Never bring a knife to a nuclear holocaust

Fallout 3 Poster, originally uploaded by wongjp.

I'm playing Fallout 3 for the 6th or 7th time. The game setting is post-nuclear war Washington DC, and even though many of the ruins / relics reflect 1950's sensibilities, it obviously happened in our future (2077) because cars and trucks have nuclear-powered engines. None of the vehicles run anymore - they just sit around in rusting junkheaps waiting for some unsuspecting idiot to put a bullet in their engine blocks...

The appeal of all 3 of Bethesda Softworks' RPG games - Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3, are huge gameworlds. Even though each time I play I follow the main quest, there are so many different places to go that each time the game is different. And those are the unmodded versions. When I was recuperating from my operation a while back I played the crap out of Oblivion, then went and downloaded the best mods I could find, and played the crap out of it again. I have yet to download any mods (other than 2 official add-ons) for Fallout 3.

Fallout 3 is special because there are no elves or dragons, but there are guns. .32 caliber pop pistols to Chinese Assault Rifles to Rocket Launchers and combat shotguns, frag grenades, pulse mines, and mini-nuke launchers, laser and phase rifles... (droool). Plus a giant freaking robot!

So anyway, last night I wander into a bombed out and (what I thought to be) abandoned Army weapons depot. A bunch of scumbag raiders open up on me from the ruins, so I run and duck behind a truck, like an idiot. I take out one or two of the bad guys then I hear a distinct "WHANG" which tells me someone's bullet has hit the truck's engine block. The truck's nuclear powered engine block. I run like mad, not even bothering to dodge bullets, until I can duck behind part of a building. All the while bullets are whining off the wall of my hiding place then I hear the "KABOOM!!!" of the engine going up. All of a sudden, there's silence.

I pop my head up, and I don't see any raiders, only the burning truck. I walk back to the fire, and I start laughing like a loon. There are raider parts scattered everywhere! Stupid jerks congregated near the truck to get a better line of sight on my position!