Fallout 4 "IDFSG" Edition: We coswork hard; we cosplay hard.

Greetings my lovelies!

Sorry the post is a day late; Good Friday was a slog and a half; I was having severe PC issues in and out of the game, which caused a normal 2 hour session to extend to something ridiculous like 7.

Anyways, enough excuses!  Last we left off, we were in Goodneighbor, and we were gonna talk to Dr. Amari about h4x0r1ng into teh Matrix of Kellogg's brain-dongle, to surf his mem-waves... or something.

Before I do that, I figure I should explore Goodneighbor a bit first.  What if I die inside what's left of Kellogg's head?  I gotta live a bit first!  So let's go next door...

"If the owner's name is Robert, I'm expecting nothing but indecent proposals."

Hotel's essentially an opium den.  No really.  The dude makes bathtub chems in the basement.  But upstairs is the real gem...

"Vault-Tec Calling!"

Poor guy remembers me!  I felt bad for him and told him to come back to Sanctuary Hills with me; I'd set him up good.  Mostly so I could loot the ever-lovin' shit of his room.  And it did not disappoint.

"I am heavy weapons guy.  And this is my heavy weapon."

USHANKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.  Now, as much as I love my bowler, this ushanka is far better.  And warmer.  And generally just better all-around.  I am a fashion plate of styles upon styles.

"SPACE DOG MONTHLY MAGAZINE"

Vault-Tec dude's taste in literature is aces.  OK back to the memory den, but first, time to get into some fresh threads... Silver Shroud fresh.

"Take a picture; it'll last longer."

While I COULD go down to the basement and further the quest to find my boy, I think he'll understand when I take this detour to become a damn superhero LEGEND by going into this side-room here inside the memory den to meet this very special boy, Kent.

"Listen?  Buddy I'm wearin' his skin."

"Can the Shroud be real if our eyes aren't real? - Jayden Smiff."

"I hope it involves me wearing this outfit."

"Not very perceptive, this one."

"YOU GOT: SILVER ARMOR SHOT *Mega Man Bloops*."

Kent starts me off on a quest for the righteous; to bring Justice! to the dregs of Goodneighbor and its' environs' society.  It mostly involves killing bad guys, dressed up as the Silver Shroud.  Y'know what strikes fear into the hearts of evil men?  Some nutjob talking like a pious, over-dramatic gangster armed with a chromed tommy-gun, that's what.

"The targets come-in via the Shroud radio station, inbetween re-broadcasts of the old radio play."

I haven't found a domino mask yet to go with the Shroud outfit.  I'm kinda bummed about it, but my welding goggles are gonna have to do.

Time to thrust through some cloying alleyways and murder for JUSTICE.

"The crime of selling drugs to the children!"

"But Black Dynamite! I sell drugs in the community!"

"Pick every dialogue option as The Silver Shroud.  Trust me."

"Ey-oh; I'm peddlin' smack 'ere! Why don'ts you vamoos, capiche?"

"My .45 caliber wrath!"

PLOT TWIST: the Silver Shroud gun is actually kinda garbage.  So I eliminated this dude indescriminately with Kellogg's hugeass python revolver.  Just bliggidy-BLAM! HEADSHOTS! STILL SHOOTIN! STILL SHOOTIN! WOO!  Thankfully using the gun isn't a requirement of the quests.

"Of course drug dealers are flush with drugs.  OH WELL.  Down the hatch!"

Icing those dealers gets me on the next part; going to the Third Rail; Goodneighbor's speak-easy.  The bartender has some info for me, or so I'm told.

"Don't touch the sides! ZZAP! Butterfingers!"

"Mr. Handy with a cockney accent and a bowler hat."

"Whitechapel Charlie" as he's known to patrons of the Third Rail, acts as a buffer between his employers and prospective 'outsourced' labor.   In this case, via our mutual acquaintance Kent, I've been tasked to talk to ol Chuck here, because his boss would like a sitdown.  I wonder who it could be; who'd be odd enough to employ the Jason Statham-equivalent in robot form...

"Hamilton-who? I'm Hancock, baby!"

