deKay's Gaming Diary

Er, so Henry Hatsworth got too hard. The Captain Boss and his nurse are impossible. I’ve put it to one side (code for “probably never play again”) and started something new. Or old, but new to me.

Now, I hate westerns. And I hate cowboys. And I even hated Sunset Riders which lots of people think is ace. But I love (at least, I do now – didn’t like it at first) GTA IV and this is, pretty much, a cowboy GTA game. Apparently. And it won Game of the Year or something, so it might be good.

And is it? Yes. Yes it is.

But first the complaints. The controls, particularly combat controls, are broken. Just like they were in GTA IV. Just like they were in GTA: San Andreas. And Vice City. And GTA III. And Manhunt. And every other game I’ve played built on a GTA game engine. Targeting baddies just doesn’t work half the time, and shooting on horseback? Rubbish, just like GTA drive-bys.

Also, the world of RDR is a big place. Everywhere is a long ride from everywhere else. OK, so there are stagecoaches that act like the GTA taxis (but aren’t nearly as frequently found), and you can save everywhere (except you can’t – lots of places seem exempt from “everywhere”) with your campsite kit and fast travel, but still – getting from A to B can be tiresome. Even more so when you’re “accompanying” someone, which basically means you hold the A button and fall asleep until someone starts shooting at you.

Thankfully, it’s all so, so glorious. Graphically, it is probably the most impressive game I’ve seen on the 360, with a draw-distance to rival Oblivion. It seems to play a lot like Oblivion too, actually – perhaps it’s the picking flowers, bizarre quests, and horse riding. No horse armour yet, though.

As with other Rockstar games, a lot of the fun of the game comes from two things: the “do things that aren’t scripted” (my perennial GTA favourite is the “take a bike where a bike can’t go” game – replace bike with horse for RDR) stuff, and the characters and their stories. Everyone is so well acted, so fleshed out, that they’re more than just game characters – they have their own agendas, secrets, and backstories, and finding these out is excellent.

There’s bound to be a twist at some point. There always is. And I’m guessing that it’s one of the Armadillo sheriff’s deputies turns out to be a bad’un. We’ll see. I’m only 6 or so hours in (past the barn fire, done a few Seth quests), but it’s great so far.

Yeah, so I bought a Game Room game. I said I wouldn’t because it would mean that, due to the games costing 240 points each, I’d end up with a number of Microsoft Points that wasn’t a multiple of 100. Which, due to OCD, makes me uncomfortable. But I did need Detana!! TwinBee. So I had to buy 5 games at 240 points each to “fix” the points. Aha, yes, I’m mentally ill.

First off, I played in Ranked Mode, which is excellent. Your friends and leaderboard neighbours appear on the screen with their scores as you play, and you rank up in real-time – like you do with Pinball FX2 and Geometry Wars 2. And it adds a fantastic dimension to the game that you just don’t get with high-score tables. I’m now ranked 1770th in the world, which is pretty good. Or would be if more than 2000 people actually played it.

Then I played Classic Mode, and completed it using about 20 credits. About 12 of those were on the last level. It was hard. But then I completed it again, this time using only 5 credits (3 on the final level), so clearly I’d improved.

900/1000 points GET! That’s just one achievement left now – 100% the game. I’m at just under 90%, and to 100% it I need to do at least two things:

1) Replay every level in Super Story Mode, completing each chapter in under an hour.

2) Replay every level in Challenge Mode, where I have to collect all of the blue minikits, which are hidden, in under 10 minutes per level.

So, being positive and assuming I do all that in half of the time limits without having to try again (unlikely – I’m expecting some tight finishes!) that’s at least another 6 hours of play. And I’m already at 31. Time for a break from this for a while, I think!

Bit of a slog this, innit?

Not that I mind, as I’m enjoying it, but there’s a lot of OCD game here. I’m up to about 75% complete, but still have most of the levels still to do at least twice more, and all of them to do at least once more, as well as a few bonus levels and other stuff.

Another 15+ hours to go – easy.

My first Lego game was the original Lego Star Wars. I played it to completion, but never got OCD about it and didn’t even come close to doing everything do-able in the game (getting True Jedi, all the minikits, characters, etc.) but I did enjoy it.

