The Official Fallout 3 thread of post-apocalyptic proportions!

Ok I've seen a couple people give suggestions on builds.

Can we get a mini-gaf-strategy guide.

Meaning: What stats do we start with?

Also since some of us are anal retentive, as you level: is it best to only concentrate on two skills and completely ignore the others? Or do we wait until level xx to add to the lesser skills?

I just am looking for the use of guns and the best first play through experience being new to the series.
 
IncGamers have their review up - 8.3/10

Fallout 3 is a big game. With a main storyline that can take up to thirty hours to complete, along with a multitude of side-quests, there’s enough content to satisfy anyone. It’s a shame that the combat, dialogue system, and some of the level design don’t display similar ambition. When the game works – the Vault introduction, the Waltons-gone-wrong fantasy level, fighting alongside surprisingly clever AI comrades – it’s fantastic. But when you’re lumbering around yet another sewer, aiming like Stevie Wonder, wondering where the hell to go next, it’s clunk city. There’s enough content here to make you play until the real Apocalypse if you fall in love with the game world, but fun isn’t always high on the agenda. Then again, maybe joyful escapism is overrated.
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Really well-written review, actually. Well worth a read. Addresses some of the flaws more thoroughly than some others, too.
 
Hero of Canton said:
Really well-written review, actually. Well worth a read. Addresses some of the flaws more thoroughly than some others, too.
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That is mostly my feeling as well so far (about 3 hours in). The world is fantastic, but the combat so far has been hit and miss (mostly miss). I'm not sure if it's because my combat skills aren't high enough, but I sometimes have to land a headshot 3 times using VATS to kill someone.
 
FoeHammer said:
That is mostly my feeling as well so far (about 3 hours in). The world is fantastic, but the combat so far has been hit and miss (mostly miss). I'm not sure if it's because my combat skills aren't high enough, but I sometimes have to land a headshot 3 times using VATS to kill someone.
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It's worse when you see it connect, blood flies out and then they fire back as if nothing's happened. But yeah, missing from point-blank range also looks a little silly. I understand it's not meant to be traditional FPS or TPS combat - it's not the mechanics, it's just the way it looks that's so jarring.
 
Picked it up at midnight and played until 2 a.m.

Quick impressions: loving it thus far...and it's hard for Bethesda to make attractive characters. Great graphics aside, everyone is hideous.
 
Hero of Canton said:
It's worse when you see it connect, blood flies out and then they fire back as if nothing's happened. But yeah, missing from point-blank range also looks a little silly. I understand it's not meant to be traditional FPS or TPS combat - it's not the mechanics, it's just the way it looks that's so jarring.
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Yeah, I've gotten really pissed a couple of times because of that same thing. What's worse is sometimes it will flash "raider head crippled" but he just keeps on tearing my ass up with bullets.

I know I'm just starting out, but I would think a well placed head shot on a low level raider would take them out.
 
DangerStepp said:
Picked it up at midnight and played until 2 a.m.

Quick impressions: loving it thus far...and it's hard for Bethesda to make attractive characters. Great graphics aside, everyone is hideous.
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A few of the "female's" I've encountered thus far appear to have mustaches. Even my wife said, "Does that lady have a mustache?"
 
FoeHammer said:
A few of the "female's" I've encountered thus far appear to have mustaches. Even my wife said, "Does that lady have a mustache?"
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I would imagine that the first thing you would not care about if the bomb hit would be things like shaving :D
 
vumpler said:
Ok I've seen a couple people give suggestions on builds.

Can we get a mini-gaf-strategy guide.

Meaning: What stats do we start with?

Also since some of us are anal retentive, as you level: is it best to only concentrate on two skills and completely ignore the others? Or do we wait until level xx to add to the lesser skills?

I just am looking for the use of guns and the best first play through experience being new to the series.
Click to expand...


I will take as I said, Small arms, Speech and Science.

Small arms to get better with normal guns (not energy), science to hack computers and speech to resolve situations and influence others (I know you can save and reload but that is not the way to play IMO)

The main stats are Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, Luck

Strength
Modifies: Melee Weapons, Carry Weight

Not really worth in my opinion, only for the Weight.

Perception
Modifies Explosives, Lockpick and Energy Weapons skills

Endurance
Modifies: Hit Points, Resistances and the Big Guns and Unarmed skills

Charisma
Modifies: Speech and Barter skills

Good value to start with a good speech

Intelligence
Modifies: Medicine, Repair, and Science skills, as well as the number of new Skill Points per level.

