Let's play: Borderlands!
Note: As you'll understand, this obviously contains spoilers, since it's an LP. The initial post will only "spoil" some minor stuff and main quest stuff very early on in the game, so if you're contemplating getting Borderlands and need some cool inspiration, you shouldn't be afraid to at least read Chapter 1 here below. However, I ask everyone not to post any spoilers on Borderlands that's further in the game than I've gotten since, well, I haven't gotten there yet.
This is also a cross-post from The Order, since I know a lot of people here don't venture there, and I would enjoy getting any comments at all on this thing
. And I know there's already a thread on Borderlands in here, but figured this constitutes as a separate topic.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Come one, come all! Step right up to Luke's exclusive Let's Play: Borderlands! This is a historic event, since it is in fact my first LP ever; of all time! I got this game from my big brother a while ago, but only installed it yesterday. I found it to be quite breathtaking, to be honest. I'm not usually a big gamer buff, and have pretty much only played Fallout 3 in 'modern times', which I found to be "a-ok" (I've got the achievement for it, haven't I?
), but mostly only so because of the Fallout references in the otherwise rather un-Fallouty game... I usually, if playing games at all, much prefer oldies like Heroes 2, Planescape Torment, and stuff like that. I'm also a big fan of stupid little leisure flash games (and iPhone games, heh). Please note that by no means do I aspire to be any game critic of any sort of magnitude what so ever. My knowledge of games and game development is very limited, and I have as said never before written a review in this format. In fact, I'm not so sure I've ever written any game review - save for in brief 'you should check this out lol' post-viper format, when talking about the 'classics'.
So, I just figured I'd get the blubber out of my butt and have a go at making an LP for Borderlands. After having installed and played it yesterday for a couple of hours, reaching level 12, I just thought to myself "damn, I totally have to do this again and make it into an LP!". It was too good an opportunity to miss with all the ideas that kept popping into my head. So, this evening, I restarted the game from square 1 with Fraps loaded up for screenshot taking, and shall now bring you the story of my adventure in all (well, not all, but some of) it's pictorial glory. I'm basically re-telling what went on in my mind during the gaming session of yesterday. Putting this all together took a fair while, so I at least hope someone will read it. 
BN; I took the liberty of hosting the images at the Order's spot on NMA (/lux/lp/). It's only 3,3 Mb in total, and I figured it could be a worthy cause? If you want me to re-locate them somehow, just say so, obviously.
Now, I'm fairly sure that someone either in the NMA community or elsewhere (not too "far away" by internet distances) has already made an LP in this particular style that I'm aiming for, but since I have no insight in that, I'll just go ahead and get it over with, since I wanted to tell the story my way. (Haven't read any other LP on this game either, or even googled it.) Without further ado or disclaimers, I bring you...
Chapter 1.
The Temple of Trials.
Well, as you can see there in the image above, I totally started the game up. The first thing you'll notice is the graphics. While I've shrunken the images to be fitting in a forum-post review like this, the graphics are awesome. It's like Fallout 3 meets Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Well, perhaps not really, but it's cellshaded anyway! Or at least it looks like what I've understood to be "cellshading"... As said, I'm not a big game buff, and you'll have to excuse lacking detailed knowledge on things like this. Starting it up, I basically don't know anything about this game save for that it's supposed to be awesome. And, starting it up, I'm getting a really good vibe. I suddenly feel that not knowing anything about what I'm about to experience is an awesome advantage - I just got this from my brother around my birthday, and he said "Don't ask, just fucking play it". And hey, I'm here to play, so let's, shall we? (<- bad pun, I know.)
It all begins with a sketched intro. The end of the world occurred pretty much as we had predicted, and Vault 13 has moved to the planet of Pandora. Or at least I figure it's Vault 13 we're looking for, since there's supposed to be some majorly awesome vault somewhere. So anyway, here's a picture of a treasure-hunting farmer pirate grilling his sausage in a camp-fire to the amazement of the scout group he's leading (from the intro):
And then, we get to know that Pandora was there before the fall:
By the way, the music is also awesome. 10/10 at a first listen - though I've only heard very little at this point. Very Fallouty.
But anyway, a wee bit into the intro, it's time to pick a character. You could either pick a Super Mutant (some big brute with lots of muscle and, quite possibly, a penis as small as his brain. Read; very, very small), or a battered soldier in Combat Armor, or some Girl, or a Hunter! They're all presented by doing a little move, and the frame freezes in a very awesome "Tarantinoesque" way. I always fancied Sniper Rifles in FO2, so I figured I'd give this "Hunter" fellow a go. Note the artwork; looks like something Wooz would totally squirt all over. (Out of joy due to liking it; seems to be very much in the Woozy style, IMO.) As for me, I'm totally squirting through the entire game, since the art is just... art, man. The whole game feels like a moving entity of interactive art.
So anyway, these four characters (Combat Armor Guy, Super Mutant Guy, Girl Guy and Hunter Guy) are all travelling in a truck. Doesn't seem to be Keegans truck, but it's still an alright truck, as far as trucks go, I suppose. Plus, we're in some form of wasteland, so I guess any truck that runs is a good truck. I don't know where we're going, but I'm anxious to find out! I also note that the driver has collected a Fallout Boy Bobble Head, though I don't quite recognize Fallout Boy with his dyed hair and beard =/. I stop for a moment and wonder what bonus it confers.
