Ignoring my whinges about spawning, I want to talk about the various characters within Old World Blues (OWB) as they make this DownLoadable Content (DLC) something quite special.
The first characters you can interact with in OWB are the Think Tank. These are brains in floating chassis who were once human. They’re all very screwed up in their own ways – partly from how long they’ve been disassociated from the biological world, partly because they’ve been ‘tampered’ with, and partly because you get the feeling they were always hovering on that border between genius and insanity.
Each is fun to talk to, with their own distinct personalities and idiosyncrasies. As I’ve mentioned previously, they hover just on the border of “silly” and yet still fit into the Fallout world, making OWB a richer experience.
The second group of characters are the various personalities within “The Sink” area. Nearly all electronic devices were given a personality, from light switches, through to the central computer. Each personality has been beautifully chosen, and acted. The two light switches hate each other, the central computer is a stuffy butler type, the jukebox is an old blues-style DJ … you get the idea.
My three favourite personalities are:
- Muggy, a miniature securitron. He’s been programmed to want to process (break down) coffee mugs. He’s envious of the big securitrons, and realises how obsessed he is with coffee mugs, but can’t change. I deliberately find coffee mugs now just to make him happy. At least briefly, until the reality of his existence occurs to him again.
- Book Chute – A machine that processes (makes blank) books, because books with information are seditious and might give people ideas. He wants a future where no original thought occurs, and Communists are a thing of the past.
- Toaster – A megalomaniac limited only by the fact that he’s a toaster. However, the world will fear him if he ever gets his circuits on some real power generators. He remands me a lot of Murray from the Monkey Island games.
I often go out of my way to interact with these personalities, even when the responses are repetitive because they are written and played so well! Muggy is still my favourite though. I love that little guy!
The last ‘character’ isn’t really a character as such. She’s the Stealth Suit Mark II, and there’s very little real ‘interaction’. Instead you get offhand comments and (sometimes) useful hints. However, wearing such a companion tickles me, even if I can’t talk back. And how can you not love someone who’s first words are “Who do you want to hide from today?”