Fallout: New Vegas - I thought I wanted more

I did.  I really did...think...I wanted more.  I LOVED Fallout 3 when it came out and I played it on PS3.  It was the shooter version of one of my all time favorite games, TES: Oblivion.  Despite the bugs that were in Fallout 3 (like the game freezing during the cinematic critical strike scenes causing you to hard reboot the system), the story, open world, choose your own adventure style of play was fantastic.  A few months ago, I had about $50 to invest in my next gaming experience after having finished AC2: Brotherhood.  I wanted another RPG to sink some time into and keep me from spending money, so I decided to pull the trigger on New Vegas.  Review scores were high, and I pretty much knew what I was getting.

Where are the games?

Well, at least the ones I like?  And specifically, the ones that push PC's?  Most everyone I know has switched to gaming on their PC's and Mac's.  With the disaster of what's going on with Sony, and the aging graphics of the Xbox but continued high prices, most people I know have switched to primarily gaming online with their computers.  With the surge in downloadable games, growth in delivery services like Steam and D2D, and hardware pushing ahead, where are the developers pushing forward?  Have they all bought into the idea that all game sales are on the consoles, and only the casual Facebook crowd game on PC's?  Or that the iPhone is the only place to innovate?  Having invested in some new hardware, I am searching for games that will let me see some eye candy.  After hearing on a recent episode of the Bombcast that Skyrim was going to be DX9 in November (due to consoles), and we're on DX11 in the PC world, I was pretty disappointed.  Funny how things have changed, and PC gamers are now the "ports" and "afterthoughts".  At this point, I don't even care what version of DX you use.  Just push the performance on the pc versions.

For Science!

When the first Portal came out I was just blown away by such a simple idea. 1 gun, 2 portals and a lot of puzzle solving. I fondly remember playing Portal in one sitting and before playing Portal 2, I quickly refreshed my memory by playing the original one more time. Despite Portal 2 just on the horizon it was still an absolute pleasure to play the original Portal.

Portal 2 returns you back to Aperture Science as Chell. Our female mute hero who has a knack for puzzle solving is awoken by a new character called Wheatley voiced by Ricky Gervais close friend Stephen Merchant. I’m going to get this out right now, the voice acting in this game is great and the narrative is spot on. GlaDOS makes her return with her witty, death threatening, yet very satisfying and often hilarious announcements as you play through each level. Stephen Merchant does a great job in his role as the rather dumb yet helpful sidekick that he is at the beginning of the game. Being British I enjoyed hearing a British talent in such a mainstream game and was quite surprised that voice acting, story writing and character gestures were all executed sublimely. I’m almost tempted to put down that half the fun was just waiting to see how GlaDOS would insult you next or what Wheatley was going to say the next time you saw him. Even Cave Johnson, the creator and owner of Aperture Science who you hear from later in the game does an excellent job of not only personifying the craziness that is the Aperture Science Labs approach to science but also the aging of the company itself.

Aperture Science is in large scale ruin. Nature has made its way into some test areas while others are just decrepit and falling apart. It’s a nice change to what we were shown in the original Portal, but GlaDOS is busy repairing the test areas for you as you advance. What I really enjoyed was how Valve showed the player just how big and massive Aperture Science is. If not darn right ridiculous. Test areas are just huge cubes of robotic tiles that can are themselves movable in this giant structure of a testing facility. It’s really quite cool and I was glad to discover more about Aperture Sciences inner workings and history.

The tests themselves have new components to them too. 3 types of Gels are introduced. Blue allowing you to bounce to the same height you dropped from; great for clearing massive gaps. Orange gel allows you to accelerate rapidly along it and white gel when applied to surfaces makes that surface usable with the portal gun. Tractor beams which could both push and pull, light bridges which could be used to walk along as well as act as a barricade for moving objects or protection against sentries. My personal favorite was the faith jump plates which would launch the player or an item very high into the air at a designated target. I really enjoyed the air time moments in the original portal where you had to plant an entrance and an exit portal while you were in midflight and was glad to see more levels like this in Portal 2.