On the truck, I'm hearing some pretty damn weird voices in my head, and some woman is telling me to do things. (I'm getting imagery of her too through some form of bad brain-signal - looks hittable from what I can make out!) I guess I better trust this woman who just showed up in my head - maybe then she'll at some point end up sleeping with me. Plus, I guess I don't have much options either way. The woman tells me to see some little robot when I get off the bus - and lo! - as I get off the bus, there's some little robot dude waiting for me! He very generously holds up a PipBoy module in the air, and presents it to me as a gift. With the PipBoy, I'm able to check stuff like health and weapon and map, and stuff like that. This new, cool version has a yellow interface instead of green, but that's basically the difference. The robot guy is polite, and rather funny I must say, but I still can't quite decide if I want to laugh at him or blow his fucking robo-brains out. An eerie feeling swells over me that if I were to spend too much time with this robot, after a while, he would eventually feel like the Microsoft Paperclip. But for the time being, he's still cool.
So anyway, the robot tells me some basic things I didn't really listen to, let's me pick a name (The Chosen One, duh, I'm here to find the Vault and save the wasteland!), and the colors of my clothes. (I'm glad I at least don't have to start naked save for a pair of furry leather underwear.) We're off to walk into the peaceful first city. The robot guy said the city was called Fyrestone, but I think it's just a cover-up name for Junktown. There's totally junk everywhere and it appears to be a town, proving my theory.
But, the city quickly proved to be not-so-peaceful and some Raiders jumped in there a-la night rider - those cars were seriously hopped up on some strong Gummi Bears potion:
Those Raiders were not friendly and started shooting at me. So, I shot back. Starting with a Sniper Rifle is awesome!
And then I shot some more. Don't remember how many in total, but they were very easy to take out, from up close as well as afar:
I make my way through a bundle of additional Raiders, and finally, the area is secure. I also have to pass through a little Temple of Trials (or, a tutorial if you will), where I basically only learn how to jump and how to crouch, since I obviously already know how to walk, mouselook and shoot. I guess calling this entire chapter "The Temple of Trials" is a bit of an overstatement, since the part about the temple of trials didn't even get a screenshot, but you know... It's kind of like how pretentious authors sometimes pick a small fragment in their book, that's just mentioned somewhere in passing, as the title of their entire work.
Anyway, as I first lay eyes on the city of Junktown, I notice how trashcan fires and neon signs bathe the city in a hellish glow. Ok, perhaps not so much neon signs, but at least there was a burning trascan. And, well, I guess it doesn't bathe the city in a hellish glow so much as it just stands there in broad daylight, contributing nothing to the lightness of the town at this hour, but you know what I mean.
I fiddle around in the city for a bit, rummaging through what I suppose to be someone's belongings for cash and ammo, which is going well. A bit too well; soon I'm so stacked up on ammo that I can't carry anymore. Then I find what seems to be the only living soul in the city save for me - Doc Morbid. He claims his name is "Zed", but he also doesn't seem to have all things in order. You know, in the head.
After a nice little chat with the Doc, I killed a bundle of more raiders on the Doctors ordination - I managed to kill them all, but one of the raiders got the pathetic little robot man bad! Robot duder was lying on the ground, suffering, crying out for mercy, which just broke my heart. The "use" option made me contemplate raping the little critter as it was completely bereft of resistance ability, but I thought better of it and repaired him instead with a repair kit that happened to loiter about some 20 yards away. Here he is in his knocked-out glory, ready to mount:
He continued to open the gate to the outside world for me. It almost felt a bit like leaving the vault for the first time. I figured I was in for killing some rat's, like I used to do way back home, but instead I got a quest to kill some Skags. "Right on!", I think to myself - none of the soft stuff; it's time to kill some thugs! I thought the Skags were only located in Old Town of The Hub, but apparantly, they've moved all the way over here to Junktown. Must be due to the recession or something. But in my search for the Skags, I encounter some odd species of geckos instead - tough luck! They look more like dogs than geckos, but are obviously geckos - probably, they've mated with dogs somewhere along their line of evolution, and if Richard Dawkins had been there, I'm sure he would have been able to explain it to me further. (Now, some glitch in the game is calling the gecko's 'Skags' when I hover my mouse over them, but maybe my disc was corrupted or something.)
I had to kill five of the geckos to fulfill the quest. What I didn't get is why some of them are packing money. Gecko must be thinking "They see me high-rollin', they hatin'". And yeah - if I hate geckos in the first place, I absolutely loathe a high-roller Gecko with cash!
Kay, five geckos less in the world to worry about. Now it's time for another repair quest! Had I known this game would be so repair-focused, I might have tagged my repair skill. No wait, I haven't gotten to choose tag skills yet - I guess this is the game's way of telling me what to pick later on so I don't find myself full of regret halfway into the game - like those poor suckers who chose 'Traps' in Fallout 1. I think I'm in for repairing a nice and chilling Nuka Cola machine, but to my dismay I find out that it's just a boring Stimpak vending machine. Oh well, I guess that might come in handy, so I repair it and buy some Stimpaks.
When that's done, I get a new quest to kill on the bidding of Doc Morbid. I guess he's gotto get his meat from somewhere, though I don't see too many customers for Iguana-on-a-stick's around here... But sure, if Doc says "kill", I'm game. Plus, the woman in my head who may possibly sleep with me at some point told me to become friends with the Doc, and what better way to make friends with someone than to kill some critters on their bidding, eh? This time, he's telling me to go after some Bandits. I wonder if these are the Skag thugs gang he was talking about when referring to the geckos? At any rate, if I have to walk all the way to The Hub from here to find some real Skags, I'm fucking quitting. So to clear my mind, I decide to take a little stroll around the area - you know, Machiavelli said it's imperative for a ruler to know his terrain - and encounter what appears to be a weird scarecrow. I lurk at him for a while and then aim to kill.
The shot wouldn't take - the Scarecrow appeared to be immortal. So, in the spirit of any true explorer, I walked up there to further investigate the situation. Turns out, the Scarecrow was just some blind old crippled guy. Then, you're not going to be believe what he says to me! "I gotto take a dump something aweful", he says! Internet fanbase flirt? While I believe him - it looks like he's squirming over a rather big turd over there - it was still rude, even for a crippo.
