a 6 in the relevant stat (there are some perks that require a 7, but they are all pretty weak). And for Charisma a 1 is enough because Charisma is useless and so are all the perks that require it. If you want to max out all skills you might want to put a 9 in Intelligence though. Oh yeah, there's also bobbleheads that you pick up and they give you permanent bonuses. There's one for each SPECIAL which gives you a permanent +1 to the relevant stat and there's one for each skill that gives a permanent +10 bonus to the skill.

So for a generic character I'd suggest going with a 1 in Charisma, a 9 in Intelligence, and a 6 in everything else. Then tag one combat skill (Small Guns are generally the most common and most useful), either Lockpicking or Science, and for the third Tag throw in whatever fits your character concept. Repair, Sneak, and Speech would all be great choices.

Make sure you grab the comprehension perk at level 4, it will double the number of skill points you get from reading skill books and there are over 20 skill books per skill. That perk can then equal to over 260 skill points. As for perks in general whatever makes you better in combat is the usually best choice and at level 20 Grim Reaper's Sprint is a must have for anyone who uses Small Guns or Energy Weapons. And for stealthy characters Silent running at level 12 is even more essential.

But I founded Charisma important... so 5 for it.



Onlike TES, in Fallout 3 we don't get higher stats by training them, it's when we go a level that we can get them higher.

Charisma is useless. Yes, you get +2 Speech and +2 Barter for each point of Charisma and Speech is a useful skill. But if you want a high Speech skill it is better to simply put more points into Intelligence.

Let's say we have two characters. Bob has 5 INT and 5 CHA and Joe has 9 INT and 1 CHA. And they both have 5 Luck and make Speech a Tag skill. Bob then starts with 30 Speech and Joe starts with only 22 Speech. But Bob only gets 15 skill points at each level and Joe gets 19. If they put all their skill points into Speech then at level 2 Bob will have 45 Speech and Joe will have 41 Speech. At level 3 both will have 60 Speech. And at level 4 Bob will have 75 Speech while Joe will already have 79. At level 5 Bob has 90 Speech and Joe has 98. And then at level 6 both have 100 Speech, but Bob only has 5 skill points left over while Joe has 17 skill points left over. From here on both will have the same Speech skill, but Joe will be the stronger character because he has plenty of skill points that he can put into all sorts of skills.

So as I've said, Charisma is useless.



What he's trying to say is that you don't level up from increasing skills, you increase skills from leveling up. You get experience for completing quests, killing enemies, hacking, lockpicking, succeeding in Speech challenges, and maybe some other minor stuff. Whenever you get enough XP you level up and then you get a number of skill points that you use to improve your skills. Your SPECIAL stats mostly don't change, though you can increase them with the bobbleheads I mentioned before as well as with some perks. Perks are special abilities that you get to choose each time you level up, though you can also get certain perks through quests.

Similarities are all mechanical... the big diff (at least in my opinion) is the intensity... I find FO3 to be much more intense and I suppose that it is because the chances of it becoming a reality are closer to the truth than Oblivion. Not talking about reality as respects Muties, Rad Scorpions etc., I am talking about the landscape. The torn-up landscape approaches the truth with uncanny realism.

fort faragut in OB and faragut metro station it is also a real life metro station in dc

You don't really need ANY advice. Fallout is very easy, especially at the end parts of the storyline, I ended up amping up the difficulty to Very Hard because it was so easy on Normal, but, Very Hard is so unbalanced. What you can do to make it harder is to make your endurance 1 so you have the lowest health, then play on normal.

Honestly, unless you have Broken Steel, the game is REALLY EASY the whole game. Unless you play on Very Hard all the time, then at the beginning it's very hard. If you DO have Broken Steel, avoid Albino radscorpions and Supermutant Overlords and Feral Ghoul Reavers, you should start to encounter them at lvl 16-18. They are TOUGH to kill SERIOUSLY>

avoid Albino radscorpions and Supermutant Overlords and Feral Ghoul Reavers, you should start to encounter them at lvl 16-18. They are TOUGH to kill SERIOUSLY>
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wrong they are not tough to kill they are damn near impossible to kill even on normal and spaming stimpacks you will still come out with just a tic of health

Oh...weird. That's good to know! Lol I'm used to jumping or sneaking everywhere I go.

Well so far...I'm very lost and confused. I have a few things working against me: I'm playing on a PS3 for the first time ever. I've always played games on PC and Nintendo consoles, I've very rarely even played PS2. I haven't played a shooter in forever, the loud noises and aiming, especially with a controller instead of keyboard is hard to get used to. Oh, and I'm playing on a crappy TV and it's hard to see. I hate it. I can't read half the text.

Go to your local pawn shop. Purchase a bigger monitor. My buddy picked up a 42 inch LCD, for $100. It works perfectly.

Its similar to oblivion but with things taken out and things added.