Stumbled across this 'Let's Play' series today, made by a guy who had no previous experience with any Fallout games before. I usually detest 'Let's Play' videos because they can be a bit daunting and generally not very entertaining but I must say, this guy makes me laugh. I look at his Newbie naivete and wonder, was I like that when I first played? Sure enough, I probably was. Anyway, I figured I'd share it with you guys because it truly is fun to watch.
I know sometimes I forget how overwhelming this game could be to someone just playing it for the first time, so when I see questions on the forums sometimes I say to myself, "DUH! How do they not know that?". Well, at one point in time I guess I didn't either, and this 'Let's Play' kind of reminded me of that.
Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd-d8H4kAZA

And I guess to branch this thread into a topic for conversation: What are some of the things you remember not knowing/understanding when you played your first Fallout game?
For me, my first Fallout was FO3. I had no idea there was a pip-boy light (that darn "tutorial" in the upper screen went by too fast!), so I had my TV brightness cranked all the way up to compensate. It looked terrible! Haha. Also, never really playing many STAT heavy games before (besides Oblivion, which Fallout seemed alien to me compared to that), I was terrible about choosing my S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes, and thought I should level all my skills evenly. Lol. Oops! I'm willing to bet I was almost as ridiculously clueless as the poor guy in the 'Let's Play' video.

I don't get why people would watch others play a video game on youtube.

I remember playing Fallout and Fallout 2 before I even had internet. So I had to figure all the stuff out on my own.

Mariposa in Fallout was pretty frustrating, but I figured it out in time.

Me too. My first Fallout was Fallout 2. I didn't know how to shoot... I had to literally look up tutorials on youtube. Then i realized, All i have to do is click on them.. *facepalm*

I had no idea there was a pipboy light until a while after NV was released and I saw it mentioned in a forum thread. I remember trying to find some kind of flashlight option when I first got FO3. I looked through the manual (naive of me to think BGS or any developer would make a half way decent manual these days) and key bind options (BGS did a reallty [censored] job porting FO3 interface to PC) but never found any info on it.

I actually think that was just a [censored] oversight by BGS. I still do not know how to bind items to hotkeys.... So ya, I kind of think BGS is a [censored] developer, but they own Fallout so I am forced to suffer.

As far as PC hotkeys, don't you just hold the numerical key and click? I.e. hold key 1-8 (but not on the num pad)? I use a controller with my PC, but I think that's how you hotkey any item.