Spoiler Warning S5E22: In the Not Too Distant Future

By Shamus Posted Wednesday May 25, 2011

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 105 comments


Link (YouTube)

We talked about the vault-boy images in this episode. For reference, here is the image for the bloody mess perk:


fallout_bloody_mess.jpg

And here is the one they removed from Fallout 3 for “baby killer”:


fallout_baby_killer.jpg

(Or maybe it was child killer?)

My question is: What was “baby killer” for? Where would it appear in the interface? Was it a perk you could obtain? That doesn’t make a lot of sense. What would it give you? Plus 5% damage to kids? In the original game a note was added to your karma window if you killed a kid. (Which is why I always re-loaded the game if I killed one by accident.) There isn’t a karma window in these newer games. Although, a karma / reputation display would be nice. I’d like to see a run-down of what my reputation is in each town.

End of episode observation: A brand-new incredibly heavy gun for which we have no ammunition or skill points, and which is about as likely to cripple or kill the user as the enemy! Yay. At the end of this series I’d love to see how many total hours were spent scrolling through inventory screen because we’re overweight. You know, just before I kill myself.

 


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105 thoughts on “Spoiler Warning S5E22: In the Not Too Distant Future

  1. James says:

    Baby killer? humm maby a Pitt Quest perk, after you kidnap the baby maby it was supposed to die after experiments, maby?, at least then that would be a actual moral choice to that quest. other then safely experiment in location A, or safely experiment in location B. or maby they originaly let you kill kids. then Little Lamplight, would have been a bloodbath and the press would have done a back-flip. imagine Fox News if Fallout 3 let you kill kids HOLY MOTHER.

    1. Deadpool says:

      Wouldn’t that just be free publicity though?

      Seriously, does anyone here that enjoyed Fallout 3, would’ve hated it because you could kill kids? Or listens to anything Fox News says besides for having a laugh?

      1. Sagretti says:

        The problem is less that Fox News would complain, and more that it would create enough controversy to get the game an AO rating, making it virtually unsellable except as a digital download.

        1. James says:

          i didn’t really have an issue with unkillable kids, i grin a bared my way through Little Lamplight and kidnapped one of the kids for the Slavers, that made me feel better. but as Shamus pointed out it would be fucking annoying to accidently kill one while your in a intense firefight and they decide to run into the fray, ‘cus their AI is stupid, or there was an explosion somewhere because you stepped on a mine. Little Lamplight is horrible but with some prior planning can be done relativly quickly, and then NEVER re-visited. and we can assume that the Enclave killed them all. ‘cus they did right?

          1. Sleeping Dragon says:

            Except I think the kid you could trade to the slavers wasn’t one of the really annoying ones, since those were all needed for the main quest, right?

            Also, unless you went for stupidly homicidal “murder everyone who dies” playthrough, in which case you probably wouldn’t really care about the reputation thing, how many fights do you have in the areas that have kids? And in those very, very few that were how many times did the kids actually wonder into the fight? I mean, I can see how they could get caught in a mini-nuke explosion but with normal firearms it seems unlikely.

            1. Raygereio says:

              Yeah. Their AI really has to spaz out for them to run into a firefight. They’re set to flee as far away from any fighting possible, with the alterative being to huddle in a corner.

            2. Andrew says:

              The one you could sell into slavery was the most likable of the lot. Here’s her dialogue.

  2. Even says:

    It was actually just an image candidate to go with the permanent “Child Killer” reputation “perk”.

    As the story goes: This image was unused and the only Vault Boy image to ever be cut from Fallout 2. (I’m sure you can figure out why) I remember when I got the request to do a perk illustration for “Child Killer” that there would be no way to keep in from being offensive. I mean really! How do you make an illustration of “child killer” and keep it from being offensive? Anyway for some reason, I thought this was the least offensive way to do it. I have no idea what I was thinking. Even the designer who requested it realized it was a bad idea, so we fixed it. Looking back on it now, I can’t believe I drew this. – “”Brian Menzeref

    This is what they ended up using: http://images.wikia.com/fallout/images/e/e3/Childkiller.jpg

    From http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Child_Killer

  3. Annikai says:

    Isn’t there a karma display in the status area like at the very end? I’m not sure if I read what you said completely correctly or if you wanted something different but I just ran my copy (it’s on the ps3 so there may be a difference) and it’s in the stats area under general you have to click something (I’m not sure what but it’s a button press for me) and it even gives a break down by faction and area (particularly areas that are unaligned).