He didn't keep my attention for long, so I decide to just follow the main quest. I locate the raiders, and with my good ol' scoped sniper rifle, I wipe them out, one by one. The raider's seemed to think that either standing completely still, or going all Blitzkreig on me with pistols from a hundred yards was a good idea. It did not favor them.
When they were all cast back into the oblivion from whence they came, I noted that one of them was carrying a quite peculiar item. A red, glowing, magical dildo! They totally stole this idea from me - if you remember the Elissar-is-Black game, it totally had a magic dildo in it (though that one was cerise); quite possibly the first game ever to feature a magic dildo. I'm guessing you should shove this dildo up your rear for a nice health boost or something? I try it out, and it feels goood. Then I just leave it there on the ground, since I can't pick it up to my inventory, and you can only use a dusty ol' magic dildo found in the wastelands if you actually need healing. Sexual.. heealing!
Then on a sidenote, after having killed the raiders/Skags/thugs/bandits (or whatever), I'm walking around minding my own business, and I stop to observe the beautiful esthetics of an old tire buried halfway into the ground. I take a deep breath of fresh wasteland air, and think to myself "What a beautiful day to just stand here and enjoy the marvelous sight of this tire." Then, all of a sudden, a mutant midget psycho pops up from behind the tire. Wait, uh... WTF!? Mutant Midget Psycho? What the hell man! That's awesome!!! Maybe he's related to the treasure hunter Mickey of Broken Hills, and is here seeking revenge for that good ol' time when I left the midget treasure hunter Mickey at the bottom of the Broken Hills well?
If so, he did not succeed in his quest.
Having taken care of that crazy fucking Mutant Midget Psycho (I still can't get over how awesome that is), Doc Morbid tells me I'm supposed to venture back to Scarecrow and see if he's up to something. Scarecrow looked a bit angry - I guess I did try to snipe him out just a short wile ago. He is introduced as "TK Baha", but let's just call him Scarecrow.
After having "scared" me with his rifle, the blind ol' crip bursts into laughter, going "You should have seen the look on your face!" Great. Another crippo joking about his disability - that's just what I need.
Scarecrow has a quest for me that I am more than happy to help out with. His garden looks pretty scruffy, but he doesn't ask me to rid it of dark souls. Instead, he wants me to recover four pieces of stolen meat. I think "awesome, then I'll find the meat and eat it myself", but alas, that wasn't an option.
So instead of worrying too much about Scarecrow's stolen meat, I decided to conduct some basic research on this weird territory, as keeping an eye on things may aid me later in my quest to find Vault 13. I was in a short expedition able to conclude a couple of things. For one, people seem to die a lot around here, since there are lots of graves all over the place. For seconds, while these graves are very ugly and look more like piles of bones that accidentally aligned up in bulges of manure - as well as being scattered all around the wasteland and very rarely organized together - they are always hiding a little gift for the departed, perhaps to use in the next life. The people around here must have some weird religion, for with their deceased, they tend to bury little things like sniper rifle ammunition, repeater ammunition, grenades, and pink magic dildo's to aid them on the other side. Furthermore, scavanging a grave does not give you the Gravedigger perk, so it's a free-for-all gravedigging feast!
So yer, I find and rightfully return Scarecrow's stolen meat which were scattered around some graves guarded by geckos. Then, I hear word that a new store has opened up in Junktown! Not a regular store tho', but basically a room with two vending machines in it. I get a quest to buy a grenade there, that I will need to kill some punk ass Raider thug, which I easily complete. Then, while being in a spending mood, I also decide to check out the weapons department. Turns out, one of the vending machines were offering a really sweet sniper rifle of plywood for just 574 bucks! (I had 952 bucks to spend, from looting so many graves and boxes and 'abandoned toilets', and killing pimp, cash carrying geckos.) It's damage is a whooping 69, in comparison to the damage of 20-something that was my starter Sniper Rifle. I pick it up and go about my business.
So, I've got a grenade and a brand new rifle - now I'm off to kill a band of raiders and their leader 'Nine-toes'. To get to their hideout, I must find a way to pass a stupid barrier.
[Intelligence] Perhaps if I push this highlighted device, something will happen to the barrier that is blocking the road, enabling me to pass.
Yeah, that did the trick. (It wasn't exactly like blowing up Megaton, but oy - it was a start!) It even gained me a level (level 3 actually, forgot to mention becoming level 2, but nothing interesting happened then). At level 3, what time is it? That's right - Pick-a-Perk time! I get to pick an awesome perk - sweeet! But, uh, since this is my first time, I only have one perk to choose from; it's obligatory. It's called "Bloodwing", and gives me the ability to summon a bird, also supposedly called "Bloodwing" - kind of like Mysterious Stranger, only you get to decide when to unleash it. I decide to call him Birdmeat instead.
I walk into the new area, and find to my surprise that the people around here must be some hippie environmentalists what with all the wind-power stations all over...
I also notice a new, stronger species of the Gecko's from before. This one has a much wider mouth. My further research concludes quite irrefutably through pictorial evidence that it looks a lot like goatse. I decide to name the entire species "Goatse Gecko", to distinguish them from regular Gecko's that have not fucked mutant dogs to fuck up their DNA. I also found that shooting them right into their gaping, slimey and moist goatse hole is a sure way to score a critical hit. (That's gotto hurt, right?)
But ok, now I'm getting worried. First I encounter little goatse gecko's carrying cash, as posted before... And now I encounter a large goatse gecko, packing fucking heat. I was confused about what a gecko would do with cash, but what the *hell* was this goatse gecko doing with a TKA Stabilized Repeater?! I note in my journal that something weird is going on around here.
