Fallout 3 Review (360, PS3, PC)

Fallout 3 is a game that's been a long time in the making. The original designers of the series have since bowed out of license, with the task falling to Bethesda Studios, best known for their work on the Elder Scrolls series of RPGs, and this is apparent at the very beginning of the game. The world of Fallout is a post-apocalyptic future where mankind has fled to the safety of a series of underground vaults throughout the United States to protect themselves from nuclear war and the harsh and radiated life thereafter. The player begins the game as a denizen of one of these vaults, and makes the usual RPGish selections of facial geometry, statistics, et al. through a short sequence depicting the protagonist's development from birth to adulthood. Eventually the player is released from the confines of the vault and left to explore the wasteland of Washington D.C. on a quest to find his father. On a presentation level, the game soars. It's absolutely beautiful, but this is somewhat blunted by the fact that you'll be spending 95% of your time either in a brown, flat, deserted wasteland, or in a grungy subway tunnel. This is an inherent limitation of the genre, and not necessarily a total fault of the developer. After all, a wasteland is a wasteland, and the developers only had so much to work with. It isn't bad, per se, but expect to see a lot of muted grays and browns.

A comparison with Bethesda's last RPG, Oblivion, is inevitable, so let's get that out of the way right now. Fallout 3 is very, very Oblivion-like, with some of the same issues such as NPC pathing, but it's improved in several areas. The visuals are more detailed than Oblivion which is saying a lot as Oblivion was one of the most gorgeous games to ever grace a console or PC back in 2006, but the most dramatic improvement is in the voice acting. Oblivion was lacking in that respect, and it always sounded like Bethesda grabbed three random people, tossed them in a sound studio, and forced them to recite endless lines of dialogue in an attempt to populate an entire world with a variety of voices. In other words, it fell flat. Fallout 3, however, is populated with a rich cast of characters with voices that seldom sound similar and this goes a long way toward extending the credibility of the world.

Fallout 3 is a game with guns. Lots of guns. What it's not is a first person shooter. Though you can aim and fire a gun as if you were playing Call of Duty 4, the results are all tied to statistics and skills, which only create the illusion of active participation in combat. This isn't a bad thing, as long as you know what to expect. A more popular way of playing through combat is by using Fallout 3's VATS system. VATS allows you to pause the game and use "action points" to target specific parts of an enemy's body with varying chances of success depending on factors such as distance and appropriate skills. As you progress throughout the wasteland, complete quests, and fell mutants and raiders, you'll gain experience which allows you to level up. With each level comes a number of benefits: You can increase your skills, and select a perk which grants you various effects such as bonuses to damage, more dialogue options in specific contexts, and increases to primary attributes. It's a simple system that works very well in contrast to Oblivion's arcane leveling scheme that requires a lot of forethought if you want to min-max your character.

Is the game fun, though? In many ways, yes. But the fun tends to come from random side-quests and odds and ends that you stumble across through exploration rather than by following the main story arc. For example, during one of my wanderings I came across a small settlement with the unlikely name of "The Republic of Dave." This guy Dave has declared this tiny town (population 5, plus children) its own sovereign nation. Apparently it used to be the Kingdom of Tom, who was Dave's father, but Dave decided to change the system of government to be more progressive once he inherited the kingdom. In this settlement, the dialogue options are hilarious, and you can attempt to rig an upcoming election and toss Dave out on his ear. Or you can walk through the Republic with an automatic shotgun cutting down its inhabitants like wheat (on a side note, if you make your intentions to take over the Republic clear, the person you're talking to will run away screaming "Communist! Help! He's a communist!!" Classic).

This is but one example of the quality of writing and black humor that's sprinkled throughout this massive world, and this makes the design decisions regarding the main quest even more perplexing. After a few side-quests I decided to follow the main story arc for awhile, and before I knew it I'd come to the end, and the kicker is that once you finish the game and the credits roll, regardless of what final decision you make at the end of the game, you can't keep playing. This is an incredibly poor design decision given that over 90% of the areas and quests in the game have absolutely nothing to do with the main story arc and can be completely missed unless actively sought out. This means that if you want the complete experience you have to force yourself to ignore the main story until the very end. It would have made much more sense to simply allow you to continue playing after you complete the main story arc like in Oblivion.