Then I got, played, completed and 100%ed Lego Indiana Jones. And Lego Batman. And Lego Indiana Jones 2. I wanted to go back to Lego Star Wars but some of the achievements are utterly ridiculous – you have to complete every single level without dying! Also, there’s The Complete Saga anyway, which is the first game plus the second game (which was based on the second trilogy), so I decided to get that instead.

Problem was, it was never cheap. I only saw it for under £20 once, and I was too slow to buy it. Then I found it at Play Asia and, since I had a load of credit there and it had just come down in price, I managed to buy it for just 61p!

It arrived a couple of weeks ago, and, 12 hours of play later, I finished it. As in, I completed all the levels in story mode. The in-game counter only said I’d done about 33% though, as I’ve all them pesky minikits and gold bricks and red bricks and True Jedi things and everything left to do. And all the bonus levels. Lots.

After a few more hours redoing levels and completing some bonus levels, I’ve now reached 45% done. This is going to take a little while, I think!

You know what? I actually really rather enjoyed that.

I mean, it’s short, and the camera is a work of wonk, and the bit with the stone water snake in the ruins near the end was just stupid (mainly because of the camera) and the end boss was a pain because Sonic would glitch through him rather than homing attack him (so I’d die) but it didn’t really seem to matter. I had fun, and for all of its faults and stuff, its still eleventybillion times better than pretty much any other Sonic game of recent years. And I’ve just realised – Sonic Adventure is TWELVE years old. Good grief.

Did I go back and play as the other characters? No. Because they’re all dead to me.

I’ve completed it $hlmun times. I still think it’s the second best 3D Sonic game. I bought it last week when it was on offer, and have been playing through as Sonic.

At first, I thought, what? This is utter rubbish. I don’t remember it being this rubbish! I fell through the floor in the same place on the first level on my first go and lost all my lives. WHAT? RUBBISH!

But then, despite Tails’ appearance and the (let’s be truthful now) awful between-stages running around only vaguely knowing where to go, it still somehow works. The levels, although a bit glitchy, are mostly wonderful (especially Twinkle Park so far), and although it looks old and graphically isn’t amazing (draw distance in particular is nasty – but that’s mainly due to it being a port of the PC version not the DC or GC one), it’s still a lot of fun.

Oh, and the voice acting? Aside from Eggman, it’s awful.

It’s more of the first game, only with minor irritations removed, the way you build things made clearer (it’s now more obvious which factory you get specific items from), less to-ing and fro-ing (you get helpers that can carry building parts, and even build buildings, for you), and three different kingdoms to help out.

So, really, it’s the same as the first game but nicer to play. Which is all you want from it! Lovely and relaxing, genuinely funny, and a high Columbo Factor to keep you playing. I still have one achievement to get, but I’m not far off that.

Also! First day of 2011 and first completed game of 2011! Total play time, just under 6 hours.

Now you see, I wasn’t going to buy the first lot of DLC for New Vegas for two reasons. One, I thought I’d give another game a chance, and two, if Oblivion and Fallout 3 are anything to go by then it’ll come down in price in a few months. Of course, since when has saying I’m not going to buy something ever meant anything? Of course I bought it the day it was available.

And today I completed it.

First, a comparison with the DLC for Fallout 3. Like Fallout 3 expansions “Into The Pitt”, “Operation Anchorage” and “Mothership Zeta”, Dead Money is essentially stand-alone – as in, once you started them you were taken out of the main game until you completed it, and all your items were confiscated for the duration. Also, each of those expansions were around 4-5 hours long, but somehow (I may have been slow) Dead Money took a good 10 hours for me to finish.

Somehow, Dead Money manages to very much change the way Fallout works. You still have VATS and weapons that degrade and stuff, but several game mechanics are essentially removed. All your caps? Gone. It’s scrounged Sierra Madre (the casino in the story) chips that you buy things from vending machines with. Hoarding everything to sell? Pretty much pointless, although some previously useless items (and some new ones) can be crafted into new items and weapons. An even bigger change is with the main enemies – the Ghost People. When they die, they ain’t dead, and reanimate in a short time to hound you again. Unless you hack them to bits when they’re down, or manage to decapitate them in combat, of course.