I try to shake this disturbing research data off my mind, and continue through the area, killing a whole lot of goatse geckos and thugs before finally reaching my goal - the Raider boss 9 Toes.
Duder was very easy to kill alone, but he unleashed some wild and even stronger fucking goatse gecko's on me than I could have imagined! This one, for instance, had the magic ability to summon a tentacle-raping tentacle from it's gaping hole!
Luckily, I prevailed regardless of 3 balls and his pet goatse geckos attempted tentacle rape. And when the whole ordeal was over, I had gained 2 additional levels, and gotten one Pick-a-Perk point for each! I picked one new perk for this game, that enhances my sniping and gives me more sniper rifle stability, and one good old Perk; Better Criticals (+6% critical damage). The perk-proggression in the middle is the Girl proggression, so I figure that was worse. Plus, it had to do with enhancing Birdmeat, and I realized I hadn't used Birdmeat even once since he became my faithful companion.
Anyway, 9 Toes dropped some sweet loot. Especially sweet was an automatic SMG-style thingie that had the ability to set critters on fire. I raided his cabinets and personal belongings - standard procedure - and went about my business for yet another quest from Scarecrow.
Scarecrow asked me to go fetch him some Broc flower so he could make healing powder to survive the winter season. He didn't ask me to get any Xander Root (Sander root?), but I guess that only means he's got enough of that in a personal stash.
I gladly accept the quest, but it turned out to be a dangerous one; even more so than I had anticipated. (I noticed this now, that the recommended level is 9 for this quest, so I should probably have waited a bit with it...) I would soon come to learn how it involved killing shitloads of goatse gecko's. Sniping one of those things from afar is no problem with my awesome plywood sniper rifle, but those critters run fast like the wind while the sniper rifle is slow to reload, and taking them on in a full-frontal attack when surrounded by 7 of them is no easy task, even for an experienced (well, not really) Hunter such as I.
Especially not if a group of goatse gecko's has poison spitting goatse gecko's in their ranks! Like this one:
See that green blob of flying goo? That has my name on it.
Ouch, man, what am I, Dennis Nedry? (The character played by Wayne Knight, you know - Newman from Seinfeld - in Jurrasic Park, who gets spat in the face to the death by an antagonizer lizard.)
After a while of fighting for my life against loads of those disturbing asshole monsters (<- quite literally) - without even having the Gecko Skinning perk - I finally find my first Broc flower in all it's glory. I'm supposed to gather 8 seeds, which should be a farily easy job.
WTF? It only carried 1 lousy seed. I guess that's why these plants are so rare; with 1 seed per plant they're bound to get very little plant-action going on. I haven't even seen any bees around here at all. This one's doomed to die a virgin, though, as I snag it's only seed.
But look, what's that over there?
A cute animal is approaching me! Happy Snuggly Smoochies! Maybe I've been wrong about animals all this time. Maybe man and animal is meant to live side by side; perhaps, there is a way for us to co-exist in perfect peace and harmony?
Wait, is that thing flying right towards me? And why is it called "Badass"? I'm sure it's only leaping towards me to give me one big, fun-loving hug! Smoochie smoochie - come to me little animal, and prove to the world that there is a place in this otherwise so barren existence for love between the species!
...
That was not good. Duder fucked my ass up, man! I quickly ran out of ammo (with only 10 sniper shots left as it approached), so I had to switch to a lesser weapon I had found somewhere. It all went down so fast I didn't even have time to shove some magic pink dildo's (the new Stimpaks) up my ass, even though I had purchased like four from the Stimpak vending machine.
Needless to say, I died, and not even the carrion eaters were interested in my radiated corpse.
Upon my rebirth, I felt rich with vigor! I respawned near where I had died, and luckily for me, there was an ammo vending machine and a Stimpak-dildo vending machine right next to me! I made sure to have my pockets full to the brim of ammo, and I already had a nice arsenal of Stimpaks, so I went on my business. But not until having noted in my journal that "Man and animal = don't count on it."
This time, the Badass Goatse Gecko wasn't so fucking badass as his name would imply. He was lucky last time, but this time he was no match for my awesome cunning. Uh. Because I trolled him to an area where I could stand on an elevated platform and snipe him out from afar. He started with 100% health, and never reached me to strike a single blow, as I kept on pumping lead into the darkest depths of his moist gaping hole.
As you can see, I ventured on with great success and had collected a whole 6 Broc flowers! I'm expecting a whole healing-powder frenzy when I return to Hakunin! I mean, eh, Scarecrow!
But then again, fortune is fickle, and it wanted my fate to take another turn. I encountered yet another Badass Goatse Gecko, and this time, would fortune work in my favor?
Badass monster gots the jump on me, man! BUT, I swiftly killed him down to half his health, and had prepared by using my pipboy (without paying any action points, too - sweet!) to guzzle down some Stimpak dildo's.
Will Luke survive a second time facing death in the eyes of a Badass Goatse Gecko?
Find out in "Chapter 2: How do you refuel the Car?"!
(If there ever comes to be a Chapter 2 - depending on how this is recieved here, as well as my motivation and time.)
Hope you enjoyed it!
A final word: Play this game - seriously. I'm trying to be a little funny and whatnot in my review, but this is really awesome in all aspects. I have no major complains at all. It would perhaps be nice to be able to carry some more ammo from the beginning (which could be compensated by making ammo more scarce and/or expensive in vending machines), but then again, that's not a big issue. The graphics FUCKING ROCK, if I haven't said that already - you get used to the cellshading so quickly that after a couple of minutes, you don't think about it anymore, and you find yourself with a feeling that all games should be like this game. Now, I just don't know if I'll ever be able to go back, hehe. What you get to see in these shrunken pictures as posted here is nothing at all like having the artwork of this game in it's full glory on your fat-ass monitor. Get this game, people - experience it; the art, the gameplay, the music - for it will rock your world.