Morality plays a role in Fallout 3, and you're usually able to choose a "good" or "evil" solution to most of the challenges you face. While in most cases this doesn't have a significant impact on the world, in others it can change the world dramatically, and sometimes even the landscape itself. There's definitely a joy in being able to gun down virtually anyone you come across, and admittedly I spent a good hour reloading the Republic of Dave and murdering its population in hilarious ways just for my own amusement. This brings me to the combat: It's pleasantly gory. Limbs rip off from their sockets and fly across the room from the impact of bullets and explosions, and bits of bone protrude from muscle tissue. While it's a very satisfying experience, it's certainly not for children.

In summary, Fallout 3 is an exceptional game with a variety of flaws that detract from but don't ruin the experience as a whole. There are a lot of things I'd have done differently, but it's a solid game that should be experienced regardless of what system you play it on. Party faithfuls of the original Fallout games will no doubt complain that Fallout 3 is more like "Oblivion with Guns" than a true successor, but Bethesda treats the series with respect, and does a good job overall of blending the atmosphere and systems of the original games with its own RPG engine. I played both the 360 and PC versions, and if you have a rig that can run the game, I highly recommend the PC version for its faster loading times and potential modding possibilities if Bethesda ever releases an editor, but failing that the game is nearly identical on consoles and still provides a fun experience.

Hiatus

So... one of the things about pet projects is forging the discipline to keep them going after the initial enthusiasm wears off. This is something I've obviously failed at over the past few months. I can only use the start of the fall semester and increasing demands on my personal time as a partial excuse, but I'm going to use those reasons anyway. So no, the site isn't dead, it's just, well, scattershot at the moment.

I'll be making updates and doing reviews, but honestly I need a staff member or two to keep up with the deluge of review-worthy games that have come out in the past few months. It's a hard task for one man to handle on his own. So, that said, if anyone is interested in becoming a contributor, submit a sample review to me and I'll give it a once-over. Until then, patience!

Burnout Paradise Review (360, PS3, PC)

Burnout Paradise is the latest in the series from developer Criterion Games which specializes in celebrating grotesquely over the top automobile collisions. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the visceral crashes in Burnout Paradise border on fetishism, but in the context of the game it's well executed and actually fun. There's something almost erotic about driving down a crowded street at a blindingly fast speed, zigging when you should have zagged, and clipping the rear bumper of a car crossing an intersection, causing you to launch 360 degrees in the air, slam into an overpass, and land roof-down in a railroad yard below. Unfortunately in order to keep the ESRB wanks happy the streets are clear of pedestrians and even drivers are absent. This isn't that much of an issue however because there's plenty of other stuff to avoid fusing your car with, and in lieu of bystanders, the game runs at a gorgeous sixty frames per second. The soundtrack is also relatively diverse, but I turned the music off after the first day and haven't missed it.

Burnout Paradise is an open-world game, with no loading times apart from the initial startup and whenever you visit one of the many junkyards to swap out your vehicles. The world itself is expansive, ranging from quiet country roads and small towns to a large sky-scraper laden city. The game follows a mission-based structure where in order to increase your rank you drive up to an intersection and hold down a few buttons which starts a challenge. There are standard racing challenges, takedown challenges where you have to battle it out with a host of other psychotic drivers controlled by the AI and have to send a specific number of them to their twisted-metal grave in order to advance, marked man challenges where you have to drive from point A to point B without getting taken down by the aforementioned AI too many times, and stunt runs where you have to earn a set amount of points in a limited amount of time by executing absurdly treacherous stunts that would make the Blue Angels proud.

The driving definitely feels more on the "arcady" side, but it suits the style of the game. This isn't a racing simulator, there's no shifting to worry about, and when you inevitably total your car all you have to do is wait a few seconds and you respawn next to the spot where you transformed your previous vehicle into a work of modern art. It's quite easy to pull off 180 degree turns, and some of the higher end cars feel closer to advanced jet fighters than brightly colored European toys that people with too much money purchase during a mid-life crisis. Car customization is there, but you can only change your paint job. You can't crack the hood open and add specialized parts or mess with gear timings, but it's not meant to be that type of game.

Each time you advance your license you get access to new vehicles, and every now and then you'll unlock rival cars that will suddenly appear in the city. When you stumble across one of these cars you have to do everything in your power to take them off the road, and if you do, you're rewarded with their car in your garage. The cars are broken down into three classes: Speed, stunt, and aggression. Each class handles differently and earns "boost" by either going fast, performing crazy stunts, or driving like an asshole respectively. It's when you use boost that the game takes you from a mere 160 mph and sends you careening down the street at mach 10. The mechanics work well enough, but I can't help feel that the single player portion is somehow lacking. The challenges become repetitive after awhile, and amount to an exercise in frustration, especially near the end of the game where you have to complete over 100 challenges to advance to the last rank. I've had the game since the week of release and I still can't be bothered to get the last rank. Another unfortunate aspect is the Burnout Revenge style fixed-scenario crash courses are gone and replaced with a less satisfying crash mode that can be activated at any point in the game. While this sounds good in theory, it misses the point of the original crash courses which were a brilliant exercise in the butterfly effect, with one small initial crash resulting in a spectacular blaze of vehicular destruction if done just right. Each course was its own little puzzle just waiting to be explored.

