Video Games - a general discussion thread — Page 254

TV's Frink said:

doubleofive said:
World of Warcraft.

Say hi to Total Biscuit for us.

Normals aren't worth your time.  Just stay here and all will be well.

ONE OF US.  ONE OF US!

Some Mass Effect 2 DLC on sale on Xbox this week.  I haven't started the game yet, but I did snag all of the DLC when it was on sale last Christmas.  However, that was before The Arrival was released... so I'm contemplating getting that now.

Has anyone played the Arrival?  Worth the points?

What?  No, I don't know what you're talking about.  I saw Transformers 3 five times, like I told you.

Oh, a bongo bongo bongo, I don't want to leave the congo (oh, no no no no no!).

It's official: Marble Hornets has (partially) inspired a new enemy in Minecraft:



This is the greatest thing in the history of ever.

Despite all the things New Vegas did better that FO3 (companions, weapon mods, factions etc.) it lacked the atmosphere and the sense of sadness I always felt in FO3.  Greatness is about intangibles.

In FO3 you always felt humanity was just barely holding on; which was a much more compelling situation than the universe as presented in New Vegas.

I didn't realize that was Danny Kaye until I... er... was looking up the soundtrack so that I could put it on my MP3 player of choice.

TV's Frink said:

xhonzi said:

Oh, a bongo bongo bongo, I don't want to leave the congo (oh, no no no no no!).

Master, what's a bongo?

Lol.

xhonzi said:

I didn't realize that was Danny Kaye until I... er... was looking up the soundtrack so that I could put it on my MP3 player of choice.

But it's a Halo 3 Zune.

C3PX, did you know that?  Guess that?  Or try to come up with something outlandish that also happens to be true.

005- did you think I pirated anything?  Because I didn't.  I looked up the songs where they were available on Amazon for $.89 per.

I too wanted a brown one.  I settled for the Halo 3 one, really.

WARNING: Massive Fallout3 post to follow:

(with spoilers-a-plenty)

Okay, I confess...  I didn't actually go see Transformers 3 five times.  C3PX caught me- I was playing Fallout 3.

Here, in no particular order, are my thoughts:

1. GNR needs more than six songs.  Though they have all grown on me (except for maybe the "Choppin' that meat!" song)

1a. I found a mod (http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1418) for the PC version that adds 100 more songs to their playlist, so I d/l'd it and put the MP3s in a folder which I turned into a playlist which I can play on the xbox in place of the radio.  It isn't perfect, and I don't get to hear 3Dog extolling my virtures (which can be a + or a -) but I'm really enjoying that style of music when combined when this game and it's nice to have just a little more variety.

2. The thing that really turned me off of this game initially and also for the couple of hours I put into either FO1 or FO2 (can't remember which): The paralyzing fear of suffering unexpected consequences for my choices/actions/inactions. 

2a.Oblivion was the first game of this type that I really got into... and I did everything.  I have a friend who's played through Oblivion 8 times, roughly 100 hours per.  I didn't have that kind of time to give to it, so I just made sure I did everything in the 120 hours I spent there.  By the end, I was the head of every guild and I completed all of the DLC and every mission I could get my hands on.  For an OCD completionist like myself, Oblivion was some kind of heaven.  Key to this was that you could never really blow it in Oblivion.  There was really no action you could take that would later prevent you from taking other actions?  Don't want to become a vampire right now?  You can always come back and do it later.  You're done being a vampire?  You can get healed.  There were branches, but at any point you could go back to the trunk and try out a new branch.  You could even defacto change your character type if you worked hard enough at it.  You learned by doing, so you could theoretically learn to do anything.

2b. Fallout sets out right away to let you know that there will be consequences for your (in)actions and you may not like them.  There are doors that, once closed, may not be reopened.  Once you choose a branch, you may have lopped off several others.  This idea is somewhat realistic, but it intimidates in a game in a way I can't fully grasp.

2bI. I was tracking down some Quantum cola bottles and one of the places I was directed to go was the slaver camp.  They said I couldn't go in there without becoming a slaver... so I saved my game, ran through the slaver mission (got the nerd points!) and then reloaded since I didn't want it on my permanent record.  While I was there, I found some young kids who needed me to rescue them... so I did, but then I undid that when I reloaded it.  So this time, I rambo'd my way in and wiped them out.  All of them.  And then freed the kids and went on my way.

2c. Once I accidentally let the sherrif of Megaton die, I sort of made peace with the past and therefore the future and mostly decided to let the chips fall where they may.  I've actually come to really enjoy this aspect of the game, though I have to confess I still find it a little intimidating.

