Topic: Fallout 3

[IAF Lyrkiller]

Anyone playing this game?

[Sirgod]

I will be grabbing it this week. Man I loved the older ones.

Stephen

[dragoon]

I've lost my freetime to this game....
The only issue I have is that it is so open ended you can find certain people too soon, and the story jumps ahead.. leaving you a little confused.

But, a reload and the problem is solved.. I swear I could wander the wasteland for weeks and find something new... I can't wait for new content, or for the modders to crack the system. ( it's similar to Oblivion and morrorwind )

The game is so good ( in my view ), that it actually brought my brother back to PC gaming.

[Sirgod]

I am loving it myself. I played it for about 10 hours last night, and It just keeps getting better. The V.A.T.S. system allows you to enjoy the old style fallout, but the Oblivion style free roaming is outstanding.

You also have to think through your perks, and skills, which I like. If not carefull, a horde of ants or a single Deathclaw will take you out. Best game I have played this year.

Stephen

[Sirgod]

Just heard that elder scrolls V is in the works. I wonder if IT will Involve Grognak?

Grognak will crush his enemies, see them driven before him, and hear the lamentation of the women.

Stephen

[FRA.E.Kehakoul_XC]

Awesome game!!!!

[Musashi NCC-BR549]

Got a big kick out of Sarah Palin at the store in Megaton. 

This game is highly recommended.  Endless fun.

Spoilers, ... but if ya get stuck ..............  http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Fallout_3_quests  and http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_3_map

[dragoon]

And now the DLC is announced, and of course, Bethseda is releaseing the modding tools.... Which now makes this game an almost permanent place on my HDD

[Lloyd007]

Got this for X-mas. Here are my thought FWIW.

The main plot is WAY too short as in it's easy to get stuck at the final mission without having seen 90% of the game if you aren't careful. My first character had that as a huge problem lvl 14 and here I am at the end sequence! They should have either had it so you can freeplay after the game is done, had a longer main quest, tied in more areas or at least warned you that you were at the end of the game!

The ending itself was a huge letdown, "You just saved the world... here's a Certificate of Participation and a $5 coupon to Bennigans"

Once I started wandering the game became a lot better and more immersive, however... I just wish they had tied in a lot more areas to quests and a lot more quests to the main quest. It's not like the game is small they could have added 20 more quests to the main story line and still had 70% be sidequests and such.

I like the game a whole lot more than Oblivion for sure and it definitely is a Fallout game with the right atmosphere but the first two had more of a storyline than "Find your father, save the world... done".

Gameplay is great. Reading the Fallout 3 boards people are being taken away left and right by he Whaaambulance about the 'shooter' aspect and such but with VATS you don't ever have to go into the FPS aspect and if you want super complex interface gaming funtime! get a JRPG or The Witcher... I have no problem with the way Fallout 3's gameplay works, sure it's not like the first two but then the first two were 2d isometric view turn based RPG's.

[Czar Mohab]

Every one of you that has posted has played the game, no?

Lucky fellas.

F3, after years of waiting for it, finally joined my collection this Xmas. F3's min requirements = the desktops' specs, so I figured I'd be good to go, if not slow, choppy and detail free (more or less that is how I played F1 - on a PC that barely cleared min specs - slow and choppy!).

Come to find out that I need a lot to get this old girl up to snuff since it turns out the vid card is rather outdated, but by the box numbers is enough. Sad.

a New vid card needs better Mobo.
Mobo needs better CPU.
All might need new PSU.
Mohab needs $$
 

Also found a check in the mail today from something I did a while ago that ended with a class action suit. Check one of ?. The court won't see the case until tomorrow, so I may be getting a chunk of change out of someone else's boo boo. 

Long story short, I'm lookin forward to my coupon to Bennigan's! Now, how many people do you know that play newer games on a computer built at the turn of the century? Even the upgrade parts I've found so far were top of the line years ago!!

<--- That's me!

Czar "I've been through a lot of PC's in my time. This one's still the best in my book!" Mohab

P.S. the in game music sounds cool. That is about as far as I got... nosing through the files and listening to the music.

