Me, systech, and Jayge started it up on December 17th, got it turned around in 3 weeks. Brought in natetodamax as a hired gun to help us close it out, and here we are.
Weapons schematics locations and required components
So yeah, use it please, and leave comments or feedback :) We'll be finishing up the weapons section shortly and continuing to revise any problems that come to light.
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Fallout 3 has been out for quite a while now, two months and change. However, there's a bunch that hasn't really been addressed about it. It seems as if the gaming community just glided over Fallout as "Oblivion with guns" and moved on to the next big thing, Gears 2. But Fallout man, Fallout is S.P.E.C.I.A.L. (I'm a terrible person).
Now, I'll come right out and say I never played Oblivion. I did play Morrowind, but Morrowind couldn't really grab me, for whatever reason. Put a few hours into it, and just abandoned it. Skipped over Oblivion because I didn't have a 360 at the time of release. Fallout grabbed me, in a way, I think because it has a different approach to the RPG.
Fallout, and indeed most Bethesda games in general, are quite buggy and easy to exploit. The framework can be broken easily if you try (I'm currently lugging around 2 companions, a dog, and about 12 copies of what is supposed to be a unique weapon), and the game is far from stable. Character animations are wooden, melee combat feels disconnected, and the third person view still looks and plays like utter shit. These flaws would really bring down any other game- and they bring down Fallout, to an extent. However, despite these flaws, Fallout is still the game I've pumped the most time into recently, probably this year (With the exception of HALO).
Why?
Et tu, Mass Effect?It's something in the Bethesda approach to content. Instead of polishing a decent amount of content until it's blindingly bright, Bethesda crams content down your throat, with not as much attention to the details. With something like Mass Effect, you might have two choices in any given situation- let someone go or kill them. In Fallout, you have a plethora of options: Blow their brains out, pickpocket their inventory off them, convince them to pay you to let them go, let them fall asleep, kill them quietly, then eat their corpse. While Mass Effect's choice might play out in more significant ways, Fallout offers you such a plethora of options that you actually feel in control of the situation, instead of choosing a binary path to advance along on a dialog tree.
Mass Effect is polished to a nice shine (Although there are still bugs in ME), while Fallout isn't. Bethesda puts all their energy towards putting as much content out there as they can for you to enjoy. In a way, Bethesda is a little stuck in the past. In these days of ultra-polished, slick, PR-led games like Dead Space or Gears, Fallout and Morrowind are more reminiscent of older, PC games where perhaps the presentation isn't awesome, but there's just lots of stuff to do. Of course, in this case, being a bit stuck in the past is quite the virtue- not everything in a game needs to be perfect. I'd rather have the options to do whatever I want than to be funneled down a pre-set corridor.
Hiring an extra gunOf course, these coridors still exist in Fallout- you can't kill your dad, or say become President of the Republic of Dave :'( It's just that in Fallout, these constraits are much looser than in other, simlar games. Going back to the example of Mass Effect, it is impossible to kill civilians anywhere. You can run around the Citadel blasting and shooting up a storm. Nobody cares. Most other RPG's make you follow the story progression in a set order. In Fallout, you can just happen upon your father's location in the Wasteland without doing any of the preceding quests, and the game moves along fine. It's not that you can do whatever you want in Fallout, but you can do much more than most other games allow, in many more ways. Fallout hides it's gameplay design borders well, and puts more than enough content in front of you for you to never be motivated to seek out those limits.
Fallout succeeds because it drops enough food on your plate, that you can look past the few things you don't like- asparagus, peas- to the overwhelming pile of foods that you really love. Even if you have to eat the vegtables, it's still a delicious dinner, and you're going to remember the great steak, not the few bad greens that went with it.
And while we're on the subject of Fallout, keep your eyes peeled- Fallout 3 Megaguide should be ready to publish soon from me, Jayge, and systech. Expect it in a week or two.
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Salutations and greetings! This here is a guide to penetrating the more byzantine aspects of the GiantBomb Community, and the motley crew of rejects that are her regular users. Enjoy.
