Fallout 3

Hello world. 
 
So recently i decided to go back and finish Mass Effect in order to experience the second one, something i have failed to do ever since i bought about 2-3 years ago. To my surprise i have managed to almost finish it completely and will clean up the last mission in a day or so (whenever i get time really). Playing and completing this game made me think about my other games that i have never finished. I generally find that i don't finish my games or at least not to 100% completion anyway. This has lead me to ask the question, "which games am i more likely to finish and why"?  
The answer to this question will undoubtedly change for each individual, but in my case at least i find that i am more likely to finish a game if it is shorter than average (anything over 20 hours and i would be struggling with) and has as few cut-scenes as possible, despite this i still find myself loving any game that (i think) has a decent story. I loved GTA4's story and how it didn't pull any punches in its grittiness and brutality. On the other hand i found that Metal Gear Solid 4 was abhorrent (yes, i know many of you know hate me, please be kind).  All i can think of to explain this is that my attention span does not have the ability to deal with that game's long LONG cut-scenes which i will admit is a pity seeing as how story driven it is.  
The findings of my deep and meaningful (not really, it took about 10 minutes on the sofa) think about the games that i play has resulted in an answer that makes perfect sense, and yet one that i am profoundly surprised by. The answer to my question is "i am more likely to play games that i believe are fun". This answer itself brings up many new questions itself... damn.      
 
In other news i will be picking up Bioshock 2 and Mass Effect 2 some time in the next few weeks and also attempting to finish (once again) Fallout 3. Hopefully i will manage to juggle all of this around my new diet/exercise regime that i am forcing myself into! Wish me luck! 
 
Until next time, Happy Gaming! 
 
Mrfizzy.  

Moral choices in video games seem to be a big thing lately, and there are some developers that just get it right. In this blog I hope to bring to light some of the better examples of moral choices in video games (although you probably won’t be surprised by any of the choices on the list). This WILL contain spoilers for the following games: Mass Effect, Grand Theft Auto IV, Fallout 3, and Fable 2. Also, I have not played every game in the world, so don't get upset if I didn't mention a game that you feel should be mentioned. Feel free to post your own!

Mass Effect

 
 
  

 
 
 
The greatest thing about Mass Effect is its story and characters. Throughout the game, you’ll get to know your squad as you try to save the galaxy from destruction, which makes the generic “either this person dies or this person dies” decision much better. At one point in the story, you are infiltrating a Geth base with your team to destroy it with a nuke. One of your teammates is sent to help the Salarian team (a decision that you make) and the other arms the bomb. However, while you are on the way to the other teammate, the one guarding the bomb comes under attack. However, the other teammate is also being overwhelmed. This is where you must decide who to save, and it’s not an easy decision. Chances are, you probably grew attached to both of these characters, and you may have been developing a romantic relationship with one of them. This makes the choice a difficult one to make.



Another great example is at the end of the game where you must decide whether to destroy the Reaper Sovereign or save the Council members. Sovereign is a threat to every species in the galaxy, but the Council members govern the galaxy and keep it running. So you must decide whether you want to eliminate the biggest threat and sacrifice the most important people in the Milky Way or save the Council and ruin your chances of destroying Sovereign. Even though I’ve beaten the game multiple times, I still find myself spending a lot of time thinking when I reach this part in the game.

Grand Theft Auto IV

 
 
 
 
 
  


One of the new features in GTA IV is the ability to choose who you want to kill on certain missions. The game does give you the chance to kill or save specific people, but because these people never had any interaction with you, the decision feels stale. However, one that definitely sticks out is the Derrick McReary vs. Francis McReary. Here you have two very different brothers with very different lifestyles. Derrick is a sad drunk who spends his time drowning his sorrows on a park bench. Francis, on the other hand, is a corrupt cop that blackmails Niko into doing things for him. Francis wants Niko to kill Derrick, and Derrick wants Niko to kill Francis. Both brothers are unaware of the other’s plans, and when you reach that point where the two of them are talking on a bench and you must choose who to kill, it’s a very difficult decision to make. The reward for killing Derrick is the ability to phone Francis to get the cops off you, and the reward for killing Francis is…… nothing (surely you didn’t expect to get anything from a drug addict/alcoholic). And that is probably what makes it interesting: most people will probably want to kill Francis because he’s a blackmailing and corrupt cop, but doing so gets you nothing. However, if you go against the morally right choice, you get that ability and a sum of cash.

