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Fallout 3

November 4, 2008 by Keiya

The remains of Washington DCThe remains of Washington DCI better post this article before it loses complete relevance. I am just too busy playing Fallout 3 to tend to my website. This review turned into an Oblivion/Fallout 3 comparison at some point. Anyway, don't get me wrong; I loved Oblivion, but it is far from a perfect or even near perfect game. It is also a natural comparison, being from the developer, being roughly similar and using the same graphical engine.

Fallout 3 uses a hybrid real time/turn based combat system called V.A.T.S.: V.A.T.S. pauses combat allowing you to queue up attacks to specific body parts. You have a certain amount of Action Points (AP) to use and different weapons/parts cost a different amount of AP per attack. When combat resumes, your actions are played out in a cinematic manner (slow motion head explosions!). Attacking different body parts also reaps different benefits. For example: Crippling a target's leg will reduce movement speed and crippling their shooting arm will reduce accuracy.

Real time combat is fast and harsh. In fact, it feels similar to that of Oblivion's, but with more ranged options added in. For example, it is very hard to shoot accurately from a distance in real time in comparison to your standard FPS. The bias is definitely towards V.A.T.S. combat, which is just fine with me because VATS is supremely fun. From skimming the previews, I had originally expected it to be mostly a novelty. There's a lot more strategy to it than I had expected.

V.A.T.S. combatV.A.T.S. combatThere is a stealth element to Fallout 3, but it really isn't a stealth game. For example, I'm not sure there are too many (if any) combat based missions than can be completed on stealth alone. Similarly, though you can ignore V.A.T.S. and approach combat like a straight up shooter, I'm not sure I would recommend it.

Fallout 3 has a straight-up experience based levelling system. You obtain experience from tasks such as completing quests and killing things. When you get a certain amount of experience, you level up. Upon leveling, you are able to assign skill points into any of 13 skills (such as Speech, Melee, etc). Leveling also allows you to choose a "Perk." Perks range from practical (boosting damage and stats) to purely for fun (Bloody Mess).

Even though Fallout 3 is running off of Oblivion's somewhat dated graphical engine, it looks great. I love the atmosphere, the world detail and the scope of things, it really draws you in. Your first view of the wasteland as you first exit the vault is particularly impressive. The character animations and facial expressions though could have used some polish to say the least, they look awkward and wooden.

Burnination!Burnination!The world map feels more condensed in comparison to Oblivion's. It's quite a bit smaller, but there's much more to do. As I play, I find myself doing a lot of walking and exploring because it doesn't feel tedious; There aren't ginormous stretches of nothingness. The game world is littered with the shells of old buildings, towns, old factories, ruined houses and what have you.

I don't want to discuss the main plot too much because I don't want to spoil it. But so far, I am really liking the story, it's interesting and well paced. It's also, at least so far, seems to be free of "Oblivion Gate" moments. There also aren't as many quests as Oblivion, but each one is quite a bit longer.

Overall, it seems that Bethesda does know how to listen. Many of the gaping problems present in Oblivion were fixed in Fallout 3: They dumped the dumb skill/leveling system, made the world map not boring, and hired more than 3 voice actors. It still though could have used more polish, the engine quirks are still present (glitchy physics, awkward animations, pop-in).

TL;DR: It's fun, buy it as long as you have time to suck away entire evenings at the computer.

WipEout HD

September 30, 2008 by Keiya

The motion blur is a photo effect, available in gameThe motion blur is a photo effect, available in gameI have had more of a chance to play WipEout HD this weekend between Mega Man 9 sessions (and being sick, not feeling like going outside). WipEout HD is a gorgeous futuristic racing game that runs at a full 1080p and 60fps frame rate (most HD games if I recall correctly, run at 720p and 30fps). Well mostly 1080p, in order to keep a constant frame rate, the game dynamically scales the resolution, dropping it when necessary; It's really an ingenious solution. Since the game moves so fast, the scaling isn't noticeable by the human eye. It runs buttery smooth.

From what I understand, the tracks, vehicles and music are remastered selections from the PSP WipEout games. For $20 you get eight tracks (sixteen if you count the reverse tracks), a campaign, five modes and local split screen multiplayer and online play. Eight tracks may not seem like much, but between the campaign, difficulty, and what not, I don't think anyone is going to get bored any time soon.

