(no subject)

[camwyn]

The good folks at Bethesda released the Broken Steel content pack for Fallout 3 today. 800 Microsoft points. Not sure how many that is but I think I have that much $ in my account so I'm buyin' it. Why? Because it fixes the STUPID-ASS ENDING.

This is an approximate summary of the ending as-is:

Our Hero: FINALLY we have fought our way through the power-armored goons of the remains of the Enclave, the shadow government of the United States, the same bastards that commissioned the Vault Experiment in the first place and wanted to destroy everyone in the world who was mutated so that their own unmutated kind could return to live in peace. We can now make my father’s dream project of purifying all the water in the Potomac and making it available to everyone a reality! And people won’t have to accept the overlordship of the Enclave to get that water!
The Enclave’s Highest Guy Who Isn’t Dead Yet: Bitch!
Our Hero: Go away.
TEHGWIDY: … fine.
Our Hero’s Companion: … well crap. Um. Hero? The only way to get the purifier online is to go into that room there.
Our Hero: Okay?
OHC: The one full of radiation.
Our Hero: Yes? I’ve done radiation before.
OHC: This is MELT YOUR BONES IN SECONDS radiation. Whoever goes in isn’t coming out.
Our Hero: But I have twenty doses of Rad-X right here! And power armor that raises my radiation resistance! And I’ve got thirty doses of Rad-Away here, that purges radiation in doses of a hundred absorbed rads at a time! And-
OHC: Sorry. Whoever goes in, dies.
Our Hero: Oh-kay. Um. Other companion? You’re a gigantic supermutant who’s told me before that you’re immune to radiation- in fact, you went into somewhere even more radioactive than this to do me a favor when we first met. Could you-
Other Companion: Nope.
Our Hero: But-
Other Companion: Sorry. It’s your destiny.
Our Hero: ... you’ve got to be shitting me.
Other Companion: Nope.
Our Hero: Argh. Well, um… how about the ghoul? Aren’t they healed by radiation?
Ghoul: Aaah hahahaha no. I’ve done enough of your dirty work.
Our Hero: You suck, you know that? How about the robot?
Robot: SCREW YOU, I’M NOT GOING IN THERE.
Our Hero: … great. So-
OHC: It’s you or me.
Our Hero: So… I can go in and sacrifice myself and DIE, or I can ask you to go in for me-
OHC: Which will be phrased by the game as you being a whiny petulant bitch even though you’re only trying to stay alive so you can uphold your crusade to make the Wasteland a safe place-
Our Hero: Right. Or-
OHC: Or we can both stay here and pick our noses until the purifier explodes and we all die.
Our Hero: Bethesda, you suck.


So, yeah. Between fixing that and the fact that the DLC includes a weapon called a Tesla Cannon, that's kind of all I need.

Comments

[ceitfianna]

o.O There are so many things wrong with that.

[camwyn]

The original claim for why they did that ending was some kind of bullshit about the importance of sacrifice. And I will gladly admit that since I played my first game by assuming the character was raised by Qui-Gon Daddy, her very first response to being told 'bone-melty radiation death' was 'I am a Jedi, like my father before me', and she was willing to do the dying. But it's still stupid.

[ex_amurderofcrows752]

... I know what I'm diong when I get home!! :O

[camwyn]

I've avoided as many spoilers for the DLC as possible other than the barest handful necessary to ensure that they didn't just replace CATASTROPHICALLY MORONIC with KIND OF STUPID. One of the few things I picked up was the name of one of the new perks they're introducing:

Puppies.

Dogmeat's gonna be pleased, I think.

[ex_amurderofcrows752]

If you can keep him alive long enough to HAVE puppies.

[camwyn]

... I could say something here, but I think you'll be happy enough with the nature of the perk when you see how it's actually worded that I don't want to spoil it for you.

(But Lord, what I wouldn't have given for that perk when I was trying to get through Seward Square the first time ever...)

[sd-chan.livejournal.com]

I wasn't one who enjoyed the original ending, but I grew to be... okay with it. Certainly, I was overjoyed by the prospect of Broken Steel continuing.

I share a sentiment that was posted after someone complained about the ending on a message board, however (paraphrasing): 'Okay, sure, the ending sucks. We can all agree on that. But how does that make it the worst game ever? Did the ending somehow invalidate the 30 hours or so of fun you had previously?'

I've played the console Brotherhood of Steel. I know bad games (and even then there were some minor bits of BoS that I kinda liked). By my measure, Fallout 3 isn't a bad game, crappy ending or not.

(okay, this was a lot longer and off-topic than I expected...)

[camwyn]

Oh, no! I enjoyed the whole game, definitely. I played something like seventy hours on my first playthrough. It was fantastic. The ending annoyed me, that's all. I'm not and never have been ragging on the game in general- just the ending.

[sd-chan.livejournal.com]

Oh, certainly. It's just that complaints about the ending cause me to have flashbacks to ALL THOSE THREADS ABOUT THE ENDING. SO MANY THREADS. SO MUCH HATE.

... *ahem* Excuse me. Long story short, my post is a kneejerk reaction. Pay it no mind.

[camwyn]

It's okay. There's a reason I have never never never ever in my life gone anywhere near an actual forum discussion of any kind regarding any of the Fallout games, and I never will. Namely: the fandom scares me. The fandom scared me before I ever bought the game. The closest I have ever gotten to discussing the game with someone who considers themselves a Fallout fan was mentioning that I enjoyed Fallout 3 to someone whose IRC user name was Frank Horrigan, and when he got all 'oh God, it feels like a totally different game', I asked if we could agree to never discuss anything to do with the Fallout games ever, and he said that was fine with him.

It's just safer this way.