Another great one that comes to mind is similar to this example, but it involves Playboy X and Dwayne. Both of them used to be friends, but eventually they end up at each others throats. Playboy wants Dwayne dead, and Dwayne wants Playboy dead. Similar to the last (which doesn’t make much sense to say, because this decision comes first), Dwayne is a very depressed man who had just gotten out of jail and lost his girlfriend (who you could have killed or saved during one of his missions). Playboy X, on the other hand, used you throughout all of his missions. So do side with Dwayne and kill the scumbag Playboy, or do you side with Playboy and put Dwayne out of his misery? If you kill Playboy, you get Dwayne’s special ability which allows you to call some of his boys for backup. You also get Playboy’s mansion as a safehouse, and you even get the clothes that Claude wears in GTA III. If you kill Dwayne, Playboy gives you $250,000 and never talks to you again. So unlike the last example, siding with the poor and depressed guy gives you more.

Fable 2

 
 
 
 
 
  


Because I haven’t played Fable 2 in a very long time, I won’t have as many examples. However, I would like to praise Lionhead Studios for what they did with morality. This is one of the few games out there where your alignment (Good or Evil) actually affects your appearance. If you’re a good person, your character will look beautiful and everyone will like him. On the other end of the spectrum, if you’re evil your skin will be gray and you’ll even grow horns out of your head. There are even subtle things that affect your standing, such as eating live baby chickens or lowering/raising the rent on the houses you own. One of the decisions in the game I want to point out is the choice at the very end. You are given three cards, and you can only pick one. The first card is The Sacrifice, which resurrects everyone that died during the making of the Spire (hundreds and hundreds of people) but will not resurrect those close to you. The next card is Love, which resurrects those close to you (your dog, family members) but does not resurrect all those people that died during the construction of the Spire. The final card is wealth, which gives you a ridiculous amount of money but everyone that died remains dead. Obviously the final card is for the evilest of people, but the other two do require some thought.

Bioshock

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Throughout your adventures in Rapture, you’ll encounter girls called Little Sisters that are guarded by Big Daddys. After defeating the Big Daddy, you can approach the girl and then decide whether you want to save her or……*shivers*…… harvest her. If you choose to do the former, the Little Sister is turned back into a normal girl (apparently Jack has the ability to do this, not sure where he got it though) and is no longer forced to walk around sticking needles into dead bodies. If you choose to do the latter, you kill the Little Sister and take all of the ADAM from her, which can be used to buy very useful upgrades for your character. So in this example, saving the Little Sisters because you feel bad for them can actually make the game more challenging because you aren’t able to upgrade Jack as much. It’s likely that you’ll be forced to save some and harvest others so you can get better, and that alone is a pretty difficult choice.

Fallout 3

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

One of the things I love about this game is that one of the first quests you’ll most likely get contains the biggest moral decision in the entire game. I am, of course, referring to the Power Of The Atom quest. In this quest, the sheriff of Megaton, Lucas Simms, will task you with disarming the large atomic bomb in the middle of the town. However, your Explosive Skill will need to be a certain level before you disarm it, which forces you to go elsewhere and search for something else to do. It’s convenient that Bethesda placed Mister Burke in the saloon where you must go for the main quest. This game tasks you with disarming the bomb (should you agree to do so), and from this point several things could happen. You could side with Simms and disarm the bomb. You could give the Fusion Pulse Charge (the thing that arms the bomb) to the sheriff, which causes him to run to the saloon and arrest Mister Burke. (However, Burke can end up killing Simms if you aren’t quick enough to save him). And finally, you could plant the Fusion Pulse Charge, head on over to Tenpenny Tower, and watch as Megaton disappears from the map in a large mushroom cloud. This decision severely affects your moral standing, and you’ll lose almost every side quest from Megaton if they weren’t complete.  
 



