Thanks loads, everyone.  I'm going to get back to F3 withing the hour.  I don't intend to use the guide as a walkthrough - at least not this early.  I'll probably have to lean on it heavily later.  I'm using it to learn how to play this game, and by extension, hopefully, RPGs in general.  However...

...I saw in the guide that I could have read some of my father's notes - on his computer, I think -, so I thought that those notes might give me some clue to what dear old dad was up to, if anything.  So I'm going to play from a previous save to get another look around his office.  I may then load my recent save to avoid taking the test again.  I'm guessing that what I read won't influence any outcomes, so I won't need to have that be a "recorded" part of my game.

Yapette:  when you say save often, not over...etc.  do you mean DON'T rely on quick saves?  Do quick saves each take a new slot?  Or do they replace earlier saves?  I'm used to saving often, so no problem there.  I think I read that the guy who wrote the guide used 400 saves in his play-through.  So clearly, there's ample room for saves.

The volume of the character's voices was still way too low last night, so as I was exiting for the night I maxed out that setting.  I'm hoping that the problem will be solved.  Otherwise, I think low voice-volume will cause trouble later since not all conversation came with subtitles.  A patch might solve this if it continues to be a problem.

I might move this conversation over to Bollocks tomorrow.  Again, thanks all.

Arrgghh!!!  Even moderately vigorous exercise never raised my heart rate like the last hour of this game.  Whew.  Had to stop just to catch my breath, and I'm playing on Easy.  Ran from cops.  Killed roaches.  Helped Butch/Mom - took 3 game reloads to get what I thought was a good outcome (talked Butch into saving Mom).  Killed cops; killed more roaches.  Looted all.  Got shot; took stimpak.  Learned that punching a cop who has a weapon gets me bloodied.  My reaction times are slow because I don't yet have the hang of the Pip-Boy or V.A.T.S. 

When that happens, I can only hear speech clearly if I move sideways to the talker, or somehow get my character so the talker is not dead center to me.

I figured this out, Yapette, but sometimes the game moves me to face the person squarely.  I'll fiddle with my computer's sound controls.  It isn't just a volume thing, so I might have to live with mostly inaudible conversations.

So... I'll only use quick save when I am in a real bind.  Otherwise, I'll do a real save, real often.

12:23am...30 more minutes of play, or a book?  I know which one would be more relaxing.  [Image Can Not Be Found]

Thanks Yapette.

It's a good one, ain't it, Jasper?  Especially for someone playing her first RPG.  It's easy to replay an hour of an adventure game because I forgot to save before a difficult bit, but I've already found out that I don't want to do this when my "life" is on the line.