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All my Fallout 76 CAMPS

Just a quick tour of all of my Fallout 76 player C.A.M.P.S. None of them are 100% finished (I need more plans!), so please consider them all W.I.P.

Much thanks to AquaNova for the inspiration, especially on the first cylindrical build. Her work is amazing! Be sure to follow her.

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Fallout 76

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I’m really REALLY enjoying Fallout 76!

I was a massive fan of Fallout 4 (check out my previous Fallout posts here). I fell in love with the world and the characters and I put a lot of hours into that game. I modded the hell out of my game too (being able to modify a game was new to me, it still blows my mind). I even bought and played all previous Fallout games too (yes New Vegas was amazing).

When Fallout 76 launched late 2018 it received a LOT of negative press. One of the things I loved about Fallout 4 the most was the NPC’s and to find out that Fallout 76 wasn’t going to have NPC’s really put the nail in the coffin for me. Fast forward to 2020 and Bethesda has introduced NPC’s to Fallout 76. The game was available for purchase on Steam, discounted too, so I pulled the trigger.

My initial thoughts: I felt like I was playing Fallout 4 again. Same graphics, same janky gun play (coming from Destiny 2 the gun play in Fallout was never going to be great). I instantly missed the theme song from Fallout 4 when launching the game, but the radio still works, and that awesome Fallout 4 vibe of being alone and playing the radio whilst roaming the map was still there.

I started doing the NPC questline and before I knew it I was hooked. So hooked that I stopped playing Destiny 2 all-together and Fallout 76 is now my main game. Within a few weeks I got 2 characters to the level 50+ end game, and both builds are worlds apart. One a bloodied stealth sniper, the other a full health melee build. And speaking of builds, the new perk system is awesome (so too the mutations) and working on a min maxed build to suit my playstyle has been a really rewarding process.

The community is pretty active too, and I’ve spent a lot of time watching great guides on YouTube and checking out other people’s builds on Reddit.

A few days ago I decided to subscribe to a 1 month trial of Fallout 1st. A service which grants Fallout 76 players some pretty huge benefits like currency to spend in the shop, an unlimited junk stash box, the ranger outfit from Fallout New Vegas (this is really why I paid up tbh!) and even a private server. I’ve just managed to influence a few of the boys to also buy the game and we’ve just started playing as a crew on a private server.

Gamer for life? Maybe. Sometimes I game hard, sometimes not at all, but I always feel a little guilty for gaming too much when I do. Either way, right now I’ve got the bug, that’s for sure!

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Retro Gaming – BioShock Remastered, Metro: Last Light Redux & Fallout 3 Game of the Year Edition

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It’s been raining non-stop (for at least a month now?!) and I’ve been gaming a LOT! I’ve geeked out (when do I not?!) and dug up some more older games that I probably should have played when they were first released. Fallout 4 (2015) has to be my favourite game of all time; the post-apocalyptic theme, deep lore, companions, the massive open world and balanced RPG and action gameplay. I’ve been hanging for Fallout 5, and that’s been primarily the catalyst in searching for other games which might fall into the “Open World Action RPG” genre.

After much research (the best bit!) I put my money into BioShock, a dark and atmospheric first person action shooter with RPG elements which many still say is their fave game of all time, and definitely a game of the year back in 2007. Metro: Last Light, a hardcore post-apocalyptic Ukrainian first person shooter and Fallout 3.

What’s awesome about buying these old games now is that A) they’re damn cheap! And B) They’re remastered versions which feature bug fixes as well as better graphics than release. Getting old games to run on the ZEN PC has been a lot of fun too. There’s a tonne of support out there when it comes to PC’s and gaming so finding others with the same issues was pretty easy.

So what did I think of these 3 games?

BioShock Remastered was a hoot! Really creepy, fast paced, intuitive retro fun. I loved the retro Art Deco style and especially LOVED the emotional ending I got (the good ending). I had no issues running it on Windows 10 either. When I finished the game I was left feeling super satisfied, so satisfied that I’m happy to put the series to rest (IE: not bother to play BioShock 2 or 3).

