TallGuyCalif's Computer Gaming and Entertainment Site

Category: Games I’m Playing

  • Bought Dungeon Siege III and Deus Ex: Human Revolution from Amazon

    Yesterday, I bought download versions of Dungeon Siege III and Deus Ex: Human Revolution from Amazon. While neither of those games were on my must-play list, they were such a good price that I had to pick them up to see if I like them.

    I enjoyed the first two Dungeon Siege games a lot which made me hope the third one, which got not-great reviews, would be okay. When I downloaded it from Amazon, it added itself to my Steam account, which is great, because Steam can worry about keeping it up to date, etc.

    The game is very console-oriented, with few character choices, no customization, loot items specific to each character, and combat tailor-made for a game controller (I use the Xbox 360 controller for Windows). The game looks good at high resolution and doesn’t stutter on my system. Dungeon Siege III starts amazingly quickly and has very little in the way of delays or loading screens. It’s very well done.

    I chose a character that uses guns, both a long rifle for ranged attacks and a duel-wield shotgun/pistol combo for short range. There are only 4 character choices, so my guess is that the party will eventually end up with all four: yourself and three companions. Each has different skills, armor, and appearance.

    So far, the combat is pretty good. Before I got better with the controls and switching between short and long range, I had a lot of trouble when mobs would close on me and surround me. The long rifle is powerful, but not useful up close. Once I figured out my stun skill, how to roll and avoid hits, and spamming the shotgun/pistol blasts, I got lots better.

    The plot is the usual kind about how you are of special lineage and everyone around you was betrayed and killed, etc. The plot missions, so far, are very linear, and the number of side quests is reasonably few, so you can focus on progressing the story. You start off solo, but so far, I have rescued one of the other characters, so she is now my party companion and does fire damage and helps a lot. I presume our goal will be to rescue the other two soon.

    In short, Dungeon Siege III is a fun, simplified action RPG that is worth playing, especially if you can buy it on sale!

  • Still too many games!

    While I still own too many games that I intend to play, I have been working on trying to get through some. After finishing Fallout New Vegas, I played and enjoyed Bioshock 2. I liked the original Bioshock, but there were many aspects of the game that were not explained very well. Bioshock 2 does a great job of covering the history of Rapture and explaining many of the events from Bioshock and leading to the events of Bioshock 2. The plot is pretty good, the action is great, and the enemies (and some of the NPCs) ruthless.

    The only problem I had with Bioshock 2 was the ending. I did the good ending where I saved everyone, etc., and while it was moving and emotional, it wasn’t so good for me. In the original, the good ending was all happiness and light, while this one wasn’t as pleasant.

    Since Bioshock 2 is very inexpensive these days, I strongly recommend it if you like story-driven shooters.

    Now that I’m done with Bioshock 2, I’ve been working on Dragon Age 2, which is also pretty good, though didn’t grab me as much as the wonderful original Dragon Age!

  • LOTRO Forges of Isengard solo instance

    This is a long video of a mission to clear Saruman’s minions in the Forges of Isengard. This is a solo instance that is not too difficult, but has some tough baddies and lots of loot, particularly reputation items and some legendary items. I nearly bit off more that I could chew at the start, because I pulled 4 enemies, but survived and breezed through the rest.

  • LOTRO Tour Part 7: Bree

    This is a tour through Bree, starting at the west gate, then showing the Prancing Pony, the crafting hall, the town hall, jail, auction house, hunting lodge, and finally ending at the skirmish camp beyond the south gate.

     

  • LOTRO Lore Master Menagerie

    Lore Masters in Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings Online can summon many companions from nature to help fight or even just as decoration. The gallery below shows most of my pets, though I can’t show one without serious re-traiting, so it is omitted.

    My favorites are the Snow Crest Eagle, because Eagles can revive you if you die in battle (by sacrificing themselves), and Slynxy the lynx, which has an awesome stealth attack that can kill some weaker enemies in one shot. BigGrowly is also a good tank and can grab aggro away from the poor squishy Lore Master… DuskyKitty can deal damage, sometimes against groups, so he’s a good choice in some situations.

     

  • Finished Fallout New Vegas

    Despite my getting discouraged at Fallout New Vegas, I finished it. I didn’t like the lack of freedom in the outcome (hey, why can’t I be friends with the NCR at the end?), not did I like that it completely ended the game, and didn’t let me do the last DLC that I hadn’t done. I decided to load an earlier save (the “Continue” option in the game offers to load a save right before the final battle), so I could do the DLC in Zion. The DLC was pretty good and I loved the red rocks and the views. As usual, there was controversy and unhappiness at the end, but it wasn’t quite as unfortunate as the others. So if you haven’t played New Vegas, pick up the new version that includes everything or wait for a sale on Steam or elsewhere. Overall, it was pretty good.