The most important one, Repair and science are really useful at least at the start where you cannot afford to pay a trader to fix all your stuff, but it becomes less useful as soon as you start to find more "unique" items. To repair something you need 2 items of it to combine.
Also, more skill points = Better

Agility
Modifies: Action Points available for V.A.T.S., and the Small Guns and Sneak skills

If you are a heavy user of VATS invert points in this, and if not invert on it for the small guns.

Luck
Raising your Luck will raise all of your skills a little. Having a high Luck will also improve your critical chance with all weapons


All 7 stats start at 5 and you have 5 more points to distribute. There is a perk that allows to add 1 point to your main stats and you can use it up to ten (10) times (one every level up)

St - 6+1 with the perk
Pe - 3
En - 5
Ch - 7+2 with the perk
In - 7+2with the perk
Ag -7+2 with the perk
Lu - 5+3 with the perk

That is what I will go for a gunner who is gonna shoot the head of everybody with VATS and talk his ass out of situations while influencing others :D

I don't know if it's clear.
 
FoeHammer said:
A few of the "female's" I've encountered thus far appear to have mustaches. Even my wife said, "Does that lady have a mustache?"
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:lol Perhaps that's side effects from the nuclear explosion?

It was hard to make my male character look anything remotely like a male. Looks more like Michael Jackson...or a lady with a big jawline. No matter what I did I couldn't make him not look doe-eyed.

How did everyone do on the G.O.A.T.?

I'm a Pip-Boy repairman or something of the such. Also, did anyone find that poem that lady gives you for your birthday? I scoured my Pip-Boy for it, but couldn't find it. I talked to her again and she asked if I knew how to look at the poem via Pip-Boy so I didn't know if it was a glitch or not...
 
gregor7777 said:
So for those of your playing, has the dark humor of the first two made it's way into the game?
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Another disappointment on that front so far. I'm about 3 hours in so far and I can't recall anything remotely humorous happening so far. I'm assuming the stuff with the ghoul bartender was an attempt at humor, but I didn't see it.
 
bigGIRLSblouse said:
I would imagine that the first thing you would not care about if the bomb hit would be things like shaving :D
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Indeed. I hate to think about how many bottle caps a Gillette Fusion would cost you.
 
Got the game. Regular edition.

I really hope I don't regret spending $60 on this. Some of the reviews that showed up this morning are worrying me.
 
itxaka said:
I will take as I said, Small arms, Speech and Science.

Small arms to get better with normal guns (not energy), science to hack computers and speech to resolve situations and influence others (I know you can save and reload but that is not the way to play IMO)

The main stats are Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, Luck

Strength
Modifies: Melee Weapons, Carry Weight

Not really worth in my opinion, only for the Weight.

Perception
Modifies Explosives, Lockpick and Energy Weapons skills

Endurance
Modifies: Hit Points, Resistances and the Big Guns and Unarmed skills

Charisma
Modifies: Speech and Barter skills

Good value to start with a good speech

Intelligence
Modifies: Medicine, Repair, and Science skills, as well as the number of new Skill Points per level.

The most important one, Repair and science are really useful at least at the start where you cannot afford to pay a trader to fix all your stuff, but it becomes less useful as soon as you start to find more "unique" items. To repair something you need 2 items of it to combine.
Also, more skill points = Better

Agility
Modifies: Action Points available for V.A.T.S., and the Small Guns and Sneak skills

If you are a heavy user of VATS invert points in this, and if not invert on it for the small guns.

Luck
Raising your Luck will raise all of your skills a little. Having a high Luck will also improve your critical chance with all weapons


All 7 stats start at 5 and you have 5 more points to distribute. There is a perk that allows to add 1 point to your main stats and you can use it up to ten (10) times (one every level up)

St - 6+1 with the perk
Pe - 3
En - 5
Ch - 7+2 with the perk
In - 7+2with the perk
Ag -7+2 with the perk
Lu - 5+3 with the perk

That is what I will go for a gunner who is gonna shoot the head of everybody with VATS and talk his ass out of situations while influencing others :D

I don't know if it's clear.
Click to expand...
Looks like I'm going to do the same thing after that writeup! Thanks :D

So basically as you level do you just go back and forth between leveling Charisma and Int?
 
FoeHammer said:
Another disappointment on that front so far. I'm about 3 hours in so far and I can't recall anything remotely humorous happening so far. I'm assuming the stuff with the ghoul bartender was an attempt at humor, but I didn't see it.
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They said the inspiration was FO1, which had substantially less humor than FO2.

