Fallout 4 "IDFSG" Edition: Mobsters for the Lobsters.

Welcome back, my lovelies!

Today we're gonna go track down a private dick named Nick Valentine.  He's gone missing, and I'm told I'll need his help to find my son Shaun.  He's got a knack for finding missing folk, they say!  I could use a man like that on my team.  But first, time to put down some of this loot I got from ransacking Hubris Comics.  Back to Sanctuary!

"Us addicts gotta stick together."

Sheffield needed a hand, so I stole a nuka-cola and gave it to him.  Time to cook all that radroach meat I got, prep me a goddamn FEAST, SON.

"Gordon Ramsey wishes he looked/had it this good."

A good batch prepped and served; I'm literally overflowing with radroach stewmeats.  Mmm Mmm!

Back to Hubris Comics, and onwards towards the questmarker.  I'ma comin' for ya, Nick!  Hold on for just a little bit longer.  Wait.  What's that sign over there say...

"Waaaaaaaaaaaay back!  Gotta double back my friend.  Right into my deuce coupe."

Stay back from what?  This truck seems to know.

"I feel like I'm being trolled by Stephen Merchant right now."

I guess I have to look out for a Swan?  Really?  Swans aren't terrifying.  now DUCKS.  Ducks are fuckin' terrifying.  Goddamn serrated tongues and corkscrew penises.  Eugh.  Wait; what's that in the water over there...

"When they have a skull next to their name it means they're level FUCK YOU in comparison to your ass."

I TAKE IT BACk, SWANS ARE WATERFOWL SATANS.  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!  I duck back into an alley, down a flight of a stairs and through a door, hoping that I didn't anger whatever that 'Swan' thing was.

"Nobody knew who I was."

A somewhat familiar bar setting, where the manager's office is filled with baseball memorabilia, and a very tall skeleton is found behind the bar.  One day in the future, I bet someone will buy it.  Maybe in the year 3,000 or so.

"I saw a guy sellin' Ratzenbergers; he Wendt that way."

Deepest cut right there.  Get on my reference level, nerds.

Nice little Cheers easter egg, but the place is devoid of enemies (cool!) and also devoid of loot (NOT cool.)  Seeing as whatever Swan was hasn't made its way inside the bar to kill me, I presume its safe

" Buncha fags in a pram.'

Relax, its British, it's OK.  Whoever had the babycart had some really fucked up priorities.  Thankfully cigarettes in this game are great for you!  And by that I mean they're full of asbestos and a wonderful source of it for your settlement crafting needs.

A few more street corners, and Park Street Metro station looms.

"I wonder if he'll go all Olmec of the Hidden Temple on me."

Subway system is flooded with tommy gun-toting triggermen, as apparently the place belongs to a deposed Mafioso from Goodneighbor.  Thankfully they're terrible shots, and have a distinct weakness to me burrying my barbarian waraxe into their faces.

Who'd've thought that I'd be going full Skyrim in Fallout 4.

Oh well.  Onward deeper into the belly of the beast, as they say!

"A taste to die for."

Nuka Cola Quantum; just enough isotopes & spices to give it that zip!  Plus I bet it makes your pee glow.  Man I want some right now.

"Ominous lighting & giant metal wall-sphincter: check."

Vault 114!  The vault's hidden experiment was quite devious; bring in a bunch of affluent families to the vault, under the pretense that it is lavish and quite opulent.  Just resplendent with luxury piled upon luxury; while in fact everybody is cramped into single room units and communal bathrooms / showers.  Furthermore they actively choose the absolute worst candidates to be Overseer every cycle, and then encourage them to nurture really shitty conditioning and behavior amongst the vault dwellers.

Sick.

Speaking of sick; let's see how I'm doin'.

"Stat mods out the wazoo.  Also I'm addicted to wazoo now."

Wubalubadubdub; I'm LIT.  Just ambulating around, all high on water, mac&chee and whiskaaaaaaaaaaaay.

Honestly not much different than my actual normal life.

"Do androids dream of classy dames in dives like these?"

