Because Finals are so close, I'm taking a break from New Vegas. It's too hard to put that game down, so it's best not to pick it up. For now at least. Thus, I'm playing Halo Reach.
I'm not a huge Halo fan. That is to say I'm not a fanboy.I've always enjoyed Halo games, but I've never seen them as my favorite. Halo has however been the staple at any LAN party I've ever hosted or gone to. We may enjoy Call of Duty more as a group, but when you have 15 people and 7 systems, the only game everyone can play is Halo. So thank you Bungie for allowing Split screen and system link. The multiplayer is very well built (nothing feels too over powered. It's not as balanced as Team Fortress 2, but it's pretty damn close). The single player is enjoyable, but rarely does it feel "perfect." On a scale of 1 to Call of Duty 2. Halo Reach brings back everything I loved from Halo 1 (the pistol, the health, the shield recharge rate) and added many new things (the DMR being my favorite). The enemy A.I. is amazing. Elites will walk in front of another that has their shield depleted. Which gets very annoying. The Grunts will often flank. Which isn't too bad to deal with, but it's still impressive. The Hunters will hide behind things if you're taking pot shots at them.
Everything that's great about the enemy A.I. I swear is lost on the allies A.I.
I feel like I'm baby sitting. Now the normal Grunt A.I. [by which I mean your allies] is as good as it's ever been been. They shoot, they take cover, they rarely advance (but they rarely do enough damage to warrent advancing) and are fun to give fuel rod cannons to. The "bad" A.I. is the Noble Team. My word do they suck. I don't know why, they just feel beyond pathetic. You're leader tells you to "Leave the Lone Wolf stuff behind. We're a team." Perfect! I love squad based combat. But then the squad is all but useless. They can't die (which is good, because I don't want some escort mission type thing going on) but they do stuff that just doesn't make sense. I've seen them drive around in Warthogs getting blasted with enemy rounds while I take cover and shoot the enemy. They could get on the gun and shoot but no, they would rather just drive through the enemy. In multiplayer or if you catch the enemy off guard (or are a really good driver) you can kill a lot of guys doing this. Their A.I. is neither of these. And this always happens when I REALLY need their help. I've got two hunters I'm taking shots at. In Heroic I was able to get inside and kinda run around them. Took a long time but I was able to kill them. I really needed my A.I. to be smart enough to attack them from the other side. But she never really wanted to attack them. Just run around. In legendary, in the same area, she only shot at them once. Now this time I shot charged plasma pistol shots at them from a distance. Like hell I was going in there and engaging them, I'd get slaughtered. It would have been nice if she had at least taken some pot shots with me. Make me feel like she was there. But I'm constantly forgetting I ever have a team with me. The only advantage to them over normal grunts is that they don't die. Your team in Bad Company 2 was twice as useful. They felt like a team. I was reminded they weren't really people when they'd take a rocket round or something, but otherwise they felt real and I would worry about them getting killed even though I knew they couldn't. I would have thought that Bungie, who has really made some of the best A.I. I've ever seen for normal NPCs and enemies, would have made some decent team A.I.
In the "last" mission, you're helmet screen gets cracked at least twice. I don't know if it's scripted, I'm pretty sure it's done from "damage" you've been dealt. At any rate, I really wish they had done that for the whole game. Fighting through a cracked face plate made me feel like I was really there. And it is something I'd expect to happen in real combat.
I can't give Bungie too much flack on the A.I
I'm a Computer Science major because I want to make that A.I. as perfect as I can. So knowing it has room to improve means I'll still have a job when I get done with college. But also I don't know how to make it better at this point. I can't say that "They should have added *insert variable* into the A.I. loop so they would just know you were doing this." I wish I could, but I'd have to get a look at the source code. And even then, to think that I could do better than them is a bit too arrogant. I really want to look at the source code to fool around with the A.I. though. That would be far too much fun :P
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
Lighting
The lighting in New Vegas is a total BITCH to get use to. Which is good for the feel of the game. But it makes navigating, looting etc harder than it should be. Both the Pipboy light and the Cateye just don't do enough. Turning the brightness all the way up works the best, but that ruins the feel of the game a little bit. Since the buildings that are in total disrepair should have no/little lighting. And if you give them full light, it kinda pulls out the immersion. What I'd really like to see is a flash light put into the game. They have binoculars, so why not add a flash light? It could run off ammo or fusion batteries (The latter should make it last "forever" but I'm not 100% sure on that. It could be a good thing either way). It could also become a weapon mod for some of the guns. The 10mm pistol could take a tactical light or a tactical laser. The 10mm SMG could take a tac light as well. The Assault carbine probably could as well. Even the shotguns (hunting shotgun and riot at least) would do well with these. And you'd turn the tac light on or off by having the weapon equipped and turning the pipboy light on and off. This would make looting dark buildings a bit easier, without ruining their destroyed feel. It would make you easier to find but it could also lower the accuracy (or blind, if you will) any close up enemies who are being pointed at. I'd love to see this added in the next DLC. Or just added on for free (maybe even a quest to make one) because they're cool like that. Yes, I'm very hopeful on this matter. If I had the PC version, I'd take the time to learn how to create my own model and working item for this. But seeing as how I have the 360 version, this is an issue that's out of my reach.
