My Most Anticipated Titles of 2011

1) L.A Noire

Why? It’s Rockstar, they usually get things right. Add to this the new global illumination technology, Aaron Staton from Mad Men and the fact that it’s a new IP and it should be a real winner and GOTY contender.

How could it go wrong? If the focus is on technology rather than gameplay

2) Dead Space 2

Why? ‘Cause I’m playing through Dead Space at the moment and loving it. It’s like I’m living out Event Horizon, except I’m in a bad ass suit of armour and there’s no Lawrence Fishburne.

How could it go wrong? If it loses that feeling of ‘shit, I’m running out of ammo’ and dumbs the experience down in favour of all-out-action.

3) Diablo III

Why? Because most of my year will probably be spent in its dungeons.

How could it go wrong? If leaked internal roadmap from Blizzard is a piece of crap and the game doesn’t come out.

4) Batman – Arkham City

Why? “I’m Batman”

How could it go wrong? If George Clooney and Arnie make in-game cameos.

5) NBA 2k12

Why? NBA 2k11 set a new bar for sports games. The Jordan Challenge was incredible, my player was improved (although it could do with another overhaul) and online ran a lot smoother. Best of all the in-game, bread-and-butter hoops experience was the best it’s been in years. 

How could it go wrong? If it can’t match 2k11 in terms of innovation.

Old School - Top 5 C64 Games

I’ve decide to take a stroll down memory lane to help educate the youth of today with my top 5 games for each system I have owned. I’ll discuss the system, name the five games and list either my favourite memory, a random quote or a reason why the game is important. We’ll start with my first: The Commodore 64.

For those not old enough to experienced the joys of the mid 1980s, the Commodore 64 was a revolutionary personal computer system that featured 8-bit graphics and a whopping 64kb of RAM (that actually was impressive then).

I got my C64 as a birthday present in 1989, I was 7 years old and my mum payed $500 for the privilege. The C64 came with a tape deck where you had to rewind the cassettes and fine-tune the tape player to ensure that the game worked. After a couple of levels you’d get a message to switch tape sides.

Top 5 Commodore 64 Games


1) Bubble Bobble

     Random Quote – “Brings up so much good old memories!! Porn is nothing comparing (sic) to this!!” Maxen86 – youtube

2) Impossible Mission

Why it’s important?  Mass Effect clearly stole the idea of being stuck in elevators for long periods from Impossible Mission (1.43). Hacking? Forget Fallouts and Bioshock, this game was rocking that in the 80s.

3) Paperboy

Favourite Moment – Although it wasn’t on the C64, I managed to find someone to play this with on Xbox Live. When I handed him his ass, he proceeded to hurl torrents of abuse at me. Although not the actual event here’s an approximation of what happened.

4) Elite

Why it’s important? It’s got free roaming (think sandbox), Intergalactic space travel and you can trade slaves. If they tried to release this game in Australia now, it’d get banned

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Australia#Video_games

5) Barbarian

Favourite Memory? The little green goblin that drags the victims away after you decapitate them. Classy.

Fallout: New Vegas Review - Now With More Bugs...

If a game is to be judged by how much time you spend playing it then Fallout: New Vegas is a flat out 10. But while it’s telling that at game’s completion I had invested 60 hours into New Vegas, it is more revealing that I got through about 85% of the locations and then just gave up and finished the main quest. It’s safe to say that I won’t be returning to the Mojave for any replays.

This isn’t to say that New Vegas is bad. It’s more that it hasn’t grown with the times. Serving up a similar experience to Fallout 3, without the water cooler moments and with added glitches, simply is not enough now.  The zeitgeist has moved and expectations are higher.

Saying this New Vegas should be praised for how much impact your actions have on the world and its characters. Your allegiances have wide reaching consequences and NV does a great job of capturing the reality of these decisions in its ‘where are they now’ ending – it’s a high point of the game.

The core of the Fallout experience also keeps the game afloat. NV’s Mojave Desert is massive. There are all the vaults, shacks and abandon mines that you could wish for. Add in a few memorable characters, including a cross dressing super mutant, and the gruesome results of a headshot in VATS and it becomes clear that the best bits of New Vegas are simply the core design of its predecessor.

Overall, Fallout: New Vegas is a step backwards for the Fallout brand. By following the formula of F3, Obsidian has missed the chance to innovate within the world. For some the continuation of the F3-like world will be enough, but for mine the host of bugs, the aged engine and the lack of standout storyline moments makes for a disappointing experience.

6.5

My Top 10 Time Chewing Achievements

The start of this blog has been heavy, so here’s something lighter to spark a bit of discussion: the Top 10 most time chewing achievements I’ve come across. These are only the ones I know of, feel free to let me know what I’m missing.

