So i'm primarily a 360 gamer...

and I'm going to be getting Fallout 3 at the end of this month...and then the new Call of Duty on 11/11.

I'm excited to say the least.

I'm really pumped for Fable 2 myself. Fable 1 did not live up to the hype at all but was still a very enjoyable game. If Fable 2 can take that and add some of what was once promised I can't imagine it'll be anything less than great.

I'm looking forward to Fallout 3 as well, but am a bit wary. I never really fell for Oblivion - yeah the world was huge but I just never felt like I was really a part of it. The way enemies all leveled up with you was also annoying as hell (although I understand that this was corrected on the PC?)

The Fallout setting seems far more interesting to me so I think that I could very well end up loving this game (as I did Fallout 1 and 2) - I will probably pirate it for my PC though so I can take advantage of any MODs that come about.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 for Xbox 360

Since Andyroo gave me a copy of this a few weeks back, I've been playing it pretty routinely. There's something about this game that keeps drawing me further and further in. I swear to god, the other night I was playing and I hit some chip shot out of a bunker for par and I wanted to just run around our living room like I had just won the Masters. IT was a sad moment in my life. Especially considering my roommates were in the room and semi-watching me play and actually applauded the shot. What a sad life I lead.

Oh, and after talking to Sausage a few days ago, I really want to play Earthbound in a bad way. It's been a few years since I dove in to that wonderful piece of gaming. Greatest game ever? I really do believe so.

For those of you who don't venture into the Election thread too often...

I haven't really been following this thread, but just making sure people know about the Mother 3 English patch.

HOLY SHIT

Thank you!





oh, and another heads up for console gamers - toys r us (and toys r us online) are having a buy 2 get 1 free sale. I'm buying 3 copies of Fallout 3 CE - if anyone wants one at a reduced rate let me know.

Amazing. Thanks for the heads-up.

Played World Of Goo at a friend's house last night. It's pretty awesome. Might actually have to blow the dust off my Wii and dig the controllers out from under the couch cushions.

My brother has been hooked on World of Goo all week, and from what I've seen it is totally worth the 1500 VC point cost.

I'm on Chapter 4 of Mother 3, haven't had much time to play, and it's killing me.

holy fuck its awesome though

http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3170710&p=44

Mother 3 on my PSP: a good thing.

Played the PC demo of World of Goo....very very impressive. clever play mechanics, challenging puzzles but with a perfect learning curve, beautiful artwork, and to top it all if a healthy dose of humor. If you liked portal or braid you'll like this...simple as that. Everyone should check out the demo at least. http://files.filefront.com/WorldOfGooDemo+...;/fileinfo.html
That's an independent demo the demo is also available on steam if your into that sort of thing.

Pleased to see that some people here are playing Wolrd of Goo. I'm at the 3rd chapter right now and this game is just plain awesome. Incredibly good music, kickass gameplay mechanics, some levels are quite challenging without ever being frustrating, and the 'story' is very amusing.
Brilliant.

Is anyone else looking at picking up Little Big Planet? It is getting amazing reviews and looks like a really fun game. Got delayed a week or so for background music that had a quote or a reference to the Koran or something though...

I just started Mother 3 last night and holy hell is it good so far. Refreshing to play a new game like this. Does anyone else name their RPG characters after themselves/people in their families?

I usually do, but I couldn't resist calling the twins Beavis and Butthead.

blah

Fable 2 is OK

Really enjoy the holiday lineup of games. Dead Space, Fable 2, Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3. All are excellent so far. Dead Space surprisingly so.

Fallout 3 is...well, I haven't made up my mind on it yet. But I am playing and holding F3 to scrutiny as only a fan of the series for the last 13 years can hold it to. I wrote Fallout mods and fan fic. This is important to me.

You play The Witcher at all, Damo?

Yeah, I played it when it was released last year. And I got the enhanced edition as well. Which was actually ya'know, enhanced.

Also, forgot to mention that I am coming to the tail end of Stalker: Clear Skies and it is rather good. Joined up w/a few friends on Warhammer MMO and am still putting in the occasion 1+ hr time in Age Of Conan. I got a lot of video game stuff going on right now.