A matter I'm not as hopeful on is adding some new guns I was sad to see aren't in the game.(the wiki is very helpful with this. one missing gun is a full auto shotgun. But I won't talk about that here seeing as how I already have). I wanted to see the G3/Assault rifle from Fallout 3 placed into the game. Since it makes sense to have it somewhere. Seeing as how it was made of to be a stockpiled weapon from before the war. (It would deal around the same damage as the Service rifle, have a slower rate of fire than the Assault Carbine, but have a better accuracy and more recoil). I also wanted to see the Chinese assault rifle. Or better yet a Russian Assault rifle. Which would be found somewhere where some Russian soldiers had infiltrated America (my guess would be looking for Area 51. Maybe to steal military secrets, maybe to destroy it) but had died from the bombs falling. I'd like it if the rifle used 7.62x39mm (and looked more like the AK74 (maybe even AKs74u?) but using the 5.56mm would still be "okay" since it's a cool gun. It would have better range and durability than the Chinese counterpart and have a 30 round magazine. I understand why the Chinese assault rifle wasn't put into the game (my thinking is that they didn't want the Chinese to have landed in America on both coasts) but it still really should have been put into the game. It makes sense that both sides would have tried to keep the other side from launching their nuclear missiles (and bombers) for when they launched theirs. M.A.D. stops "working" when the other side can't destroy you as well as you can destroy it.
I'd also like 40mm buckshot rounds to be added (yes, they area a real round. That's a hell of a lot of buckshot) as well as a 12.7mm assault rifle. Because the 12.7mm round is just that cool. It needs more than a crappy SMG (crappy by ROF and accuracy standards at least) and an awesome pistol.
A matter I'm not as hopeful on is adding some new guns I was sad to see aren't in the game.(the wiki is very helpful with this. one missing gun is a full auto shotgun. But I won't talk about that here seeing as how I already have). I wanted to see the G3/Assault rifle from Fallout 3 placed into the game. Since it makes sense to have it somewhere. Seeing as how it was made of to be a stockpiled weapon from before the war. (It would deal around the same damage as the Service rifle, have a slower rate of fire than the Assault Carbine, but have a better accuracy and more recoil). I also wanted to see the Chinese assault rifle. Or better yet a Russian Assault rifle. Which would be found somewhere where some Russian soldiers had infiltrated America (my guess would be looking for Area 51. Maybe to steal military secrets, maybe to destroy it) but had died from the bombs falling. I'd like it if the rifle used 7.62x39mm (and looked more like the AK74 (maybe even AKs74u?) but using the 5.56mm would still be "okay" since it's a cool gun. It would have better range and durability than the Chinese counterpart and have a 30 round magazine. I understand why the Chinese assault rifle wasn't put into the game (my thinking is that they didn't want the Chinese to have landed in America on both coasts) but it still really should have been put into the game. It makes sense that both sides would have tried to keep the other side from launching their nuclear missiles (and bombers) for when they launched theirs. M.A.D. stops "working" when the other side can't destroy you as well as you can destroy it.