There are environmental complications too. The whole of the area is bathed in a strange red mist, which has two major effects: firstly, you can’t sleep anywhere even vaguely exposed to the cloud (meaning healing up is either a long trip to a safe zone, or done with the scarce rations and stimpaks), and secondly there are dense pockets of the fog around Sierra Madre that you can enter, but they’ll poison you on contact, draining your health. And no protective suits, rebreathers and goggles – ze do nothing!

Then there’s the bomb collar you wear. To ensure compliance with the guy running the show in Sierra Madre, you and your companions wear Running Man style exploding neckwear. Kill your “friends”, and it explodes. Don’t do as you’re told? It explodes. And, worst of all, stand near a still active pre-war radio or PA system for too long? Bang! As a result of the latter of these, some of the game becomes an almost Doctor Who level of running down corridors, looking for the source of the radio signal or noise, and then either destroy it or turn it off before you and your head part company. Frantic!

But then, another new game mechanic does the opposite to you! The casino and environs are protected in part by an old hologram security system. Hologram guards patrol areas, and if they see you, you’re toast – they can’t be killed. You can, sometimes, use terminals to turn them off (or on – which may be useful) or destroy their signal emitter (if you can find it – many are very well hidden). These parts of the game become stealth sneak-em-ups, which it has to be said, aren’t my favourite sort of thing.

At some points in the game, the chaos of running blind and the order of hide and seek collide, and that’s when things get tricky. The final area of the episode in particular was privy to some choice language, as my previous 100+ hours on New Vegas without a single death gave way to hundreds in a short section.

I’ve purposefully avoided mentioning the plot to prevent spoilers, but the basic premise is that you and three others have been lured to the mysterious Sierra Madre casino by a man who appears in dialogue in the main New Vegas game. He orders you to work together to pull off a grand heist of the riches of the casino. Naturally, he’s not telling the whole truth, and you can be sure of backstabbiness (either by or on you) along the way.

Overall, aside from the nasty final Hour of Countless Deaths, I really enjoyed Dead Money. It didn’t really play like New Vegas proper, but that isn’t a complaint. I’m always one for story, and the backstories of your co-workers, the man in charge, and the history of the casino and why it was built were interesting and enjoyable. I was pleased when I figured out who the Ghost People are, and it’s also interesting how some of the conversations, and the ending in particular, revealed what the next DLC is going to be. And possibly the DLC after that! Exciting!

After spending an hour or two learning the rules of Caravan and then rinsing No-Bark Noonan of all his caps, I got the Win 3 and 30 Games of Caravan achievements. That left me with 4 achievements – one for getting banned from all the casinos on the strip, one for completing the game in Hardcore Mode, and the remaining two for the two final NCR quests.

So, after almost 100 hours total play, I finally completed New Vegas the way I intended to in the first place. Hurrah!

Now, about those other two achievements…

Achievement unlocked!

Managed to finally get 50 Star Caps today, then went and traded them in with Festus, failing the quest. Seems you need to fail the quest though, as there’s another (very short) quest afterwards that nets you the achievement. Just 5 achievements left now: two for playing Caravan, two for completing the NCR “win”, and one for a Hardcore run of the game.

Since last time I posted, this has been the game I’ve spent most time on. In fact, aside from Cave Story and a few iOS titles, it’s the only thing I’ve played. And I’ve played it lots. Still playing the same game, almost daily, nigh-on two months after release? That’s value for money – even if I did pay over £60 for it.

What have I done since my last Fallout post then?

Lots of things, actually. I’ve been and mopped up all the damage and health related achievements, for one (or 6) – 10,000 points of damage for each of melee, energy weapons, explosives and unarmed. Most of it was done “off save”, as in, I made a save then wandered round Camp McCarren (and Jacobstown) at night critical sneak attacking everyone, then after the achievement popped, reloaded.

For the melee one, however, I stuck to my main save proper and cleaned out Cottonwood Cove and The Fort using only a machete. Ace!

After all those, I continued on my main save looking for Star Caps. I’m up to 36 now, although I did deposit 8. I don’t know if these are now “used” or if they’re still technically in my inventory though. My exploration for new areas led me to Vault 34, which gave me a quest that I completed.

