I thought that if I 1k'd Assassin's Creed, if I cast it from my list of gaming chores and healed the 300 point scar it represented on my gamercard I'd feel better, accomplished... clean. But all I feel is dirty. My gaming soul caked with the mud I had to trudge through to satisfy that game. But it was an entry fee I forced myself to pay in order to play Bionic Commando, and pay I did, the unshrinkwrapped Bionic Commando case staring me back in the face. Taunting me. Haunting me. So its done now, and I never have to play Assassin's Creed again. But because I had to play Assassin's Creed again, I'm going to talk about Assassin's Creed again.
You see its not so much that Assassin's Creed is a shitty game (like Silent Hill Homecoming) or that its just a bad idea (like Too Human) or even that its unfinished and glitchy (like Alone in the Dark), no Assassin's Creed is actually a marvelous game that just happens to be so full of itself, so mired in its own arrogance that you can never enjoy any part of it. You keep saying to yourself; "X would be so much better if I didn't have to Y" or "Why do I have to Y when all I want to do is Z?" Its as though the game was pieced together by a number of individually talented people who never knew each other existed, so when you put all their talent together it just interfered with itself.
Nowhere is this as prevalent as it is with the story, or rather, the heavy handedness of it. The basic premise is stupid, but just good enough for a game. Unfortunately, you can't skip it. You can't skip any of it. Even if you've already seen a part. Even if you've already seen ALL the parts. You're forced to sit through every agonizing conversation (and most of it is just that, conversation) when all you want to do is stab people. But then they jump out of the real story to the meta story in the future, which you are also forced to sit through without skipping, and here you are even robbed of satisfying gameplay to mix it up. In the future you just akwardly walk from the same two rooms and listen to the same 3 people talk before you finally get to do the stabbing. You do this over and over again for no reason. The plot certainly isn't good enough to warrant it. You're the victim, they're the bad guys. If all you're doing is setting up for the sequel, why not save it for the sequel?! I'M STILL TRYING TO PLAY THIS GODDAMNED GAME. And why are the play mechanics so awful in the modern day parts anyways? Just how late was this bullshit tacked on? How come Altair can navigate all manner of buildings and people and junk with a single button but Desmond gets stuck on the edge of bed's and tables, and can't talk to people or grab items unless he's perfectly lined with them without having to back up 10 yards and then trying again? A couple of menus and a picture slideshow would accomplish just as much in a fraction of the time!
Then there's the game itself. Is it stealth? Is it action? It seems kind of clear at the beginning, but by the games' end, the notion is lost. Its as though they created a character so effective at stealth and killing that it was possible to simply play through the game and never once see the engaged combat engine they had so expertly crafted, so they enacted a bunch of senseless limitations to deter you from stealthing too much. Don't ever run or climb ladders or ride a horse or stand around on rooftops, these things will alert the guards. Learn to tolerate the mercenaries, madmen, and beggar women who interfere with your affairs alone or they will alert the guards. Don't plan and execute your murders with assassin's precision and then escape totally unnoticed, this will alert the guards. In the beginning, this is perfectly fine. Pick pocket some maps, stab a guy in the back, kill a few guards, hide in the shadows until the coast is clear. Cool. But by the 4th or 5th kill, this has all become very repetitive and very difficult what with more and more lepers shoving you into the block breaking, counter attacking legions of guards. You will be (inexplicably) stripped of the ability to escape wrath by simply running away and hiding long enough, forced instead to find a hay or another hiding spot which will be conveniently placed next to another guard cache. Should you persevere through all of this, the entire final act of the game allows no stealth at all. A non-stop sword fight through waves of the same guards and goons you've been killing with the same tactics throughout the entire game.
