BioShock 2

PUBLISHER: 2k Games
DEVELOPER: 2k Games
Played on: PS3
Initial impression: Would you kindly have more fun in Rapture?

Liked:
- Story
- Environment/Art Style
- Plasmid Upgrades

Disliked:
- Length
- Some glitches



On The Fence:
- New Hacking system
- New Research Camera
- Trophies

Liked
Honestly, for everything I liked about BioShock 2, see what I said about BioShock. It would be nearly identical. The story is different but I found it every bit as entertaining.

Sequel or Prequel?
I see a lot of people talking about this being a prequel because you play as the first Big Daddy, and that's half true. Without spoiling much of anything, you play as Delta, the 4th Big Daddy (if my Greek alphabet is correct) but the first successful bonded guardian of a Little Sister. The game starts in 1958, before the events of BioShock 1 but it isn't too long into the game that an event causes you to go into a sort of suspended animation until 1968 - nine years after the events of the first game.

There are new enemies like a Brute Splicer and the Big Sister - who will attack you after so many Little Sister interactions. She was interesting, and later in the game when you get to see them a bit better you can really appreciate the style.

Disliked
To say I'm not pleased with the length is somewhat a double edged sword. It was short. I just started playing this game on Friday evening, and now, the following Sunday, approximately 15 hours of game play later I am done. I find that both disappointing yet rewarding. Another game I can equate that to is Portal.

I think what I dislike the most about the length is that it seems the game got nipped a bit to make room for multiplayer. I haven't fired that up yet but I can tell you I'm at about 40% of the trophies because I haven't touched MP.

Some glitches I found are strange. I was fighting a Big Sister and nearly had her dead when she disappeared. I don't mean she ran off - I mean she vanished. The fight music (which sounds like it was written by Bernard Hermann) kept playing until I finished the level. Another glitch comes from using an awesome tonic called "Fountain of Youth" that allows you to regain health and Eve when standing in puddles of water. It didn't always work, and sometimes the meters refilled really fast while other times it went gut-wrenchingly slow.

On The Fence
The old hacking system in BS1 was pretty much Pipe Dream. You have x# of seconds to connect point A to point B before the liquid fills the pipe. This time it was a strange meter where the needle sweeps left to right and back again about 3 times before you instantly fail. You have to stop the needle in the green or blue zone on the meter's face. Sometimes I had this not register correctly and hit a red zone, setting off the alarm.

The new Research Camera is good because it does four awesome new things:

1. Starts recording video and instantly switches to your last used weapon
2. Makes the tagged enemy glow gold.
3. Has a running meter to show you how well you're doing on gathering research
4. Keeps a total of how much you've researched every enemy.

What didn't I like about it? Oh, same old thing... I kept forgetting to use it. I think I managed 100% on almost all of the types of enemies. I know I missed some of the basic splicers.

The trophies for BS2 are good and bad. Good because they throw one at you for doing good things - there is a moral choice to be made in a few sections and they give you a trophy for that. They're bad because you'll get some just for doing story-mandated tasks (really? A trophy for completing an area you have to complete to advance the plot?) as well as the aforementioned reliance on exploring multiplayer.

All in all I think this is an awesome follow-up to BS. If you weren't sure about it but loved #1, at the very least rent this one. Biblical and Philosophical overtones aren't as heavy-handed as the original, and that's not really a bad thing.

8/10

Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare

What: DLC for RDR 
Cost: $20, or $30 bundled with the other 2 DLC offerings.

PUBLISHER: Rockstar
DEVELOPER: Rockstar
Played on: PS3

Initial Impression: Old West 4 Dead



I knew I was in for a good time when I started. It was a separate storyline starring the one and only John Marsten. (Love that guy!) It starts out at the time in the main storyline where John has finished his government business and returns home. There's a wicked storm rolling in and 'Uncle' isn't back from his errands. Everyone's getting concerned but figure he's old enough to take care of himself. They all go to sleep, figuring they'd see him in the morning. Oh, he comes back a bit earlier... and a lot less alive than when he left. He attacks John's wife, then she attacks her son. You kill Uncle, tie up the other two and go searching for answers with only your Cattleman Revolver, a Double Barrel Shotgun, your lasso and enough ammo to reload those weapons about 5 times.

The UN story missions, much like the RDR story missions, send you all over the place in search of whatever the current NPC you're dealing with is after. There are side quests, challenges and random encounters just like the main game, and all with their own undead twist. Every town, post or fort you encounter is under attack and saving them comes in the form of finding and providing ammo as well as fighting off the horde. Once saved, they'll be stable for a while but keep your eyes peeled because they may get overrun at any point. You also acquire a new weapon each time you save a new town, though ammo is severely short.

Nearly every story-based NPC from the original game is encountered, and it's interesting to see how they are dealing with the zombie apocalypse. Speaking of Apocalypse...