Note: As you'll understand, this obviously contains spoilers, since it's an LP. The initial post will only "spoil" some minor stuff and main quest stuff very early on in the game, so if you're contemplating getting Borderlands and need some cool inspiration, you shouldn't be afraid to at least read Chapter 1 here below. However, I ask everyone not to post any spoilers on Borderlands that's further in the game than I've gotten since, well, I haven't gotten there yet.
This is also a cross-post from The Order, since I know a lot of people here don't venture there, and I would enjoy getting any comments at all on this thing
. And I know there's already a thread on Borderlands in here, but figured this constitutes as a separate topic.* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Come one, come all! Step right up to Luke's exclusive Let's Play: Borderlands! This is a historic event, since it is in fact my first LP ever; of all time! I got this game from my big brother a while ago, but only installed it yesterday. I found it to be quite breathtaking, to be honest. I'm not usually a big gamer buff, and have pretty much only played Fallout 3 in 'modern times', which I found to be "a-ok" (I've got the achievement for it, haven't I?
), but mostly only so because of the Fallout references in the otherwise rather un-Fallouty game... I usually, if playing games at all, much prefer oldies like Heroes 2, Planescape Torment, and stuff like that. I'm also a big fan of stupid little leisure flash games (and iPhone games, heh). Please note that by no means do I aspire to be any game critic of any sort of magnitude what so ever. My knowledge of games and game development is very limited, and I have as said never before written a review in this format. In fact, I'm not so sure I've ever written any game review - save for in brief 'you should check this out lol' post-viper format, when talking about the 'classics'. So, I just figured I'd get the blubber out of my butt and have a go at making an LP for Borderlands
. After having installed and played it yesterday for a couple of hours, reaching level 12, I just thought to myself "damn, I totally have to do this again and make it into an LP!". It was too good an opportunity to miss with all the ideas that kept popping into my head. So, this evening, I restarted the game from square 1 with Fraps loaded up for screenshot taking, and shall now bring you the story of my adventure in all (well, not all, but some of) it's pictorial glory. I'm basically re-telling what went on in my mind during the gaming session of yesterday. Putting this all together took a fair while, so I at least hope someone will read it. BN; I took the liberty of hosting the images at the Order's spot on NMA (/lux/lp/). It's only 3,3 Mb in total, and I figured it could be a worthy cause? If you want me to re-locate them somehow, just say so, obviously.
Now, I'm fairly sure that someone either in the NMA community or elsewhere (not too "far away" by internet distances) has already made an LP in this particular style that I'm aiming for, but since I have no insight in that, I'll just go ahead and get it over with, since I wanted to tell the story my way. (Haven't read any other LP on this game either, or even googled it.) Without further ado or disclaimers, I bring you...
Chapter 1.
The Temple of Trials.
Well, as you can see there in the image above, I totally started the game up. The first thing you'll notice is the graphics. While I've shrunken the images to be fitting in a forum-post review like this, the graphics are awesome. It's like Fallout 3 meets Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Well, perhaps not really, but it's cellshaded anyway! Or at least it looks like what I've understood to be "cellshading"... As said, I'm not a big game buff, and you'll have to excuse lacking detailed knowledge on things like this. Starting it up, I basically don't know anything about this game save for that it's supposed to be awesome. And, starting it up, I'm getting a really good vibe. I suddenly feel that not knowing anything about what I'm about to experience is an awesome advantage - I just got this from my brother around my birthday, and he said "Don't ask, just fucking play it". And hey, I'm here to play, so let's, shall we? (<- bad pun, I know.)
It all begins with a sketched intro. The end of the world occurred pretty much as we had predicted, and Vault 13 has moved to the planet of Pandora. Or at least I figure it's Vault 13 we're looking for, since there's supposed to be some majorly awesome vault somewhere. So anyway, here's a picture of a treasure-hunting farmer pirate grilling his sausage in a camp-fire to the amazement of the scout group he's leading (from the intro):
And then, we get to know that Pandora was there before the fall:
By the way, the music is also awesome. 10/10 at a first listen - though I've only heard very little at this point. Very Fallouty.
But anyway, a wee bit into the intro, it's time to pick a character. You could either pick a Super Mutant (some big brute with lots of muscle and, quite possibly, a penis as small as his brain. Read; very, very small), or a battered soldier in Combat Armor, or some Girl, or a Hunter! They're all presented by doing a little move, and the frame freezes in a very awesome "Tarantinoesque" way. I always fancied Sniper Rifles in FO2, so I figured I'd give this "Hunter" fellow a go. Note the artwork; looks like something Wooz would totally squirt all over. (Out of joy due to liking it; seems to be very much in the Woozy style, IMO.) As for me, I'm totally squirting through the entire game, since the art is just... art, man. The whole game feels like a moving entity of interactive art.
So anyway, these four characters (Combat Armor Guy, Super Mutant Guy, Girl Guy and Hunter Guy) are all travelling in a truck. Doesn't seem to be Keegans truck, but it's still an alright truck, as far as trucks go, I suppose. Plus, we're in some form of wasteland, so I guess any truck that runs is a good truck. I don't know where we're going, but I'm anxious to find out! I also note that the driver has collected a Fallout Boy Bobble Head, though I don't quite recognize Fallout Boy with his dyed hair and beard =/. I stop for a moment and wonder what bonus it confers.
