Wasting Away pt. 3… One Man American Revolution

Fallout 3: Vault 106 is essentially the most Bioshock-like part in the game. All the Vault 106′ers sound like friendly normal people, but are truly evil, and will attack you on sight. It’s a shame that all of the people in 106 had to deal with whatever the hell gas it was that turned them into psycho killers, but you will find no one of substance to talk to down here. Walken found the 106′ers to be easy kills, but had a boss battle with a little thing called “Post traumatic Stress,” as he kept having crazy flashbacks mid-battle. Nothing like seeing the ghost of the Overseer in a room that looks precisely like the one you last saw his daughter. Cracked the 106 Overseer’s computer with the passcode ‘happiness,’ but there was nothing worth finding here (except that EXP). Coming to Vault 106 led to the Science bobble head, a bunch of f’d up blue screens (during flashbacks), and a bit of confusion (due to passing the sticks [controller] between Laparkea, and myself).

After leaving 106, I came across some lady’s bed and breakfast that was bombed out, and controlled by raiders. I had a bit of trouble with these raiders (hadn’t fought a threat in a while), but eventually
dispatched them for my 12th level up (which led to my thirteenth level up with the “Hear and Now” perk). Next I found Arefu, and some jumpy guy who apparently runs the town. He was standing watch, and almost blew me up with a mine. He sort of apologized in a half ass’d way, and then asked me to go check on the three families that live in his town. The First house I checked at the end of the town, was the West family’s home. I found it ransacked, and the family was dead on the floor (with bite marks on their bodies). I had met another person with a West surname, who I had to tell this to, but first I checked on the rest of Arefu. I don’t recall too much else about the people in Arefu, other than they were weak, and not particularly intelligent. They all wanted me to find a pack of raiders (who only raided at night), called “The Family.”

I left Arefu by air, when I decided to jump off the freeway bridge the town was built on. I swam out of the water, but felt I was being followed. When I turned, I saw another disgusting product of nuclear fallout, a Mirelurk (or Mukluk as it’s fun to call them). I was apparently also suppose to be searching out some Mireluk colony for the survival guide mission, but after meeting this one I wasn’t in any rush. Walken went on down to Big Town, and met a strange woman named Bittercup. After a bit of jiving with this insecure lady for a bit, and restarting the conversation a few seconds after, she gave me twenty five bottle caps. What a sweetheart. Big Town was small in the way of happenings, but I did find a robot called Mister Gutsy, that looked exactly like the robot who killed me on my first attempt at walking the wastes. After blowing the crap out of Senor Gutsy, I felt it was time to get back to finding the Old Man.

Arrived at Rivet City to find it was impossible to gain entrance. Moments later Walken discovered the city was actually a boat docked in the harbor. After a few moments of not finding a way into the front entrance, it was time to go next door (kind of) to the Jefferson Memorial. It was at the Memorial that we found out about what our father had been working on before moving to Vault 101, Project Purity. We also found tons of Super Mutants, and a large network of pipes running through the building. We dispatched of any Super Mutant we could find, grabbed up all the tapes our father left in his old lab, but then came across a Super Mutant Master. Luckily, we had the Mysterious Stranger perk, as he came and saved the day (like he usually does) with his revolver/trench coat combo. After leaving the building, we found a few more Super Mutants playing around on a metal structure with some poor tied up human. Walken made his second rescue, and made sure the man was safe before we made our way back to Rivet city to continue the story. We didn’t go to the front door, instead opting for what we thought was the back entrance. When we found the door, it said we were entering the Broken Bow.

On the Broken Bow, Walken found a gas leak, a hull leak (causing water to fill the bottom of the boat), and a bunch of Mukluks living it up. I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but something sparked the gas leak, causing the entire top level of the boat to fill up with fire. Luckily, Walken is part ninja, and got behind the door he entered through before the fire could touch him. Walken opened the door, eyebrows singed, and discovered a scruffy scientist in the back of the Bow. Apparently the man had been excommunicated from Rivet City due to his Deer Hunter look. Walken bolted before the Mirelurks returned. On my way up to the Rivet City Bridge, I was stopped by a supposed hitman, who’d been sent to kill me. I dispatched of this combat shotgun’n bastard, and his gang of friends, to find they were holding a contract with my name on it. It read like this…

“Boys and girls, we’ve got ourselves another holier-than-thou white knight needs putting down. Here are the details:

Name: Walken
Race: Caucasian
Sex: Male

The bounty is 1000 caps this time around. And, for a change of pace, they want the head this time…

Good hunting!”