So... Nick.  Nick's a rowbut.  An automaton-man. A Robomatronical humanitron.  Neat.  But also scary.  He's a synth!  People keep tellin' me synths are bad and scary and I should fight him or somethin', but he's so goddamn SMOOTH.  He's like a gritty LA detective novel come to life.

"Like Moe Cronin's version of Baseball."

Nick's pretty good in a fight, and I let'im take point because shit, I did all the heavy lifting so-far, he can pay it forward and rescue his own damn self.

"Reaching peak PULP levels."

Bonus Action Points?  Awesome.  I love these mags!

"WHISKEY PARTY IN MY TUMMY."

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrripped.  My screen is just missing heavy motion blur and sound distortion, because I just slammed back 2 cans of Cram, 3 bottles of whiskey and some Instant Mashed Potato mix.  Which I figure I made with one of the whiskey bottles.  whiskeytatoes.  Maybe I'm not so-much Gordon Ramsey, and moreso Guy Fieri... eurgh.

"Skinny Malone?  Sounds like a Dick Tracy villain."

Skinny Malone sounds like Little John; who was in fact quite big, within Robin Hood's band of Merry Men.  Not withstanding Lil'Jon, who is as we all know, Turn't down for what.

"Fat Andy Garcia, or Regular Daniel Baldwin.  Take your pick."

Nick lets me know why he's here, fully: the missing girl he's looking for wasn't kidnapped so much as she's now Skinny's main squeeze.  And the only thing she's squeezing right now is his sack.  Oy.  I TRY to assuage everybody's fears, which leads Skinny to get all ALPHA MALE CHESTPOUND and bark something about "Nobody tells me what to do!".

Ok.

First thing I did was DECAPITATE his dear Darla, and steal her sequined dress.  She had it comin' for insinuating that I was a hired goon of Nick's, and that Nick should've just been killed immediately.  Skinny wasn't so bad; he had a respect for Nick and what he did, but he was thinkin' with his lil paisano rather than his noggin'.

"Silly Malone brought a gun to an axe fight."

Didn't take too long, but I own a nice tuxedo, formal hat and gun ensemble.  Vault 114 is now eerily silent; something it hasn't been in a long time since Malone's crew muscled in on the previous inhabitants.

"I bet he sees a blue moon, just standin' around there."

Fresh (relatively) air!  Nick gives me a quick thanks, and tells me to meet him back in Diamond City at his agency, so we can work my case.

"My weird, half-naked goggled ways.  With bonus happy dog ways."

Time to head back to Diamond City, and pick back up the quest for finding my lost boy Shaun; but first, time to ding that level.

"Hashtag Tuffboi"

Death Count: 3
Game Crashes: 1
Reloads: 0

That's it for this edition!  Up next: Diamond City, Nick Valentine and a pizza place.  (Maybe.)

Fallout 4 "IDFSG" Edition: Ghoul Trouble in Lil'Hubris

It's that time again!

Regarding the last installment; that whole graphical glitch thing?  Known issue.  Current fix is to turn off "Wetness" in the settings before launch.  In the interest of not extending my play sessions to interminable lengths, I've turned it off.  So while my fishlifters (arms) will no longer be glistening when wet due to rain, I'll actually be able to play the game.

Well, presumably I'll be able to play.  Game has a whole host of other problems besides that one.

Anyways!

When we last left off, I was inside a truck.

"Any port in a storm, s'what they say."

Finally got a good look at my savior, El Trucko.  Good truck; keep on truckin'.  Now to go see what that baseball-nonsense place ACTUALLY looks like, when not pretending to be a trippy Mamas & Papas 70's psychedelic music video background.

"Gonna need a good roofer to fix this water damage."

Well it's not much to look at.  Frankly, I'm amazed its still up at all after 200 years of irradiated wasteland harshness and like 0 upkeep.  Despite all that, some of it is still structurally sound that it can support a solid wrought-iron safe on the 2nd floor, so I guess it's got MOXIE!

Either way, I'm gonna loot the bejeesus out of it.

"You're killin' me, Smalls."

"Randy Johnson star pitcher of the Boston Diamondbacks?"