On the truck, I'm hearing some pretty damn weird voices in my head, and some woman is telling me to do things. (I'm getting imagery of her too through some form of bad brain-signal - looks hittable from what I can make out!) I guess I better trust this woman who just showed up in my head - maybe then she'll at some point end up sleeping with me. Plus, I guess I don't have much options either way. The woman tells me to see some little robot when I get off the bus - and lo! - as I get off the bus, there's some little robot dude waiting for me! He very generously holds up a PipBoy module in the air, and presents it to me as a gift. With the PipBoy, I'm able to check stuff like health and weapon and map, and stuff like that. This new, cool version has a yellow interface instead of green, but that's basically the difference. The robot guy is polite, and rather funny I must say, but I still can't quite decide if I want to laugh at him or blow his fucking robo-brains out. An eerie feeling swells over me that if I were to spend too much time with this robot, after a while, he would eventually feel like the Microsoft Paperclip. But for the time being, he's still cool.
So anyway, the robot tells me some basic things I didn't really listen to, let's me pick a name (The Chosen One, duh, I'm here to find the Vault and save the wasteland!), and the colors of my clothes. (I'm glad I at least don't have to start naked save for a pair of furry leather underwear.) We're off to walk into the peaceful first city. The robot guy said the city was called Fyrestone, but I think it's just a cover-up name for Junktown. There's totally junk everywhere and it appears to be a town, proving my theory.
But, the city quickly proved to be not-so-peaceful and some Raiders jumped in there a-la night rider - those cars were seriously hopped up on some strong Gummi Bears potion:
Those Raiders were not friendly and started shooting at me. So, I shot back. Starting with a Sniper Rifle is awesome!
And then I shot some more. Don't remember how many in total, but they were very easy to take out, from up close as well as afar:
I make my way through a bundle of additional Raiders, and finally, the area is secure. I also have to pass through a little Temple of Trials (or, a tutorial if you will), where I basically only learn how to jump and how to crouch, since I obviously already know how to walk, mouselook and shoot. I guess calling this entire chapter "The Temple of Trials" is a bit of an overstatement, since the part about the temple of trials didn't even get a screenshot, but you know... It's kind of like how pretentious authors sometimes pick a small fragment in their book, that's just mentioned somewhere in passing, as the title of their entire work.
Anyway, as I first lay eyes on the city of Junktown, I notice how trashcan fires and neon signs bathe the city in a hellish glow. Ok, perhaps not so much neon signs, but at least there was a burning trascan. And, well, I guess it doesn't bathe the city in a hellish glow so much as it just stands there in broad daylight, contributing nothing to the lightness of the town at this hour, but you know what I mean.
I fiddle around in the city for a bit, rummaging through what I suppose to be someone's belongings for cash and ammo, which is going well. A bit too well; soon I'm so stacked up on ammo that I can't carry anymore. Then I find what seems to be the only living soul in the city save for me - Doc Morbid. He claims his name is "Zed", but he also doesn't seem to have all things in order. You know, in the head.
After a nice little chat with the Doc, I killed a bundle of more raiders on the Doctors ordination - I managed to kill them all, but one of the raiders got the pathetic little robot man bad! Robot duder was lying on the ground, suffering, crying out for mercy, which just broke my heart. The "use" option made me contemplate raping the little critter as it was completely bereft of resistance ability, but I thought better of it and repaired him instead with a repair kit that happened to loiter about some 20 yards away. Here he is in his knocked-out glory, ready to mount:
He continued to open the gate to the outside world for me. It almost felt a bit like leaving the vault for the first time. I figured I was in for killing some rat's, like I used to do way back home, but instead I got a quest to kill some Skags. "Right on!", I think to myself - none of the soft stuff; it's time to kill some thugs! I thought the Skags were only located in Old Town of The Hub, but apparantly, they've moved all the way over here to Junktown. Must be due to the recession or something. But in my search for the Skags, I encounter some odd species of geckos instead - tough luck! They look more like dogs than geckos, but are obviously geckos - probably, they've mated with dogs somewhere along their line of evolution, and if Richard Dawkins had been there, I'm sure he would have been able to explain it to me further. (Now, some glitch in the game is calling the gecko's 'Skags' when I hover my mouse over them, but maybe my disc was corrupted or something.)
I had to kill five of the geckos to fulfill the quest. What I didn't get is why some of them are packing money. Gecko must be thinking "They see me high-rollin', they hatin'". And yeah - if I hate geckos in the first place, I absolutely loathe a high-roller Gecko with cash!
Kay, five geckos less in the world to worry about. Now it's time for another repair quest! Had I known this game would be so repair-focused, I might have tagged my repair skill. No wait, I haven't gotten to choose tag skills yet - I guess this is the game's way of telling me what to pick later on so I don't find myself full of regret halfway into the game - like those poor suckers who chose 'Traps' in Fallout 1. I think I'm in for repairing a nice and chilling Nuka Cola machine, but to my dismay I find out that it's just a boring Stimpak vending machine. Oh well, I guess that might come in handy, so I repair it and buy some Stimpaks.
When that's done, I get a new quest to kill on the bidding of Doc Morbid. I guess he's gotto get his meat from somewhere, though I don't see too many customers for Iguana-on-a-stick's around here... But sure, if Doc says "kill", I'm game. Plus, the woman in my head who may possibly sleep with me at some point told me to become friends with the Doc, and what better way to make friends with someone than to kill some critters on their bidding, eh? This time, he's telling me to go after some Bandits. I wonder if these are the Skag thugs gang he was talking about when referring to the geckos? At any rate, if I have to walk all the way to The Hub from here to find some real Skags, I'm fucking quitting. So to clear my mind, I decide to take a little stroll around the area - you know, Machiavelli said it's imperative for a ruler to know his terrain - and encounter what appears to be a weird scarecrow. I lurk at him for a while and then aim to kill.
The shot wouldn't take - the Scarecrow appeared to be immortal. So, in the spirit of any true explorer, I walked up there to further investigate the situation. Turns out, the Scarecrow was just some blind old crippled guy. Then, you're not going to be believe what he says to me! "I gotto take a dump something aweful", he says! Internet fanbase flirt? While I believe him - it looks like he's squirming over a rather big turd over there - it was still rude, even for a crippo.