With all these new additions, you might think puzzle solving in Portal 2 is a real head scratcher, but really their quite solvable. Admittedly there were times where I was like; WTF? But Valve did such a good job with slowly easing the player into learning each new device and how these could be used to help solve future test areas. The learning curve is balanced very well and I never felt any puzzle were impossible. Importantly Portal 2 never makes you feel stupid. Sure you might stall on a few levels while you think, but when you do realize the solution you’re never embarrassed by how stupid you were at not noticing the solution sooner, just genuinely satisfied that you solved the puzzle. It’s a great feeling solving a puzzle in the test area, reaching the exit and moving on to the next test area.

The story in Portal 2 is a lot more informative than the first one. You learn loads more about Aperture Science and its history. Wheatley sets the tone of the game at the beginning but soon you find the tables have turned and you’re learning a great deal from GlaDOS and Cave Johnson in the later levels of the game. I enjoy learning about the lore of game worlds and even though Valve has only briefly mentioned Aperture Science in Half Life 2, I did find myself thinking how Portal and Portal 2 fits in the Half Life universe timeline. In any case it was cool to finally hear about how GlaDOS had come into being. Some information is revealed about Chell’s past but nothing on the scale to everything else going on. While the story formula is nothing new in Portal 2, it was an absolute pleasure to play through to the very end and see the conclusion, which by the way is out of this world! Spoiler? Maybe, but it was an epic end and the rolling credits had me smiling.

A great game and one you should all add to your collections. Could it be game of the year though? Hmm way too early to say for sure. Were only just entering Spring and there are so many games to be released yet but I think it’s safe to say that since 2011 started this is by far the best game to be released this year so far. I’ll be posting my Co-Op review tomorrow.

MAXIMUM REVIEW!

Crysis 2.

Being the budget gamer I am, I’m forced to play the shiny new PC games on a somewhat graphical lackluster rig. In this case my laptop. While I can game quite comfortably on my laptop, it is starting to show its age when processing the eye candy. Never the less Crysis was able to detect the ideal settings for my laptop and runs rather well on it. We all know Crysis 2 looks amazing.

Even though the graphics are scaled down for my laptop I was still really impressed with the visuals. Crytek did a really good job with creating a destroyed, occupied New York city and while the open world exploration is gone there is still a large amount of freedom for the player to navigate through levels. I found myself using different tactics where possible depending on the terrain of the level and the amount of bad guys in my sights.

Crysis 2 lets you know when you’ve reached a strategic moment which usually places you on some high perch looking down on the level that awaits. During this time you can go into binoculars mode and have a look around, highlight enemies and ammo dumps as well as think about how to get from your current position to the objective.

In all honesty though, there isn’t really much emphasis for you to be strategic. I found myself just having a quick glance at where the enemies were, where the ammo was and if there were any vehicles packing heavy weaponry. The problem is that your radar gives away too much information. It lets you know where enemies are and which way they’re looking. I know you’re in a high tech suit, but a little less of warfare information would have made things a little more difficult and surprisingly. Sorry soldier hiding around the corner, but I know your there! There have been moments though where I was caught by surprise but I think this was just orchestrated by the game itself. The AI aren’t that smart either, too many a time have I caught a soldier glitch walking into a wall only to die by an equally unimaginative and over reused melee kill.

The suit is the real star of the show though. The suit powers have been more mainstreamed since the original Crysis; powers can be activated and deactivated by a simple key press, though the command star is still there. I never did understand why sprint was a power though. Yes sprint is slightly faster in Crysis 2 than other FPS games but it’s not that fast. Maximum armor and cloak are probably the 2 “real” powers you use the most often. Sprint can be used in conjunction with cloak and maximum armor but it drains your suits energy at a higher rate. The same when you use the power jump. The suits power animations though are quite impressive. I especially liked going in and coming out of cloak mode. The animation on the weapons and abilities like grab and melee, while nothing new were all rendered very smoothly. You also have nano vision too which is basically thermal vision. It’s necessary to use in low light parts of the game and when tracking down foes, but really it’s just thermal vision. Why call it nano vision. I felt like there was a missed opportunity here for more suit powers.

