split/screen co-op

Dungeon by *eWKn on deviantART

A window pops up centre-screen. I hit the join button and it begins.

We’re in a dark and small room that seems overcrowded. Are all those people here to join our group? I thought there’d only be five of us. Oh, wait. Some of the characters in the room are NPCs. I still can’t tell the difference between them and real “people”.

Nobody’s standing still but me and it’s hard to keep track of who is doing what. I anxiously monitor the chat window for a whisper from Maerwo, the only person I know here. But he’s silent.

music by ~kariannphotography on deviantART

When I was in highschool, I wasn’t a gamer. I never owned a gaming console before the PS2 I got almost toward the end of the system’s lifecylce. Pre-uni, my encounters with PC games were few and far between, and invariably on somebody else’s computer.

I had two main pastimes back then. One was reading books, the other — listening to music.

Never both at the same time, you understand. No, reading would interfere with the serious business that listening to music was.

I completed Fallout: New Vegas yesterday and I’m now moving on to World of Warcraft.

I was surprised to discover that finishing the main quest in New Vegas really puts an end to the game. There’s no going back to pick up lose threads. I hadn’t yet reached the level cap and I had several quests I wanted to return to later, so I was not quite done playing it. However, I think 80 hours is as much time as I can give this game right now, so I’m not going to begin a second play-through. It was a decent ride, but nothing in New Vegas makes me want to go through it all again so soon, least of all the bugs that killed at least two quests for me.

This wraps up the final leg of my Fallout marathon but is not yet the end of my blogging about Fallout. I have several posts in mind, including a more elaborate opinion on New Vegas, a recap of the experience of trying to play through all the games in the franchise in a row, a piece of New Vegas fan fiction and a critique of Fallout‘s post-apocalyptic monetary system. I’m writing this here because I hope that now I’ve promised it publicly, I’ll be shamed into not forgetting to write those posts.

I started playing World of Warcraft. Having been a WoW virgin so far (if you don’t count that night many months ago when we almost made it to second base; and I don’t), I’m jumping right into Cataclysm and it is a bit discombobulating. I’m still struggling with how you move around and attack things. I really like the game and I suspect I may be in for the laung haul this time around.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find where the leveling-up screen is.

Today I read an article by Destructiod, about a 16-year-old who killed his mother in an extremely disturbed way, because she confiscated his Playstation.

The article discribed pretty thorough how the boy commited the murder and is a disturbing read, I warn you.

I regret that this happened and feel sorry for the poor woman for raising a psycho son, but it is not the console’s fault.

I my opinion, the kid was obviously mentally unstable (which I think becomes very clear by the way he kills her) and would have attacked his mother over anything she would have prohibited him to do. She could have taken his bike and he would most probably do the same, because he is a psycho not because it was the Playstation and not any other object of his posession.

Many adults, who do not play games, would read this article and be shocked. Most likely they would storm into the room of their perfectly normal and good kid and forbid him or her to play, as they would be worried he or she could become a psycho and slay them in their sleep or some stupid thing like that.

Articles like that also give crazy activists amunition and the right to demand the banning of certain games in Australia or wherever.

I do not think the emphasis should be on the Playstation at all and I am also very puzzled by the image of President Barck Obama included in that article ?!

Unlucky Pirates by *ElectroNic0 on deviantART

A day after my anti-anti-piracy rant SadFace correctly noted over in the Playfire comments section that my rebuttal of Jim Sterling’s case did not really reveal my personal opinion on the issue. I’m cross-posting my reply here as well.

Pirates by ~Danapra on deviantART

Over at Destructoid Jim Sterling is using his Jimquisition vodcast to bash piracy and pirates and to make some pretty ridiculous points. You may want to watch the video before you hit the jump. Then please come back to see why I think he’s talking out of his ass.

I don’t for you guys, but I need a very serious reason for replaying a game. Even games that have been interesting and entertaining the first time around are not usually able to get me to click “New Game”.

A few recent examples:

Heavy Rain — was great, story was acceptable, the level of suspence was alright and things could have turned out better for the characters at the end. Even so, it was not enough to make me go back try to correct the mistakes I made the first time. I actually caught the killer but lost one of the characters whom I actually liked a lot, because I was not quick enough with the buttons.

A few other remarks after the jump

I have completed the game and had all my questions answered. It is fair to say I am obsessed with Fable III. Have started a second game, because I was a bit careless and did not collect enough money by the end — the result was not satisfying. Although I am “blue” because of how the ending turned out I do not mind replaying. I think the greatest attraction of Fable III is that the choices you have to make to progress in the game are hard and affect not only the further gameplay, but also the player’s feelings. I remember I actually spent several minutes contemplating removing or keeping a ban on alcohol use in Albion, which was weird (in a good way).  I like feeling such a strong connection to the game. Most games on my “best-ever played” list have affected my emotional state in some way. At the end of Fable III I cried and was really upset about the turn of events. Wish there were more games like Fable III.

NB: Regarding the question about the class-divided society in Albion. I was very happy to discover that the NPCs do react in diffrent ways based on their position in society. I took my new (middle class) bride to Brightwall Village and she immediatelly commented that “here live mostly common people”.

As for the question about the lower number of gay people in Fable III as compared to Fable II, I’ve noticed that the game seems to adapt to the choices of partners you make, because near the end I had no problem finding lesbians anywhere I went.

I am close to the end now, prolonging my stay in the game by completing minor quests, exploring the world, shooting gnomes off windowsills and collectiong books.

As always (since Fable II, where I still log in to see how my two wives are doing) I feel very comfortable walking around and just being in the game. Because I like to walk and not use the fast travel option, my playing runs in a slow, leisurely manner, and I have enough time to think about the world I am exploring.

As a whole, the world of Fable III is very realistic, especially when it comes to the main characters in the game. I especially like the fact that none of them, even those who seemed eternally evil at first glance, is completely good or bad. Every character has his or her small (or in the case of Reaver, not so small) inperfections, which are particularly visible when the characters are faced with a conflict.

Although I have only good things to say about Fable III, I still have three questions:

About 40 hours in I was seriously considering giving up Fallout: New Vegas, but it managed to win me back. The game is stacked full of content and the quests are numerous, but unfortunately a large proportion seem to be of the deadly boring and repetitive fetch quests variety.

New Vegas is in no way linear but I had the bad luck to take on six or seven of those dispiriting missions in a row and that almost killed the joy of the game for me. But then my luck turned and I happened to do several interesting quests in succession, so now I’m hooked back in.

Overall, I can see why many said this game was worse than Fallout 3 despite the various small improvements Obsidian and Bethesda have tried out. I’ll flesh out my thoughts on the subject in a separate post, but for now let me just say that the hardcore mode is in no way, shape or form nearly as hardcore as its name suggests.