Fallout 4 EP21: We Are All Reginald

By Shamus Posted Friday Jul 15, 2016

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 140 comments


Link (YouTube)

I feel the need to apologize beforehand for this one. Somewhere in the middle of talking about tits and theorizing about what it would be like to have sex with various Star Wars characters, we got sidetracked and briefly discussed Fallout 4.

Like I said in the episode: I liked the “critical” system in this game. I like having attacks in the tradition of a Final Fantasy limit break, where you can save up a big attack for that special someone. My only gripe is that it shouldn’t be called critical.

Okay, “critical attack” is a valid term for it in the sense that it’s roughly synonymous with “severe attack”. But the term critical has come to mean “random multiplier applied to attacks at random intervals”, and I don’t think that’s something you should mess with. I mean, a ledger of goods in a warehouse is called an “inventory”, but if you hit the inventory button in a game and got a ledger of stuff you don’t don’t have on your person, it’s just going to confuse and annoy people.

 


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140 thoughts on “Fallout 4 EP21: We Are All Reginald

  1. MichaelGC says:

    The scene at the beginning is quite fun if you happen not to have the music on, as it really is doing quite a bit of the heavy lifting. There’s these awkward long pauses to allow the music to swell, and I don’t know if the voice actor is actually from The Simpsons or something, but without the music dominating the tone he somehow takes on a very Simpson-esque note of knowing self-mockery.

    It was a good moment, though, the very first time! I think I happened to emerge just at the right time of day – late in the evening – with all the lights shining and the music blaring, and it was all rather unexpected and impressive. (It’s my own playing-style’s fault that I’ve now seen it thirteen times during the middle of the day, when it is less-so.)

    1. tmtvl says:

      If the game wasn’t already ruined by this point – which is obviously is – then this moment would be the breaking point.
      Mass Effect 3 had Kai Leng, Fallout 4 has the dirigible.

    2. Sunshine says:

      Also, I thought this speech sounds like it’s backwards: “Do not interfere with our mission. We are here on a mission. Hello, we’ll introduce ourselves.”

      I get that it’s meant to end on the statement “We are…the Brotherhood of Steel” but still..


      “The music tries to make this look heroic, but it’s really ominous.”
      If you talk to your companion, they think that too. Piper enthuses (something like) “Did you see that!? That’s awesome!” Curie says “”If mankind can still build something like that, there is still hope.” Everyone else says a variation on “Oh, shit. This is going to be trouble.” (Nick Valentine quotes Edgar Allen Poe.)

  2. James Porter says:

    Father makes it an important part of his morning ritual to shave. He has had a beard before, but he knows that if left unchecked, his Father’s muttonchops will single him out from the rest of his colleges. Only time will tell if he can make peace with his heritage, or if his heritage will be his ultimate undoing.

    Poor Shaun, at least this revelation came near the end of his life, so he doesn’t need to deal with it that long.

    1. Cardigan says:

      I like the idea that Shaun, as his father before him, was born with thick full muttonchops.

  3. Chris Davies says:

    With each game, the super mutants in Bethesda’s Fallout sound more and more like the Cookie Monster. Flee in terror, human! Me devour you like a delicious chocolate chip cookie! OM NOM NOM NOM!

    1. Wide And Nerdy® says:

      This reminds me. Based on previous discussion, I want a mod where you can consume cigarettes basically this way, complete with animation.

      And I want all the sophisticated npcs of the setting to pull out a cigarette, light it all cool like, and then gobble it because its been 200 years and everybody has forgotten what cigarettes are actually for.

      To me, the best mods are stuff like this, silly little modifications attached to things that occur regularly, like the mod that gives all mudcrabs top hats and monocles combined with the one that makes them shout “Now you f***ed up! OOOHHHH! Now you f***ed!” and the one about autotuned bears.

      Its great because it occurs randomly, often in the middle of serious scenes. When a giant Rainbow Dash lands on the tower at Helgen, you know you’re in for fun.

      Sadly, not as much stuff like that in FO4. Though they do have a Macho Man Deathclaw.

      But this can also apply to stuff in the game like Cannibalism.

      The more stuff you can do to entire classes of creatures and stuff in the game, the more opportunities there are for comedy. Like when a journey that starts with you searching for your kidnapped son ends with you realizing he’s the villain and then killing and eating him.

      1. Sunshine says:

        Without knowing modding or having the computing grunt to play Fallout 4, I want to make a mod for mirelurk hats. And a playable mirelurk that can equip outfits, but they’re just stretched out over your torso.

      2. Cardigan says:

        To be fair, Fallout 4’s official mod kit has only been out for a little while and the modding community is still pretty young. So there still might be hope for beatboxing Protectrons and My Little Pony yaoi guai.

        1. They seem to have a pretty solid head start in a lot of areas, though. Apparently it’s REALLY similar to Skyrim.

        2. Michael says:

          Well, you can already get Randy Savage Deathclaws.

      3. Michael says:

        In a moment of seriousness, that would kill you. Tobacco is really toxic stuff. You can chew on it, smoke it, but if you actually eat the leaves, it will kill you.

        1. Which, as a side note, kind of breaks any thought that humanity as a whole is anything close to rational. :P

          1. Wide And Nerdy® says:

            Really? The consumption of a single substance that makes you feel good and might shorten your lifespan* causes you to loose faith?