I'd also like 40mm buckshot rounds to be added (yes, they area a real round. That's a hell of a lot of buckshot) as well as a 12.7mm assault rifle. Because the 12.7mm round is just that cool. It needs more than a crappy SMG (crappy by ROF and accuracy standards at least) and an awesome pistol.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
New Vegas fun
So I've been playing a lot of new vegas. A lot. I'm on my 3rd playthrough (1st is as I would in real life. 2nd is do everything I can (doing it for the NCR this time) and 3rd is doing everything for Legion/Khans. 4th will be yes man.) and I'm still having fun. This time around I've built my character around melee and unarmed. It adds a lot of fun to the game, I'm not going to lie. I still use guns quite a bit, but being able to just punch something to death is awesome! my next playthrough is going to be explosives. Hello grenade rifle :D
Anyway, I got a laser sight for my 10mm pistol. I preordered through Gamestop so I got the Vault 13 pack (that came with a Weathered 10mm pistol). I've noticed that you can't put weapon mods on "special" weapons. So you can make your Sniper Rifle have less weight, but that rare Gobi (I think that's what its name is. It was on my last playthrough) campaign sniper rifle can't "take" it. This is kinda annoying because I'd like to take the weapons that are already better than normal ones, and make them "1337." Well I figured it was worth a shot to try it on my Weathered 10mm. What's to lose right? If it doesn't work, I'll buy a different one, slap it on and lay it on my desk. Well, this happened.
Yeah. When I'm "holding" the gun, I can only see my hand. As far as I know this is because there is no model for the gun with a laser sight, and they forgot to block it from taking that weapon mod. So the game freaks out and places that huge exclamation mark over the weapon. Which makes sense because, as a debugger, I imagine it would be important to see where a model wasn't loading. And with something that large, it would be easy to find. Holstered the game didn't seem to care (in first person at least) but with it out, it did care. I could still shoot it, just not see it. And the gray of the mark made my view brighter (but blurry). I figured I'd just drop it. Doing this placed the warning over the floor, but there was nothing there. And there was nothing I could find to pick back up. This is the kinda error/glitch I'd expect in a game. Somewhere a person forgot to block the laser sight for that Preorder gift. A pretty simple mistake. The mass of freezing and lagging, is a bit less forgivable. I don't like when a game forces you to save often because it's not stable rather than because it's hard. Edit: Damn, this was already known. Well, it's already in the fallout wiki at least. I hope that means this will be fixed. I really want to put a laser sight and extend the mags on my preorder gift. Make it something I might use
Anyway, I got a laser sight for my 10mm pistol. I preordered through Gamestop so I got the Vault 13 pack (that came with a Weathered 10mm pistol). I've noticed that you can't put weapon mods on "special" weapons. So you can make your Sniper Rifle have less weight, but that rare Gobi (I think that's what its name is. It was on my last playthrough) campaign sniper rifle can't "take" it. This is kinda annoying because I'd like to take the weapons that are already better than normal ones, and make them "1337." Well I figured it was worth a shot to try it on my Weathered 10mm. What's to lose right? If it doesn't work, I'll buy a different one, slap it on and lay it on my desk. Well, this happened.
Yeah. When I'm "holding" the gun, I can only see my hand. As far as I know this is because there is no model for the gun with a laser sight, and they forgot to block it from taking that weapon mod. So the game freaks out and places that huge exclamation mark over the weapon. Which makes sense because, as a debugger, I imagine it would be important to see where a model wasn't loading. And with something that large, it would be easy to find. Holstered the game didn't seem to care (in first person at least) but with it out, it did care. I could still shoot it, just not see it. And the gray of the mark made my view brighter (but blurry). I figured I'd just drop it. Doing this placed the warning over the floor, but there was nothing there. And there was nothing I could find to pick back up. This is the kinda error/glitch I'd expect in a game. Somewhere a person forgot to block the laser sight for that Preorder gift. A pretty simple mistake. The mass of freezing and lagging, is a bit less forgivable. I don't like when a game forces you to save often because it's not stable rather than because it's hard. Edit: Damn, this was already known. Well, it's already in the fallout wiki at least. I hope that means this will be fixed. I really want to put a laser sight and extend the mags on my preorder gift. Make it something I might use
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Fallout New Vegas
I'm sure you've read it already but, if you didn't like Fallout 3, you won't like Fallout New Vegas.