Podcasts
GiantBombers do so love thier podcasts. One could even call it a trend. A bandwagon. A boat. A dragon. Quiet versimilitudes. You really have no idea what I'm saying do you? Neither do I. Anyways. Ordered in no particular way, except for BSHAF on top cause it's kinda rad. Of course, I've only actually listened to like 2 of these :|
Bomb Should Have a Face- The only podcast here directly related to GiantBomb, BSHAF, as the cool kids call it, is GiantBomb's community podcast. MattBodega, jensonb, TokyoChicken, and Disgeaeaeaeaeaeaeamad talk about GiantBomb and GiantBomb users and how Lies is awesome. They also have somewhat of an obscure set of in-jokes and bits which may baffle you your first couple times listening. The content is generally good though. They have a special community guest on each week, so drop TokyoChicken or jensonb a line and maybe they can work you into their schedule.
Radio is Dead- Vaxadrin and some other homies play you a lot of music and occasionally talk. It's like Radio. But not. Get it? Cause Radio is dead. Nah, I don't get it either :( He also ran an older podcast called Interactive Fiction, but that's dead now, due to hilariously awkward sexual hijinks.
Distributed Failure- This probably earns the honor of oldest podcast on GiantBomb (outdating even the bombcast). Run by lower-chin enthusiast Kush, this is your standardish podcast about videogames. Buncha guys (and gals?) talk about the happenings of the day
Chess Club Massacre- Resident borderline troll/ dude with the Shadow the Hedgehog avatar Jakob187 (Scratch that he kinda stopped being a dick recently. He is now a pretty cool guy)- and some other dudes I have no clue about- podcast. I'm scared to listen to this one so I can't give you all that much info.Â
Broken Lampcast- run by MaSuTa. I really have no clue about it, but he's always talkig about this thing in the IRC so I figured I may as well drop him a link.
Bombing Run Game Nights
A Bombing Run is our weekly community game night, where GiantBombers set a time to all get online and play a game together. It's a fun way to spend a couple hours wasting away the time. 360 Bombing runs are usually handled by systech, PC is sometimes run by Lunarbunny, and you Ps3 people are too apathetic to organize one. Wii LOL.
These generally run on Friday or Saturday night in the US, which makes it past midnight UK time usually. There's always a topic posted in the forums a couple days early with "Bombing Run" in the title. Look for that if you're interested in participating.
Internet Relay Chat
Ever wanted to chat with sexy singles? Well, then this isn't for you. Some users have created a GiantBomb IRC chatroom for live chat. It's usually got about 30 people or so in it, usually a couple of whom are chatting. Hit us up over at irc://irc.deltaanime.net/giantbomb
See Hulk's IRC thread for more details on how to connect and register your name.
 Great Forum Threads For Rainy Days
Well there's not so much gold around these days, but there is occasionally a great topic that pops up. These are pretty good reading from different times of the site's life.
Abuse of the ratings system. I personally find it pretty funny, but they are. NOT. amused. Also: if you say it's funny, they kinda assume it's you doing it and threaten to ban you for it. I know from personal experience. Thanks Hamz.
Posting stuff in the wrong forum. If your topic is related to a specific game, post it in the game specific forum. THANK YOU. Also: if it's not related to games- OFF TOPIC.
Posting just a Youtube video with no accompanying post. Guess you just can't let content speak for itself these days. Make sure to include some of your own thoughts/content when posting a video or a link.
They're a bit of a finnicky bunch, but they won't give you too much trouble as long as you stay mostly within the rules.
Staff Contacts
So you want to get your idea to a staff member of GiantBomb you say. Well don't bother PMing Jeff, Vinny, Ryan, or Brad. They're too busy and you'll likely never see an answer, or one months late. Instead, if you want to be heard, you want to hit up the Whiskey Media guys here on site. They're rad, they're punctual, and most importantly, they've got the power to get things done.
Snide is the designer, responsible for the look of the site, as well as some of the content ideas- just don''t send him PMs about points. Snide is very good about getting back to you if you have questions- you'll also see him doing some blogging and community stuff, like the Friday Bomb Drop.
