Alan Wake, Fallout New Vegas and more.
By Ramone 4 Comments
Yes I am as suprised as you are, a second edition. Something must be wrong with me because this is more effort than I have put into anything for a while.
Old Gods of the Edler Children of Asgard
Very rarely does a game tread the thin line between tounge in cheek satire and serious drama with such grace and balance. Alan Wake is one of those games, at least that's the impression I have got with about 6 hours of playtime. The game starts serious enough with our titular protaganists wife being 'taken', for lack of a better term. The game then throws you a bit of a curveball and makes everything you've seen so far slightly less clear. It's typical pyschological horror stuff but it works well and Alan's narration, though not perfect, helps us empathise with him and shows he as confused as you are. Early on we are introduced to Barry, Alan's bumbling PR man, who ends up being comic relief mostly. This is the mains stumbling block for me. In a way he is annoying as hell and some of the stuff he says just isn't funny but when he works it's great and perfectly counters the dark themes of the main plot line. The best comedic stuff is a result of the ageing metal band members and their farm-based pyrotechnics show. The sequence which takes place at the show is one of the best in the game and managed to make me smile ear to ear for the duration of it. The actual action is relatively standard 3rd person stuff but the enemies have a sheild of sorts which has to be destroyed via a lightsource, usually Alan's torch or flares, before conventional weapons can be used. This is a clever addition which helps to add a layer of difficulty and strategy perhaps lacking from similar games such as Resident Evil 5. It could be said that games such as Alan Wake and the aforementioned RE 5 are part of a growing trend of modern survival horror games, namely ones which remove most of the survival and horror elements, and that these games are also part of the problem. Sure, there are parts in Alan Wake you're low on ammo or you get spooked by an enemy coming up behind you but these moments are few and far between and are nothing like the early RE games. But does anyone really want those games back? I recently played through Resident Evils 1 through Code Veronica and those games admittedly have their high points but the gameplay just does not stand up. It's not about difficulty, it's about dumb contrivances. Why does the game rely on stupid camera angles to provide shocks? Why can't I aim properly? Why do I have to collect ink ribbons to save my game? In the end, it's not a problem it's simple evolution. I'm sorry to say it but survival horror as we knew it is dead and for good reason. Welcome to the greensih-brown expanse of the Mojave Desert
As you may be able to tell from my hilarious subject title Fallout: New Vegas isn't much of an improvement on Fallout 3 at least in terms of it's looks. The same colour palette is apparent as soon as you set foot on the irradiated earth of New Vegas and in my short time I've seen little variety which suggets things will change. I enjoyed the opening of Fallout 3, it had it's own little plot arc which played out perfectly in around half an hour and was a perfect introduction to the strange parallel universe in which Fallout takes place. New Vegas pretty much scraps this in favour of a narrated sequence of images which eventually leads to you witnessing your own failed execution and waking up in a small township. From here you're thrown almost head first into the wasteland, but not before you indulge killing some post-apocalyptic mutants and criminals. Fallout 3 almost certainly had the better opening but it's not Obsidian's fault, they couldn't really top that intro and if they'd copied it people would complain so this feels like the best way it could have turned out. Now I've only played a couple of hours of New Vegas but it seems like the only way to describe it so far is as a Fallout-ass Fallout game. (Thank you Jeff) This is most certainly not a bad thing, I really liked the open-world, crazy stuff from 3 even though I had problems with the critcal mission line. So, with fingers-crossed, I will take on the challenges that the harsh landscape of the scorched West Coast of America throws at me in hope that this game is as fun if not more so than it's predecessor . The Red Giant
Due almost entirely to the volume of chat surrounding Super Street FIghter 4's release by the Giant Bomb crew I decided to pick it up, having zero experience with the franchise. I decided also to main Hakan because he was new and so was I. After rocky beginnings I eventually grasped the basic level of SSF4 skill and was winning matches a lot more often however I eventually lost interest with SSF4 and moved on. Now I've thrust myself back into the mix due almost entirely to the volume of chat surrounding Marvel vs Capcom 3 and I have one thing to say, HAKAN STILL FUCKING ROCKS. Now I know he's been vilified by the pros and is pretty much shunned by the whole SSF4 community but I love that fat-ass red and blue turkish oil wrestler and he loves me. This guy greases you up then squeezes you from between his legs if you can't imagine how awesome that is I'll provide you with a visual representation (0:45 onwards):