My Top 10 Time Chewing Achievements

1)             Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter – World Champion

I’ve never quite conquered this one. All it requires is for you to reach the top of the Ghost Recon leaderboard. Yes, that means you have to be the best in the world at this game. Settle in, grab a bucket of coffee, I’ll see you in a year-or-two…

2) Dead Rising – Seven Day Survivor

                    

Great game and a lot of fun to play, but I’m not sure I want to try and play the 14 hours (7 days of in-game time) straight needed to get this achievement.

3) Gears of War 2 – Seriously 2.0

All this one takes is killing 100,000 enemies. That’s a lot of gas for the chainsaw.

4) Fifa 09 – The Peterson

Although many would have racked up the 50 hours gametime for this achievement just from normal play, I’m awarding this achievement such a high spot because you only get 1 achievement point for it. If all achievements were based on this logic you’d have to play 50,000 hours to get all the achievements in a game. That’s nearly six years of continuous play.

5) Half-Life 2 – Little Rocket Man

Valve are cruel. All you need for this one is to carry a garden gnome for nearly all of the game. What do you do with the gnome at the end of this ordeal? Place him in a rocket and blast him into space.

6) GTA IV – Liberty City Minute

Hit the gas Niko, you’ve got 30 hours to complete GTA IV. Hate to miss it by a few minutes…

7) Left 4 Dead – What are you Trying to Prove?

Finish all the campaigns on expert? The game’s hard enough as it is, especially with my glory hog co-op friends who wanna go it alone.

8) F.E.A.R – Exterminator

Kill every enemy in the game, you say? Sounds doable except for the fact that enemies like to vanish and run away.

9) Assassin’s Creed II – In Memory of Petruccio

Collect 100 feathers to honour the memory of your younger brother? What happened to just lighting a candle?

10) Command and Conquer 3 – Welcome to 2047

Achievement: Press the A button 2047 times. Just stupid. Also, bad for RSI and arthritis sufferers.

Just One More Quest - The Psychology of Achievement Seeking - Part One

Internal monologue – Whilst playing a RPG

Midnight

“Just one more quest. That level up is so close I can taste it. Shoot Super Mutant in the head, collect quest note from corpse, fast travel back and give note to NPC and there I’m done…

12.20am

I’ll just use these experience points and pick a perk and then that’s it, I’m off to bed. I’ve gotta be up for work at six…

12.35am

Mmm, I can become a cannibal now. That might be cool; maybe I’ll try that for a little while. I’ll get a few kills and then I’m out…

1.15am

Shit, there’s got to be pure awesome at the bottom of this vault?

2.00am

Just one more quest. That level up is so close…”

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Being driven to achieve sounds like a business mantra you’d find on a career-climber’s resume. But for gamers the dangling carrots of achievements, experience points and perks drives a different type of achievement seeking. It’s the kind that produces no tangible results, but has very real impacts on how we play games and how long we play for.

This blog, part one of a series, looks at how achievements (for the purpose of this blog we’ll lump any perks, experience points, achievements, trophies, new skills, avatars etc into the one word) effect gamers. It’ll touch on the extreme cases of addiction in gaming, but for the most part focuses on what draws the ‘average gamer’ to play for extended periods.

Before I get into it, some background about why I wanted to write this blog. I’ve got an addictive personality. It’s not just confined to gaming, but with games there’s a stat-driven, completion-focused quality to my play that makes me want to complete mundane tasks for that little flash on the screen that tells me my Gamerscore (insert) is growing or that my character is now fitter, happier and more productive.

For the most part there’s nothing wrong with this. I’ve been co-oping Left 4 Dead 2 over the last few weeks and had real elation when I boarded the boat on the Swamplands campaign to be the only survivor and sole recipient of the achievement points – comparably I was screaming abuse when he left me to be mauled by zombies, even after I defribbed the bastard, on the next campaign.

When an achievement challenges you to do something real or when it occurs as validation for playing the game with skill or in ‘the right way’, then it is a worthy part of the gaming experience.

But I’ve found achievement seeking does have a downside. I’m around 50 hours deep in Fallout: New Vegas. I’m near the end of the main quest, but have delayed finishing it so I can explore more (read all) that the Mojave wasteland has to offer. At the moment, my life consists of necessary tasks (work, family, eating and sleeping) and New Vegas, to the point where I’m playing 3-4 hours a night.

Now this would be fine if I loved this game, but the truth is I don’t (see my blog on Time Sucking in Fallout: New Vegas for my thoughts on the game). My character has maxed out on experience points, I’ve got no active quests other than the main story and my exploration is sending me to caverns, hideouts and shacks that have me shooting and plundering. Which I do over-and-over-and-over again.

