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Diving into Fallout's Point Lookout add-on; feels funny to have something resembling a challenge again, though it feels goofy that the random hick-style mutants they've got you fighting are so hard to take down, what with no armor or anything.

I gotta say, still love the game and all, but I don't think they found the right balance with the bad guys in the Point Lookout and Broken Steel add-ons. In both cases they correctly recognized that they had to add tougher enemies for leveled-up players, but their only way to do this seems to have been to artificially crank up their health and damage. It's better than nothing, but the fights feel less organic or believable, and more like Chineses Hot Hand, where you win not because you approach them the right away or even pick the best weapon, but because you can simply take more than them.

Still, hats off on the atmosphere, with the swamps and all the fog. Fairly creepy. I think The Pitt is looking like a slightly more holistic, inventive add-on, but this is the third I've played and it's certainly loads better than Operation: Anchorage so far.

I dinged level 16 yesterday, and did a whole TON of random exploring/scavenging. Seeing a lot more of the game than I did first time through. I do feel like the game has gotten a bit too easy at this point, as maybe I was a bit too focused on my skill progression. I was dropping Deathclaws in Old Olney in 2-3 shots easy last night.

I somehow managed to do Agatha's Song 1) backwards and 2) WAY later in the game than I found her last time. I still think Vault 92 is one of the creepier sections of the game, with all the chilling holo-tapes about the sound experiments.

Uh, anyone know where the mayor of lil lamplight goes if you don't speak to him right away once the gate is opened? The lil bugger vanished and the smarmy twist guarding the back gate won't let me into Vault 87 unless I speak to the mayor first. The lil bugger has just vanished from the planet. I spoke to him immediately last time through, and I was able to get back to 87 fairly quickly, unless I misremember it.
I've done almost all of the side quests, and I should probably continue on with the main story here soon!

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The mayor is usually wandering around that central structure (the one with all the rope bridge walkways), I think. He can be a pain to find, it's true.

Chris - I feel the same as you about Point Lookout. Atmospherically it's great but the enemies are a bit too tough to be fun mowing down.

On a slightly related note - Hillbillies apparently originated from Ulster, as the Appalachians were settled by supporters of King William. The Billy Boys.

So that's loads of Presidents (notably Useless Grant and Samuel L Jackson), Davy Crockett, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, John Wayne, Christina Ricci (I know!, but it's true) and Hillbillies. I'm proud.

EDIT - Oh yeah, and Billy The Kid.

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

Yeah, I trudged around that Great Chamber of rope bridges for about an hour, then I gave up and split to do side quests. I waited, I slept, I harassed people...the kid won't show!

I know you probably hate this in general, but there's a Fallout wiki called "The Vault" that has pages on every character, like MacCready. In this case you could consult it just enough to read up on his typical locations and daily schedule. It's good for stuff like that, where it's just a silly logistical problem and not really a spoiler. Though sadly, in this one character's case, he does not have a predictable schedule and just wanders around. D'oh.

Or you could Google "find Mayor MacCready" and find a bunch of other forum posts around the 'Net of people angrily demanding to know his location, too.

I tend to consult the wiki or a guide when I get into a situation like this. I just didn't remember it even being an issue last time, and this time, the kid is just GONE. Thought i would ask you guys first, though!

Yeah, sorry. I had the same exact problem at one point. I just ran around to each spot systematically and eventually found him.

I already left to escort party boy to Big Town, so that didn't reset him. I'll look again later on!

Chris, have you tried the Darnified UI for Fallout 3?

It's a solution to a problem which went back to Oblivion in that, as a cross-platform title, the UI looked much too clunky on a PC at higher resolutions. I've been using it on Oblivion for years and on Fallout 3 as soon as I found out there was a version for that game.

Link

I think that's the most recent version in the link.

In action:

&feature=player_embedded

Haven't tried any mods yet, no. I've been going by a rough plan, once I found out how the level caps and add-ons worked:

1. Play and explore.
2. Level to 20, finish all of the campaign except the last mission.
3. Activate all add-ons and start leveling to new cap of 30.
4. Once all the add-ons are finished, finish the main storyline.
5. Strut around a little having maxed out on everything.
6. Start playing around with mods.

Still #3. But I do expect to get sort of bored once I've finished basically everything, at which time I'll start screwing around with that site you linked me to. Probably not before, though, if only because I'm admittedly scared of mucking up the installation before doing everything.

Fair enough, ordinarily I'd tell everyone to stay well clear of mods on their first playthrough in any game as they're usually for folk who are either bored, disappointed, can't help tinkering with stuff (*cough* me *cough*) or want an entirely new experience.

The UI mod is one which doesn't change any gameplay mechanics or add anything 'unoriginal' apart from nicer, smaller text on your Pipboy and in conversations.

Re: 4 - You know you've got to finish the main quest before you can do any of the Broken Steel missions, right? I'd say just finish it organically, don't muck with the vibe maaaaaaan.

I watched that video. Where's VATS? What's with the slow-mo aim and fire? How do you do that? Is that a perk?

The smaller text is a particularly good, elegant idea, yeah. Way too much scrolling now.