            There is a calculus there. The whole “enjoy your youth vs have more years of arthritis” argument.

            Sorry, but I just get tired of “the masses are stupid” arguments. At least we’ve pretty much killed the word “sheeple.”

            Our advancements come from exchange, iteration, feedback, experience. Genius helps us make big leaps but a thousand geniuses couldn’t match the contributions of the masses in a society of free exchange.

            *I say “might” because even though the science definitely shows that smoking kills, there are in fact people who live. My grandparents started smoking in their teens, only quit in the last decade and they’re in their late 80s with no lung related issues.

            1. It’s less the smoking itself but more the tendency to consume substances that are outright toxic, such as tobacco, alcohol, numerous illegal substances…

              There’s quite a bit more at play, but it does sort of poke holes in the thought of homo economicus.

              1. Wide And Nerdy® says:

                No it really doesn’t. Value is subjective. Just because the math doesn’t add up from where you’re sitting doesn’t mean it doesn’t add up for them.

                The fact that you’re even including alcohol in that list is ridiculous. Its only toxic if you consume in excess. Otherwise, a few beers can take the edge off. A glass of red wine is a nice addition to dinner and can even be good for you.

                If you’re locked into the notion that things should be valued according to what makes the most sense to you without consideration of what makes sense to others, then its no wonder you think other people are stupid. They’re stupid because their ideas about reality diverge from yours.

                Some people are stupid. The rest of us make the decisions that make sense to us.

                “Hmph, you really believe that when so many people think [insert position you hold that others don’t]”

                I’m not going to get into whatever example you’d be inclined to bring up next. There are tons of them because there’s tons of stuff people disagree on. Just remember smart people have differing ideas too and its not all down to evidence.

                I would love to see the day when we’re down to the point where stupidity is our biggest problem, because it will mean we’ve already gotten rid of arrogance.

                1. Ninety-Three says:

                  The fact that you're even including alcohol in that list is ridiculous. Its only toxic if you consume in excess.

                  As long as you’re going to argue definitions, that’s not how toxicity works. To get tautological, toxic simply means that it’s a toxin (or poison, depending on your definition). We don’t say “x ng/kg of lead is a toxin”, we simply call lead toxic, because the substance has particular harmful effects on living things. A little bit of lead isn’t non-toxic, even though you could probably eat it and be fine. It’s just a little bit toxic.

                  1. Wide And Nerdy® says:

                    Ok point taken.

                    I just mean its only going to cause problems if you drink a whole bunch at once or consistently drink at a certain level over a long period of time.

                    1. A recent study directly linked alcohol to seven forms of cancer.

                      But the topic reminds me of a Cory Doctrow short story I recently read. The gist was that the protagonist as well as the antagonist (a Mr. House type character that wanted to buy the protag’s discovery) had both monkeyed with human minds to perceive mathematics more rationally in one instance and then to not forget pain as we often do. In the first instance, economic activity (starting with the Lotto) ground to a halt and in the other divorce skyrocketed and the birth rate plummeted to zero. It was an interesting thought experiment about how “rationally” looking at life experience might pretty much end our species. It reminds me of those theoretical societies where one wonders what would happen if no one could lie about anything, no matter how small.

        2. Well, it depends on how MUCH you eat. Robinson Crusoe actually eats some tobacco as medicine in the book, which makes me think it wasn’t entirely unheard of to eat it–it’s probably a pretty powerful purgative/emetic in quantity.

          Found this: https://www.quora.com/Tobacco-Can-you-die-from-eating-cigarettes

          1. Michael says:

            That actually makes the entire scenario more hilarious. People would try to eat the cigarettes, then vomit uncontrollably, and say, “That was delicious, I want more of that.”

    2. Grudgeal says:

      I’ve not played Fallout 4 and this is my first exposure to these new super-mutants, but listening to that Fist person and his generic “we strong” rants really makes me miss Best Friend Tabitha and Black Mountain Radio. Similar speaking style, completely different context and content. Really underlines how good writing makes a difference.

  4. Wide And Nerdyâ„¢ says:

    Ok making this note 2 and a half minutes in before I lose track and forget. You’ve brought this up a couple of times about the Brotherhood.

    I see it as a sort of natural evolution for them based on what we’ve been shown.

    You have the original reclusive Brotherhood that hoarded technology and hid in secret. Then FO3 established that one of their groups broke away and decided to use their resources to help people.

    This is that splinter group years later and the new Elder is younger and wants to return some to Brotherhood ideals. So he’s sort of an average of the previous two, dedicated to destroying abominations and hoarding tech but out in the open. Being helpful like his predecessor but with his own more old school BOS definition of the word “help.”

    Pretty much everything about this makes them a good villain. I just wish the Railroad or the Minutemen were cooler because I hated blowing up the Prydwen itself and the Institute’s facility. Why do the bad guys have this really great stuff? Why can’t they be the good guys while we’re fighting marauding barbarians that want to take it all down?

    Oh well. At least with Father stupidly handing you the Institute, you can headcanon that you’re going to use it all for good once he’s dead.

