Currently Playing: Fable 2

I've put several hours into Fable 2 but I've been debating what to write on here about it for ages. The difficulty comes from the fact that I'm enjoying it but at the same time I'm not sure I'm really 'getting' it.

On the one hand it's a lovely looking world and it's fun to explore the towns and the shops looking for proprties to buy and trading goods to kit your hero out. On the other there's not a lot, in my opinion, to actually do.

The main quest involves trying to recruit some people to stop some evil dude (I haven't really been paying a lot of attention to the chatter as you can probably tell), But to do this you mainly walk along following the handy glowing trail. Which I like. The main thrust of the tasks though is always combat. Even in the dungeons it's one battle after another. There's no Zelda like puzzles or exploration really required. Having said that the combat is mostly fun. The inventory handily shows you which of your equipment is the best too.

There's plenty of side quests although most of these involve combat too. One side quest did have me revenge a ghost of a jilted lover by finding the man in question and having her fall in love with me. The interaction is achieved by picking various displays from a wheel of choices. For instance blowing kisses or giving the thumbs up. It's not a particularly elegant solution. Although I do like the little stat numbers that pop above all the NPCs to show how they've reacted. Pull at your gun or sword in town and it scares everyone. As in Fallout 3 you can behave either good or bad and you characters reputation is affected accordingly.

There's plenty of depth to the world of Albion too. It feels very organic. I bought a house and married a local woman (It's a fine lesbian wedding as I'm playing as a woman) then got annoyed when she followed me every where.. So I shot her. Which was fine. Until a local guard tried to arrest me and so I shot him too. Sadly they didn't turn a blind eye so I left town killing a number of guards along the way. On my return sometime later I was promptly arrested and forced to do community service (Although, surprise surprise, this inovled walking somewhere and then killing stuff).

The combat is solid and as you earn experience you can learn new moves, I've upgraded my range abilities cos I like to keep my hands clean as much as possible. Oh and I should mention the dog shouldn't I? I never found the dog in Fallout 3 but this dog (I've called him PS3) is your constant companion helpfully pointing out hidden treasures and barking happily.

I should also mention the lack of frustration. If you die you come straight back to life (You do lose some experience but a miniscule amount). You receive a permanent scar but other than that no problem.

By all accounts it outta be the perfect RPG for me.. But still I don't feel like I'm getting the most out of it.. Perhaps I should experiment some more. The lack of a decent map makes this difficult though. I can't even find a couple of the properties I've bought.

Still overall it's probably going to hold my attention long enough to push on to completion of the main quest at least.

Round up of the Year - Part 3.

So here it is.. the big one. Apologies for being so late. I was trying to spend as much time with the big hitters as I could before making my judgement. I've managed to polish off a couple as you can see below and I've been trying to work up enthusiasm to play Little Big Planet. But at the moment I can't. Which probably says it's not going to be my GOTY.

So what is. Well not GTA IV. It's a good game but for me hasn't moved on enough. It's still basically the same game we've been playing since three and where were all the exciting missions?

Saints Row 2 was the surprise of the year and almost clinched it. Yes the production values are a lot lower than GTA IV but it's far more fun. There's checkpoints, there's recharging health, there's full co-op play. Almost everything is big dumb fun from start to finish.. But it's a little derivative and the gang/bling culture thing is a little off putting (Although you can pretty much ignore it).

For me the game that I enjoyed the most and sucked me into an awesome world of possibilty and depth was Fallout 3. I've already written plenty about it so I wont repeat myself here. Suffice to say it's an awesome achievement.

The "complete" list

John Woo Presents Stranglehold
Portal
Test Drive: Unlimited ( ALL Gold in the SP challenges.)
Loco Roco*
The Darkness (Easy)
Lost: Via Domus
LEGO Indiana Jones - The Original Adventures (Story Mode)
Battlefield: Bad Company (Easy) & (Normal)
Ratchet & Clank : Quest for Booty
God of War: Chains of Olympus
Tiger Woods 2009
Haze
Saints Row 2
Gears of War 2 - (Normal)
Call of Duty : World at War - (Normal)
Fallout 3

So apparently I was nearer the end of the story than I thought. Either due to my RPG inexperience or lack of exploring.. I started to get offered less and less side quests as the game went along so I basically ended up rattling through the main story fairly quickly once I got to grips with the game. Although I fear I have missed out on loads. So I intend to replay it over christmas with the stratergy guide and make sure I get everything out of it. Annoyingly once the main story finished the game ends and you can't explore the world picking up anything you've missed. Which is a shame. Overall though a brilliant game.

Currently Playing: Fallout 3

Such an epic game it deserves a follow up post (Prior to hopefully completing it). I didn't play Oblivion so I have no problem with it not having moved on much (A fault that seemed to be the only real thing that EDGE didn't like about it). Certainly I wouldn't want a bigger game world when it's this well realised and packed with interesting places and sights.

I'm levelling up quite nicely and whilst not going totally evil my karma seems to be on the bad side.. Of course this might have something to do with the rampage at Tenpenny Tower where I killed all the guards and the residents just for the hell of it.

It's very slow to get going but the pay off is that once it does it's really sucked you in. I spent about four hours on one quest last night. It really feels like your exploring another world and the compulsion to uncover every nook and find everything you can is very strong.

