I had two days alone. Such a stretch of time is unprecedented, and I have difficulty with self-management when it comes to leisure. Seriously, I don’t know what to do with myself when no projects are demanding my immediate attention. Then I saw the Fallout 4 expansion was on sale, amusing since I just recently lamented on its price. $12 is fairly reasonable, so I pulled the trigger, and many times thereafter.
[SPOILERS]
Ordinarily after buying a Bethesda DLC, one generally boots the game and waits around for a quest update. In this instance, however, the update happened immediately. Perhaps the DLC was feeling desperate and wanted my attention right away. I was notified of a suddenly new radio broadcast, to which I listened and received a map marker–an entire train terminal that had appeared instantly. How could I not investigate that? I began my journey.
I arrived at the terminal and killed some Gunners, who were apparently there for the same reasons as I–murder and loot. Then I entered the station and a wounded man pleads for me to go save his wife. Further investigation reveals he’s a doorman of sorts, helping to lure people in. I found his role largely unnecessary, seeing as I was already there. And why wouldn’t I continue inside, seeing as I already spent the 12 bucks? No matter, I hop on the monorail and await my destination.
My destination turns out to be a lethal obstacle course. Who would have thought that raiders were so cruel?
So I begin, with Piper–my eternally-faithful girlfriend–following along. We shoot a lot of turrets. Piper even goes so far as to taunt them. She has a temper, that one.
I kill things, evade traps, set off most of the traps…it was actually a really irritating journey, filled with things I hate in games: platforms and traps and lengthy dungeons. And it took about an hour, too.
Then I arrive in the magical park. I fight a boss battle, am immediately named the new boss, then I wander around the park for a bit seeing the new sights and picking up side quests, as is the Bethesda way.
Then I receive notice that I have to defend one of my settlements so I immediately leave, only to arrive too late. Then then game graphics got all screwy so I did a hard reboot.
Upon restart, the cloud sync deleted all my progress since I installed the DLC. I abandoned the game in irritation.
Maybe I’m just getting old and impatient, or my standards are too high, but I note that many of my game experiences quickly terminate with a glitch or crash. This is why I find Apple’s rallying cry so amusing: “It just works”. And how true is that? If things just worked as intended, then I could actually get around to enjoying and evaluating them.
This wouldn’t have been so bad, had that intro not been so painful and had my saves actually saved. I guess I’ll consider this my $12 Fallout cure. I turned off the Xbox and went to do something else. I’m sure adventure still awaits, but let someone else do it. I saved the Commonwealth and rebuilt civilization. I retire.
–Simon