Holy hell … I just spent far more time than I care to admit on Take It Back (the final quest of the main Fallout 3 game), and the stress was such that I’m seriously considering drowning my frustration in booze and women. Now I’ve played the game before, but it’s been a year or so, and in that time I’d managed to soothe the memory from my mind of what a FUCKING PAIN IN THE ASS this mission is. Not because it’s difficult, no. But because Liberty Prime – the giant robot whose sole purpose it is to clear away electronic barriers and kill everything in sight in order to allow you to finish the storyline – is the glitchiest piece of fail in the entire game. Due to bugs related to quest triggers and clipping path issues, it’s very likely that you’ll find yourself hopelessly stuck on the bridge to the Jefferson Memorial, unable to advance because the lumbering douchebox won’t move his buns o’ steel. And unless you’re a chronic save-gamer, you may find yourself well and truly fucked.
Liberty Prime: One Bad-Ass Mutha-Stucka
Here are just a few of the happenstances that can cause problems:
- He’s stuck in/behind the landscape
- He got turned around
- You ran ahead on the bridge
- You shot at him and now you’re his main target
- You fast-traveled away from the Citadel when he was being “launched”
- And so on …
As I was struggling with figuring out a solution, I remembered that last time I finally gave up and turned off clipping via the console, which allowed me to pass all the barriers and reach the final destination. However, I wanted to do it the right way this time, as I wasn’t sure if Broken Steel (the add-on pack that activates right after the main game ends) would work correctly if the events didn’t unfold the way they were supposed to. So after searching through 23 pages of related threads on the Bethesda forum, my irritation turned to chagrin when I realized that this time my problem was that I had killed the dude whose presence actually triggers the robot to move. Fuckin’ A!
Barring the fact that someone that vital to the final quest should not be able to be killed, I had to admit that my murderous killing spree in the Citadel (brought on by a case of Adamantium Rage, no doubt!) was pretty damn fun, and because I tend to quick-save, I had been overwriting my save points for hours. *Facepalm* I was just about to give up and relog a ridiculously old save when I realized – amidst my stumbling around the Citadel grounds in grumbly abandon – that the fella in question (Paladin Vargas) was lying just outside the Citadel door. Utilizing the “grab” function (which I’d never used otherwise, as it always seemed completely pointless), I hauled his body over to Liberty Prime, and wouldn’t you know it … The metal gladiator of death FINALLY started moving.
[Cue the "Hallelujah" chorus here!]
So for any of you who may have found yourself in similarly dire straits – and of course, I’ve tested this only on the PC version – either be careful who you kill, or be prepared to go hunting for Vargas’ body in order to trigger Prime across the bridge (which may prove impossible if you turned him into an Ash Pile, at which time you’d have to utilize the Resurrect cheat). I know quite a few of my readers are Fallout 3 junkies as well, so I hope this is useful to someone! And for those who have asked, I finished 2 of the 5 DLCs – Operation: Anchorage and Point Lookout. The former was very combat-heavy and thus a lot of fun (and it also provides the strongest armor in the game upon completion), whereas the latter added about 6 – 8 hours of gameplay, provided that you wander around discovering all the locations and side quests. I mistakenly tripped the final main quest before I meant to, so now that Broken Steel has activated, I plan on going back and doing The Pitt and Mothership Zeta, as well as some of the side quests I know I missed. Now if only I could find something to spend my 20K stash of bottle caps on! I suppose there’s always that wench back in Megaton … 
{ 49 comments }
I remember in Morrowind where you could actually kill vital characters for quests. That sucked.
I was okay with it. It meant that you had to think about the potential consequences of your actions. The game also told you when you killed somebody important so you could just load your last save.
I still haven't played Fallout 3, but I will get to it eventually.
Yeah but I played it when I barely spoke a word of English :P I didn't understand shit of it and I was just playing trial and error.
GFTO!1!1!!11!!!1!!
… But seriously, you *have* to give it a go – especially now that you can purchase the GOTY edition that comes pre-loaded with all the add-on packs. It's an incredibly long game (provided that you explore a lot and finish all the side quests), just like the Elder Scrolls series. But with the added bonus of guns, baby! Seriously, Fallout 3 may just have turned me into someone who could appreciate an FPS game after all. We shall see!
You're so cute, Coeri. That is all. ^_^
I'm in the same boat, and at the moment I am burned out on shooting things. I have the Xbox 360 and the only things it's good for are FPS, driving sims, and breaking.
It wasn't released in Dutch or German(you speak German too, right?)? I would think that it was popular enough that they would have released it in several languages.
That doesn't sound like it would have been a very enjoyable experience all round. Fortunately your English language skills have improved since then so you enjoy the English games more.