He didn't keep my attention for long, so I decide to just follow the main quest. I locate the raiders, and with my good ol' scoped sniper rifle, I wipe them out, one by one. The raider's seemed to think that either standing completely still, or going all Blitzkreig on me with pistols from a hundred yards was a good idea. It did not favor them.
When they were all cast back into the oblivion from whence they came, I noted that one of them was carrying a quite peculiar item. A red, glowing, magical dildo! They totally stole this idea from me - if you remember the Elissar-is-Black game, it totally had a magic dildo in it (though that one was cerise); quite possibly the first game ever to feature a magic dildo. I'm guessing you should shove this dildo up your rear for a nice health boost or something? I try it out, and it feels goood. Then I just leave it there on the ground, since I can't pick it up to my inventory, and you can only use a dusty ol' magic dildo found in the wastelands if you actually need healing. Sexual.. heealing!
Then on a sidenote, after having killed the raiders/Skags/thugs/bandits (or whatever), I'm walking around minding my own business, and I stop to observe the beautiful esthetics of an old tire buried halfway into the ground. I take a deep breath of fresh wasteland air, and think to myself "What a beautiful day to just stand here and enjoy the marvelous sight of this tire." Then, all of a sudden, a mutant midget psycho pops up from behind the tire. Wait, uh... WTF!? Mutant Midget Psycho? What the hell man! That's awesome!!! Maybe he's related to the treasure hunter Mickey of Broken Hills, and is here seeking revenge for that good ol' time when I left the midget treasure hunter Mickey at the bottom of the Broken Hills well?
If so, he did not succeed in his quest.
Having taken care of that crazy fucking Mutant Midget Psycho (I still can't get over how awesome that is), Doc Morbid tells me I'm supposed to venture back to Scarecrow and see if he's up to something. Scarecrow looked a bit angry - I guess I did try to snipe him out just a short wile ago. He is introduced as "TK Baha", but let's just call him Scarecrow.
After having "scared" me with his rifle, the blind ol' crip bursts into laughter, going "You should have seen the look on your face!" Great. Another crippo joking about his disability - that's just what I need.
Scarecrow has a quest for me that I am more than happy to help out with. His garden looks pretty scruffy, but he doesn't ask me to rid it of dark souls. Instead, he wants me to recover four pieces of stolen meat. I think "awesome, then I'll find the meat and eat it myself", but alas, that wasn't an option.
So instead of worrying too much about Scarecrow's stolen meat, I decided to conduct some basic research on this weird territory, as keeping an eye on things may aid me later in my quest to find Vault 13. I was in a short expedition able to conclude a couple of things. For one, people seem to die a lot around here, since there are lots of graves all over the place. For seconds, while these graves are very ugly and look more like piles of bones that accidentally aligned up in bulges of manure - as well as being scattered all around the wasteland and very rarely organized together - they are always hiding a little gift for the departed, perhaps to use in the next life. The people around here must have some weird religion, for with their deceased, they tend to bury little things like sniper rifle ammunition, repeater ammunition, grenades, and pink magic dildo's to aid them on the other side. Furthermore, scavanging a grave does not give you the Gravedigger perk, so it's a free-for-all gravedigging feast!
So yer, I find and rightfully return Scarecrow's stolen meat which were scattered around some graves guarded by geckos. Then, I hear word that a new store has opened up in Junktown! Not a regular store tho', but basically a room with two vending machines in it. I get a quest to buy a grenade there, that I will need to kill some punk ass Raider thug, which I easily complete. Then, while being in a spending mood, I also decide to check out the weapons department. Turns out, one of the vending machines were offering a really sweet sniper rifle of plywood for just 574 bucks! (I had 952 bucks to spend, from looting so many graves and boxes and 'abandoned toilets', and killing pimp, cash carrying geckos.) It's damage is a whooping 69, in comparison to the damage of 20-something that was my starter Sniper Rifle. I pick it up and go about my business.
So, I've got a grenade and a brand new rifle - now I'm off to kill a band of raiders and their leader 'Nine-toes'. To get to their hideout, I must find a way to pass a stupid barrier.
[Intelligence] Perhaps if I push this highlighted device, something will happen to the barrier that is blocking the road, enabling me to pass.
Yeah, that did the trick. (It wasn't exactly like blowing up Megaton, but oy - it was a start!) It even gained me a level (level 3 actually, forgot to mention becoming level 2, but nothing interesting happened then). At level 3, what time is it? That's right - Pick-a-Perk time! I get to pick an awesome perk - sweeet! But, uh, since this is my first time, I only have one perk to choose from; it's obligatory. It's called "Bloodwing", and gives me the ability to summon a bird, also supposedly called "Bloodwing" - kind of like Mysterious Stranger, only you get to decide when to unleash it. I decide to call him Birdmeat instead.
I walk into the new area, and find to my surprise that the people around here must be some hippie environmentalists what with all the wind-power stations all over...
I also notice a new, stronger species of the Gecko's from before. This one has a much wider mouth. My further research concludes quite irrefutably through pictorial evidence that it looks a lot like goatse. I decide to name the entire species "Goatse Gecko", to distinguish them from regular Gecko's that have not fucked mutant dogs to fuck up their DNA. I also found that shooting them right into their gaping, slimey and moist goatse hole is a sure way to score a critical hit. (That's gotto hurt, right?)
But ok, now I'm getting worried. First I encounter little goatse gecko's carrying cash, as posted before... And now I encounter a large goatse gecko, packing fucking heat. I was confused about what a gecko would do with cash, but what the *hell* was this goatse gecko doing with a TKA Stabilized Repeater?! I note in my journal that something weird is going on around here.
I try to shake this disturbing research data off my mind, and continue through the area, killing a whole lot of goatse geckos and thugs before finally reaching my goal - the Raider boss 9 Toes.