Crysis 2 forces you to use the suits powers a lot, but as you progress through the game, you build your own method of combat style with the suits abilities. For the first part of the game I was being very covert and had some excellent moments where I would clear a whole level of enemies with melee kills or just sneak straight pass them. It’s enjoyable but time consuming and you soon find yourself combining powers as the situation evolves around you. Different enemy types require different approaches and mixing all these up kept me thinking throughout the game. I certainly didn’t feel I was on rails shooting non-stop, though there are boundaries and limitations to the freedom you have in levels now. The open world island of the past is gone, but there is still a level of choice to what you can do.

What I really liked about Crysis 2 was the on the fly customization of weapons and your suit. Each power tier can be upgraded to have a bonus trait. For example cloak can be upgraded to use less suit power and the time to activate cloak is substantially quicker. These upgrades cost nano points which you collect from the dead aliens in the game. Weapons can be modified to have different types of scopes, silencers, attached shotgun/grenade launchers, extended magazines, firing modes. I definitely appreciated being able to change the weapons in the game to meet my needs. Something I wish I could see in more FPS games.

The story in Crysis 2 is a lot more character involved. In the previous Crysis I felt there was more emphasis on just the suit, the island and the alien invasion. In crysis 2 there is a lot of dialogue and cut scenes between levels. Some might say too much but I didn’t feel like I was being pulled away from game play for too long and I did enjoy following along with the story.

There’s multiplayer too, but when it comes to FPS games there is only one FPS game I play online and that is the Battlefield series. I played a bit of the multiplayer but found myself just running around aimlessly with my team mates or cloaking up behind enemies etc. It’s fun for like an hour or two but nothing engaging or rewarding about it at all.

All in all a good shooter and an enjoyable single player. Use it to benchmark your gaming rigs.

FRAPS is not your friend

Recently, I wrote a perspective comparing experiences of gaming on the PS3 versus the PC on the Assassin's Creed games.  During that time of comparing and contrasting the video fidelity, benchmarking, and asking for outside opinions from my wife, one thing became clear; I'm a bit obsessive.  The second thing that became clear is that FRAPS is not your friend.

Assassin's Creed (2 and Brotherhood): PS3 vs PC experiences

I've recently spent over 100 hours with Ezio/Desmond and crew. That's a lot of time, and I'm a little burnt out. So instead of contuning to write reviews like all the game sites do, I'll try to come up with new angles to write about. For this one, I thought I would write about the different experiences because of the change in hardware.

New Hardware! AMD HD Radeon 6950 and OCZ Agility2 60GB SSD

Well guys, I saved my pennies, got some birthday money, and invested in a new card (XFX 2GB version).  I wanted to get something current generation with DX11 support and determine based on that upgrade whether or not to invest in a new cpu/mb/ram upgrade later this year or postpone to next.  Also, I wanted to see for myself if the SSD hype was worth it, and upon stumbling into a sale at CompUSA, I picked one up.  What are the results?

Say it isn't so

Monday, March 7, 2011, was a very sad day for me. Ladies and Gentlemen. After almost 5 long years of great service, my day one 60GB Playstation 3 has played its last game. I have seen the ylod (yellow light of death) and its not pretty. I was horrified. All we wanted to do was watch a little “X-Files” on Netflix and it happened. Girlfriend ask, “Why is it not on?” and inconsiderately change the input to the DVR before I even got a second chance to try to turn it on again. I was in denial that this was happening to me. I mean, I knew one day that this “Day” would come, but I was hoping it never would.