There are Four Horses you can find and break. Pestilence. War. Famine. Death. Each has its own rare ability that proves rather invaluable when facing flesh-eating monstrosities. Pestilence is nearly impossible to kill (except when you slide casually down a short slope, apparently). War is on fire, and sets enemies on fire if they come in contact with it (handy to plow through groups of undead!). Famine has unlimited stamina (which is actually useless... all these horses have that). Death leaves a trail of - well - death in its path. A blue spectral haze travels behind the horse, detonating the heads of every zombie it passes.

The horse called "War" being captured.

There are new weapons - a blunderbuss that uses corpse parts as ammo, holy water that erupts in a blue flame when thrown at undead, undead bait and boom bait - the latter being the same as the former with the addition of a stick of dynamite.

Dislikes
The only things I can say I didn't like were the lifespan of Pestilence and the somewhat wonky aiming at times. The only way to stop an undead is to get a headshot. I had SEVERAL times when I've made perfect headshots (even while in Dead Eye) and it registers as either a miss or a body shot. I read that most people just put on the auto-aim because it goes right for the head, but I prefer to just scream at the TV.

Also - There were a few moments where I had to clear graveyards and got overrun, died and had to start over a few times in a row. That was frustrating. At least when you're clearing a town there's an indicator to let you know how much more you have to endure.

For paid DLC I kind of expected a tad more play-time, but overall it was fun and worth the basic $10 I ended up paying. I wouldn't purchase it any other way than as the bundled 3-pack.

9/10 - Worth Playing.

Post #102010-2

I'm not sure what to call this post. It's mostly mental vomit about games.

LOTRO

• It went free to play and I've met up with at least one person I know. It's a lot of fun helping people again.
• I reconnected with someone who I was very angry with for a long time. We resolved our differences nearly a year and a half after 'the incident' that drove us apart. It feels good to put that to rest.
• I started a new character - a burglar. The name is one I've used before, and it's not a dwarf.
• Harvestmath - the harvest festival - is active. I tried to get the horse last night ant the game glitched me out of a token. I was pissed, but I'll try again tonight.
• I'm working on my Return to Thorin's Hall skill. I am Kindred with the dwarves of Ered Luin and have 50/100 Dourhand crests. After this I'm working on Moria reputation.
• I'd like to max out all reputation, though some areas are difficult.
• I'm trying to get every horse, though some require meta-deeds. These are a specific combination of completed deeds and it's a pain in the ass.

L4D/L4D2/Alien Swarm/Borderlands

• All three need more attention. Need to play more MP games with friends. Too bad one is in a radically different time zone...

PS3

• I want to finish off the trophies for Dead Space, inFamous and Red Dead Redemption. I'm close to the end of all three.
• Beatles Rock Band needs more attention. Some group attention would be nice too.
• Fallout 3 needs to be completed. So does God of War and Heavenly Sword. And Tomb Raider Underworld. And Little Big Planet.
• Fallout New Vegas is getting a lot of hate lately but I still want to play it.
• I need to catalog and evaluate the games I have. Put them in some sort of order of status... whether I'll play them again or if I'm completely done with them.

Back In the Saddle

This week I decided to revisit Red Dead Redemption, mostly because I like to wander around in the environment and not have to worry about story elements sucking away all my precious time. When I first fired it up I was reminded about the one thing I didn't like -- I finished the story mode.

***SPOILER ALERT***

This means I was stuck playing as Jack. I don't like Jack. His voice and repeated phrases annoy me.

*** END SPOILER ALERT ***

Thanks to an update that brought in two new outfits to acquire, I also remembered I had a few outstanding trophies to try to claim. The first one I went for seemed easy. Manifest Destiny: Kill all the buffalo in the game on Single Player. I'd already shot one for the other trophy where you need to shoot one of every species, and though I felt bad about it I finally gave in to the fact that it's only a game. I got out my trusty Buffalo Rifle and went looking for the herd. No sooner did I resolve to accomplish this task that I ran into them. Every remaining buffalo stood before me. I raise the rifle and took aim. As I let one shot ring out, instantly killing the animal, I went into Dead Eye and took out another. The group started to scatter so I threw it into Dead Eye as fast as I could and took out another five. Since the Buffalo Rifle is a single shot weapon, the game drops you out of Dead Eye after every kill. I managed to get ten total from this initial run-in, and I made sure to skin each one.

The next half hour I spent looking for the rest of the herd. In this time I decided to terrorize Blackwater citizens a bit in hopes of raising my bounty amount. For one of the trophies you have to use a pardon letter to remove a $5,000 bounty. Having completed the game, this is difficult since all crimes are reduced by half. Shooting a lawman, for example, will only add about $50 to my bounty. I rode up to a heavily populated area and tossed a Molotov cocktail into the crowd. This not only set a dozen people on fire but caused the cops to take notice rather fast. I rode hard and fast away from town and waited for them to catch up, Buffalo Rifile in hand. If a gun can kill a 3,000 pound animal in one shot, just imagine what it'll do to a 180 pound man riding a horse. Distance helped a bit to knock a few off their mounts before they got anywhere near me, but then the posse was rounded up and started to close in from all sides. I took out my trusty High Powered Pistol and went to town.