I actually have the GOTY edition for the 360. I just haven't gotten around to booting it up yet.
Well at that time I also didn't spoke German, but it's probably translated into German. I just don't like dubbing, it ruins my whole game experience (especially the Dutch voice actors), even at that time.
WTF are you doing here then? :P
Put that damn game in yer box nao!
Thanks :)
IMO, This mission should be renamed “Take Your Ass Getting Raped.” It is a M rated game after all.
I've finished the game twice and Liberty Prime was fine. I walked several feet away from it during its lethal walk. Maybe it helps that I always play characters with good karma and also that I saved often.
I have it for the PS3, without the addons though, and I remember when I got to that point.
There was so much going on that the game froze three times before I got past the goddamn thing.
The way I got by it? By staring at the ground at a long distance from the fucking thing until the entire thing was over.
How very exciting amirite?
As annoying as a big scripted character can get, you have to admit Liberty Prime is pretty all-around badass.
Just take some of his most notable witticisms:
COMMUNISM IS DEATH!
COMMUNISM IS THE VERY DEFINITION OF FAILURE.
DEMOCRACY WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED.
I wish someone would build him in real life and send him into Red China or something next time they piss anyone off or put lead in our cheap plastic products!
The worst part for me was the performance, Prime's attack on the enclave also serves as an attack on your hardware. the FPS takes a serious drop during that quest.
still fun though.
Aaaaugh, Liberty Prime glitches. How I hate, hate, hate them. I feel your pain. I really do.
While his lines are absolutely hilarious, especially considering the irony behind them, the glitches make Take it Back! So, so unbearable. Ugh.
There was one unfortunate point in one of my runs where Paladin Vargas got freaking hit RIGHT AWAY, making Liberty Prime absolutely immobile and driving me insane. You'd think it'd make more sense to make Liberty Prime require Sentinel Lyons; at least she's essential! :S
But, that's Bethseda. Fix one glitch, make 10 new ones! Logic! :D
It might just be me, I hope it is just me, actually, but Broken Steel seems to overall be even glitchier than Take it Back!. Be warned. I can also hear a noticable sound quality drop between the normal fallout 3 lines and the new Broken Steel ones. Weird.
COMMUNISM IS BUT A TEMPORARY SETBACK, ON THE ROAD TO FREEDOM.
See? This is what happens when you go on a murderous rampage. Shame on you.
I have to say I found The Pitt to be super buggy. There's a roof that you will fall into to your death unless you No Clip or restart. I'm playing on the console version, so I don't know if that'll happen with the PC.
Still, you can find joy in the smallest things. Things such as leading a Deathclaw over to a town infested with Raiders and then booking it away from both at high speed. Good times!
And stealing the teddy bear that triggers the Super Mutant Behemoth. That's a surreal moment, to be sure.
I'm a perverted geek if I find that comment sexy?
… Yep, I thought so. ^_^
Sadly I don't recall the ass raping! Must have been in the European version. ;-)
NO! =)
Yeah, that quest nearly brought my PC to a grinding halt. And so help you god if you provoke the wrath of LP. He'll start shooting lasers at you that will turn your screen to a blinding white color and make escaping virtually impossible. Yes, I know – serves me right for being a tool and shooting at LP. But he wasn't moving, dammit! I was desperate!
Oh I know, there's a hilarious list of them here: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Liberty_Prime
I have to say, it was a lot more fun finishing this quest with LP doing his job – although it was a bit too easy. Last year I pulled it off but it required obscene amounts of ammo and lots n' lots of saving. Totally not worth it for the lackluster ending!
YES, THANK YOU! Why in hell is Vargas the trigger when Lyons can't be killed? *Facepalm*
I did notice that Broken Steel being activated led to some massive glitchiness at the end of the main game. The “story wrap up” kept skipping every 5 seconds or so, which made it unbearably irritating to sit through. Ahh well, now that I'm back in the game my main objective is to go check out The Pitt and Mothership Zeta. I thought about scrounging around the locations I hadn't yet discovered, but with such a huge stash of caps and already having some of the best armor/weapons, I don't see much point in it. Looting was a lot more fun when I was desperate for the moolah!
For whatever reason though, I am DEAD SET on finishing that stupid Nuka Cola Challenge. But fuck me, those Quantums are hard to come by! I had to take that lame-ass Nuka Cola perk to try to speed things up too!
“See? This is what happens when you go on a murderous rampage. Shame on you.”
