TallGuyCalif's Computer Gaming and Entertainment Site

Tag: RPG

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • LOTRO Tour Part 5: Hobbiton to Stock

    Now I purchase a ride from Hobitton to Stock on the East side of the Shire. I pass by lots of places whose names are recognizable from the Lord of the Rings books. Next up: on to Bree.

     

  • LOTRO Tour Part 4: Tour of the Hill

    In this segment, my Hunter rides around “the Hill” suburb of Hobbiton. The Hill contains the Party Tree and Bag End where Bilbo and Frodo lived. As you can see in the video, the Sackville-Bagginses have moved in already.

    I’m disappointed by how much the compression by YouTube muddies the textures. The game is quite sharp and generally looks good, as do my source videos, but YouTube needs to save bandwidth, so re-compresses quite a bit. I don’t fault them, but it does blur things quite a bit.

  • LOTRO Tour Part 3: Michel Delving to Hobbiton

    This time, I am using my Hunter to take the tour because Hunters can easily zip between the major Middle Earth locations.

    This video shows the path from Michel Delving, where the last part of the tour left off, to Hobbiton, with a short detour to the Great Smials in Tuckborough. Again, no loading screens along this path, nor will there be any for quite a while.

    Based on the tour videos so far, you would think it is always night in Middle Earth, but it is just bad luck. The night views are good and I should show more of the stars and sky in them, but generally the daytime views are better.

    This video was captured with FRAPS at half resolution and 30FPS, so what you’re seeing is a quarter of the pixels and half the frame rate I see, but it gives you a pretty good idea of how large and well-done Middle Earth is in the Lord of the Rings Online.

  • Witcher 2 on sale at Amazon Downloads

    I just picked up Witcher 2 for $16 at Amazon for download. This is by far the lowest priced I’ve seen for a game that I am really looking forward to playing.

  • Finished Borderlands: Great game, but underwhelming ending

    I finished the main missions of Borderlands and thoroughly enjoyed the game, but the ending is quite a let down. I was quite high level before attempting the ending, having done all the other quests I could find, so I had some great weapons and gear. Therefore, I was able to power my way to the Vault, kill the boss monster, and finish the game without too much trouble. But once I killed that boss, there was lots of ammo and such (which is good since I used a whole lot trying to kill it), but there weren’t any amazing weapons or loot there. I would have expected the Vault would contain some killer stuff, but nothing? How odd…

    I thought I must have missed something, but upon consulting walkthroughs, it looks like I didn’t.

    So, in short, Borderlands is a great game, particularly if you can pick it up on sale, but the ending leaves a bit to be desired. I have the DLC since I bought the GOTY version, but can wait on that until I make some more progress in LOTRO and Uncharted 3.

  • Trying out Nier for PS3

    A friend loaned me Nier for PS3 since he had just achieved all the trophies and liked the game. Since I love RPGs, he suggested I check it out.

    I have mixed feelings about Nier. I think I could really like it, but it didn’t grab me so hard in the first hour or so that I need to keep playing. So I probably won’t, since I have so many other things to play that I know I really like.

    The story in Nier seems compelling. It starts in a dystopian future where the world is crumbling. There, you fight a bunch of ethereal monsters while rapidly gaining levels and abilities while trying to protect your sick daughter. Then, somehow (and I would hope this would be explained later in the game), you fast forward to a medieval future where you are a peasant/hunter trying to protect your sick daughter. And all the fancy abilities you had when fighting earlier: gone. Back to a simple sword. Presumably, you will learn the abilities as you level.

    As Yahtzee says in his very entertaining review, the villagers are pretty useless, so you need to kill things for them, do their shopping, etc., as you level and gain abilities and money. This wouldn’t be so bad but the guy runs sort of awkwardly, which I didn’t like. Every stop was a skidding stop, which is silly. The controls are ok, but not as natural and fluid as some games.

    The game is visually attractive, but not amazingly so. The characters are well done, as usual with Square Enix, but the landscape and animals are fairly simple and cartoonish. In the first mission, you need to kill some sheep that look like child drawings of sheep. Perhaps it’s an “artistic style.” Or not.

    So Nier has a lot going for it, but not enough to draw me away from LOTRO and Portal 2 and Dragon Age 2 and all the other great games that I haven’t finished…

  • Trying out Age of Conan MMORPG

    I downloaded and have played just a bit of Age of Conan, just to try it out. I don’t actually need a new game to play at the moment, but I had been told that Age of Conan (AoC) was a nifty free-to-play MMORPG. AoC is certainly prettier than Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO), and is very similar, so took almost no effort to start playing.

    I decided to play a Priest, a class that has one-hand weapon attacks and spells. The only spell I have at the moment is a Smite spell, but that is quite powerful, though easy to interrupt. As I gained in level, I earned points that could be put towards various abilities, like running, jumping, healing, and most importantly, concentration, so I could cast spells without being interrupted so often.

    The game starts with a shipwreck and you being marooned on a beach. The player needs to fight to rescue a girl that cheers as we kill things, but is otherwise not helpful during the fights, and get to the city. It took an hour of so to fully explore the starting area, kill everything, and get to the city. I nearly died a couple of times, but managed to survive.

    The game is a bit racier than LOTRO, with skimpy outfits (and yes, my dude looked nasty in a thong), lots of blood, and violent conversational options. For mature audiences, it seems like it could be lots of fun, though the story so far isn’t nearly as compelling as that of LOTRO.

    If you’re looking for a fun, free-to-play game, check out Age of Conan. It seems like it will be quite engaging.