Sunday, March 31, 2013

another general update.

now that i've found gainful employment, for the time being, i won't be posting as much on here as i have in the past, but i still will be working on this on a weekly basis, including my fallout journal. the timeframe to do so is just going to change a little bit here and there.

other than that, it's back to the wastes tonight.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Fallout Journal #10: Death by Pencil

after returning home from Point Lookout, i collected a few things, and began my annual "Blood Sugar" run. in other words, i went to the Seneca Station to drop off some Sugar Bombs, and then into the Meresti Station to drop off about 70 Blood Packs. i didn't realize that i had that many to begin with. that's a lot of freed up encumbrance weight.

after, dropping off the blood packs, i had a need for some pulse weapons. grenade or mine, it did not matter. i was intending on finishing up a couple of side missions, specifically Stealing Independence, which i knew i would need for the robots that inhabited the lower section of the national archive. since i was still in Meresti, i decided to hit their local store.

now i was on their good list, but i made an error...a big one.

i got a little twitchy on the button, and prematurely hit the x button on my controller before selecting the proprietor of the store. i inadvertently stole something, right in front of the store owner...a pencil.

instantly everyone turned against me, and opened fire. i holstered my weapon, then frantically searched through my inventory, trying to find that stupid pencil. i managed to find it and threw it on the floor. still, they continued to fire on me.

i made a run for the door, but stopped once i got into the first tunnel. i hate to say this, but i need these people. they are an unfortunate necessity, but their caps are good. leaving this area would provoke a auto-save, which would pretty much ruin everything at this point. so, i accepted my fate, and allowed the would-be vampires to  have their pound of flesh.

revived and reloaded, i went back, gave them their blood, properly checked their wares, and headed out into the wastes. i picked up Dog Meat to take on the adventure with me, but i wanted make sure that he was not going to die on this mission, so i made sure i had enough stimpacks with me.

i came across sydney in the National Archives, who was also looking for the same items. i knew this dance before, so we joined forces, and i was kind of rooting for her to survive the ordeal. Does she ever? we made it deep into the first area until we opened a door and there were about four or five super mutants. one even had a missile launcher, Dogmeat and myself were able to fend off the attackers, but sydney died...again...

i traveled into the bot inhabited depths of the archives, took out the sentry bots, hacked a few terminals, picked a few locks. i found Button the Robot, and told him a good work and he's earned a well deserved rest. i shut everything down, then take off with the real bill of rights and the Declaration of independence.

my nest stop took me to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. i knew there were slavers here, my kind of people, and i talked to them about some escaped slaved somewhere in the wasteland. now, i knew where this temple of the union is located, so i fast traveled to the place, found my way inside, talked to the leader of the slave pack, gave my solemn vow to never speak of this location. then, i turned around, fast traveled to the Memorial, and became a turncoat faster than Benedict Arnold.

the slavers invited me to join them on their little raiding party. HELL YES! after sending Dogmeat back home, i eagerly followed the leader through the tunnels, past Rivet City, then traveled near the Enclave Barrier on the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. big mistake.

the troupe decided that the best way to get through the area, was to take a swim. a swim in irradiated waters. we swam there for about five minutes before the AI finally figured out the way out of the water. as a sidebar, i highly recommend finishing this quest before the Enclave show up to mess stuff up.

we moved further down the coast, then ducked behind some ruins and a hotel where mutants like to hang out. we made it partway up a ramp towards the bridge...until a Super Mutant Overlord showed up, hanging out on an overhead walkway, taking potshots at the crew with a Tri-Beam Laser Rifle.

i quickly yanked out my Missile Launcher, the only real weapon that can do significant damage to such a creature at this range. i fire off about ten missiles, drop the green meanie, then try to catch up with my hunting party, who have obviously continued on without me and survived the attack, right?

there are no blips on my radar, no friendlies in the vicinity. i look to the ground, and see the dead body of the leader and a few of his crew strewn about.

Dammit! there's another quest i can't finish now! why is is that people tend to die whenever they're around me? i need to find more robust friends!

agitated and tired, i returned back to my Megaton home and settled in for some fitful sleep, hopefully i can plot my next plan of attack.