The multiplayer in Burnout Paradise shines. With a few button presses you're suddenly hurled into a match with other players where you can do just about anything. You can participate in various challenges, either competitive or cooperative, create your own races with your own checkpoints, or just dick around, and believe me, dicking around in Paradise is an absolute joy. Half the times when my friends and I played we eschewed the structured activities in favor of ramming each other senseless, or having one player pick a C class car while everyone else picked an A class and then proceeded to try and hunt down and murder him. Though the multiplayer gets a gold star, there's an annoying intersection between single and multiplayer: You have to play the single player in order to unlock the better cars to take online. This is annoying, but somewhat forgivable as it doesn't take that long to unlock the more popular vehicles. Criterion has also been working on expanding this aspect of the game with future patches that will add motorcycles and, in theory, aircraft, though I have no idea how they plan to pull the latter off.

This is a game with a lacking single-player and truly compelling multiplayer. If you're a shut-in without an Xbox-Live Gold account, or a PS3 user with no friends, you'd probably have more fun playing Forza 2 or Gran Turismo. But if you enjoy multiplayer racing, and what I'd describe as "crash porn," Burnout Paradise deserves a look.

The Summer Lull

I never really considered how difficult starting a game site from scratch would be purely from a content perspective. Obviously, a game site is supposed to have insightful reviews and witty commentary, and in an ideal world it would all be about current titles. This wouldn't be such a big issue, except that in my brilliance I started this site in the middle of summer, where there's virtually nothing worth mentioning being released for several weeks, followed by about a dozen triple-A titles in September.

This leaves me with two options: Lay low until fall when the really meaty games start being released, or cannibalize noteworthy games that've come out in the past year. I flirted with that concept with the GTA IV review, which was released close to four months ago, but I digress. I'd rather be writing about old news than waiting for new news, so in lieu of Spore being pushed up to an early August release, you can expect to see late 2007/early 2008 titles being reviewed in the short term.

And besides, I can't afford to get rusty now, can I?

Grand Theft Auto IV Review (360, PS3)

There are games that I become remotely interested in as they're in development, forget about, and am pleasantly reminded of a month after their release, causing me to casually wander down to my closest retailer and grab a copy for a late night coffee and vodka fueled marathon of gaming bliss. Then there are games that capture my attention two years before they're released and cause me to lose sleep in continual quests for new screenshots, trailers, or interviews. Grand Theft Auto IV is of the latter category. But does it stand up to scrutiny? Largely, yes.

The Grand Theft Auto series has followed a relatively predictable formula since its original inception on the PC and PlayStation, with that formula only becoming more refined with the release of GTA III and its following sequels. We all know what to expect: A corrupt anti-hero blazing his way through large open cities, climbing to the top through violent and sometimes psychotic means, and blowing away anyone and everyone who stands in his way. Driving is a major aspect of the series, hence the title, and relatively shallow characters and clunky gunplay are all accepted parts of the package. Grand Theft Auto IV completely reinvigorates and rebuilds the series from the ground up, and nails it. Mostly.

The protagonist is a former Eastern European mercenary by the name of Niko Bellic, who has arrived in Liberty City (GTA's version of New York City) at the behest of his cousin Roman, who's tempted him to America with wild stories of wealth, success, and a bounty of large American breasts. As soon as Niko arrives, it becomes clear that all is not as it appears. Far from promises of mansions, Ferraris and women, Niko discovers Roman to be living in a tiny, roach-infested apartment, struggling to hold onto a failing cab company, and seriously in debt to the mob. Niko, being the honorable man he is, steps in to try and clean up his cousin's mess.

This brings me to my first point: GTA IV has depth to it. The characters, and more importantly the script as a whole, are as well written and powerful as a feature film, and are the best use of exposition and storytelling I've ever seen in a video game. GTA IV is Hollywood summer blockbuster material. Niko is a breakthrough for the series because he's a genuinely sympathetic character. He can be cold, he can be ruthless, and he can be a murderer, but he has an undercurrent of humanity that belies his toughened exterior. Niko is world-weary, and his vulnerability comes through in both the script and the masterful voice acting of Michael Hollick. Other characters, while being ancillary in contrast to Niko, are far from two-dimensional as well. The script is also rich with social commentary which feels spot on, and never comes across as tired or pretentious.