Metro: Last Light Redux looks and runs great (2013 so not that old). It came up a lot in searches when looking for games with a post-apocalyptic theme. It’s Russian, it tries to be hardcore with no HUD or crosshair too (I love that as HUD elements always ruin immersion for me), but in the end it just feels more arcade than hardcore shooter.  You can’t save when you want, only at check points. The saves get corrupt too so you have to start chapters over each time you launch the game rather than continuing from your last save. I’m about half way through the game and losing interest. The AI in combat just isn’t that engaging, the story isn’t grabbing me either. Not a bad game! Just not blowing my socks off.

Fallout 3 Game of the Year Edition – in the end I just had to return to Fallout! Getting Fallout 3 to run on the PC has been super hard. I crashed out a billion times during the main story playthrough, sometimes I’d have a good 1-2 hour run with no issues, other times I’d be crashing every 15 minutes, or every time I went through a door or jumped to another scene. It was super frustrating, but fixing these issues is part of the fun of retro gaming too (geek out!). The mod community has come to the rescue again here, and this guide helped to get the game going (albeit still with random crashes every now and then).

Fallout 3 is on Nexus Mods too (oh noes!), so playing it with high res texture packs and a few other convenience mods has been a lot of fun. The game itself is a LOT like Fallout 4! I feel it’s as if Bethesda just took Fallout 3 and remade it with better technology, much like how Hollywood would take an old film and remake it today. I can see that if you were a Fallout 3 fan you could have been super underwhelmed with Fallout 4 as you might have been expecting a whole lot more, but as a huge Fallout 4 fan I was just so happy to be getting more Fallout, period!

So on that note, there’s Fallout (1997), and Fallout 2 (1998) I’ve yet to play. I’m eyeing the bundle on Steam right now… hitting that ‘buy it now’ button is inevitable!

EDIT: I’ve since played Fallout 1, my GOD, SO old school!!! I finished it with a guide, would not have been able to without! The bundle came with Fallout 2, and Tactics too, but will be giving those a miss. Bring on Fallout 5!

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Fallout 4 on PC with MODS

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I’ve upgraded all the textures in the game with VIVID Textures, and God Daym! Look at it now!

I’ve got Ved’s PC back to play The Division, but SO many people have come back to play The Division due to the new SURVIVAL DLC being launched, that we can’t even load into a server to play a game (bad Massive, BAD!)! Ved and I then thought we’d try Watch Dogs 2 multi-player, only to find we couldn’t do the main story co-op (that would have been awesome!), and the multiplayer action just wasn’t engaging us in the same way that The Division does, primarily because the shooting mechanics just weren’t up to par in Watch Dogs 2.

I couldn’t resist buying Fallout 4 on the PC (through Steam). It was damn expensive for an old game, but I knew MODS would make it new again, and holy shit now I know what PS4 guys have been missing out on!

I’ve discovered Nexus, and using the Nexus Mod Manager makes modding the game crazy easy. I’m up to 80 mods now, each and every one of them are awesome, and have changed the game for the better (some small changes, some epic ones!). I’ve also completed a few new quests made by fans, a couple of which took hours to finish, and were just as good in quality as Bethesda’s own quests (blows my mind!).

I’m now contemplating buying the most modded game of all time, Skyrim for PC, because there’s so much more you can do with that, due to the HUGE modding community, than Fallout 4! Enjoy some of the screen grabs below.

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Watching the awesome animation of getting into and out of Power Armour will never get old, it’s even better now when you command your naked companions to do it.

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Everything looks amazing now, flying over to that bridge, etc, it’s all about discovery and the boost in graphics quality has upped the immersion, big time.

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And yup, every item is lootable in Fallout 4. So cool, wish The Division did the same (such a shame to waste all that detail in the world!).

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The textures change SO much. The roads especially. I’ve also added a whole lot of greenery to the entire world, not over the top like some mods, keeping within lore, just enough to make it feel like time has passed on and everything is starting to grow back.