Coonce does... well, I'm not really sure. He does something. He's also a rad community liason, doing a great series of Developer Diaries to keep us updated on what's goin down behind the scenes at GB. Drop him a line and he's sure to get back to you. He's also freakishly tall.
Andy seems to be the chief engineer at the SS Whiskey. He's generally fixing bugs or somesuch I assume. He's not too visible, although he did manage to write the Lich King review for the site.
Maxwell does code-y stuff, mostly works over on sister site AnimeVice. I suggest harassing him by repeatedly posting on his wall about his lack of points.
Ethan is a javascript ninja. Generally behind the scenes stuff. He's the guy to send bugs to involving pop ups, videos, and other such javascripty shenanigans.
That should be a nice little primer on the major happenings around here. If there's anything I missed, feel free to point it out. Merry Christmas.
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With the advent of the "Next-Generation Consoles", downloadable content following a game's launch is almost a certainty these days. In fact, according to the folks at Lionhead, a DLC plan is a requirement for any first-party Microsoft game-- DLC is planned from the game's inception. So, with that in mind, we come to the subject of this blog, Fable II and it's DLC.
Now, in case you weren't aware, Fable II is releasing a downloadable island with three new quests and several new areas to explore. This DLC was announced sometime in November, and originally planned for a release on December 13th. I was going to buy this DLC when I first heard about it- Fable II was a good experience and I wouldn't mind paying for more of it. However, the DLC recieved a delay of ten days for whatever reason, and was pushed back to December 23rd. Now I am no longer going to purchase it.
Now why would a delay of ten days affect my purchasing decision? The content will not be different, nor will the price. It is the exact same package I was promised, but the interest is no longer enough to justify dropping ten dollars on it. Why? It's a subject I've touched on before. As someone who completed Fable II's main story in roughly a week, and the sidequests and achievements about another week later, my attention for the game was waning ever since I finished it. Generally, as "gamers" we only think about a game for perhaps a week or two after finishing it, after which it is supplanted by something else within the popular consciousness- at this point, I suppose I should not, I'm primarily addressing single-player DLC. I know the situation is different for multiplayer content.
Fable II DLCFable II, by being so short, was even less capable of holding attention than normal. With the release of DLC, to truly be popular and successful, it needs to hit within this window of interest, while a player's thoughts still linger on that world and experience. Now this doesn't mean DLC should release the week after launch, but to tap into the largest audience and be the most successful, it needs to land within that window where people have finished the game, but are not yet done thinking about it. Fable II was already stretching the limits of that window with it's original DLC release date, coming a month and a half after the release of a game with a 8-hour main quest; but Fable was still on the mind, at least for those who had not dove headfirst into Fallout 3. With the delay, the interest is gone, and I'd rather spend my time elsewhere- with no new Fable content to play on the 13th, I decided to jump into Fallout, and now I'm never going to play Knothole Island, quality though it may be.
Operation AnchorageNow Fallout brings me to my other point. Fallout has 3 announced DLC packages, one coming in January, one coming in February, and one in March. Now, you're probably noticing that those are farther away than Knothole Island, which is a valid observation. But from my experience, the window of opportunity is directly proportional to how long the game experience is. Something like Fallout takes months to complete fully at a reasonable play speed. And even after you're finished playing it, the game lingers in your conciousness longer, because there is more to relect on and think about. By virtue of generating more content in the original package, they can keep you interested for longer before they need to deliver even more content. Fallout nailed the window perfectly. By January, the hardcore will either be polishng up the main offering, or starting to lose interest, at which point- bam! Operation Anchorage.
Fallout succeeds in hitting it's window of interest where Fable II does not. Fallout understands the importance of timing in the release of downloadable content, something hopefully other developers will realize. There comes a point where it just isn't interesting to go back to an old game and play through a new piece of content, while it likel would have been worth it had it been released in a timely manner. It's all about knowing your window, and landing your content smack in the middle of it.
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So I recently picked up a copy of the Watchmen trade paperback (What does that term even mean, anyways?) from a local library. Blew through it in about a day and a half, and, well, I'm gonna write about it. Usually I use this space to write exclusively about videogames or the culture surrounding them, but I doubt you'll begrudge me this small excursion.