There’s new DLC for New Vegas next week. I don’t think I need it yet! My main save is 62 hours in, but I’ve spent well over 20 hours on alternate saves, and there’s still LOADS left to explore!

That’s right folks – since last time I posted I’ve completed the game again. Twice. Naturally, I didn’t start again from scratch, just from a point a few hours prior to my last completion (the joys of multiple save files!). I then went off and completed it both for the Legion as well as for Mr. House.

Then, after that, I spent a merry half an hour from an even earlier save sneaking round Gomorrah with my stealth boy, pickpocketing punters and strippers (taking money from the former to slip into the pants of the latter – strangely, both gave negative karma) for the Pickpocket 50 People achievement.

Finally, I returned to my “main” save, just before starting the NCR point-of-no-return quest, to wander the Mojave Wasteland some more and explore. I took Arcade with me, because he’s hilarious, but I think I lost him somewhere near Novac. Pressed on anyway, and found a load of new locations in the bottom right of the map, including a radscorpion-infested airfield and a billion Lakelurks. Hurrah for This Machine and its One Shot Kill(TM).

Best. Game. Evar.

With 53 hours on the clock, I stumbled into the wrong questline and completed Fallout: New Vegas.

You see, there are four main endings, one of which I disabled a fair few hours ago when I bumped off Mr. House. A second, siding with Caesar’s Legion was thrown away when I decided to get chummy with the NCR. I’d intended to carry the NCR route to the end, but I chose the wrong option somewhere and couldn’t be bothered to make reparations – so an Independent victory it was!

And what a lovely, deep, varied, huge, clever, open game it turned out to be. It was like Fallout 3, only with a massive web of crossthreading quests and world altering choices. And I loved it from start to finish. Of course, I’m not finished. I have loads of places left to explore and three other endings to sort out yet!

As for bugs – I didn’t get any. Well, a few graphical quirks such as levitating animals, but nothing to break, freeze or otherwise affect the actual game. So I’m very happy indeed.

30 hours in now.

This game just gets better and better. I expected it to be good, sure, but little did I know it’d actually be better than Fallout 3 was. There’s more variety, in both the quests and the way in which you complete them. There are fewer “shoot people” quests and more “do interesting things” quests. There are more memorable characters, even those who are incidental – Yes Man, Betsy, Keely, Old Ben, The King – all ace. There are more quests – for every one I complete I seem to open three more!

The world works better too. More of your actions have a direct effect on a wider area, and I don’t just mean your standing with various factions – what you do in small communities, in each casino, everywhere.

It’s just a fantastic game in seemingly every way. Oh, and no bugs yet, aside from a few levitating people and animals. They’re hardly game-breaking, though.

I’ve been waiting for this for ages, and if it wasn’t for New Vegas I’d have pounced on it the second it appeared on XBLA. As it is, I decided to play it last night instead of roam the Wasteland some more.

In theory, it is fantastic. The graphic style is lovely, the funny touches (like the skit of the Street Fighter II opening sequence), and the blood OH THE GLORIOUS BLOOD everywhere are amazing. It’s a simple, difficult, precision platformer. Which, after nearly finishing off the first two levels reminded me of something else: N+.

N+ is virtually the same game. They feel the same. They control almost the same. They’re both bloody difficult. Which leaves me with a problem. I gave up on N+ as it just got too hard. I feel Super Meat Boy might be going that way too. We’ll see.

I’d not been this excited about a game’s release since Sonic 2 for the Megadrive was announced. I’ve been looking forward to it since it was announced two years ago. I’ve had it on pre-order for months. I even broke the £20 Rule to get the Special Edition.

But was it worth it?  By hell, yes it was.

At first glance, it seems to just been like an expansion pack for Fallout 3. It’s not, but even if it was, I’d have been more than happy with that. As it turns out, it’s much more than just a new setting with new quests – it has a new, different feel. Vegas was less affected by the war that tore apart Washington D.C., so although places are still in ruin, they’re not as badly destroyed. Vegas itself still has several fully working, pretty well furnished, casinos, complete with neon lights, shows and gambling halls. Even the wasteland is different, and not just in the orange sand compared to Fallout 3′s grey, well, everything – the sky is blue and there are plants and greenery. Not a lot of greenery, but enough so that it appears life is returning to some sort of normality in the Mojave.