Another of the trophies involves getting something like 1,000 kills with one weapon. Any weapon will do, but you need all the kills to come from using the same one. Seems I already have about 300 kills with the HPP, so I use it as much as I can now in an effort to speed that up. Its name is appropriate - one to two shots per target. By the end of the night I racked up $1,200 on my wanted poster. Things were going great as far as the trophies were concerned - I found the rest of the buffalo and sadly earned that one. I had amassed a bounty that I could easy triple the next night if I devoted myself to it. It was late and I was tired, so that's the only excuse I have for what happened next.

I was headed back home, riding along at a slow pace, taking in the scenery and planning my steps for the next session, when out of nowhere I was being chased by the law. Someone on the road recognized me? I have no idea - I think that's what happened... All I know is I was being chased. I shot up some deputies, took out some horses just to keep them at bay when I was hit with an ambush. A few appeared in front of my path and blasted away. I had no chance to react because I had the camera swung around behind me. 

DEAD.

My bounty was reset as the game loaded. I was pissed but vowed that the next night I'd start it again, only this time I'd wreak havoc on Mexico.

Free Time, Claptrap Rebellion & RDR DLC

I haven't purchased any of this, but I am interested in them...

Borderlands: Claptrap Rebellion

I'm too lazy to look up the correct title, but that's the jist of it. Frankly I found the Claptrap character funny at first but quickly became obnoxious and I never wanted to kill an NPC as badly as I did the Claptrap in New Haven. It just got really annoying, really fast.

The new expansion turns Claptrap(s) into the enemy. Apparently some previous bosses make an appearance in the form of special claptrap models. No level cap elevation, so aside from just having more stuff to shoot at there isn't a great reason to get this one - not yet anyway.

RDR Expansions

Briefly, there are 3 expansions - 2 out there already and one coming. I think most of them are Multiplayer geared, giving avatars and new activities for MP. The only one that holds the majority of my interest is the zombie one. Shocker, right? As someone online has already said, the appeal (for me) is that all this time, zombie games have been you and your modern weapons and gear versus the undead. RDR is set in 1910, in the old west. It's you and your six-shooter. Dead Eye will be helpful.

Other Junk - Rock Band

I played some Rock Band 1 yesterday. I never made it through the official campaign because I got bored. I'm now in London, don't know any of the songs left to play at the venue and am back to being bored. I played the Coheed and Cambria song in Tokyo -- why do people like that band?

Anyway that leads me to Rock Band 3. The tracklist has been shuffled around the 'net a lot recently and, again, I groan in disgust. At least they aren't being totally fake like Guitar Hero III was; You can't call your game "Legends of Rock" with a track list like that, idiots.

Going back to RB3, something about the track list that pisses me off is that it seems like they go out of their way to throw on unknown bands or totally obscure (which doesn't always mean GOOD) songs. 20th Century Boy by T-Rex? Echo & the Bunnymen? They lose me in the 2000's. I only know "No One Knows" by Queens of the Stone Age.

My point? Dunno. I just rant about RB tracks. I'm a jerk when it comes to music.

Speaking of Rock Band - they need to add more Beatles RB albums. Let It Be (Naked), Magical Mystery Tour, Past Masters 2 and The Beatles (aka the white album) need to be there.

Other Junk - Valkyria Chronicles

A fellow Kotakuite suggested I give the game a shot after I commented how much I liked a figurine featured on the site. It took me a couple weeks to locate a copy, and about a week more before I popped it in the machine. Long story short - it's great fun! Expect a review... when I get to it.

It's Been A While...

I apologize to my followers. All two of them.

It's been a while since I have said anything here. Truth is I haven't been playing anything new. Tried Alien Swarm - it's awesome, but I only played it once. Playing a few Facebook games but those don't count.

Lord of the Rings Online has gone Free To Play, meaning people can get in for nothing. They can't get far, but they can get a taste of the game without any money spent. If they like what they see they can purchase upgrades. Increased level cap, storage and zones are all just a few dollars away - all with no monthly fee. For me - a lifetime subscriber (meaning I put up $200 early on) the game stays exactly as it was as long as I log in at least once a month. That's easy to do since there are a number of horses I want to obtain. Getting those will keep me busy. I can think of 5 right now that I don't have that are obtainable through regular game play. Others are festival only horses that I will have to wait until next summer before they become available.

I've also been delving into PvMP (Player versus Monster Play - real people control the orcs, spiders and wargs). Honestly I just want to get Rank 9 so I can buy the horse. I'm at Rank 4 currently. What sucks is that you need to get tens of thousands of Renown Points to go up a level and one PvMP kill yields between 1 and 30 points - average being 15. It's a lot of grueling work and the Ettenmoors aren't always accommodating. Currently the area is bugged and there's no real safe place for the Free People to hide from the evils of Angmar. Whenever that gets fixed I'll head back into the zone and work on that horse.

