In early September I got Fallout 3 and the Prima Guide, both new and sealed.  I opened neither until early October when I cracked the guide open to see if I could learn anything.  Being brand new to this RPG world, the guide did more to obscure than to illuminate.  I decided that the best way to begin what will be a HUGE learning curve is just to dive into the game and figure it out as I go along, consulting the guide if I get truly confused - or consistently DEAD.

I finally installed the game in early November, but still, my feet were very cold.  I did everything to avoid starting this game.

Last night my son and I were talking about games.  He is currently playing one of the F.E.A.R. games, and asked if I had started Fallout 3 yet.  When I said no, he started in with the prodding, cajoling, poking, etc.  So, armed with this "encouragement", I fired up the game last night.  What follows is part of the email I sent him this morning.

Emboldened by your encouragement (I'll thank you later!), I decided to fire up Fallout 3 last night. Since it was already installed it only took a click on the shortcut to...get an error message that said "xlive.dll file not found".  What the hell is "xlive.dll"????  Internet search ensued.  Ended up at the Bethesda/Fallout site to find out that xlive.dll is a file on the game disc that should have been installed with the other game files.  If it wasn't, here's what to do....blah, blah, blah.  Ok.  Got that file installed.  Click that game shortcut again..."Ordinal 5360 in xlive.dll not found".  Back to the Fallout site.  So that ordinal file should be in the "G4WL"  folder.  G4WL is "Games for Windows Live".   The site tells me that my version of that file might be out of date or corrupted.  Head over to the Microsoft website.  Will do!  Downloaded and installed a new G4WL.  Hoo-boy!  Now...now after an hour of messing, I get the game running.

Thankfully, the game starts out slowly.  First an intro to the "world" with a bit of "how it got this way".  Then I was able to start creating a general version of my character.  Then my character is born (scenes of baby-me in the delivery room with my parents).

Next scene has me at 1 year old.  I have 2 required tasks at this point, one of which helps set additional characteristics for me.  The other task is to open a baby gate.  Piece-o-cake.  I was also given the option of learning how to jump up onto a chair to reach into a toy box.  That didn't go so well.  I kept jumping over the chair.  Gave up.

Fade to 9 years later, and it is my 10th birthday party.  My father gives me an old BB gun that he and a friend restored for me.  Now I have to learn to shoot at targets, and after hitting 3 of them (not so easy eventhough the crosshairs were squarely on target) I have to shoot and kill a gigantic cockroach.  Took a while, but I killed that sucker.

Next scene has me at 16 years old.  I am about to go take a test required of all "residents"  of Vault 101 (where we all live out our lives from birth to death).  This test will determine what careers/roles each resident is best suited for.  At this point my character will be given additional attributes based on the results of the test.

I quit for the night just before heading in to take the test.

Apparently the next scene will have me, at 19 years old, finding that my father has disappeared, and leaving the safety of Vault 101 to search for him in the Wasteland of post-apocalyptic Washington DC.  That, I believe, will be where the rubber hits the road and I will find out just how hard an RPG can be.  Then people and "things" will begin coming after me big-time.

I'm glad that the game started out so slowly, with no danger for me to cope with.  If I play tonight all that will change.  I've attached a JPEG of the keyboard controls for this game.  I don't know if this is similar to other RPGs or not, but for someone who is used to "left click/right click" and possibly the keyboard arrows, this will take some getting used to to be quick and accurate.

The graphics are pretty good so far, and from the screenshots I've seen, the "outside" stuff looks even better.  Graphics are usually what draws me to a game, so life-like graphics are good.  The people are quite well done, with the exception of mouth movements, but they are better than in most games.

The voice-sounds are a problem.  If I am looking straight at a character the voice is almost inaudible.  I have to face either their left or right side to hear clearly - even with headphones on.  Good thing there are subtitles.