Fallout 3 - 18 minutes

My real time with this game is somewhere in the ten hour range (I think the counter must register a couple of seconds each time I start up the game), but I don't have a lot to show for it. That's because Fallout 3 has a lot of empty moments, activities which take up a lot of time, but provide little incident. And how many variations of ". . . and I searched through this bombed out ruin or dank sewer, rummaging around in various boxes, desks, and vending machines in order to pick up a variety of junk and stale, 200-year-old food" does anyone need to read.

I will talk about one such variation, however, because it is an important part of the Fallout 3 experience. It's a variant I call the "overburdened loot march." It always crawls up on you unexpectedly, because it's not the sort of thing that happens when you're paying attention. It usually happens when you're traveling from place to place. It has been a long time since you've been back to your house in Megaton, and you have in your inventory the accumulated cruft of a dozen different enemies and goodness knows how many random shelves and boxes. Every single one of those possessions has significant value - whether it be resale price, as spare parts for repairs, food to heal you, or crafting ingredients. Then, unexpectedly, you stumble upon a motherload, a cache of weapons in good repair, or something heavy, yet useful like a rocket launcher or power armor, and you have to make a choice.

Do you abandon most of your inventory to take it? Do you leave it behind and make a note of the location, so as to come back at a more convenient time? Or do you pick it up and begin the loot march, confident that your time is of so little value that it will prove to be worth it? Because there's no actual limit to what you can carry (that I've discovered), if you're willing to move at reduced speed, you can bring back just about anything.

That's what happened to me after I finished Operation: Anchorage. The story of that mission is fairly forgettable - you stumble across an outcast faction of the Brotherhood of Steel trying to loot this underground bunker. Unfortunately, they are stymied by a huge door. For some odd reason, the door's lock is tied to a virtual reality pod. Only if someone goes into the simulation and completes it will the door open. And by sheerest coincidence the virtual reality pod requires a Pip-boy computer to interface with, so the Brotherhood outcasts offer to share the loot with me if I complete the simulation for them.

Oh, and there's just one more caveat - if you die in the simulation, you die in real life. Which, you know, seems to defeat the purpose of a training simulation, but what are you going to do, it's a huge genre convention.

The actual simulation itself is interesting because I feel like the game engine tried to stretch its legs a bit and become something closer to a pure shooter. It doesn't really work, and the whole Operation: Anchorage sequence lacks the openness and exploration that make the main game such a hoot, but as a temporary diversion, it was kind of fun not to have to worry about scavenging for a little while (throughout the simulation there are periodic health and ammo stations that top off your reserves).

All you have to do in the sim is follow orders, which are more or less all of the "go to this place and kill every motherfucker you see" variety. At one point, you get a squad to back you up, but since you can't really interact with them or give them specific orders, they wind up being expendable canon-fodder. In the end, I talked the enemy general into killing himself, which is apparently a thing that happens in the Fallout universe.

Anyway, I was talking about the loot march. I had just about enough room in my inventory for the mission's "official" reward. I was over by about 20 pounds, which would have easily been covered by a dose of Buffout. Then something unexpected happened - a rift in the ranks of the outcasts. Some of them highly disapproved of sharing technology with an outsider (even an outsider who risked her life to get them the tech in the first place) and made their displeasure known - with lasers. After dispatching them like the dogs they were, I found myself in possession of four suits of power armor and a similar number of high-end weapons. Since the only way I was getting back anyway happened to be through drug abuse, I figured I should just go for it.

I think it was worth it. The armor I got from the mission is strictly better than the Outcast power armor, but it will eventually fall into disrepair, and the parts to fix it will be in short supply. Having a couple extra suits back at my house will help immensely.

My next short term goal is to go to Arefu to deliver a letter for Lucy West, because there is a bobblehead in one of the houses. Due to my weird sense of noblesse oblige, I will probably finish the mission there. After that, I'll wrap up business in Greyditch, because it bugs me to have that loose end dangling. Then it is on to the Pitt, which I know absolutely nothing about (not even a plot synopsis).

My father will just have to enjoy hanging out at Vault 112 until I can get around to picking him up. I'm sure doctor Stanislaw Braun's hospitality will be more than enough to keep him entertained in the interim. . .