I still have a massive backlog of PS3 titles to get to, but on top of that I've picked up Dante's Inferno ($20 new at GameStop last month) and Valkyria Chronicles ($17 used). VC was a suggestion from someone on Kotaku and just based on screen shots I think I might really like it. I'm tying up loose ends on RDR, trying to get all the trophies. I want to start BioShock 2, but might wait until the dark of winter - I have a thing about those kind of games and that time of year.

Speaking of which I might go for my December Dead Space play through sometime around the 11th. This will be purely a trophy run. I need all those "kill x necromorphs with x weapon/skill" trophies, and with the best suit in the game coupled with the completely spec'd out weapons it should be a breeze.

So - what's on the menu? Well a whole lot of LotRO to get those 5 horses (Lorien, Mirkwood, Dunedain and the 2 new ones from Endewaith). I really want the Dunedain one the most because it matches my current armor choice. Silly, I know, but I like to look like a complete character.

Maybe some scheduled PS3 love is in order.

Borderlands (and the 3 expansions)

PUBLISHER: 2k Games
DEVELOPER: 2k Games
Played on: PC
Initial impression: FPSRPG.

Liked:
- Story (Main/Exp 1: Dr. Ned)
- Environment
- Art Style

Disliked:
- Randomized Weapons
- Expansion #2: (Mad Moxxi)

On The Fence:
- Expansion #3: (General Knoxx)

Main story has you take the role of one of four mercenary treasure hunters. Recently landing on the planet of Pandora, you're greeted by a little obnoxious robot and a whole lot of enemies. You fight your way to the first town and gain a few quests... Rinse and repeat. You're eventually bestowed with the need to find the legendary "Vault" - which most claim is full of untold riches and equipment. The ending was somewhat of a let down, but at least the game didn't have to end there.

Expansion #1: Island of Dr. Ned has an interesting and funny tale about a zombie outbreak. I can't go into detail or else there's not much point in playing. Let me just say it was entertaining, sometimes even more so than the main game.

There's not a whole lot to the mechanics of this game. If you've played a First Person Shooter, you're half-way there. If you've ever played any Role-Playing Game where you allocate points to improve your stats, you get the gist of this game. The four roles are essentially Fighter, Cleric, Mage and Ranger from D&D, except you use guns and the skills are tailored around guns.


The guns are a bit of a love/hate relationship. There's a bit of a randomization with them, in that the stats of the gun could be better or worse even for one named the same. There are a number of different manufacturers, and each has their own personal perks (and color/design schemes). The part that bugs me is that they claim your chances of finding better gear INCREASE when you play along with 3 other real people -- and they don't. We've found nothing but crap while going as a four-person group, while one guy found significantly better weapons playing solo.

Expansion #2 pretty much sucks other than the addition of a storage box. Now the guns you don't want to sell off but dont need to carry all the time can go in a box. This is best for those rare weapons you get where you aren't high enough level yet. Other than that you're looking at arena combat. Wave after wave of enemies come at you, topping off with a "boss" fight which revives a former end boss from various missions in the main game. It's rather boring after a while.

Expansion #3 - we're in the middle of it right now - is OK so far but seems to be way too vehicle heavy. I'm not a fan of when you're forced into any sort of single game mechanic, and so far Knoxx seems to be all about the cars. Granted, the cars are awesome, but I'm kind of shrugging at the insistance of us using 2-3 different car types based on the mission. If it does it more often it'll just be annoying.

This game gets the following ratings:

Main: 8/10
Exp 1: 8/10
Exp 2: 4/10
Exp 3: 7/10 (so far)

Biggest tip: Don't play this game alone. It'll be dull and get difficult very fast. You may or may not get better loot.

Red Dead Redemption

PUBLISHER: Rockstar
DEVELOPER: Rockstar
Played on: PS3
Initial impression: Grand Theft Stagecoach!

Liked:
- Story (so far, approx 3/4 done)
- Environment
- Attention to detail
- Multiplayer

Disliked:
- Occasional control issues
- Cheap kills
- Lock-ups

On The Fence:
- A specific side quest chain whose ending is unresolved (spoiler alert)

It's 1911 in Texas, just outside of the town of Armadillo (that's what they call it!). You're John Marston, a former bandit reformed and content to leave his former life behind. Unfortunately the rest of your band is still at large. The US government wants them taken care of - by you. Before you can say "screw you" they've taken your family hostage. Yeah, you read that right. The government is holding your wife and child ransom to the tune of "kill your former gang members" for them. At the start you ride off from Amarillo with a guide to confront the second-in-command of your old gang. That meeting doesn't go so well, to say the least. You spend the next 2/3rds of the game hunting him down through the expansive wilds of Texas and into Mexico. Just when things seem like they're turning in your favor, you get screwed over. Again and again.