The game is absolutely gorgeous, especially considering its size and scope. Doom 3 was a pretty game, but it's easy to crank up all the effects when designing what amounts to a simple corridor crawl. The amount of graphical beauty that comes to life in GTA's Liberty City is stunning, as are the reactions to the environment by NPCs. People run to clear the streets when it rains, traffic follows a logical flow with rush hours and clam periods, and you can play for long stretches of time without stumbling across the same NPC twice. Pedestrians will answer their cell phones, get into arguments with each other, and occasionally an accident will occur between two motorists, resulting in a frank exchange of words and the occasional arrival of a police cruiser or ambulance. You get the distinct impression that the game world isn't just a show put on for your amusement when you're walking by, and then packed up and put away as soon as you leave. It feels like a living, breathing city, and it does all this while maintaining a steady frame rate.

As the story unfolds there are plenty of twists and turns, some obvious, some not, but there's never a point where you are unable to suspend disbelief. Some of the missions are crazy, some wild, but all enjoyable, even though there are a few controller-hurling moments of frustration. While there are some incredibly tough missions, it makes eventual perseverance all the more rewarding. The gunplay is radically improved over its predecessors, sporting a Gears of War style cover system that makes jumping into cover, snapping off a few shots, and ducking back to safety effortless, and it's a much needed improvement for the series. The music is also fantastic, with several stations that hit every musical genre known to man, including a few talk radio stations that add to the game's notorious black humor. The jewel of the radio stations is Vladivostok FM, which carries several catchy Eastern European tunes, none of which I can understand, but damn are they good.

Though I'm ready to nominate GTA IV as a candidate for Game of the Year, there are a few nits to pick. As for the driving, you'll either love it or hate it. The physics seem a little floatier than in previous games, and an attempt to pull a perfect 180 degree turn will usually result in a spectacular impact with a storefront at mach 10. I wasn't a fan of the driving at first, which was an issue for me considering how damn much of the driving you have to do in the game, but after a few hours I got the hang of it and it became second nature. You're also saddled with a list of friends who call you incessantly on your cell phone wanting to do things with you like go to a strip club, a comedy show, etc. While this is a fun mechanic at first, it can wear on you after awhile because you're constantly trying to keep everyone happy because when you get on a friend's good side it usually unlocks a tangible benefit, such as free cab rides or access to a helicopter. This means that between each mission you usually feel compelled to spend fifteen minutes going on a mindless chore jaunt with one of these pricks just to stay in their good graces. I know it's something that I could just ignore, but I somehow feel the need to at least keep them from becoming mad at me.

This brings me to the multiplayer. Grand Theft Auto has never had a multiplayer component before, apart from a few PSP games that I never played and can't be bothered with, but in GTA IV they did multiplayer right. There's over a dozen different game modes representing old favorites like deathmatch, territory control, etc., plus some new ones like Cops and Crooks, where one team is made up of criminals that have to reach a designated escape route before the other team, comprised of cops, either destroys their escape vehicle or kills the leader of the crooks. It's an ingenious design as the criminals have the location of the escape vehicle displayed on their minimap, but not the location of the cops, and the cops know where the criminals are, but not their escape route. This leads to brilliant cat and mouse gameplay that will leave you screaming commands at your friends via your headset and looking over each corner for your rivals. Not only that, but there are a few co-op modes and though they mostly feel tacked on, they're worth playing with your friends at least once. Not only are there plenty of different modes, but each mode is very customizable, resulting in near limitless game types. The only lamentation I have for the multiplayer is there isn't an easy way to mute everyone like in Halo 3, and given the Xbox Live community, this is noticeably lacking feature. By the way, I only played the 360 version, but from all accounts the PS3 version is essentially identical, so go with what system you have and don't fret about it.

What more can I say? If you've ever had any interest in the Grand Theft Auto series, you owe it to yourself to buy this game. And if you've never expressed interest, you owe it to yourself to at least give it a rental. Who knows, it may be the game that changes your mind about the series.

Final Fantasy IV Review (DS)

Final Fantasy IV is a game I'd been looking forward to reviewing, and not just because it'd give me an excuse to dust off my DS after a year, but mostly because of my history with the series. Final Fantasy IV (or II if you're an American) was the first RPG that I ever beat, and I have wistful memories of being holed up in my bedroom in the summer of 1992 with virtually no experience playing RPGs (let alone JRPGs, but that's all there were back then anyway), trying to bludgeon my way through this game when all my previous experiences at video games had involved shooting things. It was the first game I'd played that had depth, an engaging storyline, and also managed to make me a bit misty-eyed at a few key points.