And that's just the main game. An achievement whore/hunter's plight is far worse. Even if you were a good little murderer and did all your killing the way you were supposed to and stole enough knives and climbed all the buildings and found enough ways to kill guards and threw enough beggar women out of the way, you will be forced to endure not one, not two, but FIVE (if you combine the masayef flags and templars into one) meaningless scavenger hunts of 100 items a piece over the games various maps for the final 200 or so points. Every game nowadays has some sort of sound or visual cue or even reward to encourage you to indulge the sadistic scavenger hunt du jour, but Assassin's Creed just did it to say they did it, and then did it 4 more times over because it hates you. Not only are these objects hard to find, plot irrelevant and have no bearing on the gameplay, but because Assassin's Creed is either a game about sneaking around and stabbing people and not dicking around the tallest buildings and darkest alleyways looking for flags, you will draw no end of attention from the guards in your pursuit of the damned things. Many times you will be forced quite literally into a crowd of enemies to collect one, then forced to either fight them all off or run away before proceeding to the next, either choice adding tedium to an already tedious process. Eventually I resigned myself to operate my search with a cache of 10 or 20 guards in tow, eventually allowing them to eventually kill me so I could make use of the respawn teleport. And woe betide you if you miss an achievement the first time through. Punishment ranges from having to repeat an entire memory block (and all the cinema conversations and investigations their in) for most, to having to repeat the ENTIRE game for a select few. And Assassin's Creed doesn't give a shit if you want to keep your existing save to dick around if you start a new one, oh no. You are allowed only one save, and only one set of progress and NOTHING carries over.
Ironically, PS3 and PC players probably get a lot more fun out of Assassin's Creed because without achievements and g, there is no reason to endure any more than the very bare minimum of Assassin's Creed, and that's actually a pretty functional experience. The investigations are still repetitious as hell and the story still sucks, but you get to stab a whole lot of people along the way and you never have to collect a single flag or perform an optional mission because there's no reward on those platforms. But if you're a 360 player and you have that cursed gamerscore addiction but not the iron will to simply take game design abuse on the chin, Assassin's Creed will rake you over the coals again and again.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Street Fighter 4: But the kid in me loves the frosted side!
Its symbolic of the internal I've fought with myself since Street Fighter 4 was first revealed 2 years ago. The first trailer showed instant promise with Ken and Ryu squaring off in a hyper stylized bout that quite obviously wasn't game engine and the conflict was born. The grown up gamer in me, embittered by a decade of remakes, re-releases, and false promises scoffed and folded his arms while the kid gamer in me, still waiting in the arcade line 4 or 5 victims back rubbing two coins together, wet himself with excitement.
For a time, Capcom made it easier to decide the victorious personality. The arcade release of Street Fighter 4 was a game that made no effort to win back the hearts of fans that were lost, cradling those souls that still prayed regularly at the SSF2T altar. The old characters were utterly unchanged holdovers from SSF2T, while the far less explored and exploited Alpha and SF3 casts were completely overlooked. The new characters were quite idiotic, illustrating everything thats wrong with exploiting popular trends in favor of real character design. The plot was non-existent and the audio was but a shadow of the epic heritage nigh twelve games calls for. The sole saving grace of SF4 was that the gameplay, lifted from the most "functional" member of the Street Fighter family and augmented with a few "safe" competitor embellishments. Many would argue that all that matters is gameplay, but a series as long winded as Street Fighter deserves better. It deserves more than a fresh coat of paint and some Bloody Roar style super moves after a 10 year hiatus. The point is I hated it, I hated myself for hating something called Street Fighter, and I hated Capcom for making me hate myself.
Then, without warning the conflict heated up again. The release of a home port was inevitable, but the release with DLC, competent netplay, revamped audio, a strong emphasis on plot, and an expanded roster of characters was unexpected. I found myself scrutinizing every little detail released, each time my normally vocal cynic reduced to muttering in the face of some feature that simply could simply not be hated.
And he we are. On release date. Entirely undecided. Is it right not to swing?
For a time, Capcom made it easier to decide the victorious personality. The arcade release of Street Fighter 4 was a game that made no effort to win back the hearts of fans that were lost, cradling those souls that still prayed regularly at the SSF2T altar. The old characters were utterly unchanged holdovers from SSF2T, while the far less explored and exploited Alpha and SF3 casts were completely overlooked. The new characters were quite idiotic, illustrating everything thats wrong with exploiting popular trends in favor of real character design. The plot was non-existent and the audio was but a shadow of the epic heritage nigh twelve games calls for. The sole saving grace of SF4 was that the gameplay, lifted from the most "functional" member of the Street Fighter family and augmented with a few "safe" competitor embellishments. Many would argue that all that matters is gameplay, but a series as long winded as Street Fighter deserves better. It deserves more than a fresh coat of paint and some Bloody Roar style super moves after a 10 year hiatus. The point is I hated it, I hated myself for hating something called Street Fighter, and I hated Capcom for making me hate myself.
