Slaughter Manslaught
Vault Senior Citizen
Sad but true. I don't like how my pip-boy comes with a geiger counter that warns me, because it makes things too easy for the player. "Hey look, I'm getting two rads per second by being in this pool. I'll go away quickly." It would be much better NOT to warn the player like this. Want to know if you are radiated? Get yourself a geiser counter. And prepare yourself to spend a ten thousand caps. I think Geiger Counters should be quite rare and expensive, something only Brotherhood or Enclave personnel, good medics and rich adventurers can get. Rad Away and Rad-X are too plentyful, they should be rare, like mininukes (which aren't very rare by themselves, though, but still...). Without a warning system until the endgame and rare anti-rad chems, Fallout 3 would get pretty challenging. And make Moira's quest harder, because you might kill yourself trying to get those 600 rads. And stats don't matter much in Fallout 3. Try playing Fallout 2 with EN 2 or less - EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING WILL KILL YOU
Two or Three shots from almost any weapon will easily take you down, even fighting Radscorpions will get harder until you get a decent gun. Fighting with big groups of armed robbers or gangsters is super-hard. Even the end-game will be super-hard. For bonus hardness, play with Magnus' Weapon Mod or Glovz' Combat Mod. Watch yourself avoiding combat like the plague. In Fallout 3, you are so resistant by default that playing with low EN is not only possible, but not even hard at all. This applies to any other stat in the three games - Playing with low IN will turn you into a retard in the first two Fallouts, playing with super-low Charisma in Fallout 2 will deny you NPCs, sex and some quests, playing with low strength will force you to stay away from using anything bigger than a pulse pistol, playing with low PE in Fallout 1&2 will turn you into somekind of blindman who can barely shoot to save his life, etecetera... In Fallout 3, almost all stats are useless.Fallout 1 did it somewhat best than Fallout 3 because, while the game warned you, it did not tell at your face "GET RAD-X AND RAD-AWAY, USE A GEISER COUNTER!" The Glow was one of Fallout 1's best locations - Because it challenged you mentally. The lack of a rope was a classic GM's buttrape ("you try to touch the lever with your 10-feet pole, but you need a 11-feet pole! Go back to the distant city and buy one, good luck surviving the rampaging orc warlords in this forest, hahahahahah!), and the radiation was a great touch. Many a player died because he forgot to buy Rad-X or spent days playing chess with the super-intelligent computer or decided to read a scientific book... in the middle of a radioactive hellhole. It was also hilarious.
Fallout 2 should've had more radiation. Toxic Caves is strangely deprived of radiation, when it should be a cave full of radiation. The only way to get radiated there is for your boots to melt and force you to step in the goo so many times that you will go to The Den with degraded stats, happened with me once. Having your boots melt while you are still in the middle of the adventure is one of Fallout 2's most frightening moments. But still, there should've been A LOT more radiation in the Toxic Caves. The Gecko Reactor is also strangely deprived of radiation for a malfunctioning reactor. Trying to fix the reactor by yourself should be something risky that may end with you rad-sick. The Uranium mine is also strangely lacking in radiation. The only middly-radiated place in FO2 is the Toxic Waste Dump, but even that is too low, although if you fall there, radiation will be the lesser of your worries.