The Video Games Thread

[fueledbycoffee]

Shogun II demo is out. I'm so in love...

[daftbeaker]

I think my attention span might be broken. I just started a new game of New Vegas this afternoon, got a few hours in and I'm bored of it already

I don't know why but it just doesn't feel as open-ended or immersive as Fallout 3 did. It might be something to do with the stupid invisible walls and monster spawns that seem determined to make you do the main storyline in order when what I want to do is wander round and explore (and then steal everything I find but mainly the exploring).

[fueledbycoffee]

See, I thought Fallout 3 was TOO open-ended. It drops you in the wasteland with barely any direction at all, and I got bored just wandering around, until I lucked into Megaton... and then there just wasn't enough to do to keep me interested. I'll have to try New Vegas.

[daftbeaker]

See, I thought Fallout 3 was TOO open-ended. It drops you in the wasteland with barely any direction at all, and I got bored just wandering around, until I lucked into Megaton... and then there just wasn't enough to do to keep me interested. I'll have to try New Vegas.

Swings and roundabouts I guess. I always liked that Oblivion and Fallout 3 basically said 'There's a main quest but worry about that when you want to'. The main quest was always the thing I did at the end having wandered around and done everything I found.

New Vegas makes it much harder to ignore the main story. You can but you have to make a conscious effort to. You can't go over the mountains because of stupid invisible walls. You can't go the short route because of the almost invincible monsters that are in the way. (For reference, I went to kill them when I was top level with some massive guns and it took about half an hour of plinking away at their health. Starting characters might as well walk in wearing a suit made of steak and a 'Kick Me' sign.)

New Vegas is a very well executed game. The aiming, weapons, ammunition and inventory stuff etc. are all better than Fallout 3, it's just a shame they made it more linear.

[Qwertyuiopasd]

Maybe it's got to do with the setting styles, but I felt Oblivion was much more populated with things to do and Fallout 3 was more directionless in a bad way.

This is purely anecdotal, but with Fallout 3, all I really found to do was the main quest, as trekking out in a direction and seeing what happened was or seemed either idiotic (suicidal?) or boring. And then the main quest wasn't even terribly engaging, because it kept hopping around places with little to do in between. Maybe I just wasn't looking hard enough.

Oblivion, OTOH, I find much more open ended, and I think it's because of the town system, where if you go to a town, you can clear out all the stuff there, and it's somewhat interrlated. Plus, there's not only the main quest, but the guild arcs, which still have a large scope and take you to most of the main locations. And if all else fails, one can make a modest living by simply dungeon delving and preying on bandits. In fact, I've just had inspiration to play as like a Nord barbarian and go nowhere near cities, but only fight monsters and bandits in dungeons, and see how far I get can.

It's tough for a game to strike a good balance between open ended and focused, and it's probably because where the sweet spot is varies greatly from player to player.

[fueledbycoffee]

^Whut 'e sed.

With Oblivion, you could explore interesting places, join factions, do interesting quests for interesting people. Morrowind was even better. In Fallout 3, there were almost no interesting characters (A crying shame, considering the series it claims to be part of). All there is to see is a whole lot of nothing. I did find it amusing to go to Olney, which is MUCH further north than it is in FO. It's about 20 minutes west of my house.

I dunno. I guess I just like there to be some sort of framework for me to work in.

[daftbeaker]

This is purely anecdotal, but with Fallout 3, all I really found to do was the main quest, as trekking out in a direction and seeing what happened was or seemed either idiotic (suicidal?) or boring. And then the main quest wasn't even terribly engaging, because it kept hopping around places with little to do in between. Maybe I just wasn't looking hard enough.

Huh, this clearly is an issue with different playstyles then. First thing I did was wander into Megaton, take Moira's book quests and that got me exploring half the map. Then I found DC and spent about a week exploring that. After that exploring the countryside and the vaults kept me occupied for ages. I seriously think it took me about a month to even begin the main quest (and that had possibly the worst ending I've seen).

Sounds like you two would prefer New Vegas

[black bart]

I have commenced my 'Borderlands' adventure...I think I'm going to get my **** kicked as usual.

[fueledbycoffee]

Playing Samurai Warriors 2. Just found out that it has a PC version. Awesome.

I'll never understand what American reviewers have against Koei. Kessen, Dynasty Warriors, Samurai Warriors are all great fun, and are habitually trashed by Gamespot and IGN. Sure, they ain't pretty, but with the amount of stuff going on, they really can't be. Sure, they're basically the same game with upgrades, but so's Madden, and they worship it. What's going on?!

[black bart]

My friend joined me playing Borderlands online. Because he's a level 40 something I was able to follow him through missions and jump up through the levels up to level 20. But on Saturday night my save_file corrupted and now I'm back to square one!!!

[Scott the Pirate]

Fixed my Xbox 360 myself and am quite enjoying Halo Reach on Heroic difficulty.

Also there's a firefight option called "Gruntpocalypse". Ever increasing waves of Grunts. The sub-title is "All Grunts. All the time. Aim for the face." When you get them in the face there's a popping sound, confetti explodes from their heads and children cheer!!

[Julius Aurora]

The violence! Those poor little grunts. They are people too you know.

[Almighty Doer of Stuff]

Started playing Pokemon White today, which my beloved Ashley was kind enough to buy for me the day it came out! We were going to start that day, but things didn't work out so well for me. I won't go into that again, but anyway I'm playing it now! I named my Tepig "Hoggora" after the fact that it's a pig, and the word for "mountain" in various Slavic languages, because its evolved forms are basically big, hulking pig wrestler things. I named my Patrat "Hunter". The reason is kind of grotesque, but funny.

Ashley's even slowing down her usual blast-through-the-game playing style so I can enjoy the game and still keep up with her! This weekend, hopefully we'll have a battle!

[Qwertyuiopasd]

My friends have been playing, so I've been more exposed to it than the 4th gen, or the remakes of Gold and Silver, and it actually looks promising. My main beef with the newer gens is that the pokemon just seem... stupid and contrived. But now that they're (as my friend put it) "Ripping off the original games," by doing things like basing pokemon off animals (it's literally like, oh that's a crocodile, oh that's a dog, that's a duck, etc), I seem to be less annoyed by this.

Of course, I still don't have DS nor do I really feel like giving up that much of my time.

[black bart]

I've battled my way to level 30 on Borderlands.