Then, without warning the conflict heated up again. The release of a home port was inevitable, but the release with DLC, competent netplay, revamped audio, a strong emphasis on plot, and an expanded roster of characters was unexpected. I found myself scrutinizing every little detail released, each time my normally vocal cynic reduced to muttering in the face of some feature that simply could simply not be hated.
And he we are. On release date. Entirely undecided. Is it right not to swing?
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Gamestop Chronicles: The Naruto Switch
A couple years ago I abandoned Naruto on account of it being elevated to Dragonball Z levels of irritation by the mainstream anime fanbase (read: children), but I been hungry for a new game lately and it seemed like a nice segue. Now a new game came out for 360 a few months ago, Broken Bond, and the reviewers are giving it fair marks, but it costs 60 bucks and it jumps into the series plot further down the line than I can remember. It seemed to me that its predecessor, Rise of a Ninja, priced at 15 bucks, similarly rated, and starting at the beginning of the series was a win win, even if it sucked.
Now I've turned my back on Gamestop entirely, but Best Buy and BlockBuster don't carry anything older than a couple months unless its hot and Circuit City is dead, so for a 2 year old licensed game with a brand new sequel, I was stuck. Gamestops website said the Gamestop closest to me had none, so I stepped into one on the other side of town. The idiots inside were too busy talking about how awesome Transformers 2 and G.I. Joe are going to be to help me, so I found a $15 used Rise of a Ninja case on the shelf and brought it up.
At this point let me remind you that Gamestop has this dumb policy where anything that isn't the sales hotness gets its disc unwrapped, decased, and stored in a paper sleeve in a drawer. The dumber extension of this policy is that store employees get to take said games home and preview them for days at a time and scratch the hell out of them, potentially fucking customers who pay actual money, but thats another story for another day. "New" games (it's not really new once you take it out the box, assholes) a lone box remains on the shelf as representative. Used games get these awful generic black cases that are simply recycled as are needed.
Point is, the "case" for Rise of a Ninja is destroyed. Warped, cracked, and broken to the point where I'd be embarrased to have it sitting on my shelf. I wade through their dumb conversation and request another case. The employee facilitates me, swapping it with a less broken case. I pay, I leave, I get in my car. Now The Stranglehold Incident and The 300 Incident have taught me to check every cd/dvd/game case before leaving the parking lot, and its a good thing I did because my less broken (but still lame) case was totally empty. Granted, I didn't expect an instruction booklet or map or registration card, but I at least expected a game.
So I go back into the store and interrupt another highly stimulating conversation (this time about the merits of Star Wars Episode 1) to present my predicament. After an apology and a moment of shuffling the employee draws a cd from the counter into the case and hands it back to me. I leave again, but seconds later in the parking lot, I realize he didn't even look at the game he shoved in the case, and when I'd seen it, it was face down. I decided maybe I should check.
I am now the owner of a "brand new" copy of Naruto: Broken Bond that I only paid 15 dollars for.
Now I've turned my back on Gamestop entirely, but Best Buy and BlockBuster don't carry anything older than a couple months unless its hot and Circuit City is dead, so for a 2 year old licensed game with a brand new sequel, I was stuck. Gamestops website said the Gamestop closest to me had none, so I stepped into one on the other side of town. The idiots inside were too busy talking about how awesome Transformers 2 and G.I. Joe are going to be to help me, so I found a $15 used Rise of a Ninja case on the shelf and brought it up.
At this point let me remind you that Gamestop has this dumb policy where anything that isn't the sales hotness gets its disc unwrapped, decased, and stored in a paper sleeve in a drawer. The dumber extension of this policy is that store employees get to take said games home and preview them for days at a time and scratch the hell out of them, potentially fucking customers who pay actual money, but thats another story for another day. "New" games (it's not really new once you take it out the box, assholes) a lone box remains on the shelf as representative. Used games get these awful generic black cases that are simply recycled as are needed.
Point is, the "case" for Rise of a Ninja is destroyed. Warped, cracked, and broken to the point where I'd be embarrased to have it sitting on my shelf. I wade through their dumb conversation and request another case. The employee facilitates me, swapping it with a less broken case. I pay, I leave, I get in my car. Now The Stranglehold Incident and The 300 Incident have taught me to check every cd/dvd/game case before leaving the parking lot, and its a good thing I did because my less broken (but still lame) case was totally empty. Granted, I didn't expect an instruction booklet or map or registration card, but I at least expected a game.
