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[MadassAlex]

I think the dead people are going to have a hard time being offended.

[Spluff]

It doesn't make sense anyway - the Fallout series is based around fear of nuclear power. A miniature nuclear missile launcher contradicts half of the Fallout history.

I think Bethesda confused 'hey this killed a lot of people' with being cool.

[MadassAlex]

How is this any more tasteless than HK-47, who is a letter off being named after the world's most efficient killing implement? Or Fat Man from Metal Gear Solid?

There's plenty of instances, in video games and other forms of art, where the exact same naming convention is used. I think it's a tad narrow to consider this tasteless while ignoring other instances.

[Stryc9Fuego]

I think it would be a good idea to clearly spell out the point:

When you take a catastrophic weapon like the Fat Man atomic bomb and convert it into some fun, kiddie version of itself, it belittles the original horror. It would be like an anime of The Holocaust, except it's a super-deformed Adolf Hitler giving wedgies to Jews. Yes, it may be funny and entertaining, but it's also incredibly tasteless and belittling to the initial suffering that was caused.

Am I hitting close here, Jeans?

As far as HK-47, that's a bit of a stretch. Yes, the AK-47 assault rifle and all of its offshoots are the most efficient assault rifles ever produced, but I feel the weapon itself is completely separate from the damage and suffering it caused outside of its initial scope. That would be like being upset at Jack Daniels for all the battered spouses.

And before someone calls out on the two-faced nature of damning the Fat Man bomb on one hand and praising the AK-47 with the other, I would remind them that the AK-47 was designed for the purpose of being used by soldiers in a war against other soldiers. Both sides know that death is on the menu. The Fat Man, however, was designed to kill indiscriminately over a very wide area and was targeted against a city ful of innocent civilians.

[MadassAlex]

When you take a catastrophic weapon like the Fat Man atomic bomb and convert it into some fun, kiddie version of itself, it belittles the original horror. It would be like an anime of The Holocaust, except it's a super-deformed Adolf Hitler giving wedgies to Jews. Yes, it may be funny and entertaining, but it's also incredibly tasteless and belittling to the initial suffering that was caused.

I had a whole paragraph typed up about this. I think I'll just agree that I can certainly see why many people would be offended, but my values tell me that being offended at a fictional entity due to an apt name isn't worth the frustration.

As far as HK-47, that's a bit of a stretch. Yes, the AK-47 assault rifle and all of its offshoots are the most efficient assault rifles ever produced, but I feel the weapon itself is completely separate from the damage and suffering it caused outside of its initial scope. That would be like being upset at Jack Daniels for all the battered spouses.

Not quite. The purpose of the AK-47 is to kill, and it's the most prolific and successful implement I can think of at that task. Jack Daniels isn't meant to batter spouses (or so I hope), it's meant to knock you senseless. In addition, HK-47's entire nature was violent and brutal - his idea of "love" being some kind of orgasmic sniper shot in bad weather or somesuch. He is one of KotoR's most celebrated characters.

And before someone calls out on the two-faced nature of damning the Fat Man bomb on one hand and praising the AK-47 with the other, I would remind them that the AK-47 was designed for the purpose of being used by soldiers in a war against other soldiers. Both sides know that death is on the menu. The Fat Man, however, was designed to kill indiscriminately over a very wide area and was targeted against a city ful of innocent civilians.

Again, this is a difference in personal values. I think a killing machine, no matter the context, is largely the same thing. The intent of the designer shouldn't come into it, as it is very, very rarely the bottom line when it comes to weapons. The AK-47 is a perfect example.

As for the Fatman itself, I think the name is not only apt, but accurate to what Wastelanders might call such a weapon in post-apocalyptica. Does anyone think the Wastelanders, Raiders, Slavers and assorted inhabitants are going to give half a damn about political correctness? I am pretty sure that they will call things what they like.

