Radioactive Adventures With Fallout 4
Part 2 - Life or Death Sartorial Choices
So the outside world looks...nice...?
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| That's a landscape indicating good times ahead... |
Unsurprisingly it seems that having a nuclear bomb dropped on it did not do my little town a lot of good. It looks pretty much dead, and all I can hear is wind. Which is pretty disheartening. Luckily, there's a radio on my Pip Boy and miraculously it's still able to pick up some stations, which is indicative of some life somewhere at least. I tune in to the first one and set about carefully exploring this desolate hellscape I used to call home. It doesn't seem so awful with a jaunty 50s soundtrack in the background. In fact it seems damn near cheerful, and the paranoid sense that I am about to be ambushed by crazed mutants at any second lessens the closer I get to the town, where I realise that there is literally no one here but me. Oh, and Codsworth.
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| YOU RUSTED SON OF A GUN :D |
Turns out this endearing hunk of junk has been hanging out at my dilapidated house this whole time, waiting for me and my husband to come back. That's adorable. This floating robot butler is adorable. Also slightly unhinged, as I gather from gently interrogating him about what the diddly happened around here. Information gleaned thus far: it's been roughly 200 years, the geraniums are dead, and it's impossible to polish rust. Oh, also there's a holodeck for me from Nate that he recorded before the whole 'mushroom cloud of death' thing happened. I figure I should probably watch that, seeing as he's tragically passed now. That would be the appropriate thing to do.
"Hi, honey!" my sweet dead husband says from beyond the grave. He goes on to tell me how kind and loving and funny I am, which is lovely, and then he waffles on about how hard it was adjusting to life outside the military but he's glad to have me and Baby Jack and yadda yadda yadda. All very heartwarming. Not very useful. I have learned nothing from this, and time's a-tickin, so I do what any grieving widow would at this point and loot the fuck out of the house.
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| A veritable treasure trove... |
This turns out to be an even more depressing endeavour than I anticipated. Partly because it involves rummaging through the shattered husk of Jack's nursery, but also because the coolest thing I find is a suit and bowler hat, which obviously I change into immediately. It's not exactly an outfit guaranteed to strike fear into my enemies, but it's less dorky than the hazmat suit that the scientists stuffed us into for cryo, so it'll do for now.
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| Pictured: swag? |
As a mark of respect for the dead husband, I take an in-game hour to sit on that mouldy sofa and reflect on our short, but apparently blissfully happy life together. Then, having done that, I decide to get to work. First order of business: grilling the robot butler. He is very upset about Nate being definitely dead (yeah me too Codsworth...) and very insistent that Jack could still be alive maybe, and suggests that someone in Concord might have answers on that. He also warns me that the residents are a bit...rough. I recognise this as video-game speak for 'will fucking murder you on sight' and file that away for future reference. Now it is time to loot the neighbours!
Codsworth speeds off ahead and very helpfully dispatches all the GIANT FUCKING MOSQUITOES that have apparently infested the neighbourhood. So. Radioactive mutant bugs are going to be a theme, then. That's fantastic. At least it's not spiders...
It turns out Codsworth is actually really adept at killing shit considering he's a robot butler. Apparently a buzzsaw and a flamethrower were vital tools for the sentient metal domestic help? Anyway, there's not a lot of bugs left for me to take care of by the time I catch up with him. All the rifling through the neighbours' cupboards slows me down a bit. I find more clothes, bottle caps, various centuries-old foodstuffs, gun ammo (yay!) and just...so many miscellaneous household items. Seriously. So many. I've got cups for friggin' days. Turns out this is all kind of useful, because there's some kind of crafting/engineering station nearby that lets me convert this random junk into
things. Furniture. Weapons. Vehicles. I can build a settlement here, if I so choose. That's pretty cool. I look forward to doing that, although evidently I'm gonna need much more stuff. Which I will probably find in Concord...
I tell Codsworth to hang back at the house and wait for me. This robot butler is my only friend in the world right now, I don't want him getting dinged up just yet. So, I head over the bridge out of Sanctuary Hills, and straight away I am greeted by a very good omen indeed.
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| This welcome party sucks... |
Two fresh dead bodies strewn across the path - that's not creepy
at all. I inch closer, waiting for something to jump out and get me like it got these suckers, but it seems safe for now, and closer inspection reveals these to be the corpses of two raiders. They don't look like they would have been friendly had they not been deceased, so I quickly scavenge their stuff and move on. Almost immediately I am set upon by a strange furry beast that comes out of nowhere.
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| OH HAI THERE! |
That's right, all I've done is wander around and squish a few bugs and already this game has gifted me with a loyal dog companion. A loyal dog companion who...probably killed those raiders, come to think about it...
I'm gonna call him Sergeant. I hope he likes roach meat.
Sergeant is very eager for me to follow him, and I figure he knows what's going on better than I do, so I dutifully follow him. He leads me right to this place:
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| Looks...lovely? |
This turns out to be a dick move on Sergeant's part because as soon as I move towards it I'm attacked by a horde of giant mutant rats. Molerats? Whatever. They're ugly and mean and they're faster than the bugs. Luckily, Sergeant helps me out and we take them down without sustaining too much damage. I gain more yummy irradiated meat for my stash, and then it's time to look around this place. There is loot
galore, not to mention a note mentioning disposing nuclear waste in some caves underneath the shop. Which sounds...safe? But also interesting! I figure that might be worth checking out, so I start searching for wherever the secret entrance to the secret cave is. Sergeant helps me out by very subtly running up to the entrance and barking. Turns out it's a little bit south of the station and I probably would have missed it on my own as I was sticking too close to the building itself. I really like this dog. He makes life easy.
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| Nothing bad has ever come from crawling into random holes in the ground... |
The cave itself is completely infested with molerats. Oh, god, so many... They are dispatched quickly and with minimal panicking, and I look around the place. Predictably, there's a whole ton of nuclear waste lying around. I can also see a chest/safe nestled in front of a particularly big leaky barrel, which I thoughtlessly blunder towards like a trusting baby deer tottering into a lush green meadow. Straight away some kind of scary-looking counter goes off and my health starts dropping, and I realise I may have been overlooking a vital bit of gameplay here. Rads
. Still not entirely sure what 'rads' exactly are - I breezed over the game's attempts to teach me back in the facility, but obviously this is a post-nuclear wasteland and
radiation might be an important thing to worry about, doofus!!! I'm wandering around without any protection against radiation, because I didn't want to wear the dorky hazmat suit. Idiot!
Begrudgingly, the dapper suit comes off and the hazmat suit goes back on, though I refuse to relinquish the bowler hat.
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| Style AND practicality! |
I consider it a lesson learned and reward myself with the contents of that safe, although the fact that apparently I can't heal the lost health without a doctor is concerning. Can't afford that kind of slip up again, that's for sure.
By the time I exit the cave, it's dusk, but there's still enough light to see some buildings in the distance. This, I presume, must be Concord.
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| It looks beautiful... |
I am 100% certain that it's zombie-infested and do not want to go there. But, of course, I must...
Eventually...
