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villainousascent-blog · 8 years ago

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Fallout 4, Perspective, and a Better Way to Play

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. It's 2 years down the line, here's my advice on coming to Fallout 4 from previous titles.

Don't go into Fallout 4 expecting New Vegas, Fallout 3, or either of interplay's Fallout Titles. Go into expecting an engineering game. A plumbing game. An electrician game.

And now to talk about the Pitt DLC for Fallout 3*. I know that's confusing, but just. No. Stop. Don't go. Instead, sit and listen. Here. Let me explain. You see, I had a revelation.

After playing Fallout 4, I went back to Fallout 3, to test my mechanical knowledge of it, by never healing my bleeding, broken body, and never dying. A permadeath run. I wasn't allowed to fast travel, and if I died, that was that and the run ended. Mods, on the other hand were allowed, but they had to be appropriate to the run. I had an improvised weapons mod(because it fit the run, and fallout 3's atmosphere of lonesome, solitary desperation), an alternate repair mod the weapon mod kits mod, a smokable cigarettes mod, backpack mod, basic primary needs mod, killable children mod, a binoculars mod, and the classic fallout weapons mod. I also, by necessity had the CALIBR mod, Rh Ironsights, and CRAFT. The cigarettes mod was changed slightly to get rid of the charisma bonus. That was it.

If you want the rules, here they are. Healing the body with stimpaks, or healing crippled limbs, is forbidden. That doesn't however, mean that the body isn't allowed to heal itself. I'm just not allowed to intervene in that process. Same with radiation and addiction. I can, however, take preventative action. As well if say, the game deems it necessary to heal me in some way or another, who am I to say no. As well, using a mod,

I'll have to manage hunger, thirst, and exhaustion. If I can't manage any of those properly, I'm fucked, and the run ends.

A revelation came to me when I was playing through the Pitt DLC. For those of you that don't know, the bulk of that particular DLC takes place in Pittsburgh, New York, famous for its industry. That industry is steel production and processing, hence, Pittsburgh Steelers. The Pitt takes place primarily in a massive, monolithic foundry in the heart of New York industry. And now for more explanation. Spoilers, from here on out.

You begin by answering a distress call from a man named Wernher. When you finally meet him, his request is fairly straight forward, actually quite nice. Help him save his people. Things are rarely that simple, though. You see, his people are slaves, and in order to get in, you must disguise yourself as one. As a side note, to meet with him, you need to go far to the north, into scorpion and deathclaw territory. In order to fit the part, I met Wernher wearing the wasteland settler outfit, (mostly for the agility bonus, which helps with stealth), Three-Dog's Headwrap(Sorry threedog, but I needed the extra charisma and luck. Plus, I enjoy GNR's other, less well known host.) and a pair of biker goggles. I like to travel extremely light when doing stealth builds, which I was, and if I get shot on a build like that, death is certain. No need for armor. As well, I was equipped with a shoddy pipe rifle. Got to look the part, right? In my inventory, a backpack, a silenced mauser, some mines, a dart gun, a shishkebab, food, water, and a massive amount of drugs and alcohol. For the shishkebab, I wound up murdering a caravan. For the dart gun, Tenpenny Tower had to go. As for the drugs, combat drugs, morphine, rad x, psycho, mentats, etc. are allowed under the rules.

After a brief skirmish with the other denizens of the Pitt, which I, being the coward that I am, stayed out of, Wernher greets me. After a brief scolding, introductions are made, and he tells me about the Pitt. In his own words "I come from a place far to the northwest. It's called the Pitt. It's... Well... Lets's be honest... The place is a nightmare... Radiation, mutation, disease. But the worst of it: My people, some of the only survivors, are slaves." He's got one shot at helping his people, at making a difference, and he needs your help to do it. A pretty convincing plee for help, if I do say so myself. So, I agree to help. After all, with that argument, how can I say no?

First things, first, I need a disguise, and I need to do it without a fight. Money, than. I pay for the slaves, and free them. Aren't I a goody two-shoes? After taking the presumably rank smelling outfit from a man who expired from unknown causes, I went to meet up with Wernher at the tunnel.

The north of the map, is beautiful, and desolate, and gray. The Pitt, on the otherhand, is hot and smoky, overbearingly bright, the entire area dyed a brilliant orange from the flames and molten steel of the foundry. A strikingly beautiful shift in tone and atmosphere. After a brief conversation with Wernher, Lydia learn's what I already knew. She'll be stripped of all gear except a slave outfit, and a single 5 shot snubnosed .32 revolver. One of the worst firearms in the game. So, I begin to make my way across the bridge that serves to both defend the Pitt and prevent escape. It funnels witless morons both ways, and the entire thing is a time bomb, filled wuith land mines chemical waste barrels. At the foot of the bridge, I make a quick change of gear, swapping into the dead man's garb. Have to fit the part, remember?