Mega Man 9

September 26, 2008 by Keiya

lmao, is that fruit fucker in the background?lmao, is that fruit fucker in the background?It has been so long since I have played a game that was both legitimately difficult and fun. You see, I used to be good at Mega Man; there was a point, years ago in my childhood, where I could probably clear all of Mega Man 2 and 3 without dying, or at the very least dying less than 5 times.

This is a hard game, you will die. You will die and have to restart stages over and over again. Often. In fact, I spent about two hours re-attuning myself to this type of gaming environment. I swear that I died about 30 times before I got to the half-way point of any stage. Death after death after death, usually at the exact same enemy and spot. In any other game I would have just said, "fuck it" and gave up but not Mega Man. In fact, the difficulty is what makes it great. It is the well crafted kind of difficulty that drives you to play obsessively.

I Know What I'm Doing Tonight...

September 25, 2008 by Keiya

Holy banana bread, look what they've done. Now I am never going to finish my half-finished stack of games, with today's PSN updates and all. Best PlayStation Store update week ever; my credit card is rearing ready to purchase Mega Man 9 and WipEout HD as soon as I get home. Why must all games be released in the Fall? Why can't some of these wait until Spring or Summer when there is virtually nothing interesting to play?

QQ. Anyway, back to my list of half-finished games. Shadow of the Colossus is a fascinating, awesome, and not that lengthy of a game. So, shame the fuck on me for letting it rot for a month and a half. Being honest though? The controls and the camera frustrate me greatly. I'm not sure that I generally dig monster-of-the-week games either, but I will finish it!

Resistance Fall of Man and Neverwinter Nights are victims of WoW distractions. I might pick Resistance up again this weekend; I am around 60% through? I haven't finished Grand Theft Auto IV either, but that's more of a long term project. I pick it up when I am in the mood, do shit, play a few missions, and then set it down again.

I really do wish that WipEout had a demo though. But eh, it's $20.

Playing & Watching: September 2nd

September 2, 2008 by Keiya

Game Tabs is my favorite website at the moment; It's a huge resource for video game guitar tablature. I'll make a, "photo blog" post either tonight or later this week. This will probably a semi-regular occurence depending on when I feel like retrieving the pictures off of my phone. I grabbed some new gear (WoW) this weekend and did an audit of my retribution pieces. I should probably post about that tomorrow.

I'm not playing a whole lot video game wise (God forbid I do other things with my free time :P). I did though, resurrect Neverwinter Nights this weekend as mentioned in a previous post. Actually, I ended up buying it at Fry's because who the hell knows where my other CDs went (probably in a box somewhere from my college apartment). Anyway, the Diamond Edition is cheap and comes with the expansion packs, which I've never played. So it's all good.

If you have an Nvidia video card and NWN is running at a shit framerate no matter what the video settings are, upgrade to the latest forceware drivers, that fixed it for me. NWN just seems to be one of those games that has a tendency to do weird shit when you frequently tab in-and-out of it. I guess I can run it in windowed mode. Why can all games have maximized windowed mode?

I lost interest in Heroes around a third of the way through the second season and stopped watching. The third season, which looks interesting, starts up later this months. I have a couple of weeks to catch up on what i missed. I still haven't finished the last season of Stargate SG-1 or the two DVD movies. I should just go to Costco, their DVD boxed sets cost like, $19 instead of being $35 to $50.

Oh bonus! Jonathan Coulton and Felicia Day (Penny from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog) singing "Still Alive" at PAX this weekend (video is shown below the cut):

The Guardian Legend

August 27, 2008 by Keiya

Title screenTitle screenA retro review! I loved this game as a child even though I am almost certain that no one else has played or heard of it. You can probably thank the horrid box art for its obscurity (US box vs Japanese box)...but anyway, the story in a nutshell: You are Alyssa guardian of Earth, a robot chick in a bikini who happens to possess the ability to transform into a spaceship. The deathst...err an alien world by the name of Naju is heading straight for Earth and it is up to you to destroy the 10 seals, needed to activate the self-destruct mechanism.