[Stryc9Fuego]

Personally, I think the Wastelanders would have used a generic term for that weapon. We have .32 revolver, Assault Rifle, Chinese Assault Rifle, Missile Launcher, etc... Every other weapoin has a generic name. It would have not only been closer to the concept set forth everywhere else, but more tactful to call it a Nuclear Catapult, and maybe make a "special" Nuclear Catapult called a "Fat Man".

Of course, all of this is just arguing opinions. If it irritates someone bad enough that they did this, that's what the GECK is for. Gotta love being able to spontaneously make your own reality!

[KvP]

I don't know why people are getting into such a tizzy over the Fat Man. It's no less dumb a naming scheme than Mr. Handy and Mr. Gutsy.

[Chesire Cat]

Well if we are going to get all bitchy about it.  In theory the Fat Man (the real one) effectively ended war in the pacific theatre as well as a tool of deterrent for future wars that could have ended lives many times over.  I think Iron Man said it best "They say the best weapon is one you never have to fire. I prefer the weapon you only need to fire once."

And frankly having a weapon that shoots bullets should be just as offensive, after all, weren't they designed to kill as well?  Bottom line is, it's in a video game based in post nuclear-holocaust America with the definitely intent on having a little bit of a sense of humour about itself.  Shouldn't you share in that humour as well?

Edited for sensitive ears and sensitive egos

[RedLion]

I for one found the voice acting quite good!

So there.

[Spluff]

I for one found the voice acting quite good!

THIS IS THREEEE DAAWWWGGGG

[RedLion]

Eh. It was better than Oblivion! And I played that game endlessly.

[Melodic]

Man, I agree with Jens. Just tasteless.

[PizzaSHARK]

If you, in the game, were ordered to demolish a city full of Jews, with a joking reference to the holocaust thrown in, would you have found it amusing?

Only if you get to beat them to death with candlesticks.

Or you get a good reward for it.  Genocide in games is always fun.

[Stryc9Fuego]

Did you ever meet Moira?

Aww man dude I liked Moira. She's so upbeat about everything, including {SPOILERS} being turned into a ghoul. It doesn't matter to her that everyone she's known is dead, now she gets to see what it's like to be a ghoul first-hand.

It's especially great when you shatter that upbeat attitude of hers.

I love her response when you give the snide reply on the repellant stick test:
You "It's like an explosive game of whack-a-mole!"
Moira "That's awful! You're awful! Everything's awful!"
ha ha ha.

[Melodic]

If you, in the game, were ordered to demolish a city full of Jews, with a joking reference to the holocaust thrown in, would you have found it amusing?

Only if you get to beat them to death with candlesticks.

Or you get a good reward for it.  Genocide in games is always fun.

I do not like you for posting this. There's a point, y'know.

[PizzaSHARK]

If you, in the game, were ordered to demolish a city full of Jews, with a joking reference to the holocaust thrown in, would you have found it amusing?

Only if you get to beat them to death with candlesticks.

Or you get a good reward for it.  Genocide in games is always fun.

I do not like you for posting this. There's a point, y'know.

I believe we acknowledged this many posts ago.

People are too uptight and need to learn to be able to laugh at anything.  What's the point if you can't?

[Dimmukane]

We are not a very uptight community.  While I am not against the name they used (I don't see it as a joke, I thought it fell in line with the uber-patriotism.  Fat Boy would have made more sense, though), there are still lines that you shouldn't cross.  Genocide is not something to joke about.  It's just not funny.  There's a reason you never see 'edgy', politically incorrect comedians make any jokes about it.



Look.  It's hard to laugh at genocide when you understand the weight behind that word.  You would have to be almost completely apathetic or ridiculously racist to find something funny about the Holocaust or Darfur or the actions of Milosevic, Pol Pot and Idi Amin. 

[ackblom12]

To be fair, Mel Brooks would disagree.

[Ozymandias]

Eddie Izzard would too.

[ackblom12]

Monty Python as well.

[KvP]

You know who else would disagree?

Hitler.