For me Fallout 3 was a very enjoyable game that didn't carry enough from the Black Isle Fallouts. It was still a great game, but I was always wanting more. Example would be when I made a character with an intelligence of 1. i was really looking forward to him trying to communicate with others. In Fallout 1 and 2, if you have too low of an intelligence all you can do is grunt. Which I thought would be funny as hell to do. But you play the game pretty much the same way. You just lose the intelligence buffs, if you will. While I haven't tried this in New Vegas yet (My next playthrough is evil, and then I'll start goofing off) I feel that there is a good chance you'd at least see some changes. It really feels like speech is worth putting points into rather than just putting everything into gun and lockpick stats. Which is how it was in the first ones. You could pretty much beat the game without having to fire a shot. I like this amount of freedom in a sandbox RPG. Each time I can do something different.
What I love about New Vegas:
The Hardcore mode makes it feel more like a simulation and less like a shooting fest. This (to me at least) makes the shooting sections all the more fun and realistic. I will only bother with one playthrough like that, but it was still a lot of fun.
The number of quests. It reminds me of Oblivion where you can just talk to a random person and get a quest. Not always a big one, but a quest. I really enjoy this mass of quests as it gives me something to do apart from the main story line.
The number of guns. They have added so many guns into the game! In 3 you had 2 shotguns. The sawed off double barreled and the combat shotgun (which needed a way faster rate of fire). With Point Lookout you got another full sized double barreled, but still. With New Vegas I have gotten a single shot, break action 20 gauge (which seems to shoot a .410 not a 20 gauge, but whatever), a caravan 20 gauge (over under break action shotgun) and a lever action shotgun. Just for 20 gauge. 12 gauge has a hunting shotgun (love it!), the sawed off shotgun and a riot shotgun (drum fed. I've never shot it, just seen it) and I'm sure many others that I just haven't found yet. There are 9mm and 10mm guns, even the 14mm Sig makes a come back (though it shoots the 12.7mm, which is the Metric version of .50 cal. So think of the Desert Eagle. But in this case it's a gun I like). I also cam across the .223 pistol from the first 2. Which is modeled after the gun from Blade Runner. And it's so much cooler in this game than in the first 2 Fallouts. Since you get to see a 3D model of it rather than a sprite on your action bar. A few guns I haven't seen, but I don't expect to. There were a lot of HK guns in Fallout 2, that I think they'd have a harder time putting in than they did in 98. I'm missing some old favorites but I've got a lot of really cool ones in, so I'm happy :D
Weapon mods. You want to put a scope on that hunting rifle? You can. You want a drum mag on your 9mm submachine gun? Go right ahead. Want your LMG to hold 200 rounds instead of 90? Want a longer tube on your shotgun so it holds more shells? I think you see where I'm going. This is just awesome though! I can put a scope on a laser rifle! I can put a suppressor onto my 10mm pistol or my sniper rifle. It really allows you to branch out and make each gun your own. Some mods increase the damage, the magazine size, add scopes, decrease weight (which also reduces the number of action points it uses) and range. The list just seems to go on and on.
Refilling ammo. Now there are reloading benches. So you can break down those 20 gauge shotgun shells and make them into 12 gauge. Rather than just selling them like in Fallout 3. Or using the pitt add on to change them around. And this way works exactly like it would in real life, more or less. From each round broken down you get lead, the casing, the primer (minus the .22 because it's rimfire. Google it if you don't know what that means) and powder. The powder you get from the .22 is small pistol powder. Which you can't put into your .308 cartridge. And the .308 gives you a large rifle primer. Which can't be used in making 10mm rounds. You collect some of the brass from shooting, but you don't pick it all up (when I police my brass, I make sure to pick it all up. But I guess it's a bit different when the targets are shooting back at you). You can buy each part from shops, but not in large amounts. It's not something you'll use a whole lot, but you will use it. You can't reload the 12.7mm casings though. You can collect them, but you can't reload them. I hope this gets fixed, as the 12.7mm is a very rare round.
You no longer need a repair of 100 to repair a weapon to full. You'll "waste" more of whatever you're repairing with, but you don't need to have a repair of 100 anymore. That Assault Carbine can be at 100% so long as you have spares to push into it. Also there are people in the wasteland that have a repair of 100. I hated that about 3. The loss is the cost. You'll spend 5-8 grand repairing your gun OR your armor to full. The reason this is something I love is that it makes money more worth while. I had 36000 caps, 200k+ rounds of 5.56, 30k micro fusion cells, and over 1000 stempaks in Fallout 3. I had nothing to spend my caps on. But now I can keep my power armor at 100% as well as my guns and anything else I want. Making that 36,000 caps dwindle. Or, in other terms, be useful. it would be like if the XBL gamerscore got turned to real money tomorrow. Suddenly this thing that was all but useless (though cool. You can brag about it. If you have nothing else in life going for you) is worth a lot! I have 12000 caps in New Vegas. And if I repair my armor and my guns to full that's all gone. I can barely turn a profit looting. But it makes the game a lot more fun.