So in the end, it’s not necessarily what the moral choice is about. It’s more about how the developer builds up to that moment where you must decide who lives or dies, or where you must decide how the game ends. A developer can take what was once a generic moral choice (such as, “kill this guy or this guy”) and turn it into a serious situation if they are willing to build up the personality of those involved, or if they are willing to build of the personality of the world the game sets in. The games above not only offer fantastic gameplay and a great story (I guess I’ll say that Fallout 3 probably doesn’t apply to the latter), but they give players the ability to make difficult decisions that will really bring out their thought process and moral standing.

Fallout 3 is a post-apocalyptic role-playing game from the creators of the Elder Scrolls series, Bethesda Softworks. The game is set 200 years after a nuclear war almost completely annihilated the entire human race, if not for the Vaults which are underground bomb shelters set up by the government. You play as the 'Lone Wanderer', a young adult who lived in Vault 101 his/her entire life and escaped into the decimated ruins of Washington DC.
 
The main goal you are given at the start of the game is to find you father who apparently escaped the Vault just before you did. You can follow this goal if you want but the main focus of the game is the seemingly limitless opportunities and exploration and can have in the game world, which may seem a bit strange at first since this is a barren wasteland. There's over fifty hours of enjoyment to be had by just exploring the world and completing quests so this is a large game, definitely one if you want a game to invest a lot of time in.

 
Fallout 3 looks like a real-time first person shooter at first but elements of a turn-based system are pushed in through a mechanic called VATS, a targeting system where you can aim at a particular part of the enemy's body and let numbers decide the outcome of battle. The main idea of this is to give battles a more cinematic appearance to it. A problem with this is that it oversimplifies combat altogether by being able to just run up to enemies and blowing their heads off at short range.
 
Fallout 3 is a great, immersive game which, despite the obvious glitches and bugs, provides the player with hours and hours of entertainment and enjoyment.

 

This week's "What We've Been Playing" features discussion on Army of Two: The 40th Day, Darksiders, Divinity II: Ego Draconis, Grand Theft Auto IV, Fallout 3, and a slew of independent titles. We follow that up with some gaming news including the Persona 3 Portable US release announcement, details on the Mass Effect 2 collector's edition, and more. We hope you enjoy the show and don't forget to rate/review us on iTunes (we could use some fresh reviews).

You can also leave us a voice mail and hear yourself on the show by calling us at 707-520-GAME (4263). <--- At the request of Eric Tomorrow. If a man named Eric from the future asks for something...you must do it! True story.

• Site: Pixelated Sausage
  
• Podcast: DF #92: Addicted to Darksiders
  

I Dared, and I Won!

 
 
Who Dares Wins
Completed "Who Dares Wins"

Gamerscore = 30    Acquired 16/1/2010

In my last post I discussed my commitment to complete the Broken Steel storyline this weekend.  Last night I put the hammer down, even with a detour under the Capitol Building dome, I completed my quest.  In the end I made my way to Adams Air Force Base to drive a stake into the Enclave threat for good!

All good things do not have to come to an end, as I said before, I still have some achievements and quests that require my attention, I will save those as a prelude to my quests in New Vegas.  For now I will have more Western RPG magic in the form of Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age Origins.

I know my posts are going to sound like a broken record but I will miss my time with Fallout, but if I just stayed with it I would never get to any other game.  As grim and desolate the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout is, I am still drawn to it like a moth to a flame.  Great work Bethesda!

