I picked up a new for me game a few weeks ago, Fallout 3 for the 360. I say new for me because it came out in late 2008, but I just picked it up. I tend to wait for the price to come down because I am cheap and fickle about new games...the more I pay the more critical I am and the more critical I am the less likely I am to play it. Thus far, the biggest downfall of the game is that it is on a console (yes, there is a PC version, but my PC can't handle it).
F3 is pretty fun. The scene is rather unique. Travel back to the 1950s, read up on all the 'City of the Future' and 'Flying Car' hype and imagine yourself living in that world, add in a nuclear holocaust, and stir. It kept the music and post-war paranoia from the 50s. F3 takes place in the Capital Wasteland, which is the area surrounding and including Washington DC.
The plot is more of a developing story. It starts off with you as the main character escaping from Vault 101 (think bomb shelter like village) looking for your dad who left without reason the day before. Much like the Elder Scrolls games Bethesda is famous for, you can do pretty much whatever the hell you want. I followed the main quest tell it got to the first town and then shelved it to do other stuff. Running around the map, I accidentally picked it up again several quests later. I am leery of doing the 'Find Dad' quest because I don't know if that is the game ender or not, and I want to experience the vastness of the wasteland before I finish. I do know that Dear ol' Dad is working on something called Project Purity, which aims to remove the radiation from the water (nearly everything you eat or drink is irradiated, and you have to watch your radiation levels to keep bad things from happening). As and example of things you can do other than the main plot, last night I helped a bunch of slaves take over the Lincoln Memorial (ie, kill a bunch of slavers) and find a picture of the Memorial so they could restore it to all its former glory.
On to the xBox: I have mentioned before that I got it for free...kinda. Kade originally owned it. It got the red ring of death, so he replaced it. I convinced him to send it in for repair (still covered by Microsoft warranty) and bought it for 5200 gold in Warcraft currency so he could get hit epic flying. While it was technically 'fixed' it was never quite right. It worked well enough, but I was always having render issues. Still, getting a real item for fake currency is a steal. I had wanted it for the media center aspect, but it was so damned loud it was almost not worth using for that(we will ignore the accessibility issued in the living room).
A coworker had bought the new 'slim' version, and said it was whisper quiet and he got $100 off for trading in his old system and accessories. I mentally filed it as a 'maybe in a couple of months' purchase. Apparently I was channeling my inner Rook, because no sooner than I knew there was something better out there, my current xBox started having issues. They were minor issues, and I got it working fine again, but the wife and I were still at Gamestop within 30 minutes trading it in.