Thinks I like:
Weapon repair kits. Kinda like the repair hammer from obilvion they do a little bit on your weapons. You can make them at benches (making the repair skill more useful than before) and are made of easy to find gear. They are only good for one use, but they are a hell of a lot cheaper than repairs done in shops.
The Wasteland. There are plants (but not too many). There are people (an amount that makes it feel real. It felt stupid in Fallout 3. I'm sure I've talked about this already :P But New Vegas (the town) feels pretty close to a real city (all things considered). There should be more people in the casinos, and on the strip, but it's enough to satisfy me. It's not the main city of the NCR or something. It's a tourist trap for the rich.
The factions.
Gone are the simple factions of Fallout 3. Raiders are bad. Brotherhood is good. Super mutants are bad. etc.
Now you have Ceasar's legion (which is a lot like Rome. If you look back and see Rome as good, you'll probably like them. I kinda do. They get shit done!) the NCR (which is good. but not at the same time. But they are the most good out of all the factions, if you ask me), the Brotherhood (and these guys are kinda good too. But they hate the NCR. You'll have trouble being "good" with both since their interests conflict at times). The Great Khans (which are bad. But not Raider bad. it's all in how you see them). The fiends (which are bad. They are the raiders. But you could be their friends if you wanted to be evil enough). And then there are a few other gangs out there. but few have the reach and power of the ones I've listed. The reason this isn't something I love is because it makes for some really hard choices. When playing the main quest you have to kill the brotherhood. This was really hard for me to do since I grew up (more or less) loving those guys! It makes for a better game, but hard choices are still hard.
New skills system. They took out big and small guns, and made them guns. They made explosives hold things like the 40mm grenade rifle (I KNOW! I hope it has buckshot rounds. That would be so awesome! It has incendiary though so that's pretty awesome) and grenades (both plasma and normal. They explode. They go here) and Fat Man. Energy weapons holds energy weapons like the Gatling laser and the flamer (fits here better than in Explosives. Since it doesn't blow up, it just sets stuff on fire). And guns holds anything that shoot conventional ammo. Now I can put points into explosives and have it be worth something. before it never held enough to be worth it. This is something they've changed from the original games. But it's a good, no, perfect example of what needed to be done. If people want to play Fallout 1, they'll go play Fallout 1! What you want is a 3D Fallout experience. Which means some stuff has to change. This being one of them. Weapons didn't downgrade over time before, but that needed to change. They also made minimum strength to use some weapons (which was in F1 and F2). So now you need a strength of 10 to use a mini gun right. Anyone can shoot it, but the accuracy will go to shit. Which is pretty realistic.
Things I don't like:
The dialog. some people (Like Veronica) bring great human emotions. Most however fail horribly. The hardest for me is the writing or the dialog though. How many times does a merchant have to say "another satisfied customer"?! They say that in Oblivion! They probably even say it in Morrowind (Elder Scrolls 3, for those who don't know). 3 games! Really? You can't spend a little bit of your budget on new writing! And this isn't like reusing voices (where you can argue it's to save space for cooler things. like more guns). Because a sound clip of this guy saying "another satisfied customer" and this chick saying the same thing doesn't save space! Mix it up, please! It shouldn't be that hard for you guys to come up with new lines.
Things I hate:
The glitches. Black Isle was known for making pretty glitchy games. So maybe they have to keeps these glitches in the game, I really don't know. But when I have the same issues with New Vegas as I did with 3, I get very annoyed! When I'm playing and the game freezes. Sometimes it's for a few seconds and some times you have to hard resit the 360. my friend, who has it for computer, has the same issues. Though less frequent. I think it deals with the amount of memory that running the game for hours uses up. But I really don't know. Either way this NEEDED to be be fixed BEFORE it was launched. You can't tell me this never happened in the alpha and beta testing. You also have characters who fall through the ground (I cam across a spot in a train tunnel where the floor had no collisions, so I couldn't go to another room of it without falling through the floor). These I'm less angry about, because I understand that things can be missed. These are tiny. But the game freezing, under normal playing, is just not right.