    1. Pax says:

      I dunno, Arthur has mixed in there a troubling amount of human superiority, to the point where he’s glorified for being all that is man, and things that “corrupt” or “blaspheme” the human form are demonized by the BOS. I think that’s all-new, all-different.

    2. Skeleton says:

      I actually think the whole point of the Brotherhood in Fallout 4 was that Bethesda saw the criticism people made of the Lawful Good Brotherhood in Fallout 3, and they also wanted to reuse the Enclave. So they basically made the Brotherhood the Enclave.

      Same desire to purge the wasteland of mutants, same claims of wanting to help the locals while not really doing so, same appeal to some pre-War purity standard.

      The pseudo-religious elements are weird and make no sense though.

      1. Locke says:

        Fallout super mutants have always been kind of orky. Now the Brotherhood of Steel are Ultramarines.

        1. They already had the armor, really. Might as well go with those particular genetic freaks from 40K.

        2. IFS says:

          Well original Fallout Super Mutants weren’t that Orky, they had a leader and an ideology they followed in the first one and while they play a lesser role in FO2 they still take the ones that do appear in an interesting direction. FO:NV continues to do interesting things with them, developing the Nightkin more distinctly among other things.

          In Bethesda fallouts though, yeah they’re orks. They have no ideology, their insanity isn’t developed in any way beyond just being ‘murder happy crazy dudes that collect organs in bags for no reason’ and they just exist to be another mob to be gunned down in large numbers.

          1. Poncho says:

            Well when the entire economy runs on murder and the acquisition of centuries old bottle-caps, yeah, the Super Mutants make a little sense in that universe, just not any universe we’d call rational.

      2. Wide And Nerdy® says:

        The Super Mutants and ghouls are manifestations of the abuse of technology. And this splinter group of the Brotherhood spent time being humanitarian which often meant clearing out monsters. Remember the basin was overrun with Super Mutants. The Brotherhood would have had to establish a perimeter so that settlers and caravans could take advantage of the rad free water. So they would have spent a lot of time fighting them.

        Put these two things together and its easier to see why young Elder Maxson might come to view it as an extension of BOS mission to purge them in addition to scouring for technology.

  5. stavro375 says:

    My only gripe is that it shouldn't be called critical… the term critical has come to mean “random multiplier applied to attacks at random intervals”, and I don't think that's something you should mess with.

    World of Tanks is the worst about this. “Critical hit” is used to refer to an attack that didn’t actually do damage, but hit some external module of an enemy and made it marginally more vulnerable. So when the in-game narrator calls out “Critical Hit!” it’s usually because you wasted a shot. (I suspect this is a translation issue — World of Tanks is a Russian game.)

    Even better, when that quote was translated into non-English languages, it was often transformed into things like “that must hurt!” Again, for an attack that failed to do damage.

    1. Grudgeal says:

      They probably meant “glancing”. I mean, that makes sense-ish in this context.

      1. crossbrainedfool says:

        Disabling would also make sense – some of those modules can be nasty to lose at the wrong time.

    2. Frotz says:

      Critical hit means you’ve either damaged modules or crew. Some modules are external and can be damaged without touching the hitpoints of the tank, such as the tracks, gun and observation devices.
      The reason the tank doesn’t loose any hitpoints is either that the penetration isn’t enough to punch through the armour behind the module or not touching any armour at all on it’s trajectory.

  6. Wide And Nerdyâ„¢ says:

    Another file to open.

    I’m not a doctor but, even if there’s no insurance or licensing or anything like that, I assume you’d want to maintain a medical history. Possibly even an account or ledger for transactions*

    I think this one is justified, Shamus.

    *As I understand it, ledgers actually precede the written word. Accounting was actually the impetus for creating written language. EDIT: Okay, brief search shows that it preceded fully written language but there seems to have been proto writing before written accounting.

    1. Shamus says:

      I was just bemused because he’s some guy in a lab coat handing out drugs. In the fiction of the game, I’m sure he’s supposed to have some medical knowledge that he uses to treat the people in town and it’s not unreasonable toi assume he’d keep records. We just never see it, just like we never see what the mayor does when he’s mayor-ing. It’s all hand-waved. And that’s fine.

      But if you decide to take the scene literally, then he’s just just another loony with a costume and an unexplained accent, talking about writing stuff he doesn’t understand in a file he doesn’t own to record medical history you never give him. I just can’t not laugh at it.

      1. Wide And Nerdy® says:

        I agree with your point on the whole, especially as a continuation of your mention of Piper complaining about freedom of speech which was equally like this.

        Its even funnier when you consider that you can assign any random homeless person who wanders into your settlement the job of manning the Clinic booth and they’ll start acting like they’re a doctor.

        It sort of underscores the fact that a wasteland doctor is just someone who knows how to administer a shot* and maybe a little first aid. Every single thing you ask him to do is just him injecting you with Stimpacks, Rad-Away or Addictol. I should get that Diamond City beggar who wants the Nuka Cola to do it. Maybe give him a lab coat and glasses too. I have you to thank for this.

        *Or at least how to tap the bubbles to the top of a syringe without then squirting them out before jabbing it into some part of your body offscreen.

        1. Cardigan says:

          Having Nuka Cola beggar as the doctor is legitimately what I did in Sanctuary. Seemed fitting.

