211: Junktown Dog

[kspiess]

An article on Dogmeat! Never thought I'd come across that. Good stuff.

Fallout 1/2 are just about my favorite all-time RPGs, and Dogmeat has to be one of my favorite characters from those two fantastic games. (Fallout 3: Meh.) Yet another great article on Escapist.

It is interesting how attached you can get to Dogmeat, even only with the barks and yelps of communication. I don't know how many times I had to re-load battles because of Dogmeat getting wasted..and he saved my butt from Deathclaws a couple of times, with a timely knock down.

 

[CrikeyO]

I never used a sidekick much in Fallout 3, and I reached level 20 without a sidekick, but when I found Sergeant RL-3 I had to buy him.

A giant storage kit that has a flamethrower and spouts nonsense rhetoric? Awesome. As for Dogmeat, I kept him in Tenpenny Tower. Better a robot die than him I guess.

 

[Inarticulate_Underachiever]

Shame he was useless in Fallout 3

 

[DarthHK]

In Fallout 3 your character was so overpowered you never really needed any kind of party.

Now in the original, I went through great lengths to keep him alive, gladly sacrificing my human party members (who never did learn to shoot straight!) just to keep him kicking- er... biting. Of course, it's a lot easier with the NPC command mod. Just like the Vault Dweller "I still miss that damn dog."

 

[Gerazzi]

awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

I would call this spam under any other circumstances.
Dogmeat is man's best fwiend.

 

[ThaBenMan]

A wonderful meditation on one of the most memorable, iconic characters in gaming.

In the original game, I always felt like I had to get Dogmeat because it's so friggin' hard - he really helped out a lot, at least near the start. And it was just cool to have a dog that followed you around the Wastes.

In Fallout 3, I have mixed feelings about him. It's awesome that they were making the reference to the original, and I was really excited when I first found him. But if you're sneaking around or get into a really intense fight, he's just such a liability. Aside from one epic shootout at the Bethesda offices, I left Dogmeat at my house in Megaton. Maybe when I get into Broken Steel, I'll use him more after I get the Puppies! perk.

 

[BrEnNo1023]

Dogmeat is (nearly) invincible. I treat him nicely, but I prefer 'A Familiar Piece of Brain'.
I put it on the top shelf in my ten-penny suite.
couldn't quite put dogmeat up there though...

OMG are you talking about "A FAMILIAR PIECE OF BRAIN" that i think you're talking about???

AAAARGH I NEED TO GET TO THAT DAMN BOAT RIGHT AWAY!!

 

[DrFausty]

The name of the canine character in the original Harlan Ellison short story, "A Boy and His Dog," on which the second-rate 80s film is based, is "Blood" actually - not "Dogmeat." Blood is not only a strong melee fighter in Harlan's apocryphal story, he's also telepathic. Ironically, in the story these telepathic canines have "lost the ability to hunt" and are thus 100% dependent on their 2-legger companions to find food for them. In exchange, Blood "sniffs out" 2-legger females for his human friend to rape - not very romantic, but a very Ellison-esque reversal of the usual roles of who "finds the females" for whom in human/dog relationships.

Spoiler alert: in the last paragraph of the original story, the boy kills his new girlfriend and feeds her to Blood, when forced to choose between which one has earned his own true loyalty. I don't think that's how the film ended, needless to say - not very Hollywood.

Oh, and Ellison wrote "A Boy and His Dog" after his beloved canine companion succumbed to stomach cancer at 11 years of age. He was a Hungarian herding breed, and Ellison has stated that he never really recovered from the loss of his canine partner.

There's your random canine backstory, for those curious about such things.

 

[kemosabi4]

Dogmeat is (nearly) invincible. I treat him nicely, but I prefer 'A Familiar Piece of Brain'.
I put it on the top shelf in my ten-penny suite.
couldn't quite put dogmeat up there though...

I tried to do that with the alien from the crash site. I lugged it all the way across the wasteland to Megaton, and then figured out I couldn't carry it through doors. So, I just propped it up against the door.

 

[Flytch]

Wuffles passed away a few books ago, Mr Fusspot was his replacement.