It isn’t just that which makes it different, though. New game mechanics, such as the ammo, food and weapon “recipes” make New Vegas play more like Oblivion. The “karma” meter from Fallout 3 returns, but is mostly replaced by the way you are now seen as friend or foe by each of the factions across the wasteland. It’s not just the Enclave vs the Brotherhood here – many more groups are involved and at odds.

There also seems to be so much more to do this time around. Certainly, I have many more quests open to me currently than I ever had in the previous game. Many of them have multiple methods of completing them too – some obvious, some dangerous, some rewarding, some unexpected, and some just plain bizarre. In Fallout 3 you’d be lucky if there were two possible resolutions; in Primm, here, the sheriff quest has at least 4 that I can make out!

So far, I’ve played 11 hours, reached the Vegas Strip, completed mainly only story quests (but did complete a couple of side quests, and have certainly opened many more), and have done very little off-road exploring. And I’m loving it, despite my initial apprehension that I wasn’t going to come out of a vault at the start. Coming out of a grave is much more dramatic!

Tomb Raider Legend? Lovely. Tomb Raider Anniversary? Excellent. Tomb Raider Underworld? Meh.

This, which happened about 10 minutes in, shows the quality of the game. It’s right up there with Angel of Darkness:

I’m now up to the bit where you get on the boat after the first “tomb”. I’m not really enjoying it.

And so the final DLC, and the remaining achievements, finally fall in Fallout. Into The Pitt was a bit confusing, as part way through you have to make a decision, and it isn’t obvious which is the “good” choice, and which is the “bad” choice. I ended up doing both, playing a bit to see, then reloading the save of the better of the two outcomes.

It’s a shame I’m so powered up now, as nothing – not even the fighters in The Pitt itself – came close to even scratching me. I don’t think I used more than a couple of stimpacks for the entire quest. The trogs and wildmen all took a single hit each from my rusty old Chinese assault rifle, and even the turrets only required a handful of shots on target to destroy.

The real difficulty, and it was optional if I didn’t want the final achievement, was finding the 100 Steel Ingots dotted around three locations on the map. Took a good two or three hours just to do that, as four of them just didn’t want to be found at all!

And that’s it. No more Fallout 3. Well, unless I want to visit the handful of unexplored locations on the main Wasteland map, or fancy starting again. Tempting, but New Vegas is here in a few weeks!

Fallout New Vegas, the next Fallout game, is out soon. Just over a month, in fact. So I thought I’d best get back into Fallout 3 and mop up the two remaining DLC quests, the first of which being Mothership Zeta.

I’d actually bought the downloads a while back, when they were on offer, but decided not to play them so that I could eke out the Fallout 3 “experience” over the course of the huge wait before New Vegas. A wait that is about to end before I’ve had a chance to play them. But anyway.

So I started playing on Friday night, and completed it tonight. I think maybe 4 or 5 hours were plugged into it, but I was very thorough with my map exploration (mainly to obtain all the audio recordings in order to get the achievement) so less intensively OCD players could probably clear it in 2 or 3.

Many people have complained that Mothership Zeta is pretty poor. They moan at the linearity, the un-Fallout-ness of it all, and say it’s just not fun. To them I say: Tosh! You missed the best bits!

Highlights included the cargo hold, filled with “Earth memorabilia”, including a lander module from a Moon mission and a vast factory building nothing but robotic “Buttercup” horses. A robot horse army! Then there’s the audio logs of those people captured, including an ex-US senator and the CEO of Vault-Tec. These recordings range from hilarious to harrowing, but they’re an excellent find. I also enjoyed all the references to Sci Fi, and when the samurai appeared on the bridge and (perhaps coincidentally) stood where Sulu would on the Enterprise, I giggled.

And chasing Alien Workers down never gets tiring. Onto The Pitt, now then…

I never bothered with the other Bioshock 2 DLC, as the online stuff never really appealed (although I did play online a few times). A completely new story, though? Couldn’t resist.

Once more, they managed to find bits of Rapture that hadn’t previously been visited (it’s a big place, clearly), and like in the main Bioshock 2 game you’re a Big Daddy. It’s pretty much more of the same, really – just with new locations, story and some new weapons and stuff. The main new enemy, a Lancer Big Daddy, is a bit of a joke though, since he’s actually easier to kill than most of the normal baddies.

