Consolation Prize

My time with Fallout 3 has come to an end - for the time being at least. And while I look forward to the first tranche of downloadable content; namely Operation Anchorage, which will no doubt drag me back to the desolate wasteland, I thought I’d take a moment to reminisce about my adventure.

It occurred to me that during the course of playing Fallout 3 I had become an obsessive hoarder. It started out innocently enough. I would scavenge whatever I could find in the wasteland to make an extra few caps in order to buy weapons, ammunition, healing meds, and to pay for repairs. It’s a harsh and dangerous environment in the D.C wasteland where the phrase “the survival of the fittest” reigns supreme and if you’re ill equipped then you’re as good as Mole Rat meat, and thus these early scavenging trips were at least justifiable.

** Spoilers Ahead **

But after a while scavenging became less about survival and more a compulsive necessity. Eventually I was earning more than enough caps from a variety of different incomes - be it from collecting bounties (fingers) by ridding the wasteland of evildoers, mapping locations for the mercenary outfit Reilly’s Rangers, or just plainly as a reward for services rendered, that I really didn’t need to carry on with my obsessive pastime. I had decked out my luxury Megaton apartment with all the latest mod-cons one could possibly want in a post apocalyptic shack; I had gathered enough weaponry to kit out a small army of freedom fighters, and I had more caps then I really knew what to do with, but still whenever I was out on a mission I just couldn’t resist strip-mining locations and enemies.

The worst case scenario was during the downfall of President Eden and the destruction of the Enclave at Raven Rock. The fortress was littered with heavily armoured enclave troopers all sporting Power Armour and Laser Rifles, or better still Tesla Armour and Plasma Rifles. Of course I couldn’t leave one iota behind, and thus I was compelled to make multiple relay runs to ensure that everything that was possibly salvageable was carried beyond the fortress limits before it was destroyed. I’ve not sold any of the armour or weapons that I took the time and effort to accumulate from Raven Rock. They’re just gathering dust in my TARDIS like desk draw next to the bed.

So do I really need one more Toy Car, Lunchbox or Nuka Cola for the collection? Is another Chinese Pistol really going to be of any more use than the hundreds I’ve already collected? The logical part of my brain tells me not to bother, just to concentrate on the rarer items and pick the others up if-and-when they’re needed. But the compulsive magpie wants just one more shiny bauble for the nest.

So here we are again; on the verge of another Christmas. A time to be merry, a time to rejoice, and a time to be with loved ones, family, friends, and of course a festive video game!

So what are you going to be playing this holiday? Is Santa Claus leaving a sack of gaming goodness beneath your Christmas tree?

As usual I’ve got a stack of games baying for prioritisation. However, before they even get a look in I’m planning on finishing Fallout 3 – which if I’d played earlier (and completed) in the year would easily have ranked in my top five games of the year. Maybe, just maybe, if I’m still playing it into 2009 then it will make next years list.

After Fallout 3 then it’s really going to be a toss up between Fable 2, Far Cry 2, and Prince of Persia.

All that remains to be said is to say thank-you to everyone that reads any post here on Consolation Prize. I hope that on occasion I’ve written something that you’ve thought was worth reading, and I really do appreciate your time and any comments that you leave. I’ll be back in the new year, hopefully recovered from any excesses, and raring to write some more.

Happy Christmas!

Christmas Tree image courtesy of
Manu M stock.xchng

The economy is in trouble; Governments have responded by pouring billions of pounds / dollars into the banking sector and into key industries in order to avoid further economic disaster. It saddens me to learn how the economic downturn is affecting development studios across the globe – The doors to Factor 5 and Free Radical Design are now closed, and even big hitters like Electronic Arts have been forced to make mass redundancies to help weather the storm. And on a personal note, I sincerely hope all those affected will soon once again be back in the industry.