Fallout: Welcome to the Official Site 
Source: SUPERGHOST's Haunted House of Xbox 
Twitter: @superghost

-SG    

So I picked up Borderlands and Dragon Age during the first week of January.  They weren't included on my best-of-09 list because of this, but I think they might have had I played them.  Borderlands was played co-optly with my brother, via split-screen.  Dragon Age was just completed last night. 

  First, Borderlands.  The last FPS/RPG game I had played was Fallout 3 which culminated when Mothership Zeta came out (unfortunately not the best episode to send it out on...but alas).  I completely had fallen in love with Fallout and must have put in a total of 150 hours or so between a few characters. So, Borderlands was a nice way to hop back into that genre.  Now, I really did enjoy Borderlands. It's definitely a great game. My brother, however, loved it as I loved FO3. Me, not so much.  There were a few decisions made with game design that I didn't take to as much, although I'm sure my experience would have been better served with 4 friends over XBL and not 2 via split-screen.  Split-screen in Borderlands is seriously affected and cut down on the fun factor quite a bit. Too much info for a half-screen.  I heard vertical split-screen is an improvement, but I didn't want to bother getting used to that.  So, while Borderlands is a great game, I think it gravitates to the lower 10 of the year.  Fighting, which the game certainly throws at you, isn't really that fun in my opinion. I've still yet to go back and hit the level 50 mark for fear of bearing that monotony again.  Even most of the boss fights lacked that certain boss-ness that would have served the game well, I think. (Except for the flying boss. Loved that).  
 
The biggest crime in Borderlands is its biggest touted feature: MASS AMOUNT OF WEAPONS!  The randomness of them severely ruined the game, I think. To pick up a weapon and not have any kind of upgrade for it for the next twenty or so levels disinterests a player. There has to be some kind of incentive.  Very rarely did I pick up definite upgrades for my weapon, grenades, or shield slots and after killing every boss only to be greeted with more money-fodder weapons is disheartening.
 
Dragon Age, on the other hand, would take the number one spot on my list.  For some reason, the game didn't register in my brain for the longest time. And yet, when the end of 09 approached I felt some need to pick it up. It didn't come from any source.  I didn't read a single review. Not one friend mentioned it. I just thought it sounded interesting and I didn't really know what game to next delve in to.  The game might lead you to believe it's a war of swords, but it surprised me when it became evident it was a war of words.  I enjoyed that kind of game much more.  Even Fallout 3 was less action oriented than it makes out to be. Maybe I took advantage of VATS too much, but that tailored me to liking the game so much more than I thought I would.  No surprise, but I'm not really an action-y kind of guy.   I like my plat-formers, my puzzle games, my RPGs, etc.  I like to make critical decisions. And that is entirely what Dragon Age is.  It dances the gray line of morals with splendor and is unforgiving in making you question what is right.  Everything in that game entranced me from the surprising cast of amazing characters and interesting plot points. 
 
Anyway, this post has dragged on enough. Suffi ce to say Dragon Age is a superior game and you should let it surprise you.  Borderlands: it was fun.