This brings me to a crossroads, because there are inevitably people who have played the original version, and people who haven't. Let's start with the people who have. If you've already played and beaten the original, and have a taste for nostalgia, you won't be doing yourself a disservice by buying this game. It's the same Final Fantasy IV with a new 3d engine which adds to the experience rather than detracts, and some occasional voice acting thrown in to boot. The graphics are pretty, but not earth-shattering, and rate of Nintendo 64 quality (It's a DS - what do you expect?). The voice acting is good - it's not MGS4 quality, but it's a touch above what you'd find on Saturday morning cartoons, and these days that gets a gold star. And then there's the music. All the old tracks are in there, slightly touched up and polished, but still the originals. You won't find any remixes here, which is a good thing.

The DS controls are tastefully done, with the developers not bending over backwards to make some silly and superfluous use of the second screen and touch controls. Instead, they've used it almost entirely as a map system which definitely makes life easier, and provides a few extra goals to strive for. If you successfully explore every last nook and cranny of a dungeon, you'll be rewarded with an item or two to make your life a little easier. I found myself trying to do this unconsciously, though the game can be a little finicky about what "exploring" means. There's still a dungeon or two that I have to go back to if I want to complete this bonus quest because of some random pixel somewhere that the game refuses to register as having been explored, but overall it's a nice addition.

The storyline is exactly the same, but with slightly better translations, though a few old holdouts still remain (spoony bard, anyone?). Overall, it's a more accurate experience as a few aspects of the plot that were taken out of the original American release are put back in, and as Nintendo's old censorship policy no longer applies, things are referred to by their proper names. In the original release, anything referring to prayer or religion was omitted, and here it's back in full force, which is to say hardly at all (thank you, Nintendo). The original American release was also slightly dumbed down because apparently Nintendo of America didn't think that SNES gamers had the cognitive ability or patience to play slightly complex games, so a few character abilities were removed and some of the difficulty was nerfed. All of the removed abilities have been restored in this release, though not having played the original Japanese version of Final Fantasy IV, I can't speak on any changes to the difficulty.

I've had a longstanding history with the Final Fantasy series, and FF IV remains my favorite of the bunch to this day. When Final Fantasy VII came out I was excited, but that was mainly because it gave me an RPG to put into my brand-spanking new PlayStation. The story was good, but I couldn't help feeling that the series may be shifting into an unhealthy new direction, and lo and behold I was right. That was the last Final Fantasy game I ever played, as each new version added more over-the-top plots, settings, and increasingly androgynous, pubescent characters that I was supposed to give two shits about but just couldn't, or what I call the "animization" of the series. Final Fantasy IV is a game that's deep enough to keep you engaged, but simple enough to avoid being overburdened with message and pretension. Beyond that, it's pretty enough to be easy on the eyes and pleasing to look at, but the graphics are still primitive enough that the game can't use them as an excuse for shoddy gameplay. Not to say there aren't a few hints of what's to come for the series in Final Fantasy IV, but the characters have nuance to them that sets them apart. For example, Cecil is still a wishy-washy pussy, while Edward is just a pussy.

Being a fan of the original version I realize that I'm biased in this review. If you're already a fan of the original game, you owe it to yourself to pick up this well-done remake. If you've never played it, then you'll find an above average JRPG that's worth your time if you're into that sort of thing. Of course, if you're not into that sort of thing, I can hardly blame you.

Another Game Site?

Yeah. Lame. I know. That said, here's a bit about who I am and why I'm doing this. I'm a twenty-something male in the United States who enjoys playing, talking, and writing about video games. While I do keep other blogs, I figured it'd be easier to just create a new one dedicated to this hobby rather than to wedge it into a more generic "this is my life" blog. It may not be professional work, but hopefully someone out there will enjoy it.

So what systems will I cover? Well, I own all three current-gen systems, but honestly only my 360 gets constant use as the Wii is full of shovelware and the PS3 is essentially a really expensive 360 with a shitty online system and Blu-Ray. There might also be the odd PC review down the pike and I have a DS kicking around here somewhere that I haven't used in months. Before the Nintendo and Sony fanboys all start crucifying me let me make one thing clear: I don't hate your consoles - instead I hate their current status, selection, and implementation.

When it comes to reviews, I don't give games scores as I'm confident that it's impossible to distill a game's experience and appeal into a numerical format. You'll just have to live with only having words to base your decisions on.