So I go back into the store and interrupt another highly stimulating conversation (this time about the merits of Star Wars Episode 1) to present my predicament. After an apology and a moment of shuffling the employee draws a cd from the counter into the case and hands it back to me. I leave again, but seconds later in the parking lot, I realize he didn't even look at the game he shoved in the case, and when I'd seen it, it was face down. I decided maybe I should check.
I am now the owner of a "brand new" copy of Naruto: Broken Bond that I only paid 15 dollars for.
Friday, January 30, 2009
listen up goddamnit.
I don't ask for much from the gaming industry. I sat through the death of the arcades, I endure the unending popularity of the wii, I drown in scores of pompous adolecents gumming up online play, and I've accepted the fact that a truly creative game only comes along once a year. It all paints an elaborate picture of the entropic suck thats consuming my beloved hobby and by some herculean effort I've learned to live with it. But goddamnit; If this game sucks, someone is going to have to pay.
I implore you Eidos / DC / Rocksteady / any god that will listen. Hulk did it. Spiderman did it twice. The Xmen? They've done it a couple times. This is Batman's chance. All Batman's done right in 30 years of digital game development is some crummy beat'm ups, crap fatalities and a playful romp through legoland. Please please please please please let this game be good.
Please?!
-F.
I implore you Eidos / DC / Rocksteady / any god that will listen. Hulk did it. Spiderman did it twice. The Xmen? They've done it a couple times. This is Batman's chance. All Batman's done right in 30 years of digital game development is some crummy beat'm ups, crap fatalities and a playful romp through legoland. Please please please please please let this game be good.
Please?!
-F.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
This whole Battlefront III thing.
First off, digest this;
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/946/946024p1.html
Long story short, the third row iphone blurry cam footage circulated the net about a week ago and was championed by fans of the Battlefront series. Shortly thereafter, Star Wars fans in general got a chubby because apparently we just can't get enough of having our hopes and dreams and fond memories of the series shit upon. Now the entire internet community is up in arms because the EVIL CORPORATE GAMES INDUSTRY HATE MACHINE put a bullet in the brainpan of the developer who made it all happen.
Now, I'm a little bit late to the party. I remember reading something about a Battlefront III footage last week on some site or blog or twitter or something, but I passed over it. Why? Because the Battlefront series is so so at best. I don't think there's a Star Wars fanboy in the world that wouldn't admit that star wars as a whole is tired, but a series of half cooked over the shoulder shooters that do nothing but retread the same tired territory that other games have done far better has never been the solution.
You see, a new game, with a new story, with new characters (See: The Force Unleashed) is interesting, even if a little flawed. Mowing down storm troopers with rebels, jedi, clones, or even other storm troopers for the thousandth time is not. Who cares about a game that just barely pulls together the shootey, adventurey, flyey, forcey excitement of Star Wars when so many others have done it so much better, lately? X-Wing? Rogue Anything? Dark Forces? KOTOR? Any of these games ring a bell?
So you can understand how I may have glossed over the news that there was some footage of yet another shoulder mounted trip down desert ice planet coruscant memory lane. But then a trusted associate of mine pointed me to said footage and said I had to look at it, and so I did. And you know what? I'm not impressed. I've jumped around the net now a couple times, read a few impressions of it, and the only thing it appears to do that hasn't been done before (outside of allow people to play as Jar Jar and an Ewok, for some reason) is the ground to space to orbit free form thing. Now, don't get me wrong. That is in fact awesome. But does it change the fact that the rest of the trailer looks as boring as that series has led us to be?
Mindless running around in open spaces shooting / forcing at whatever with a variety identically playing characters. Boring ship to ship combat that makes Star Fox all range mode look like . . well, Star Wars oughta look. And a really well laid out jedi fight segment that looks like a cinema at best, and a quick time event at worst. I mean honestly people. These are the guys who made HAZE. You could argue in favor of Timesplitters. Those are actually moderately entertaining, but HAZE. . . really.
