DOWNTIME BREAK: My thoughts on the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series

So, my Samsung laptop (the only laptop I have capable of handling New Vegas well) no longer has a power cord, so I'm on my Dell laptop until the replacements come in from Amazon. In the meantime, I've tried my hand at the early Fallout games and Elder Scrolls. However, try as I might to get into them, I can't. I've never played the early games until now, and some aspects, such as the real-time mouse moving combat in Arena and Daggerfall, and the lack of true controller support in Oblivion and Morrowind tend to make it hard for me to get into those games, especially Oblivion, which I enjoyed on the PS3. I know I can just use something like Joy2Key or Xpadder to map the key controls for the games to a controller, but really, it's not the same. I'd need some sort of mod (official or unofficial) that adds the Xbox/360 control scheme to Morrowind and Oblivion before I can enjoy those games, as I'm not used to using a keyboard for gameplaying. Fallout 3 and New Vegas have that support, which is why I keep going back to them. As for Fallouts 1 and 2, my first Fallout game was 3, so moving from the awesome First Person Shooter/RPG hybrid of 3, that really got me to want to play more single-player FPSs, especially with RPG elements, to the turn-based point-and-click isometric RPG of the first 2 Fallout Games is really a big leap in gameplay. I'm not bashing the classic Elder Scrolls and the Interplay/BlackIsle Fallouts, I can see just from the new ones why the series are loved so much. Elder Scrolls and the Bethesda Fallout games have a basic "Do whatever you want" motif. You could do the missions, yes, but half the fun is going to a dungeon, wiping out everyone inside, sell the loot, rinse and repeat, with maybe the optional "Wait until the dungeon respawns" step, which I hated was left out of Fallout 3 unless you use a mod for the PC version, or you can just do what I loved to do and just hang around your house, having the character sit down somewhere you know is safe, and just leaving them there as if the character was truly relaxing after a hard day of dungeon raiding, and the Elder Scrolls series can be very engaging if you can get into it. The Fallout games basically revolve around life after a nuclear war, and how what is left of civilization is trying their best to get back on their feet when they aren't holing themselves up in bomb shelters called Vaults. It's just...well, I'm used to the current-gen way Bethesda does things, and I'm used to having a controller in my hand instead of a keyboard and mouse, or in my case, touchpad. Yeah, the touchpad thing really does not help. But yeah, I really want to get into the early Elder Scrolls and Fallout games, and heck, I want to get back into Oblivion, but with the early limitations and the lack of an actual pre-programmed controller configuration tends to hurt just about any third- or first-person shooter on the PC I can think of, as a laptop is not the best way to experience those games.

Tuesday, October 29, 2281

Well, this has been certainly an interesting almost week. Got my revenge against the ass who tried to kill me, got the chip back, rescued some blue fox girl who looks kinda hot, for a fox chick, and now I'm just roaming the wasteland, scavenging and wasting any members of factions I don't like.

I suppose I should start off with where I left off last Thursday. I got the rocket parts to the ghouls, who I now realize weren't the Followers of the Apocalypse as I said they were last entry (my bad), and then watched as the launched off to god knows where, then headed back to Novac to rest before continuing on my quest to make the Great Khans pay for their ambush.

I was told the group was headed to Boulder City, so I immediately headed off for there, and when I arrived, I saw an NCR troop looking at a memorial of a battle there, which his brother had fought in and was killed when the NCR had to nuke the place as a last resort. I go up to the ruins to find that the Khans have taken two privates hostage, and I volunteered to sneak in and get them out. Normally sneaking's not one of my fortes, but I think I did alright. Got the attention of someone, but they never caught me until I got the privates out, during which I then used my normal method of going in guns blazing until every one that was against me was dead. Once the Khans were dispatched, I headed off to New Vegas, where I had heard the ass in the fancy shirt, who was named Benny, was currently at. So, I take a trip through the outskirts of New Vegas, also known as Freeside, killing any street crook who tried to look at me funny, and I'm stopped by a security robot asking for either a credit check or a license number or what have you. The credit check was pretty steep, so I just pulled a random license number out of my ass and he let me through. Of course, no sooner had I taken too steps than whoa, Victor, what the hell are you doing here?! Apparently Victor can be in multiple places at once by possessing different robots. A...ghost in the machine, if you will. Insert booing and/or collective groan at the pun here. So yeah, Victor told me that Mr. House, the head honcho of New Vegas, wanted to see me in Lucky 38. So, I go in there, and the place just gives me the effing creeps. I know the only people who ever go in and out were the security robots, but would it kill them to clean up the place? Victor greets me at the elevator and takes me up to Mr. House's penthouse, who turns out to be yet another computer program...either that or he's talking through a video connection from somewhere. I dunno. Point is, turns out he's not too happy with Benny either, and wants him gone, and the chip recovered, offering to pay 4x what the delivery reward originally was. I calculated, and that was a thousand caps. Now, you know I don't pass up the chance to get caps, so I agreed, he gave me a key to a presidential suite, which was as creepy as the rest of the casino, then I went over to The Tops, where, as per New Vegas law, all my weapons had to be given up so I don't shoot up the place. I hand the doorman the weapons, and then talk to a guy named Swank about Benny. At first he's like "You got a problem with the boss?" but after telling him yes, yes I did have a problem with the boss, and told him exactly what the problem was, he agreed to hand me back my weaponry and tell the staff to ignore any gunshots coming from the 13th floor. I go upstairs, give him a pre-mortem one liner, then shoot him up dead.