          1. Wide And Nerdy says:

            I was thinking about your post when it occurred to me, this is what you should be able to do with Jun Long. He lost his child. Make him a healer.

            1. Cardigan says:

              That would be sweet. If this was a better game, you could address Jun Long’s emotional issues and maybe lead him down that path as part of Sanctuary’s overall settlement quest.

              1. I made Maggie the doctor. I figure nobody would go see her unless they were actually sick.

                No goldbricking, settlers! I need more tatos!

              2. Wide And Nerdy® says:

                Or just have him be assignable at least. No matter how long you play, Jun mopes about endlessly, he won’t stay on anything you assign him and you can’t banish him, assign him to another settlement, or kill him.

          2. Pax says:

            The best doctor is obviously someone in a lab coat and a raider sack mask of some variety. Dr. Bag-on-head is ready to see patients!

            1. Christopher says:

              I would never let Faust treat me.

            2. Cardigan says:

              This makes me wish you could recruit Super Mutant settlers and assign them as your doctor.

              “IT’S TIME FOR YOUR SUPPOSITORY, HUU-MANN!”

            3. Axe Armor says:

              I believe that’s a Guilty Gear character.

      2. It drives me flipping insane that they tap the needle instead of the body of the syringe. THAT’S NOT STERILE. What that is, is a GREAT way to give someone a REALLY NASTY subcutaneous infection or even blood poisoning depending on where you jab them. :P

    2. IFS says:

      This actually made me think of another question, is anyone making paper in this world? This guy might have a computer to keep files on for all I know but Piper is definitely using paper for her tabloid. To my knowledge that stuff doesn’t survive the elements all that well so there shouldn’t be much if any of it left after 200 years without careful preservation (iirc the Followers of the Apocalypse from FO1 and NV actually were working to preserve this stuff, and there was even a quest in 3 for the Brotherhood to collect and hand in pre-war books to keep them preserved). I don’t know all the details of how paper is produced but I believe it involves a mill of some sort and those tend to be fairly large, and no one is making parchment either.

      Its nowhere near as important of an issue as ‘where do they get food’ but it does seem to me that in this world paper would be a fairly precious commodity.

      1. Wide And Nerdy® says:

        Good point. And any collector could tell you that 200 year old comic books sitting out in a radioactive wasteland wouldn’t be readable. Let alone newspapers. Neither were printed on the best paper either.

        1. djw says:

          This is fallout. Those are NUCLEAR comic books.

      2. MichaelGC says:

        Aye right. How is Piper Wright’s paper wrought?

        1. Poncho says:

          To answer this question, one must finally address how much wood can a woodchuck chuck.

          1. Khizan says:

            A woodchuck would chuck all the would he could chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

      3. Paper is actually REALLY easy to make if you don’t care too much about quality, and you can make it out of almost ANYTHING fibrous. Soak it until the fibers separate (some things require a chemical to encourage this process along), then mash them over a frame and squish them together really hard. Presto: paper.

        Also, there are lots of things you can kill and skin so it should be pretty simple to make parchment, which is made from dried, scraped animal skins.

        1. The mill and other refinements are necessary if you don’t want paper that’s somewhere between “dryer lint” and “paper towel dampened and then dried out” quality, tho.

          1. IIRC papyrus is made somewhat differently–instead of turning the fibers into a mush, you slice your vegetable (usually a reed) into really thin strips and then weave them together and press them and beat on them until they all get squashed together, then you dry them.

            It’s a little bit like beating out a chicken breast or a pork chop to make a roll.

  7. James Porter says:

    So I have made some headway into the Brotherhoods questline, and I actually think they are a good idea that was done well. I think they are suppose to be a shock to the fans of Fallout 3, who got to know them from as the good military force that just wanted to help people. Rutskarn pointed it out, the Prydwen’s appearance is awe inspiring and powerful, but is also kind of scary and intimidating. When you go to join, you are immediately hit with the far different tone this faction has, being hateful, judgemental and dedicated. Their leader is a conservative return to form after Lyons, Maxson literally being a descendant of the original Brotherhood leader.

    Their introductory mission is also a taste of the power they have, immediately putting you as a gunner on a vertibird to take down a super mutant behemoth. Danse is overjoyed by being a part of something so powerful, and is the one who invites you to revel in the power too. For my survival playthough, Vertibird travel has become necessity, but to do that, I feel like I have to balance what the Brotherhood wants from me, and what I want to do.

    So I really like this Brotherhood of Steel, while the Institute doesn’t make any sense, it makes sense that the Brotherhood would want those nerds to die. But also the rigid philosophy does bring up ethical issues that makes them feel like great bad guys too.

    1. The Brotherhood would be fine if they had some sort of sensible foe to react AGAINST, because that’s what they are: they’re AGAINST stuff. But you can’t be sensibly against a bunch of random verbiage desperately trying to pretend that it’s not a vacuum.

  8. Cardigan says:

    It’s like the only thing Bethesda took away from Fallout 3 was that the Brotherhood of Steel sucked. I mean, they’re learning but…

    1. Sunshine says:

      Funny thing, I always got the impression that the Brotherhood in New Vegas could have been a response to complaints about their depiction in FO3. Being open, helping the locals (even as they disdained them), recruiting local talent and going beyond hoarding technology their own use was out of character? Okay, the Mojave Brotherhood rejects outsiders, sticks rigidly to the Codex and cares for little beyond controlling pre-war weapons. And it’s put them on a course of slow suicide.