So here I am today, 2 days later, trying to troubleshoot the problem. I don’t want to replace it with a new model because I like how the old launch models could play PSX&2 games. There’s a fix for it but you got to take the whole thing a part and you need a decent heat gun to reseed the main chips($80) but this may not fix the problem. I could get Sony to fix it which I hear is about $150, half of a new system. A friend of mine said it cost him $75 to fix his 360 from Microsoft. $150 seem like a lot at the moment to just fix a 5 year old system. Crap my killzone 3 disc is in there and I can’t get it out.

Time is money!

Have you ever wonder how many hours it would take to complete a game? As I was playing Dead Space, I could help but wonder how much more game play there was left in the game. I didn't want to look up how many chapters were left because most of the time it would contain spoilers. Friend, spoilers are not fun. Then I came by this today.

http://everdred.com/gamelist.php

I been playing GTA 4 for 30 hours now(ty steam) and I see that on avg most beat it in about 40 hours. So I'm about 75% done with the game. Neat helpful little tool if I do say so myself.

Deathspank review

Deathspank is a game I purchased back while I was still playing WoW, and considering quitting.  It looked appealing because it promised a fantasy world that had great story/humor, leveling up system, and loot acquisition.  I thought it would help meet the same ego filling needs that WoW was meeting, thus assisting in quitting WoW.  The Problem?  I still had subscription dollars going to Blizzard, so why play this when I'm paying for that?

Marvel vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds

I remember the first time I played Marvel vs Capcom at an arcade at Disney World. Can you imagine as a high school student walking up to a machine that married two of your favorite things. Mega-man and Spider-man in the same game. WTF?!?! Played one game and I was hooked. 11 years later Marvel vs Capcom 3 hits the world and what's changed since then?

GO VOTE! NOW! STOP WAITING!

http://www.artofvideogames.org

I don't agree with all the categories or the games they put in them, but so be it.

I got your game play right here!

Here you go, Nintendo fan boys!  Explain this!  Mew ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...

Seriously, this is some funny shit:

Dead Island Announcement Trailer

IDK anything about this game but its awesome! (blood&gore)



wiki:


* The game features a sandbox style gameplay on a tropical island.
* The zombie style and the story are massively influenced by George A Romero's movies.
* The game is focused on melee combat, the player can pick up almost anything and use it as a weapon.
* There are multiple playable characters.
* 4 Player drop in/out Co-Op

Stacking stacks up

I've been on a kick lately to play some downloadable games.  The latest I completed is Stacking.  For this article, I don't want to write a review.  Their are a hundred sites out there that do this already.  Instead, I'm going to describe my experience with it.

Blue Toad Murder Agency Review (finished this time)

Last year, I bought the first three of the six episodes and wrote a review. Last week, the last three episodes were on sale on the PSN, so I picked them up and decided to revisit and complete the game.  Have my thoughts about it changed?

Heavy Rain (Move Edition)

I think about almost a year ago, I wrote a post about the demo for Heavy Rain. Ever since I heard the game would be move compatible, I decided to wait and buy the game. Was the motion controller update worth the anticipation or was I just a dope for falling for the wag?

PSN Demo of Spare Parts

WTF! I sat down with the Mrs. last night to give this a go, and booted the game up. First thing I had to do was wait 10 minutes for it to download an update to the demo. That's right, they're patching demo's now. Ridiculous. After download, it then installs. Finally, the game launches.

The graphics looked really cool, and I couldn't wait to see what this game was all about. All I knew about it was that it was a couch co-op, so those always make my list to demo with the Mrs. We got in, and the AI told us to go to this training room. We did, and quickly went into a virtual room (think like the new Metroid game) where you practice jumping, and fighting. It didn't take long at all considering the mechanics were very much like the Lego games.

...And that was it. The demo was over. We never got to see a world, or experience any real gameplay. Granted, the game is only 10 bucks, but I don't like to waste money, and I got no feel for this game at all. What an awful demo.

Developers: a demo should tell me whether or not that game is for me. If you won't let me play it, at least, for the love of God, give me a video of the gameplay!

Alright boys and girl(s), its time for some..