To call this game Grand Theft Stagecoach is only half-joking. It's obviously built off the exact same engine as GTA4, giving similarities to the way Marston handles when walking and even shooting. A nice addition is "Dead Eye" - think Bullet Time in sepia tones. It allows you to slow down time to take aim and mark your targets. At first the game will mark targets for you as you sweep the reticle over anything you can shoot. Later on you have to learn to paint targets yourself. This took some getting used to as it's about 1/3 in where they make the switch.

When I say attention to detail, I mean it. Towns look wind-whipped and dusty. Shady cheats at the poker table look shady. The majority of the game is about the wilderness and it looks believable from a romanticized Western view. Some places suffer from "obvious wall" syndrome, where a plateau is made very steep in order to keep you on a set path. Fortunately these aren't all too plentiful.

Multiplayer lets you get together with other real people to storm bandit camps among other fun things. I like just riding around, really. You have the entire world unlocked in MP, so go wherever you'd like! I also like that there's a private instance version if you don't want to get ganked by griefers over and over. And you will find those people out there, trust me.

Marsten can't swim, so water equals instant death. The horse can be a pain in the ass to turn around, especially when near the bank of a river. I've taken about a dozen fatal plunges into a stream because I couldn't get the horse to wheel around. I've also suffered at the claws and teeth of the cheapest enemy creature in existance - the cougar. These bastards are one-shot killers that sneak in the underbrush. Chances are if you are discovered by them while on horseback, the horse WILL be instantly killed, while you'll be knocked to near-death. You have one chance to pop into Dead Eye, get a bead on that cat's head and fill it full of lead.

I've only experienced a lockup at the end of one specific quest. The first time the game just sat there. Horses were flailing their tails. Birds were soaring above. Nothing was happening. This went on for about 5 minutes before I hit the PS button and ended the game. The second time I got to this point the same thing happened, but it only remained for about 2 minutes. Seems there was a cutscene loading disconnect somewhere with that one. Oh I almost forgot - I also had one or two problems where an NPC doesn't move to advance the mission (when they need to open a door or something). I fixed that by lighting them on fire with fire oil.

Another quick complaint is about helping random people. I don't mind doing it, I just hate when I have someone come running up to me crying that someone stole their horse, then 2 seconds later the game says I failed to help. It never gave me the chance and I think that's a minor glitch but it mostly happened in Mexico so maybe it's limited to there?

Time for the on-the-fence thing, and if you didn't see it before:  

***SPOILER ALERT***

The name of the quest line is "I Know You". A mysterious man meets you in three places, the first two times he wants you to help him do something. The third time he just talks. It's my impression, with how things develop, that he's the ghost of someone Marsten murdered long ago. They just don't resolve it as such and I don't like that. In fact they leave it at Marsten shooting the guy in the back but it has no effect. You're left to your own conclusions, and I think it needs something more. Granted there could be more but all the info I looked up on it say it ends there. Disappointing, but not so much that I dislike the game - just that quest.

***END SPOILER***

Overall I think this is among the best games put out this year, and may hold that until next year.

9/10 only because sometimes the things I get hung up on are game-breakers, like the damned cougars and horse-diving problems.

Fallout 3 (Game of the Year Edition)

PUBLISHER: Bethesda Softworks
DEVELOPER: Bethesda Softworks
Played on: PS3
Initial impression: First Person RPG with Shooter aspects. I don't want to set the world on fire...

Liked:
- Story (Main and 2/5 of the expansions that I've played)
- Environment
- Morality/Karma
- Attention to detail

Disliked:
- Lock-ups
- Certain Actions Mean Nothing


On The Fence:
- Point Lookout (1 of 5 DLC Add-ons included in the GOTY)

As soon as you start this game your character is born. You choose gender and physical features of your "future self." Fast forward and you're 2-ish. You choose to allocate points into your attributes, Strength, Percetion, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck, in a clever book called "You're S.P.E.C.I.A.L.!" (made me laugh). Fast forward again and you're 10. You get a Pip-Boy 3000, a wrist-mounted stats supercomputer. You also get your first weapon and some very basic training. Next time jump and you're 18. You're subjected to the Generalized Occupational Aptitude Test (or G.O.A.T. for short) where you choose the skills you want to concentrate on. Finally the game starts...

The year is 2277. For all your life, all you've known is the underground dwelling where you live. Vault-Tec's Nuclear Fallout Survival Vault #101 has been your home for the last 18 years... but not for long. You awake to the sound of alarms and your friend Amata yelling at you to wake up. Your father has ESCAPED! But, the Vault's been sealed for 200 years! No way! The Overseer - Amata's father - blames you and the cops are after you! Time to get the hell out!

And so you do. Your first glimpse of the post-nuclear apocalypse is bleak at best. Some wandering to the nearest ruined town reveals a sign pointing to an actual inhabited settlement. These people are wary, but let you in because they figure you're not trouble. You can find someone who knows where your father is, but he's a prick. Here's where the game gets really interesting. This town is chock full of side-quests, some of which involve the Morality/Karma system. You, too, can be a prick. You can be a saint. If you want, you can play the middle-ground. It's all up to you, but tghe path you choose WILL affect certain other aspects.