2cI. I found the dog at the junkyard relatively early and thought it was pretty cool.  I decided I'd do what I could to be a good master to the dog and keep him alive.  He died a couple of times, so I reloaded and prevented his death that time.  However, I had been trekking across the wasteland for about 20 minutes when I got a pop-up saying that Dogmeat had died, and I wasn't sure how or where.  It was 20 minutes since my last save, so I decided just to press and that "I could just get another one".  After not running into any more dogs and a fruitless return to the junkyard, google informed me that I blew my one chance of having a canine companion.  Oops.

3. I think this game represents an intersting landmark in interactivity in games.  I'm sort of compelled (that OCD again) to pick up everything I see to see if I can sell it or use it for something.  Just like I'm compelled to open every door I see- go into every building I can, hack every computer and check every bathroom stall.  I think I've pretty much talked to every person I've come across as well.  How realistic is this, really?  When I drive 25 miles home from work, I don't stop at every door or talk to every person I see, and ask them what the word around town is.  Because there are as many as 'infinite' doors and people between here and there.  In FallOut, there are a  lot, but not so many as to be "infinite".  I think as game tech progresses, we will get to the point that there are too many doors and the only way you can handle them is to have some idea of the ones you actually want to open.  I posted a while back a list of features that I'd like to see be possible on the new gaming hardware of the coming years and that was one of them: Randomly generated rooms behind unimportant doors.

3a. Zombriend said to me, "I like to play games [like Fallout 3] like a role-playing game." Which made me say, "Huh?"  What he meant by that, is that he likes to really get into his own character and come up with their backstory and motivations and make all of his decisions in the game based on that.  That's why he never played the Assassin's Guild plot in Oblivion- it didn't fit his character.  I have to say I don't do that- I just role play that I'm an OCD gamer sitting in my dark basement motivated by getting as many shiny achievements as possible.  And quantum colas.  That's probably why I never walk in a straight line across the wasteland.  I zig and zag and occasionally do 360s while I'm walking to keep my eyes out for any of those little hollow triangles so that I can go discover them on my way somewhere else.

4. I actually tried out the first 6 hours of Fallout a couple of years ago, decided I liked it and wanted to play the rest of it, and gave the borrrowed copy back and finished Oblivion. When I started playing it up again recently, I just picked with my last save and went on from there.  Since I didn't redo any of the early part of the game, I had forgotten a lot of things... like how to turn my flashlight on... and that I could fast travel.

4a. I kind of wish these games didn't have fast travel.  I liked in Morrowind how you had to pay a taxi if you wanted to fast travel, and not all taxis went everywhere.  I mean, I know I could just not fast travel and pretend I really did have to walk everywhere... but I don't. 

5. Back to the slavers- I thought this was a decent moral quandry for the game.  I really did need those Quantum colas, and the only way to get them was to either go in guns blazing (I otherwise had no compunction to wipe the slavers from the face of the earth) or to take a slave in.  I thought, "Well, Self, this is an interest sitiation we've found ourselves in!  I sure have been killing a lot of raiders and mercs... is it more immoral to take them as slaves?  In real life you don't believe in slavery... but you don't believe in wandering wastelands, shooting rabid dogs, eating said dogs, and killing raiders either..."  Hmmmm...  But then they wanted me to enslave some specific people whom I would not have just as easily killed... so that sort of stopped my consideration short.  But when I thought I could go round up some raiders and get my Quantum colas... I was all for it.

5a. But then I saw those kids and I met the slavers inside the camp.  Wiping them out (all of them) became an easy decision at that point.

If for some reason this doesn't come out, I am really really enjoying the game.

xhonzi said:

005- did you think I pirated anything?  Because I didn't.  I looked up the songs where they were available on Amazon for $.89 per.

xhonzi said:

4a. I kind of wish these games didn't have fast travel.  I liked in Morrowind how you had to pay a taxi if you wanted to fast travel, and not all taxis went everywhere.

Agreed. One of the reasons I preferred Morrowind to Oblivion.

doubleofive said:

 

xhonzi said:

005- did you think I pirated anything?  Because I didn't.  I looked up the songs where they were available on Amazon for $.89 per.

Good to know, my friend. You just seemed defensive. ;-)

 

I thought it might have across that way... I was mostly trying to get across the love/hate relationship I have with those songs.  They play them so much I am sick of them.  But... a couple hours go by and I can't wait to hear them again.

I forgot to also mention: the "More where that came from" pack also included some cool radio commericals that are in the mix along with the songs.  (And all of those songs are public domain, just in case we get back into shaming 005 territory again).