The official UV FO3 *SPOILERS* thread - you've been warned

[Petrarch]

The war is over and the credits have rolled. I have to say Fallout 3 is without doubt the most enjoyable experience I've had in gaming for years and that's coming from someone that hated Oblivion. Forget everything you thought about Oblivion, this is Fallout.

I explored the wasteland quite extensively and I've clocked in at the finish line at around 76 hours. I've missed a couple of quests, no doubt a load of side ones, and who knows what is still out there to be discovered, but the world of Fallout 3 just feels so rich and alive. I even managed to find all 20 bobbleheads scattered around and got a nice collection back in my house at Megaton.

For the ending, I finished with Good Karma. I chose to destroy the Enclave, not use the FEV virus and scarfice myself at the purifier.

Lets get the negatives out of the way shall we? For the first, I wish I'd handled the Replicated Man quest better. The option I took was a valid one to complete, but it ended it rather abruptly and I felt I'd made a mistake as it looked like there was more to it if you went and asked questions rather than accept their word for it. The second was the ending movie. Now I don't think it's as bad as it was made out to be, but I agree it's not a patch on the previous games. I'd consider it a missed oppertunity rather than simply bad.

Towns aside, I think my favourite locatons in the wasteland were the National Guard Depot, which you can help yourself to all manner of weapons and ammo, the Museum of Technology which is great for sightseeing, but the top spot goes to the Robco facility near Tenpenny Tower. Might seem like an odd choice but walking around it I found myself thinking about how it would have looked before the war, people at their desks etc. And I did get a kick out of the sequence of events from leaving the Citadel for the final time.

It's a hugely enjoyable experience and I think Bethesda pulled it out of the bag. I hope that folks that refused to play it based solely on the fact it's not Interplay/Black Isle or an isometric view are eating crow right about now.

[Brugdor]

The war is over and the credits have rolled. I have to say Fallout 3 is without doubt the most enjoyable experience I've had in gaming for years and that's coming from someone that hated Oblivion. Forget everything you thought about Oblivion, this is Fallout.

I have to agree. I really didn't like Oblivion all that much but FO3 was much more entertaining to me. I wouldn't put it on the level of Portal, TF2 or CoD4 but then it's really not a FPS and those are my favorite gaming type. I haven't played an RPG I enjoyed this much in many years.

The main negative for me is the crashes. I tend to crash about once an hour on average and I have no idea why.

[Night Owl]

The main negative for me is the crashes. I tend to crash about once an hour on average and I have no idea why.

Because you have the PC version 

[Silver Dragon]

The main negative for me is the crashes. I tend to crash about once an hour on average and I have no idea why.

Because you have the PC version 

*cough* http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_3_bugs *cough*  http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_3_bugs#Xbox_360 *cough*

[Petrarch]

Didn't encounter a single one of those bugs, but the game ain't perfect on any platform so it's a moot point.

One I had was an achievement not unlocking properly. This was caused by skipping a perticular step in a quest so while it completed the flag didn't kick in. Had to go back to an earlier save and make sure I did the missing step.

[The SysMan]

I fixed the bug that I was having, where sewer maps caused me to lose all visual.
Just uninstalled and restalled the following to get it working:
DirectX
Video Driver
Sound Driver
Fallout 3.

>.>
But yay! No killing the ant queen ftw! Pity I missed the crucial quest step of discovering where they were and just went there isntead >.>
Oh well, free lewt.

WTB [500lbs of carry capacity]. I'm sick of walking to Megaton <.<

[inso]

The main negative for me is the crashes. I tend to crash about once an hour on average and I have no idea why.

Because you have the PC version 

i have the 360 version and i've frozen twice and had some weird graphical glitches, and also had achievements not being gained... but i am going to play it at least a few more times so that last one is insignificant.

also, it's funny how things work out in this game. for The Superhuman Gambit quest, i simply killed the Mechanist. later after turning in an ear to the office at the scrapyard, i see a Wastelander being chased by ants and the AntAgonizer. so now i have both costumes in my footlocker in my Tenpenny Tower suite.

[Celest]

So.. I havent even visited GNR yet.. been exploring and already level 16, have 6 of the bobble heads(and pretty sure where to find another one..), most of the landmarks have been found.. already know where vault 112 is...


Oh and I have access to a second nuclear based weapon as well.. *whistles innocently*

[Doombot]

Just finished the game. I took the "Spock: I have been and always shall be... your friend" route.

I thought the ending was good but it could have been SO MUCH better. Which is sad because the whole game was just fantastic. An update on my actions and effects on the various places would have been great.

