Be Excellent To Each Other

I liked Oblivion at first, but the mechanics wore on me horrendously after a while. If Fallout 3 had kept much of that, I'd have just thought 'sod this' and given up on it a couple of hours in. It has a bit of a similar look due to the engine, but the rest of it's a very different beast.

Combat feels much more satisfying, and you're genuinely rewarded for exploration this time, as a lot of the really interesting stuff lies well off the beaten track. Indeed, it's a joy just stumbling around to see what you can turn up. I'm level 12 now, and Oblivion's horrible scaling hasn't really reared its head yet. Some fights are tougher than others, but you never feel completely ineffective, and the enemies haven't scaled into godlike bullet-sponges. Basically, I'm very impressed by the whole thing, it's as good as I could've possibly hoped for from the Oblivion crowd.

Yeah, there's lots of minor gripes, the biggest offender being VATS' habit of dumping you out pointing in some arbitrary direction, which can be a killer in a firefight. It doesn't happen often enough to be game-breaking, but it's annoying when it does. Maybe there's a couple too many collapsed building/subway dungeon crawls. And some of the voice acting is annoying, but at least this time they've hired more than four people. All slightly grating, but far outweighed by the good stuff.

So yes, I'd give it a try. I haven't been this engrossed in an RPG since Bloodlines.

Hmm. With Farcry only 23% complete (and if that's only actually 23% of the first act — is it??) I can't decide whether or not to pick this up today or not. I have a terrible habit of never picking up games again when I move on to a new one; it's all terribly stupid and expensive.

I'll probably cave like I always do, though.

Nah, it must be 23% of the entire game, I'm about at a similar place after about 2o 0dd hours of play and there's not many missions showing on the map now. Must be nearly time to move on to the second act. But yes, exactly the same as you if I buy Fallout I'm afraid I won't go back to Far Cry even though I'm still really enjoying it.

That's exactly what happened to me, I was having a blast with FC2 but just couldn't wait any longer. Save yourselves!

Should I save myself by buying or avoiding Fallout? Help me, Cheeba!

I might pick this up when it goes cheapo. For now I have quite a few games on the go, including a copy of Pure which is hopefully coming through the letterbox today.

Even if it weren't too early to get it for a reasonable price, I would strongly recommend that anyone thinking about buying it wait for the backlash to set in once the novelty factor wears off and disillusionment sets in*. Give it, say, two months. This would also mean you'd find a cheap copy in the sales, as a bonus.

*'course, it might not. But it can't hurt to wait and see.

That.

I think I'm onto a winner, as either everyone will still say it's fantastic and I'll pick it up for £20, or that it's a bag of shite and I can save my money.

I'm not buying any more games now till christmas is over with. Should give me enough time to play through the stuff I've already got.

I think this will go on my Santa list.

I've wandered around the first town, done some sneaking and some lying to people. First impressions are that it's fantastic. The unique character generation bit is excellent. You have to make hard choices about your character -- this is not like Oblivion where you can do everything; if you choose, say, a sneaky character, you might never get the big guns. I suspect the idea is to replay the game anyway.

I'm being a goody... for now.

What's it like compared to Fallout 1 & 2's character creation?

Do you have to roll D20s in front of your xboxlivevision Cam?

My Mam's just bought me this as a surprise present. I love moi Mam

Aww, how nice.

Ahh! I love your mam too!

Also, if there isn't a copy of this for me when I head home for the weekend, there'll be trouble now

How many time did you mention it too her before she crumbled?

Well I'd actually got her to take me to Sainsbury's to buy it myself. We did a bit of her weekly shopping while we were there, and when we came to the checkout she insisted that I put it in with her shopping. So, erm.. none.

identical, I think, although I've not played the first two in years. Seven stats you can change points value of, 20-odd skills including Small Guns, Big Guns, Science, etc. The game mechanics seem very similar.

Yep, it definitely felt very similar to the classic fallout system. They may have switched around one or two little things here and there regarding perks and such, but pretty much everything is present and correct.

Activities such as hacking, lockpicking and lying have steep requirements in the field, so you'll absolutely have to specialise at the expense of other skills to be of any use past the very start of the game. Which of course just makes flat-out lying to people that you've completed their quest already all the sweeter, as you know you've put the effort into being just that kind of a bastard

Is it best then to specialize in fewer areas rather than try to be a jack-of-all-trades?

We're never going to find out what happened to Ellington-Smythe now this is out, are we?

Definitely. I focused almost entirely on Small Guns, Repair, Speech and Barter from the start, and it really pays off in what you can do. Repair's a good example - it essentially allows you to strip parts from any guns and armour you find in the field to improve your own gear of the same type, as well as improving the quality of any home-made weapons. As more or less everything you buy or find is in piss-poor condition, it can make a huge difference in a firefight, as well as saving you a fortune paying a shopkeeper to do it for you.

I brought up some other skills more gradually alongside these, and they proved to be all but useless unless I pumped an awful lot of points into them. You'll definitely be able to bring up more than those first few over the course of the game, but spreading everything evenly would make things a lot tougher for sure. You can 'tag' three skills at the start which all get immediate boosts, so specialisation is very much encouraged by the game itself, it seems.