It took me 4 or 5 hours in total to finish the story, which was (once again) clever with a great twist. I’d seen the twist coming, but the reveal was excellent anyway.

Certainly all well worth the asking price, I’d say.

Amazing. Just utterly amazing. It’s a totally new, but totally retro, video game that plays fantastically, and is even better than the games it apes.

I won’t spoil it all, but I do need to say how much I enjoyed spotting references to other games in this one – both in the levels, and the items you can buy. I love that sort of stuff.

If you haven’t already, buy it now.

I’ve not read the comics. I’ve not seen the film. But, after seeing just a handful of screenshots a few weeks ago for the game, I knew I’d want it. So confident was I, that I didn’t even bother trying the demo – I stumped up my 800 Microsoft Moon Pounds and bought the full game.

And I was right – I love it. It’s a great mix of River City Ransom, Guardian Heroes, Streets of Rage, and that Puffy AmiYumi DS game I quite enjoyed a few years ago. The retro graphics were always going to appeal to me, and the collect money to buy power-ups and character level progression suit my OCD perfectly.

The fighting is pretty good too, with more moves unlocked as you level up, and attacks becoming faster and stronger as you buy “upgrades” from the various shops. It’s a shame this is all lost on those trying the demo – as on Level 1 with no extra moves, the game is reduced to a painfully slow, difficult, brawler with only a couple of moves to pull off. I wonder how many people tried the demo and were put off?

I’ve just beaten Evil Ex-Boyfriend #3, and am now going to rinse the first couple of levels a few times for more money for stat increases. Again.

I was one of the lucky ones to get a free code for this, since The Times cocked up and allowed their “subscriber only” offer to be accessible to all and sundry. I’d just played the demo too, and was about to buy it anyway when I realised I had enough other games to be getting on with so would wait for a price drop. Ten minutes later – free code!

You’ll be noticing that there’s no “Tomb Raider” in the title. There are, however, tombs (of a sort) to traverse, and indeed “raid”, but the developers have chosen to distance this a bit from those platforming, 3rd person puzzle shooting games, instead turning this into a sort of grown-up Lego Indiana Jones crossed with the likes of Geometry Wars. No, stay with me on this…

You see, it’s a simplified Tomb Raider, in terms of types, quantity and complexity of puzzles. Puzzles much like those in the Lego games. There are also some objects that can only be destroyed or activated with certain weapons – like in the Lego games. And it’s all viewed from a sort of isometric angle, not entirely unlike the Lego games. Then there’s the combat, which is pretty standard twin-stickery, like Geometry Wars (and 446512 other games). See? That wasn’t so hard to imagine, was it?

But is it any good? Let me put it this way – I got it on Friday, completed it on Sunday, and it was the only game I played (or even wanted to play). So yes, it’s good. It’s short (although there are more episodes planned as DLC), at around 4-5 hours, and pretty easy, but it was great fun and it surprised me how well a Tomb Raider game could work when not actually presented like a Tomb Raider game.

The only real disappointments were that the end boss was far too easy, and some of the game is repetitive. It also suffers a bit from a cliché of how to make games harder later on: simply have more baddies.

At a rough guess, I think I’ve put around 18 hours into this. My understanding is you can complete it in under 10, but since I have OCD, I had to search everywhere, examine everything, access every bit of the map, open every door, hack every machine, rescue every Little Sister, max out every research track, buy every plasmid and gene tonic slot, and listen to every audio diary. I even found myself using up ammo just so I could collect more ammo to replace it. Yes, I clearly have a problem.

How to sum up the game without spoilers? Well, it was more of the same of the first game really. Some improvements (dual-wielding plasmids and weapons, better “where am I going” hints, less getting lost), and some let downs (more linear game, too many “collect X of Y”, less powerful storyline, no proper end boss). Still an excellent game, but perhaps a 4/5 rather than the 5/5 of the original.

Strangely, the thing I missed most from the original was something I thought quite irritating at the time – all the vending machines singing “Welcome to the Circus of Values!” and stuff whenever you went near them. They rarely did it in the sequel.