      1. Pax says:

        It’s hard to tell, but it’s kind of in line with the evolution that was going to be present in Van Buren before it was cancelled and Bethesda bought the license. Part of the backstory of that game was the Brotherhood/NCR war, and it was over the BOS kind of turning into what you described.

      2. Skeleton says:

        It’s been awhile since I played Fallout 2, but I seem to remember that they were basically dying already by then. Hermit kingdoms don’t last long against the NCR zerg rush on the West Coast apparently.

        1. IFS says:

          In Fallout 2 it was the Enclave who were basically wiping them out, tracking down their bunkers and defeating them with superior technology. The NCR Zerg rush happened following FO2, though it certainly did not do the Brotherhood any favors on the West Coast.

          1. Granted, the BoS DID get some revenge on both, mostly by not dying like the Enclave and destroying the gold reserves of the NCR, hence why New Vegas still uses bottle caps along with paper money/coins.

      3. Grudgeal says:

        Funny thing is, the Fallout 4 BoS makes sense if you take Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel as canon. In that game, you play as an apostate chapter of the BoS who were exiled out east because they went against the Codex seen in the Fallout backstory and New Vegas (Veronica, if she’d been born a generation earlier, would probably have joined them). The Midwestern Brotherhood are open to trading technology to the outside world, but more of a “we give you protection and access to water-filter level technology, you become our tributaries and give us food and people to expand the Brotherhood” deal. The Fallout 3 BoS was basically the Midwestern Brotherhood but with all the moral ambiguity removed to make them complete Good Guys even though that made no sense.

      4. Dirigible says:

        Bethesda didn’t write New Vegas, though – Obsidian did.

  9. Ledel says:

    Well, Father’s mission is to “redefine humanity.” I guess his actions would do that.

    1. Gruhunchously says:

      “You think I’m a moron? Fine! I’ll just…reinvent all of humanity in my image, then you’ll have to say everyone is a moron. So there!”

      1. Ledel says:

        “If everyone is a selfish asshole who prefers to shoot first and never ask questions, I’ll never be sent on a stupid fetch-quest again!”

  10. Cardigan says:

    …Am I the only one who noticed that person stuck in a Fonz-style “Ayyy” pose at 9:57?

  11. Person on the internet says:

    Speaking of Star Wars sex, I can now imagine walking past a Twi’lek brothel and hearing “Cheeku hidow hi-dongaaa” coming from inside.

    1. tmtvl says:

      And then you walk in: “Oh hey, Rutskarn, what’re you doing here?”

  12. Hector says:

    There’s one thing I truly love in Fallout 4, and it’s best experienced either playing without a companion, or with Dogmeat. It’s that feeling you get when you emerge from some old ruin, or perhaps even the starting Vault. When you feel isolated in the wasteland and the lonely strings begin to play…

    That’s a powerful moment. It’s a shame the game almost tries to avoid those moments by constantly having noise interrupt the music, figurativey and literally. The game doesn’t really want to let you play; it’s always eager to shove you along and doesn’t want to ever let you just enjoy the beauty of the world.

    1. Sunshine says:

      That’s odd, because quietly wandering the wastes was a fair amount of FO3 and NV.

      1. Hector says:

        It still happens, but there’s usually a companion saying moronic one-liners every so often, and just when I feel like I’m enjoying the scenery a mirelurk pops out and I roll my eyes, thinking, “Great. More pointless combat.”

      2. My enjoyment of the wasteland in FO3 was sharply curtailed once that jackass with the helicopter full of radscorpions started following me around and dropping a pair of them every 3 minutes by my watch.

        I would PAY EXTRA MONEY for these games to come with a “TURN OFF THE DAMN RANDOM ENCOUNTERS” button. And I can NEVER find a mod to do it, either, the mods are always “add 5000 more random encounters!” I don’t know what THEY’RE doing but I HAVE QUESTS TO DO. I do not need another random handful of idiots harshing my day every 3 minutes.

        1. JakeyKakey says:

          S.T.A.L.K.E.R. would be your jam, tbh.

          Especially Call of Pripyat where bandits start off as a neutral faction, monsters largely stick to their down defined areas (with exception of dogs and boars) and the more interesting monsters don’t begin to randomly roam until you do specific mid-game sidequests involving them.

          Majority of CoP (and SoC/CS to lesser extent) really is just roaming empty wastelands between designated shooting points. Which would actually be very stunning and atmospheric if it wasn’t for the fact you’re constantly keeping your guard up due to the fact the game will rarely throw you a curveball by spawning a bloodsucker and the like and once you get caught off guard by one you make sure you never put yourself in that situation again.

        2. Sunshine says:

          There was a mod for FO3 that made bloatflies, dogs and mole rats passive until attacked (so your high-level demigod wasn’t bothered or stopped from fast-travelling by one-hit irritants), so I suppose that could be extended to everything when you’re not walking into their camp/nest.

  13. Christopher says:

    “Might as well bang ’em all” is a good tagline for a very vulgar but noncommittal Pokemon-spinoff.