Watchmen tells a good story, there's no denying that. However, similar to Sweep's experience, I must say that perhaps I was expecting somewhat more from the claims surrounding this graphic novel. Is the comics industry so sorely lacking in talent that a tale that manages to weave a competent universe and believable characters is so noticeable? Is this industry really in straits so dire that a well-told story is so incredibly notable? I find it a question that intrigues me, but having never really known much about that culture, I couldn't comment for sure on whether I'm right or not.
Rorschach blots However, as I said, Watchmen is a good story, and I'm in no way belittling it. I vastly enjoyed the read- while it lasted- and the portrayal of superheroes as ostracized, social rejects suffering through mid-life crises was really quite refreshing compared to the usual fulfillment fantasies of say, Superman. Someone like Rorschach is just fascinating to delve into- the part with him and the shrink was probably my favorite section in the entire book, and the twist at the end with the psychologist is just a great little subtle irony. Rorschach is exquisitely crafted, from his peculiar syntax to his unflinchingly black and white view of the world. As he puts it:
Never Compromise, even in the face of Armageddon
Rorschach is really the only true standout though. Manhattan has some interesting thematic elements to him, but he's never really utilized to his full potential. Nite Owl starts out fantastic, shown as an aged relic, who really only ever fit in as his costumed alter-ego, but as his storyline progresses and he gets entangled with Laurie, he becomes disappointingly boring and one-dimensional. Laurie is blank and undeveloped, really with her only purpose being to act as a foil to Manhattan's removed demeanor. The Comedian is the other standout, a well-realized caricature of the American Spirit, alternatively heroic and dastardly. Fighting to supposedly save Vietnam, yet at the same time, shooting and killing a Vietnamese woman carrying his child. The fact that he ends up working for the US government is a critique of our schizophrenic foreign policy that applies even today, although I suspect Moore had shadows of Vietnam in his mind more than spectres of the future.
Of course, Vietnam to the Watchmen world is quite different than what it means to us today. In that world, the US won the war handily, with the strategic ace of Dr. Manhattan. Richard Nixon is re-elected to a third term, and the Cold War takes on a decidedly different tone. The alternate history is really entertaining, and seeing Nixon giving a victory speech in Saigon, or in a nuclear bunker with his hand on the button is, well, fun. It's interesting to see what things could have been.
Attack it's weak point for massive damage!But for all the great characters and universe, I felt that the actual storytelling to be a bit weak. It has it's standout moments, however, large portions seem to be almost filler, or at best terminally uninteresting. Mason and his story provides a bit of contrast between the old generation of heroes and the new, but it's overdrawn, especially in the between chapter interludes. The comic book meta-story, unlike Sweep, I found annoying and largely irrelevant. Yes, I understand that it's a framing device and used to call parallels between the actions of the Watchmen, and the misguided actions of the comic book protagonist, but I didn't need to be beaten over the head with an awkward implementation of a morality play within the larger morality play of the entire novel. This subplot also awkwardly tied into the section about the writer Shea on the island, which hardly seemed necessary and probably could have been streamlined into a more elegant solution. I hear the upcoming movie is going to change this, something which is probably for the better.
The plot itself is quite nicely executed, stringing you along with Rorscach's theories for the majority of the book, until the twist is revealed at the end- which thankfully, broke the cliche of the villain lecturing the heroes about his plan, giving them just enough time to stop it. The climax is great, bringing all the characters and disparate plot threads together in one final hurrah. I felt genuinely sad after Manhattan did his thing, and almost angry to see everyone else continuing on with their normal lives, despite what they knew. The book wraps up, and somehow, it all makes sense, even if it feels wrong.
In the grand scheme of things, I really enjoyed Watchmen, but I have to wonder why it's so critically hailed. Yes, it's a great story with some truly compelling characters and settings. But it's nothing more. Maybe, for the comics industry, that's enough to be revolutionary. I don't know. But I do know that I greatly enjoyed the book, and I'll be looking forward to watching the Watchmen on a big screen this March. Let's hope they can do it justice.