Mother 3 w/ English patch is my time waster du jour. I keep it windowed on my second monitor and switch back and forth. Named my twin brother in Mother 3...Montana.

Also, got the new Disgaea for PSP. Goddamn is it good. Been playing that a for bit before heading off to bed. And have started up a new Pokemon Emerald game in earnest. I want to give it a fair shot.

I played vanilla Witcher when it came out and quite liked it. Just got around to downloading the Enhanced patch. Pretty sweet so far. Playing with Polish voices and English subtitles. Gives the game a nice quality.

How does Clear Sky compare to the first game?

Well, Clear Skies is somewhat playable in chunks longer than 20 minutes. Don't get me wrong, its still buggy. Though not nearly as buggy as un-patched Stalker. The graphics- the devs really know how to sell their world's atmosphere. Creepy, eerie cities emptied of people, ragtag Stalkers huddled around campfires in the wilderness- clutching a guitar or AK-47 perhaps. Those underground lairs are bit more expansive and the danger- both real and implied has been upped quite a bit. You have to prepared to go below the surface and it is terrifying not knowing what is down there.

The gun play and AI have also been improved. Increasing the fun factor during large® fire fights. When Duty or the Rebels show up and get into a turf war it feels like a warzone now.

Very choice game. I will continue to support the Developers as I feel they do everything right from an artistic pov. Earning my dollar and loyalty.

Indeed. I shall now purchase the game.

GEARS THIS FRIDAY YESSSH
(Though I must say I am looking forward to Left 4 Dead more, but shhhhh)

YESSSSH

Red Alert 3 is a terrible game. But I can't stop playing it. There is something cool about the retro design and presentation that brings back all those warm fuzzies Red Alert gave you back in the day.

Does anybody have Fallout 3? I'm wondering about picking it up

I'm playing it now. It's better than Oblivion (which isn't saying much because I hated Oblivion). It's definitely not a Fallout game. It has the atmosphere wrong, the gameplay wrong, the humor wrong. The exploration is amusing. The dialogue is really bad. I'm enjoying myself for the most part, though. Much more than I thought I would.

I do not agree with Ogawa on Fallout 3.

Are you more positive or more negative about it? As part of the Fallout series, I think it's a disgrace. As part of Bethesda's output, I think it shows a step in the right direction after Oblivion.

Positive on Fallout 3. Far from a disgrace. Very far. But perhaps I'll get more into this when I have more time with the game. Don't want to be too hasty, but I am enjoying the direction of Fallout as a 3-D game. Its evolutionary.

And I also disagree on Oblivion and the direction of Bethesda. Oblivion was terrific, it's faults mostly technical. A few UI problems as well. Overall, Oblivion was exactly what Bethesda had been driving toward for the past decade.

i agree with damo. i haven't played much fallout 3 yet, but what i have was very good.
the worst part of oblivion was the broken leveling system, the best part?
just install a mod and presto! its fixed.

The leveling system was not broken. They wanted it to be that way. Morrowind and Redguard were the same w/r/t leveling. The hook of TES is exploration and immersion. All of them, going back to Arena, were trying to create a convincing world for you to explore. That is why Bethesda put so much in to the lore of the series. Leveling and stats were never the crunch of TES.

I've been playing Fallout 3 for the past week and I agree that it's main strength is exploration.

It is definitely not a "true" successor to the Fallout series:

- There are not multiple ways to resolve quests. Skills like lockpick, science and speech generally give extra items or a few instances slightly easier routes through the quest, not unique paths or outcomes.
- The good/evil choices are as clumsy and obvious as all recent games I've played (Bioshock, Mass Effect). The whole good/evil thing is becoming a tedious cliche of RPGs.
- Level/skill/perk increases are incremental, unlike Fallout 1/2 where gaining a level or key perk would radically strengthen your character. And in some instances, the system is broken. I have a 5 in Strength and Endurance, yet I'm able to wear a top of the line Power Armor and carry a Laser Rifle.
- The writing is not nearly as good, although very good in spots.
- VATS is a poor substitute for Fallout 1/2 tactical turn based combat. Also Fallout 3 is very combat heavy and not in a good way, because it's a clumsy FPS.
- The main quest is weak. And the side quests are not as connected to the main quest, or as deep. In Fallout 1/2 your character seemed to impact the future of every aspect of the world. In Fallout 3 you are often an errand boy or a 3rd party to what's transpiring. Today I went to a vault to retrieve a violin. Wow.