    1. Shamus says:

      Wow. And I never found it.

      I blame the horrible interface. And not my own incompetence / obliviousness.

      1. kanodin says:

        As I recall that screen starts by default on only reputation, you have to push another button on that screen itself to see your karma.

      2. Greygore says:

        You’re not the only one, I must’ve been about 10 hours into the game before noticing the second and third displays on the status screens (I think the in-game “challenges” – i.e. Kill 50 insects – are also in a secondary screen behind the Notes screen?).

        1. Chuck says:

          Wow. I played an entire playthrough pre DLC and never noticed the karma button.

          1. Greygore says:

            I think it was curiosity that eventually had me going over each and every status screen in minute detail. I kept wondering where on *earth* does the game keep score of all those challenges the game kept saying I completed.

      3. Jordan says:

        I don’t think it’s entirely your fault, the stats section is just badly designed. I don’t think that consoles (and the need to be readable on TVs) can fully explain away why every stat has to have it’s own screen. Why would I not want to know my thirst, hunger, and sleep levels at the same time (and ideally Health and Rads but I could live with an extra screen)?
        It is one of the reasons hardcore is a bit tedious to me; hardcore being the choice between Doctors Bags and water being useless or Stimpacks and Sarsparilla being useless.

        1. Jeff says:

          One of the greatest mods for FNV (and again, why PCs > Consoles) is one that puts all those displays into one screen. It even fits perfectly, with nothing lost.

          Guess Vault-Tech wasn’t much for Usability testing.

          1. I cannot play the games (Or Oblivion) without Darnified UI installed, it leagues better than the default UI, but even it can’t make the absurd screen layouts completely sensible.
            I mean, it could at least have a main menu or omething you can use for easy navigation.

  4. kanodin says:

    Cool, bought and played dead money right before it got terminally spoiler warninged.

  5. Deadpool says:

    Who hoo, I won the bet! There’s no way Josh is EVER selling the Incenerator, although he PROBABLY won’t pick it back up after Dead Money…

    “I enjoyed it and at the end I hated it, which is pretty much how everything goes with Rutskarn.” God that is MUCH funnier in my mind than originally meant…

    Oh and one must wonder why the secretively cannibalistic people would have a problem with the loud mouthed idiot who walks in the building and proclaims to be a cannibal at the first person he walks up to… It would be awesome if the game recognized it as such and actually gave you the option to be “bros” with them later down the quest though…

    1. Nyctef says:

      “I enjoyed it, and then Shamus made me realise I should have hated it”

      Or, that’s how it usually goes with Spoiler Warning :)

      1. Chuck says:

        Yeah, if ever there was a downside to watching SW, that is it.

      2. Tizzy says:

        You meant: Shamus made me realize WHY I should have hated it. He is very didactic in that way…

    2. Someone says:

      The cannibalism thing Mumbles described is actually a bug.

      Normally, if you convince Mortimer you are a cannibal through a speech check or using the perk option (not through the normal conversation option, which goes about as well as you can expect), he will let you bring companions to “help in the kitchen”, and even propose an alternate solution to the quest.

      1. Fang says:

        Wait? That’s bugged out? So the “Community Bugfix Compilation Patch” is better than Obsidian.

    3. They have a problem because nobody but Mortimer is actually a cannibal and eating people is forbidden amongst them. Especially if you talk to Marjorie who is the one who made the anti-cannibalism rule. Or rather House did because it’s part of their contract, she just enforces it.

  6. Hitch says:

    Mumbles wins the trolling award for this week.

