I beat Fallout 3 last week. Wait, I need to repeat that: I beat Fallout 3 last week. We'll come back to that point latter.
Fallout 3 was at the top of my list of missed games this last Fall. I picked it up for my birthday and spent the better part of February exploring the vast wastelands of post-apocalyptic Washington D.C. In the end, I spent about 120 hours with the game which is about half of what I spent in the world of Oblivion. Since I had not played any of the previous Fallout games, Oblivion was my point of reference for what to expect. This may have tainted my early experience.
Right off the bat, I was trying to play the former like the latter and it just didn't work for me. In Oblivion, my character was a brutal yet stealthy melee attacker. I struggled with this at first until I reconciled with the V.A.T.S. system. It felt like the game was forcing me to play a first-person shooter or a ranged character from Oblivion (which I hated for the most part). As I grew more accustomed to the new system, it felt more natural and lent itself to more strategy even if I couldn't sneak up on many enemies. It helped that my character quickly leveled up rather quickly as well.
But at first, locales seemed far and few between in the beginning. Traveling the vast countryside most definitely captured the essence of a barren, oppressive and bleak world, almost to game's detriment. Playing in small chunks of time, about an hour, I was struggling to get from placed to place in one sitting due to sheer distance required to be traveled. Going back to the Oblivion comparison, there were always areas to explore between story checkpoints, I didn't have this experience in Fallout 3. And again, I reached a point where I abandoned the story quest and found myself exploring the wastes with great joy, moving from place to place rather quickly.
The story was largely forgettable (but Oblivion's was as well), involving some annoying fetch quests to advance with a few rather jolting turns. Which made switching gears from saving the world to just wandering the lands so much more appealing. It really becomes an open-world adventure when the player is left to their own devices and adopt the life they want to live, hopping from place to place, inserting himself into the lives of others and changing them for the rest of their lives. On one hand, I would almost like to see a game like this drop the player in a world with no story and just let them create their own way. On the other, the story provides structure but there is no way that the game should end just because the main quest is over.
These quibbles with the game may be due to the way I played and every one's experience will be different, but it still leads me to believe that the pacing was wrong throughout the game. There are abrupt shifts between nothing to do and too much to do or struggling against the enemies to feeling like a one-man, unstoppable army. But then again, I spent 120 hours with the game. I clearly enjoyed it, right? Well, of course I did. I just didn't enjoy it as much as I hoped due to the sheer joy and satisfaction I garnered from Oblivion. Fallout 3 was a solid experience with a few hiccups, but left me longing for the return of the Elder Scrolls series.
Most comedians fall very flat when attempting to host game industry events, but it seems like Jay Mohr did rather well at D.I.C.E. this last week. He spouted off some humorous one-liners but my favorite regarding Grand Theft Auto IV:
“If you want to watch an awards show about thugs beating up ho’s watch the Grammys.”
We doubt that Activision would try to sue. That would be like a husband abandoning his family and then suing after his wife meets a better looking guy.
Last night I went to the Street Fighter IV launch party in downtown Los Angeles. We got there a bit early and it was a good thing too; they turned away about 1500 people! The event was cool all around and with many, many stations set up with the game, it was not long before I got in a match. I played it on a PS3 with the standard controller, on the 360 with one of the Madcatz's arcade sticks and I played the game on an arcade cabinet. The graphics and game play were similar all around, which is to say gorgeous and smooth. I have to admit I ended up preferring to play with the standard controller over the arcade sticks. I was having trouble pulling off moves and I found out the Madcatz's sticks have a square box inside as opposed to an octagonal which was something I wasn't used too. I'm definitely glad I had the chance to try before I bought.
The actual highlight of the night was seeing DJ Qbert up close and personal. Ever since seeing the documentary Scratch about ten yeas ago, I have been into turntablism and their abilities never cease to amaze me.
Yes! This is the best gaming news of the year so far. Dead Rising in my top five games of this generation and is up there with my favorite games of all time. I've mentioned before that I loved just about everything that game offered, even the things that most people said ruined the game. I don't want to assume anything yet but I am bummed that Frank West appears to be MIA. Hopefully we'll find out more in the near future. As long as they didn't neuter the gameplay, I will be very happy when this hits the shelves.
Well it's been a while since my last post. Let's see, what's been happening? My son has become a wild animal now that he's nearly nine months old. I played all the way through The Force Unleashed (which was better than I thought it would), I started playing Castle Crashers (which was just as good as I thought it would be) and now I'm playing Fallout 3 (which is not as good as I thought it would be; strike that, it's just not as good for me as Oblivion was). I'll go into greater detail in upcoming posts.
In the mean time, at least I still have a job, for now. So go buy Deadly Creatures this week so it stays that way. Thanks!
After reading last months cover story in Play Magazine, Ride to Hell looked very promising based on the description in the article and the accompanying concept art. Than I saw the above footage. I understand that it says "pre-alpha" in the upper corner, but it's still not a good first impression. At least, the video was funny.
So, I just finished Braid. I am not sure what just happened, but it was well worth the effort. Every puzzle designed in this game was brilliant. Many of them made my head hurt with and caused me to question my gaming abilities but the ones I solved on my own (I had to turn to the Internet for help on some of them) left me with an overwhelming sense of pride and satisfaction.
Jonathan Blow, the designer, set out to create a beautiful game that pushed genre boundaries and encouraged people to really think about what was going on. Personally, I don't think the game offered the closure provided by completing the game, and the complementary Achievement, but the game play was absolutely solid. I look forward to getting lost in another Jonathan Blow game, whenever that may be.
