I’ve never been the biggest fan of wearing and using power armor in Bethesda’s Fallout games, mostly because I like to stay mobile and not worry about fuel. But it certainly came in handy for “The Dig,” a rather long dungeon crawl through subway tunnels to a treasure on the far side.
In making my way south to a library (for a quest), I made a slight error by climbing up on an elevated expressway and trapping myself in a very linear corridor with a bunch of bad guys and one very tenacious assaultron. After a few reloads, I did clear them out, but it convinced me to stay on the ground going forward.
At least I got to enjoy the view of a burned-out Boston from afar.
As I embarked on a way-too-long escort quest of a beer-producing robot — I know, a worthy target to protect — I ruminated on how much I’ve come to depend on my laser pistol, Old Faithful. It does double damage on the first hit to a mob with full health and fires very quickly. I’ve been using it extensively as long as I have fusion ammo, and it hasn’t really let me down yet.
This was a fun mission where I had to climb a tall, skinny radio tower to rescue a DJ at the top from the clutches of Super Mutants — and then ride an external lift all the way down while firing at some new mobs. It felt a bit like Dredd or The Raid in that respect.
Next, I followed the Boston Freedom Trail for a while, soaking up a bit of history. At the end, Nick asked me to help him out with a quest of his own — to put down a dangerous gangster from 200 years ago who’s stayed alive and hidden thanks to becoming a ghoul. This triggered a map-wide scavenger hunt to find 10 holotapes with numbers for the vault code.
Let me tell you, doing that Nick Valentine quest was a bear — a whole lot of traveling and fighting — but it was nice to unearth an old adversary at the end and put an end to the jerk. Nick seemed to appreciate that — and I got to maximum companion level with him, too.
Currently, I’m not saying “no” to any quest I’m given. I’ll gleefully accept and follow and obey, no matter what, which led me to joining the Brotherhood of Steel. That’s not normally a faction I’d pursue in these games, but why not? See where it goes from here. So I started running Brotherhood quests, hitting level 25 and realizing that some of these are infinitely repeating after the first turn-in.
I got a genuine fright when I left a mission location only to have this monstrosity of a robot jump down from the roof and ambush me. He beat me up pretty bad, too, so I was happy that one of my new pieces of gear automatically puts me in slow-mo time when my health dips below 20%.
I’m actually not regretting joining the Brotherhood at this point. I got a cool vertibird ride up to their mother ship, got a free set of power armor, and got access to a lot of nice pieces of gear — not to mention a vendor who keeps replenishing caps. I needed a dependable place to sell, and now I have it.
I helped a group of kooky robots launch the USS Constitution from one building and into another. But it was a glorious voyage while it lasted.
Bio Break 