OF COURSE.  Who else in this town would it be!?  Hancock's tickled pink with me being the Shroud.  He even gleefully enjoys it when I pick every [Speak as the Shroud] option, praising me for being mental and sticking to the bit.  I mean the man DID do so many drugs, that to get even more high than usual, he took an experimental brand of Jet that caused instant ghoulification.  Anyways, he's got beef with some local piece of Raider scum, named Sinjin.  He wants Sinjin dead of course, and Sinjin's committed sufficient crimes that The Silver Shroud would totally take him out.

Only issue is, I've been hitting up Sinjin's lower-level thugs, and Sinjin's gone to ground now.  Thankfully that's scared off some of the higher-up mooks in his organization, and two of them in particular have decided to turn tail and run.  They also probably know where Sinjin is.  Hancock's proposal is simple: take care of Sinjin's lieutenants, get Sinjin's location, do the entirety of the world a solid and murder some bad dudes.  Come back home, ticker tape parade and rippin' PHAT COTTON off some Jet inhalers, and a fistful of caps.

Or something similar, I wasn't paying attention.

"He committed a Cardinal sin with that nickname. High Five dadjoke."

So I got their general location now; time to carve a bloody swathe through the Commonwealth to find'em.

"Found a church filled with feral ghouls, and a Ghoul priest named Father Gabe."

Dude gave me a serious Walking Dead vibe, as Rick found a priest named Gabriel at one point, and he's been downright hostile at times.  Unlike THAT Gabriel, I kill the everlovin' shit outta this one, and his 'congregation'.  I mean I just poked my head into the church to see what's what, and they get all shit-flippin' about it, angry and whatever.  Fuck that.  Y'all gots to die.

"Sometimes you feel like a GunNut(tm), sometimes you don't."

LEVEL!  13 at that!  2 more and we can go head-first into Automatron, Fallout 4's first piece of DLC!  I tore through it on my main playthrough character (Level 92, come at me scrublords), and its decently fun, with some cool robot-pal options.  Hard at times, but we'll get there when we get there.  Hopefully before the new Survival mode kicks in, but then again maybe that'll make things easier!  TIME WILL TELL!

"Can't all be winners, I guess."

So I'm runnin' around Cambridge, lookin' for Northy and there I spot'im.  Surrounded with some hired muscle.  What's a guy to do!?  Well I got a shitpile of these here molotovs, might as well put'em to good use.

"COLLATERAL DAMAGE, NORTHY!"

I am like a superhero envisioned by the way of Zack Snyder.  Instead of being this cool pulpy street-level dealer of Justice like The Phantom or The Shadow, I literally just lit a man on fire, and shot his limbs to cripple him, so he could flail around and get murdered by the fire.

I have more than two problems.  However Northy is no longer on that list.

"Indeed I do, friend! Indeed I do."

Random encounter dude!  He unfortunately has very little bite to back up his bark-claim of 'good armor'.  it's all slightly modified low-tier Raider and Leather armor.  Nothing to write home about, or worth trading for.  He does have some caps though, so I can pawn off all this raider loot on him for some scratch.  Score!

"Behold, my dark oeuvre."

"OK now you're just rubbing it in, Fallout."

"It's like Halloween 3: Season of the Witch in there."

Hunting scared raiders is tiring business.  Also, heavy business.  I'm overencumbered by roughly 80lbs, and Dogmeat as usual has gone and caught himself on some square of terrain somewhere, and is no longer following me.  He will for the duration no longer follow me until I manage to fast travel somewhere else, or find a building that will lead to an inside instance.  I found the former rather than the latter, first.

"Gettin' the side-eye immediately upon arrival."

"RAIDER OR CARAVAN?" she said, with a loaded double-barrel pointed at my Me-region.  I told the lady it's just lil' ol' me, ain't nobody else, and she let me in with a warning of not firing off any shots while inside Bunker Hill.  I promised her I had no such intentions, as I really didn't, but y'know what lady?  I JUST MIGHT NOW, TO SPITE YOU.

"I wear a bandana now.  Bandanas are cool."