[Lloyd007]

It really costs more to upgrade than just buy new anymore. Check out tomshardware.com they have a guide that'll have you up and running with a great gaming PC for less than $700 (and you can probably cut down on that by using cheaper parts in certain areas)

[Pestalence_XC]

Czar Mohab,

It is better to build a complete new PC than it is to retrofit your current Dinosaur..

Core 2 processor at least (Stick with Intel.. much more powerful than ATI.. I wuldn't go with anything less than the E8650 2.66 Ghz CPU @ 1333 Mhz FSB)

4 GB memory supporting 800 Mhz FSB at least to go with the 1333 Mhz FSB cpu and Motherboard

NVidia Geforece 8800 GTX for base Vid card w/ 768 vid memory

650W PSU at least (ATX Certifiex)

Newer mother board that is ATX SLI certified and 16X on each PCIE slot supporting 1333 Mhz FSB. (preferrable NForce or Intel chipset.. ATI has fallen way behind in system performance compared to NVidia and Intel)

ATX tower case

You should be able to build a rig like this for under $800 currently..

If you want to build a monster PC.. then that would cost apprx $3400 with newest parts available.

[Lloyd007]

Actually I have to quibble with your assertion about Ati. Their latest graphics cards kick Nvidia's ass all the way around the playground (dollar for dollar if you want to spend $600+ vs $300 for Ati Nvidia comes out ahead in MOST benchmarks). They are the 4850 and 4870...

[Pestalence_XC]

Actually I have to quibble with your assertion about Ati. Their latest graphics cards kick Nvidia's ass all the way around the playground (dollar for dollar if you want to spend $600+ vs $300 for Ati Nvidia comes out ahead in MOST benchmarks). They are the 4850 and 4870...

This is why the ATI drivers have been failing WHQL testing and 90% of the game market focuses on designing games for NVidia since NVidia has Physx built in on their 8600 GT and newer cards where ATI you have to buy an NVidia Agia Physx card to get true physx off CPU in game (NVidia owns Agia)..

NVidia SLI is much more stable than ATI XFire... NVidia works with MS to develope for MS Operating system with both Motherboards and Graphics cards...

The only advantage ATI has had over NVidia was Open GL.. NVidia closed that gap 2 years ago and blew ATI out of the water.. NVidia is the only company currently making DirectX 11 video cards..

ATI has taken the fore front with their All-In-Wonder or their Tuner cards.. seeing as how NVidia doesn't do Tuners.. that is the only spot where ATI shines.. which makes competition for Hauppage.

Now If ATI/AMD ever got their act together and offered real customer support for their products on all Windows OS and all system configurations.. including getting WHQL with their AGP cards.. then I would tend to agree with you..

Example... Dizzy just got Radeon HD 2600 AGP card.. I installed it.. Fresh windows install.. ATI drivers caused system to crash just after start up.. this is drivers from disk.. Drivers not WHQL certified for AGP.. Downloaded latest drivers and purged old drivers from system, reinstalled drivers from download.. system crash after start up.. Drivers still not WHQL..

It was the Radeon CCC (Catalist Control Panel) causing incompatibilities with the AGP card slot, the CPU to PCI bridge which required special driver installation (CPU Standard PCI to PCI bridge drivers), 2 hotfixes from Microsoft, and a reinstall of the C++ 2005 and C++ 2008 runtime libraries before I could get his system stable under Windows XP SP 3.. and this was last week.

Every NVidia I have dealt with .. plug it in.. MS recognizes it right off the bat.. DL current drivers which are WHQL certified and system runs great.. no jumping through hoops..

and even with Dizzy's system.. the graphics are slugish with current configuration that prevents it from crashing.


So your argument is ATI is better.. I build computers for a living.. ATI/AMD are nothing but headaches currently.. especially under Vista and Windows 7... but becoming more and more of a pain under Win XP...

How many Drivers for ATI do you have to have to play your games?.. I needed 14 drivers to play 30 games with my Radeon X1300.. I only need the latest NVidia driver to play all my games..

So which is actually better? Take if from a system builder.. NVidia is way much better in ease of use, capabilities, compatibility, drivers, rendering, DirectX compliance, Open GL..

instead of going with Biased reviews.. take it from someone who builds power and gaming PCs.