    1. Cardigan says:

      Like an unenthusiastic porn parody…

    2. Sunshine says:

      I read someone wondering how long it would be before all new tech start-ups were “Pokemon Go, but for…Tinder?” (…groceries? …jobs? …coffee? etc.)

      1. Christopher says:

        I got the impression that Tinder already was the Tinder of Pokemon Go.

        1. Sunshine says:

          That is a good line.

  14. Gnoll Queen says:

    I don’t mind Strong that much. Rex Goodman however? An ass and i hate him.

    1. Henson says:

      I’ve not played Fallout 4 and I already hate him. There’s nothing more infuriating than some blowhard quoting Shakespeare in order to appear smart and cultured. And I’m saying that as someone who both likes and performs Shakespeare.

      I mean seriously, “the bell invites me”? What bell? Macbeth was referring to the bell tolling the hour late at night, a metaphor for someone giving the signal to murder the king. Whereas Rex can’t hear any bells over the gunshots, yelling, and his incessant prattling, and even if he could they wouldn’t indicate anything special for him to do. Asshat.

      1. I hate this when they do it with villains in movies, too. Oh, you listen to classical music. So I’m just supposed to take you at your word that you’re All That. Pfaugh.

        It’s always friggin Vivaldi, too. When did Vivaldi become the “I belong to the upper crust” virtue signifier?

        Okay, okay, there’s nothing inherently WRONG with enjoying artisanal cheese and microgreens and Cuban cigars and 20 year old Glenlivit poured over ice chipped directly from Antarctic icebergs, but could you writer types at least TRY to be original once in a while?!

        1. Henson says:

          The next James Bond villain sips his sherry, cuts his Chilean Sea Bass with a fine silver knife, and takes out a phonograph to play his LP collection of Weird Al Yankovic.

          1. Jake says:

            You joke, but this is basically the villian from Kingsman: The Secret Service.

      2. Syal says:

        The bells he’s referring to are the ones on your other leg.

    2. Phantos says:

      I think “Strong” is just in there as an sidekick for the lolchaoticevil characters.

      It’s been pointed out before that you can’t really have a lot of speaking companions in Fallout New Vegas if you aren’t a beacon of morality. So even though I don’t care about Strong and think he’s really bland and uninteresting, I’m glad we have him as an option if we don’t want to be a goody-two-shoes character but still have some backup/company.

      (By companions, I refer to characters like Arcade or Veronica, as opposed to the… I don’t know, “sub-companions” like Dogmeat or ED-E.)

      1. galacticplumber says:

        To be fair though if we’re going to bother tracking alignment at all it should have some sort of relevant effect that people care about one way or the other. Nobody is thick enough to require very evil or similar to show up in a menu to know when they’ve been naughty. By rights let it effect reputation. Also have traders give better or worse deals based on it. Sell it as either helping out a clearly goodhearted individual, being intimidated by reputation, taking advantage of the goody, or refusing to deal with an obvious villain on good terms.

      2. Somebody says:

        What’s wrong with E-DE?

  15. Lame Duck says:

    “I mean, a ledger of goods in a warehouse is called an “inventory”, but if you hit the inventory button in a game and got a ledger of stuff you don't don't have on your person, it's just going to confuse and annoy people.”

    But in a Bethesda game, you do have an entire warehouse of random goods in your inventory that you couldn’t or shouldn’t plausibly be carrying on your person.

    1. Cardigan says:

      Took a look through my inventory on my latest Fallout 4 playthrough, and I have more coffee mugs and dinner plates than a Pottery Barn.

    2. Or enough ammo to arm both the NCR and the Brotherhood, along with a good portion of the Boomers and Powder Gangers? Enough weapons to make the entire NRA get rifle envy? Enough cigarettes to make John Constantine quit smoking or enough drugs to make Keith Richards quiver?

  16. Spartacus says:

    I am Reginald!

  17. JackDaDipper says:

    Mumbles, you’re actually more right than I think you realize. In the Star Wars cartoon that served as the basis for the canon reboot, they actually introduced an Obi-Wan love interest and she was basically an older, slightly more aggressive Mandalorian Padme.

    1. mumbles says:

      i love that episode

  18. The thing that annoyed me about crits in Fallout 4 is that ONLY VATS attacks charge the crit bar. So if you try and actually learn to aim and gunfight in real-time, you don’t get to use any crits. It punishes you for having fun by withholding the one thing that VATS is actually good for, which is lining up that “perfect shot” when you REALLY need it. Instead, you have to line up a bunch of crap shots in order to “earn” a good one, which just makes using VATS tedious instead of tactical. VATS is already kind of shitty because it uses hit chance instead of collision detection (although collisions can still cause you to miss even though it says you can hit).

    If they’d made it so your OUT of VATS attacks charged your crit bar, THAT would be functional. You’d have a reason to use both tactically instead of sticking with one as much as the game allows you to.

    1. Incunabulum says:

      I think its intended as a balancing mechanism (and another example of them not fully embracing FPS *or* RPG) against the FPS shooting.

      ‘Its an RPG so you have VATS’, ‘but I can shoot better than VATS will allow me to unless I’m close or have high SPECIAL’, ‘OK, we’ll give you ‘Criticals’ to make up for it’.

