Five hours in and the game is really starting to feel like Fallout. It's a nebulous and ill-defined feeling, but if I had to describe it, I would say that it's the sensation of having one really important thing to do, and then getting distracted by a hundred and one trivial things as you try to get yourself organized so you make a kind of fitful progress punctuated by a number of sidetracks and tangents. Only, you know, more pleasant than I make that sound.
I enjoy searching through the toxic caves, fighting geckos, and rescuing a minor npc (perhaps less so when I'm reloading for the half dozenth time because Sulik can't help wandering into pools of radioactive waste and killing himself). I like rolling into the town of Modoc and resolving the diplomatic misunderstanding caused by the underground civilization to the north pretending their lands were haunted to scare away trespassers (even if the solution to this crisis involves remembering an obscure npc from the Den).
What I like less is having to retrieve a book for Rebecca of the Den, being directed towards a generic npc, finding out he lost it, and then having the book spawn in a random place. That was pretty aggravating.
Helping Lara take on her rival gang in order to secure a lucrative warehouse-guarding contract, and then having all but one of my friendly npcs get slaughtered in the assault was so-so. It was kind of a humiliating defeat, but Sulik survived, the enemies were defeated, and there was nothing in any of the conversations I'd had to suggest that Lara's group was any better than the people we were killing. Plus, I got to loot a whole mess of pistols.
The only thing that marred this directionless errand running is my out of character awareness that all of this is happening under a ticking clock. At the beginning of the game, Fallout 2 does not give you a deadline, just the same vague "this shit is urgent" message you get from every rpg ever. Usually, this is a signal that means "events will proceed as rapidly as you complete story missions," but in this game, that's not the case. There is a hidden timer that will give you a worse ending if you spend too much time goofing off.
That means I have to be relatively quick in rescuing Vic the trader. I find him easily enough. Rebecca the bartender knows exactly where he is - a prisoner of the Slavers' Guild. Lucky for me, they don't seem averse to letting random strangers off the street waltz in and talk to their leader. So I go in and talk to Metzger, the boss.
And at this point I need to tell you that I'm playing a female character (my plan is to alternate between games). This becomes important because Metzger greets me with some of the most hatefully misogynistic language I've ever encountered in a video game. I'm not going to quote it, because I didn't take exact notes, but it honestly shocked me.
I get that Metzger is supposed to be a bad guy, but it was just gratuitous. For all he knew, I was there to join the Slavers' Guild or to sell one of my companions into slavery (both of them options). Hell, considering that I was there to liberate Vic from bondage, you might even say I was a customer (though I'd prefer not to think of it like that, because that would make two companion npcs so far that I've "recruited" by paying money to their captors, essentially "buying" them). And even taking "verisimilitude" into account, surely they could have softened his presentation at least a little for the sake of the player experience. I can't help thinking that if I were a girl in 1998, having my rpg avatar be called a bitch and a whore for basically no reason would have soured me a bit on the genre.
Eventually, Metzger's going to die, both for his disrespect and his general crimes against humanity. However, in the short-term, I wound up sleeping with him, because doing so would knock 500 bottlecaps off of Vic's ransom, and at this point in the game, that is not an inconsiderable sum. I later wound up getting another 200 from prostituting myself to a random npc, but that was an accident on my part - I thought for sure he wouldn't accept the price. This game is not very friendly towards the ladies.
Along with the money I got from selling gecko hides after my sojourn to the toxic caves (most of which was spent on bullets), I had just enough to liberate Vic. He then decided to join my party, despite having (as far as I can tell) no appreciable skills. I suspect he will wind up being more of a pain to keep alive than he is actually worth, but for now having an extra target to soak up enemy attacks is very useful.
From here, our next destination is Vault City, which presumably has a G.E.C.K, or at least information to help me find a G.E.C.K. However, I am first going to explore the town of Modoc, which seems kind of run-down and boring, but is sure to have at least a couple of sidequests, because this is Fallout 2, and secret time limit or not, you can't just pass through a town without exploring it.
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