I've already finished Fallout 3 once, playing through the storyline as a typical goody two-shoes. But I'm not nearly finished with the game. Bethesda has created a vast and generous world, and following the storyline will only reveal a small part of it.

So over the course of the next week, these game diaries will cover my second trip through the Capital Wasteland, formerly known as Washington D.C. I will disregard the storyline. I plan to look for strange corners I'd missed the first time around. There will be minor spoilers, but nothing relating to the main plot.

And, of course, no more Mr. Nice Guy. That was the first play-through. This is where I see what happens when you kick puppies, so to speak.

Read the first Fallout 3 game diary after the jump.

The Jury Street Metro Station is two grid squares directly west of Vault 101, on the northern boundary of the grid. Just northwest of the actual metro entrance is a store called the Gold Ribbon Grocers. It's got a spherical water tower on the roof and a ruined fusion car parked out front. You can't miss it.

Inside, you'll see a series of arrows written on the floor pointing to a pressure plate. Trap? Who cares? You know you want to step on the plate. Besides, the game autosaves any time you enter a new location like this. Worst case scenario is a quick reload. So I step on the plate, which causes things to start happening that culminate in my fiery death.

Wait a second. What was that? Okay, time for a reload and a closer look.

Around the Gold Ribbon are shelves of precariously arranged junk. The pressure plate drops a miniature battering ram into a row of detergent boxes that fall like dominoes (although re-loading seems to sometimes break the physics of how they fall). The last box drops onto another pressure plate that activates a baseball pitching machine, which fires into a set of stacked pots and pans that eventually knock a fire extinguisher into an open bear trap. The trap closes on the fire extinguisher which explodes, igniting what seems to be a bunch of flammable gas floating around the store. I can't tell where the gas is coming from, but there's a definite shimmering effect in the air before the trap goes off. Could it be from the generator in the corner?

At any rate, if you're careful about where you stand, you can avoid the explosion as it works its way around the room. But if you're like me watching all the stuff getting knocked over, you're going to get blown up.

Who would set up such a thing? Someone could get hurt! But if you do manage to survive, be sure to watch what the explosions knock loose from the ceiling in the southwest corner of the store.