I grab his stuff, and then notice a news clipping on the table about an unidentified aircaft crashing between Goodsprings and the Yangtze Memorial. I head over there and see a strange aircraft nose down in the ground. It was mostly grayish/silverish, with blue fins and a picture of a fox on the body. No-one was around it, but there was a shack five feet away, so I figured maybe the pilot was in there. I walk inside and see this blue fox chick sleeping, with a few fresh wounds as though she was in a crash. I injected a stimpak into her while she was sleeping, then sat down on a nearby couch to observe her. I'd never seen an anthro fox before, but it wasn't weird to me because, well, with the planet in this state, mutations could create anything. She was kinda hot, though, and when I went up to stroke her fur, it was pretty soft. Not long after I touched her, she woke up with a start, causing me to back away fast before she decided to tear me to shreds. But nope, instead she looked at herself, finding herself healed for some reason, then looked at me. "Why did you help me...?" she asked, causing me to wonder how she knew I was the one who helped her, "I could've been evil..." "Well," I replied, shrugging, "You don't exactly look evil, and you didn't look so good either, so, why not help?" She looked down, then back at me and said "Thank you..." "No problem," I answered and took her hand. "C'mon, let's get you someplace other than this dump," I said before taking her to the Lucky 38 house. I had gotten a suite from The Tops for offing Benny, but I couldn't find it. I could see the fox girl, who told me that her name was Krystal, shivering as she walked out of the elevator. "Yeah, this place gives me the creeps too," I said, "But this is just temporary until I find the other suite I've got around here." "You must be good at gambling, to have two suites in a place like this," Krystal said, and I laughed. "Oh, heck no, I can't gamble worth beans," I admitted, "I just do a few favors here and there for the casino owners."

Well, eventually I did find the Tops suite and moved Krystal there, then I went up to Mr. House and got my payment, and he told me to go to the basement to watch him update his security bots. Apparently the bots had some effective weaponry, but those were only their secondaries. The Mark I OS didn't have the drivers required for their primary weapons. That casino chip I was delivering was necessary to install an OS update into the bots, which gave them effing MISSILE LAUNCHERS and some other dangerous weaponry I can't remember right now. Sometimes I wonder what are the consequences of what I've done.

Well, anyway, then he told me to take out some factions he doesn't like. Now, I'm all for taking out Caeser's Legion, as they're nothing but a bunch of slaver punks. If I had a slave, I wouldn't be demeaning her like those guys do. My family has a history of slavery, and the slavers in my family would always tell me that a happy slave is more loyal than an abused slave. But enough of that, I get this weird feeling he wants the NCR gone too, and that I'm not so sure about. But his first task is to take out the Legion, which I will gladly do...after I do some scavenging around the Mojave. So I went to Novac and got me a camping set, which I'm still trying to figure out how to put back up now, and I'm currently just exploring the Mojave. Now, to figure out how to get this stuff packed up before more Deathclaws show up. Good lord, those things are tough.

Thursday, October 24th, 2281

So one of the locals in Novac told me to write a journal so I'd have a record of what I've been doing since I was buried half-dead. I figured it would be a good idea, so I grabbed an empty Pre-War Journal and sat down on I-15 between Novac and the REPPCON rocket facility, where I'm headed off to bring the last remaining component some ghouls need for a spiritual journey in some rockets. I suppose I should start with the delivery.