Magicka is a action-adventure game in which you and 3 other wizards play through and try to stop an evil wizard! Yeah, I know, but its not the comical writing you'll be playing this game its the craziness that is likely to happen when you put 2-4 people in the same game trying to cast spells they don't know how or knew possible to cast.

Example: 2 guys running from meteors

Any how Direct2Drive has the game for sale $9.95(which gives you a steam key too use for steam) and a $2 off code: "wetkitty" you also get some bonus DLC if you buy it before Jan 31.

Game does have some bugs but the dev seem to be trying to work things out as fast as they can(already on patch 4).

There is a demo on steam should go and check it out in the mean time another video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7tQVDOAOCE&feature=player_detailpage#t=397s

Sony announces the NGP (Next Gaming Portable)

Sony announced yesterday at their annual conference meeting in Tokyo, Japan; 2 very important announcements.

First; the NGP, calling it the Next Gaming Platform. The PSP-esque looking console has us frothing at the mouths with it's amazing performance power and features.

Please watch the video of myself giving my first impressions of this exciting announcement.

Secondly; the Sony Playstation Suite will be made available to some tablets and mobile phone devices in the future. Could this be Sony's answer to Apple's dominance with iTunes? More on that later.

Nintendo 3DS Impressions By a One-eyed Man

This month around the time I came back to Japan after visiting home, by some lucky chance Nintendo was holding their public exhibit for the Nintendo 3DS. Now this is an impression from a person that can't take advantage of the 3D abilities of the 3DS.

Netflix on PS3/Wii/iPhone

Recently, Netflix started offering a free 30-day trial for their online version, meaning no discs. I've been doing a lot of research on how to cut the cable cord, and this is definitely something that needed to be researched to see if it could be part of the media solution if I do cut the cord. So how's it fairing?

2011 PS3 Exclusives - How does Sony "win"?

As heard on this last CAGCAST, Cheapy D, Shipwreck, and Wombat were discussing the list of 2011 PS3 Exclusives that have been announced. Take a look at the list. Do any of these excite you? For me, Uncharted games always will. But what else? Join me after the break for a brief thought dump on this list (dump on list...lol)

Portal2 going Cross Platform( PS3 and PC only)

It was announced yesterday that Portal 2 PS3 players will be able to play with PC players. That's not even the best part. Gamers that buy Portal 2 for the PS3 will also have a digital copy they can use on their PC for free. Not only that Portal 2 on the PS3 will be backed up in their cloud service. Mind blown!

World of Starcraft

I just saw this on Kotaku and had to repost. I must say, for a mod using SC2 tools, I'm pretty blown away with what they are doing.

The Last Story

Wii's newest JRPG (Japan only for the time being) is hitting shelves on the 27th. This trailer shows cinematic cut-scenes, which is no surprise. It was made by the original creator of the FF series, and definitely has that FF vibe. I can't help but look at it and wish that the game was going to be on an HD platform, but an interesting to way to watch this one is to see how it rates up against how FFXIII was rated. Both have/had extraordinary high expectations, and FFXIII seemed to fall a bit short. Will this game suffer the same fate?

Braid, the greatest game I haven't completed

Braid

I bought Braid a year ago on the PSN. I've cleared the first three levels, and I'm missing two pieces of the puzzle before I can "complete" the game. I know I could beat it easily if I looked on youtube for the answer to the puzzles I've been stuck on for so long, but that would ruin the whole experience. Braid is the most unique puzzle/platform (really the only one) game made.

Aurora (ambient RTS), free today only!

Download it here, free today only!

Stacking, a new game by Double Fine

Neat body-swapping/possession game mechanic.

Video Game Podcast Junkie - What Podcasters need to know from a fan

Yes, I am a gaming podcast junkie. I listen to gaming podcasts all the time. The addiction started before WoW, but WoW took it to a whole new level. Now that I'm out of WoW, I'm trying out a bunch of podcasts to find what to replace my WoW podcasts. Join me after the break to see what I listen to, and what I look for in my gaming podcasts.

Demos demo demos.