Still haven't found Shaun, or Sinjin.  Oh well.  At least I look GOOD while goofing off!  Come back to me next week (Friday! Hopefully, I have a full-weekend event, so I'm hoping I can get it done earlier in the week.) for my further monkeyshines in the Commonwealth Wasteland!

Like this stuff? Hate it?  Leave me a comment telling me why!  Maybe give a suggestion of what you'd like to see more/less!  Engage your audience they say!  C'mere you lovely; I'll engage and marry you, and make you the happiest girl at the ball!  *MWAH* smoochies.

Total deaths:  4 (Mostly self-inflicted from lobbing grenades in melee range. D'oh.)
Time lost to PC shenanigans: 180+ minutes of agonizing 'loading' at least.

Fallout 4 "IDFSG" Edition: Up to No-good in Goodneighbor-hood.

Greetings once again, my lovelies!

Last time, we were all about to get all-up-in Kellogg's inner sanctum.  He knows I'm coming, and has attempted to dissuade me at each turn.  I think he's just scared.  Which would make sense, he stole my kid and I've tracked him down to his own home, and want him dead.  I'd want me dead too, if our spots were reversed.

"Please don't come any further.  Please please."

Now, as much as a big game he talks, Kellogg's got the advantage here.  Mostly because I'm low on supplies, this is a Survival mode run, and generally the fight goes down in some very close quarters with not much cover.

Thankfully though, the devs thought of that, and provide with an aptly-filled supply room just prior to the final encounter with Kellogg.

"Let's see, free hammer, drugs AND lockpicky things? Sure!"

"AND a tactical nuke-launcher and laser rifle?  You shouldn't have!"

I like to imagine these all belong to Kellogg, and he forgot about it all until I came barreling down the corridor, which is why he is trying to get me to turn around.  Sorry buddy, but you took my boy.  NOTHIN' is gonna stop me.  NOTHIN'.

"That's why I do my killings over shag carpeting."

I love every one of these manuals because they're hilarious.  Also just lying around here.  Like there's a story, an untold one, behind each and every copy.  How'd it get here?  Why's it smeared with blood?  How useful was it to the last person who read it?  Probably not much considering that blood smear, actually...

"Ugh, FINE.  Come in."

In a bizarre turn of events, Kellogg turns off his synth-killbots (momentarily) so we can 'talk'.  I don't think he understands what's really gonna be goin' down, or better yet, he does.  And wants to catch me offguard.  I don't think he gets that I've been poppin' mentats and buffout nonstop since I got out of the freezer, and am juiced up AF right now.

You took my boy, I'm kiting high on steroids and methamphetamines.  Somebody gon' die today.

"GIVE ME BACK MY SON."

"Shit; I had prepared a soliloquy for this... oh well."

"I'm sorry, I can't hear you over all this WHERE IS MY SON!? happenin'."

And so began the rough fight against Kellogg.  It's an abjectively small room, with two synths (one's a Leader so; tough.) and Kellogg who pops a Stealth Boy immediately as the fight starts.

Not gonna lie, this was impossible for a little bit, on account of it being survival mode and starting the fight in the 'open' with a synth behind me to take shots all free of reprisal as I deal with Kellogg and the other synth infront of me.

But, as you'll see, I discovered a fatal flaw to Kellogg's plan.  Picking the Sarcastic option gives you a bit of a lengthy zinger there seen below, but also since you can move around during dialogue, if you move away with the reticle from Kellogg, you can immediately use your pipboy to say, switch to pulse grenades, and then enter VATS while burnin' Kellogg with that Hell diss.

"Remember when I said I'd kill you last?  I LIED."

"SAPRIZE! ptchoo ptchoo ptchoo you're dead."

"Time for some #BeefyBoi action up in this humpy bumpy."

"Kellogg; allergic to tactical miniature nuclear warheads.  Who'd have known?"

FRAWRESS VICTOLY.

Y'know, after the 10th try.  Details.  Kellogg is DEAD DEAD DEAD and I couldn't be happier.  Well I could if I had my SON.  Which I don't.  Thankfully between bits of calling him 'motherfucker' I found out that Shaun's been handed over to the Institute.  A sensible time ago.  Whatever that means.