I was two parts disgusted, one part proud, and negative three parts scared. If this was there idea of a hit-squad, I had little to worry about. I finally made my way into Rivet City. My father had apparently left before I arrived, but I did get some answers from Doctor Li. She told me about the Jefferson Memorial deal, Project Purity, my Mother, and that my Father’s location would be in his notes. I began listening to the notes, but stumbled upon some bratty kid, and his bipolar mother. I eventually convinced the kid to run away from his evil mom, and went back to the notations. It was in the notes that I found my dad had gone to Vault 112. Time to make another run to PTSD city, so I went back to Megaton, and settled some things before heading off to Vault #3. Interesting to note about Walken’s supposed boy, Moriarty. Dude charges more for stimpaks than his slave Gob. I was pretty pissed to find this out, seeing as he’s an old friend of my family. I hope to be able to free Gob from the clutches of this slave driver at some point in this life, or the next (Warning: Fallout 3 warrants multiple playthrus).

Found Vault 112 in no time. I was greeted by a kind, Wadsworth-like bot, who told me I arrived 202 years behind schedule. After that, I was told to put on a 112 jump suit, and hop into a tranquility
chamber. Apparently the chamber is supposed to have all the answers Walken needs. After complying with all the robot’s nonsense, I found the tranquility chamber to be some kind of virtual reality, where everyone lives in a black and white world reminiscent of Pleasantville (Tobey Macguire’s magnum opus). There I found some crazy scientist pretending to be a little girl name Betty. Betty wanted me to go around ruining the days of everyone in the simulation, but Old Lady D found me, and interrupted my mischief to tell me about the fail safe. She made it clear that I had to break away from Betty’s madness, and go flip the fail safe in the abandoned house. Walken ran to the abandoned house to find nothing, but a bunch of junk strewn out randomly across the front room. It was here that Laparkea discovered the puzzle within. What you need to do is click on the seemingly random objects in a very un-random order.

Fail Safe code: radio, empty pitcher, gnome, empty pitcher, block, gnome, bottle.

After entering the code, a terminal pops up, and allows you to activate the Chinese invasion scenario. When you leave the abandoned building you’ll see a bunch of Chinese soldiers firing at will. Betty is not happy about what you have done, but will not lie to you anymore. After escaping “Tranquility Lane,” Walken finally meets up with his father, who was evidently the dog in the simulation (that was seemingly random). We talked for a bit, but really didn’t have much to say to each other. We were men of action, and decided to get back to saving America from the clutches of nuclear destruction. We traveled back to Rivet city, told Doctor Li everything was cool, and made our way back to Project Purify. When everyone was situated at the Jefferson Memorial, Walken was sent to clear some pipe drainage. He didn’t know it at the time, but that would be the last time he would talk to his father face to face. After playing a bit of intercom tag with the Old Man, it was time to return to the lab. When I exited the drain, I saw that the Enclave (or The Man as far as anyone is concerned) was staging a hostile takeover.

I battle my way back to the lab, where the old man was being held captive by some crazy red neck Enclave officer. I stood and watched, as the Enclave officer killed my father’s assistant, and then mistakenly released gas killing everyone in the room. Luckily for Walken, he was behind a glass window watching, but unluckily for his dad, he was no longer alive. Doctor Li brought Walken back to reality, reminding him that they needed to escape quickly. It was escort mission time, as Walken took Doctor Li and about five survivors through a secret tunnel system. The tunnels were filled with Ghouls, but Walken blasted everyone’s way to safety with the Combat Shotgun. When we exited the tunnels we found “The Citadel,” which was The Brotherhood of Steel’s homebase. We were turned away at the giant locked gates, but Doctor Li yelled her way through the gates, and we were granted access. I leveled to 14, was an “Ambassador of peace,” and was on safe ground for once…

Wasting Away… Part I

Fallout 3: I celebrated Halloween by taking another spin with Walken’s post-Vault 101 life. I started the day off with a bit of light exploring. I went to a town nearby megaton, and just searched the area for loot. I found an elementary school, or what was left of one, and found it was taken over by hostile raiders. I cleaned the place out like Jean Reno on a good day, but was a little disturbed to see all the formerly tortured dead bodies hanging throughout the school. I wasn’t going to let that throw me off though, and I kept trekking through the wastes, until I stumbled across an old friend, the town of Grayditch. Like most towns in this game, Grayditch is a ruin of its former self, but unlike most towns in this game, it’s been overrun with “fire ants.” These ants are a lot like any giant ant you’ll see strolling the Wastes, only these ants can shoot non-stop flames from their face (at a high range). I pulled my sniper rifle out before I entered the town limits, and scoped out a fire ant about three hundred yards away. I sniped it, and three of it’s friends out before checking on my boy Brian.

