Well, I guess now it's time enter Lamplight proper. They should be nice to us after saving three of their friends, right?
Remember, we could have simply used the Child at Heart perk or Speech checked our way past this door. For the sake of the LP however, we went to Paradise Falls. It's always a lot of fun wiping out the place for me though, as a good karma area it's the only city in the main game that you can wipe out without getting bad karma.
"Can I come in?"
"I already told you no. Stop asking!"
"I'm the one who saved the kids from Paradise Falls."
"Oh yeah? Well why didn't you say so, you stupid mungo?"
They should have told him we were the people who saved them.
And that piece of plywood unimpressively lifts up to give us entrance to Lamplight.
Oh god, it's this poor bastard. Let's try to avoid him while we're here, I can only take so much annoyance.
Well, let's go through the back end of Little Lamplight into the appropriately named "Muder Pass" to make it to Vault 87.
It's not like we would have gone out of our way to help those kids if we were planning on making trouble anyway.
"I'm not planning on starting any trouble."
"Good. Better stay that way, mungo."
Alright let's find out about Vault 87...
"Can you give me directions?"
"What do I look like, your tour guide?"
Erm...
Let's try someone else.
See what I mean about the kids somehow being the biggest assholes in the game, even after you help them?
"So, who're you working with? Raiders? Slavers? Mutants? Answer up, mungo!"
"The Mayor let me in because I rescued some of your friends."
"Oh, you think Sammy and the rest wouldn't have gotten back on their own eventually? I taught him better than that."
Whatever you say. Those kids seemed to be in a pretty bad spot when we got there. It's not like you can even respond to the kids incessant taunting, aside from making thinly veiled threats which you know you can go through with, since the kids are nigh-invincible.
"Well, if you're sticking around, you ought to know that I'm Princess, and I call the shots around here. And don't forget it, mungo!"
"What's it like, guarding the back gate?"
Hopefully the discussion switches to Vault 87.
"It's so dull!" Practically nothing ever tries to come through the back gate anymore, so I never get to shoot anyone."
It's not like there's fucking molerats behind those doors, believe me. Lamplight should be a graveyard.
"I wish I was at the front gate, but RJ specifically put me back here. Up front, at least there's a chance I can shoot some unwanted visitors. Which could have included you, mungo."
Aren't these kids just so endearing?
"Shooting at me would have been a big mistake, kid."
"Oh, really? That's a cute little imagination you've got. But if you want to play make-believe, maybe you should do it with the younger brats."
...
Moving on. So, she doesn't have any information about Vault 87 either. And this is where I start to realize, that things are horribly, horribly bugged.
"I'm leaving. Get back to guarding."
"Oh, thank goodness you gave me permission. Jerk."
I get why Bethesda made the kids immortal, I really do. Any game with killable kids would cause an outrage. But it's obvious in Lamplight, that Bethesda used this to their advantage to just piss the player off.
It isn't even funny, it's just annoying. You can't do anything to get back at these kids. We can't even bully them back or say anything witty in our defense...
So for awhile I thought it was something I did wrong, I just went walking around to talk to all the NPC's that we can talk to, hoping they give us the next link to the quest.
You know if you got rid of all the stupid kids, Lamplight would be a pretty cool location. (Well, and if you put it somewhere away from Vault 87 to avoid the massive plothole involving Lamplight and the Vault but more on that later.)
She says it in a completely unsarcastic tone too. What the fuck is wrong with these kids?
Oh god. It isn't enough for the game to bug out, it forces us to talk to this guy.
"I'm Sticky. Forget these little kids, I'll take you to Big Town where the mungos - err, I mean, where the grownups live. I'm headed there now."
Yeah, the kids are kind of assholes like that. They pretty much consign anyone past a certain age to their deaths. I'm surprised the super mutants aren't camping right outside of Lamplight and kidnapping anyone who walks out.
"I want to visit Little Lamplight first. Maybe later."
We're
not helping this guy.
"Why would you want to visit a bunch of snot-nosed children? Wouldn't you rather go to Big Town?"
Honestly, I'd love to go to Big Town, but we already did everything we want to do at Big Town.
"Of course you would! Come on. Let's go. I can show you the way!"
Mercifully, you can kill this kid. Apparently as soon as you hit 16 years old, their stripped of all their immortality. I guess Bethesda makes the distinction there. The kids in Lamplight don't even care actually, sometimes they'll say "Do it again".
Yeah, they're assholes.
"You're on your own. I'm not interested in babysitting duty."
"I'm not a baby! I'm a grownup!"
This guy reminds me of Butch. That's just another reason why we are not helping him.
"That's why I'm going to Big Town. Because I'm not a little kid anymore."
