Fallout 3: Quests and gallery

The ghoul's tip turns out to be on the button. We know this because of the amount of traps we have to dodge or disarm as we explore the empty corridors of the station.

Depending on your skill level, you'll be able to disarm anything you come across, but if - like us - you thought other skills more important, only simply traps can be simply bypassed. And that's assuming you see them in the gloom. More than once we stepped on a beartrap, surprised almost out of our chair by the shock, and crippled in one virtual leg.

The damage model can work for you, when you target a limb to slow down or cripple an opponent, but it can often work against you. In these cases you'll need to either sleep it off, or expend a stimpack to heal the limb. And if it's a leg, you'll want to fix it quick, as you'll be limping and slowed down until you do.

We've not yet been crippled in an arm, but presumably it would preclude the use of weapons that require both hands. At least this means that suddenly pistols are a really necessary backup weapon!

So, trap negotiated, disarmed, or set off, we finally find this Family group, and sure enough - they're a bunch of kooks. Their boss is trying to make them think they're vampires, and drink blood, so that they can have some kind of code to adhere to. You need to question them a lot, learn about them, before their leader, Vance, will even admit to having the last son of the murdered family.

At one point the quest actually seemed rather poorly constructed, but after thinking on it for a bit, and realising that we weren't treating the problem of how to get these faux-fangers to let us see the kid, we just kept talking to Vance. Sure enough, he opened up, realised that we were serious and really just wanting to talk. We got to see the kid, deliver the letter, and cheer him up; after that, he decided the life of a vampire wasn't for him.

What's more, on the way out we were able to utilise some of our other skills to find a way to keep the township of Arefu and the Family from each other's throats. In all, the quest was actually quite open, and had we come to it later in the game, we could have chosen to blast our way in and rescue the kid at gunpoint. But the solution we ended up going with seemed so much more... elegant.

As promised, we've got a gallery of shots taken during our time with The Family and our wandering about the wastes. Not only is the game a stunning story and roleplaying revelation, it's damned pretty to boot.