that FO thread is getting pretty hefty.

So I bought this via steam last night and played about 2 hours. First impressions:

1. The beginning, litterally the first few moments are awesome. Really clever how they make you setup your character. The SPECIAL book comes to light as being an amazing touch. But very soon after that, some moments put some doubts in my mind. E.g. When you need follow your characters father outside and walk behind him. Didnt you just learn to walk, now he's apathetically leading you down a corridoor?

I'm really perceptive of these things. It's art. The frequency of brilliant touches (such as the SPECIAL book) fluctuates too much. It shows perhaps no one in the dev team paid VERY close attention ALL OF THE TIME regarding sense checking the prologue.

I deeply appreciate the beating heart they gave to the Vault. In FO2, I never really had a sense of what the Vault was.

2. The last few moments in the Vault, including the last 30 minutes outside, were somewhat traumatic. I noticed that I had already acquired pistols, beatons and various armour and I was killing Bandits / Raiders in a nearby place with ease. It seemed too easy. FO2 really made you feel like a turd early on because you had nothing no fight with and everyone was tougher than you. I liked that. Now it's somewhat different and it seems like im too advanced already and theres not much work to do.

3. The interface isn't quite agreeable. The use / exit keys are not very intuitive and the Esc key is underutilised severely.

4. I'm quite keen to continue playing. I want to make sense of the surrounding land right now, so i will be doing some exploring / scavenging.

But that's just 2 hours of play. I'll try and get some more time on it today.

If you try to draw paralleels with FO2 all the time, you will fail to appreciate FO3 as it is. You have to let go of FO2, its gone, it'll never come back, rest in peace.

What difficulty are you playing on? In my opinion, in most places normal is just too damned easy. When I replay it'll be on hard. I agree, btw, the SPECIAL book was a cool touch.

ill have to see if i can ramp up to hard then

oh by the way, not that it matters a great deal at these early stages, but i chose:

S = 6
P = 6
E = 6
C = 6
I = 6
A = 5
L = 5

I think that's right.

As for perks: Enegy guns, small guns and Medical.

heh...not very diversified, are you.

No not yet. As i level up i will change that (assuming thats how the game works)

i played another 3 hours last night. a much better experience. the graphics are really coming through

my main objective at the moment is that i want to find a bit enough town that supports my business needs (sellling shit) so i can get decent equipment in order to take part in some serious quests and exploration. right now im too weak to venture forth for long durations (btw: ive bumped it up to hard)

ive found various weapons:

- .32 pistol
- 10mm pistol
- chinese pistol
- 10mm silenced pistol
- hunting rifle
- combat shotgun
- assault rifle
- chinese assault rifle
- sniper rifle
- scoped .44
- laser pistol
- frags
- mines
- combat knife (quite useful)
- "Fisto!" - cant stop finding that funny

I tend to use anything based on the availability of ammo, which is not plentiful.

I have good Repair skills, but dont know how to use them. Does anyone know? I want to repair my guns.

Slight companion related SPOILER >>>>>>>>>>>>>>

My dog died he did keep fighting as I was fleeing, so i guess its his fault for not running, but i kinda regret it. Ah well. live and learn. or from the dogs perspective, die and teach.

Press tab, switch to weapons category, move your mouse over the weapon you want to repair and press R. You MUST have another weapon of the same type to salvage parts from (or in other words repair with).

You can fix silenced 10mm pistol with a normal 10mm pistol. And various raider armor can be fixed with other types of raider armor.

Yea, I didn't figure out the repairing thing until I read the manual in a fit of boredom. But it's key to this game.

OH OH! DONT FORGET, that pressing and holding TAB will switch on the light, i was such an idiot in the dark, for some time, literally.

Oh, and i need to ask a question to you guys that really really should be available in-game.

Where is there a big town to trade in other than Megaton?

Rivet City. It's down in the South-Eastern corner of the world map. Just go East from the bottom of the map and you'll find it, I'm sure. It has a rather...remarkable architecture.

Don't expect too much, tho. There are 4-5 stores with good bottlecap reserves, but their merchandise isn't exactly stellar either. For the BEST wares you need to invest money in the wandering traders' business, but that's expensive and you still need to be able to find them. Other than that, most traders pack crapness.

dang.

i tried to go into that place but it was pretty hostile and dangerous so i assumed it was nothing more than bombed out ruins.

You can't get into Rivet City without requesting access first, so they sure won't attack you first. I'm sure you'll find it soon. Just someways east of the Jefferson Memorial.