I asked this forum a few months ago if anyone thought I would like Fallout 3 since I liked Oblivion so much. I think everyone said yes, but then life got hectic and I didn't get a chance to do anything for a long time. And for the record I really didn't think it would be my type of game. I just got into gaming about a year and a half ago with Oblivion, and since then I have only played Oblivion and Dragon Age. I have a hard time finding games that I like. Also, being a 33 year old woman, I just thought that Fallout wasn't really going to appeal to me. I didn't know very much about it at all, so boy was I ever surprised when my husband brought it home a day ago and I tried it out. I had no idea that the Fallout world was so retro and geeky sci-fi atompunk. Let me tell you, it has been instant love! The world is just breathtakingly amazing! And it is just damn fun to play! So I am definitely a convert! XD I'm off to play some more...

My wife loves RPGs and is a big fan of Morrowind and Oblivion but she was hesitant about Fallout 3 as well. She watched me playing New Vegas recently and really enjoyed it, I'm not sure if she's interested in playing FO3 or FONV herself given the gore but she also likes the setting quite a lot

Yes yes yes this is me! I only ever played RPGs like Final Fantasy, and my boyfriend, now husband, had an XBox and bought Oblivion. He said "you'll love this" and I thought, no never, first person RPG, complicated system where equipment breaks, never.

I have logged more hours into Oblivion than he ever has.

Then, he bought Fallout 3. I said, I hate shooters and that game is damn creepy.

...and again, logged more hours and insisted on the purchase of GOTY this past Christmas.

Anywaaaaaaays...happy trails

FO3 is not creepy.
For nuclear post apocalyptic creepy, get S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow Of Cernobyl, and also install the STALKER Complete 2009 mod.
:)

To the OP, FO3 is much like TES IV, though with nothing to replace Magic from the TES universe.
The 50s retro atompunk style is fun. Just a shame that none of the cars or motorbikes in the game work. *sigh*
I'd love to be able to ride cross country on one of the motorbikes.
But overall FO3 is a great break for simply having fun from the seriousness of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Jenifiur Charne

Fallout 3 is indeed amazing. The details within a gigantic world to explore was phenomenal. I'm glad you enjoyed it. It is and always will be my favorite game.
*svck on that NV..*
:whistling:

When I first discovered that I could turn the radio on and that awesome 50's music started playing, I was like, "Oh, hell yeah!" The world is desolate, bleak and depressing, but almost beautiful in a way with all of the attention to detail that was put into it. I still haven't got very far into the main quest yet...I keep getting sidetracked.

It sure disturbed the [censored] out of me. I'm easily impressionable. The busted out baby carriages bother me the most.

I'm not sure creepy is how I would describe it, but it is certainly depressing traipsing around the ruins of civilization. It kind of makes you wonder why the humans left even bother, but that is the nature of the human spirit I suppose.

Perhaps "creepy" is not the right word, really. "Haunting" might be more appropriate. All I know is that despite hours of gameplay and having a better idea of "what to expect" I still am seized with anxiety going through Metro tunnels. I had to watch my husband play for many hours before I could play myself...the setting closely resembling may familiar things in our real life modern world was too much for me

I agree with you, Skirt. Walking through the Wasteland and seeing empty baby carriages as well as teddy bears and skeletons of children was enough to give one that "someone walking on my grave" feeling. oo:

On another totally different point, one reason I love both Fallout 3 and Oblivion so much is that there is so much to explore. Too many games nowadays can be completed in less than 10 hours! I realize the Main Quest of Fallout can be completed fairly quickly, but why bother just doing the Main Quest? There are so many nuances that one would miss and that it the point of exploration, to discover new things! ^_^

This is my first play-through and I have finally resumed the Main Quest a couple of days ago. I have spent months just playing the Misc. Quests and just generally exploring! When I complete it, I plan on installing the DLC disc(I bought it last Thursday) and starting over again. The only other game that I played twice in a row was Bioshock(excellent game as well!). :yes:

Yes, haunting is a good word to describe Fallout 3. I literally got chills when I was walking around and heard America the Beautiful playing in the background. Plus I think basing the game on the 50s which is supposedly the epitome of the American Dream was a brilliant idea. While it wouldn't be any less sad to see a more truly futuristic America destroyed, there is something especially poignant about seeing this innocent idea of America laid to waste. Am I even making sense? Probably not, it's hard to put into words...

Heh, even though I got to beta-test Bloodmoon my wife still has more hours logged in that expansion and she's the only one of us who's finished it (I was sitting with her watching her play so I didn't have a pressing need to finish it myself, although I do enjoy Bloodmoon quite a lot).

It's great that you love the game, setting, etc. Welcome aboard!

At the same time, it's sort of funny that so many people idealize 1950s America as though it was the epitome of the "American Dream." This view was also true for the rush of Hollywood movies in the 1980s such as the "Back to the Future" trilogy and "Peggy Sue Got Married" as well as during the 1970s with "Happy Days" and "Lavern & Shirley" on TV. However, the reality of the 1950s was quite different, and Fallout 3 tends to capture the reality closer then the idealized view. Specifically, the 1950s saw America emerge from WW II as one of the two major world superpowers, and thus saw the birth of the Cold War, plus McCarthyism and the Red Scare, the beginning of the Space Race, and the burgeoning clash of civil rights that would explode in the 1960s (for America, that is). "Mona Lisa Smiled" DVD includes some very good interviews and documentary information about the 1950s because there was a great effort to make the film historically accurate. The creative team explains how many "middle class" and "upper class" Americans were obsessed with portraying the perfect image regardless of the reality of their lives behind closed doors. This is probably why the image has such appeal in the succeeding decades, but the reality was still far from the image.