Still, I'm having a fair amount of fun.

- The world is amazing to explore. There are a LOT of sub quests and areas to stumble on. There is so much detail I'm often astounded at the man hours it took to create the world.
- The leveling system is still fun. Perks are just a good idea. Particularly fun ones like Mysterious Stranger where some guy in a trenchcoat occasionally appears in VATS to blow away your enemy.
- Some of the weaknesses of Oblivion have been dealt with, particularly the ridiculous parallel leveling of enemies.

It's a fun, well done game, but it's no classic. It's a shade better than Oblivion mainly because it avoids Oblivion's big mistakes.

I didnt' play Oblivion, but I played (and really liked) the previous Morrowind Elder Scrolls game. The one issue I had was, as fun as the game was, I could just never immerse in a world of sword-and-sorcery characters. It's just not the way I'm wired. But post-apocalypse? Oh yeah. I love Fallout 3. I found the vault proceedings mostly tedious, but once out in the wasteland, I found the level of tension and immersion to be great. There are clunky parts that sometimes break the mood, but I'm able to get into it right away and, last night say, not even realize that I'm missing my Washington Redskins on MNF (which was for the best) or the closing rounds of the WSoP. Great game, and I love the ambitious scope of it.

I too have been playing a lot of Fallout 3 lately. I'm kind of pissed at myself for starting it when I was just getting into Fable 2 and Earthbound 3. Ah well, I'm not turning back now - I'll get to those games again in time.

I'm not sure how I feel about this game. It's a lot of fun but I really don't feel immersed in the world at all (but at least the world is cool as hell). I think one thing that is missing in this and Oblivion is other characters in your party. It adds an element to the story telling that the one man on a mission just doesn't seem to have. I feel like nothing is at stake in this game. Even when Burke was offering me caps to blow up Megaton and Simms was offering me them to save it, I didn't feel like there was much of a reason I should do either - I ended up going with disarming the bomb because I had talked Simms into giving me 500 caps and I decided I am going to go for money first and foremost in my morality decisions. Neither choice would have seemed to matter to my character.

The reason why i say it was broken was that in order to maximize your leveling, you needed to make your major skills your least used ones, so that you had time to maximize all your minor skills before getting 10 major skill levels and therefore leveling up. that annoyed me to no end until i modded it.

That still isn't broken. You are simply min/maxing.

Roll-playing vs. Role-playing.

eh, I feel Fallout 3 is far better than the first two fallout games in pretty much every aspect but humor (but it was an interplay game, the same company who were responsible for Earthworm Jim, Boogerman, MDK, some of the funniest games ever made, so this is almost an unfair critique) and Fallout 3 is still pretty humorous in it's own right. The bottom line is that I think most of you are fucking retarded, overly critical, stupid little babies and are decrying a fallout 3 in 2008 by a different studio because it isn't exactly like it's forefathers that you grew up with. I haven't been known to place plot as the most important part of an RPG, however, which is how i made it sixty hours into FFXII before I threw my controller through my tv.

I'm not sure how well it's predecessors still hold up, should give them a quick playthrough after i'm done screwing around in fallout 3.