I almost feel like this "Getting Into" stuff is going to become a recurring thing.  I've been gaming all my life but my interests have been relatively shallow.  I'm looking to expand them.  On that note, I desperately want to be an RPG gamer.  Whenever someone talks about an RPG with fondness I wish I could participate in the discussion.  I love sci-fi and fantasy novels.  I love deep stories.  I should love RPGs.  I buy them compulsively telling myself, "This time, you WILL finish this game."  But there are problems. 
 Firstly, in games like Dragon Age, Fallout 3, or Mass Effect, where skill points are assigned, I'm always worried I will mess up my character irreparably.  To calm myself I spend hours upon hours of time on the Internet researching character builds, usually while I sit at the main screen of the game the day I got it (as I am doing now with Mass Effect).  I am unable to make my own character decisions to suit my playstyle.  I research which characters to take along, what weapons to use, and about the long-term affects of dialouge choices.  Inevitably, I will stumble upon a spoiler for the game.  This ruins my experience, so why don't I just stop?  Well, I'm more afraid that the fun will be destroyed with a bad character than that it will be destroyed by a spoiler.
I've tried to play many Final Fantasies (I, III, IV, VI, VII, XII) but I end up quitting, probably from fatigue.  I like what I'm playing but 1) I die a lot, and 2) my  "OCD" kicks in.  I have literally restarted a Final Fantasy a good 10 hours in because I missed one sort-of-important-yet-optional item.  I look in every single corner for items and go through every dialouge sequence.  I know this is what a lot of people like about RPGs but to me it seems like a waste of my time.  The thought of putting 100 hours of my life into a game is a daunting thought.  Many a time I will restart an RPG because I feel like I'm "going too slowly".  When I go back to an RPG I haven't played for a while, I almost always restart again.  Stupid, I know.  All of my feelings are irrational, but I can't get over them.   I feel like this attitude could change but I need to be introduced to the experience gradually. 
The "RPGs" I have played through are every Pokemon game besides D/Pe/Pl, Mario and Luigi's Superstar Saga, and Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door.  I watched the whole Endurance Run of Persona 4.  I think that's it but there are probably a few more.  I've had Chrono Trigger DS since release day and stopped at the place with the jungle-people-things.  I think I have almost beaten Crisis Core.  I'm loving my playthrough of Borderlands but fatigue's set in at about level 30.  I'm hoping to pick up Bowser's Inside Story soon and I am willing myself to finish Mass Effect and Fallout 3 this year (though I'm worried that when I start Fallout 3 I'll feel the need to restart, and my character's pretty built up).  My question is, good people of GiantBomb: 

What RPGs would you recommend for someone with my relationship with RPGs?  I'm looking for something not too intimidating, with a good story and characters, maybe a classic.  A game that lends itself to being the first (or next) step in becoming an RPG gamer.  Really, anything you loved yourself.  Also, some advice on how to handle my irrational antics would be nice.  Thanks!
 
Hopefully the rare person with the same dilemma as me can get something out of this discussion as well.

…or is it? 

 
Shock Value
Completed "Shock Value"

Gamerscore = 30    Acquired 13/1/2010

With the onset of all the games coming out in the first half of 2010 as well as the onset of the Fallout game, New Vegas, due out this year, I made a commitment to myself to complete the downloadable content, Broken Steel, this weekend.  By completing Broken Steel I mean completing its main quest line as opposed to all its side quest therein.  So with Shock Value finished the other night, it is now a clear path to Who Dares Wins, the last of the core storyline achievements.

As I have stated before, I have over 150 hours of game-time in Fallout, but the majority of that was focused on the D.C. Wasteland and the DLC content.  I hardly spent any time in the downtown D.C. area, only when the main storyline demanded it.  I think this mostly due to the fact than when I started my adventure a year ago I found the outskirts of the D.C. downtown and its metro system to be a very dangerous place.  It took me forever even to seek out Rivet City because I thought the only way to get there was via the D.C. Metro.  Now that I am overpowered and have my side-kick Fawkes at my side, I can roll up on any area in the game with little problem.  So recently I have been dabbling in the city, and I realize now by avoiding the city I have neglected a huge part of the over-world.  I took some time to review my strategy guide last night and I couldn’t believe all that I had missed! 

It still blows me away all the artistry and story that has gone into this game.  But if I keep playing it forever I will never get through all the other great games that are coming down the pipe.  So my goal is to complete the Broken Steel DLC storyline then put Fallout 3 back on the shelf once again.  I think though I will dabble on occasion, perhaps closer to the release on New Vegas, just to clean up some of those achievements I still have hanging over my head.  It will be a tough day when I put away Fallout 3 away long term, but that day certainly is not today.

Fallout: Welcome to the Official Site

Source: SUPERGHOST's Haunted House of Xbox 
Twitter: @superghost