Friday, March 15, 2013

Fallout Journal #9: Tribals, Hallucinations, Rituals, and Brain Trauma

I recompose my self, grab a few repairs and supplies, and head towards the supposed haunted Calvert Mansion. Upon entering, i'm forced into aiding Desmond, a Ghoul who strangely resembles Robert Goulet with the abrasive attitude of an F-bomb Dropping sailor. His home is being assaulted by another group of people called the Tribals, and for some reason, they have it out for the ghoul and his home.



together, well mostly me, we sweep the mansion room by room and floor by floor. after taking out the dirty bastards. i make an uneasy pact with the ghoul to go infiltrate the tribals and find out why they attacked. Desmond tells me that the place that the tribal call home is the Ark and Dove Cathedral north of the mansion.

i head off, and since i have discovered every location, i feel free to use my fast travel at will. i get to the gate, only to be told that i have to go do a ritual. i have to meet the Mother of Punga Fruit plant in a sacred bog. already i have deja vu. this smells of Oasis all over again.

again, i fast travel to the sacred bog, fight off swamplurks and mirelukrs,and make my way to big ass Punga plant. i get sprayed by the dreaded spores of the plant and black out.



the next five minutes involves me wandering around the swamp in a hallucinatory state, where nuka-cola become small atom blasts, and bobbleheads decide to taunt me. great, just what i need. inanimate objects pissing me off. i stumble to the end of the hallucination, black out again, and find myself outside the bog being attacked by a bloatfly swarm. i hate this.

after wiping off the gratuitous amount of bloatfly guts off my armor, i fast travel back to the church. i get in, talk to the tribals, and try to find out what the hell is going on and who is calling the shots. the tribals are friendly, but they appear to be not all there in the head. long story short, i have to go find a cave and talk to the leader. before exiting, i come across Nadine, the girl i'm suposed to be looking for in the first place, the reason i went to point lookout. she lets me know that i'm also a bit light in the head as well, and that new scar on my head tells me that the ritual is complete. someone has taken a bit of brain from everyone in the tribe during the ritual, and she intends to find out who it is.

wait a minute! back up, bitch! I've been lobotomized?

she runs off to find out the perpetrator, but tells me to meet her on the boardwalk for more information later.

pissed off, i head to the location of the cave, enter the place, and find the leader talking to someone i can't see, but it sounds like it coming over a PA system. i head up, make nice with the leader, and he tells me that he only communes with the real leader, who is up there on the ledge. i walk up, and come across the real leader of the Tribals.

a holographic image of a brain.

what the F -bomb!? i shake my lobotomized head. makes sense about the lobotomies now, right?

nope. this snarky brain lets me know that he's been in a rivalry with Desmond, and wants to see him removed, so that he can continue his work. ok, kind of hard to do without a body, but sure, i'll go tell Des whats going on.

i return to Desmond's place, and he fills me in on what's going on. this brain is the real owner of this mansion, and the two have been battling over scientific discoveries. great, so now i'm stuck in a scientific version of "The Prestige". Ok, what do i need to do?



i take this jammer Des gives me, then head to the highest point in point lookout to install it; the ferris wheel. now, i'm given a choice on who i want to work for, and i could destroy the jammer and make Calvert the brain very happy, but screw that...i hate "the brain in a jar" trick.

i install it, pop on a stealth boy, a slink away from the tribal hunting party that is trying to stop me. i get back in time to the Mansion, to see it blown to smithereens before my eyes. luckily, Des has a special hiding spot. he also finds out where the brainy bastard is hiding out, just under the lighthouse in a secret lab.

we head...stupid brain...to the secret lab and begin the cleansing process. i find out that the two of them have been working on the whole robobrain project. ok, makes sense i guess. we get to the final area, where brain in the jar is located, and i'm given one more chance to change sides.

screw you brain..time for a headache...see what i did there? a bit of ironic humor before...blam!

the brain gets a taste of life on the outside of the jar, and it doesn't likey... see what i did there again? brains have no sense of taste, no tongue...see it's funny--oh nevermind.

anyway, i bid a great big F.U. to Desmond, hope i never see his guts again, and leave. i head to one more place on the map, a place called Blackhall Manor. i meet an old man named Obediah Blackhall, and he wants for me to get back an old book from some backwoods folks. he'll pay 1000 caps for it.

sure, i love money. i head out and run into someone who wants me to give the book to her if i find it because the book, called "something that vaguely sound occultist and starts with a K" (i really don't care at this point) is evil. sure, magic in Fallout. not a chance missy.