Still, I did find a ridiculously overpowered joke weapon:
Abraham Lincoln's Rifle
. Drops Super Mutants with 2-3 head shots. :lol
 
FoeHammer said:
Another disappointment on that front so far. I'm about 3 hours in so far and I can't recall anything remotely humorous happening so far. I'm assuming the stuff with the ghoul bartender was an attempt at humor, but I didn't see it.
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Did you not talk to Moira? She's batshit insane which makes her hilarious....
 
Costanza said:
Got the game. Regular edition.

I really hope I don't regret spending $60 on this. Some of the reviews that showed up this morning are worrying me.
Click to expand...
If you bought it to play an RPG that uses the Oblivion engine and guns (primarily) to fight battles as you explore a nuclear wasteland while following a nicely voice-acted story that has a dark tone to it, you should be fine. :D

Liam Neeson for the WIN!
 
vumpler said:
Looks like I'm going to do the same thing after that writeup! Thanks :D

So basically as you level do you just go back and forth between leveling Charisma and Int?
Click to expand...


It depends, but probably the best is to up INT so you have more skill points since the first levels. Then just as you wish depending on the style of the game or if you find that you need to carry more weigth, etc, but basically yes, INT and then whatever you want.
 
itxaka said:
I will take as I said, Small arms, Speech and Science.

Small arms to get better with normal guns (not energy), science to hack computers and speech to resolve situations and influence others (I know you can save and reload but that is not the way to play IMO)

The main stats are Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, Luck

Strength
Modifies: Melee Weapons, Carry Weight

Not really worth in my opinion, only for the Weight.

Perception
Modifies Explosives, Lockpick and Energy Weapons skills

Endurance
Modifies: Hit Points, Resistances and the Big Guns and Unarmed skills

Charisma
Modifies: Speech and Barter skills

Good value to start with a good speech

Intelligence
Modifies: Medicine, Repair, and Science skills, as well as the number of new Skill Points per level.

The most important one, Repair and science are really useful at least at the start where you cannot afford to pay a trader to fix all your stuff, but it becomes less useful as soon as you start to find more "unique" items. To repair something you need 2 items of it to combine.
Also, more skill points = Better

Agility
Modifies: Action Points available for V.A.T.S., and the Small Guns and Sneak skills

If you are a heavy user of VATS invert points in this, and if not invert on it for the small guns.

Luck
Raising your Luck will raise all of your skills a little. Having a high Luck will also improve your critical chance with all weapons


All 7 stats start at 5 and you have 5 more points to distribute. There is a perk that allows to add 1 point to your main stats and you can use it up to ten (10) times (one every level up)

St - 6+1 with the perk
Pe - 3
En - 5
Ch - 7+2 with the perk
In - 7+2with the perk
Ag -7+2 with the perk
Lu - 5+3 with the perk

That is what I will go for a gunner who is gonna shoot the head of everybody with VATS and talk his ass out of situations while influencing others :D

I don't know if it's clear.
Click to expand...

perception has no bearing on standard aiming? it used to have quite the effect on night time is this not the case?
 
Blue Geezer said:
perception has no bearing on standard aiming? it used to have quite the effect on night time is this not the case?
Click to expand...


Not as far as I know. Perception also determines when red compass markings appear (which indicate threats) but I don't think its used for anything else beyond that. Of course I could be mistaken.
 
Hero of Canton said:
It's worse when you see it connect, blood flies out and then they fire back as if nothing's happened. But yeah, missing from point-blank range also looks a little silly. I understand it's not meant to be traditional FPS or TPS combat - it's not the mechanics, it's just the way it looks that's so jarring.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I've always felt looking at videos, and why I've always considered the real-time combat in Fallout 3 to be terrible. There's just no feel to the gunplay at all, and you can easily tell this even from videos. It has nothing to do with inaccuracy or whatever, since I know it's all based on stats (which is only a positive and a nice throwback to games like Deus Ex), but there's really no excuse for drilling into a ghoul point-blank with some sort of automatic weapon only to have him not react at all to your shots.

Not only is that a really shitty visual, but it has a huge impact on gameplay since there's essentially no stopping power. You'll drill into an enemy and he'll either keep coming at you or keep shooting you, until his HP gets to 0 and he simply falls over. It's really weak, and this was a big worry a lot of Fallout fans had with Bethesda turning it into a first-person game. This becomes considerably less of an issue if you keep it isometric.