Case in point: This first town is built in the crater where one of the nukes hit - except it didn't detonate. You're asked by a few NPC's to deal with the bomb. One wants you to trigger it (remotely), destroying the town and everyone in it. Do you play nice and just disarm it, do you just leave it alone, or do you tread in darkness, sending dozens of people to their nuclear doom? Disarming it gains you trust from the locals. They give you a house and treat you like one of them. Destroying it means you can never go back there (because it doesn't exist) and the extreme few who survive will hate you.

Attention to detail is really unique in this one. Most technological things look like they fell out of a 1950's Sci-Fi film. Other items are caked with grime and dirt, making them appear as though they've been used, abused and abandoned in the elements. You can find audio recordings, hand scribbled notes, books, magazines and journals to give you insight on the people who used to live out there. You can hack into computer terminals and read logs or reports to see what businesses were doing when the bombs fell, or to remotely unlock a pesky safe or disable a security gun.

The radio DJ on Galaxy News Radio plays 1930's and 1940's records (the same few because "they are the only ones that still play") and will inform his listening audience of your exploits. He'll even tell the results of your missions, changing his banter depending on your Karma level.

The one aspect that REALLY caught my love was player-made weaponry. You will encounter schematics for weapons that require you to scavange through old gas stations, supermarkets and destroyed houses to gather the correct combination of resources. Thing is - it's somewhat believable. Take for example the Bottlecap Mine. You need to find a Lunchbox, 10 Bottlecaps, a Sensor Module and a Cherry Bomb. The lunchbox is the housing, the bottlecaps the additional shrapnel, sensor module to detect an enemy's presence and the cherry bomb for the explosion.

Plus: The Vault Tec lunchbox that the mine is made from is identical to the metal lunchbox you receive with the Collector's Edition of Fallout 3. How's that for marketing?

Unfortunately it is time for what I don't like.

Lock Ups
This game suffers a very real and problematic KNOWN ISSUE. It will seize at seemingly random times somewhere around halfway through the main storyline (depending on how many sidequests you've finished and if you did any of the add-on content). When I say seize, I mean the game will stop completely for minutes at a time and often cause you to power down your system in order to break the cycle. I have had to restart my PS3 about 15 times in the last two weeks because of it. What happened just before that? Well, I completed one of the DLC/add-ons to gain powerful armor earlier than you can through the regular storyline. I've read that the save-game file gets huge and often may become slightly corrupt, especially after doing some of the DLC/add-ons.

Certain Actions Mean Nothing
This is going to be a major spoiler if I go into detail (and I will) but I'm going to try to explain it spoiler-free first. Sometimes you can do things that, in theory, should be a HUGE DEAL to everyone - so huge in fact that you should be able to tell everyone all about it every chance you get OR word of the deed should have been spread somehow.

***START SPOILER***

Paradise Falls is the Wasteland's Slaver haven - where a corrupt group of scumbags deal in human trafficking for personal gain. I decided that this was unacceptable and, after freeing some kids (as part of a quest) I laid waste (lol) to the entire compound. I murdered every single slaver there. I set all the other slaves free.

Now when I run into people (ex-slaves, mostly) who are in fear of getting taken to Paradise Falls, I can't say anything like "Don't worry, that place is history!" This pisses me off because there are a LOT of other things you do (through quests) that ALLOW you such recognition. I think somewhere I actually missed a quest later on to do what I took it upon myself to do - clean out the town. I can't help it that I'm thinking ahead, and I should be rewarded for taking it upon myself to right that wrong.

***END SPOILER***

I really can't find much of anything I'm on the fence about with this game. I've played through 2 of the 5 expansions and am in the middle of number 3. Much like a lot of the rest of the game, you don't need to do them in any specific order... in fact I did one of them early on to take advantage of a perk you gain - a perk that makes staying alive easier.

Oh that's right - wait - Point Lookout. This add-on has issues, and I had issues with it. I liked the overall story. I liked the setting and the scenery was great. Hell I even liked the few twists on the familiar. What I didn't like was that enemies were about 2.5-3x more difficult and there's a certain piece of the plot that, without revealing too much, fucks you over hard... for the rest of the game. Meh - I should have seen it coming, but it's OK. You get a great weapon if you play your cards right.

Anyhow I give Fallout 3 a whopping 9.5 out of 10 based on the hours and hours of pure fun I've had. I love this game. It's probably one of the best I've ever played. The .5 I don't give it is for all the bullshit I've had to deal with as it locks up about 2-3 times every time I play now. I still love ya, Bethesda, even though I want to punch you in the head for those lockups.

Left 4 Dead 2 (Part 2: More Gripes)

There is so much to say about this game that I feel like I just didn't give it enough love in the last post.