The Guardian Legend is divided into two sections: The labyrinth, a vertical scrolling shoot-em-up and the corridors, an overhead action/adventure type area. As you explore the labyrinth you will come across the corridors. When you enter one, Alyssa transforms into a spaceship and the game goes into shmup mode. Naju itself is divided into five different zones: water, biological, crystal, organic and wasteland. The Guardian Legend is one of the earliest examples of a multi-genre game.

Multi-Tasking in Games

August 20, 2008 by Keiya

I really liked this article because it's true and brings up a gaming element that is often overlooked. They're right, of any "modern" game that I've played (and remember...), World ofWarcraft is alt-tabbing perfection, it tasks in and out instantaneously.
 
One of the PC's greatest strengths is its versatility. It's a shame that more games don't multi-task well. Many titles will tab out quickly but not many will tab back in without lagging, crashing or bugging out. All source games as mentioned in the article take forever to get back into. The Sims 2 takes a good 15 to 30 seconds to load back into at full screen. To circumvent the lag, I play it in windowed mode. The catch is that you can only play it at a maximum resolution of 800x600 windowed, what the fuck is that?
 
I love the "maximized windowing" feature in WoW, I wish all games had that. It offers every single advantage of running a game in windowed mode but with no borders and no taskbar. It will maximize to fill the entire screen. The options in WoW are also easily accessible. No configuration file editing and no hidden commands.
 
Also, I like it when games (mostly strategy games) allow you to choose between edge scrolling and click dragging. The reason being that I have a dual monitor setup. If I run a game in windowed mode (which Iusually will), edge scrolling doesn't work very because the mouse doesn't lock into the game window.
 

Initial Impression: Resistance Fall of Man

August 12, 2008 by Keiya

Resistance: Fall of Man, one of the Playstation 3 launch titles was inducted into the Greatest Hits line a couple of weeks ago. Setting wise, it feels like a cross between Call of Duty and the combine sections of Half-Life 2 with a standard Halo-ish console shooter feel. You play as Nathan Hale, a US solider who I swear looks like Keith Malley from Keith and the Girl...

Criticism: The cut scenes are awkward because they occur fairly often during odd spots and don't blend very well with the gameplay. The game will blur out, a bit of dialogue with a slide show of pictuers will occur and then the game will fade back in, sometimes in the middle of a zone. Awkward. The plot, though engaging feels derivative. The AI (at least on normal difficulty) is semi-retarded...

Good things: It's pretty, it's high definition, and the areas are visually appealing. The checkpoints are well spaced and the difficulty curve so far at least, is smooth. It's well paced and the plot, the maybe not incredibly original feeling is still very interesting and works well with the game's atmosphere. The controls are also easy to learn. If you are comfortable with console shooters you should be able to pick this up with no problem

Verdict so far: It's fun. I wouldn't give it a perfect 10, but I like it and will probably purchase Resistance 2 whenever it comes out. If you have a Playstation 3, this is worth picking up because it's a good console shooter. But, if you are looking for a groundbreaking plot with innovative gameplay, keep looking.

Save Points

August 3, 2008 by Keiya

Early console games either used a password based saving system or none at all. Later on, certain games (Final Fantasy for example) had a small battery, allowing game data to be saved aboard the cartridge's RAM. Save points were used because at the time, it wasn't possible to allow on-the-fly saving on most console games because of the game state being too complex or large for the game's memory/card/whatever. This mechanic is a perfect example of something created through technological limitation, carrying through games today.

Keiya's Favorite Game Endings

July 30, 2008 by Keiya

SPOILER ALERT! An article about game endings naturally spoils the endings to games. I know that there are more that should be mentioned, but there are quite a few games that I have never played, finished, or just don't remember enough of.
  • I like endings that to some wrap the story up to some extent.
  • I like endings that rren't complete brain fucks (I love you like my own flesh and blood FFVII, but your ending was....yeah)
  • I like endings that are a culmination of these 3 qualities: The game's story, context, and what the player has experienced.
  • Game endings don't always have to be happy and cheery.
  • Game endings don't always have to be depressing esoteric shitfests (anime ending syndrome).
  • I like game endings with epic music. Of the favorites listed below, I vividly remember Mega Man 3, Final Fantasy VIII, and Portal because of the music. Epic epic music.
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