All in all, if the worst complaint I have about the game is it freezing at times and the people reusing the same fucking lines, that's a pretty damn good game. If you've followed me on Twitter you'll have seen some of my random updates. Which were awesome, but too short to make a blog post. Kinda like when I found the Laser RCW (it's a laser Tommy Gun. Did you're mind just go to Futurama? Good). The first thing I do is drool, equip it and say out loud "And we can shoot them with this gun" and then point straight up and fire a burst into the air. That would be a short blog post, but it was still awesome! I didn't even know that gun was in the game when I found it on a fiend corpse. Which made it all the better.
My first playthrough I picked Boone to follow me around. For a sniper he shoots way to fast with the sniper rifle (the semi auto one). He eats up .308 like I eat up 5mm in my Assault Carbine. But anyway, I have a hunting rifle with a scope on it and I can drop people that are out of V.A.T.S. (Forever now just typed as VATS, deal with it) range in one shot. Well Boone says "Let me aim that for you next time" in a pissed off tone when you shoot your guns at "nothing." Because they are out of his Perception range he sees me as firing at nothing. So dropping people from a few hundred yards away, with one shot, and hearing the ex-NCR sniper behind me tell me to have him aim the shot next time, is just classic. It gets kinda old (wish he had other lines to say. "What are you aiming at?" "it's your ammo to waste I guess" "Well they know where we are now, nice" would all be other things for him to say too.) but I still love it. The random NPCs (mostly NCR troopers) know he is a sniper too (he still wears his 1st recon beret) and will say things like "I wish I had a 1st recon guy watching over me." it's pretty awesome! Makes it feel less like a game and more like life. Which is an important step for video games to take.
I hope to have more awesome things happen, but we'll just have to wait and see. I hope this didn't feel too reviewy and if it did, I'm sorry. It was really hard not to review this game, because I'm doing it in my head half the time I'm playing. The other half is pulling movie one liners as I kill stuff :P
For me Fallout 3 was a very enjoyable game that didn't carry enough from the Black Isle Fallouts. It was still a great game, but I was always wanting more. Example would be when I made a character with an intelligence of 1. i was really looking forward to him trying to communicate with others. In Fallout 1 and 2, if you have too low of an intelligence all you can do is grunt. Which I thought would be funny as hell to do. But you play the game pretty much the same way. You just lose the intelligence buffs, if you will. While I haven't tried this in New Vegas yet (My next playthrough is evil, and then I'll start goofing off) I feel that there is a good chance you'd at least see some changes. It really feels like speech is worth putting points into rather than just putting everything into gun and lockpick stats. Which is how it was in the first ones. You could pretty much beat the game without having to fire a shot. I like this amount of freedom in a sandbox RPG. Each time I can do something different.
What I love about New Vegas:
The Hardcore mode makes it feel more like a simulation and less like a shooting fest. This (to me at least) makes the shooting sections all the more fun and realistic. I will only bother with one playthrough like that, but it was still a lot of fun.
The number of quests. It reminds me of Oblivion where you can just talk to a random person and get a quest. Not always a big one, but a quest. I really enjoy this mass of quests as it gives me something to do apart from the main story line.
The number of guns. They have added so many guns into the game! In 3 you had 2 shotguns. The sawed off double barreled and the combat shotgun (which needed a way faster rate of fire). With Point Lookout you got another full sized double barreled, but still. With New Vegas I have gotten a single shot, break action 20 gauge (which seems to shoot a .410 not a 20 gauge, but whatever), a caravan 20 gauge (over under break action shotgun) and a lever action shotgun. Just for 20 gauge. 12 gauge has a hunting shotgun (love it!), the sawed off shotgun and a riot shotgun (drum fed. I've never shot it, just seen it) and I'm sure many others that I just haven't found yet. There are 9mm and 10mm guns, even the 14mm Sig makes a come back (though it shoots the 12.7mm, which is the Metric version of .50 cal. So think of the Desert Eagle. But in this case it's a gun I like). I also cam across the .223 pistol from the first 2. Which is modeled after the gun from Blade Runner. And it's so much cooler in this game than in the first 2 Fallouts. Since you get to see a 3D model of it rather than a sprite on your action bar. A few guns I haven't seen, but I don't expect to. There were a lot of HK guns in Fallout 2, that I think they'd have a harder time putting in than they did in 98. I'm missing some old favorites but I've got a lot of really cool ones in, so I'm happy :D
Weapon mods. You want to put a scope on that hunting rifle? You can. You want a drum mag on your 9mm submachine gun? Go right ahead. Want your LMG to hold 200 rounds instead of 90? Want a longer tube on your shotgun so it holds more shells? I think you see where I'm going. This is just awesome though! I can put a scope on a laser rifle! I can put a suppressor onto my 10mm pistol or my sniper rifle. It really allows you to branch out and make each gun your own. Some mods increase the damage, the magazine size, add scopes, decrease weight (which also reduces the number of action points it uses) and range. The list just seems to go on and on.