But … But … It was fun n' stuff! Besides, I consider it to be training for my future as a goddess of the FPS. How'm I gonna learn how to kill stuff effectively if I'm rockin' the good karma all the time? ;-)
Oh man, Super Mutant Behemoths … I read something about fun things to do with the console codes, and someone recommended finding an empty bit of Wasteland and spawning a bunch of Behemoths, then going to town with your Fat Man. It's tempting! I have all these mini nukes and nothing to use 'em on, after all …
Console codes in general are fun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlN9hutzz5w
I guess this is somewhat relevant. An old video I did of me spawning some Behemoths in Tranquility Lane. :D
(Hate the quality, capable of far better now, but, hey, it still works.)
That is sick and twisted and therefore AWESOME. =)
Ah Bugs… the fun of having to find a mod that fixes them. If you have allot of money to spare and have Mothership Zeta left to do, you will be getting alot of money for the alien rubbish you don't need. Zeta has weapons that beat nearly everyother weapon in power and with all the weightless items you get there that sell for 30caps per item. With almost 2000 ammo for a gun that 1-hit 1-kill's most enemys too.The mothership is a easy lvl2-5 place for me that just gives weapons to finish the game with. *sigh* Last dlc's are always the easyist to finish.
Mothership Zeta is a real pain in the ass, no choice, just boring corridor crawling. The only good point, is the npc that can be killed and looted, they have some cool gears.
I am a VERY avid game saver (sierra taught me well) but even so, it still sounds frustrating. That being stuck behind the landscape thing would seriously drive me bananas.
I can safely say that I've never experienced and glitches or bugs in all the time I've been playing Fallout 3. That is really bizarre! I've finished all but the Mothership Zeta and Broken Steel on the DLC's. Finished the game quicker than I wanted to before I even had the DLC's, but good thing I had a save before I entered the memorial just before we go on that mass killing spree. (I always save)
That's why in games like these you save BEFORE you go on a killing spree, then load the save when all that Adamantium Rage is gone! Which happens to be my favorite thing in Oblivion… Is that a bad thing? =P
Sounds awful. ;_; I'm not much of a gamer but i've run into things before that forced me to have to restart. Magna carta for the ps2 is one of the best examples. It's a beautiful game, and i'm submissive by nature, but even i couldn't handle the pain of restarting for the 7th time.
My buddy had similiar complaints on the computer, never had problems with my PS3 version, he was happy when he finally went the PS3 route. Good luck.
I was off work for ten days during Christmas. I had one gaming goal: to 100% Fallout 3 with all DLC on the 360. My last day off at 2 in the morning I finally finished the game. I don't want to even guesstimate how many hours I've put into this play-through. I happen to be fortunate to work in the IT field in VA and a friend of mine wrote code for Mothership Zeta. Even though I've achieved all goals I still know there are quests and areas that I haven't seen. Being a avid gamer for the better part of 30 years I can honestly say that this game, having never played any other Fallout game, is one of the best titles bar none.
It has its issues. I'm sure there are entire websites dedicated to the bugs in this game. I honestly believe that is the reason for the way the save system operates. I find it both painfully annoying as well as absolutely necessary. When I inquired as to the opinion Bethesda has on this subject my friend was oddly tight-lipped. On the 360 at least it seems that The Pitt in connection with having Point Lookout installed caused most of my issues.
In my defense I just bought a new Xbox (the COD MW2) about a month ago. I have a high-def TV that I connect to through HDMI. I installed the game; as well as all of the DLC on the HDD. I didn't really notice any bugs until I had almost finished the main story itself. I did Anchorage early on for Stealth Armor and then Zeta about halfway through for the ridiculously awesome weaponry. Needless to say (but I will) the combination of Stealth Armor with about 3000 rounds for the Alien Disintegrator will take down just about anything.
It wasn't until around the time I visited Little Lamplight that I started having issues. The screen would randomly black out for about 1-2 seconds. The sounds were still there and I had control of 101. It would happen randomly. This continued throughout the rest of the game. After the main quest I began Broken Steel. Same thing. Then I started The Pitt. My Xbox would randomly lock-up to the point that I had to turn it off and then back on. This probably happened about 3 dozen times. When I went for all the ingots I planned ahead and constantly saved after each batch just for this reason. Oddly enough it never froze on me or had any random bugs that others have. Point Lookout I did last. I don't remember it ever blacking out on me or freezing up. I did the entire 4 quests and the locations in about an hour and a half. I found every location but I didn't explore hardly anything. I'll save that for my next trip into Capital Wasteland. Every game I've played since as well as all of the Netflix I've watched in the past 2 days I have not had ANY of these issues.
Being in the field I'm in I have a wealth of useless and boring facts that are ever-changing and often wrong due to linear thinking. However it is widely accepted that you cannot write 10,000 Lines Of Code without creating errors. Usually in the 100's. Considering Vista (I know) with 50,000,000 LOC you can see where the problems lie. This might help if you're bored: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/00063.... Although to be fair Bethesda did use a broken game engine to develop this.