[Lloyd007]

I haven't built as many systems as you but I have built systems. My latest has a Radeon 4870 and it works like a charm and smokes my older 8800 GTX (which I got 3 years ago which goes to show how long Nvidia rested on its laurels), I've found that unless a game runs cruddily updating drivers is more problem than it is worth (both with Ati and Nvidia) and when I find a stable version I don't update drivers.

Still running XP (never going to Vista I'm waiting for Windows 7) so I'll defer to you on Vista issues. My last 4 Systems have been as follows. Radon 9800 (great card, no problems), Geforce 8800GTX, 8600 (no problems with the 8800, the 8600 series died after4 months and was replaced, no problems with new), Radeon 4870 (no problems so far, best performing card I've owned by far).

Now I play lots of games but I don't run server software or go digging into stuff like you do but from my experiences Ati has been fine.

[Musashi NCC-BR549]

At the risk of confessing to Heresy .... I got tired of the endless computer tweeking and upgrading and the patch this and patch that what-not.   I bought 3 360 elites & 4 flat screens and scattered them across my kingdom.

Life shore got simplerer.  This laptop is for surfing, pic archiving, work, and poker .... lol ... in that order.  That's it.  No regrets.


Mush the Heretic

[Czar Mohab]

Finally got the pieces and parts working together in a perfect harmony - and spend $212. I recieved a bunch of older computer (P2's and P3's) stuff from a coworker, and then one day he dropped an ASUS P4 mobo in my lap! I was able to spend the money on a new HDD, vid card. PSU, and a couple of SATA data cables... long story short, F3 is by far the best Fallout game yet. It stays true to the theme, including the endless "Really? Another bunch of (insert badguy here)?" encounters.

The 2 (soon to be 3) DLCs look rather good, haven't got into those yet.

The only gripes I have are the Bloatflies and the level cap... 20 I don't think is enough, and the darn flies still bug you...

Current specs:
ASUS P5GD1-VM Mobo
P4 3.4HT/800 FSB
3 GB PC 3200 DDR RAM
ATI Radeon 3850 graphics (512 DDR3, et al)
Using onboard sound until I can find a PCI riser/extention... vid card covers one PCI slot with it's beefy heatsink, other PCI slot has Wireless network card
ENERMAX 650w PSU
500GB SATA WD HDD + 100GB SATA HDD (donated from dead laptop!)
Running Windows 7 Beta (with an overall 4.4 rating (CPU is low))
Using an old Dell mATX case right now, soon to be moving to an ATX case (which has more fan spots and much more room for the miles of cable that the Enermax uses)

Last things I need to do are to upgrade from this bulky 15 inch monitor to something LCD and bigger than 15 inches, and rig up the fans on the ATX case with Low-Med-High-Off switches. Freecycle here I come!

Czar "You know me, cheap as free!" Mohab

P.S. Thanks for all your input as to the "best way to go". As soon as I have the free cash, I'mma make me a true beast based on the i7 processor (unless something better comes around!).

[blank]

This game is dangerous!!! Don't play before the exams or you will face the same destiny of being addicted I've even stayed up late to play this game!!

It finished too early tho Wish they made it longer and more versatile so that you can change the main quest and by that i don't mean choosing if you will go in or the blonde girl as a way of deciding the game... and sure it would be nice if they added some more elements to the game such as building your own colony and then battling others... ahh i think im expecting too much but that would keep me nailed to the screen... cant wait for the sequel

[marstone]

This game is dangerous!!! Don't play before the exams or you will face the same destiny of being addicted I've even stayed up late to play this game!!

It finished too early tho Wish they made it longer and more versatile so that you can change the main quest and by that i don't mean choosing if you will go in or the blonde girl as a way of deciding the game... and sure it would be nice if they added some more elements to the game such as building your own colony and then battling others... ahh i think im expecting too much but that would keep me nailed to the screen... cant wait for the sequel

agree, playing through the game now, taking me away from working hard on my Q3 stuff, but it is giving my brain a rest as I read up on other things.

[Spartan-039]

I have it for the 360 and I'm lovin' it! The Fat Man is easily my favorite weapon in the game, who wouldn't love a mini-nuke launcher that they can carry around?

