Hive Gaming Community – Best Video Game Memories – Fallout 3

One of my best video game memories lies in the Fallout series. The series which brought one of the most iconic quotes:

War. War never changes.

I’ve played most of the released games, starting with Fallout 1, continuing with Fallout 2, 3 and the DLCs, New Vegas and those DLCs, up to Fallout 4 with the respective DLCs. I’ve never touched Fallout 76, though, thanks to Bethesda’s epic fail to maintain a good service and reputation.
But this post isn’t about the marketing nightmare horrors of 76, it’s about Fallout 3, the vanilla edition.

But back to the beginning, most memories have a buildup, that’s the reason they are memorable, this is such one. In Fallout 1 and 2, both are classical role-playing games, with turn-based combat in an open world, I experienced dilemmas, different creatures, a hostile environment and the joy of reading through the huge lore on every terminal in every ruin or city on the whole map.

Yes, in RPGs, I’m never on the straight route for the main story. I’m taking every detour I can find, every obstacle is a challenge for me and I will only progress the main story if I have to. Leveling and looting most of the stuff up to the sheer maximum of my character. Every walking enemy is a possibility for a better weapon. Every quest/mission are more experience points to the maximum cap.

So I enjoyed those two games entirely and got really happy after I got a copy of Fallout 3. Exploring the wasteland, with all my experienced and learned knowledge, from a first person perspective.

With that I finally started the installation of Fallout 3 on my computer with Windows 2000 Professional.

No problem, quick recap of the minimum system requirements for Fallout 3, which I also ignored back then:

CPU: 2.4 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
CPU SPEED: Info
RAM: 1 GB (XP)/ 2 GB (Vista)
OS: Windows XP/Vista
VIDEO CARD: Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 256MB RAM (NVIDIA 6800 or better/ATI X850 or better)
PIXEL SHADER: 3.0
VERTEX SHADER: 3.0
SOUND CARD: Yes
FREE DISK SPACE: 7 GB
DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 256 MB

The important part here is “Windows XP/Vista”. My PC back then had enough power under the hood to handle everything except for that one huge hurdle. You cannot install Fallout 3 on a Windows version below XP basically.

The installation program greeted me with an error, that the operating system isn’t XP or Vista and it terminated the installation, leaving me with nothing back on the desktop.
So I did the one thing, every user does in that situation: Starting to search the internet to circumvent the problem.
Of course, getting a copy of XP, installing that system and be done with it would be the obvious way, but also an expensive and really annoying one.

I searched for a while, getting tired of the situation not being able to continue the series, until I found the following: A community for “modding” Windows 2000 Professional for XP programs.
Basically you are replacing dlls with a fix on various locations on the system so the installation progam detects the replaced dlls and continues the installation. Nothing extra fancy, but something that has to be done to get it run on the current operating system.

That was the first time for me, that I have heavily worked myself through a problem of this kind with swapping out files to get something to run on my terms.

After numerous attempts, downloads, installs, deinstalls and reinstalls, the game started. It finally worked.

I started a new single player campaign, walked through Vault 101 and was amazed by the graphics, the dialogues, the atmosphere and the gameplay itself.

The starting quests continue through multiple stages, teaching the game system, how things are working and what to do, while building the motivation for the player.

The final step of this preparation for the protagonist is leaving, or mere, escaping Vault 101.

This moment, stepping completely out of the Vault, leaving everything and everyone behind, is the memory which got stuck in my head.

The light blinds you, your eyes are slowly recovering from it and with that they are revealing the hellscape, the wasteland, in front of you.

Standing on the first rock overlooking the area, alone with my thoughts, I was happy that I was able to achieve this moment. It marked the start of my over 300 hour journey through the wasteland of Washington, DC, filled with entertainment and even more memories along the way. And dead raiders. A lot of them.

This moment was the first memory I could think of, after noticing the contest. I have also learned that Fallout 3 seems to have a special soundtrack for leaving the area the very first time.

Fallout 3 is still one of my favorite games, even before Fallout New Vegas, dunno why, but I think the whole situation back then was randomly perfect aligned.

The quote from earlier is used in every fallout game slightly different. In Fallout New Vegas with the DLC Lonesome Road it gets an addition from Ulysses:

And this road - has reached its end.