[quote=Tacitus;727057Re: 4 - You know you've got to finish the main quest before you can do any of the Broken Steel missions, right? I'd say just finish it organically, don't muck with the vibe maaaaaaan. [/QUOTE]
Yep; sorry, I just meant the other ones. Until then Broken Steel is really just a way to keep leveling, so by the time I actually do play those missions I'm at 30.

I think it's the mod Dave was suggesting.

The video is a bit confusing, in retrospect, but it was the one that the Darnified UI guys are using to show the mod at work. The only thing you're getting with Darnified UI is a more PC monitor-friendly font (which itself is configurable).

The video is mainly showing the F3 Wanderer's Edition which is one of those big mods which rebalances a lot of stuff for a greater challenge and more of that mythical 'immersion'. The only one of those mods I've tried is FOOK (along with Mart's Mutant Mod), which seems to be regarded as the daddy.

To be honest, I've never found the need to mod Fallout 3 as much as I did with Oblivion. It looks fine at high resolutions and I found the balancing as you level up to be fine for my taste. Oblivion on a decent PC shows its console roots immediately and the fact that it's now over 6 years old means that you can upgrade it an awful lot and it'll still run smoothly.

The fact that a lot of people hated the Oblivion levelling system also gave modders huge scope to play around with it and make things more traditional - I dunno if Bethesda took note of this when making Fallout 3 or it's just because the Fallout games always had exp for quests + perks and not the fluid sneak-more-to-build-up-your-sneaking-stats style of the Elder Scrolls games. I suspect the latter.

I just want to interrupt this thread about real video games to say that I am now officially addicted to Minecraft. Built my first real house today -- had an interesting time with the mechanics of getting two staircases in the same building. I'd make a terrible engineer...

... but I am hooked and spend way too much time playing this game. And because it's a total sandbox game (which is totally what I've been looking for, for years), there is no real hope of me becoming unaddicted any time soon.

Damn you, Mojang. Damn you!

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Carrying on with the interruption, I thought this news might be of interest to some of you.

New 'Alien' project announced by Sega
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/n...d-by-sega.html

Finished the Point Lookout add-on. Well, mostly; I think there's still a thing or two to do, but I believe I've completed all its related quests. Not bad. A bit below The Pitt, but not much, and well above Operation: Anchorage. Really nice add-on, and it gets more points than The Pitt on one front: it's more well-integrated into the main game.

At this point it's just Mothership Zeta (meh; not terribly excited about that one), the main storyline, and then the Blue Steel stuff. I spy a Fallout 3 finish line off in the distance for the first time...

By the by, if I'd known just how valuable I'd find the Chinese Stealth Suit, I'd have played the Anchorage add-on a lot sooner. I can't believe how many fights I snuck by having to engage in during Point Lookout. I skipped over all the Mirelurks in the Sacred Bog and dozens of swamp people. Ditto for the Ghoul Mask, which is practically a prerequisite for playing Point Lookout. Earlier I'd have wanted to wipe all these guys out but at this point I'm more than content to just slip by them.

Mothership Zeta is enjoyable enough, if a little tedious considering just how massive the ship is. Lots of really cool areas and a few surprising things to discover on the ship, so it's definitely worth a play. I suspect, though, you'll be as frustrated as I was trying to haul all the wicked awesome laser guns that can be pilfered from the ship, in addition to the usual loot that's worth picking up. Good luck!

You're not kidding! I was not prepared for the ferocity of those mothertruckers. In the Wasteland, I'd stand my ground against everything short of (and sometimes including) Deathclaws, but fighting those Feral Ghoul Reavers in Point Lookout... no way. I'd run every time. (What, is Fawkes afraid of paddlewheel boats of something? Come on, man!)

Yeah, I dunno if I've fought a Reaver yet, actually; I've run into maybe two Super Mutant Overlords since installing Broken Steel, but I got a lot of the Ghoul-heavy (and SM-heavy) quests done before installing it, since it seems like it would easily double the difficulty of a number of areas.

I actually expect Mothership Zeta will be enjoyable not in that it'll necessarily be as fun or creative, but in that I find myself more "creeped out" when I'm fighting the biological entities in the game as opposed to technological ones. If the ship is all shiny and new and I'm just fighting aliens and robots, I think I'll probably cruise through it. Finally have to use a bunch of those Pulse Grenades, though.

They're all over Point Lookout, though if you had the mask, you might have strolled right past them and never knew it. They wear pieces of armor, whack you with their arms, and hurl radioactive slop grenades that they pull away from their skin. They're damaging fighters, fast, and have some of the highest enemy HP in the game.

It's mostly making your way through the ship, but obviously there's an "imprisoned" scenario at the beginning that sets up the DLC's plot and a few surprising encounters along the way. (I won't spoil anything for you, but aliens and robots aren't the only upright entities you'll find in Mothership Zeta.) And if you're like me, you'll appreciate some of the more impressive areas of the ship. There's an observation deck that's quite awesome.

But yeah, otherwise it's a fight from room-to-room. As they do, Bethesda finds ways to break up some of the monotony for you and make it a little more memorable, but it's still a quick play. And like I said, the laser guns.... you're gonna want to hold onto those.