  • Getting Sick of Fallout New Vegas DLC

    I’ve mostly been enjoying Fallout New Vegas, although it is not as engaging as some of my all-time favorite games, like the original Fallout 3, Oblivion, and Dragon Age. I bought the game from Steam with all the available DLCs, and so far have played through 3 of the DLC missions and all of them have some sort of unpleasant ending. The last one I did, Lonesome Road, has, in my opinion, a downright lousy ending: I can nuke one faction or another or both, or else I can sacrifice my companion to stop the nukes. If I just want to be a nice guy, not nuke anyone, but keep my companion, there’s no way out. I chose to nuke the Legion, yet I still wasn’t able to keep my companion (a robot named ED-E, much like the one in the wasteland, but with more personality). The previous DLCs I played, Old World Blues and Dead Money, also had endings that required guns rather than negotiation, though Old World Blues at least lets me go back and visit.

    In short, I’m getting sick of Fallout New Vegas and think I will just get done with it and move on to the many other games I’ve yet to play.

  • New TV – 3D games, here I come!

    I needed a smallish TV for my bedroom, but when I saw a good deal on a Vizio 42″ 3D TV at Costco, I had to buy it. I didn’t think I really NEEDED a 3D TV, but it had all the other features I wanted, so I got it.

    I hooked a PS3 and Xbox 360 into it and then fed the TV’s optical audio output into a Pioneer AV Receiver. That was my first mistake. The TV’s audio support is lousy and it doesn’t just pass through audio signals it can’t decode. Instead, it forces the source to 2 channel stereo PCM or Dolby Digital 5.1. This means all the fancy Blu-Ray sound outputs are useless. I couldn’t even convince the PS3 to use Dolby 5.1, but the XBox did so. Though my receiver is a couple years old, I hooked the PS3 HDMI port straight into it to get the best sound and it passed through the 3D HDMI signal to the TV, so a win all around. Shame on Vizio for messing with the audio, though.

    I haven’t watched any 3D movies, but I tried Uncharted 3 and Killzone 3 in 3D and I’m not going back to 2D games if 3D is available. The Vizio TV is passive 3D, which means it uses polarized glasses and half the resolution is used for each eye, but the quality is still quite good and the 3D adds a lot, at least to those 2 games.

    I had resisted 3D because of cost and because I figured it wouldn’t be very effective, but in this case, passive 3D is comfortable and works very well. I’m now sold on 3D for gaming. I’ll post after I watch a 3D movie on it to let you know my impressions. But if you are thinking of a new TV and have a PS3, get a 3D TV!

  • Enjoying Fallout: New Vegas

    I bought Fallout: New Vegas when it was on sale on Steam last week (the game, plus the Prima guide, plus all the DLC for less than $20), and finally installed it yesterday.

    I loved Fallout 3, so had fairly high expectations for New Vegas. So far, I have enjoyed it a lot. It has the usual inventory management problems that Oblivion, Fallout 3, and apparently Skyrim have, meaning you are strictly weight limited in the amount you can carry and need to discard or use things over the weight.

    The graphics are quite good, as the atmosphere is excellently post-apocalyptic. Animations, particularly for animals walking, is spotty, but doesn’t really detract from the game play. Overall, if you like the idea of a first person RPG, Fallout: New Vegas is a safe bet.

    I think I made a mistake buying the Prima game guide, however. It turns out is a website accessed through Steam, rather than a PDF or other format I can read offline or on an iPad. The guide seems to be missing a lot of images that are referenced in the text and navigation and cross-references are quite poor given that it is a website. I’m sure much more care would have gone into a dead tree book, so I think I will not waste my money in the future.

  • LOTRO Tour Part 6: Stock to Bree

    Leaving the relative safety of the Shire, the road to Bree is dangerous to low-level adventurers. Wolves, bears, and boars wander along the road, while bandit camps are on either side. This area is for players of levels 13-20ish, with many quests that will allow players to explore the area.

    It turns out FRAPS is limited to 32-bit file size, so long captures are broken into several files. This tour leg resulted in 2 files, so I had to use VirtualDub to join them before uploading.