I already harped on the chainsaw's inability to be refueled, so here's another rather fixable gripe: Barricades. At a few sections of the game, some old sawhorse-type barricades have been set up to herd potential fleeing residents into gathering areas. Thing is, these barriers also prevent you, the player, from going straight through. These sawhorse barricades are made of wood, plastic or metal. At most they weight 25 pounds. You should be able to at least knock them over to get through instead of hopping them or walking all around them.

There was a certain issue I had with difficulty and how the AI Director will scale the tables against you. There is an achievement for completing a campaign on Expert difficulty with Realism mode activated. Expert means things hit and die harder. Realism means nothing is highlighted - weapons, ammo, other players are all without their signature glow to show you where they are. Names aren't even displayed above other players. I fired up a Single Player game on Expert/Realism. I started the first campaign and made it damn near to the end of the second segment out of four, only dying/restarting in the second segment about 5 times before giving up. Pretty impressive considering the bot survivors are horrible at keeping up with me so I was nearly alone through 3/4 of it. I figured if I could make it that far, than me with my three friends could make it through no problem.

Boy, was I wrong.

The AID decided to massacre us from every conceivable angle - multiple Special Infected all at once, horde swarm after horde swarm with very little ammo/grenade support, and let's not even talk about the dumpster.

Ok, fine. I will. There is this dumpster about a third of the way through the second segment and it's blocking the path. You need to climb up and over it and move along. Sounds easy, right? Not when you have about 200 infected, a Tank, a Boomer, a Witch, a Smoker, a Hunter, a Jockey and a Charger all coming at you within 3 minutes. It was a nightmare.

Thing is, we're all rather skilled 'FPS' armsmen. We usually work great as a team. This specific challenge made us all want to play something else for a while.

Like Spider Solitaire. Or Peggle. Anything that didn't involve zombies, and the shooting of said zombies.

Year In Review (Sort Of)

Here are my thoughts in no particular order on the various games I didn't review but played quite a bit of in 2009.

LittleBIGPlanet
This was my first game for the PS3, and it still continues to entertain. At first the lighthearted charm and catchy soundtrack were the main draw, but at some point it stops holding your hand, assumes you're a pro and dumps you into a world of hurt. I never got too put-off by the challenges to the point of walking away (see Dead Space below) but it does have its share of controller-throwing moments.

Best thing about LBP is that new content is always coming. Aside from user-created stuff (which can range from "pretty clever" to "what a severe waste of time/life") Media Molecule throws down some great themed add-ons. The newly released Pirates of the Carribean pack offers up a few new professionally created levels and four costumes. I'm somewhat of a pirate fan (though not exactly a PotC freak) so I was glad to see the new pack just for the addition of water. You can't make a decent pirate themed level without the sea. It just doesn't happen. I also loved the Metal Gear Solid add-on for the costumes and the Paintinator™. This brought "guns" to LBP in the only fashion that seemed appropriate - paint guns.

For all that I like about LBP there are a few things I don't. Occasionally unstable controls make some of the later platforming stages a pain in the ass. Nothing frustrates me more than losing because the controls don't respond or respond poorly. Jumping is the main culprit, with your distance determined by the amount of pressure you put on the X button. I also disliked certain game mechanics and found that whenever I came across one that irritated me, the devs made sure to beat me over the head with it. There's a section in the Islands where you jump up and hold on to a horizontally rotating platform, jump on top of it then up to the next rotating platform before it throws you off. This would be OK if it were just, say two or three in a row. There's about 10, and by the time I fall off of number seven for the 300th time I'm about ready to chuck the controller through the TV. (I managed to get past it, but now I'm stuck in The Bunker and the Wheel of Death).

Another thing that irks me, though only just a tad, is the insistance of multiplayer. Yeah, I know - it's a core aspect of LBP, but I shouldn't be strongarmed into it for the sake of completion. Some costume pieces, stickers or level building parts are only available if you attempt to tolerate certain levels with other, real people. It's annoying because unless you have three friends with the game, finding reliable people who know what the hell they are doing and won't waste your fucking time is nearly IMPOSSIBLE.

I haven't managed to make a decent level at all, mostly because I'm impatient. I started one and it was going great until I tried to playtest it and found pistons that were supposed to just move spikes or doors around were causing earthquakes amongst the sections I *thought* were welded to the floor. It made a huge jumbled mess that discouraged me from going further and I haven't really looked back since.


Overall, a great game despite my hangups.

Dead Space
Much like the protagonist Issac's visor, the reviews for this survival horror game glow brightly. Yet, even though game journalists and players alike loved it, they tried to shoehorn it into a "Resident Evil In Space" dismissive category. It rose to that challenge as a decent game that not only mirrors the RE series, but in some ways (for me) blows it out of the sky.