This is why I'm going to abuse VATS, and as soon as someone creates a mod that gives you unlimited AP or greatly increases the recharge rate and balances it out appropriately so as not to make things ridiculously easy, I'm gonna be all over that shit.
 
saunderez said:
Did you not talk to Moira? She's batshit insane which makes her hilarious....
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've completed two of three tasks she's assigned me and I understand that she was trying to be humorous, but it didn't connect with me. Also, her voice is like nails on a chalkboard. And she has a mustache.
 
FoeHammer said:
Yeah, I've completed two of three tasks she's assigned me and I understand that she was trying to be humorous, but it didn't connect with me. Also, her voice is like nails on a chalkboard. And she has a mustache.
Click to expand...

Yeah, unfortunately she isn't funny. It's the line delivery.
 
I went to pick this up this morning at Target and the lady that was working at the electronic section said that Target pushed back the release date a day...? I had no idea what she was talking about. I argued with her for nearly 20 minutes. Im gonna walk to Best Buy in an hour to pick it up.
 
gnarkill bill said:
I went to pick this up this morning at Target and the lady that was working at the electronic section said that Target pushed back the release date a day...? I had no idea what she was talking about. I argued with her for nearly 20 minutes. Im gonna walk to Best Buy in an hour to pick it up.
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I got it at Target with no problem.
 
DenogginizerOS said:
Liam Neeson for the WIN!
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Wait--what? Liam Neeson does a voice in the game???

I picked up my copy a few minutes ago too. Weird because I've never bought a game in the morning before, so now I have to sit through the entire day while it just sits in my bag.

Never played a Fallout before but it looks exciting.
 
whatdidyousay said:
Wait--what? Liam Neeson does a voice in the game???

I picked up my copy a few minutes ago too. Weird because I've never bought a game in the morning before, so now I have to sit through the entire day while it just sits in my bag.

Never played a Fallout before but it looks exciting.
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Liam Neeson is your father, and his voice acting has been the best I've heard although there hasn't been much competition in that department.
 
I'm torn about picking this up today. I just steamrolled through Fable 2 and I have the new Castlevania game waiting to be played, and I'm not too keen on dropping $60 on another game. I'm also kind of concerned about the issues with the combat. That said, I actually enjoyed Oblivion, and I love the first two Fallout games. Decisions, decisions.
 
Jugendstil said:
I'm torn about picking this up today. I just steamrolled through Fable 2 and I have the new Castlevania game waiting to be played, and I'm not too keen on dropping $60 on another game. I'm also kind of concerned about the issues with the combat. That said, I actually enjoyed Oblivion, and I love the first two Fallout games. Decisions, decisions.
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I have a lot of issues with the game after a few hours, but that being said, I'm excited to get home and pick it back up.

I had the same feelings with Morrowind and Oblivion (less so), but those ended up being awesome games. If you're unsure, give the game a rent over the weekend and see how you feel after 5 hours or so.
 
If one could sum up the Fallout 3 experience in a few sentences, what would it be? What about Fallout 3 distinguishes it from the other great games hitting stores right now and in the coming weeks?
 
Argh. This isn't out for 2 more days, the wait is killing me. I'm like Cartman from the Wii episode. "Come ooooooooooonnnn cooome ooooooonnnn!"

Then I have early morning shifts on friday and saturday so no late night gaming. D:
 
ZombieSupaStar said:
i was wondering why they were still standing, also I crippled one guard
in that hallway where they shoot the 2 escaping vault people, can you save them? and he seemed to pickup his gun after he dropped it
Click to expand...

I reloaded and ran the fuck in there and killed the guards before they could kill the two dudes, since the guards targeted me instead of them. the male escapee went up and started punching the guards while they were attacking me, which was pretty funny. anyway, the two escapees ran back and i never saw them again. they didn't die, but i don't know what happened to them.
 
so those who have the ps3 version, how bad or not bad is it? I remember reading this thread a few days ago and people made it seem like the ps3 version was terrible
 
FoeHammer said:
Liam Neeson is your father, and his voice acting has been the best I've heard although there hasn't been much competition in that department.
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And there probably won't be any competition. The remaining voices you hear will probably be the same three for every character you approach a la 'Oblivion'.

"Well met."
 
DangerStepp said:
And there probably won't be any competition. The remaining voices you hear will probably be the same three for every character you approach a la 'Oblivion'.

"Well met."
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Nah, there's apparently a lot more variety this time around in the voices.

Having said that, the actual voice acting itself also apparently still leaves something to be desired.
 
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