The current economic crisis is very unfortunate, but there is, at least from a consumer’s perspective, a silver lining in this dark tumultuous cloud - In a rush to gain at least a modicum of profit I’ve seen retailers slash the prices of lots of high profile games soon after release. Far Cry 2, Prince of Persia, Fable 2, Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, and Little Big Planet; all released in the chaotic build up to Christmas can all now be picked up - at least here in the UK - for on average 50% less than if you had bought them upon release. That’s a huge saving to anyone, especially in these troubled times when every penny counts. It makes me wonder how many of us have held off from purchasing a game just because we had a hunch the prices would be reduced, or alternatively did we just hold off because there were too many games to pick from?

I’ve bagged some great “bargains” over the last few weeks; games I would have happily bought on release, at full price, if it wasn’t for the ridiculous release schedule we annually have to endure during the festive period. I’m assuming that many gamers out there, like me, have to prioritise what to buy, and are fed up of being force fed games in such a short period of time like some sort of video game “Foie gras”. Surely this sales model wasn’t always going to be sustainable was it? Weren’t there bound to be some losers eventually as supply outstripped demand? Or were we all just caught with our pants down?

Read the rest of this entry »

It seems to be traditional during the festive season to offer up some sort of list, whether it’s the “Best”, “Worst”, “Overhyped” or whatever adjective fits the agenda – well it’s my turn so I’m going to dish up my top 5 favourite games played this year.

There is, however, a small caveat – and that is to be considered for the list I must have at least played the game to completion this year. You will therefore notice that some high profile games like Fable 2 and Fallout 3 aren’t on the list, as even with the best will in the world there just aren’t enough hours in the day to play EVERY game that’s released in the mad rush towards Christmas. This isn’t a vapour-ware list of games I think should be worthy, but just a plain and honest list of games that I’ve enjoyed above and beyond my expectations this year.

5. Castle Crashers (Xbox 360 - Arcade)

There is something incredibly joyous about returning to the good old simplistic hack ‘n slash genre that is so representative of Castle Crashers. It’s as if the shackles have suddenly been thrown off and your inner child has suddenly been released and you’re free to play a game just for fun again - without worrying about “what it all means”. Castle Crashers wraps this shackle free gameplay up with some beautiful art design, adds a smattering of guttural humour and gives you a game that’s a joy to play time and time again.

Read what I thought of Castle Crashers here.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a fact that gaming is now starting to become more socially acceptable. I am no longer completely embarrassed when I admit to being a gamer, and neither do I feel the need to hide this fact from the world at large, although admittedly I’m still a little apprehensive regarding people’s reactions whenever I list “Video Gaming” as one of my hobbies or interests.

You see, although gaming is gradually crawling out of the shadows of the bedroom towards the light of the living room, there’s still some stigma associated with being a games player. I’m sure many of us are still attributed as being “Geeks” or “Immature”, and are assumed to be lacking in any form of social skills beyond those required to set-up a death match on Halo 3 or converse in “leet -speak”. In fact, I quite happily label myself as a geek, and often do so before anyone can even think about using the term in a derogatory manner in order to confound and leave whomever I’m speaking with in search of another stereotype.

Anyway, I need to get to the point. What got me thinking about the acceptability of gaming was the fact that a well known BBC Radio One DJ, Chris Moyles, freely admits to playing on his Xbox 360 regularly. And often during the course of his breakfast show he will quite openly talk about playing Call of Duty 4 or Call of Duty: World at War, seemingly without any regard for the admonishment he may receive from his colleagues or the millions of listeners that have tuned in to listen to his show. I genuinely find the show highly entertaining, but knowing that Mr Moyles is an avid gamer provides me with yet another reason to tune into the show just on the off-chance that he may regale us with stories about his gaming habits.

Read the rest of this entry »

So the NXE (New Xbox Experience) finally got its official debut yesterday replacing the old “blades” dashboard with a visually slick update. I’m sure Microsoft’s Live servers were being hammered all day and were probably groaning under the pressure but I must say that from a personal perspective the update was painless, and surprisingly quick – clocking in at about 10 minutes to download and install. A time I thought was an impressive feat for such a major system update that was concurrently rolled out worldwide.