All in good time, I hope. I've had some really horrible stuff happen to me recently, so this little bit of escapism couldn't have come at a better time. Depravia will certainly continue, once I'm in better form - I'll be sure to mention the resumption in my sig when it does.

OMFG

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I'm in love already. The minute you step outside the vault and see the view - it's just stunning. Combat is ace, both with and without VATS, and the locations are amazingly atmospheric.

IT HAS NOT COME. There is no card from a courier or any other indication that an attempt was made, and the missus was home for much of the day.

Gamestation can keep their lunchbox, their bobblehead, soundtrack CD and their keyring. I fucking ordered it on SEPTEMBER FUCKING SEVENTH. I got a confirmation of postage email THIS MORNING at FIVE IN THE MORNING with a CLAIM it was sent yesterday. HORSE BOLLOCKS.*

I now plan to buy it tomorrow from the first store I find it in that isn't Game or Gamestation, and then take it (when it does come) straight to the nearest Gamestation and demand a refund on the spot. Unless by some fucking miracle it manages to arrive on a Saturday.

*Stand behind Gaywood, people. Canuck rage. He knows what to do.

Fallout 3, officially browner than Gears of War.

To be fair, the original Fallout invented brown gaming, setting the bar so high that it hasn't been outbrowned to this very day.

OH MY GOD PEOPLE this is not a drill. Women and children, get into the nearest Vault. That means you too, nynfortoo. We need men for a suicide assignment... your job is to throw baby seals and maple trees into the path of his rampage. If we all pray, some of us will make it through this alive.

Fallout 3 has mounted an invasion into Greysville though, with a solid beachhead established and artillery support holding back the Skittles Army of Colour.

It was shortly after writing all that, as I sat on my bed seething, that I realized there's a Blockbuster at the end of my street.

15 minutes later, I return home with a pint of milk and a normal copy of Fallout 3. Stand down the alarms!

It is very brown, isn't it? I'm having difficulty finding my way around due to the brown.

Of course, the supreme irony here is that I'm too fucking knackered to actually play it, as I need to be in work again tomorrow for 8 and all I want to do now is go to sleep. As such, I haven't opened the copy from Blockbuster yet.

Which leaves me with a dilemma. As a ridiculously old school Fallout fan, see if the super collect-o-edition comes tomorrow and grudgingly accept it. Or open the 'normal' copy from Blockbuster, and return the super collect-o-box while telling myself that I like Fallout for the game, not the crappy merchandise, and that the Fallout 2 doorhanger and magnetic stickers I got are more than enough.

You belm.

Not sure that I like this. It's Oblivion again with the added bonus of not being able to find my way around.

I think it's massively nicer than oblivion, which I never liked all that much. The combat is a squillion times better, it's much more atmospheric, and the only place I'm having issues finding my way about is Megaton.

Thanks for the genuine LOL.

I'm picking this up tomorrow. Farcry can eat my nuts for a while.

Sad to hear. Hope everything works out.

I'm going to have to buy this aren't I, you fuckers. BUT I'M POOR! AND I WANT MIRRORS EDGE!

Unless you want a sci-fi mod for Oblivion, I wouldn't bother. It's really not grasping me at all. I've played around with video settings and monitor setting for frickin ages, and I still can't make out which patch of brown it wants me to walk on most of the time. Especially when the sun's setting.

Hoho! In the original game, there was the 'Night Person' perk which boosted some skills at night and reduced them during the day. And there was also 'Night Vision' which increased the level of brightness at night by 10% per level. You know, if you forgot how to adjust your monitor.

I have no problem when it's actually dark, but when the sun's setting the entire place is bathed in orange, which makes the brown mutant I'm trying to kill in the brown landscape a mite hard to make out.

Heh. That reminds me of one particular area in Alaskan Adventures which is filled with long grass - and crawling with vicious lynx. Unless you're looking at them you likely won't see them coming, and you probably won't hear them either... until suddenly it bursts out of the grass at your feet and bites you.

Ah, so these 7 foot tall skinless men in metal thongs are trying to camouflage themselves while bellowing and blasting me with their hunting rifles? Gotcha.

Surely being from the wastelands (sorry, 'Black Country') you already have years of experience dealing with precisely this?

Hey man, I'm not from there! I'm from South Staffs You ought to know this, Frenchy.

Sorry. I figured it was near enough to Birmingham that you'd have some overspill of 'them'.

And the 2008 award for Outstanding Use Of Brown in an Original Videogame goes to: Fallout 3.

I love it though! So far, I have (mild spoilers):


The VATS system is awesome. In fact, the whole goddamn game is awesome.

I am advised by 'er indoors that it hasn't arrived today either, so I shall be tearing voraciously into my bog standard copy from Blockbuster when I get home.

The lock picking is 15million% better than Oblviion.

I'm still not convinced about the game yet, though. Now I've gone back out to the Wasteland instead of fucking around in D.C. it's livened up a bit. D.C. is so obiviously leading you down corridors that it wants you to go down. Invisible barriers abound!

Oh, Richy Wood, if

Damn, that didn't happen. Guess I'd better train up my lockpicking then. I did notice that