Long story short, you're Issac Clarke (yeah, clever - right?), an engineer sent out to repair mining vessel Ishimura out in the middle of nowhere. As your ship approaches, your crew notices the Ishimura is floating, dead in space - No lights, no comm signal, nothing. Landing on the Ishimura damages your shuttle (of course!) stranding you there. the ship seems vacant, and when you try to make contact with the crew, some of your team (two Star Trek-esque "red shirt" guys) get massacred by some mutant creature. One attacks you, too, forcing you into an elevator to get away. From this point on you're a solo act, fixing damaged systems and finding keys to unlock vital areas in an attempt to figure out WTF is going on. Yeah, OK, the story's far more complex than I can summarize, but it's great.

I'm not a huge fan of horror, or survival horror, but this game is worth playing. The story is really, really good. It pulls you in with not only scripted events, but in Bioshock fashion with audio and text diaries left all over the ship. One series of these leads you to believe you are only a handful of steps behind a pair of survivors trying to escape. You eventually find them... and I won't give away too much but you find you were correct in assuming that. In the end, the story is what brings me back again and again.

I'm currently on my 3rd play-through of the game. The first one was Dec 2008 thru Feb 2009, with a huge month and a half gap for when I got really pissed at an Asteroid Defense System section. You had to manually destroy asteroids while an AI character tried to get the automated systems online. I tried that thing about 100 times in December 2008 before I gave up and walked away. I didn't pick it up again for nearly 2 months, at which time I got through it on one try. This was where I also got all the collection trophies (all guns, audio/text diaries) and the elusive "Peng" trophy.

My second play-through was strictly for the "One Gun" trophy. Go through the whole game using only the first weapon you find - the Plasma Cutter. The benefit to doing this on your SECOND play through is that you can load up the Cleared Game data and have access to your completely upgraded Plasma Cutter AND the best armor you can obtain without using real money (you can purchase add-ons that give out in-game benefits on PSN). This challenge was great, mostly because I felt like it was the most realistic way to go through the game. Yeah, other weapons are cool, but using JUST the PC gave a gritty, raw factor to it.

This third play through is to get all the "kill 30 enemies with [WEAPON]" trophies and other odd ones I hadn't tried. I think this is the only game where I have about 90% of all the trophies, and they aren't all easy to get. Killing a dozen enemies by pushing them into damaged gravity panels SOUNDS easy enough until you are trying to get the trophy.

Left 4 Dead 2
For the majority of my thoughts, see Left 4 Dead. This game is nearly identical for about 70% of it.

The new infected are interesting and force you to rethink strategy at times. The Spitter is similar in mechanics to the Boomer, but can puke acid at great distances. The Jockey jumps on you, but, unlike the Hunter, it drives you toward a horde to get you killed. The Charger is like a light Tank, easier to defeat but hits hard when it does. All the other Specials are back - Boomer, Hunter, Smoker, Witch and Tank, though now the Witch isn't always sitting around. She's mobile, crying her eyes out and slightly more touchy than before.

Things that REALLY make L4D2 unique are environment-based. New Uncommon Infected, like haz-mat suit wearing CEDA agents who are fireproof. A series of levels where a Gulf-area hurricane is a main crescendo is among my favorites. It starts off with a light rain shortly into the first segment, which becomes heavier as you work toward the mid-point. The third leg is peppered with high-wind laced downpours where you literally cannot see anything past five feet away. Oh, and zombies are attacking you. Including the Specials.

Melee weapons were introduced here too, and range from semi-common items like a fixe axe or crowbar to the katana (or "ninja sword" as a few survivors call it) and outrageously utilized electric guitar. These things take the place of your pistol if you prefer, and most are one-shot kills to regular infected and only a few swipes to most specials. The katana is a favorite for the speed and killing power (though according to a websites research the damage is the same for most melee weapons), and I like the chainsaw but wish you could refuel it. Gas cans are found all over the place, so why not?

Dungeons and Dragons Online
This MMO went free-to-play about midyear, and was a nice switch from LOTRO only because I could play it with my usual crew. My main gripes with DDO are the world (Ebberon) and the levelling structure. For some reason there are "degrees" of a level, and that's very confusing. The game looks great, especially given that it was a precursor to LOTRO. It shares a lot in common with the latter, though, in my opinion, not enough. If I had paid to play it, I might care.

As a free game that lets me play D&D with friends without travelling, it's decent. The magic animations are good. The combat is a bit repetative, but that happens when you're unable to earn XP from creative thinking. I don't think there's any D&D based game out there that has various solutions to quests to the point of offering a non-violent path. I'm not saying I'm opposed to hack-n-slash; I just appreciate a good riddle every now and then.

This is not to say that the game is ALL H/S... There are a few moments where your ability scores come into play. These are rather mundane "You need INT/STR "X" or higher" situations. Once you come across them, all you need to do is restart that mission and bring along the appropriate friends. To this end, the three guys I play DDO with each have two characters and we switch out depending on what is needed.

Is it a fun D&D-like game? Yes. Will it replace actual D&D? Not by a longshot, but since my party is scattered throughout the USA it will have to suffice.