Rationally, I know that my enjoyment of the experience is not equal to the amount of time I’m putting into the game. But I will continue to do this until every location is uncovered. I will do this at the expense of all the other options for my disposable time, this includes playing L4D2 online – which I’ve done a few times and loved.

Why do it? I’ve got my hunches and I’m going to use a series of blogs to air them out.

How do you game? Do you find yourself achievement seeking? And if you do is it an experience you enjoy?

Time Sucking in Fallout: New Vegas

Time Sucking in Fallout: New Vegas

Before a fanboy Powerfists* me in the throat, let me just say I’m about 30 hours into New Vegas and I’m enjoying it. The huge scale impresses more and more as the game goes on, there’s a real sense of achievement with each new perk and listening to Wayne Newton wax lyrical while you scourge the desert for food & ammo is plain awesome. RPG’s are an experience that consoles generally struggle with, but Fallout gives console fans a quality, non-Zelda experience.

Despite this New Vegas has some disappointing limitations. I’m not talking about the much maligned bugs and glitches (see crashes, horrible enemy AI all housed on a dated engine), as they’ve been critiqued to death and hopefully the soon-to-drop patch will address most concerns. I’m talking about a missed opportunity to think outside the typical formats of RPGs and deliver an experience more fitting of the pacing and variety in modern gaming.

With this in mind here are suggestions for improving the Fallout experience. Hardcore RPGers may disagree, thinking that the changes would remove the game from an RPG. But I think with customisation Fallout could be moulded to suit the gamer’s wants be they a traditional, time-heavy RPG (ala Fallout 3 and New Vegas) or something tighter that takes all the action of the current game and minimises the dead time for those amongst us who are a little time-poor.

A Little Handholding at the Start – Ingame tutorials can suck all the air out of feeling “in the game”. That said Fallout is a massive world, with multilayered questing and interactions that affect gameplay. Sometimes I’ll meet a faction and my companions will just start shooting them and I have no idea why. Maybe I’m wearing the wrong armour, maybe I tried to bed one of their daughters, maybe my personal hygiene leaves a little to be desired. A simple box indicating status with the known group (something more black-and-white than the accepted/hated interaction) could easily solve this.

Improved Mapping System – I’m off with my companions Boone and Rex and we are wandering the Mojave desert trying to get my four-legged friend a new brain. I’ve not been to any locales near the quest, so we’re out there two-feet-and-a-heartbeat style just kicking it through the desert. After 20 minutes wandering I reach a big mountain that I can’t find anyway around and I manage to lose my companions along the way. As all dog owners will know, it’s hard to get your dog a new brain when you don’t have a dog.

Why not allow me a guided map or signposting to get to where I need to go. It can be an optional component on the Pip Boy so that the fun of wandering is still there, but when stuck the option is there to navigate.

Better Inventory Interfaces – It’s great that Fallout New Vegas’ customisation actually makes everyday items like scrap metal, tubing and belts relevant. But with this comes a need to store more crap in your inventory. A search function at the top of the Pipboy sorting according to cost (for bartering), weight (for reducing load) and quest relevant items would cut down the time trolling.

Alternate Gameplay Mechanics – New Vegas really misses an in-game change like Fallout 3’s VR sequence. Look at our recent shooters (COD, GoW, Halo etc); it’s become compulsory to give gamers different scenarios to interact with. Too much of New Vegas is collect this, shoot that, talk to that person. A game change or two would provide the perfect vehicle for developing the story and delivering that holy-shit moment that New Vegas lacks.

Better In Game Shooting – While technically related to the engine and gameplay mechanics, it’s hard not to get frustrated with a shooting system that plays like it is completely arbitrary. Mass Effect 2 has shown it is possible to shoot straight in an RPG. Fallout 4 should address this as a matter of priority.

Better Mapping of the Quests – When there are four different objectives for a quest, it’s not always easy to know which waypoint leads to which option. An easy fix, but one that would speed proceedings along nicely.

Help! Let Me Out of Here – I totally agree with the ‘no fast travel’ during battle rule and I can understand the ‘no fast travel from inside rule’. But if Fallout is going to force us to make our own way out of a five level vault or maze-like cave, please at least have a door at the bottom of the level so I don’t have to sit through five load screens just to get some fresh air.

All of these suggestions are minor, but these small changes would cut the frustrating time-sucking in New Vegas down to a minimum. More time exploring wastelands, romancing robots and putting grenades in people’s inventory has got to be a good thing.


What do you think? What could improved for Fallout 4?

* If you’ve played Fallout you’ll know what I’m talking about. If not I wouldn’t recommend Googling the term.