i head to these ruins, pop on another stealth boy, grab the book, slip past the reinforcement, and give the book back to the old man and get my caps. just out of curiosity, i head back to where the old man has gome with the book...and find him playing in front of an alter with a dead body on it.

whatever, i'm out of here. love playing the evil, don't care character if you can't tell.


i come back to the Duchess Gambit to find Nadine with a smile on her face. she has found out who did all the brain cutting. apparently it's the owner of this boat. she's manage to subdue him and find out that he had a deal with the tribals that he's do the cutting as long as he got "a cut" of the punga fruit so he could trade it later at other ports. he has a collection of grey matter in his little engine room.

infuriated, i walk it to the engine room where this ferry bastard is, have a little q and a, and then blammo to the face. i look around and see a jar that i seem to find a bit familiar.



sigh...

i take my lump of brain and head home. if i see point lookout again, it will be all to soon.


Thursday, March 14, 2013

Fallout Journal #8: Point! Lookout!

i dove off the Dunchess Gambit, the shoddy riverboat conveyance, and onto the wooden boardwalk of Point Lookout. i took in this new environment, and began snooping around.

now, from what i understand, this DLC is supposed to be the swamp-zombie scenario. yes, there is swamp, and yes there are kinds of zombies, but again, this is only what i know so far.

i headed west as far as i could, down the coast, and began my ultimate search for every location in the area, and tried to get a feel for the lay of the land. so far, i've come across the variations of Swamplurks, Ghouls, MireLurks, and the local enemies, a cross between a backwoods hill-folk and an infected mutant. they go by names like bruiser, scrapper, and creeper.

now, a word on my equipment. i had packed a little lighter, but carrying some of my weapons with tremendous stopping power. combat shotgun, laser and plasma rifles, minigun, missile launcher, and the infiltrator.

so things are going well, except for one problem. though the weapons i have are pretty effective against my enemies, there are scarce replacements for repair. furthermore, the shotguns and rifles that the locals use are horribly flawed, losing 30-40 hit points of personal health every time the weapon is fired. i refuse to use such weapons,

i found location after location, traveling back and forth across the map like a drunken minesweeper. eventually i find everything. the stickiest situation that i've had to deal with thus far was a sewer grate that led into a morgue, and from that morgue, a detention center with 6 sentry bots and turrets. that took a while to clear, but i manged to come out of the battle with less than significant damage.

i befriended a female moonshiner and helped her make her special brew, which i refuse to drink.
i also tracked down the trail of a foreign communist spy and followed his footsteps through various locations. i managed to peak level 30, and with a well placed save, i was able to unlock the Messiah, True Mortal, and Devil Trophies. PLING!!!

now, on to the mansion and the meat and bones of the DLC.

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Fallout Journal #7: The Bigger They Are...(The Inflamed Uvula Entry)

After my last entry i began setting sights on the five Behemoths that roam the game, but i have also gained a sore throat of epic proportions. it's difficult to talk at times, and whatever it is, it's draining me of energy. it's gradually getting better, but still pissing me off a bit, so i've spent a few nights up by myself because of the difficulties of sleep. perfect time to go hunting,

i had already taken out the first one when i traveled to Galaxy News Radio. the second was locked up in my pen (that's right, MY pen) at Evergreen Mills, so i let it loose only to murder it. I'm a murderer, i've come to grips with my strengths in this game, so i barely batted an eye when regulators showed up to attack me shortly after leaving the mill.

so that left only three remaining Behemoths. i decided to do some spelunking in the sewers and subways and see if i could come across a few areas deep in the DC ruins that i hadn't visited yet. i was pleasantly surprised when i came across the old Capitol Hill building, and after getting deep into the $#!+ with some Mutant Overlords and Brutes, i found the third Behemoth in the main rotunda. three down, two to go.

so i look into my big wasteland book and try to find the locations of the last two behemoths. one is at a mutant camp that i hadn't discovered yet, and the other in a plaza still undiscovered.

i headed into the general area where the mutant camp was located. i found the camp, but no mutants anywhere. i came to discover that i would have to do a small miscellaneous quest in which i have to track down the remains of a search party. which means that i would have to find the point of origin, a place called L'Efant Plaza. Great...more tunnel snaking.

after trekking through the blue line subway, i managed to find L'Efant Plaza. kind of an ugly place, and i really didn't feel like searching the area too much, so i bee-lined straight to the area, a small burial mound that housed a note detailing info about the party's next location.