 

[aeonite]

I don't think that's how the film ended, needless to say - not very Hollywood.

The end of the film very strongly implies the same thing.

 

[Aerodynamic]

i had a great attachment to Dogmeat in Fallout 1
I Tried to keep him alive as long as possible
But when you have to destroy the Mutant Base No matter what the Forcefeilds will kill him
R.I.P.

 

[DrFausty]

I don't think that's how the film ended, needless to say - not very Hollywood.

The end of the film very strongly implies the same thing.

Thanks for the correction, I don't think I made it to the end of the film and now I've been passing misinformation as a result. Rather impressive that the film stayed to the original Ellison story ending - glad to hear.

Fausty

 

[Katana314]

Comparing to Alyx in HL2: Episode 1, I can actually see a lot of merits to having a silent animal as a companion.

- The AI might be stupid at some points, but when you yell "No, you idiot you'll get yourself killed!" it's a bit more immersive to a dog that can't understand you than an english-speaking human.
- He's short enough he won't block your bullets.
- He can make small noises to draw your attention to something, but cannot possibly ever order you around, as Alyx did once too often in Episode One. It often felt I was pressured to keep going rather than checking out the surroundings, as I did in the original HL2. With a dog, it's obvious who the master is, so you don't ever need to feel he's pressured. You're the player and you're the spotlight.
-He's cute, but still expectably ferocious.

I actually kind of thought for a while about the possibility of some single player game that just has a brief, one-chapter segment where a dog is following you around, offering small assistance in certain puzzles, as well as combat, etc.

 

[Smokescreen]

I've only played Fallout 3, but I was lucky enough to stumble upon Dogmeat early on-and with no previous knowledge of the character.

I was so lonely (Fallout does a great job of evoking a hostile wasteland that wants to kill you if anything is there at all) that keeping that dog alive became more important that completing missions.

I've never restarted a game so often. No regrets.

 

[Ham Blitz]

Maybe because I didn't use him right, or maybe because I didn't play the Fallout 1 or 2, but I couldn't help but laugh at the quote stating how effective he was.
My experience in Fallout 3 with dogmeat basically went like this:
I found him, sent him to go find ammo which he picked off the corpse next to me. I walked until we were away from the spot, and then tried again. After 20 minutes of waiting, he never came back so I reloaded, and tried again, but this time I followed after him. After about a minute of following I found that he ended up eventually just constantly running in to a wall. I told him to stop and gave up on the ammo finding and decided to just roam with him a bit. After a few minutes, I found my first enemies, which were a group of two Enclave soldiers and I think a enclave guy with a plasma pistol. Dogmeat ran for them and before I could get a good shot, he got burned and then shot with a rocket. "Dogmeat has Died" I think the game then flashed, and then I never used Dogmeat again. Yeah, I didn't reload because I didn't expect much from dogmeat and I wanted my Stimpacks

 

[Blackdoom]

I love Dogmeat he was such a good character to have with you no matter what he did not abandon you or try to kill you. Which is rather unique in the Fallout universe.

 

[Old Man Neck]

Was there a slight reference to tvtropes? Anyway, I loved Fallout 3 so much and Dogmeat would die so often I modded him to be invulnerable.

 

[revlayle]

Maybe because I didn't use him right, or maybe because I didn't play the Fallout 1 or 2, but I couldn't help but laugh at the quote stating how effective he was.

Indeed, that because I found Dogmeat VERY useless in Fallout 3. F1/2 is where the usefulness comes in.

Fallout 1: As mentioned earlier, early on, he is certainly is more powerful than the player character. The usefulness of the dog early on creates a "bond" with the player that many players try to keep him alive later in the game when he is not so effective (Miniguns + dogs = terrible messes).

Fallout 2: More of an easter egg find, however, since NPCs have the concept of "leveling up" in this game, as the main PC levels up, Dogmeat can end up significantly more powerful (can get up to 150 hit points and 16 Action Points at his max level)

Fallout 3: Nice reference, that's it. Mostly useless as a follower, IMNSHO.