    1. Halfling says:

      I don’t know if the implications for Mumbles are good or bad from the following. Because of the potential implication it could be twisted to have.

      Your experience may, of course, vary.

      *Rutskarn stops singing*

      Mumbles: “I actually enjoyed that. I enjoyed it and then at the end I hated it. Which is pretty much how everything goes with Rutskarn.

      1. Milos says:

        Yep that’s what she said, I remember it too.

        1. Deadpool says:

          I’m just happy I’m not the only one with a dirty mind…

          1. Drexer says:

            Believe me you’re not.

    2. Gantidae says:

      Yes, she does.

  7. MrWhales says:

    I hate those guys with the sticks. Although for me, the rest of the casino just ran like me, i eventually just hid in the steam room and they gave up. And now i can go back and play slots.

    1. kanodin says:

      I think what happens is the entire rest of the casino only goes hostile to you if you pull out one of your holdout weapons thereby breaking the rules.

  8. Dante says:

    In the dark, post-apocalyptic world, there is no I Can Haz Cheeseburger

  9. krellen says:

    Where’s Cass? She’s in the Lucky 38 Casino. When you go see Mr. House (or Yes Man, after replacing House), your companions “Wait” in the Casino, and you have to manually talk to them to get them following again.

    1. Milos says:

      I hate this so much. Every time I want to update a quest or go to the presidential suite I have to talk to two of my companions again. Even when I killed Mr House and there was no reason not to bring them along they still automatically leave the party whenever you go up.

  10. Deadpool says:

    Btw, about Dead Money:

    a) I never read that dialogue box before. The poison clouds are a Hardcore mode-only thing? If not, what did they mean “the environment is trying to kill you”? Cuz MAN did I hate those poison clouds…

    b) Hey, don’t we usually try and prevent heavily combat-based quests?

    c) Dead money without talking to Veronica or the BoS feels kind of weird…

    Although I’m sure C will produce some meaningful conversation for the next few episodes as the crew explains the backstory I guess…

    1. poiumty says:

      You take continuous damage over time on hardcore Dead Money. Anywhere. And so do the companions iirc. Poison clouds don’t have anything to do with it, the entire town is a poison cloud, just less dense.
      But it’s nothing a few food items can’t fix.

      1. Deadpool says:

        Well, that explains my CONSTANT low health through that DLC…

    2. Someone says:

      No, the Hardcore mode slowly ticks away your health whenever you are outside.

      Also, Dead Money is tedious and boring.

      1. SlowShootinPete says:

        The characters, however, are awesome.

        1. Someone says:

          They are. It’s a shame there are only four (and a half?) of them.

  11. Chris36237 says:

    In the german version of fallout it was impossible to kill children.
    Because they were none.

    In Fallout 2 they even removed one child that was necessary for a quest.

    Nowadays i import games whenever i can.
    Buying the localized version most of the time just means buying an inferior product.

    The only exception i know of was Half Life 1 were Valve replaced all enemy soldiers with robots. That was kinda cool.

    1. Greygore says:

      I actually owned HL’s German edition for a year or so before realising I could get it for awesome-cheap from a local retailer in English…

      On topic though: Wasn’t there a place in Fallout 2 where the kiddies actually *stole* stuff off you if their sprite touched yours?

      1. poiumty says:

        The Den, yeah. Outside of the casinos. You could buy your stuff back from a creepy dude in a ruined building though.

        1. Wtrmute says:

          If you entered combat mode just outside of their reach and passed through the door in it, they were unable to pickpocket you, though, so guess who pressed “A” a lot in that city?

          1. Deadpool says:

            I emptied my pockets into a nearby container. Took plastic explosives, armed them, walked past the kids…

            1. ehlijen says:

              I never thought of that…

              …tempted to dig up the disks again!

      2. Sumanai says:

        They should be invisible in one “no kids” -version (possibly German).

