Any reference to Lamplight at all makes my shiver with rage, and to think we're only a few sidequests away from getting back on the main questline and towards Lamplight. I'm not throwing Point Lookout in there, we can't put this off much further.
Besides, I really need to have something that I absolutely love to fall back on if the Lamplight Updates turn into endless bile.
Today, we will be doing the "Big Trouble in Big Town" sidequest.
We start this update in the same manner as we will be spending the rest of it: Fighting super mutants.
If you're wondering about the rather abrupt opening, we fast travel to Moonbeam Cinema and get ambushed by some super mutants. Let's show off the Blackhawk revolver a bit here.
Like every other unique weapon in this game (Maybe except for the unique Chinese Pistol and .32 Pistol, those weapons suck so badly their uniques aren't remotely useful) it is incredibly broken and overpowered.
It does as much damage as a sniper rifle, but without the recoil. Seriously.
After that short encounter, we head to Big Town. I don't feel like questioning the NPC's about the lore behind the town, but the idea is that Big Town is where all the people who are too old for Little Lamplight are sent. (Obviously lots of this might not make sense, because we have yet to visit Lamplight.) The town's a shithole, and one has to question how the people from Lamplight managed to make it here, considering that this place is not too close to Lamplight, to be honest and they are a ton of things wanting to kill them between Big Town and Lamplight.
We have to go all the way around to get to the "entrance" of Big Town.
We go in the wrong direction and have to go all the way around, as opposed to just turning the corner and getting to the entrance.
These are their defenses? This is hilarious. What kind of moat is that supposed to be? At least the blocked the other entrances to their town with rubble, but it's not like the super mutants couldn't get past them with a tiny bit of effort.
"I mean you no harm, I'm a simple traveler."
"Right. What do you want?"
"I just want to look around a little. Don't worry about me, I won't hurt you."
"Well, you cna never be too carful. Be warned it's not safe here. Super Mutants have attacked recently and carried off some of our friends."
Another city protected by a single lone guard. Is it really too much to ask for cities with a population of more than a half dozen?
"Come in. Just don't cause any trouble, okay?"
Trouble follows us wherever we go. Not going to go into much of the other detail on this guys dialogue, but he's quite a downer. Always saying that the mutants are going to come and wipe them out or some such.
One would have to wonder why they bothered settling in Big Town when Megaton isn't too far away at all, but pretty much anything relating to Little Lamplight is incredibly stupid, so I'll just buy that.
Well, no time to waste, let's go save some more people. All of the NPc's in the town have a variation on the same dialogue, and they're pretty dull.
Yeah, this place is kind of a shithole. Megaton is only a little ways south.
There is a small camp of raiders by this river. Instead of trying to sneak around, we charge right through the river and headlong into the battle.
Raiders are pretty much weaklings at this point in the game.
There's a decent amount of loot in this camp right here.
It was a pretty brief and uneventful trip to the Germantown HQ.
All the buildings in Germantown are complete rubble, except for the HQ. Unfortunately, the building is crawling with super mutants.
I get paranoid and sneak around the place. I remember there being a rather sizeable force of super mutants.
But there are no super mutants out here at all. It's completely quiet out here in front, this must be some sort of glitch. Works for me.
This terminal has some interesting terminal entries. One of the more interesting terminal entries in the game. [http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Germantown_logs]
As we enter, we overhear the super mutants talking about what they will do with the prisoners.
In the middle of us listening in, Dogmeat walks into the room and slaughters them all.
There's a decent amount of super mutants in building, but nothing that we can't handle.
But a super mutant overlord is still a major pain for us.
Shotguns seem to be the most effective weapon against these overlords, and pretty much all of the Broken Steel boss enemies in general. They have a decent chance to crit, do a lot of damage at close range and reload fairly quickly. It's just that they break really fast.
We're going to need to stop by Megaton to drop off some stuff to lower our weight.