Brian was safe in a protection pod outside the diner. I put him back in the pod, and explored his neighborhood. In the shack next to Brian’s house, I found a recording that proved Dr. Lesko had been responsible for this sudden fire ant problem. I left the shack, and made my way over to Brian’s house to find his father succumbed to ants. I cleared the house, and salvaged whatever I could for the rest of my journey. After clearing out the rest of the town, I checked on Brian, and told him I had to go into the subway to destroy the rest of the fire ants. He did as he usually does, and went back into the safety pod. It was time for me to make my way in the Aliens-like-nest the Fire ants had set up in Marigold station.

I figured there would be a much deeper infestation problem, but there were maybe a fire ant to three down all the corridors I came across in Marigold station. There was a lot of ant slaughtering to be had, but I found my second recording of the game here also. It seems a maintenance man had stashed some loot in an employees-only room, and hid his key to the safe behind a fire hose (a tricky find). Sadly, I got into the employee’s room without the key, and couldn’t get into the safe (this time). I dug a little deeper, and came out of the ant hill on the Falls Church side. Lucky for me because it led to my second random encounter with the Brotherhood of Steel. Again, we were fighting off a group of Super Mutants, and again it was day time. I wonder if the Brotherhood ever hunts at night. Anyway, we fought off about seven super muties, and then I followed the rabbit hole a little deeper to find Hubris Comics.

Walken loves comic books as much as the next Vault 101′er, but there was no time to waste. Directly across from where I left Falls Church were a pack of Super Mutants using shopping carts as slave cages, and holding some innocent non-mutant captive. Walken could not sit idly by, while a bunch of giant green mercs sold a human into slavery, so I dispatched of the largest group of minigun toting mutants I’d ever seen, and saved the man’s life. He gave me a bit of ammo for my trouble, but really I would have let him live for a simple “thank you.” After all this madness I gave the sticks back to Laparkea, who wanted to complete the rest of that GNR mission from the other day. On the road to the Museum of Science we go. On the way there we got side tracked (as usual) by a battle in the Capitol building.

It was another conflict centered around stinking Super Mutants, and it was my second encounter with the Behemoth Super Mutant, or whatever it is they call those things. The battle featured non-mutants who were feeding me 60+ xp per kill, so I was gladly taking the free kills from their distracted (by giant green mutants) lives. This was an easy smash and grab scenario because both factions were so preoccupied with one another. I assault rifled my way through the mess, and rocket launched the giant(est) greenie into oblivion. After clearing the Capitol building for future political advancement (or looting), I made my way back out into the Wastes. Luckily it wasn’t long before I found the Museum of Science (and luckily the Washington Monument). Walken found himself in a the most dangerous district of the Wastes, and had to battle another pack of machine gunning Super Mutants.

To be continued…

Behind the Vault door: Fallout 3

Fallout 3: To start off my character (Walken) was born, and through Walken’s birth came his mother’s death. I can’t remember the last time a game started out with the main character bringing on his own mother’s demise, but this game isn’t about holding any punches. A year passes, and I’m walking around the old man’s living quarters. It’s at this age that Fallout 3 finds a cool way for you to develop your characters abilities, by allowing you to go through a children’s book that explains what each attribute does for Walken. It wasn’t that big of a deal, but it’s little things like this that go a long way. After this portion, we skipped ahead to Walken’s coming of age birthday party, where I acquired my first ever pipboy. The pipboy is basically the in game menu, and without it later on, I’d be dead on arrival to the surface. The party goes off without a hitch, and I meet the Overseer, his daughter, the vault bullies, my dad’s assistant, and a few other vault residents.