[Lono]

Finally upgraded my vid card in my old Dell machine (to a nvidia 250 - wrx grt on 350 psu just fyi) - and all I can say is WHOA!!!

I haven't had this much fun with a FPS Hybrid since the original Dues Ex!!!

1st night I didn't go to bed until after 2am - had to call in sick to work - very nostolgic for me!

I love that I have to make gut wrenching decisions on what areas to improve - especially after all the dumbed down "super rambo" trash that has been clogging the system since the latest console wars...

Can't wait to get all the DLC as well - so very, very cool!

 


As far as the vid card wars - I'm sorry but Nvidia still has the best drivers hands down!

In fact - I can now play Thief Gold again with the latest nvid drivers - which is great 'cuz I still haven't finished that yet - stoopid SFC competeing for my time in 2000!

;-)

[Musashi NCC-BR549]

Word has it that Fallout 4: New Vegas is in the works.

Sometime next year.

Hmmmm .... A shooter .... with a plot.....  in an open world with few rules ..... where I can always take a break, kick back, get drunk with fellow mutants, & play Hold'em for bottle caps.   

LOL .... this could be "The Perfect Video Game". 

[Dracho]

Just finished the Mothership Zeta DLC..nice..

The Operation Anchorage DLC's Chinese Stealth Armor with The Pitt's Infiltrator (5.56 silenced assault rifle) is an ungodly combination if you level yourself to have a high stealth skill and good sniper skills in the VATS.  About the only things I never kill with an initial headshot are the Supermutant Overlords and the giant supermutants.

[Musashi NCC-BR549]

That's my rig, too.   Chinese armor, Penetrator, mines, grenades, & a silenced pistol  ..... it's just not fair......

LOL .... do ya string a long chain of mines between you and supermutants and then shoot 'em in the head to get them heading your way?   

I dread starting Zeta.  I've done the whole thing 'cept Zeta and Vault 87 .... uh ... I think it's 87 ..... it's the westward radioactive one.   

I may start this game all over when I'm done. 

You sure get your money's worth out of this one.   It breaks down to pennies/ hour.

[Lono]

Ok - so I'm starting this game over again (I've hardly cleared anything but the old elementary school and some of the Operation Anchorage mission) and I'm wondering if I should wait on the DLC mission until everything else or not?

Keep in mind I definately like a challenge - but this time I am going to play on the one difficulty right below the hardest setting - because it was taking like 4-5 successful headshots to kill people - and a whole arsenal to kill a guard dog...

So - should I approach these DLC's after all the game? And if so - what's the best order for maximum challenge/entertainment?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! - Thx!!


p.s. - check this out for an amusing take on the FO3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FeJwz8QL1Q&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fve3d%2Eign%2Ecom%2Farticles%2Fnews%2F49445%2FFallout%2D3%2DGameplay%2DSpoof%2DVideo&feature=player_embedded

 

[Dracho]

Personally, I play all of the DLC and the side-quests first.  If you want to learn to wear power armor you'll need to do enough of the main campaign to get access to the Brotherhood leader, but otherwise, the side quests are the way to go (IMHO).

I'm on my 3rd time through.

[Dracho]

That's my rig, too.   Chinese armor, Penetrator, mines, grenades, & a silenced pistol  ..... it's just not fair......

LOL .... do ya string a long chain of mines between you and supermutants and then shoot 'em in the head to get them heading your way?   

I dread starting Zeta.  I've done the whole thing 'cept Zeta and Vault 87 .... uh ... I think it's 87 ..... it's the westward radioactive one.   

I may start this game all over when I'm done. 

You sure get your money's worth out of this one.   It breaks down to pennies/ hour.

Nah.. I use hand grenades in the VATS.. then pop 'em in the head.  I also like to pick their pockets and leave a grenade or mine on them and "Explode their pants".   I took the Ninja perk a while back and sometimes I come up behind them and use the General's shock sword from Operation Anchorage, and turn them into a little pile of smoking ashes.

I typically just use the DLC and a couple of mods:  One that slows the rate of weapon wear (it is a bit high, IMHO), and a pair of night vision goggles that are powered by energy cells for laser pistols.