[Dimmukane]

That was a typo, I meant to say 'many'.  There are a few people who can make this work.  One is a crossdresser, so people know not to take him seriously.  Another is a group of men who dress up as old ladies for fun.

I guess a better way of saying it is that if you are going to make a joke about it, you have to be really obvious that you're not serious, otherwise offhand comments like shark's will be misconstrued as just mean.  Or you better be dead serious and have people who will fight for you.

[Nodaisho]

You know who else would disagree?

Hitler.

Yes, but he's a dick.

[Spluff]

People are too uptight and need to learn to be able to laugh at anything.  What's the point if you can't?

You're a dick and I hope somebody kills your family! Hahaha, good joke, right guys?


Guys?

[Alex C]

I used to run into this problem before in meatlife about all manner of minor issues. I have this knack for being taken seriously only at the worst possible times. A lot of my attempts at humor subscribe to the Mark Twain school of satire in which it is assumed the audience will realize that the argument being made is patently ridiculous. Problem is, thanks to the internet, television, radio and all the other ways just about anyone can disemminate their views, no matter how crazy, it is harder than ever for people to just throw out what someone is saying as a joke out of hand. After all, there is one thing the media loves, it's giving some dude who fervently believes his own ridiculous bullshit airtime. I myself have this problem as well, since finding a crazy person on the internet is like looking for saltwater in the Dead Sea. There's an easy fix for all these misunderstandings though; you just have to accept that you're not very funny and that trying to convince everyone otherwise is a fool's errand. I don't really find any of these jokes that offensive, but the intimation that there's something wrong with the rest of us for not being amused is definitely one of my pet peeves.

[PizzaSHARK]

You know who else would disagree?

Hitler.

Actually, Hitler didn't have a sense of humor that anyone was aware of, near as I can tell.  But he was a strange little man, anyway.

[Alex C]

I've heard that he was actually fairly sarcastic at times and had a definite sense of humor, even if it wasn't a particularly pleasant one. Definitely a tough guy to work with though; he was so dead set against retreating that his generals would complain about only being able to speak of tactics and weaponry to him, not of overall strategy.

[Johnny C]

Am I the only one in this thread who literally does not give a shit about the name of the mini-nuke launcher? And now that we've brought Godwin's Law into it can we put this unremarkable puppy to bed?

How long was everyone's first playthrough? I managed to log like eighty hours and I didn't even explore any of the vaults outside of 101 and 87.

[KvP]

I just powered through the main quest, took me around 9 or 10 hours.

[Johnny C]

why would you do that

[Stryc9Fuego]

Here's a challenge: Try to get through the main quest at the lowest level possible. There are, of course, two unique challenges to this. The first would, of course, have to do with the difficulty of the quest itself. The second would be with how fast you level. How much sequence breaking can be done to accomplish this?

[Dimmukane]

How'd you get into 87?  It's surrounded by radiation!  I went there, got up to the door, and died instantly because I was getting 500 rads/sec even with the Advanced Radiation Suit and some Rad-X.

Anyway, I think I've probably got about 36 hours.  I've been in most of the vaults and visited most of the locations in the southern half besides the ones in DC.  Most of the rest I haven't seen yet, and I still haven't finished Head of State.  I can't find Hannibal or anymore Lincoln artifacts.

[Stryc9Fuego]

The top entrance will not work. I cheated my way up there to see how hot it would go ([tgm] in the console on PC). The highest I saw was up to 2700/sec. High enough to kill you twice over each second. EDIT: I checked on The Vault websit and found that the radiation peaks at 3695 rad/sec.

[SPOILERS!]
When you get the task to go to this vault (Picking Up The Trail), you are told about a second entrance, through Little Lamplight.

[Melodic]

Technically three entrances, two of which are through Little Lamplight.

My fastest run-through has been 20 minutes, not including the time spent in Vault 101. I've gotten bogged down with the GECK recently, so I won't be playing more until I've packed up some mods.