Considering the haphazard semi-real time methods 3-D RPGs have used to approximate tactical turn-based combat of their 2-D predecessors; I'd say the VATS system does the best job at balancing tactical thinking w/ stat based outcomes in a 3-D RPG. A far more elegant solution to Bioware's pause-n-go approach or abandoning the concept of tactics all together (ala TES proper). Which is something Bethesda did in the TES games' move to 3-D with the constant disconnect of stat based outcomes being totally unrelated to player action. Fallout 3 is not an blue blooded FPS, true. Though I don't feel player actions in RT combat are arbitrary or the VATS system fails to crunch the stat outcomes correctly. Truly FO3 is the best balance between tactical combat and RT player action yet seen in a 3-D RPG. Which still as a genre, 3-D RPGs still have a long way to go compared to other genres that have moved effectively into 3-D world and physic design nearly a decade ago already.

Story wise- dudes are looking back on the previous Fallout with rose colored glasses. And I say that as a huge Fallout fan. Truth is FO1 & FO2 relied on player imagination greatly. The story in those games was unbelievably sparse if one were to go back and play them. It was a credit to the brilliant world design and atmospherics of Fallout 1&2 (and FOT as well. More than many like to admit) that fleshed out the Fallout games so well. The nature of a FO3 necessitates a bit more spelling out, and perhaps linearity, to convince a player of A, B, C. There is a big difference between an NPC in a muddy low-rez, sprite based game telling you save his daughter from bandits- where one can imagine and impress upon the text & scenario there own meta-story and the richly rendered actors of today's games.

Story wise, Fallout 3 is fine. Though I wish it had a bit more teeth to it. And that is where Fallout 3 stumbles. The casual brutality, danger and grimness of the previous Fallout games is not always there. Toned down somewhat, and perhaps PCs are a bit too capable and strong. Low stat in Lockpick for instance is not too troubling. Whereas in the older FO games, there was no way you could crack vaults with a 28 in Lockpick or whathaveyou. I also don't feel the AI is as dangerous as I would like. Before when seeing a member of the Brotherhood, you trembled and walked by quickly. The chance of death outrageously high. Or the feeling of walking into a room full of shotgun carrying Raiders and not knowing if your armor was going to hold at that distance.

Overall, Fallout 3 does a good job of carrying the Fallout series out of the stone age and even makes some improvements along the way. Though not the watershed of the previous games, the fact I am playing a NEW Fallout game in 2008 is more than enough for me to look past it's beauty marks.

Trolling aside, this is more or less how I feel. The Fallout 3 storyline is far more developed, but in that sense it loses a lot of the grit and cynical bleakness that the originals conveyed, something I imagine is much more difficult to get across in a more straightforward 3d environment. It's almost unfair to knock Fallout 3 for it's lesser "atmosphere" when the original Fallout games were so unique and less-developed story-wise. Video games have changed a lot in the last decade. A Fallout 3 mirroring the originals would feel clumsy and primitive. In the end, I suppose there's really no way to please a fanbase so rabid because for them, Fallout 1 & 2 were such a different and refreshing gameplay experience for them that anything that doesn't deliver that same impact is going to be seem flawed.

I actually feel the game has better balance as well, a lot of times I felt that the original Fallout games were frustratingly uneven in terms of difficulty and gameplay.

For those who might be interested, the fellas at Double Fine just released the design document for Grim Fandango.

http://www.doublefine.com/news.php/site/co...ore_grim_thing/

Anyone play the new Castlevania? How is it?

better than the last one, and surprisingly challenging, but i'm only a couple hours in.

I mean, it's sort of a waste to even ask, the handheld castlevanias are all more or less of equal quality. Play one and you've played em all(despite the fact that they're all really good.)

Anyone playing the Left 4 Dead demo? Really fun, but way too short.

I agree with this. I was playing Castlevania before Fallout took over. The new Castlevania is great game, no better or worse than the others, with enough differences to keep it interesting. I agree that the main difference is that it is quite challenging in the beginning.

I got to the ending of Fallout 3. Yawn. Fun world to explore, fun to level your character. Main quest was a big letdown.

I read this until 2am last night. Had some awesome flashbacks through the puzzles, cut scenes and characters. I forgot how much a joy/pain in the ass it was.

Would Grim even play in XP or does it need that updated scumm project( at a lose for the name) to work?

It's definitely short. I'm interested at how long the full game will play. The demo is only 2 maps out of the final 20.