The station has a really nice armory behind a Very Hard locked door. We really benefited from getting the Scrounger perk early on.
This was the person we were looking for. Apparently she is Big Town's doctor.
"I think the others are dead... or worse."
"I'm glad you're alive."
"Me too! I'm extremely lucky you came along!"
"Is there anyone else?"
"Everyone else is dead or taken away to who knows where... Well, except maybe for Shorty! They dragged him off downstairs to the kitchen a while ago. But no one comes back from the kitchen."
"You wait right here, I'll go see about Shorty."
"I'm not waiting around for some Super Mutant to lock me up again! There's a back door somewhere around here. If you're not back soon, I'm leaving without you!"
Pfft, good luck trying to survive the wastes.
"If I'm not here when you come back, meet me at Big Town."
Red does not have plot armor. If she dies, you fail the quest after you return to the town. Therefore, we're leaving her here while we save the other guy, just to be careful.
Let's go further down into the building.
I try to be all stealthy here, but the 10mm pistol at this point in the game is the equivalent of a thumbtack shooter.
We find the guy we're trying to save, but there's a super mutant right by him. We can't get a stealth crit, because our radio blaring violin music gives us away I guess.
For some reason, this mutant just won't die. He isn't an overlord, but he looks kind of like one.
4 shells to the face here, and he hardly flinches.
This is the guy we save. We don't have to save him, but we're trying to be somewhat completionist in this playthrough.
They got a shooting range in here. But instead of targets, they use people...
Ew.
We find another armory. This particular one has a Fat Man in it.
So, we take both the NPC's outside, but surprise suprise, super mutants spawn out here. The guys we're escorting really aren't that bulky and the super mutants are throwing grenades. And they charge into melee range if they don't have ranged weapons.
Thank God there was no Overlord.
The Ranger Armor is pretty awesome, and it looks nice too. As broken as it is, the Blackhawk is a really fun weapon to use.
So, after all that fighting we travel back to Big Town.
"I'm glad you're safe and sound. And please, I don't want any kind of reward."
The other option is telling them to give you a reward. There is no option that let's you get a reward in a non-assholish way.
"Thank you! You're a real hero, you know that? I was going to offer you a reward, bt I can put the caps to use buying medicine and supplies."s
"It was my pleasure!"
"Thanks! I know you've already risked your life once already, but I heard the Mutants talking about another attack. They'll probably be here soon..."
We've technically finished the quest, so we could simply abandon them here without any real consequence. But, good karma, etc.
"I can help you defend yourselves."
"Really? That's great. What do you have in mind?"
"[Small Guns] If you can arm yourselves, I can teach you how to shoot."
Alternatively, depending on your skills, you can teach them how to hide from the mutants, hack the robots they have the in the junkyard to have them fight the mutants or mine the bridge. Of course, the hack the robot and mine the bridge options are bugged.
"Great! I'll round everyone up at the junkyard for shooting practice."
This should be funny.
So they all slowly walk over to the Junkyard to do shooting practice on the various bottles and random things.
They do about as well as you'd expect. Do not wait here, mutants will spawn right in the middle of the city and kill everyone. I was stupid enough to wait here, and guess what happens?
Thankfully, they're all the normal sort of mutants.
They all cheer after the mutants are wiped out. No casualities among the people of the town, so I guess that's bonus points. And yes, killing the half dozen mutants apparently stops the town from being harassed by mutants ever again. Seriously.
"We" did it? Kiss my ass, you guys were running for you lives when those super mutants got here, and it wasn't for our intervention, you would all be dead.
That's it for the "Big Trouble in Big Town" sidequest. It's another really short quest. There isn't really much to say about it, though I hate Big Town almost solely because it's involved with Little Lamplight. We've almost finished all of the major sidequests (No, we will not be doing the "Strictly Business" sidequest.) we just need to do Moira's sidequest and the Nuka Cola Challenge (Which will probably be covered in a mini-update) and then it's on to continuing the main plotline.
*shiver*