"Thanks to your help. The Android was able to live it's life in peace becoming a hero when needed."

"Free of the Ant Antagonizer, the Mechanist wandered the wasteland giving help when needed and eventually leaving when asked."

"Your disarming of the Megaton bomb prevented it's eventual exposure."

etc.

That would have made a good ending great.

The ending wrapped up very fast though. Once I was in the last vault I was captured, taken, freed, and did the final attack in what seemed like a short time.

I only found 8 bobbleheads. I never found Dogmeat or got any companions besides the Intelligent Supermutant at the end. I did get the power armor but the armor I got from the "Shoot them in the Head" quest was better. I was going to go back to the Ghoul city and wear my armor to see what would happen but the events of the final vault prevented that.

I'm going to play it again on the Xbox this time and fix some character mistakes and tag a few other skills and make some different perk choices. I never got a chance to do the Ant quest or Oasis.

Great game. =)

Here's some screenshots I liked.

[Brugdor]

*looks at that last pic*

Spoooon!

[Doombot]

*looks at that last pic*

Spoooon!

If it had better armor... I would have worn it more. =)

[Hoopy Frood]

WTB [500lbs of carry capacity]. I'm sick of walking to Megaton <.<

You can speed-travel via the map, you know.

Anyway, I found a good way to get the int bobblehead before level 3. (So you can start your character with 9 int and then only sacrifice 2 skill points overall to get an additional +1 for a SPECIAL stat.) When you get to Megaton, take Moira's radiation quest. Then head on over to the Potomac and go swimming. Follow the river to Rivet City. There will be two points where you will come under attack. One is while you are in the water--dive town to help avoid the damage, and one when you jump on the land to get to the Rivet City bridge--just run past, the supermutie is far enough away. Then go to the science lab in Rivet City and ignore everyone (except for the guard at the entrance who you can't avoid talking to.) After getting the bobblehead, return the way you came and go back to Megaton via the Potomac. You should be pushing 500 rems by the time you finish. Drink some of the Potomac to cure any damage and get your rems above 600, then talk to Moira.

And I encountered an interesting "bug". Apparently, people will sometimes fall off the walkways above the bottom of the Megaton crater. I walked out of the Lantern, and saw Nathan (i.e. the old guy who goes on about how great the Enclave is) fell from the sky and died right at my feet). I went back to a previous save spot since I don't know if NPC's that I can have conversations with should be dying without my direct intervention in the matter. I also looked online and found out that I'm not the only one to experience this happen.

But yeah, apparently there are suicidal NPC's in this game.

[Hoopy Frood]

Oh, and how do you swing the camera around in the XBOX version?

[Petrarch]

Oh, and how do you swing the camera around in the XBOX version?

Hold the left bumper in 3rd person mode and use the right thumbstick to move the camera about and zoom in/out.

[Morb]

I started my character as a reeeeelly smart charisma-cannon sort of a guy with sub-par physical attributes, who was a total Daddy's Boy and had a way with words with both the kids and the ladies. From the start I also decided that this guy was going to go totally nuts in the wasteland. Somewhere around level 14, when I reviewed the whole of just what kind of a monster I had created, I started to feel a little creepy. I mean, at that point he had gotten very serious about survival. So much in fact, that he propably would have put any backwater survivalist crazy to shame. When he wasn't searching and looting pre-war places for old technology, he was usually running around the Capital Wasteland with the Ghoul Mask on, hunting for food with Abe's rifle. His favorite meal was raiders with some blood on the side.

I must say, I enjoyed the sniper aspect of the character very much, although I got into that bit fairly late. It was a blast especially with a guy like Jericho as a sidekick. Those few times that the character didn't kill people with one shot, power armored Jericho made short work of the leftovers with his minigun. There were times when a simple CEASE FIRE or DON'T SHOOT ANYONE DAMMIT button would have been quite useful with the sidekicks, but since I was playing a total psycho anyway, it didn't matter that much.

I was slightly disappointed with the lack of seduction that you could do overall during the game, since that's what I was going for initially with the character. The Child at Heart wasn't overtly useful either, but certainly added to the general creepiness of the lategame character. With the maxed out IQ coupled with Educated, I always had a huge amount of points to spare for different skills. So, I  became a master of several trades fairly soon, and usually had several approaches to choose from. Unsurprisingly, my cannibal scumbag refused to sacrifice himself in the end, but the Enclave went kaboom nonetheless, and everybody got their clean water.

The ending sure could have given more information. Personally, I would have loved to know what went on in Vault 101 after you left.

In any case, the game was pretty much totally awesome. Now I'm gonna take a shower and start it over with a good guy.