[Felrender]

Technically three entrances, two of which are through Little Lamplight.

My fastest run-through has been 20 minutes, not including the time spent in Vault 101. I've gotten bogged down with the GECK recently, so I won't be playing more until I've packed up some mods.

20 minutes?

Explanation, please.

[Surgoshan]

You might be able to go right to 86, get the geck, and then run straight to the Jefferson monument...  I dunno.

[Melodic]

SPOILERS








Run to Little Lamplight, get the GECK, fight your way out of Raven Rock. Run to the Pentagon, storm the memorial, activate the purifier, win the game.

[Stryc9Fuego]

Nice. What level were you at the end?

Gotta love it though... first objective: Find your dad
Melodic: "To Hell with my dad."

[Melodic]

The lowest level I've beaten the game at is 2, from a really handy mod that assigns disguises based on the clothing you're wearing, like Hitman games. I breezed by Raven Rock without a scratch.

[KvP]

It's peculiar that Bethsoft didn't take any measures to prevent plot leap-frogging. Morrowind was buggy as all balls upon release but you still couldn't track down one of the plot-critical Dunmer tribesmen and circumvent 60% of the story. I've known many people (some of them here) who trekked to Rivet City before Bethsoft apparently anticipated and ended up cutting out the entire downtown DC portion of the main storyline by talking to Dr. Linn.

[Surgoshan]

Yeah, my first playthrough I inadvertently did that and reloaded from the autosave.

[Spluff]

I'm pretty sure that's intentional. There's no reason why she (I'm going to presume you meant Li) wouldn't tell you what you needed to know before doing Three Dog's quest (or just bluffing your way through). In fact, there is even an alternate reward for fixing the tower for Three Dog if you've already spoken to her (obviously you don't need to know where the doctor is anymore).

[Oli]

Yeah I did three dawg's quest but then went to rivet city for moira before speaking to three dawg again and got the alternate reward (still haven't followed through on the information he gave me though.) I've always thought that the entire point of open world games like fallout is that the world exists with or without you so there's no reason you shouldn't be able to stumble upon the end of the game as soon as you step foot into the wasteland. Honestly I think the fact you can skip huge chunks of the story, or do it in a different order, is one of the game's strengths.

[Melodic]

If Fallout 3 didn't do it, it wouldn't be a Fallout game.

[Spike]

It's peculiar that Bethsoft didn't take any measures to prevent plot leap-frogging. Morrowind was buggy as all balls upon release but you still couldn't track down one of the plot-critical Dunmer tribesmen and circumvent 60% of the story. I've known many people (some of them here) who trekked to Rivet City before Bethsoft apparently anticipated and ended up cutting out the entire downtown DC portion of the main storyline by talking to Dr. Linn.

First time I played I even cut that portion out by stumbling across the place where Dad was. I think they did start putting in measures to prevent plot leap-frogging closer to the end, but then again I didn't really test it so I may be wrong.

[KvP]

Nah, there was definitely some band-aids, now that I think about it. If you go to the Jefferson Memorial before completing the rest of the main quest there's a point at which it stops you and tells you that you haven't done everything required to continue in the area.

[Stryc9Fuego]

<snip>Morrowind was buggy as all balls upon release but you still couldn't track down one of the plot-critical Dunmer tribesmen and circumvent 60% of the story. <snip>

{Morrowind Spoilers}You must not have seen the SpeedRuns. All you really need in Morrowind is Sunder, Keening, and the gauntlet (I can't remember the name of it). Then you can go straight to the Heart, smack it up, then kill Dagoth Ur.

[JD]

DLC Details! sorta

[NotAFanOfFenders]

I can't even fucking do all the evil stuff in fallout 3 'cause im such an incredibly nice human being.

those poor, poor pixels.

[Darke]

I play almost every "choice" game as an evil character the first time through, so nothing much bothers me.

Although, when I shot Agatha's head off with my shotgun... that was a bad moment.