Fallout New Vegas...

Sooo... it's late October, the time of Halloween for you crazy Americans, and something strange is definitely happening around here.

Fallout New Vegas came out... and it doesn't suck!

Oh, there are problems with it, problems aplenty... but unlike Fallout3, it's fun, the RPG system isn't broken and it actually feels like they hired a writer for it!

And that's the main reason it's better, yeah it's got problems, but there's a good game here so you can ignore the problems or gloss over them... for example...

Fallout 3: There were few children in the game, and they were invulnerable... I HATED this...
Fallout NewVegas: I haven't seen any children at all... and I don't care.

Fallout 3: Weird uncanny valley thing where the world stops when you talked to people really took you out of the game.
Fallout New Vegas: Weird uncanny valley thing still, but the voice acting is better and what's being said isn't totally out of place or stupid.

Fallout 3: The game engine sucks; bad path finding, weird behaviours and annoying bugs.
Fallout New Vegas: Engine still sucks, but a lot of the problems are reduced and many of the worst issues seem to have been avoided...

The game is the evidence to my latest theory about Fallout 3 (and Morrowind... and Oblivion...), that Bethesda should just make engines for games, spend more time on 'em an make 'em less buggy, and let people who can actually write worth a damn make the actual games.

New Vegas is my only piece of evidence... and in my opinion, a very strong piece of evidence.

The few things about New Vegas I do not like...

• The radio stations are boring, with very few songs and not a lot of news items the stations repeat themselves a lot, this is the one thing that's worse than in FO3.
• Invisible walls are used to stop you climbing in some areas... but this is just a pet-peeve.
• Hardcore mode should be called "weak realism mode"... I like the changes, but they could go further; at the moment it's just a vague annoyance.

There's also bugs and a few other issues, but these are being fixed and the aforementioned quality of the game overall dulls the impact...

My review of New Vegas in one line: If you liked Fallout 3, you'll like New Vegas; if you thought FO3 was alright but spoilt by bugs and poor writing (ie ME), you'll like New Vegas; if you hated FO3... New Vegas won't appeal.

Now go get yourself a big iron on yur hip and shoot up all 'em varmints around the corral! YEEEE HA!!!

Zombie games!

Recently, I've been playing zombie games... mostly Left for Dead and Killing floor, two very similar FPS games where a team of people are attempting to survive against waves of zombies including various elite zombies that wreck your shit if you're not careful...

The main difference between these two games are the production values, and a few of the details.

Left for Dead has a huge production value advantage over Killing floor, but both are good, simple zombie mashing fun.

In left for dead you're trying to escape some location with a few other survivors, there's a sense of desperation and the reason behind the zombie plague is unknown. The only explanation of anything I've heard in game is that the player characters are "immune" to zombification apparently, which suggests this is a standard zombie virus scenario. The main goal of players is to "not die" and reach some escape point; with various traps and secondary objectives along the way each scenario feels different, although not different enough to prevent stagnation after repeated plays, LFDs only weakness.

Killing floor is a similar game, but it's story is different, instead of a standard viral outbreak or whatnot, the "zombies" are actually biological constructs called "Zeds", cloned biorobots created for war by crazed scientists... it's an interesting twist on the zombie story. The player characters are very different too, being mostly military types sent in to find survivors, search and destroy or block the Zed advance. In this game the only real goal is to kill everything without dying yourselves, every game ends with the Patriach, a Zed with a combi-missile launcher/minigun for an arm and a melee attacking chest arms thing... and he can stealth.

Despite the crazyness of the patriach, I never feel scared or horrified by Killing floor, it's just too out there and over the top, despite that it is a fun game especially on harder difficulties with good teammates. Left for Dead on the other hand actually feels creepy; the musical score, realistic environments, sudden ambushes, eerily realistic zombies and the good voice acting of the various characters in the game, including player characters, make a much more engaging game.

In short, buy both of these games if you love zombie killin' and enjoy multiplayer shooters...

A caveat: If you're Australian, avoid LFD2, it's been butchered at the request of the Australian ratings people; I won't review because it's not fair to the developers.

Consoles, and why I don't like 'em

I don't like consoles... that is, the gaming consoles. I don't like any of 'em; Wii, Xbox, Playstation, Atari, whatever. I don't like 'em. I have respect for the older consoles in the sense that those were the foundations for modern gaming, but for me consoles have always been something less than what I already have, a fully functional Personal Computer. Not necessarily an IBM PC, but others such as the Commodore 64, Apple 2e (I hate Mac's and iPhones with a passion, but this is a story for another time) and Z80s.

Why don't I like Consoles? Well... there are a few reasons...

1. Console ports of PC games are bad
2. PC ports of Console games are worse
3. Console controls are bad for no good reason
4. Consoles are the home of stupid gimmicks (Wii, Project Natal, PS move... Virtual Boy)
5. Consoles allow companies too much control over your gaming (Fallout 3 for example, I can mod it on the PC so it sucks less, try that on XBox!)
6. Consoles suddenly become obsolete, got a working Dreamcast? TOO BAD MOFO!!! It's time to buy a newer console! YAY
   

For these reasons, I've never gotten a console. Perhaps once my career improves, I'll have enough disposable income to get a console and not care... but even now I could afford one and a bunch of games... instead I'm thinking of getting a new PC. Strange that... Heck, I'd rather buy myself a copy of Windows 7 (I'm still on WinXP, definitely skipping Vista!) than get a console.

Does that mean that gaming consoles suck?

Well... that Wii is pretty lacklustre... and the other two don't exactly wow me. Then again, PC gaming is kinda "meh" of late, with dozens of samey "realistic" shooters and repetitive sequel-age being spat out...

Despite my anti console position, it's more about the games than the platform... it's why I almost bought an XBox so I could play Red Dead Redemption (gonna wait for PC version... it will come!)... because the game attracted me.

...but I still don't like consoles. :P

Quick updates

In my Starcraft 2 Rant I stated mods might be awesome, I was correct. The sheer level of creativity from these "custom maps" is staggering and lots of fun. Even if you despise the idea of starcraft multiplayer, the custom maps are enough to keep you coming back.

In my MMO rant I mentioned DDO, I've stopped playing DDO and I'm on LOTRO now, which is better but eh. I'll be doing a post on this one soon. Oh, and Cataclysm is coming in December... yay?

Fallout New Vegas is coming soon, I can't wait to rip that game a new one... though a small naive and trusting part of me is hoping it will be better than fallout 3.

I'm playing Dawn of War 2 atm, it's good. I likes it, but it's not really a sequel to the original game, the mechanics are too different. I can see why fans didn't like it. More on this later.

Metro2033 still sucks hardcore... and is still full price.