Miguel: Pete Hines of Bethesda encourages us to go nuts in the four hours we've been allotted with Fallout 3, so long as we don't write about The Main Quest. And like a minotaur who police-tapes one single passage in his sprawling hedge maze, he tells us precisely how to avoid it: "Just don't talk to Colin Moriarty." This would be easy enough to do if basically every character in Megaton weren't out to convince me that Moriarty was the most interesting thing in town. All roads led to him, and most of the interesting quests in the early portions of the game we were allowed to play brought us within spitting distance of the post-nuke feudal lord. I'll admit to having talked to him, but I didn't ask him the magic question (essentially, "Where's my daddy?"). Four hours is a long time for a demo, but not enough for me to start something I couldn't finish (let alone write about).
But it turns out that four hours is plenty of time to get lost in the Wasteland, and even feel bogged down by a brimming quest log. Perhaps against the spirit of the four hours of freedom on offer, I chose to let strangers in need dictate my agenda. In one instance, I raided the ruins of Megamart for the contents of its employee fridge, to the deep displeasure of those who got there first. In another, I stood next to an inert nuclear bomb for three whole minutes in order to become irradiated, all in the name of science. I witnessed the double-edged sword of drinking water from a toilet, and I got shot down by a reformed raider when I offered we team up. Apparently I hadn't swindled or killed enough people in the ten minutes of play before meeting him.
Sterling was a few feet away the whole time, having his own speed date with Fallout 3's PS3 version (I played on PC). And according to color commentator Will Tuttle, he mostly played in the third-person. What's up with that?
Sterling: It's simple. I'm not sticking to everyone's stupid rules about how you're "supposed" to play in first-person. You're talking to someone who didn't play Oblivion. You're talking to someone who quit Mass Effect after six hours. You, sir, are talking to a non-RPG gamer. That probably makes me the worst person to play Fallout 3. I went into this demo with the thought that nothing I said would convince angry Fallout fanatics to play this game, so I'd just try to evaluate it on its own merits. I discovered that, as Miguel said, there's plenty to do in the Wasteland, and honestly, there's enough meat here for any gamer to jump in and appreciate, not just fans of the genre.
Why? Because unlike Miguel, I didn't stick to the usual path. Instead of discovering the post-apocalyptic burg of Megaton, which you've likely read about, I got into a bare-knuckle fist fight with a mutated mole rat. From there I wandered around the Wasteland, picking up guns and XP from everything from angry feral dogs to raiders stupid enough to keep fighting me. I don't need to play it in first-person, because it would lull me into playing it like a shooter, when it's anything but that. The burbs of this atomic Potomac have plenty to explore and enjoy, from mutant Chinese soldiers near Arlington National Cemetery to gruesome deaths at the claws of Mirelurks, crab-like mutant creatures that live below the tunnels of the DC Metro.
Since I didn't start questing until a half-hour before the plug got pulled, what's your take on quests?