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The following takes place in the GiantBomb IRC over approximately a ten-minutes period. Trevor McFur= BoG, SorePenis= Casey. BoG preceeded to go on an awesome ten minute rant to himself in the dead IRC chatroom, which I present now in it's entirety.
Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack: Got the Heroic maps for free, which wee not so great, but due to remakes of two great classic maps, I bought the Legendary when they dropped to 600. Considering how much HALO I've played since then, it was definitely worth it, especially for the ability to play doubles matches on Blackout and Ghost Town, two superb maps
Mass Effect Bring Down the Sky: Sadly, this was the only downloadable pack released for Mass Effect, and it didn't bring much. A new mission on Asteroid X-57 cost me five bucks for an hour and a half or so of content. It wasn't bad, and shed some light as to the direction of Mass Effect 2, but I kinda burned myself out on Mass Effect in my quest for 1050/1050 Gamerscore. I'd say this is worth it if you really like Mass Effect, otherwise pass. A lot of substandard combat for only a little bit of character interaction.
Force Unleashed: Skin Packs 1 & 2, Jedi Temple. Yeah, there's really no excuse for this. I just find this game kind of relaxing and fun to play. I go back and play it every now and then, and playing it as new characters is amusing for a little bit- although their character choices are quite odd.
I'll probably buy Knothole Island for Fable II when it releases, as Fable was a pretty fun experience and I'd be down for more of that.
Eh. it's kinda ridiculous to pay so much to extend an experience, but I think it's also kinda cool. Worth the price of a movie ticket in my opinion.
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It's a story I'm sure is familiar to any GiantBomb user. November 30th 2007 the story breaks that Jeff Gerstmann was fired from Gamespot. Internet explodes, and a mass exodus of Gamespot veterans occurs.
Now, obviously, the circumstances surrounding this firing were suspect, and people had every right to get up in arms about it. Making sure you're getting an honest and true evaluation of a project is something worth fighting for. This is a valid complaint, and I fully support the quest for transparency and truth in the business.
This game was lynched (ahaha, get it?) by the hardcore due to it's involvement in Jeff's firing.What wasn't as immediately understandable was the incredible following of Jeff following the Gamespot shenanigans. A small level of interest following a controversy is natural under any circumstances, in any industry. However, what we saw wasn't a small or even medium level of interest. We saw a quick formation of a cult of personality around Jeff Gerstmann. His personal blog launched sometime in December, and was immediately swarmed with hits and comments. Over a seven-month period of activity (up until the launch of GiantBomb), his blog averaged 50 comments or more per story. I have trouble getting ten comments on a blog without ruthless self-promotion :(
The traffic is symptomatic of something else though. People built up this man to be a hero-figure, a knight in shining armor for their hobby. An explanation I heard on last week's BSHAF was that perhaps people saw Jeff as proof that videogames could be cool, and people swarmed to him because of his personality. Now, this is certainly valid, but it at most accounts for part the fervor, for this ruthless hero-worship and obsession isn't only limited to Jeff.
Former GFW/1Up journalist Shawn Elliot commented on the GFW post-PAX podcast, that people treated him like a celebrity at PAX. He commented that is was kind of absurd that so many people loved him for his writing and podcasts. Within that small sub-community, Shawn Elliot was a movie star. Nintendo fans hinge on Matt Casamassina's every word, and other journalists enjoy much the same reverence. Jeff Green had a huge farewell thread on the 1Up boards, and many people still follow him on his personal blog- just as happened with many of the departedGamespotstaffers.
So we've established that an obsessive following has developed around these people, something they'd all acknowledge I'm sure. The question we now must address is why.
The games industry has swollen to an absurd size, eclipsing even Hollywood in scale and revenue. But with the possible exception of Roger Ebert, people don't revere movie critcs the same way. Movie fans realize that their opinion is just as valid as a critics, and if a movie they don't like gets a negative review, they'll still go ahead and see it. Game enthusiasts are, perhaps, not asunderstanding.