Now we’re bumped to Walken’s job aptitude testing. Here, you get to answer a few questions in a classroom setting, and find out what your character will be doing to keep Vault 101 running for the rest of his sunlightless days. I earned the job of fry cook, but changed my points to fit my personal needs better. Skip ahead to Waken’s 19th year on earth. I’m awoken by the sounds of a panicking Vault 101. The Overseer’s daughter has rushed to my bedside to inform me that my father has escaped the vault, and that her dad was going to kill me because of it. She tells me about a secret passage, and I kill pretty much everyone in Vault 101 on my way to the secret passage. The bully, who wanted my help to save his mother, got a rude awakening. I talked him into believing his mother was done for, and then I cracked his head open with my baseball bat. The Overseer and his overbearing ways were dispatched of with a couple quick headshots. I took his passkey, and got the f out of Vault 101.

The daylight hit Walken’s eyes like a freight train. Nothing could have prepared the boy for his first step into the real (radioactive) world. All I could see was desert, destruction, and sky for miles. I attempted to go East from the Vault, but found a plasma shooting robot that didn’t like that Idea, so I made my way to Megaton. Megaton is a town with an active Atom bomb in the center of it. This Atom bomb is worshiped by the Church of Atom. There are non-religious people who live in Megaton, but without the church, the walls of the town would never have been built, and those non-religious types would have already been another part of the “Wastes” themselves. I wanted to set off the bomb in Megaton after receiving a mission from a sketchy man in a bar, but my friend was on the sticks at that point, and disarmed the bomb. Walken’s destructive nature was disregarded, and the entire town now loves him for saving them. I can’t say I’m for all those adoration, but at least they gave me my own shack in Megaton, complete with a robo-butler who gives haircuts.

After all this, it was time to go off on a journey to find Walken’s father. We were told by a bar owner named Moriarty, that Galaxy Radio News is where we needed to start our search. Off we went, traversing the Wastes alone until the darkness fell. It seemed easier to search in the day time, so Walken took a nap in the middle of the wastes, like any silly vault dweller would. Walken’s first full day in the outside world begun in the middle of a firefight. The Brotherhood of Steel was knee deep in Super mutants, and Walken was sleeping in the middle of the street, where this conflict was popping off. I aid the Brotherhood in the dispatching of a couple mutants, and they basically tell me to f off. Instead, I just follow them, and they end up giving me escort to the Galaxy Radio station. We were attacked by a full fledged Super Mega Mutant. Dude was three stories tall, and wanted to bash our skull in. I fought him right out front of GNR, in the middle of the street, and was one hit away from death, but the Brotherhood finished him off with covering fire before he could finish me off. You have to appreciate a game that has A.I. smart enough to save your butt (especially during a boss battle).

After the skirmish I went into the GNR building, and met head D.J. (and ultimate douche bag) Three dog. Dude acted like he was a cool guy, but when it came time for him to share the knowledge of my father’s whereabouts, he told me I had to go steal a giant satellite dish for him first. What kind of dickhead sends you on a suicide mission during the apocalypse, when he could just be telling you where your long lost dad is? This kind, I suppose. Instead of running this fool’s errand straight away, Walken returned to Megaton. Here Walken found a job as a research assistant. First research duty was checking the super market for food. There wasn’t any, but there was a boy being chased by a hunter. I killed the hunter with my sledgehammer, and took all of his hunting equipment, then chased the boy down. Apparently the boy was a survivor of a “Fire ant” attack, and asked if I could go back to his town to look for survivors. I talked him down a bit with Walken’s high charisma and Speech, and eventually he told me of some loot behind the old diner in his village. I went there, got burned to death before I could get to the back of the diner, and handed the sticks off. Laparkea did all the same stuff, but he couldn’t talk the kid into divulging information about the secret dumpster behind the diner.

We skipped that mission, researched the store, found nothing, and went back to Megaton. Walken was then sent to go research radiation poisoning, so we took Walken to a giant rad-puddle, and performed our best herbal essences commercial by bathing in the puddle. After shoveling enough radioactive water into Walken’s mouth we went back to the annoying lady who gave us the job. She healed us, and sent Walken to a mine field to acquire of mine. We eventually reached the field, but Laparkea didn’t sneak up to the mines, and triggered enough to blow him to kingdom come. Walken was dead, his father was still out there, the wasters how to guide wasn’t finished being researched, and GNR still needs a satellite. Seems Washington D.C. is even more screwed than it was before Walken had arrived.

Come Plurk with me!