Frank-who? Never heard

Nope, grinding was not necessary.

So, I arrived at Derrick, the Enclave's home base. It became clear to me that my companions would just end up making things harder for me so I left them all in the first big chamber that had the Enclave graving on the floor and I went down the stairs alone. As I was hoping, the Enclave and the turrets didn't recognize me as an enemy due to my Advanced Power Armor (it's the first power armor I picked up in Navarro, I've just called it the wrong name in the previous posts), so I collected all the useful stuff like ammo and stimpaks from the containers in the holding cell. There was some Vault 13ers and the villagers from Arroyo locked up behind force fields and they updated me on the history of the Vault Dweller and Vault 13 and told me to blow up a computer on the bottom level.

Being the final area of the game the Enclave base was, apart from the electric floor maze, surprisingly easy to navigate and the Enclave were considerably easy to defeat in battle whenever I started a fight, and I did it a lot after I noticed how pathetic they were. I entered the maze with the nine computers and ended up checking the side rooms, both filled with Enclave soldiers. First I took all the ammo I could find from the east room, then entered the west room. I found an Advanced Power Armor MKII in a locker and that's why I now know the name of the armor I wore before and also how I ended up starting the first fight.
You see, the APAMKII was too heavy for me to pick up so I had to drop some stuff to make room for it. Being a bit stupid in two ways I dropped my old power armor also, the power armor which both disguised me and raised my carry limit, and ended up starting a fight with the seven guys in the room. Ten guys in power armor, all unarmed to the teeth, and I managed to take all thirteen of them out without taking a scratch from any of them, and for the first rounds I didn't even equip my old armor. They kept missing me, all sixteen guys missed on all rounds, that makes about 60 missed shots in succession. I suppose that Evade! perk finally paid off.
So after I cleared those twenty guys I picked up the new Power Armor and headed back into the maze. That maze is annoying, it keeps hitting you for often about 7 points every 10 seconds or so and you have to fiddle around with these 9 computers that open some doors and close others. What's really annoying is that I opened a door into the hallway I was heading to in one of my earliest tries, but I reloaded a save because I thought I had to use a computer to open the final door also. I didn't, and I finally made it outside.


If someone asks, you didn't see me, right?Some stairs down and I was in the Presidential area. I talked to one of the scientists and he revealed their plan of eradicating all the mutants from the wasteland in order to rebuild the America. The probem with their plan is that all the guys out in the wasteland are at least slightly radiated, meaning they're all slightly mutated, meaning EVERYONE is about to die (this explained some things about Fallout 3's ending to me as well). I couldn't talk sense into the doctor so I instead beat him senseless, but I wasn't ready to face the guards with Gauss guns and I died.
A reload later I decided I'd still kill all of them, and started from the two guys in the first hallway. I decided to test the Gauss gun myself since I was so close to the two guards that I couldn't possibly miss, as I thought the Gauss gun was an energy weapon and my energy weapons skill is very low. Very fortunately it happens so that it's not an energy weapon at all (or mostly, I read the description), and my small arms skill is 163. I handed out death with the new gun and my old Mega Power Fist + Slayer perk.
I was still close to dying a few times since the enemy guards did a few criticals with their super guns and I sometimes fought two guards at the same time (who each could fire twice a round), but using my patented pop-out-fire-pop-in tactic at the doorways when they were still just running down the hall and healing myself after an aimed shot at someone's eyes got me through the commotion eventually. I could do all that because for one perk I raised my Agility, granting me a 9th action point, and for one perk I chose Action Boy which gave me a 10th action point. Action points matter a lot.
I also killed the kinky couple in the bedroom.

I met the president, and he was an ass. He ran away from imminent death and left me with his friends, one Power Armored guard, the vice president, the secretary and two robots. The Power Armor guy was honestly the only threat and I took him out first, after which I was 99,99% safe as I took 0 damage from the robots' missiles and miniguns. The robots kept hitting each other and one even killed the vice president and the secretary with a rocket while I stood inside the blast radius in perfect health. I threw a pulse grenade on the ground and killed one of the robots and harmed the other so badly that I could've pushed it away with one finger.
After that little meeting I went to look for the chicken-shit president. Couldn't see him anywhere at first, but I did kill the brunette in the vault jumpsuit. After a few initiated battles I finally saw the presidents outline through a wall and just walked behind him. The death animations in Fallout 2 are often very gratifying, that's all I can say about the little tussle that followed.
I picked up his keycard, nominated myself the new President of the United States and went downstairs (then went upstairs and then downstairs again... I was a bit lost).

I thought the computer that I was meant to blow up was the big machine upstairs that even said it was a computer and that it seemed like it could blow any minute (altough I never tried to blow up that one, I wanted to be sure). Luckily I found a scientist who I could talk into doing my job for me. The countdown was initiated and I casually walked away. Met Granite on my way out, but couldn't talk him into helping me so I just strolled to my death alone.
Yup, the very second I walked near Horrigan and started combat, he did a critical shot and I was blown to bits. One hit kill, literally. I was a bit worried but tried again anyway, this time sneaking closer to the computer that I could use to turn the turrets against Horrigan. Worked fine, and some thanks go to Skynet and Sulik for distracting Horrigan as much as they could. Rest in pieces, guys!
I managed to put in a few good shots myself between all the healing, and Horrigan is now half the man he used to be.
With Horrigan dead I hurried towards the exit and then perhaps the most emotional moment of Fallout 2 happened, and I am not kidding. Vic, who was still barely alive at this point, yelled out "I know Boss wouldn't let me die!" or something along those lines, and... then he fell down. I can't really describe that moment to full extent or do it justice, but considering Fallout 2's limitations in conveying emotion, especially in the middle of a fight that scene was pretty fucking dramatic, take my word for it. Don't know where Goris went, I suppose he just stood in one place the entire time and blew up or something. A common rookie mistake.

Fallout 2 is great.
The End.


First run of Fallout 2 is now done, and I must say I was blown away by the game several times. My hopes were high, but the game met my expectations and more, as soon as I got it working. Brilliant adventure.
After Fallout 2 I went on to trying Desperados again like I said I would, but didn't play it. I was hoping to continue where I left off, at chapter 10, but both of my profiles had only saves up to chapter 8 and I tell you, I do NOT want to start off at chapters 8 and 9. When I recorded the walkthrough those two chapters were what almost got me to quit playing. Recorded them anyway, if you recall. What finally made me quit was that bastard Giovanni and his complaints.
I also thought about giving the original Postal a try, but it doesn't start without a CD and fuck if I can bother with that when I only expect to play like 5 minutes.
I also looked at Hitman Contracts on the shelf, as well as NOLF, but I wasn't in the mood for installing games that I may or may not play immediately.
Instead of all these video games, my days starting from yesterday are now going to be filled with my new 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. The picture is Kaj Stenvall's Lightly at Midday. Doing good so far, and I'll be back to write about video games when that puzzle's finished and glued on cardboard. I could also write about how I put the pieces together, but I take it you don't want that.

Also, happy news. My grandmother, age 75, has had cancer now three times in her life, and this last one has seemed like a confirmed death. My grandmother is also often very bitter about everything and usually very depressed, and doesn't really even want to live that much even when she isn't sick.
For a few weeks now my mother hasn't been able to reach her on the phone and we were pretty sure she was either in hospital dying or has already died and nobody just informed us, but yesterday night she called. She's apparently healed, and it's a literal miracle. My grandmother is likely to be in better physical condition now than any of us youngsters are if the doctors are to be believed. Which is nice.