Just played Little Big Planet 2, Dead Space 2 and Mass Effect 2 demos on the PS3. Just though I'd post my thoughts real quick.

Minecraft plugin Biome Terrain Mod ported to Beta

As of today, prolific Minecrafter R-T-B has ported the popular plugin Biome Terrain Mod to Beta 1.2 (the latest version). Miners rejoice! You can once again generate outlandish chunks, like Avatar-esque floating islands (pictured). R-T-B says he plans at least one bugfix release before soliciting donations for continued development.

He mentions in that thread that he runs a Minecraft hosting solution, so this could be an important precedent in the Minecraft community. Server hosting providers not only have a vested interest in keeping MC administration easy and feature-laden, they also have the technical chops to keep popular plugins from falling into disrepair.

Thanks for the hard work, R-T-B!

Octodad article on nukezilla.com

Nukezilla has an article on Octodad, an unusual game in which "you play an octopus who has to continue keeping his cephalopodian nature under wraps while doing menial tasks around his home with his (human) family watching."

Download the game for free from the Octodad website.

Return to Borderlands (sorta)

Yesterday, I was testing out my frames per second on various settings because I'm trying to figure out where I want them to be on certain games before I spend the dough on a new video card. I launched Borderlands to do some testing in the Unreal III engine and see where I'm at. I like to game at 1920X1080, and though my card has held up well (GTS 250 1gb ram), I've started to have to pull down some games from Ultra to high, and I don't like that. But I digress. So what was up with Borderlands?

Gameplay vs Story_Other Side

I had to do a new post because my reply was too long!

So the premise is a tough one, because there are other video game dimensions that can be argued to be in this conversation, like graphics, pacing, etc. But for the purposes of this, I'll stick to the premise.

While balance is the key, I would argue that from my perspective, Story is more important. You gave great examples to support how gameplay is what will keep you tuned into a game you might otherwise want to leave. I can use the same games and some additional to explain my perspective.

Gameplay vs. Story

Which is more important within a game, gameplay or story?

I'm a firm believer that gameplay must come first and then everything else must follow. I think this is one of the main reasons I find it hard to play RPGs now and days. Yeah the stories are really awesome like in Mass Effect or Dragon Age. But after playing the demo for Mass Effect 2 for the PS3, I wasn't too impressed with the games third person shooting gameplay. (Yes, you can argue I just hit the tip of the ice berg with gameplay.) But let's ask ourselves this, if Gears of War used the same duck and shooting system as Mass Effect, would we still consider Gear of War a good shooter? I felt like Shepard was wearing heavy shoes and popped in and out of cover like Asimo the robot. Because of the intriguing story this wasn't a deal breaker but I'm pretty sure that I might end up quitting the game before I even finish it. If the story is the main draw of games, why don't people read books more? Wouldn't that be better than grinding for endless hours to finally get to the bad conclusion we normally get out of video games.

Time for a come back!

So... like the title suggests I really want to do something productive with my addiction that is all things gaming. While I enjoyed throughly posting on this website in the past, writing about my experiences with games just didn't stick. It's not that I didn't enjoy it, but rather it was a mix of lack of exposure / feedback on the articles I wrote, personal time conflicts and even my own dedication.

What I really want to do is a mix of maybe smaller straight to the point articles and focus more on video. What I really like about websites like ign and gametrailers (which i rrequent everyday!) is the video reviews and commentary voice overs. However rather than just game review videos why not just little video 'post its' (short 1 or 2 minute videos) of anything gaming. I really enjoyed video editing. I got kindly reminded of this while making a video of my winter vacation for my English classes.

It's all in the air right now. But I'm eager to get my hands dirty. I think I may use youtube as my main gateway (for now) to post videos and link them here to the site. Hopefully have something to show everyone near the end of January.

I'm really excited about this year for gaming in general. Some awesome titles coming out. Alot of them for PS3 which I brought back with me from my travels to the UK. Much to the dissapointment of my younger brother. :)

Anyways here's to another year, game on!

Johnny