I, or rather, Lydia makes her way, at a slow, barely perceptible crawl in order to not trigger any of the mines. As a result, she arrives, mostly safe and sound, and intact, if having gained a few more rads. I'm then greeted by Mex, who immediately "recognizes" me as a slave. The disguise worked.

I'm then dragged in, and meet with Midea(Get used to greek figures with slightly misspelled names. That will come up again.) And then the Pitt begins in earnest.

You see, Wernher. Was. Not. Kidding. Mutation and disease run rampant. Both master and slave alike, are affected. The people of the Pitt are covered in horrific and disgusting lesions, sorer, bruises and the like. Life in the Pitt, whether master or slave, is brutal, savage and unforgiving. Death is a guarantee. Both the air and water are vectors for the horrific diseases, mutations, and radiation that are a fact of life in the Pitt. Lydia, Desperate for a weapon, or salvation, went off to a man named Marco. He had a welcoming gift, the Auto Axe. The Auto Axe is a wonderfully, ridiculously powerful melee weapon, based off a masonry saw. No really, it is. It's as violent as chainsaw, without the risk of fleshy goop gunking up the works. She then goes to meet Everett and in the process, steals his cigarettes and pre-war money, and enters the Steel Yard, with one, singular purpose. Survive. From here on out, things are going to be incredibly stressful and difficult.

Something I briefly touched upon earlier was the verticality of the Pitt. The Steel Yard itself is massive, but a lot of this done through height rather than area. A single slip up, or tripping and falling, spells almost certain doom. If the injury doesn't kill you, the mutants and the radiation will. And if that doesn't manage to kill you, you're own body will. With a primary needs mod, the Pitt is even more brutal.

In the Steel Yard itself, there is this sort of massive, central tower that constantly belches radiation and smoke. It's a hell of a view, and tactically significant if you manage to fight your way up there.

Into the Steel Yard, and off to arm myself, and collect the ingots which would buy my salvation. The first 10, relatively easy. That gets you the Laborer's outfit, which grants an additional point of agility, strength, and endurance, each. The next 20, harder, but not impossible. The reward: the filtration helmet. A massively useful, rad resistance helmet. Essentially a gas mask. 10 more, and were up to 30. the reward here, not nearly as useful. At 40, the metal master armor. Eh. 50, the Metal blaster, an immensely powerful scatterlaser. 60, bombshell armor. Meh. 70, Leather rebel armor, charisma bonus. Meh. 80. The Mauler, one of two unique Auto Axes. 10 more and were at the most useful weapon in the Pitt. The Perferator. There, we stop. There are 10 more, and the reward is unique power armor, but I'm not interested right now. Along the way, I pick up an assault rifle, combat shotgun, hunting rifle, unique .32 pistol, and the Gamma Shield armor, all well very carefully dodging trogs. Trogs, for those of you that don't know, are the soft squishy, and incredibly lethal and dangerously strong mutants of the Pitt. Humans, affected by the disease and radiation, driven mad and turned into mindless beasts that crawl on all fours. Welcome to the Pitt, Slave. With a bit of damage, but not much, because of Med-X(morphine), I make way, after more than few questionable victories in the Steel Yard, to Midea again. Now, she says, it's time to fight in the hole, and earn both my freedom, and a chance to meet with leader of this horrific cesspool of disease, agony, torture, and slavery. A chance to meet with Ashur. A chance to steal the cure. The cure being the entire reason I'm here. How can I say no? A small note on Everett, by the way. He's my favorite character in the entire franchise, and he's funny and well written to boot. Kudos to Bethesda, by the way, for making one of, in my opinion, the most memorable characters in the series. Not a lot to say, but quite possibly the best written slave master I've seen. He's totally corrupt, and genuinely warm, which makes for a wonderful and eclectic, eccentric personality.

