Brotato

So I started playing Fallout 3 this weekend.  If you did know, Fallout 3 is a role-playing game set in a post-apocalyptic America in and around the Washington D.C. area.  In the game you emerge from the underground bunker which you have lived in your whole live to face the perils of the American wasteland.  The wasteland is filled with raiders and mutants, but fear not as there are also pockets of humanity living in ramshackle settlements from which you can buy and sell food, weapons, and supplies.  

The game looks similar to Oblivion, released by Bethesda a few years ago.  Fallout 3, however, is not Oblivion with guns.  The combat and leveling systems have been retooled and the results are satisfying.  The inventory/quest info system provided by your Pipboy is kind of clunky to use at first and will take some time getting used to.  

So after playing 8-10 hours this weekend I decided to start over.  Nothing in-game caused me to restart (although I did ‘break’ a quest); instead I realized that I could do the early parts of the game better.  The main difference is that I chose to play a female character this time.  Female characters can choose a perk which grants them a bonus when dealing with or fighting male NPC characters.  Male characters have a similar perk when dealing with females, but since a majority of NPCs are male the perk works best when playing as a female.

The second thing I did differently this time is skill point allocation.  My first time through I tried raising all my skills equally (jack of all trades, master of none).  Because of this I had trouble picking locks and hacking terminals outside of the beginning areas because my skills weren’t high enough.  This time through I’ve focused a majority of my skill points into 2-3 skills rather than spreading them out.  I’ve only played a handful of hours on this new character but I have already picked more locks and hacked more terminals than I have in the several hours I put in with my first character.  In doing so I’ve reaped the benefits of more supplies and ammo.  On the downside however I’ve already noticed that my combat is slacking, but I look forward to using items and strategy to help out with that.

I changed the order of my quest selection as well.  There is an early quest in which you are rewarded with a house after defusing a bomb.  In Fallout 3, inventory is limited by a weight limit.  Because of this while you are out questing you want to pick up everything you find but end up having to drop a bunch of semi-useless trinkets because of the weight limit.  With a house you are granted a place to permanently store items you are not currently using.  Instead of carrying around 7 weapons and 3 different suits of armor you can store much of it at home, and prepare for your quests carrying only the items you need.  My first time through I didn’t do the house quest until several hours in (I didn’t know the reward nor did I have the skills), and because of that I dropped or otherwise didn’t pick up items I could sell because I had no room in my inventory.

Fallout 3 is a great game, and will be in the running for several Game of the Year awards from various publications.  I look forward to exploring the American Wasteland with my new character, and will keep this page updated with all my adventures.