Refilling ammo. Now there are reloading benches. So you can break down those 20 gauge shotgun shells and make them into 12 gauge. Rather than just selling them like in Fallout 3. Or using the pitt add on to change them around. And this way works exactly like it would in real life, more or less. From each round broken down you get lead, the casing, the primer (minus the .22 because it's rimfire. Google it if you don't know what that means) and powder. The powder you get from the .22 is small pistol powder. Which you can't put into your .308 cartridge. And the .308 gives you a large rifle primer. Which can't be used in making 10mm rounds. You collect some of the brass from shooting, but you don't pick it all up (when I police my brass, I make sure to pick it all up. But I guess it's a bit different when the targets are shooting back at you). You can buy each part from shops, but not in large amounts. It's not something you'll use a whole lot, but you will use it. You can't reload the 12.7mm casings though. You can collect them, but you can't reload them. I hope this gets fixed, as the 12.7mm is a very rare round.
You no longer need a repair of 100 to repair a weapon to full. You'll "waste" more of whatever you're repairing with, but you don't need to have a repair of 100 anymore. That Assault Carbine can be at 100% so long as you have spares to push into it. Also there are people in the wasteland that have a repair of 100. I hated that about 3. The loss is the cost. You'll spend 5-8 grand repairing your gun OR your armor to full. The reason this is something I love is that it makes money more worth while. I had 36000 caps, 200k+ rounds of 5.56, 30k micro fusion cells, and over 1000 stempaks in Fallout 3. I had nothing to spend my caps on. But now I can keep my power armor at 100% as well as my guns and anything else I want. Making that 36,000 caps dwindle. Or, in other terms, be useful. it would be like if the XBL gamerscore got turned to real money tomorrow. Suddenly this thing that was all but useless (though cool. You can brag about it. If you have nothing else in life going for you) is worth a lot! I have 12000 caps in New Vegas. And if I repair my armor and my guns to full that's all gone. I can barely turn a profit looting. But it makes the game a lot more fun.
Thinks I like:
Weapon repair kits. Kinda like the repair hammer from obilvion they do a little bit on your weapons. You can make them at benches (making the repair skill more useful than before) and are made of easy to find gear. They are only good for one use, but they are a hell of a lot cheaper than repairs done in shops.
The Wasteland. There are plants (but not too many). There are people (an amount that makes it feel real. It felt stupid in Fallout 3. I'm sure I've talked about this already :P But New Vegas (the town) feels pretty close to a real city (all things considered). There should be more people in the casinos, and on the strip, but it's enough to satisfy me. It's not the main city of the NCR or something. It's a tourist trap for the rich.
The factions.
Gone are the simple factions of Fallout 3. Raiders are bad. Brotherhood is good. Super mutants are bad. etc.
Now you have Ceasar's legion (which is a lot like Rome. If you look back and see Rome as good, you'll probably like them. I kinda do. They get shit done!) the NCR (which is good. but not at the same time. But they are the most good out of all the factions, if you ask me), the Brotherhood (and these guys are kinda good too. But they hate the NCR. You'll have trouble being "good" with both since their interests conflict at times). The Great Khans (which are bad. But not Raider bad. it's all in how you see them). The fiends (which are bad. They are the raiders. But you could be their friends if you wanted to be evil enough). And then there are a few other gangs out there. but few have the reach and power of the ones I've listed. The reason this isn't something I love is because it makes for some really hard choices. When playing the main quest you have to kill the brotherhood. This was really hard for me to do since I grew up (more or less) loving those guys! It makes for a better game, but hard choices are still hard.
