More Fallout 3 (0 comments)
Mel and I are still playing Fallout 3, this time using the PC version to play side-by-side and cheat a little bit.
On the PS3, "Carlös" was a selfless do-gooder who wanted to make the world a better place. He was straightforward, honest, and spent most of the game at the high end of the karma scale, dispensing righteous justice with small arms and energy weapons.
This time through, "Boobies McGee" is living a much more confusing life. She's still helping people who deserve it, but she's not one to avoid sweet-talking, swindling, or even outright theft when she meets someone shady. I've found that it's somewhat difficult to maintain a low karma rating without murdering innocents, so Boobies has taken to cannibalism to keep her reputation sufficiently evil. Playing through the first bit of downloadable content and earning stealth armor has made her even more of a jerk, now that she can sneak around dropping live grenades into raiders' pants with abandon.
Mel, on the other hand, is playing her own game as "Carlotta" (presumably Carlös' underachieving cousin). Mel's come to enjoy the game immensely since I introduced her to god mode. Surprisingly (to me, at least), she's not drawn by her invulnerability or infinite ammo so much as her unlimited ability to carry things. Since the game normally enforces a limit on the amount of weight a character can carry, the player occasionally has to make tough decisions between taking something and leaving it behind.
The problem is made worse for players such as Mel who prefer to use the Rock-It Launcher. It allows players to hurl random junk at their enemies, and while it's always entertaining to see a bad guy decapitated by a flying teddy bear, the player must dedicate carry capacity to hauling around the "ammo." Conveniently, god mode makes that a non-issue for Mel. With her weight limit removed and some inventory management cheating, Carlotta's Rock-It Launcher is now loaded with around half a ton of garden gnomes. And that's a whole lot of fun to watch.
Carlota and Boobies McGee are playing through the game in parallel, with Mel and me talking to each other about what traps are ahead, what loot I've missed, and our different approaches for talking to NPCs. It's a lot more fun than I'd imagined, and I'm guessing it'll continue to occupy us for some time.