        1. McNutcase says:

          UK, probably. That had “no children”. Why do I know this? Because I went through the rigamarole of getting the children back in there. Pain in the behind, and one reason I bought the US version when I could (the US version of Fallout 2 also doesn’t have the CD check the UK version does…)

  12. Vect says:

    Dead Money eh?

    AKA the DLC that people complained as having “Too Much Dialogue” and “Not Enough Running Around And Blasting People”?

    This should be fun to see as they destroy the first of Avellone’s pet projects. Oh and have fun with Dean.

  13. Johan says:

    Child Killer was removed from Fallout 2, not 3 IIRC. And those pickpocketting kids in the Hub were really just there to gode you into killing one.

    1. poiumty says:

      Nope, Fallout 2 still had Child Killer. It caused frequent random encounters with guys in power armors and rocket launchers.

      They were NOT as easy to kill as in New Vegas.

      1. Johan says:

        I mean the image he has, not the reputation perk. I could have sworn they removed that from 2, not 3.

    2. acronix says:

      I think that`s a typo.

      1. Johan says:

        Wouldn’t Child Killer have been great in 3 though? It would at least make Little Lamplight marginally less invasive-dentistry-without-anesthetics-painful.

  14. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Dead space 2 has babies that explode when they run near you,so why wouldnt killing children in fallout work?

    Though there is no sense in it being a perk.I miss those little titles you could get in originals,like the gravedigger.I specifically carried a shovel through the whole new vegas just for that reason.*sigh*so many graves dug for meager loot and no cool title.

    Yay,a dlc.Thats why I love you guys:I dont need any dlcs when you guys pick a game that Ive played.

    1. Jordan says:

      Space zombie babies. If you were taking your Ripper to normal children I think I might find exception to it.

      1. Friend of Dragons says:

        We aren’t talking about normal children. We’re talking about children as portrayed in Fallout 3.

        1. Velkrin says:

          And the people who would be up in arms about it aren’t exactly normal either.

          Normal Person: Meh. It’s a video game. I can understand why people would be offended but frankly who cares?

          ‘Think of the Children’ Person: OMFG! This game is about killing children! I have to begin a campaign to get it banned!

          The Media: Sweet. Easy filler story.

          Rinse and repeat until a senator puts a bill forward to get it banned.

    2. acronix says:

      For your phrasing, it sounds like you are suggesting children in Fallout should explode when you run near!

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        That sure would make little lamplight more enjoyable.

        1. Chris B Chikin says:

          Comments like this make me immediately reach for the “like” button

          …then I realise I’m not on Facebook :P

    3. Deadpool says:

      Catherine has babies with Chainsaws coming at you…

  15. LurkerAbove says:

    Why does Josh always sleep multiple hours? For me, 1 hour restores just as much as 12. They aren’t on hardcore are they?

  16. Gantidae says:

    Paused at 7:57. No way is he selling that Incinerator.

  17. Rayen says:

    7:57 Sell the incinerator? are you crazy?

    18:18 totally thought “OMG WHERE IS THE CREEPER!”

  18. Esteis says:

    I have recently come into the posession of Gerald Durrell’s wonderful book “Three Tickets to Adventure”. It contains a curassow called Cuthbert, and I shall now regale you with the paragraph that introduces what is obviously dear Reginald’s equally simple-minded twin.

    After a certain amount of bargaining with the Chinaman I bought this curassow, and the owner stooped and placed the bird at our feet. It stood there for a minute blinking its eyes and uttering a soft an plaintive “˜peet . . . peet . . . peet', a noise that was quite out of keeping with the size and appearance of the bird. I bent down and started to scratch its head, and immediately the curassow closed its eyes and fell flat on the ground, shivering its wings in ecstasy and giving vent to a throaty crooning. Each time I stopped scratching it would open its eyes and regard me with astonishment, peet-peet-peeting in tones of injured entreaty. When it found that I had no intention of sitting there all afternoon massaging its head, it rose heavily to its feet and approached my legs, still peeting ridiculously. Slowly and cunningly it crept forward. Then it lay down across my shoes, closed its eyes and started to croon again. Neither Bob nor I had ever met quite such a gentle, stupid, and amiable bird, and we christened it Cuthbert forthwith, as it was the only name we could think of that perfectly fitted its sloppy character.