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Skyrim inspired Power Armour! You can mod it at the PA Station with the remains of animals you’ve slain. It also comes with a sword and battle axe.

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Optimus Prime Power Armour, then there’s Batman, Superman. Yup, you can pretty much be whoever you want to be, do whatever you want to do with mods!

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The Iron Man armour lets me fly, which has been the best way to re-discover The Commonwealth.

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So much fun to be had! I’ve got a weed farm going on now.

If you’ve not played Fallout 4, or Skyrim, consider buying either one through Steam, then the Nexus Mod Manager and get busy modding! You might regret it?!

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Fallout 4 PS4 MODS are here!

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I downloaded a new update on the PS4 for Fallout 4 and it’s looking like Bethesda has made mods available in this update! The mods can be downloaded via the main menu in the game, there’s quite a few mods in there already (all clean as it’s PlayStation here, not PC), some look to be game breaking, but I’ll start with a few simple ones like visual mods for Piper, opening up more dialogue for Piper as well as a developer room which will give me access to every single item in the game all in the one cave close to home.

Check out the mods here: https://mods.bethesda.net/#en/workshop/fallout4

PS: Man the music is just such a huge hook in this game for me. Hanging out for Fallout 5 more than any other game right now. In love with this game, in love with Bethesda!

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I’m still playing Fallout

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I’m still with Piper, though I lost Cait AGES ago. If you’re on PC you can use the console to find any lost companion, no luck on the PS4 though! I googled and found a lot of others out there had the same issue, and the only way to find your lost companion is to remember where you left them. Fallout 4 has a HUGE open world and I looked for Cait for weeks and I finally found her again, SO RAD! The intense feelings this game can provoke, so awesome!

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I’ve completely finished the game and discovered nearly every location on the map, yet on rare occasions when free-roaming I still do find places I’ve never been to, and secret rooms to loot.

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Yes I’m guilty of googling “things to do in Fallout 4 once you’ve finished the game”. One of the most common suggestions was to play the game again, but go with a different faction. I tried this and went with The Brotherhood of Steel (BOS), which was rad for a bit, but I couldn’t stand the grind so I stopped as soon as I boarded the Prydwen.

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I’ve instead continued my addiction of collecting Power Armour (PA). I’ve now got enough money to keep on buying new frames, but instead I’ve tweaked my character from a gunner into a sneaky sniper, and my fave past time now is to sneak up on enemies in power armour from behind and shoot their power cores out, which forces them to leave their power armour so you can then kill them and steal their power armour frame and whatever bits they have on it (this vid shows the process well).

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Even more stolen suits.

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Stolen Raider PA.

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Yeah even more! I’ve got over 50 PA suits now!

I’m still playing Fallout 4. The music draws me in SO hard. I love love love the soundtrack, so much! Listen to it here, and the retro-post-apocalyptic world, it’s just so awesome. I can understand why so many people loved the game (and have so much love for Bethesda the company who make the game), and I’m truly glad I’ve managed to play it despite being almost a year late to the party.

Watch this guy react to the first Fallout 4 teaser trailer (which features the epic orchestral Fallout intro piece). It pretty much captures how I feel about Fallout 4 right now (haha!).

PS: Bethesda are the creators of Skyrim, also an open world RPG, but more in the style of Lord of the Rings, which I love, but not as much as the retro-post-apocalyptic world that is Fallout. I’ve read a lot of good stuff about Skyrim (PS3 game so much older than Fallout 4). Bethesda are re-releasing Skyrim Special Edition (comes out tomorrow), it now features remastered art and effects and all DLC content too, so it’s a good time to give that a go me thinks (goodbye!), good thing then that when I return from Vegas, there should me a copy of the game in my mailbox!

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Fallout 4 Merchandise

Game merch is usually pretty meh, but holy shit there’s some EPIC next level Fallout 4 stuff out there. I’ve got a few bobbleheads already, they’re awesome! And I got myself one of these babies (I hunted down a first gen release on eBay), which houses your iPhone (you download an app to make it fucking real!). Cray!

