How long has it been, since I last played this old thing?
A while, because I don't remember what the heck I was doing or where I was.
Yes, I'm playing Fallout 2, the "greatest fallout game ever" until New Vegas came out. I've actually played this game before, and posted it on the site too, but I left it alone because I was getting bored (and because 40k got my attention)
Sadly for me, it's been so long that I barely remember what my character was supposed to be doing.
Even worse for me, this game doesn't have a "Total Playtime" option when loading a save file. It does have an in game date, which tells me the day and month I saved in, which would help if I actually knew what month comes after the other.
Don't judge me.
Thankfully, I do know some of my months and picked what appeared to be the correct save... until I was saving that game and found out that it was the wrong one.
But once I got it right I now was free to do anything I wanted to!
...The problem being that, while my overarching goal here is to be strong enough to retrieve the magical McGuffin I don't even know what to do right now.
Here we are, the (proper) save file where I left off just after shooting up a mafia's HQ and killing everything inside.
Since I have no idea where past me was going with this save file I'll just pop open the Pip Boy and look at the unfinished quests I have there.
I honestly don't know what I was expecting but that doesn't really help me at all.
What I have are either unfinished quests that I haven't done because I'm too squishy to survive or things I didn't touch because they were a lot of trouble.
So I "flew" randomly for a bit and remembered that there's this one quest that I didn't do which (if you never do it) has a guy die to radioactive giant geckos. That's bad, so I guess I'm giving that guy a hand.
The quest in question must be started by going all the way back to the town of Klamath (which I did, "off camera") and has you entering a gecko infested cave which also has radioactive goop around.
Part of the reason why I left the quest alone.
Radiation is a common thing in Fallout games, but in the older ones it's a little bit more dangerous...
The player can only see radiation levels, which means you don't know exactly where you're at in the "Are My Fleshy Bits Melting?" scale and, if you get to a certain level, you'll end up melting after a while, unless you treat it before that happens.
...Which you can only do once you get to Vault City of all places, because it's the first place with a proper doctor.
You could get some radaway, which takes away a chunk of radiation from the player, but that costs money, which I doubt you have at that point in the game.
The quest with geckos sounds easy, in theory; the cave has Golden Geckos inside which are stronger Geckos that give you radiation poisoning when they bite you (unless they tear off your leg first).
So I decided to head into this hellish cave with 4 companions that work as bait human shields extra firepower. Should make dealing with these geckos easier.
I know green usually means good in games, but not so much in this particular scenario...
And it did, when they weren't shooting me by accident that is...
The only problem after that would be the green goo, which can harm you and give you rads. The solution is wearing Rubber Boots in your item slot, which makes you impervious to green goo! ...and also makes it impossible for you to use weapons since you have to be using it on the item slot for them to work, the same place were you put your boom sticks.
Companions can't use Rubber Boots (as far as I know) but they're immune to rads, as well as the guy who we came here to rescue. However, companions still get hurt by the green goo, which is why I'm alone in that last picture.
The rest of the quest is easy, either blast off all of the Geckos inside for some more exp or just leave with the NPC following you.
I used this quest as a way to measure my "strength" against the enemies, to get an idea of where I was standing.
Just because I didn't know where to go doesn't mean I don't know what to do.
Right after saving Mr. "I got myself trapped in Gecko town" we went to The Den, this game's slave trade utopia (I'm lying that would be Vault City) and I shot a slaver.
Which escalated into a shootout with the entire slaver ring in The Den.
RNG please don't fail me now!
Sorry to change the topic so suddenly but, I hope you're asking "Where does the time machine mentioned in the title play a part? I want my time machine!" Well, you'll be happy to know that it's here that it plays its part.
Fallout 2 is a game that runs on math, the bane of everyone's existence, and that means that it's going to screw you over in situations where you would, normally, not be screwed over, just like a session of D&D for example.
It also means that it will most likely screw you over in critical situations, hence my refusal to take quests at the beginning where I know I'm outmatched.
In this specific shootout for example, I got screwed over because an enemy just so happened to miss his shot and hit me "accidentally"
Here's where the time machine enters. It's the "Load" option, which you'll most likely end up using through a lot of the game once you play, as you'll probably end up hitting a "death state" where your actions ended up making the game "unwinnable"
Mind you it doesn't mean you should give up as soon as you hit a roadblock, God knows there's several hundred moments on this game that I succeeded out of sheer stubbornness, but it's more like something you use when you realize "Oops, I screwed myself here, time to split."
Like right now, for example.
We changed positions and started shooting again. This time we were more successful and managed to get rid of them all.
Going through their bodies and taking out their weapons after several losses is somewhat therapeutic.
Once again, the save scumming time machine strategy proves to be successful against adversity!
What's more, I'm about to get filthy rich! Or about as rich as a person becomes when selling a bunch of guns in a post apocalyptic world.
Sadly, all of their guns combined are just... too expensive for any merchant NPC to buy, so I compensate by buying bigger guns.
Like a Scoped Hunting Rifle, which I immediately regret buying because it turned my one reliable weapon into a stick only effective at range.
No I didn't use the time machine to reverse it, why? Because these are the losses that we take my friends, we can't just undo it all, we have to learn from our failures.
And no, it's not because I totally forgot to not save over the file before buying the gun and ended up screwing myself once again, I don't know what you're talking about.
I was somewhat emboldened by this victory over the slavers. That led me towards bigger challenges, which promptly kicked my pixel-shaped butt to next week until I went for slightly-bigger-than-average challenges.
I went to the Abbey, a location added by the "Restoration and Expansion" mod of Fallout 2. I had forgotten about this place but I think that if I can get some information on my McGuffin from here.
All I have to do is kill a beast residing on the lower levels of the Abbey and I should get access to the Abbey's computers.
Once again, the consequences of my actions hit me like trucks, Giant-Demon-Lizard-Shaped trucks.
The beast at the bottom of the Abbey? A Deviljho wait no wrong game, A Deathclaw.
Oh god he's ugly and hostile.
Oh boy he's really ugly and hostile.
Usually end game critters, these things can rip you to shreds easily thanks to the fact that they travel in packs.
The one living at the bottom of the Abbey is a regular Deathclaw standing next to his son/daughter/little abomination. It should be an easy thing to deal with at this point, right?
Nope. No one can even scratch the thing and anyone who it has on its sights dies in no time.
Such is the power of math empowered Deathclaws.
Not to mention the little one is also annoying, buzzing around and nipping at your heels.
In the end I ended up using the time machine around 7 times until I gave up and ran away from the Abbey, to greener pastures and a land where I would not be attacked, at least by giant demon beasts.
...Hopefully.
Well this is nice.
Come join me next time, once I master the power of munchkining and make the NPCs tremble before my slightly bigger than average numbers.