Some time ago, 10 years or more, I started playing the game Fallout 3.
And never finished it, or from what I could remember even really got very far into it. Unfortunately I don’t know the exact date, because I was living without internet at the time and unless I wanted to drag my big heavy LCD “flat” screen, that was probably 30 pounds and about 6 inches thick, and my xbox down to the local library or cafe with wifi, we just played offline. And lived offline, I remember going to said internet cafe in order to watch episodes of House every week while it was airing. Good times.
Here’s what I do know, the game case has a sticker that isn’t from Gamestop or EBgames. The two places I for sure was buying used games at.
However it does have a discounted price for their “iNsider club” which after a round a internet research (it took more than I would have thought honestly) looks like I got it at a moviestop.
I remember about when I played it, not having internet narrows it down considerably. And although Trueachievements does have a date for first played, it’s the same date as other games. I know it’s not the first time I got my xbox back online.
But, unlike literally all of the friends I had who were telling me about playing this Fallout 3, I just didn’t really get into it. Not like Oblivion, a game I enjoyed so much I 100% it.
Hey 3 bucks is a pretty sweet deal, although to be honest I’ll be replaying this soon enough and I’ll do the remaster.
Anyway, Fallout. My entire experience with this franchise can be summed up like this:
- Fallout 3 – I tried it some.
- Fallout New Vegas – I only tried it while recording with a friend.
- Fallout 4 – Well I didn’t give too much of a shot to the last two. But maybe this one?
- Fallout 76 – Off and on since release, Fallout is better playing with friends!
It actually is the 200 hours in 76 which made me come back around to wanting to give the main games a chance again. Also the show. Especially the show. Mostly the show. It’s so good and opened my eyes to the story that I had previously missed.
Which is really the point that I must have missed my first go around, shocker I know, but the story is awesome. And I just missed it when I played. I remembered having Liam Neeson for a dad and going looking for him for a while. But that’s it. Couldn’t tell you much else besides the real obvious. Nuclear wasteland, big bugs, kill raiders. People lived in vaults. Pip-boy. Just enough to get probably 60% of the references over the years.
I think this was just at a point in my life where I wasn’t paying much attention. Probably was watching TV or something and gaming was the secondary screen but not the focus. I certainly wasn’t reading anything, and probably skipped dialogue too. I know this wasn’t the habit for every game, but certainly a good majority of them for a few years.
But now in January of 2025, I bought the collection on sale and decided I would finally give it a go. Start up a new character and *pay attention* this time.
Until Monster Hunter Wilds came out and I played nothing else for 4 months straight.
And Elder Scrolls Online got a new update that grabbed me in a way it hasn’t since the beginning.
But finally, I got an achievement just this week for completing a part of the main quest.
And then promptly got another
I’m back to where I was all those years ago. I honestly got further than I remembered at all, I left off right around the midway point just based on the number of main quest story missions. I looked at a list to see the number but tried to avoid looking directly at names or anything that could spoil things for me. I have been having a blast. I finally get why so many people were into this. It’s fantastic. Of course it’s a bit of a learning curve going back almost 20 years in quality of life improvements to games. So it’s not perfect, I would love to see a remaster here too. But by that point I’ll be done and onto New Vegas and then 4. Maybe just in time for another one to come out?
I know if my siblings and I get back into 76 this holiday season as we so often do, I’ll appreciate it much more than I did before.
(Not that I ever truly didn’t like 76, I know it fell flat on arrival like so many games now do and then rebounded with so much more later on. But since the start it was fine to me, and just got better with time. There’s fishing now? I’ve seen the news but have resisted the call of the siren. The fishy siren.)