PS: Still on a high from WTAC. I say it every year, but damn it was the best WTAC so far! Things do not slow down for me though this year. I’ve got a big meet next Thursday night. 3 months ago there was a defect set-up a few km’s down the road from our EOMM. The last 2 meets have been down on attendance as expected, but we’re coming back with UNITED. A meet run by the community, namely Downshift, Street Cover and Tuned.

THEN I’M OFF TO SEMA! Las Vegas, baby!

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Fallout 4 DLC Season Pass

Strong Back, Basher, Locksmith

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ZEN HQ!

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One of 3 sheds I’ve built to hold my Power Armour collection (I’ve got 33 of them and all paint jobs!!!).

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The Automatron DLC let me contruct this robot builder, which has been pretty fun (you can create all sorts of crazy robots which you can then assign tasks too, or even have as companions).

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ZENBOT! He’s pretty hardcore.

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The best Power Armour in the game, took a lot of work to get it, but it’s all mine!

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Little toys I’ve collected during gameplay, now displayed on a shelf in my workshop.

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Vim! Some of the Power Armour paint jobs you can score in the game are pretty crazy!

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My bae Piper looks amaze in her Nuka-Girl rocketsuit outfit!

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My stolen Atom Cats Power Armour lives at my other pad, the Red Rocket Truck Stop.

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Level 73. I’m done!

I wasn’t done with Fallout 4 so I decided to buy the DLC’s. I went for the season pass which gave me access to download all DLC’s made for Fallout 4. Whilst most players would gave done them one by one I ended up being a little overwhelmed with having so much to do, especially with 2 new “worlds” to discover, Nuka-World (a twisted Disneyland like experience!) and Far Harbour a really eerie, dark foggy land.

I’ve loved it all though, such a great game! So smooth, hardly any bugs, or crashes (at all! Bethesda you’re amazing!). I’m kinda still wishing I played it when it initially came out a year ago, but I’m really glad I’ve played it nonetheless!

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Fallout 4 – End Game Review

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My companion Dogmeat in armour!

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My bedroom, all decked out!

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Complete collection of Bobbleheads. Excuse Bae, who’s photobombing hard!

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The comic book art is awesome in Fallout 4. Each comic you find builds up your character and you can display them all on a magazine rack.

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My workshop where I work on unfinished power armour.

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Hey Preston! I’ve dressed up all my main companions and settlers as gimps haha!

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Gorillas in the mist. Bae and I exploring together.

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I’ve turned the Red Rocket Truck Stop into my 2nd base, an all women settlement (stealing clothes off characters is one of my fave things to do in the game lol!) which houses this stolen Atom Cats power armour.

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My most powerful power armour (of all 20 in my collection!), with jetpack!

I’ve spent the last week (quite literally!) playing Fallout 4 and man, I’ve been loving it! Initially I didn’t think I was going to get hooked, but I got into the story and once I did I had to finish it. Once I finished the story I didn’t want the game to stop, so I started doing my thing, tweaking this and that, min-maxing this and that, and that’s where this game really kicked in for me.

Things I’ve done since finishing the main story:
– Build up my settlement (Sanctuary) and made it feel like home. I’ve set up supply lines too so I can share junk between settlements.
– Find, collect and modify lots and lots of power armours!
– Find and modify weapons.
– Collect every single bobblehead!
– Collect comics and magazines.

I’ve reached the end of the dialogue with my fave companions (Preston is my first man and Piper is my bae who my character has now romanced) and now I’m considering purchasing the various DLC’s which with further expand my Fallout 4 world (oh noes!).

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Fallout 4

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I’ve not so secretly been pretty excited about the re-release of DOOM. Bethesda, developers of the game sent me a copy for PC which I’ll be playing soon (once I figure out which PC gaming laptop I want to purchase!), but included in their care package was a copy of Fallout 4 for PS4 so I thought I’d give it a go (game has been out for almost a year, but better late than never, right?!).