Don't get me wrong. I love hating the machine, I especially like fighting for games that get killed by "the man." But this wasn't going to be some grand redemption for a metric truckload of terrible Star Wars games. This was going to be another reminder that Vista sucks a big one because you can't run real dos games (X-Wing series) or N64 emulators (Rogue Squadron) on it.
You want to know what really excited me about this footage? This;
I am evil obi wan!
I am evil obi wan!
Sure, it wasn't going to be the main plot of the thing. Hell it was probably just going to be an extra that got chucked on the obligatory behind the scenes dvd of cutting room crap you would have much rather played than what was actually in the game, but at least it was something interesting. And thats a sad thing to say, considering its just the old "take a real good guy, and make him bad play". I don't care. Thats how lame star wars was.
You want to know what the best part about Force Unleashed was? Being able to run around the star wars planets, using star wars powers, with star wars music, without running into Han Solo or Chewie or goddamned Yoda for the seven hundredth time. I mean, does the entire Long Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far Far Away revolve around the action of a group of about 10 people?
Bah, I digress. The point is. Don't cry for this game, because it was going to disappoint you anyway.
-F.
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/946/946024p1.html
Long story short, the third row iphone blurry cam footage circulated the net about a week ago and was championed by fans of the Battlefront series. Shortly thereafter, Star Wars fans in general got a chubby because apparently we just can't get enough of having our hopes and dreams and fond memories of the series shit upon. Now the entire internet community is up in arms because the EVIL CORPORATE GAMES INDUSTRY HATE MACHINE put a bullet in the brainpan of the developer who made it all happen.
Now, I'm a little bit late to the party. I remember reading something about a Battlefront III footage last week on some site or blog or twitter or something, but I passed over it. Why? Because the Battlefront series is so so at best. I don't think there's a Star Wars fanboy in the world that wouldn't admit that star wars as a whole is tired, but a series of half cooked over the shoulder shooters that do nothing but retread the same tired territory that other games have done far better has never been the solution.
You see, a new game, with a new story, with new characters (See: The Force Unleashed) is interesting, even if a little flawed. Mowing down storm troopers with rebels, jedi, clones, or even other storm troopers for the thousandth time is not. Who cares about a game that just barely pulls together the shootey, adventurey, flyey, forcey excitement of Star Wars when so many others have done it so much better, lately? X-Wing? Rogue Anything? Dark Forces? KOTOR? Any of these games ring a bell?
So you can understand how I may have glossed over the news that there was some footage of yet another shoulder mounted trip down desert ice planet coruscant memory lane. But then a trusted associate of mine pointed me to said footage and said I had to look at it, and so I did. And you know what? I'm not impressed. I've jumped around the net now a couple times, read a few impressions of it, and the only thing it appears to do that hasn't been done before (outside of allow people to play as Jar Jar and an Ewok, for some reason) is the ground to space to orbit free form thing. Now, don't get me wrong. That is in fact awesome. But does it change the fact that the rest of the trailer looks as boring as that series has led us to be?
Mindless running around in open spaces shooting / forcing at whatever with a variety identically playing characters. Boring ship to ship combat that makes Star Fox all range mode look like . . well, Star Wars oughta look. And a really well laid out jedi fight segment that looks like a cinema at best, and a quick time event at worst. I mean honestly people. These are the guys who made HAZE. You could argue in favor of Timesplitters. Those are actually moderately entertaining, but HAZE. . . really.
Don't get me wrong. I love hating the machine, I especially like fighting for games that get killed by "the man." But this wasn't going to be some grand redemption for a metric truckload of terrible Star Wars games. This was going to be another reminder that Vista sucks a big one because you can't run real dos games (X-Wing series) or N64 emulators (Rogue Squadron) on it.
You want to know what really excited me about this footage? This;
I am evil obi wan!
I am evil obi wan!
Sure, it wasn't going to be the main plot of the thing. Hell it was probably just going to be an extra that got chucked on the obligatory behind the scenes dvd of cutting room crap you would have much rather played than what was actually in the game, but at least it was something interesting. And thats a sad thing to say, considering its just the old "take a real good guy, and make him bad play". I don't care. Thats how lame star wars was.
You want to know what the best part about Force Unleashed was? Being able to run around the star wars planets, using star wars powers, with star wars music, without running into Han Solo or Chewie or goddamned Yoda for the seven hundredth time. I mean, does the entire Long Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far Far Away revolve around the action of a group of about 10 people?