Ok, so it's a routine job. Take a casino chip to New Vegas, go back to Primm, boom, instant caps. I've hauled heavier halfway across this godforsaken desert, what's a chip just up the road to me? Apparently, a lot more than I realized because halfway to my destination, I get ambushed by some thugs and this dude in a checkered fancypants shirt, who tie me up and grab the chip. Then they drag me to this hill overlooking New Vegas where the thugs start digging a grave. Obviously I couldn't punch their faces in, so I pretty much just glared at the fancypants shirt guy who said that I wasn't having a stroke of bad luck, it's just that the game was rigged from the start. "What-?!" I started, but couldn't finish asking him what the hell did that mean because then BOOM! and unconciousness due to having a bullet in my head.

Next thing I know, I wake up in a house, who calls himself Doc Mitchell. Somehow I had survived getting a bullet to the brain, and someone named Victor had dug me up and took me to the doc to get patched up. He did a couple tests, nothing out of the norm, then sent me on my way with some Vault gear and a Pip-Boy. I looked at the Pip-Boy, intrigued. I heard that those puppies could help out a guy immensely, what with their vitals checking, inventory organization, note-taker, maps, to-do list, and even a radio! He told me that he was from a Vault, which is why he had the gear. I wouldn't want to live in a Vault. Sure, living underground would be cool for a few days, but never being able to go outside would eventually make it start to suck. Eh, at least it was preferable to getting blown up with the rest of the world a couple hundred years ago.

So, I take a look around the town of Goodsprings, and come across a Sunset Sarsaparilla machine. I had never tried that drink, as I usually preferred Nuka-Cola, but when I popped upon the cap and took a swig, it was actually some pretty damn good orange soda. I cleaned out the machine and headed for the saloon, where I met a girl named Sunny and her dog Cheyenne. After dodging a dog-sized bullet, Sunny took me out back to help me work on my aim with a gun. Once I got the hang of that, we went down and cleared off the geckos from the wells. I have no clue what a gecko looked like before the war, but these things were about as tall as Cheyenne. Once the geckos were gone, I was sent to get some flowers for a powder at a campfire. You know that old saying that one would "never hurt a fly"? Whoever would never do that has obviously never met a Bloatfly. It doesn't matter whether or not you would hurt them, they will gladly hurt you. So, after I shot a few out of my hair, I picked up one of the ingrediants for the flower, and came across an open grave, which I assumed was supposed to be mine.

On the way to get the next ingredient, I saw a robot that acted like a cowboy, who was the Victor that dug me out of my premature grave. We talked a bit, and he told me that he had kept his distance while the thugs were burying me half-dead, and when they were gone, he dug me up to see if I was still somewhat living. Needless to say, I was, and I still am, not happy with those asshats that not only ruined my perfect delivery record, but actually tried to kill me over a fucking chip! The delivery record I could blow off like no problem, the Mojave Express guys are usually understanding when a delivery fails due to gangs and thugs, but I just couldn't shake the fact that I was SHOT. IN THE HEAD. OVER A FUCKING CASINO CHIP. I want those guys dead, and I will track them down and make sure that fancypants shirt wearing fuck rots in the grave he tried to make me rot in.

After I made the powder, I went to the saloon to chat up the locals, when I came across the bartender Trudy, arguing with a guy named Joe Cobb about some dude named Ringo. When I asked what was up, Trudy said that Ringo was being hunted down by Joe Cobb cause he owed him money or something. Typical. She told me he was up in the gas station, so I thanked her for the info, gulped down a Sunset Sarsaparilla, and headed for the gas station. I offered to help Ringo deal with Joe Cobb and his friends, but with just the two of us, we'd be mopped the floor with. Sunny was instantly eager to help, but the rest of the town, I needed a little convincing. I took a few lessons in Speech, Bartering, and Explosives, and managed to get the town to help fend off the Powder Gangers, leaving me liked by the town, but not exactly putting me on good terms with the Powder Gangers.

In fact, no sooner did I leave the town and come up to a camp, surprise, surprise, it was the Powder Gangers. I shot them down, and stole their stuff before moving on to Primm, only to be told it's off-limits due to some escaped convicts. I was like "Fuck that," and went into town anyway, shooting up any convicts that tried to ambush me. Once inside, I met with one of the Mojave Express guys, who told me that the last guy who was supposed to deliver the thing before me bolted when he saw my name next in line on the list. Ok...that's pretty suspicious. He then told me that the sheriff was...shot or something? I can't remember, and told me that the Deputy's being hold up in the Bison Steve hotel. I immediately go over there, shoot up the place to get to the deputy, and how does he thank me? By bolting for the door like a yellow-bellied coward as soon as I freed him. Our law-enforcement, ladies and gentlemen.