I'm also liking the perks. There's far more interesting ones than you could possibly choose on one play through but some of them are great.. For example the last one I picked was 'Mysterious Stranger' which promised some help during VATS battles. I'd almost forgotten about it when during a particulary tense battle the stranger showed up and finished them off for me.. Brilliant.

If it keeps the quality and pace up to the end it'll be a strong contender for GOTY.

A look ahead to Quarter 4 - Part 4

So having broken down the purchase choices into three well thought out list it's not actually working out to plan.

We started off so well.. Bought Saints Row 2 as advertised and completed it the same week (give or take a day). But that's when things started to fall apart. Little Big Planet was delayed... and while it's still on my list it's now moved down to the second, cheap in the new year list, because I'm just not going to have the time to dedicate it too at the moment. Then I got all excited about Fallout 3 and bought it despite it being on list two..

Now I've cancelled my pre-order for Banjo & Kazooie because Eurogamer only gave it 7 and so now I'll have to see what EDGE give it. As I said I'm not a rabid Rare fan and was only excited about it cos it seemed like it was going to be brilliant and it seems it just isn't. So I've rushed out today and bought Gears of War 2. Cos.. well everyones playing it and I don't want to miss out on all the possible multi-player, co-op fun. I know.. Very shallow.

So what have we learnt? Lists are for geeks..

First Look: Fallout 3

So I know I was supposed to be waiting for this but Little Big Planet was delayed and it got really good reviews and I picked it up fairly cheap (£34 in Zavvi, although annoyingly if I'd waited until I got to Sainsburys I could of got it for £29 but I'd been to every shop in Manchester and hadn't found it cheaper than £38 before).

I've never played a Fallout game before and I haven't played Oblivion either so I wasn't sure what to expect. The game breaks you in gently as your born and experince your first 16 or so years in Vault 101 in a series of Flash Forwards and does a reasonable job of fitting the choices you make into your intial skill set. Then there's a test (G.O.A.T. tests if you will.. a bit like Harry Potters O.W.L.S. presumably) but if you're not happy with the out come a quick chat with the teacher allows you to change 'em anyway.

As the plot starts to develop you leave Vault 101 and you're out in to the world devestated by nuclear war.. For an 80's kid like me that grew up surrounded by the fear of The Arms Race and When the Wind Blows it's particularly chilling to see. Even though it's an alternate future where development seemed to stop in the 50/60's (apart from the lazer pistols and robots obviously) it's nothing like the Art Deco stylings of Bioshock.

From here on in there's very little concession for newcomers. There's no indication of whether a particular mission is suitable for your (apart from it's distance from Megaton and even that's not that reliable) current level and it's quite possible to take a wrong turn just a few feet from where you're going and stumble on a group of monsters who rip you to shreds. Health and ammo are very scarce and item management is vital. You have a personal computer which is very handy for organising things but the default control scheme for it never feels natural (for instance on the map screen you move the cursor with the right stick and zoom in with up and down on the left stick.. however moving the left stick left or right changes to a different option on the computer and this happens a lot). Even something as simple as the currency threw me for a while. You dealing in caps. Which is fair enough. However I'd been searching dead bodies for loot and wondering why so many of them where carrying bottle caps when it dawned on me that was a 'cap' obvious when you think about it I suppose but nobody spells anything out for you.

Anyway now I've levelled up a bit and I'm getting the hang of the VATS combat and managine my items I'm really starting to enjoy it. Whether I'll finish it or not will depend on the variety of the missions and dungeons but so far so good.

A look ahead to Quarter 4 - Part 2

Next we come to the games that I'm interested in and will probably buy.. But not until they turn up cheap somewhere... So many games seem to get released these days and then get heavily discounted within a few weeks.. Not only from the usual interweb suppliers but even on the high street.

So what's on the Radar and which titles do I think will get the discount treatment?

FABLE 2

Never played the first game and I'm not normally an RPG fan either. Molyneux also has a history of over promising. This does look very interesting though and being a more action orientated (as opposed to the JRPG) RPG it certainly looks like one to watch. It'll be between this and..

FALLOUT 3

Another action orientated RPG. Never played any of the prequels or indeed Oblivion either. I guess I'll wait and see which game gets the best review score, See what the forum feedback is and make a judgement on which one I take the plunge with.

DEAD SPACE

The review scores are already in on this one and it seems to be a decent, if uninventive, game. Graphically it looks amazing and I'm looking forward to some survival horror to fill the gap until Resi 5. A definite new year purchase for me when I can find it cheap.

GEARS OF WAR 2

I enjoyed the first game but it was certainly over hyped. For me the multi player didn't have much depth and I soon grew tired of it. However it's not essential as it seems to be more of the same. Again I'll definitely pick it up. It's bound to be a solid amount of fun but there's bound to be a huge number of cheap second hand copies to occupy the quite spring months.

CALL OF DUTY: WORLD AT WAR

Another year another CoD, Obviously CoD 4 was brilliant (although in my opinion not the masterpieces the forum boys seem to think). This is the only title on this particular list that could pop into the essential purchase list if it scores highly and the feedback from players is good.. Not really interested in the multi-player... I find online FPS's a bit too hardcore these days.. But the co-op could be a laugh.