The desolate wastes have been calling out to me ever since the anticipated reveal of Fallout 4 this past E3. Like the game’s main character, I too hid underground although figuratively speaking. For the past few months I ignored any small gameplay snippets, cell-phone videos and plot details that leaked out of Bethesda ahead of the game’s release. With the large steel doors of Vault 111 finally open as of yesterday I’ve finally got the chance to spend nearly ten hours in the Boston wasteland. Here’s a brief journey of my character’s journey from the relative safety of Vault 111 to the streets of Diamond City.Read More
A lot’s happened in a short amount of time. In the first couple of hours I’ve put into the game, introduction included, I’ve already got my first companion, racked up my first set of power armor and used it to take on my first Deathclaw. It seems as though Bethesda is coming up to me and going “you remember this stuff? Yeah? I bet you remember this stuff.” Can’t say that I’m entirely surprised but it’s nice. I’ve already experienced my first set of graphical glitches, mostly people falling and dying on platforms that don’t seem to exist and people sitting and standing on these said magical platforms. It’s to be expected and, if we’re being honest, quite amusing. The game feels and plays, very much, like an improved version of Fallout: New Vegas and you can certainly feel the Skyrim showing in this as the movement and environment certainly shows it.
It’s not exactly the prettiest game and it does have its fair share of visual and audio shortcomings – one of which is a personal pet peeve of mine: I sometimes have a hard time hearing things and I require subtitles and sometimes the subtitles I’ve set are either not appearing at all or they’re stuck – but it’s nothing that takes away from the fun the game has to offer, so far. I’ve done my fair share of wandering and getting into trouble and I gotta say the experience is not far removed from previous entries at all.
Story seems solid, so far. Voice acting has improved quite a bit, too, which is awesome. Music is mostly not present but during some of the story-based moments, it was nice.
My huge concern is this, so far: if I know Bethesda at all, they have this habit of fooling you into what to expect from the challenges out there. Greatest example in my memory is when you faced a Behemoth earlier on in the game in Fallout 3 and I thought to myself “holy hell, if it took myself and that many Brotherhood members to take this down, there can’t be much that’s more difficult in this game to take on alone” when I later found out that there are many other threats much worse than that Behemoth. Deathclaws are a great example of a threat that was incredible alone and in packs they were nigh unstoppable. Every time I even heard one my heartbeat skyrocketed. Within the first little bit of the game I played today I was already paired up with Dogmeat, plopped down into my first set of power armor, and then faced up against a Deathclaw. Now, that was, by no means an easy battle, tension was high and the adrenaline was pumping but the point remains that it only took one try to down the thing and I’ve already got a suit of power armor. Of course, it requires a power supply in order to get going and the suit you get comes to you damaged so you can’t exactly abuse it early on but… still… power armor! I remember not even being able to wear a suit of power armor until late into Fallout 3 due to not having the perk so I could wear it and, at that, I didn’t have a suit, period, until a little bit before I put a point into that perk. I’m just wondering how the difficulty will scale from here: are things going to get bigger, badder, and more dangerous from here, or are Deathclaws still going to be the prominent threat in Boston and are they being nerfed slightly? I guess only time will tell.
Aside from all that business, very typical Fallout business: things haven’t changed that much and, honestly, that’s a very good thing. I’m already glad I picked it up.
Harmonix has revealed the brand new DLC that is now available on both the PlayStation Store and the Xbox Live Marketplace. These brand new tracks take us back to the early 2000s with the likes of GodSmack, Linkin Park (who at least are still producing new music, and in all honesty The Hunting Party felt like a return to form for them) and the now defunct AudioSlave.
All three of these bands pretty much defined my teenage years, I can remember listening to Linkin Park in the early years of high school. Honestly – the most interesting is probably AudioSlave due to the fact they somehow blended Chris Cornell’s belting voice with the funk infused sounds of the remnants of Rage Against The Machine.
God I feel so old now, and I’m only 29! .. Full list of songs below
New Songs Available In Rock Band 4:
Audioslave – Like A Stone
Godsmack – Awake
Linkin Park – Lying From You
This month provides a little bit of the good, the bad, and the downright ugly on the PlayStation Plus Instant Game Collection front, this month, and I’m here to provide you a little insight on what you’re getting, this month, in case you didn’t rush out and get the games already or missed out on them.
With only a few days left on the clock, the Friday the 13th project by relatively new studio Gun Media has managed to inch past its 700.000 dollar goal on kickstarter. The game, which will be a multiplayer focused title pitting one player controlling Jason against seven camp counsellors, is set to be released in October of next year for PC, Xbox One, and PS4.
This game is very similar in concept to a Kickstarter project that more than doubled its much more modest goal of 50.000 dollar called Last Year. Ironically, if both are going to launch during their planned window, Friday the 13th will beat it by a month. Whether or not they took inspiration from this smaller title we’ll never know, but it’s still a very novel idea and I think it can support two games if both are decent. The Friday the 13th series has never been my thing, having hit its apex before I was even born, but I adore asymmetrical multiplayer when it’s done well. The concept is certainly solid, and I hope they can find a way to build it out into a solid game.
Blizzcon has wrapped up and with its end come all the announcements that the internet had expected about Blizzards newest game Overwatch. Early on Thursday leaks confirmed that not only would Overwatch be coming to PS4 and Xbox One, and that it would have at least two retail box releases. Though pricing data has not been released by blizzard pricing data was able to be obtained by several media outlets that showed a price point for the main game at 40$ US. That price was actually off by a little, the final preorder price listed price for the “origins edition” is actually 60$ US. The price of a box edition being so high for a game that was expected to be free-to-play. As more and more information came out and Q&As occurred it became clear that the 21 announced heroes were what came in the box, and that Blizzard would make no announcements about further content, maps, heroes, or skins. So now comes the real question and the one that’s the most related to me, is the game worth it? It bears mentioned at this point that I am not in the beta, so my impressions come from the streams, and what they are releasing in the Q&A sessions this weekend.