Good luck going there by yourself. We could take him as a party member, but most likely he's just going to be killed within the first encounter we have with a radroach or something.
"So you see: I don't need you. Good luck with those kids! You're gonna need it."
Likewise.
"Big Town? I've been there before."
"You have? I mean of course you have, it's an awesome place."
It's actually kind of a shithole.
"Well, enough talking, let's get a move on. You ARE taking me to Big Town, right?"
Lolno.
"I have to go now."
"Why won't you just take me to Big Town?"
Again, Lamplight Caverns actually looks pretty nice. We're just kind of wandering around randomly, looking for people to talk to. We get the Wazer Wifle, which is pretty much a slightly stronger Laser Rifle, with more ammo capacity and a lot more durability. Not nearly as broken as the other unique weapons, but still pretty damn useful.
This is another way into Vault 87, but we still can't get into it. For some strange reason, we have to ask a kid to open up the door for us.
Look, I'll be the first to admit that New Vegas was more buggy than Fallout 3, but in the amount of time I've spent playing New Vegas (probably twice as much as Fallout 3) I've never run into any bugs that stopped me from continuing the main quest. And you want to know why? Because they don't railroad you into a single solution for each part of the main quest.
Maybe we can get it now?
Nope. If this LP was played on a console (For some reason) we'd be absolutely screwed here. Thankfully, PC users get console commands...
For some reason Sticky keeps running into the door. We must have seriously fucked something up here.
So, we're done with Lamplight forever now. What? You think we'd have to walk back through to get out? Think again.
Another door we could have just punched through.
So, guess what's in Murder Pass? Super mutants of course. As we will soon find out, Vault 87 is pretty much the origin point of all the super mutants in the Capital Wasteland. So, what's stopping the super mutants from coming in and wiping Lamplight out?
*shrug*
And don't tell me that a bunch of kids with assault rifles could hold off the brunt of the super mutant army.
Apparently the super mutants are all camped out in here, for some reason. Guess they were running out of room in the Vault?
If we took that other door (Using the console to unlock it apparently really fucks with the game's coding.) we could skip all the super mutants in Murder Pass entirely. But then we'd miss out on all the loot and XP. And we couldn't have that.
Murder Pass + Vault 87 is another one of those sections that drag on for a bit too long.
The super mutants in this game are surprisingly orky at times. Unlike the orks, they're no fun though.
One of their traps is a bisected brahmin.
Lovely, an overlord. As if this wasn't tedious enough.
Shooting their weapon off and killing them makes the fights much easier.
We see a vault styled door further down in the cavern.
We make it into Vault 87 proper. It's crap brown like the rest of the ruined vaults. Having all of those skeletons piled around the entrance really makes us feel welcome.
I'm sure all of these people died of old age, and didn't die from horrible, super mutant related death.
Vault 87 has about the same ratio of super mutants to level space that the Reilly's Rangers quest has.
Want to know something else interesting about Vault 87? This is the last time super mutants will even have any remote importance to the main plot. After this, nada. Bethesda doesn't really do anything at all with them after this, their involvement in this game is purely to be generic orc enemies for you to fight. Really, they're in here for the same reasons that the Brotherhood, Harold and the Enclave were in here.
They're from the old Fallout games.
I've cut out about 80% of the fighting in this update, because there really isn't anything interesting in this Vault. I wouldn't say the Vaults are copy-pasted, but no matter what, they always feel samey to me in this game. (Except Vault 106. That one is rather cool.)
Apparently some of the Vault dwellers tried to barricade themselves in their rooms.
More excessive and pointless gore bags, with some ridiculously good loot in them.
Can never get a sneak attack with this shotgun.
I never used the Kneecapper much before, but it's turning out to be a very useful weapon.
There's a lot of rooms like these in this Vault, with a ton of useful chems and ammo in them.
The terminal over there has some interesting entries. Bethesda really fills the Vaults up with these. [http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Vault_87_terminal_entries#Daniel_Koster.27s_terminal_entries]
More lore. [http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Vault_87_terminal_entries#Medical_records]
A level up breaks the monotony.
We max out our medicine skill and we're close to maxing out sneak as well.
Why not?
We're closer the GECK. Man, backtracking is going to be tedious, huh?
The Blackhawk still proves to be invaluble.
This is one of the failed FEV experiments. I'm surprised these guys weren't used as an extra variant of mutants in this game.
Even more lore! [http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Vault_87_terminal_entries#Chief_Physician_Dr._Wayne_Merrick_terminal_entries]
This terminal really doesn't tell you anything that you wouldn't already know if you played the first game. They make a reference to mutants being asexual and Mariposa. Apparently Vault-Tec was doing their own research on FEV. Why? I have no fucking clue.