I’m new to RPG’s but I’ve had a great introduction to the concept via 1400+ hours on The Division, so I wasn’t at all daunted by the sheer amount of things you can do in the game straight off the bat. I’ve done a couple of things to help me “catch up” though; one is setting the difficulty on easy so that I waste less ammo (as ammo isn’t that plentiful in Fallout 4’s post-nuclear landscape), two is watching a bunch of YouTube clips on tips and tricks which end game Fallout 4 gamers wish they knew when starting out to help me avoid investing into the wrong perks.

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Intro: Fallout 4 is set in a post-apocalyptic Boston in the year 2287. Your character emerges from an underground nuclear fallout shelter and subsequently explores the world to look for his son.

I generally hate game intros, and I kinda hated this one too. Installing the game took a very LONG time on the PS4, perhaps longer than any other game I’ve ever played, and the story intro was just so forced, linear and boring that I found myself nit picking at the character realism (lack of) and environment (say the house interiors, furniture, TV’s etc), which initially to me just really looked and felt like a 90’s PC game.

It’s not too long though before Fallout 4 sets you free in it’s huge open world, and before you know it you’re looting, exploring and getting sidetracked left right and centre en route to specific locations. The various YouTube guides I watched helped me to get to level 10 pretty quickly and I’ve distributed my perks into lock-picking so I can crack more safes to stock up on ammo, being able to carry more inventory and gun smithing so I can mod my guns for more damage. I’ve already gotten a few powerful weapons and also a few power armour suits, which are so so cool! The animation of getting in and out of them tickles me, lots!

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Characters: Meet Dogmeat, he’s my loyal companion! You can choose various companions as the game goes on, but he’s my fave so far, roaming the scary post-apocalyptic world would be super lonely without him!

Looting: You can pretty much pick up everything in Fallout 4’s open world. Managing the weight of your inventory is a constant pain in the ass though. Once you’re overloaded you can’t run and this has to be the single most frustrating thing about the whole game for me so far as I just want to pick absolutely EVERYTHING up!

Shooting: There’s always a bit of adjustment that needs to be made when hopping from one shooter to the next. Fallout 4’s crazy guns feature crazy crosshairs, all of which take some time getting used to. Fallout features an auto aim feature called VATS, it’s a kind of bullet time slo-mo thing which I find absolutely frustrating so I’ve avoided it completely and I’m relying on aiming with the controller. I’ve found that going in guns blazing works much better for me than taking cover and executing sneaky kills. Running out of ammo mid fight is a common thing though so I tend to save VERY often in order to proceed through harder quests.

Crafting: Building up settlements is pretty finicky in the game, and a bit of a steep learning curve with lots of trial and error, but it’s bottomless. What some people on YouTube have done with their settlements, turning them into amazing towns, is waaaay beyond me! I’m determined not to get caught up in a SIMS like game experience though, and have been crafting just the basics to get going; harvesting water, food, making beds, adding power, just the simple things to help me level up.

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Diamond City. Don’t quit the game until you get here, at least.

I’m sitting on level 16 now, and I’ve managed to reach Diamond City, which isn’t exactly where the game starts, but it feels that way as the story of your missing child kicks into high gear and there’s a lot you can do from the city, and it acts as a great marker to let you know you’ve at least played the game past the “intro”.

Design: Man, the worn out retro graphic design and steampunk-esque weapon designs in this game are made with SO much love. I can’t get over it, and how much awesome art there is in this game!

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The Pip-Boy is green screen (reminds me of old macs!) device you wear which you will be using a LOT in the game as it’s your main interface to pretty much everything. You can even change the colour of it. I’ve changed mine from green to Zen Teal! #findyourzen

Hours: Gaming is grinding, especially when it comes to RPG’s so I’m not sure how many more hours I’ll be putting into developing my character, or environments, but I can say that it’s been a great play so far. So, better late than never? Definitely the case when it comes to Fallout 4!

EDIT: I’ve since put in a fair few more hours into Fallout 4 and focussed on the story missions, and within a few days I’ve almost completed it! Be warned though, the story gets pretty heavy and there’s more and more dialogue as you go, but I’m enjoying it and I think I’ll finish the game (and perhaps even do a few more side missions in future!).

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