Anyways, this fool's junk is now MY junk.  That's right, not only did I murder him, but I'll outright desecrate his corpse and take everything he ever owned from him.  Fuck this guy.

"Awesome.  Now I can pretend I'm Rick Grimes!"

"I make it work for me.  Styles upon styles!"

"The Institute.  Dickbags of the Commonwealth."

Now that I know where I need to go, I just... need to find out where the Institute actually IS.  Nobody seems to know.  Let's head back to Diamond City, and ask Nick!  He's a synth, he's the closest link we've got so-far.

"I love you, I mean... BORF?"

The way out of Ft. Hagen isn't too complicated, as every exit back to where I came from is locked.  I eventually end up on the roof, just as something massive shows up.

"DO NOT BE ALARMED BY OUR GIANT PENIS-SHIP AND ATTACK TRANSPORT VEHICLES."

Huh.  Well there's the Brotherhood, just showin' up whenever they want and stuff.  They SAY they come in peace, but we'll see about that.  I ain't seen anybody come in peace when they roll into a place like this, deploying vertibirds every 50 yards.  Shit just don't seem peaceful at all, bruh.

Anyways.  Onwards.

"Aaaaah; another beautiful day in an irradiated hellscape."

Hoofed it back to Sanctuary, so I could sort out the loot situation; essentially my bag was full and so was Dogmeat's.  You can use companions as packmules, but y'know I don't want to abuse of it TOO much.  I needed a nap anywho.  Next: Diamond City!

"Yeah Piper, stick to ethics in Synth Journalism."

"A lot, Nick.  A lot."

I essentially boil it down for Nick & Piper.  Shaun's at the Institute, and nobody knows how to get there.  Except Kellogg did/does.  Nick has a crazy idea which involves using some of Kellogg's brain-goo, and someplace called the "Memory Den" in Goodneighbor.  Apparently also Nick doesn't approve of me saying I'd kill Kellogg again if given the chance, well maybe Mr. Synth-man, you'd feel the same if he had took your son from you.  And shot your wife infront of you.  And then taunted you while you stalked him.

I digress.  Thankfully, Kellogg was pretty much a cyborg by now, tweaked to shit and back by the Institute. So we can use one of his cybernetic doodads in lieu of brain-goop.  Hoo-ray.  I just need to get on with it and head to Goodneighbor.

"Hello out there to anybody listening!  Also: HELP!"

Some dude's trapped in a nearby tower FILLED with Super Mutants.  Maybe later dude, I got an appointment with a Mammary Den.  Memory Den.  I'd go for a Boob-Hut though; that sounds right up my alley, actually.

"OH NO, ZOOMBIES!"

"COOOOOOOOOOORL GET BEHIND ME COOORL."

Not gonna lie; Kellogg's big-ass hand cannon is awesome.  AND it refills Action Points on a critical hit?  Hot damn.  I just need to find me some more .44 ammo.  Because I have like; none left.

"LEVEL!  Now to make better pants."

"This doesn't look dangerous at all!"

"Walk into town, meet shady dude infront of TWO arms dealers: check."

Well, welcome to Goodneighbor, I guess.  First thing that happened was I witnessed the town mayor shenk the guy who tried shaking me down immediately as I walked into town.  Thanks?  I guess?  Hancock as he's known, is very welcoming for a man who just committed murder right infront of me, stating that Goodneighbor's a place where all the freaks can congregate and feel welcomed, compared to the rest of the wasteland.  Probably means if I ever need to buy more drugs, this would be the place to do it.  Good stuff.

"Sigh; shoulda been a Boob-Hut."

"Maybe it IS a Boob-Hut after all!  Homina Homina!"

Meeting up with Nick at the Memory Den, about to talk to Dr. Amari.  This is where we'll pause it for this week, my lovelies!  See you again next Friday where we'll find out what goes on inside a mercenary's head maybe!  WHO KNOWS!?

Death count: 11
Crashes: 1