      Its all down to this game not being an FPS *or* and RPG, but some sort of neurotic mix of the two that is not comfortable or confident enough to make it work.

      1. I eventually solved this issue by finding a Legendary Fusion Rifle that gives me “slow time” when I aim. I put a good scope on it and whenever I hit aim I basically go into VATS mode without the hassle. Good times. SO MANY HEADSHOTS.

        1. Sleeping Dragon says:

          FO3 Wanderer’s Edition mod has an AP consuming “bullet time” mode as an alternative to VATS.

      2. Echo Tango says:

        Honestly, I think they should just stick with Fallout being a real-time FPS game for all the combat, and only use the skills, perks, and SPECIAL for things that don’t fit well into the real-time mechanics, or where there isn’t a readily available game mechanic. Me, I would keep slo-mo VATS, keep skill-checks, keep the lockpicking minigame, redo or ditch the computer hacking game, fix the melee/blocking BS, and keep the new FO4 weapon-modding system.

  19. Mailbox says:

    Josh, Big Leagues Rank 5 should be fixed. It was patched a while ago.

  20. Ledel says:

    A note to Josh for future episodes. I’ve done some testing in FO4 and I’ve discovered that the most efficient means of travel is to full sprint while bunny hopping. It conserves your speed while not using up stamina while you are in the air. You’re welcome.

    1. Fists says:

      I think they may have patched that out, wasn’t working for me last time I played. Unless there’s a bug in a Bethesda game, nah must’ve been a patch.

  21. So I just watched the new episode, well i was watching until Josh did the inventory management while Shamus complained about the decor, and then I was suddenly playing fallout 4, though I was still listening.

    And, yeah, I guess I’m Reginald Cuftbert as well. Here’s a story of what I did today;

    I was near the super-duper mart and heard the crunching of a behemoth wandering about, and had an idea. A nasty, horrible, wonderful idea. I’d bring Christmas to the wasteland, via my friend the behemoth. As I’m on the pc, I could increase his damageresist, energyresist, healrate, etc and then I shot him with my weak pistol. Then my new friend chased me and we found adventures together; as of right now, I’m just near the pillars of the community, and I’m wondering how far I’ll be able to go, my eager new friend charging along behind me. I’ve already had to reset his health twice to rescue him from exploding cars and all the people who don’t understand friendship.

    tldr; behemoth herding is fun.

  22. Also Mon Calamari would be cephalopods, not crustaceans. *ugh*

  23. SoranMBane says:

    “I just want to murder people!”

    Mumbles is the most relatable member of the Spoiler Warning crew.

    1. LotusGramarye says:

      *Because of that AND her copious love of titties.

  24. Phantos says:

    “Boobies on things that should not have boobies.”

    That reminds me of “Googley Eyes On Metal Albums”. Maybe Mumbles should make a sideblog of that on the ole’ Tumblr.

    1. GloatingSwine says:

      It’s called DeviantArt isn’t it?

  25. el-b says:

    i much prefer the crit system in 3, even over new vegas. they added a cap to the crit percentage so you couldnt break it super hard. but with the broken steel added enemies you kind of needed that, especially since the super mutant overlord did 40+ damage to his attacks. i think in 3 you could get it to almost 90% in vats, and near 50% out of it…the metal blaster, the laser shotgun, could do more damage than a mini nuke if you were lucky.

  26. ehlijen says:

    Fun fact, the BoS vertibird patrols will pick fights with immortal institute quest givers.

    I had to watch 10 minutes of some paladins shooting a courser into exhaustion, walk away far enough for the courser to heal and get back up, pick a fight with him again until the entire patrol was eventually nibbled to death by his laser pistol.

    (I didn’t want to shoot either side just yet, none were hostile to me, and I couldn’t talk to the courser for the quest I was on while in combat. It was a long wait and a silly show.)

    1. I would have found it interesting if the BoS actually would attack your settlements that have ghouls in them. They attack everything ELSE.

      1. Coming_Second says:

        They begin attacking your settlements if you side against them in the story. It’s pretty funny watching those paper planes of theirs meet Mr. Rocket Sentry.

      2. Wide And Nerdy® says:

        Their tendency to attack everything has come in handy today as I’m on yet another run thanks to Spoiler Warning, setting up settlements, I’ve had BOS show up to help in several fights and help. I’m on friendly terms with them but I haven’t even picked up my BOS Knight Armor.

  27. Jeff R says:

    We know what the Brotherhood eats: they’re living off the land, which is to say extorting supplies from local farmers. There are radiant questlines to help them with that. (I sort of wish that the farms could ask the minutemen for help and you’d end up with a quest to go and kill the BOS agent, which is to say, yourself…)

  28. Tuskin says:

    I know the Automatron DLC added renamed stimpacks for Robots, but I don’t remember if they also work on Nick.

    1. Ciennas says:

      While traveling with Nick, we met a Super Mutant Suicider who disagreed with us as to how to go about this whole ‘living’ thing.

      I was able to get a decent run. Nick did not.

      Turns out, he takes Stim-paks like ED-E. Even with Automotron.

      1. Ciennas says:

        Specifically, the disagreement was over living fast and dying stupid versus living to get old enough to get jaded. I keep choosing the latter, myself.