Bioshock also paid homage to the mistaken notion that the 1950s were some kind of ideal period.

In both instances (i.e., both of these games) part of the reason they are successful is because they are able to point out the shortcomings that people of that time either willfully ignored/suppressed or simply avoided facing (thus leading to the explosive riots and other unrest during the 1960s). Both games show the idealized image of the period plus the horrid consequences of ignoring the reality, and the contrasting views make the point without resorting to lecturing.

Once we got the point where he was asking me for gameplay advice/details/etc., the tables had turned

Oh I totally agree. I didn't say that I idolized the 50's, but a lot of people do. And you are right that Fallout juxtaposes the innocent fantasy along with the horrible reality. That is what I meant was brilliant. You just put into words a lot better than I.

"My idea is explore more of the world and more of the ethics of a postnuclear world, not to make a better plasma gun."
-Tim Cain

So I have a question. I'm primarily a roleplayer, and in Oblivion I would only carry what I felt was a reasonable amount of goods for my character to carry. This would come down to one or two weapons, one set of armor, food and medical supplies, and a few small assorted objects such as stones or keys. I really, really want to do this in Fallout. I really hate carrying around enough weapons to equip a small army. It really breaks immersion for me. Preferably I'd like to study small guns and explosives and carry two to three small guns and grenades. The problem though is that I am having a hard time finding enough of a specific ammo to make this possible. So I end up carry every weapon I find in hopes I don't run out of firepower at a critical moment. Am I doing something wrong, or is this the way it has to be? I really hope it is the former, because I'd really like to scale down my inventory to a realistic amount.

In my experience, certain ammo types are actually rare (.44, .308), or perhaps, more rare than other types (.32, .10, 5mm, 5.56mm, etc.). Most of the guns you will find are in the "small guns" class, and the ones that aren't are a bit obvious (missile launcher, for example). This means that depending on how you like to play you have many options for a two-or-three gun restriction combination, for example, a ranged weapon (hunting rifle) and a pistol, or a ranged weapon and a submachine gun, etc.

Ammo can be found all over the place. I collect the majority of mine off of the corpses of my fallen foes, but it can literally be found in the weirdest of places -- filing cabinets, metal boxes, lockers, crates. It can be bought from shops as well and some of the caravan merchants carry it, too.

Does that help at all?

That is what I have been doing, but it still doesn't seem to be enough. Sometimes merchants don't have any of the ammo I need and finding it on dead enemies or in random loot helps, but I always run out of ammo on my favorite weapons and then have to switch to a weapon I don't really like.

I'm a level five and have done two side quests, a little bit of exploring and I am now trying to find the Museum of Technology for the main quest. I don't waste ammo I promise, there are just a lot of things to kill in this game it seems!

I'd say that for the first 1/4 of my playthrough I had a really hard time getting .308 ammo for my Sniper Rifle. I had to carefully weigh my options with it and had to make sure I didn't "waste the shot". It really helped with the immersion at that point.

The condition of your weapon makes a huge amount of difference with whether or not it takes 20 bullets or 5. I found in Fallout 3, far more than in Oblivion, a higher Repair skill is crucial.

having a little skill in melee or unarmed helps alot too for moping up small fry or runnign enemies or things like ghouls/radroaches/molerats

The higher repair skill is critical not just for what condition you can repair an item to, but also for what condition unused weapon and armor are in when you find them.
Also, better condition gear for sale nets you more caps for that stuff at traders.

Jenifur Charne

OK, I have definitely been bumping up my repair skill every time I level up. I figured is was pretty important in this game.

I suppose it is like any other new game. I think it is a combination of me being new and not knowing all of the insides and outs of the game world like I will on my third or fourth playthrough and just being low level which I find hard in every new game I pick up. On the flip side though there comes a point in every game I have played where my character is just ungodly powerful and wants for nothing anymore. So I will see if the same is true for Fallout 3.

I had a nice post written, but my system lost network connection ... and there went the post. (sigh)

My companions do my repairing for me, so I don't need to worry about Repair skill.

There are many factors that affect ammo usage. However, at the point you are at, you will notice that the game is pretty much at its toughest, in my view. This happens because the equipment you start with is in perfect condition (guns and clothes). As you use it, it degrades and takes more ammo/offers less protection. By about level 5, the second tier enemies appear, plus your equipment can only be maintained at about half condition or so. Thus, you automatically get a "double whammy" in efficiency of ending encounters (less efficiency for both these reasons, that is). Until you get to about level 10 or so and make up the difference with perks and skill building, your efficiency in encounters suffers.

The logic of choosing specific weapons applies to companions, too, in order to help the AI actually perform properly in battle strategy.

My other post was longer and had more examples, but I'm tired and don't want to rewrite it.