Two out of three; there's a signed mitt over by the garage, but right now I'm more interested in what's next to the signed card...

"Siskoid's favorite comic hero in the Fallout world, probably."

Fallout 4 takes all those skill books & magazines from the previous games, and recycles the formula.  Now they're 'collectible' items that grant either a rank in a new perk (Above case being 1/10 of the UNSTOPPABLE! perk, which grants a cumulative 1% chance to dodge damage altogether.) or specific perks altogether; such as double-meat when killing an animal, having Diamond City permanently marked on your map even if prior to finding that magazine you've never heard of the place yet, to new items to build for your settlement, custom paintjobs for your power armors, and more!

Reading is fundamental!

"And that was the 2nd time I fought crabs."

Quick reminder when I tripped off a makeshift bridge to the treefort that I'm playing on survival.  Mirelurk (Big ol' CRAB!) came over and gave me what for.  And what for meant death.

Death Count officially at 1.

So I spent the next 15 minutes ontop of the bridge, and taking shots at their faces as they would scurry up to me, then run away, and come back again.  Dogmeat was of course in true Fallout-companion fashion: no fucking help at all.

One catcher's mitt later and a trip back to Diamond City later, I'm 300 caps richer.  Time to go to the clinic, and get ribald with some goddamn SCIENCE and MEDICINE.

"I have more than two problarms."

"This is my character sheet on drugs.  Any questions?"

"Addictol.  When Fuckitol doesn't cut it."

"MUCH Better."

Addictol is an inhaler (much like an asthma puffer, of sorts) that costs like 400 caps to me when I'm super addicted and fiending because of a low Charisma score (due to the addiction!)  but removes ALL addictions currently running their course.  Kinda need to up my survivability, and right now, I need this pick-me-up.

"I keep forgettin' he's climbed to the top of the mountain OOH YEAH."

Now that my body isn't constantly wracked with the pain of dopamine receptors screaming for their next fix, at least in-game that is, time to follow up on that lead I got.  See me a private dick who specializes in missing persons and stuff.

"If only he could find me a date, instead of more trouble."

I'll admit its really cool that the detective agency is tucked around the corner down a dark alley, gettin' all noir and shit on ya.  Like with the rain pitter-patter in the background, I can almost hear myself narrate the entire affair.  I bet I'll walk in the joint and be met by a sassy dame with a set of gams, and a chip on her shoulder.

"CALLED IT!"

She's quick to back down on the snark, but mostly because the detective on duty; Nick Valentine?  Is missing.  He's REALLY good at his job though she tells me.  Maybe TOO GOOD since he's now one of his cases.  Or would be, if you could be found AND missing at the same time.  Shrödinger's Gumshoe!

Oh well.  I tell the classy gal I'll find her boss, and then proceed to loot the place of everything that isn't bolted down and I can get away with pilfering!

"ONLY 35$ !  Comes with free game!"

The games are actually playable on your pipboy or any working terminal you can find!  Games within games.  Gameception!

Time to go and look for Nick!  I'm told he was workin' a case about some screwy mobster from Goodneighbor, who's holding up in an old vault; specifically Vault 114.  So time to get a-walkin'.

Death count: 3 now.  Some mangy junkyard dogs decided to jump me immediately outside Diamond City.  Twice.  I eventually lead them towards some turret defense posts, and I'm now the owner of a shitpile of mangy dog meat.  DELISHUS.

"HAY GUUURL.  WHACHOO READIN'."

Boston Library!  Lookit that reclinin' Constitution-Bro.  Got swag for DAYS!  But that place is filled with boring ol' books and musty tomes reserved for nerds and wizards.  And wizardnerds.

"Best. Shop. Ever."

Now THIS is more my speed.  Comics, Toys, and HUBRIS!  No way this'll come back and bite me in the ass, no sir!  Nick can wait, I want to get my FILL!

"I understood that reference!"

The ground floor is SWARMING with feral ghouls.  They're just crawling out of the dang walls right now.  Two more deaths.  Don't worry folks, there'll be a tally at the end for this run.

Ghouls dealt with, let's go see what the first floor has in store for us.

"Jangles takin' a deuce.  Classy."