i headed to the next location, a ranger compound, and had to hack a computer terminal so i could get some more information. after a few tries, i headed to more familiar areas. the raider compound just south of Dukov's place held the next note, then a continuation across the river to the sewer facility to another note, which finally was to direct me back to the mutant camp.

sweet! i speed travel to the camp, find the one remaining member of the party, and get attacked by him. a shot to the face with my plasma rifle changed his tune...to Taps. i check over the body, then run into the mutant camp to find...nothing.

where's the behemoth? he's supposed to be here. We've got a date with guns!

resigned to the fate that the game is glitched and that maybe he'll show up later, i head to the fifth site, a place called Tacoma Park. i find the white line, jump in where i can be the closest to the location, then find raiders and mutants a plenty. after a smorgasbord of slaughter, i come across the fourth( or fifth?) Behemoth. i lay waste to both he and his crew, and i hear that fantastic drumroll of LEVEL UP echo. i quickly mash my start button and save prior to going to the stat increase page. now i have a great save point, just before hitting level 29, so that i can hit the trophies for hitting 30 with good, neutral, and evil karma.

after continuing my way of evil, i have decided to go back to evergreen mills, and walk the distance to the mutant camp. perhaps now that the game has remembered what a behemoth is and looks like, perhaps it will be nice enough to drop the last one in the camp where it belongs.

so i head out of the mill, after dispatching another batch of raiders, and walk out down the railroad tracks to the camp. i see nothing. my heart sinks. crap, this means i'll have to use a lower lever save to try again at another--BOOM!

what was that?

mow, if i haven't stated it before, my game has developed glitches. a few times i will be running around the wild and i come across a deathclaw, and suddenly it gets whisked up into the sky and disappears. well thankfully, sometimes the glitch works the other way.

a Behemoth, the last Behemoth, drops in for a visit.

i unload everything i've got into the final giant mutant, a smile on my face knowing that it's death is imminent. within a few minutes, the great beast drops and i hear the all too familiar PLING of my PS3 letting me know about earning the "The Bigger They Are..." Trophy.

YAY!

i return to Megaton, throw a few things in the fridge, slug back a few Nuka-colas, sleep, re-fit my self, then i head out for the Duchess Gambit, and the adventures that await me in Point Lookout.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Fallout Journal #6: Death Walks Among Us part 2

after branch saving a few times, i finally climbed onto the rail-car that would take me to The Pitt.

now this is the first time i've played any DLC on Fallout 3, so all of this is now territory for me. there will be spoilers in here as well, so be warned.

the first thing i did was meet up with Werner, a slave who wants me to free his people and save then from some plague. not really my thing right now, but i can handle it, and hopefully score a level or two of XP. so i dress up like a slave, and head in. however, i was carrying everything in my inventory; great guns, great armor, and bunches of goodies. after making my way across the booby trapped and heavily mined bridge, i get to the gates, and i'm stripped of my cache of weapons, armor and goodies. I WILL GET THOSE BACK! A-HOLE!

i head into The Pitt, which is not as big as i originally thought. There's Downtown, Uptown, The Mill, The Scrapyard, and little else. my system starts to lag a bit as it begins to process all the moving pars and sparks from the mill. GRRR.

i meet up with this woman, Madea, or something like that. and she says that i need to get the cure out of the head slaver's stronghold. the only way i do that is get into the fights and fight three matches. OK, how do i do that without guns?

i go do some dirty work out in the scrapyard, collecting steel ingots (bars) for the slaves. for every ten i get, i get something cool. so after meticulous saves, (and a later replay through the area) i manage to get 100 ingots and enough armor and good weapons to fight in the arena.

i get into the arena .Veni Vidi Vici. that means i get to see the head guy. yay!

unfortunately, my stuff is nowhere to be found when i get to the stronghold. SERIOUSLY? so i hop to my wasteland guide and see that all my stuff is in a footlocker in arena. so i have to hustle back through the areas back to the arena, pick up my stuff, save a few of the new things because of encumbrance issues, and haul it back to the stronghold, taking down a slave incursion as well. apparently i had made a choice for keeping the status quo without really making a real decision. what?

turns out, after a bit of snooping around, the cure is really...SPOILER***a baby***SPOILER

what? what the hell am i to do with that?

so i go back to madea, or whatever the hell her name is, and tell her the situation. she's not happy, and tells me that they could've used the leverage of having the cure, in it's current form, to bargain for their freedom.