But oh wait, there IS no law enforcement anymore, thanks to the tiny fact that there's no sheriff! The deputy suggests I either go up to the NCR prison and bust someone out of there to serve as the sheriff (Like hell was I doing that. That place was packed with Powder Gangers, and I'd be swiss cheese upon taking one step in the place) or have the NCR take over. Only problem was, the NCR unit posted there was too short on troops to even do what they were supposed to be there to do, let alone take on the responsibility of protecting Primm. So they send me to an outpost further up the road, but then THAT's short-staffed too! I managed to convince them to send some extras down into Primm, however, and they were able to take Primm under their wing after a few legal matters.

So, with that out of the way, I start heading to Novac, only to be stopped by some guy who's been stalking me, and apparently those starred bottle caps I've been picking up are the key to some sort of treasure, and that there are people out there that are going to try and kill me for the caps. I listened to what he had to say and he ran off, but I grabbed my guns. Like hell was I gonna be ambushed this time...

On the way to Novac, I pass Nipton, where I start hearing gunfire and waste a guy who was firing at me. Then this chick comes up to me and thanks me for saving her from some guy who was firing at her for her starred bottle caps, but oh guess what? She's after the starred bottle caps too, and starts firing at me! I put her down and grab her caps, because really, if you're willing to kill for a bunch of bottle caps that may or may not lead to treasure, you really don't need them.

Of course, I've left out all the details, such as trying to find a place to crash for the night, and it was starting to get dark when I arrived at Novac, so I went into the motel, and met a kind lady who allowed me to stay in a room for however long I want until the busy season rolls around for only 100 caps. I agree, hand her the caps, she hands me the key, and I take a snooze.

The next day, I come across a guy named Manny Vargas who's having a falling out with his best friend 'cause the friend's wife's missing and Manny and the wife never saw eye-to-eye. I ask him if there's anything I can do to help out the town, and he says that some ghouls have been making it impossible to scavenge in the nearby REPPCON rocket lab, and scavenging for random crap there is pretty much how Novac makes its living through trading.

I decide to go do something about the intruders, but when I walk in, a ghoul talks over the intercom and tells me to get my ass up to the top floor. Of course, it's not easy what with all the feral ghouls attacking me - Damn, those suckers are fast - and I saw some weird mutants lying dead on my way up there along with some dead ghouls. What, where the ghouls fighting some mutants? So I go up to the top floor, the ghoul lets me in, and - Wait, what?! That's not a ghoul! That's a human who sounds like a ghoul! And apparently he thinks he's a ghoul because he's all like "Ha ha, very funny smoothskin -_-". So I don't press the issue, and go up to Jason, who appears to be a non-feral Glowing One. He tells me about some demons interrupting their plans for a journey, which I assumed by demons he meant those mutants I saw on my way up there, and how the Followers of the Apocalypse were forced to the top floor to survive. I agree to clean out the basement of the mutants, as they're stopping the group from finishing up their preparations for the journey, but it wasn't easy. Have you ever faced a guy who likes to use Stealth Boys and knows how to use them? Yeah, that's pretty much these guys. I had to be on my toes and eventually became trigger-happy, to the point where I'd fire on any mutant-looking enemy I laid eyes on. I think one had something to say, but that went flying out the window when I sent a bullet his way. I also came across what looked like a dead ghoul prisoner, which I later learned was the girlfriend of a ghoul who was hiding in some rafters. I swear, when you become a ghoul, no-one can tell if you're a man or a woman anymore.

Anyways, once I cleared the basement out, Jason and his group went down to their place they were going to start the journey at, and I got a quick hour's nap. Turns out they're planning on going to a piping-hot radioactive place called the Far Beyond on rockets, and seeing as Chris, the human who thinks he's a ghoul, is human, he can't come along. I end up letting this slip to Chris, and he loses it, wanting to sabotage the launch because he thinks he's been used. I managed to talk my way out of the trouble I let my big mouth get me into, and then we got to work on finishing up the rockets. He only needed two things: One, a couple liters of some highly radioactive substance that needs to be kept sealed, and some rocket parts. I managed to get him the substance, and I'm on my way to getting him the parts. When I picked up the substance, I picked it up off some cocky dead guy who called himself Mr. RADical or whatever, who thought with his rad suit he was invincible. Sorry buddy, doesn't work like that. The rocket parts I got off some other kind old lady up the street for 500 caps. Now, we're caught up, so I'd better finish this up before any feral ghouls come out of nowhere.