Duder was very easy to kill alone, but he unleashed some wild and even stronger fucking goatse gecko's on me than I could have imagined! This one, for instance, had the magic ability to summon a tentacle-raping tentacle from it's gaping hole!
Luckily, I prevailed regardless of 3 balls and his pet goatse geckos attempted tentacle rape. And when the whole ordeal was over, I had gained 2 additional levels, and gotten one Pick-a-Perk point for each! I picked one new perk for this game, that enhances my sniping and gives me more sniper rifle stability, and one good old Perk; Better Criticals (+6% critical damage). The perk-proggression in the middle is the Girl proggression, so I figure that was worse. Plus, it had to do with enhancing Birdmeat, and I realized I hadn't used Birdmeat even once since he became my faithful companion.
Anyway, 9 Toes dropped some sweet loot. Especially sweet was an automatic SMG-style thingie that had the ability to set critters on fire. I raided his cabinets and personal belongings - standard procedure - and went about my business for yet another quest from Scarecrow.
Scarecrow asked me to go fetch him some Broc flower so he could make healing powder to survive the winter season. He didn't ask me to get any Xander Root (Sander root?), but I guess that only means he's got enough of that in a personal stash.
I gladly accept the quest, but it turned out to be a dangerous one; even more so than I had anticipated. (I noticed this now, that the recommended level is 9 for this quest, so I should probably have waited a bit with it...) I would soon come to learn how it involved killing shitloads of goatse gecko's. Sniping one of those things from afar is no problem with my awesome plywood sniper rifle, but those critters run fast like the wind while the sniper rifle is slow to reload, and taking them on in a full-frontal attack when surrounded by 7 of them is no easy task, even for an experienced (well, not really) Hunter such as I.
Especially not if a group of goatse gecko's has poison spitting goatse gecko's in their ranks! Like this one:
See that green blob of flying goo? That has my name on it.
Ouch, man, what am I, Dennis Nedry? (The character played by Wayne Knight, you know - Newman from Seinfeld - in Jurrasic Park, who gets spat in the face to the death by an antagonizer lizard.)
After a while of fighting for my life against loads of those disturbing asshole monsters (<- quite literally) - without even having the Gecko Skinning perk - I finally find my first Broc flower in all it's glory. I'm supposed to gather 8 seeds, which should be a farily easy job.
WTF? It only carried 1 lousy seed. I guess that's why these plants are so rare; with 1 seed per plant they're bound to get very little plant-action going on. I haven't even seen any bees around here at all. This one's doomed to die a virgin, though, as I snag it's only seed.
But look, what's that over there?
A cute animal is approaching me! Happy Snuggly Smoochies! Maybe I've been wrong about animals all this time. Maybe man and animal is meant to live side by side; perhaps, there is a way for us to co-exist in perfect peace and harmony?
Wait, is that thing flying right towards me? And why is it called "Badass"? I'm sure it's only leaping towards me to give me one big, fun-loving hug! Smoochie smoochie - come to me little animal, and prove to the world that there is a place in this otherwise so barren existence for love between the species!
...
That was not good. Duder fucked my ass up, man! I quickly ran out of ammo (with only 10 sniper shots left as it approached), so I had to switch to a lesser weapon I had found somewhere. It all went down so fast I didn't even have time to shove some magic pink dildo's (the new Stimpaks) up my ass, even though I had purchased like four from the Stimpak vending machine.
Needless to say, I died, and not even the carrion eaters were interested in my radiated corpse.
Upon my rebirth, I felt rich with vigor! I respawned near where I had died, and luckily for me, there was an ammo vending machine and a Stimpak-dildo vending machine right next to me! I made sure to have my pockets full to the brim of ammo, and I already had a nice arsenal of Stimpaks, so I went on my business. But not until having noted in my journal that "Man and animal = don't count on it."
This time, the Badass Goatse Gecko wasn't so fucking badass as his name would imply. He was lucky last time, but this time he was no match for my awesome cunning. Uh. Because I trolled him to an area where I could stand on an elevated platform and snipe him out from afar. He started with 100% health, and never reached me to strike a single blow, as I kept on pumping lead into the darkest depths of his moist gaping hole.
As you can see, I ventured on with great success and had collected a whole 6 Broc flowers! I'm expecting a whole healing-powder frenzy when I return to Hakunin! I mean, eh, Scarecrow!
But then again, fortune is fickle, and it wanted my fate to take another turn. I encountered yet another Badass Goatse Gecko, and this time, would fortune work in my favor?
Badass monster gots the jump on me, man! BUT, I swiftly killed him down to half his health, and had prepared by using my pipboy (without paying any action points, too - sweet!) to guzzle down some Stimpak dildo's.
Will Luke survive a second time facing death in the eyes of a Badass Goatse Gecko?
Find out in "Chapter 2: How do you refuel the Car?"!
(If there ever comes to be a Chapter 2 - depending on how this is recieved here, as well as my motivation and time.)
Hope you enjoyed it!
A final word: Play this game - seriously. I'm trying to be a little funny and whatnot in my review, but this is really awesome in all aspects. I have no major complains at all. It would perhaps be nice to be able to carry some more ammo from the beginning (which could be compensated by making ammo more scarce and/or expensive in vending machines), but then again, that's not a big issue. The graphics FUCKING ROCK, if I haven't said that already - you get used to the cellshading so quickly that after a couple of minutes, you don't think about it anymore, and you find yourself with a feeling that all games should be like this game. Now, I just don't know if I'll ever be able to go back, hehe. What you get to see in these shrunken pictures as posted here is nothing at all like having the artwork of this game in it's full glory on your fat-ass monitor. Get this game, people - experience it; the art, the gameplay, the music - for it will rock your world.