After the brief but flamboyant video lauding a whole new experience I got down to the nitty-gritty of creating my avatar. The process itself is simple to use but I’m slightly disappointed with the initial selection of features and clothing options available. For me, the creative flexibility on offer feels far more limiting than say its most obvious comparable counterpart the Nintendo “Mii”. But, I’m sure it’s not going to be too long before we see some premium content popping up on Xbox Live Marketplace that will allow further avatar personalisation and customisation. I do however like the overall artistic direction of the avatars finding them to be a nice balance between the extremes of the overly cute and the ultra realistic.

As always there’s going to be a slight learning curve when presented with any new system and NXE is no different. Overall though, I’ve found it to be intuitive and it’s certainly no more difficult to navigate then the old dashboard. Having the fallback of being able to use the “X” guide controller button to bring up a miniature mock “blade” dashboard in the center of the screen is a nice feature and it’s certainly better than having that monstrous left side bar menu screen appear.

Personally speaking the biggest boon for me is the ability to install games to the hard drive. I’ve been looking forward to this ability since it was first announced and after a brief tour of the new dashboard I installed Gears of War 2 to the hard-drive. The speed difference may be negligible on fully optimised games, but the noise reduction is amazing!

And finally I’m now able to delete all those damn arcade trial games with zero gamerscore that have been cluttering up my achievement list for the last three years from the system by simply highlighting the game from within the list and selecting “Delete Game History”.

So far I’m impressed with what Microsoft have delivered with the NXE. There appears to be the odd fault or two that needs to be ironed out, like the occasional error message when attempting to view some content, but it’s a step (or maybe even a jump) forward in the right direction.

I saw an interesting statistic the other day over at Gamasutra in an article by Matt Matthews regarding the estimated “attachment” rate for each console after 23 months on the market; or in layman’s terms: How many games on average are owned by a person for each console.

The article basically shows the ratios for each console, broken down by 1st and 3rd party titles, but for simplicity’s sake and for use within this post I’ve just totalled them as:

• Sony PS3 - 5.3
• Nintendo Wii - 5.5
• Microsoft Xbox 360 - 6.6

What I thought would be interesting would be to put the attachment rate into a personal context and analyse the statistics for retail games in my possession as of this moment in time. As regular readers will know I tend to have a bias towards the Xbox 360, favouring the Microsoft banshee over the PS3 and the Wii, but to be honest I was shocked at just how many games I had accumulated for the Redmond beast over the last few years. It’s amazing how quick you can forget what games you own when they just get stuffed into a cupboard once complete.

Read the rest of this entry »

Too Human is an unusual game to play. Not from the perspective of its genre, as it could be catogorised as a futuristic action RPG dungeon crawler, but in the way that it requires a serious investment of both time and energy in order to fully understand how to play the game and enjoy its full potential.

I’ve not played a game in a long while where I’ve been left feeling completely confounded by a game. It was only through determination - and gritted teeth - that the veil of fog clouding my comprehension of its mechanics began to lift. Only now, after completion, do I feel like I’m starting to get a handle on some of the peculiarities surrounding Too Human.

Finally I’ve grasped how light and dark “polarity” enemies’ work. Virtually impregnable to either melee strikes or ballistic attacks the correct type of attack must be used against these opponents otherwise they’ll benefit from whatever you throw at them. It sounds like a simple rule but as it’s not explained in depth (correct me if I’m wrong) it led to many frustrating encounters where I was slaughtered by these seemingly invulnerable opponents. It was only through enabling the damage meter that I could spot these enemies and witnessed my ballistic attacks having a negligible effect. Thus I needed to switch to an alternative strategy - melee where ballistic resistance was obvious - to dispatch the numerous hordes.

Discovering how to use the dodge manoeuvre effectively is a key skill in Too Human. Not only in the literal sense that it gets the character out of the way of incoming projectiles, but also in the fact that while dodging your character will have a few frames of invulnerability, which if timed correctly will help avoid any knockdown effects from area attacks. Again, this is another aspect that isn’t taught, but learned through trial and error - and numerous deaths. It’s a revelation when you realise those Troll hammer attacks and ground pounds are not to be feared after all.

Read the rest of this entry »