Bah, I digress. The point is. Don't cry for this game, because it was going to disappoint you anyway.
-F.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
The Good News!
Well, the good news is a red ringed Xbox 360 can still charge a Zune thats hooked up via USB. Which is great except for the fact that it can't play any video games, which is its fucking primary purpose.
Yes, that right. I am now a card carrying member of the 3MMRR (Multiple Red Rings within 3 months of each other) Club and entitled to all expressed rights. Unfortunately, most of those rights are sitting idly by while my friends gamerscores climb and taking losses for free in my Culdcept League.
It turns out that as long as you do the replacement online, the option to have a fully paid box sent to you is still on the table. I suspect its also available if you call, but who the hell wants to argue with overseas "Stan" or "Jill" or whoever picks up.
The real good news is that for the next 3 to 4 business weeks (an impossible measurement) I'll have nothing but anger in my heart when I think about gaming and it will be easy to tear into all these games that I've been playing and share my bile with you. Granted, a great majority of them are fantastic games that will be tough to tear down, but for you gentle readers, I will find a way to hate Fallout or die trying.
Okay, Fallout may be a stretch, but Silent Hill Origins, you're in for it!
-F.
Yes, that right. I am now a card carrying member of the 3MMRR (Multiple Red Rings within 3 months of each other) Club and entitled to all expressed rights. Unfortunately, most of those rights are sitting idly by while my friends gamerscores climb and taking losses for free in my Culdcept League.
It turns out that as long as you do the replacement online, the option to have a fully paid box sent to you is still on the table. I suspect its also available if you call, but who the hell wants to argue with overseas "Stan" or "Jill" or whoever picks up.
The real good news is that for the next 3 to 4 business weeks (an impossible measurement) I'll have nothing but anger in my heart when I think about gaming and it will be easy to tear into all these games that I've been playing and share my bile with you. Granted, a great majority of them are fantastic games that will be tough to tear down, but for you gentle readers, I will find a way to hate Fallout or die trying.
Okay, Fallout may be a stretch, but Silent Hill Origins, you're in for it!
-F.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
First Impressions: Fallout 3
It appears that Blogger and Firefox have decided I'm making this post wether I want to or not, so here goes.
The 10/10, 95%, 5 star reviews would have you believe that Fallout is perfect, but its not. (yes, I said it). Its good, VERY good, but like all good games (especially rpgs), it has some dumb problems. The trick here is that the parts that are good are SO good, the sub par parts are easily forgotten or ignored. This sort of review / reception dichotomy is usually reserved for painfully average games that try desperately to achieve greatness with a few innovative ideas (can't wait to write this Conan review!), but somehow Fallout 3 is this kind of magnificent game that inexplicably makes a half-hearted effort to be mediocre.
For instance, from first person view you can run, jump, fight, talk, and everything just fine, but they also included a clunky pointless 3rd person camera. It's obvious the gameplay was designed with first person in mind, but somewhere along the lines a 3rd person view was shoehorned in, probably to make the clothing guys stop cutting themselves. Seriously. If all you want to do is stand there in the sun, pan the camera 'round, and check out the clever hats and shirts you pick up off of corpses, fine. Otherwise, leave the Left Bumper alone. In third person, jumping, manipulating objects, and (realtime) combat are horrendous. The camera could give a damn what you want to look at (much less what you're shooting or swinging at) and all your animations are just terrible. By constrast, playing this game in first person (like Bioshock) gives you the impression you're actually there, in the wasteland, fighting hell and high water for your survival. Third person reminds you constantly that this is just a video game, and your character is just some blue screened puppet on a map, barely responding to your button presses.
Then there's the Pipboy 3000 / menuing system (and this probably has a lot to do with trimming keyboard PC controls down to joystick face buttons and triggers). The Pipboy 3k is a one stop shop for mapping, questing, equipping, you name it. But you wouldn't believe the number of times I've dropped a gun or important food because the buttons are stupid, or how many times I've accidentally rested for an hour instead of reading my map because its press B, then Right Trigger twice, then left analog once, then right analog stick to zoom out just to see where you're at in the wasteland.