  19. Wtrmute says:

    Two points; so close! If only you had some sort of item which, when used, increased your points in a given skill by one or two… Oh, well. Maybe someone will mod something like that in.

    1. kanodin says:

      Stat boosting doesn’t work for perks though.

      1. Chris B Chikin says:

        There’re still some of those books that give permanent stat boosts (I think it’s +3?) like in Fallout 3. Not sure if Josh has any on him right now though.

        1. krellen says:

          There are way less of those in New Vegas than there were in FO3.

  20. Slip says:

    Josh has seriously not yelled “STOP SHOOTING ME” once this season. I think the universe might be coming to an end as we know it (I sorta miss it?).

    Oh and, I thought that Honest Hearts was way more enjoyable than Dead Money. The latter just reminded me of BioShock in a strangely unpleasant way.

    1. Chris B Chikin says:

      The universe ended on Saturday. Weren’t you paying attention?

      1. Slip says:

        I was distracted by Josh slaughtering the Boomers…

  21. Zukhramm says:

    Think I’m going to skip the few coming episodes. I’d play New Vegas and Dead money first but the game decided to start not working for me.

  22. BeamSplashX says:

    I fucking love you guys. Why aren’t we playing games together? Blaaaaah.

  23. Sleeping Dragon says:

    Dead Money? Awww, I kinda wanna wait till they release the whole set of the DLCs, possibly go for some “whole set for cheap” deal and replay the game then (largely because I hate having to reinstall the game, look for patches and other crap every couple of weeks/months) but I don’t feel like taking a pause on SW either. Sigh, I guess I’ll have it spoiled.

    At least tell me you’re not going to be doing the Honest Hearts one as well.

    1. poiumty says:

      There’s really nothing to be spoiled in Honest Hearts. You get introduced to Joshua Graham from the first minutes of the DLC and then you go around doing some boring treks through a difficult to navigate landscape. Pretty much the entire DLC, right there.
      At least Dead Money has some secret twists within the plot.

      1. Khizan says:

        Spoilers ahead for Honest Hearts. Damned if I can get the tags working.

        I was really disappointed in Honest Hearts after I thought about it. There’s no choice but to side with Graham or Danial. My Caesar following Courier never had a chance to side with the White Legs, who were working for Caesar. And there’s no option to go back and tell Caesar that you found his Burned Man.

        On the other hand, I found exploring the wilderness to be fairly fun, I liked finding the Survivalist’s Caches and realizing who he was, and it was fairly fun while I played it. It wasn’t until I thought things through that I was disappointed.

        1. SlowShootinPete says:

          Hunting down the survivalist’s caches and reading his journals made the whole DLC worth it to me. That’s good stuff.

        2. Deadpool says:

          Well, you CAN kill everyone.

          I agree, siding with the White Legs woulda been pretty cool.

        3. Vect says:

          Actually, the arguably Legion way to do things is to kill Graham/Daniel, at which point the “Chaos in Zion” mission activates where you just kill your way through The Sorrows, grab their map and GTFO.

          Caesar already knows about Graham and that he’s still alive (he’s Genre Savvy enough to know that if you can’t find the body, the guy’s not dead). That’s why he’s getting the White Legs to do his dirty work.

        4. GTRichey says:

          You can’t side with the white legs because you can’t talk to them excepting the very end if you go along with Joshua. They open up by firing upon you and your caravan. I understand the desire for choice but this is a choice that really just doesn’t make sense as far as I’m concerned and am ok with it being left out. I guess helping Joshua or Daniel doesn’t make sense if you’re allied with Caesar, but there’s always the option to just kill everyone.

  24. Irridium says:

    Am I the only one who hears Josh’s mic bug out? Like when he’s talking it sounds like he’s far away, or something. Happened when he was killing the Boomers.

    1. Raygereio says:

      Nah, I heard it to. But considering it only happened for one moment, I figured it was Josh just moving away from the mic for second.

