Why I'm Not Playing Fallout 3 Right Now

As you will probably notice "The Continued Story of Marty Stinestein" has not been updated in a while. The reason for this is simply that I have not been playing Fallout 3. Below I've made a list (in no particular order) of the reasons why I haven't been playing Fallout 3. Please note that this list is in no way meant to discredit Bethesda Softworks who made an excellent game and my problems with the game are merely my own personal hang-ups.

1) Fallout 3 is Huge- there is a lot that you can do in Fallout 3 and the thought that I could easily spend 80-100 hours exploring the wasteland , and also that fact that I will probably miss something (or several things) that are really cool makes me hesitant to play it.

2) Orienteering- While questing I focus on my compass and map and arriving at the next spot on a quest line more than the actual purpose for my travels. This makes quests seem trivial and takes a lot of the emotion out of playing.

3) Metro Stations- In a similar vein to point number 2, navigating the metro stations is difficult (due to the large population of ghouls) but also the number of caverns and hallways that lead away from where I'm trying to go. While its true that I'm not great at navigating I tend to end up back where I started a lot more often than I would want.

4) Lack of Ammo- Ammo is not that plentiful in the world and traders are few and far between. Though this is not bad in and of itself, it is complicated by the high cost of ammo from the traders and the number of hits required to kill an enemy (which can be quite a lot). The VATS system also thinks that you are made of bullets and will fire a burst from a semi-automatic or automatic weapon when you choose to shoot an enemy once.

5) Weight in Pack- While I think that a weight limit in your inventory is reasonable and helps to make the experience more realistic, I often find myself becoming over encumbered because I wary to get rid of something that may be useful later. I also suppose that part of the problem is that I don't know what is useful/ worth money.

6) Broken Housebot- My housebot in Megaton, Wadsworth, is as far as I'm concerned broken. The joke emitter takes a fairly long time to recharge, and I fear that his condensation emitter will be recharging infinitely, dashing my hopes for free purified water.

8) NPCs Don't Acknowledge My Fashion Sense- Marty has an impeccable fashion sense and loves to wear fancy suits in business districts and his lab coat in the various laboratories. He tries really hard to look good (and in my opinion succeeds) yet the other characters don't seem to notice or give him complements.

Ok, that last one was kind of a joke. Some of these issues are fixable with mods and Fallout 3 is not a lost cause for me as I will return to this game sometime soon. I am also occupied with several other games including: Opposing Force, Shadow Complex (Xbox 360), and Trine.