Fallout 3 vs. Oblivion

About a week ago I acquired a copy of Fallout 3। I was little worried to jump into Fallout after spending over 100 hours of Oblivion and buying and beating the Shivering Isles expansion. Fallout looked as if it was drifting to far for comfort from Oblivion. I just wanted an Oblivion sequel. Drastic changes in combat from mostly melee to ranged gun fights just seemed not as fun. The new V.A.T.S. system was a little odd as well. VATS lets the player pause the game during combat and pick which part of the body that they would like to hit. The system also gives the player the percentage that they will hit the desired body part. The setting of Fallout is completely different from Oblivion, going from a beautiful old English setting to a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Just to be clear my impressions are based on being a level 10 and an estimated 30 hours.

There are substantial differences between Fallout and Oblivion. Some changes are good and some are not. There is a significant graphical upgrade over Oblivion. The resolution is higher and characters and environments have more pixels. A major gripe of Fallout is that there are invisible walls are everywhere. The map will tell you to go to point A to point B. On Oblivion you usually could get there without any real obstacles. On Fallout many things get in the way of getting to your destination. The most common barriers are rubble. Rubble makes up such a large percentage of the world. It becomes pretty frustrating. Another issue that I have comes as both a pro and a con, which is the environment. Oblivion was beautiful and had a wide variety of environments. Environments ranged from snowy slopes to swamps. Fallout is pretty much all destruction and destroyed cities. Most of the world of Fallout looks the same. There is not much variety. The world looks like it is about half of the size of Oblivion. However, Fallout does a great job of immersion. Fallout keeps the player asking questions as to what happened to this world. I have noticed only a few different character types in Fallout. Most common enemies are the Supermutants, Ghouls, Raiders and large insects. Most of my encounters are either Supermutants or Raiders. Oblivion had a unique ranking system that introduced new enemies as the player progressed. Oblivions ranking system was liked by some and hated by others. With Fallout all of the enemies are available immediately when you start the game. No part of the world of Fallout is blocked off at all. It would be wise for the player to visit certain parts of the map that are safe for his rank. Fallout started extremely difficult for me based on this new all enemies are available from the beginning system. It took a while to understand that Fallout is a world of low resources and is a lot more dangerous then Oblivion. The new dangerous setting is actually one of the strengths of Fallout. Resource management can be fun if it is presented correctly like Fallout.

Quest are a little harder to come by on Fallout। I currently have about 4 available vs. the 13 plus that were almost always available on Oblivion. I’m not sure if they want to guide the player more towards a specific goal while still giving a lot of freedom. It may have something to do with the huge decline in NPCs. Oblivion had at least 50 percent more NPCs then Oblivion. The common complaint was that Oblivions NPCs were repetitive in their conversational dialogue amongst each other. To Fallouts credit the NPCs seem a little more like individuals verses being carbon copies of each other. Fallout has also taken on more of a mature approach. You will hear a lot more profanity. Profanity is often available in the dialogue trees as well. The new ways of killing opponents offer blown off limbs and exploding heads. The more mature approach is not bad. I like blowing limbs off. However, the new gory style is becoming a little cliché. Call of Duty World at War, Gears and even Brothers and Arms are popular gory games.

Closing Comments –
I guess it’s too early to tell if I will put in as much time into Fallout as I did with Oblivion. I must admit that it is very interesting and also very entertaining. Since I'm currently a Ps3 owner only I feel shafted. The Ps3 version is reported to play worse. I think that the game is beautiful, even with all its rubble. Ps3 is also getting screwed on the DLC. I’m not sure that the DLC is a big issue. Early signs seem like Fallout won’t get as much attention as Oblivion. I am sure that it will get tons of my time. Oblivion got at least eight months out of me. I never played a game with so much value until Bethesda introduced Oblivion to me. Oblivion just seemed like it had longer legs with the different environments and abundance of quests.
If this was an official review I would give Fallout a 9.4.

Resistance 2, What Went Wrong?

Let’s start out with what went right with R1. R1 had no limitations on how many guns you can carry and Insomniac did a great job of providing a balance. R2 is a lot more restricted with being only able to carry two guns at a time. The part that hurts the most is that I beat R1 at least 4 times. R2 was so bad that I sold it after having it for a week. Let’s start with the enemies, I hate those underwater things that provide instant death if you slip in the water. I hate those drones that are all over the place and also the chameleons suck too. Anything that provides instant death is immediately irritating. They never really explained or showed an actual invasion of the US, which I think was a huge missed opportunity. The story pretty much just implied and slightly explained that this is what happened. The US is now full of Chimera, have fun. R1 really gave you a sense that if you fight hard enough that maybe you could win this war. R2 showed that the battle was lost. All of the cities and towns were completely under Chimera control. It seems like the only survivors were your unit and the guy on the radio (which I did enjoy his broadcast.) A ton of the favorite weapons were taken away like the sapper and the hailstorm. I used to love to shot a Hailstorm alt fire in a room full of enemies and leave. The carbine feels decreased in power and the bullseye has become more accurate and powerful.
There is also less variation in enemies. What happened to those guys that used to jump off of the walls and have those red flashlight guns? What about the chimera dogs? What about the widowmakers? Widowmakers suck to fight but they were challenging in a good way. What about the little guys in the conversion center? They use to walk slow but would jump on you and bite the hell out of your chest. Where are the tank and other vehicle missions? I don’t really see that type of character connection that I had with the English guy or the narrator.
One of the most important mistakes with R2 is that they were too receptive to criticism. There was no problem with having 8 guns. There was no problem with only one or two boss fights for the entire game. I’m all for a game evolving but don’t piss off your core audience.
To be fair, my main gripe is with the single player. The multiplayer is great. The skirmish mode is my favorite on the competitive side. The objectives can get a little repetitive but it is still a fun mode to play. The co-op is the star of the game.
Insomniac, you let me down. Please go back to your roots for single player campaign in part 3.

Underrated Game - Saints Row 2

Saints row (SR) 2 is an awesome game. It is often compared to GTA4. I am one of the few that were disappointed with GTA4. As a matter of fact I sold my copy shortly after beating it. Screw GTA facts. SR did so much right. The mini games are very fun and well thought out. There is a mini game were you spray sewage to bring down property. One of the more memorable mini games is the hit list. You are given about five hit list total. Each list contains about five people. The list gives you small hints as to where the people can be found or what they prefer to do. One of the hits a guy was found under a bridge with a lot of homeless people. They even give you a little help to make sure that you are attacking the right target. Whenever a target walks by a little target icon represents the person. Another fun mini game is chop shop. Chop shop works pretty much the same as hit list but of course, they are cars and not people. Another favorite of the diversions is fight club. Fight club locks you in a room with up to six guys and you all fight to the death. There are so many different things that you can do in the game.

I almost forgot to cover one of the best parts of the game CUSTOMIZATION! You can customize almost everything in this game. Customization can best be described by sections. Let’s start with your gang. You can customize what type of clothes they were, specific types of cars they drive and even your gang insignia during spray paint. You can customize cars. Car customization ranges from a least 30 different types of rims to over 20 different colors. The paint types range from candy to metal and even a matte finish. Customization of course includes your avatar. There are tattoos for arms, legs, chest and even different parts of the back. Clothing can be customized from coats to underpants and bras.

I guess the point is that the game is a load of fun. SR did not get as much attention as it deserved. However, it has sold over 2 million YTD. I guess games like mirror edge getting more sales than SR seems unfair. Why unfair? The fact is if you like SR or not you have to agree that you are getting much more game for the same price.