  25. Guildenstern says:

    Somewhere within Mumbles’ first comment is the best Mumbles/Rutskarn joke ever. Less than a minute in and my day has already been made.

  26. ps238principal says:

    I think calling “Child Killer” a “perk” just means that it would behave like a perk if you offed a kid, not be one that you could pick from a list. The way I play these games (usually on the good side of things), the last thing I’d want to do is kill a kid, and from a gameplay perspective, if it meant I’d be fending off everyone who could grab a gun, then even more reason not to do so.

    It would make the game MUCH more difficult to play as Josh did if they made kids mortal, especially if they placed them in areas full of people you wanted to rain death upon.

  27. Atarlost says:

    If childkiller is a reputation perk it should only be acquired if you kill a child and leave witnesses, otherwise how do you get the reputation? What witnesses were you planning to leave in LL?

    1. decius says:

      Don’t be silly. Everyone knows what you’ve done! That’s why you lose karma for taking the stuff off of the shelves of the person who recently had a live grenade in his pocket.

      Unless you’re wearing someone else’s clothes, that is. In my current omnicidial playthrough, the only thing keeping everybody from recognizing me as “That guy who kills everybody” is the fact that I’m wearing the instantly recognizable clothing of the people I’ve killed.

      It’s refreshing to respond to “Give me all of your weapons.” by punching his torso off.

  28. Rasha says:

    Sure is nice that ruts introduced mumbles to strong bad. Almost as nice as getting her interested in batman.

      1. Mumbles says:

        8| whatever i invented lightswitch raves

        1. krellen says:

          The system is down.

          1. Daemian Lucifer says:

            Look!Were not doing this again.Look!Were not doing this again.WERE REALLY NOT DOING THIS AGAIN!

            1. Vect says:

              WHERE DOING IT MAN

              WHERE MAKING THIS HAPEN!

              Erm… Wrong meme…

  29. Smejki says:

    Shamus, you are wrong. This baby killer pic was created for another Fallout – the second one. And it was a karmic title (just as you said), not perk. it is the same thing as Slaver or Married. simply if you kill some children, you get this sign and some people of the wasteland might “not like you” for it. And some (cant get who) might like you. thats the baby killer.

  30. GTRichey says:

    This may have already been said… but Cuftburt going through dead money… just wow. This should be interesting. Also, calling it now at the end Josh will insist on carrying all the gold bars back with him.

    1. Vect says:

      It’s possible, though you need to be tricky with it and can’t just straight-up lug’em out.

  31. CalDazar says:

    Mumbles has the most amazingly innocent and charming voice, and is talking about eating people…
    Thats not weird at all.

    1. ehlijen says:

      Not since cutsy animal = bloodthirsty monster became a movie trope, no. Let alone creepy nursery ryhmes in horror movies…

      “Three have gone to die, three have gone to die…and for each one, I got a peppermint! :D “

    2. AxiomaticBadger says:

      That’s because Mumbles is the Canibalism Fairy.
      Go to sleep with your hand under the pillow, and if you’ve been very good, when you wake up the flesh will have been striped from it.

      Remember Kids, You can’t spell Slaughter without Laughter.

  32. Amorphic says:

    It took me precisely 1 minute to find a mod to turn off child industructibility.

  33. Kdansky says:

    It’s one of the most hypocritical things in our media consumption: Killing, Murder and even Genocide are fairly common, the protagonist frequently kills more than one human person per minute of game-play, but a few topics are completely off-limits: Rape is heavily frowned upon, and killing children somehow seems to be infinitely worse than killing adults. And it’s not a civilian vs soldier thing at all, because killing civilians is bog-standard to begin with.

    But then, Bethesda is pretty good at hypocrisy to begin with.

  34. Jjkaybomb says:

    Homestar Runner is just so quotable, its easy to remember every script once you’ve seen the entire archives eight or nine times.

    Its especially easy to keep up on quotes now that they havnt been updating the past few years!

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