Last but not least, there's the whole "this is still a c rpg underneath all the console fluff" learning curve. All the boring character creation stuff is presented during the games opening chapter, with a nice little narrative and some interesting sequences wrapped around it to keep you entertained, but all the stuff you really want to know (how to converse, get quests, equip things, heal yourself, read maps) is presented by cold text crawls that pop up one time when circumstance happens upon them, then never return. The reality is, you're going to have 20 opportunities (experience levels) to undo your poor understanding of the Agility or Perception attributes, but if you weren't paying attention to the random on screen text during that one radroach segment in the vault basement, may god have mercy on your soul because they are never going to explain how to use a gun again.
That said, it is a safe estimation (even at only a couple hours in) that a shitty third person cam, crappy menus, and a constant need for the instruction manual are the worst sins this game is going to commit. The design of the thing is dynamite, the aesthetic appeal is immaculate, and outside of its throw you to the wolves tutorial mentality, the gameplay systems work like charms once you wrap your head around them. Last night I wasted 3 or 4 hours of my life, just wandering around the desolation, shooting people in the face and hitting dogs with a baseball bat. There were some quests done here and there, some small purposes to all the wandering, but it all boiled down to one trepidatious man, one hostile untapped world, and a ton of bullets. At this point, I wouldn't have it any other way.
-F.
The 10/10, 95%, 5 star reviews would have you believe that Fallout is perfect, but its not. (yes, I said it). Its good, VERY good, but like all good games (especially rpgs), it has some dumb problems. The trick here is that the parts that are good are SO good, the sub par parts are easily forgotten or ignored. This sort of review / reception dichotomy is usually reserved for painfully average games that try desperately to achieve greatness with a few innovative ideas (can't wait to write this Conan review!), but somehow Fallout 3 is this kind of magnificent game that inexplicably makes a half-hearted effort to be mediocre.
For instance, from first person view you can run, jump, fight, talk, and everything just fine, but they also included a clunky pointless 3rd person camera. It's obvious the gameplay was designed with first person in mind, but somewhere along the lines a 3rd person view was shoehorned in, probably to make the clothing guys stop cutting themselves. Seriously. If all you want to do is stand there in the sun, pan the camera 'round, and check out the clever hats and shirts you pick up off of corpses, fine. Otherwise, leave the Left Bumper alone. In third person, jumping, manipulating objects, and (realtime) combat are horrendous. The camera could give a damn what you want to look at (much less what you're shooting or swinging at) and all your animations are just terrible. By constrast, playing this game in first person (like Bioshock) gives you the impression you're actually there, in the wasteland, fighting hell and high water for your survival. Third person reminds you constantly that this is just a video game, and your character is just some blue screened puppet on a map, barely responding to your button presses.
Then there's the Pipboy 3000 / menuing system (and this probably has a lot to do with trimming keyboard PC controls down to joystick face buttons and triggers). The Pipboy 3k is a one stop shop for mapping, questing, equipping, you name it. But you wouldn't believe the number of times I've dropped a gun or important food because the buttons are stupid, or how many times I've accidentally rested for an hour instead of reading my map because its press B, then Right Trigger twice, then left analog once, then right analog stick to zoom out just to see where you're at in the wasteland.
Last but not least, there's the whole "this is still a c rpg underneath all the console fluff" learning curve. All the boring character creation stuff is presented during the games opening chapter, with a nice little narrative and some interesting sequences wrapped around it to keep you entertained, but all the stuff you really want to know (how to converse, get quests, equip things, heal yourself, read maps) is presented by cold text crawls that pop up one time when circumstance happens upon them, then never return. The reality is, you're going to have 20 opportunities (experience levels) to undo your poor understanding of the Agility or Perception attributes, but if you weren't paying attention to the random on screen text during that one radroach segment in the vault basement, may god have mercy on your soul because they are never going to explain how to use a gun again.
That said, it is a safe estimation (even at only a couple hours in) that a shitty third person cam, crappy menus, and a constant need for the instruction manual are the worst sins this game is going to commit. The design of the thing is dynamite, the aesthetic appeal is immaculate, and outside of its throw you to the wolves tutorial mentality, the gameplay systems work like charms once you wrap your head around them. Last night I wasted 3 or 4 hours of my life, just wandering around the desolation, shooting people in the face and hitting dogs with a baseball bat. There were some quests done here and there, some small purposes to all the wandering, but it all boiled down to one trepidatious man, one hostile untapped world, and a ton of bullets. At this point, I wouldn't have it any other way.
-F.
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