Hate the Deathclaw

In Fallout 3, I’m taking the Nuka-cola challenge. I have to hoard thirty bottles of Nuka-cola Quantum for some nut job in the wastelands. She pointed me to the old Nuka-cola factory and distribution center where I tracked down three major shipments of the radioactive soft drink. One was Super Duper Mart, but I already looted that place. Another was Paradise Falls. And the third was Old Olney Grocery. I traveled to the latter only to promptly get my head ripped off by a Deathclaw.

Let me amend that. Deathclaws. As in plural.

At full health, these things soak damage like Keith Richards does a drum of coke. And they’re fast. And they jump stories-high into the air. One is bad enough, but Old Olney crawls with them. I must have died a dozen times clearing that nest out. I started the onslaught with more than 120 stimpacks. By the time I finished, I was down to 50. My combat shotgun is a shambles from all the rounds it pumped into the mutant juggernauts. It’s my most favorite weapon, especially effective at close range (which is the deathclaws preferred range, as it closes incredibly fast once it spots pretty), but I find precious few of them in the Wastes.

To make matters worse, I didn’t find the grocery. Granted, I’ve been too twitchy to even look. I must look like a shaking, bug-eyed tree-squirrel about to be swooped up by a feathered raptor.