In my humble and useless opinion, even with all of the bugs and problems that this game has, this is still hands down one of the best games ever made. I would put it against ANY game ever made. It might lose to a few other ones but in the end it would always get top billing and an honorable mention. Bethesda has a lot going for it. They obviously know how to make a good game because quite honestly any other game with these crippling issues without this level of immersion would be in the bargain bin at Wal-Mart. If there were any advice to offer Bethesda it would be to not change how they design or develop their games but rather how they execute them. Valve (I know) has this point down particularity well. They have said time and time again it will be released when it's ready and most of the time that practice works exceedingly well. And as an added benefit makes sometimes a sub-par game, for one reason or another, better than the sum of its parts.
I look forward to the Fallout Trilogy I just purchased on Amazon to see where the roots of this game came from as well as to hold me over until New Vegas. Needless to say I am hooked on the Fallout series. As any other great IP that came before it I am a die-hard fan. I just wish I had discovered this sooner. Now I'm going to troll Ebay for the lunchbox and bobblehead.
Get the Broken Steel add-on. Trust me. You'll have plenty of things to use it on. Super Mutant Overlords, Feral Ghoul Reavers and *shudder* Albino Radscorpions pop up all over the Wasteland. They're vicious and hard to kill; even at level 30.
Plus, you can get some bigger guns that way, too. =) My Tri-Beam Laser Rifle is amazing.
When you finish Fallout 3 again, New Vegas is looking to be made of awesome:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Rumor-Mill-Fallo...
New features? Harder to reach level cap. New perks. Gambling. Arena fights. The ability to play as a human or a ghoul. And vehicles.
The sweetness abounds. Release date is set for June 1st.
The Nuka Cola Challenge is hard? o.o Those Quantums are pretty easy to come by. Have you been using them at all? I just stored them in my house.
Well I have something that might make that quest a little easier if your still stuck on it. One of the new perks for Broken Steel allows you to get one quantum for every ten Nuka Cola's it makes that quest a hell of a lot easier that is if your willing to waste a level to get it.
Sorry didn't see that last bit saying you had already gotten that perk
Yeah, at this point my only impetus to finish the DLCs is to see what kind of gear I can scoop up. I'm pretty well burned out on Fallout 3 and haven't touched it since around the holidays. I'm craving a different gaming experience … FPS, maybe?
Are you playing on the PC? I think it you generally do things in order, you won't run into many problems. Me, I'm the sort who enjoys doing things ass-backwards and generally effing with the story line as much as possible. I blame it on a site I found years ago that offered “alternate walkthroughs” for games like Deus Ex and Arx Fatalis. They managed to make the games a lot more fun by taking advantage of bugs and purposely doing things out of order. Nowadays, the idea of following a questline as it's laid out seems so mundane! :)
Saving is for pussies! =P ;-)
Oof – SEVEN times? That's brutal!
Ohh, that lunchbox is a thing of beauty! Spoony has the special edition, and I have to fight the urge to steal the bobblehead every time I see it. Have to admit, it's an incredibly stylish game, themewise. I even really enjoyed the vintage music on GNR!
It's being released on my birthday! That's a good omen right there. =)
Is New Vegas a sequel of sorts? Calling it a “spinoff” makes it unclear as to where it fits into the scope of the game. But either way, it's definitely on my must-play list for 2010!
Oddly enough I've been following Spoony for about a year and have never
posted. I was a AVGN fan that begot TGWTG that begot Spoony that begot
Scarlettopia. I've only posted at AVGN once because of an audio mixing
problem that James had. I've never posted at TGWTG. I did order the special
edition sans game. If you decide not to steal Noah's but want one of your
own:
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Fallout-3-Collector-Bob...
is how I got mine. Also I ordered some Nuka Cola Caps:
http://cgi.ebay.com/RARE-Nuka-Cola-Bottle-Caps-...
look even better in person. Because I build, sell, repair and recycle
computers for a living I am debating on building a PiPBoy 3000 with a
working Geiger Counter and a touchscreen Atom based processor (what else)
computer somehow stuffed into it. I've been debating on starting my own web
site but I have very little money and even less time. I'm also a bit out of
my element when it comes to web design. I just found out that the guy I know
that worked for Bethesda has taken a Job at Apple. Not sure how I feel about
that. At any rate I can barely look at my Xbox even now and not want to
start a fresh game of Fallout. It just gets under your skin.
When I played Bioshock, I got to the final battle, all ready to win, and…on the elevator up, the syringe to extract EVE from Fontaine during the battle vanished, and the message to pick it up before boarding the elevator was still on the screen, even though I'd picked it up from the Little Sister. I had no earlier savegame, and calling 2K only got me accusations of tampering on my part. I've still never beaten that game, technically.
What mods do you use Scarlett?