Wait, I know why. Bethesda wanted super mutants in the game, and had to make an excuse for why they would be in the Capital Wasteland in the first place.
Okay, riddle me this: If Super Mutants come from this Vault, how do they make the fucking Behemoths? There's no way they could get them out of this Vault.
We actually hear a voice that isn't a variation of "RRRAGH, I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" and it gains our curiosity.
Meet Fawkes.
"Either you are quite real, or I am going quite mad. Could you actually be a pure human?"
Well, after doing Moira's sidequest and travelling through The Pitt, I'm sure were pretty damn mutated by this point, but I guess in comparision to other super mutants.
"A friendly Super Mutant. Well, now I've seen everything."
Yes, I picked this option on purpose. I miss the friendly super mutants.
"Ugh. Must you use that vulgar term? Yes, I was born in the F.E.V. Chambers but a Super Mutant I certainly am not. I prefer the term Meta Human. Suits me better don't you think?"
For the record, I like Fawkes. (Who I will be referring to with male pronouns for simplicity's sake.)
"Perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself. The name's Fawkes."
"[Intelligence] How ironic that the others consider you a mutant of their kind."
Fawkes is not only super smart, but even more indestructible than Dogmeat. The super mutants should be worshipping him as their leader.
"Yes, indeed it is ironic. Forgive my astonishment, but I hadn't expected to meet someone with such a learned outlook of these things. It is a pleasant change."
Being able to point out irony makes you super smart apparently. I'll forgive Fawkes for that, as all he's had for company for the past 200 years or so is all of these annoying super mutants.
"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, it was only a matter of time before someone like you showed up for the G.E.C.K."
So we did beat the Enclave here. Awesome.
"What do you know about the G.E.C.K.?"
"I know what it is, I know where it is and best of all, I know how you can get your hands on it."
"Why would you help me?"
"Because, you can help me. Let me out of this place. I can't take it anymore. I can't even recall how long I've been here. Take me with you, and I'll retrieve the G.E.C.K. for you."
"Why would I have difficulty getting the G.E.C.K?"
"The chamber in which the G.E.C.K. resides is absolutely flooded with radiation. It's unlikely you'd survive very long. Myself, on the other hand, have surprisingly inherited a useful trait from my fellow Meta Humans. I am highly resistant to radiation."
Remember this by the time the end of the game comes. (Well, not as much with Broken Steel but still.)
"Let me out of here, and I will place the G.E.C.K. safely in your hands."
"How do I get you out?"
"At the end of the hallway to your right is a maintenance room. Inside, you'll find the fire control console for the medical area. Trip the alarm on it, and I'll be able to get out. A word of warning though. Tripping the console activates a failsafe and will open ALL of the recovery rooms in the medical area. So, what do you think? Can you do it?"
Well, it's not like we cleared out the entire Vault of super mutants to be stopped by what amounts to a random guy and a couple of centaurs.
"Okay, Fawkes. You've got a deal."
"I'm glad to see you are a sensible person. Now, get me out of this place. I can't stand it anymore!"
By turning on the alarm, we'll be letting out two centaurs. Big deal.
Let's get Fawkes out of there.
There is a hostile human NPC that was trapped in one of those rooms. I don't really know what's up with him, according to the wiki he shows early symptoms of having the FEV virus, but he looks completely normal.
One of my problems with Fawkes, is that his mouth movement looks incredibly clunky and bad.
Another problem is that in combat, Fawkes still acts like the "normal" stupid mutants.
Remember this room.
Huh. I wonder how you open this door.
We're right outside the room with the GECK in it, thankfully.
It doesn't take us a long time to get to the GECK, but there's a ton of mutants in between.
No, nothing really comes of it. You don't have to hold the mutants off or anything.
You can actually get the GECK yourself, but at the expense of a massive amount of radiation. One of the earlier parts of the Vault has an advanced radation suit in case you need to get through.
Fawkes gives us the GECK and pids farewell. I'm sure this won't be the last time we'll be seeing him.
What the-
GAH!
What happened?
We get flashbanged by the Enclave, and they come out that previously locked door. Where did they get the key...? Did they have to go through Lamplight to get here?
Wait, aren't you supposed to be dead?!
I don't think they ever explain it past "He took a magical radiation drug right at the right moment and survived the radiation."
So then you might be asking, what was the point of Dad dying? I have no idea. I don't mind the idea of having a character's death end up being pointless, but Colonel Autumn's survival is a complete asspull.
Well, that could have gone better. Where was Fawke's when you needed him.
Great. Captured against our will. Again.