Now, the obvious reason for a heavier reliance on reviews within games is that movies cost ten dollars whereas a game costs 50 or 60 dollars a pop. Obviously people don't want to blow 60 bucks on a crappy game without warning. But today, in the age of the internet, enough information exists before launch for you to make your own judgment without need for a reviewer. Screenshots, gameplay videos, trailers, and most importantly, demos have made the reviewer largely obsolete, save for unexpected issues. Now of course, casual players will find more use in reviews, but then again, casual players, by definition, are not following Shawn Elliot on Twitter or reading Jeff Gerstmann's personal blog.
People seem to view games as being objectively good or bad, with no middle ground, with reviewers as the only authority on the subject. Obviously, this isn't the right way to approach the subject. I'll default back to The Force Unleashed, being an example I have extensive experience with. TFU wasn't the best game released this year- it was panned by critics mostly. But I really like TFU. I play it quite a bit, and even bought the DLC for it. I enjoyed it despite the critics. My opinion is different from theirs, but just as valid, a vital point to make, and something the editorial content of GiantBomb endorses. Joystiq gets credit for the rad image
So why do people still flock to these press men? The hero worship reaches almost sickening levels. In a conversation me and Jayge had the other day while playing HALO on Xbox Live, we were discussing reviews on GiantBomb. The majority of the comments on any given Jeff review will be: "Another perfect review Jeff! Great writing, I fucking love you!". Then there are always a few people it seems who sign up just to say: "Jeff Gerstmann is a talentless fuck who can't write". The truth is, as always, somewhere in the middle. Jeff is a decent writer, but he is in no way one of the best writers working in the business today, and people who say he is need to go read Gamasutra.
People view Jeff as a goddamn messiah. A savior and hero for them. Jeff Gerstmann is simply a professional enthusiast with a skill for speaking frankly and honestly. Not to single anyone out, but jensonb wrote a screenplay about the waning days of Gamespot and Jeff's firing. What exactly did Jeff ever do to deserve that? Not begrudging him it, but I just wonder what exactly motivates a person to invest their time writing that.
It's often great personalities that are used to justify obsessions of following of these people. But take the example of Ryan Scott, 1Up/EGM's reviews editor. The man was a minor NeoGAF meme for a while, despite being quite shy, and hardly ever talking on the GFW podcast he was a member of. Ryan Scott's internet personality is hardly noticeable, yet he gathered a decent enough following also. Something MattBodega told me in the IRC, after I was talking about this was, "If you don't like the guys, why are you at GiantBomb?", and I didn't answer, because the idea of this entire site being comprised of simply the followers of these guys was absurd to me. It's fetishism. Obsessive following of these people is absurdly weird- probably the culmination of my argument here is the voyeuristic ShaneWatch Twitter, a Twitter feed of 1Up employees spying on Shane Bettenhausen, then posting what they see him doing to Twitter without his knowledge. This feed built up 1,000 followers in a week.
People like seeing regular people playing games. They like the thought of games as a living entices them. People making a living off of this industry makes it socially acceptable- despite the widespread scorn the games press faces from the mainstream guys.
People feel the need to have their hobby be a normal thing. Their obsession with videogames, still somewhat of a social taboo- despite the growing penetration- needs validation. People think: "Hey, this guy is pretty cool, has friends, and a fun sense of humor AND he likes video games". The only success of these journalists is not being complete social fuck-ups by having good personalities and managing to write decently. The, for lack of a better word, cult, that grows up around them is absurd, and absolutely unjustifiable, in my opinion.
This being GiantBomb, largely made up of members of Jeff and co's cult, I hardly expect a chorus of agreement. But this is the way I see it, and if you disagree, feel free to share your insights into the issue in comments. I'd be interested in hearing from you guys.
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TFU Skin pack #2 is here, and I bring you pictures once more. I don't have the Jedi Temple stuff yet, because I didn't have the points, and IRC wouldn't give me any. If you give me Microsoft Points, I will love you forever. I need 510, in case anyone is wondering... ^_^ *wink*
Anyways, here are some pictures of TFU skin pack #2, which includes
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