So, I volunteer to fight. A chance to earn a shot for my radiation is immensely valuable, at this point, due to advanced radiation poisoning, soon to be a level worse. You see, the Hole, is a radioactive pit, in which slaves fight for their freedom. The fighting is a brutally fast and completely savage affair, which ends in a matter of seconds, not minutes. It's a no holds barred death match. In the first fight, you're pitted against three other hopefuls. Speak to Faydra, the arena master, and enter. I chose to enter drugged up(Psycho, Buffout, MedX, Mentats, Cigarettes, Alcohol etc) beyond belief in the Laborer's Gear with it's damage resistance of 4 and Filtration mask, armed with the Perferator, the unique assault rifle that's been sawed down and given a scope and suppressor, from Everett, and the man opener, the utterly insane and unique Auto Axe from the massive warehouse in the Steel Yard. The first fight is lightning fast. All three hopefuls gunned down in a matter of seconds from a shrouded position in a corner near the entrance. I exited, and was gifted with most useful thing in the entire run. A radiation scrub. You have no idea how incredibly useful that is in a challenge run like this. Immediately back into the hole, switching to the Metal Blaster. Not my strong suit, but each projectile does a decent amount of damage, and there are 9 projectiles in total. Next up, the Bear Brothers. Dead in seconds. Lightning fast, but not fast enough, and utterly brutal. Last up, Gruber. Quick 5 shots. Dead. Took damage. Freedom. My reward? My equipment returned, and my freedom. After these fights I no longer have the luxury of getting into combat here. Need my health for other more pressing engagements, particularly when fighting tribals. I'm better equipped than I went in, but in worse condition. Survival is my priority. Time To meet with Ashur.

And here's where we start to get into Fallout 4.

So, into Ashur's home, to meet with him and his wife. Ashur is an ex-Brotherhood paladin, from when the Brotherhood of Steel came to the Pitt to solve it's issues, and salvage its technologies. Still in the Laborer's Outfit, but now with a headwrap and biker goggles, an odd combination to be sure. Led up to his home, Lydia proceeds to enter. After the brutality and the violence she's just been through, this is a nice change of pace. Walking up, we overhear a conversation between one of the masters of the Pitt, and THE Master of the Pitt. During this conversation, it's revealed that he doesn't like to call them slaves. He prefers workers. It gives the slaves hope. He wants to cure radiation. An interesting proposition, but how would one do that? The answer? His own child, who has a natural and transferable immunity. I sided with Ashur, because he wasn't willing to risk the health of his daughter in order to create a cure, and I wanted to survive. I also nicked his cigarettes.

Now, how and why would the Pitt give a different perspective on how to play and view Fallout 4. Well, let's let Ashur tell us. In his own words:

Lydia: "What do you mean about the city's future?"

Ashur: "Now that Marie's back, we have a chance at curing the disease that's been ravaging The Pitt since the bombs. Without it killing our kids, we can grow like a real city. No more bringing in slaves. No more forced labor. Things can get better. It's taken me a lot of work rebuild this city. With your help, it's finally going to have a chance."

Lydia: "So, what do I do now?"

Ashur: "That's up to you. We'll keep working on the cure and keep the city running. You're free to come and go as you like. Of course you can help out at the mill by collecting metal from the Steelyard. It'd help lighten the load on the workers. And if you want to work on Sandra's good side, you can always bring her toys for Marie. It's a little thing, but it would make a difference."

Lydia: "Do you ever miss the Brotherhood of Steel?"

Ashur: "Not in the slightest. During the scourge, we looted the Pitt and left the rest of it to rot. I was just a dumb convert who got stuck here afterwards. See, beneath it all, the Brotherhood's just lazy. It's easier to loot a dying city than work to bring it back to life, so that's what they did. They're so obsessed with the technology of the past, they don't care what needs to be done for today and tomorrow. It takes real, hard work to rebuild and run a city. But there isn't a machine to do it for them, so the Brotherhood ain't interested. Good riddance."

That last answer. Fallout 4 is Fallout from Ashur's perspective. It is a love letter to all those who help to keep society running. Engineers and plumbers. Electricians and architects. Doctors and mechanics. Chefs and farmers. Soldiers and search parties. If you go into Fallout 4, expecting it to play from the Brotherhood's perspective, expecting to loot and move on, you're going to have a bad time. However, if you go into it from Ashur's perspective, willing to put in the hard work, the time and effort to revive a dying civilization, you'll have an incredible, and rewarding experience, bursting with jaw droppingly beautiful vistas and incredible works of art.

This has been Villainous, signing off.

* Note that damage isn't perfectly talked about, because I'm actually not sure what my weapon skills were because somewhere in there, there's a level up missing, and the saves between the beginning of the steelyard and the end of the hole have been lost.

#fallout 4 #Fallout 3 #fallout #The Pitt #gaming

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