did she know about this the whole time? why didn't she tell me?

i'm evil, but i'm not messing with that. it took everything that i had to prevent myself from opening fire and unloading clip after clip into her head.

so as i leave, i come across Milly. she wonders if i saw a "Wild Bill" running around the steelyard looking for ingots. i didn't see him, but before leaving i'd go look.

now i scoured the area, even after collecting the ingots, and i found no one called wild bill, so i checked the manual, and saw that he's supposed to be in one specific area. i go look. not there.

is this book wrong? is my system glitchy? WTF?

i go online after searching around for several minutes. turns out PS3 has a glitch that makes him spawn outside of the map.

great now what.

well, i look around, and apparently i find this video. it's terrible quality, but manageable.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiSYrm39kg0

 i follow it, and low and behold i get the letter off his body and find his gun. it's a glitch, but it's solid enough that it doesn't crash. this was a cool moment in what i thought to be a lackluster DLC. i expected a bit more.

i return home, and begin my quest for the Behemoths.

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Review: Jetpack Joyride

there is this little game on PSN right now that's free to play. it's a small game of distance traveled via a jetpack, and you have to collect coins and finish mission objectives to continue. Jetpack Joyride is an addicting game that seems to suck you in and keeps making you come back for more.



there's a lot of great geek humor in it, very subtle mind you. for example, you can buy a supersaiyan outfit for 9001 coins (IT"S OVER 9000) and there a flying piggy bank (when pigs fly)

my two daughters play it almost everyday, switching out every other time, so the coins keep rolling in to buy stuff. it's a pretty slick game, especially since it's free.
there are some great power-ups in the game, from the gravity suit and the profit bird, to the Lil' Stomper and Mr.Cuddles the Dragon. what's not to like about this game?



gaming, games, and more games

Yesterday, i met up with a good friend of mine, Josh. He and I are into pretty much the same kind of things. we like games that are different, easy to run, and vary from the vast amount of old standards in some way that sets it apart from the others. Having said that, we were going to try and run the Seyvoth Manor Dread game, but lacked enough players.

a few hours before meeting up with Josh, he posted to me on social media about a local board game group in town that was having an open house. we decided to go check it out at 3pm. at least we would be able to play some other stuff too.

i had known about this group before hand, had been to this specific building in years prior. its a good group of people who are really down to earth and are very enthusiastic about their group.

we first played a game called Coloretto, a game that involves building a collection of specific colors. it was fast paced and pretty good, a good warm up game for the next thing to come our way.

the next game was The Quiet Year, a great abstract game in which the players build an entire world on a map, and things are introduced throughout the game with a pull from a regular deck of cards. i was a little disappointed in my drawings, doesn't help when your playing with an artist, but the game was really absorbing me. i like it a lot. and might have to get a copy some way.

we broke for lunch. Josh and i hit up the local golden arches and got to talk about a few things. we headed back afterwards, and we decided to play Kobolds ate my Baby. This was something that i had wanted to play for a while, but the cobwebs sat heavy on the rules on my mind. it took awhile to get the gears going again, but i managed.

i pulled out my old Frankenstein board that i use for generic KAMB! games. and just dived in and went for it, describing everyday things for creatures that don't get out much is a bit difficult at times, but worth it. i think it went well, and deserves another play-through at some point.

we wrapped up the session, reaching deep into the 23rd hour of the day (11:00pm) with a game currently on kickstarter called Zombie House Blitz, a wacky combination of speed and solitaire that requires fast thinking and even faster hands. a great game that quick to learn and hard to master.

links:

Josh's Gameblog and his crazy adventures

The Quiet Year

Zombie House Blitz Kickstarter

so i drop Josh back off at home, make my way to my domicile and head to bed at about 1am in the morning. my dreams are filled with, you guessed it, more games. my first dream is game oriented, but is so mindbending and strange i won't talk about it here. i think i'm going to write that one down. see what comes up.

the second dream involves friends from all of my gaming groups over the years. we we're all at the house i lived in during my childhood, and we were playing KAMB! again at the table. i remember little about the actual game itself, but the phrase "Identity Queft" came into play i know that Queft is a word jumble between Quest and Theft, and i have some ideas as how to flesh this thing out. intriguing.

so i played real games for nearly 8 hours, and then my brain played dream games for another 7 hours. isn't that really enough now?

cheers