New skills system. They took out big and small guns, and made them guns. They made explosives hold things like the 40mm grenade rifle (I KNOW! I hope it has buckshot rounds. That would be so awesome! It has incendiary though so that's pretty awesome) and grenades (both plasma and normal. They explode. They go here) and Fat Man. Energy weapons holds energy weapons like the Gatling laser and the flamer (fits here better than in Explosives. Since it doesn't blow up, it just sets stuff on fire). And guns holds anything that shoot conventional ammo. Now I can put points into explosives and have it be worth something. before it never held enough to be worth it. This is something they've changed from the original games. But it's a good, no, perfect example of what needed to be done. If people want to play Fallout 1, they'll go play Fallout 1! What you want is a 3D Fallout experience. Which means some stuff has to change. This being one of them. Weapons didn't downgrade over time before, but that needed to change. They also made minimum strength to use some weapons (which was in F1 and F2). So now you need a strength of 10 to use a mini gun right. Anyone can shoot it, but the accuracy will go to shit. Which is pretty realistic.
Things I don't like:
The dialog. some people (Like Veronica) bring great human emotions. Most however fail horribly. The hardest for me is the writing or the dialog though. How many times does a merchant have to say "another satisfied customer"?! They say that in Oblivion! They probably even say it in Morrowind (Elder Scrolls 3, for those who don't know). 3 games! Really? You can't spend a little bit of your budget on new writing! And this isn't like reusing voices (where you can argue it's to save space for cooler things. like more guns). Because a sound clip of this guy saying "another satisfied customer" and this chick saying the same thing doesn't save space! Mix it up, please! It shouldn't be that hard for you guys to come up with new lines.
Things I hate:
The glitches. Black Isle was known for making pretty glitchy games. So maybe they have to keeps these glitches in the game, I really don't know. But when I have the same issues with New Vegas as I did with 3, I get very annoyed! When I'm playing and the game freezes. Sometimes it's for a few seconds and some times you have to hard resit the 360. my friend, who has it for computer, has the same issues. Though less frequent. I think it deals with the amount of memory that running the game for hours uses up. But I really don't know. Either way this NEEDED to be be fixed BEFORE it was launched. You can't tell me this never happened in the alpha and beta testing. You also have characters who fall through the ground (I cam across a spot in a train tunnel where the floor had no collisions, so I couldn't go to another room of it without falling through the floor). These I'm less angry about, because I understand that things can be missed. These are tiny. But the game freezing, under normal playing, is just not right.
All in all, if the worst complaint I have about the game is it freezing at times and the people reusing the same fucking lines, that's a pretty damn good game. If you've followed me on Twitter you'll have seen some of my random updates. Which were awesome, but too short to make a blog post. Kinda like when I found the Laser RCW (it's a laser Tommy Gun. Did you're mind just go to Futurama? Good). The first thing I do is drool, equip it and say out loud "And we can shoot them with this gun" and then point straight up and fire a burst into the air. That would be a short blog post, but it was still awesome! I didn't even know that gun was in the game when I found it on a fiend corpse. Which made it all the better.
My first playthrough I picked Boone to follow me around. For a sniper he shoots way to fast with the sniper rifle (the semi auto one). He eats up .308 like I eat up 5mm in my Assault Carbine. But anyway, I have a hunting rifle with a scope on it and I can drop people that are out of V.A.T.S. (Forever now just typed as VATS, deal with it) range in one shot. Well Boone says "Let me aim that for you next time" in a pissed off tone when you shoot your guns at "nothing." Because they are out of his Perception range he sees me as firing at nothing. So dropping people from a few hundred yards away, with one shot, and hearing the ex-NCR sniper behind me tell me to have him aim the shot next time, is just classic. It gets kinda old (wish he had other lines to say. "What are you aiming at?" "it's your ammo to waste I guess" "Well they know where we are now, nice" would all be other things for him to say too.) but I still love it. The random NPCs (mostly NCR troopers) know he is a sniper too (he still wears his 1st recon beret) and will say things like "I wish I had a 1st recon guy watching over me." it's pretty awesome! Makes it feel less like a game and more like life. Which is an important step for video games to take.
I hope to have more awesome things happen, but we'll just have to wait and see. I hope this didn't feel too reviewy and if it did, I'm sorry. It was really hard not to review this game, because I'm doing it in my head half the time I'm playing. The other half is pulling movie one liners as I kill stuff :P
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)