4. You were lead story designer for Van Buren. Tell me, what differentiated the story from the previous 2 FO games, other than the obvious ping pong reference?

Well, first of all, you don't have any association with the Vault Dweller. You're just a guy who's been imprisoned, and you may not even know why, and instead of being chosen by your community's leader to go out into the world, you're broken out of prison and left to wander about without any immediate goal other than survival (toting a rivet gun and wondering when the robots are going to try to drag you back to the prison). So right from the start there is none of the "you are someone special, you have been chosen, you must save us" ... you're nobody special, you weren't chosen, and the only person you have to save is yourself. Or so you think.

Of course there are plenty of other things that set VB apart from FO1 and FO2, but without discussing the entire plot I can't really get into them all. Plus, I don't have access to the source files for the areas any more (::grumble::) so I've forgotten some of the details.