Wow, my Dogmeat can survive an extended minigun blast to the head before falling unconscious. Your Dogmeat just seems to suck.

I finally found Dogmeat for the first time today while exploring the middle of the map.

He was promptly killed by a frickin’ *bloatfly*.

I was killed about 20 seconds later by a Behemoth, so I have a save – but I’m not interested in keeping a dog alive from radroaches and bloatflies.

Something like that. I managed to find a copy of the Magna Carta, too.

Now I’m looking for Lincoln’s beard.

I’ve had the “OMG an enemy all the way in that other building, let me run over there and bite it” problem with Dogmeat. Somehow he got into a building (through doors and everything) to chase after a supermutant. I’m glad I cheated and set him essential so he doesn’t die, or else he’d be a fine particle mist by now. I try not to cheat my first playthrough but it’s really the only way to keep Dogmeat alive longer than .5 seconds.

By “crashes” I don’t mean “wait around 45 seconds and it clears up”. I mean “leave it there while I go take a crap or make a sandwich because I hope it clears up and then whoops hard xbox lock” type crashes, or “auto save file corrupted” crashes. If you haven’t seen one yet, that’s great! Hopefully you won’t.

But take my advice and save often just to be on the safe side.

Thanks for the sneaking tips! I’m relatively familiar with the sneaking mechanics in this game as they’re identical to the ones in Oblivion (duck, no lights, no sounds, etc.)

I’ll keep your companion tricks in mind; I’ve had two so far and they both were gung-ho. What I think I really want is “intelligent ai”, like exists in most games I’ve played with AI companions (e.g., “if we’re in ‘sneaking mode’, do not fire until I do”; that type of thing).

If you’re having issues with your companions, tell them to hang back or “wait”. Or, get a different one. Also each one acts differently. Clover likes to pull out a sword and run in screaming. Jericho likes to sneak and snipe. Charon gets into shotgun range and goes to town.

I’ve seen some of the “crashes”… Every one clears itself up within 45-60 seconds. Not idea, but the game does figure out it’s supposed to be doing things.

I haven’t seen floating missles, though I did see a levitating vacuum cleaner, and I have stolen some invisible clothing.

As for the ending, that’s how Fallout (and most other) games end. Finish the main quest, it’s over. Oblivion lets you do stuff after finishing the main quest, because that’s what Morrowind games do.

My main concern is replayability. There are certainly enough character archetypes to make the mechanics of another playthrough interesting, but so much of the fun of the game is discovery that I don’t know how fun it will be to play through again and think “okay, now I need to go west to that church to pick up that loot” the whole time. Maybe if I give it long enough to forget where everything is it’ll have a better replay.