  29. SL128 says:

    Since you were speaking of Obi-Wan and Padme fucking behind Anakin’s back, I think it’s worth mentioning that it’s one of the major plot points in the Auralnauts Star Wars re-dub/edit series. In this version of the story, Anakin’s path towards the dark side is sparked by him finding out about their relationship, and freaking out about how he’s being “friend-zoned.”

    1. Alex says:

      Though really it would be more accurate to say ‘his path to a position in management’ . . . AuralNauts was weird.

  30. LotusGramarye says:

    Regarding VATS, I’m of the opinion that it’s worse than it was in FNV (still better than in FO3 though). They improved things somewhat with all the new or re-tooled old bonuses that work only in VATS, but did not bring over the much cooler/funner additions FNV brought to the table like melee moves (that could be performed outside of VATS as well, so melee in general is poorer) or targeting enemy guns specifically to shoot them out of an enemy’s hands (which IIRC is gone entirely in FO4; you can’t even target their arm to dis-arm them which you could also do in FNV).

    My ideal VATS would be what some FO3/FNV mods do and have it be a bullet time thing; maybe slowed by 50% while providing some amount of damage reduction/stats bonuses depending on your perks/armor/whatever. That way it would still serve the purpose of aiding people who suck at FPS combat (maybe add some generous auto aim to go along with that) while still being useful for people who don’t.

  31. Decius says:

    Regarding BoS imperialism: Did nobody play Fallout: Tactics? Wherein they create an empire that almost reaches the Desert Rangers of the midwestern Wasteland, while almost reaching the Capitol wasteland?

    1. tmtvl says:

      That game, just like the PS2 Fallout: BoS game, doesn’t exist.

      1. Echo Tango says:

        Honestly, Tactics doesn’t seem any worse than FO4 in terms of story, character, etc. If I was going to start getting picky about which Fallout games I considered canon, I’d have to start a company to rewrite the entire game franchise. :)

    2. IFS says:

      Tactics is in a weird place in terms of how canon it is, its also not a terribly good game. Some of it is considered canon I believe, but not all of it.

      1. The major events are canon, like the BoS being in that region at one point, but the majority of the game isn’t.

        1. Decius says:

          The airships leaving eastward is canon, being part of Fallout’s ending. The robots aren’t part of a consistent cannon, because they aren’t even consistent inside the one game: The super mutant army wandered directly through the robot-infested area while the Brotherhood overflew both of them in order to recruit tribals to fight bandits. Also the outcasts somehow walked through all of that.

          It would be nice if the events of Fo:T were considered unreliable narrator stories at least.

      2. ehlijen says:

        It wasn’t terribly good, but I still managed to find it enjoyable. And canon or not, the plot, such as it was, seemed better to me than either FO3 or 4.

        For those few who actually enjoyed FO1/2 for the combat, it’s worth a shot. That’s about the best praise it deserves, though.

  32. Kelerak says:

    That over-looming Zeppelin reminds me: are you guys planning on doing a season for BioShock Infinite at some point? I don’t know, I think that game might be worthy of the Spoiler Warning treatment.

    1. They did an entire diecast about it, which was quite good, but may have exhausted all they had to say about it.

  33. Echo Tango says:

    Anyone else besides me care, about the tiny size of the balloon part of that zeppelin, compared to how much cargo it carries? It’s like, not even half flotation! Airships need way more lifting apparatus compared to boats – air is so much less dense than water! :)

    1. Coming_Second says:

      Radiation, son.

    2. Gethsemani says:

      Try not thinking too hard about the fact that most of the work and living space within said airship is located within the balloon, which means that whatever gas they are using is not helium or any of the other lighter then air-gases one might consider using.

      1. IIRC dirigibles often have large decks, they’re not “inside” the balloon but it can look like it because the rigid shell extends all the way around.

        Granted, inside/outside areas in this game generally don’t match very well, so the inside of the Prydwen is probably bigger than the outside.

    3. Decius says:

      There’s also vectored thrust being used to provide lift. Which makes preventing engine failure the single most important job aboard.

      1. Wide And Nerdy® says:

        They could use Mr Handy Thrusters since Esther* established that they can continue functioning for 200 years without a continuous fuel supply. And Mr Handy water dispenser technology could keep them from needing to store much water.

        Its tragic. They were fighting a war over resources and the nukes were launched just a few years after Mr Handy’s manufacturer solved the problems of free energy and water forever.

        *Hope I got the spelling right. This is english biblical spelling but I know they didn’t use that spelling for Issac.

  34. I know it’s late, and I hope Shamus or someone else on the SW cast references this, but you did pass up one of the things that genuinely made me laugh while playing Fallout 4. There’s a bit of dialog you get when you’re talking to Rex and Strong when they’re in the cell that helps to paint a better picture of why Rex is still alive, how clueless he is, and how Strong is a bit more intelligent than Rex gives him credit for. Maybe it just caught me off guard, but I thought it was humorous:

    Rex: Little did they know there was a radio in here.
    Strong: Oh, they know. You bait to catch more humans.
    Rex: What?! Why didn’t you tell me?!
    Strong: Strong thought you knew!
    Rex: See what I have to work with?

    Anyway, I’ll probably bring it up again in the next SW episode comments because that’s how I roll.

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