 Man, one of the devs sure likes having stuffed animals poop.  Weirdo.

By Grabthar's Hammer; what a find!

Grognaaaaaaaaaaaaaak!  SWAG.  Dang thing is MASSIVE.  Love it.  I'm gonna put it to good use, I'm pretty sure...

"Silver Shroud signed autograph! Nice!  Who's the Silver Shroud?"

Turns out the Silver Shroud is a pre-war radio/TV serial pulp hero, part of the Unstoppables! team.  He's mostly an amalgam of The Shadow, and like; Batman.  He's pretty cool, I guess.  WOOPS, MORE GHOULS.

"Ghoul broke my dang leg!"

They're like weeds!  Just everywhere!  UGH!  So tough!

"DRUUUUUUGS.  What better place to keep'em, than in a safe?"

Delicious medication!  A stack of Mentats, and some Stimpaks, yes please!  Also all these ghouls are contributing to my leveling fund!  They're also making a major dent into my health and stimpak fund.

Time to put my perks to good use.

"R U TUFF ENUFF !?"

A tiny boost, but a reduction of 10 points of damage on attacks is 10 HP less that's lost every gatdang HIT.  And Ghouls?  They're feisty and fast.

Alright Mr. Glowy DeMille; I'm ready for my closeup."

And here is where the fun begins.  This one floor, filled with 4 ghouls total; 3 ferals and 1 Glowing one (SKULL LEVEL).  It is impossible to kill the 3 ferals without disturbing the glowing one, which is considerably harder.  And by considerably harder I mean FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE.  I molotov'd one and hid, then just had the glowy one and his two cronies to deal with.  OF COURSE Dogmeat is nowhere to be found, because he's halfway stuck in a wall two floors down.

This world must burn.  AGAIN.

"Must've been a masochistic nerd before becomin' a zombie."

The ONLY way I've been able to finish this fight after a dozen deaths, and a handful of resets AND crashes to the desktop, was that the Glowing One eventually got itself stuck in the locker.

Immediate quicksave, and I proceed to loot the shit out of the room; netting me the authentic Silver Shroud costume and he boss silver tommy gun prop!  Also Grognak's outfit!  Costumes galore; call me Mr. Dressup, 'cause I gots me enough stuff to fill a tickle trunk!

"Made famous by mobsters, and bad actors/OK boxers in Rocky V."

"ACK! ACK ACK ACK!"

Well, enough cool stuff, I gotta go deal with that glowy dude now.  Grognak's outfit is risqué, but just makes you straight up THE ROCK levels of strong and deal boss melee damage.  Right now my Grognak's Axe is the highest damage I got, so it's gonna be a Barbarianfest up in this humpy-bumpy.

"And STAY DOWN."

I'm covered in what I can only hope is Gak now; even though its clearly glowing one blood.  Which glows, and is gross and I'm gross, and I want to go home and shower forever.  I need fresh air.

"Barbarian outfit, leather bracers, welding goggles and a bowler hat."

I look like someone from Post-Apocalyptic Leeds.  Which ironically is exactly the same as Current Day Leeds.  'Ello Gov'nah, Bob's ya uncle.

To get THIS FAR, which is still nowhere near finding Nick as I just divebombed into the Hubris comic shop immediately, the following happened.

Death Count: 20
Crashes to Desktop: 6
Reload previous state: 6 

Despite turning 'Wetness' off, I'm still getting hard crashes to the Desktop.  Sometimes 2 back-to-back.  Wondering if I keep at it, if I'll break the game completely.  Which shit; I'd be amazed if I managed that.

At the time of this bloggin', I've been awake for over 30 hours, I'm being held hostage by my own body's inability to fight the current infectious disease swimming through my very veins.  So I'm kinda loopy.  And by loopy I mean I've lost my dang mind.  I love you all.  *MWAH*  Y'all the best.  Kisses.

Until next Friday, where I try and not get myself lost, while heading back to trying to find Nick in Vault 114.  Also my son is missing or something.  I look like motherfuckin' VIN DIESEL in this Grognak outfit, playa.

Holla at me, ladies!