Fallout 3
Fallout fan film
So someone, somewhere has made a very entertaining 16 minute fan film set in the Fallout universe. It’s pretty funny, check it out.
2010 in review
Floating around somewhere is a post I did early last year saying what I wanted to acheive in gaming in 2010. I would link to it, but I can’t seem to find it. Regardless I thought I would sum it up here:
- I spent the better part of 2010 writing, in collaboration with two others, a 66 person LARP called Al Shir-Ma. It’s set in an Arabian Night-esque world which borrows from Al-Qadim. It was done for the yearly KapCon gaming convention here in Wellington, and it’s first run through is happening next weekend. It’s been a really interesting experience and has I think made me a better scenario writer. But man, has it been a lot of work.
- I wrapped up my campaign, using the Green Ronin A Song of Ice and Fire rules, in a not hugely satisfiying way. By the end I’d kind of lost interest and time, and it all got a bit too railroady. It showed me that I really want to run long term games that leverage off character backgrounds and story rather than some over arching plot I’ve come up with. Means less work for me too.
- I ran Peril in King’s Landing a pre-written scenario for ASoIFRP. It’s one of the few times I’ve actually run a pre-written scenario and while I liked the low prep of it all, I found that I had the most fun when I was adding in new elements passed on player actions.
- I played a lot of Xbox 360. Notably Alpha Protocol, Fallout 3, Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 and Fallout New Vegas. Some of these games, like Mass Effect, I played through for a third time so I could carry my character into the new game. Yes I am that much of a geek.
- I played a lot of table top and LARP games. For the first time I played more than I GM’d and it was great.
- I discovered some great new table top games like Prime Time Adventures and Apocolypse World.
So from a gaming perspective 2010 was great. Though as the silence from June on might have told you, other stuff wasn’t. Now though it’s time to look forward to 2011!
Thoughts on console games
I’ve often wondered why it is that in recent years my interest in computer gaming has dropped off. It usefully had something to do with not being able to keep my PC at the tech level it seemed it needed to be in order to play the games I was most interested in. Then there was that I was getting all of the fun gaming experiences I was after from my table top games, and I didn’t need to sit alone in my room squinting at the screen. Oh and I also had a partner who wasn’t so keen on me doing that either.
But with the arrival of “next-gen consoles” (as they are still sometimes called) suddenly all those games I used to want on my PC could be played through a console. All I needed then was to just pay the $500 (rather than $2000) for the Xbox 360 and I’d be playing like the old days.
Except it also drew my attention to the games that were out there. And even though there were pretty and action packed they lacked something important that I have come to love in table top gaming. And that is deep character interaction. I know that to create a game with that kind experience would be so hard, it almost isn’t worth it but I think some games soon to be hitting the shelves might be getting close. Games like Mass Effect 2, Alpha Protocol and Dragon Age seem to be pushing that roleplaying experience one step further.
This feeling is summed up very nicely in a Kotaku article just after E3
I’m not sure what it says about me, that my biggest game moment of E3 2009 was a dialog decision. Maybe I’ve seen too much over the years to be impressed by simple game announcements or the promise of technology still a good year away. Maybe I’m just a science fiction roleplaying dork. Either one works.
I guess being a roleplaying dork just means I like complex human interactions, even in my pre-scripted games. So in anticipation of this glut of CRPGs coming out in a few months I’m going to take the plunge and buy my first console. Just as soon as I can get over my internal, PC game loving snobbishness.
Whoa, it’s been busy – but I finished some games!
There’s been lots of stuff to blog about recently, but very little time! This post is the first to attempt to catch up on my blogging, links and the like.
Partly the lack of time is because I’ve finished two Xbox games this week – at last. Both Fallout 3 and Grand Theft Auto IV fell under my controllers mighty … yeah. GTA also marks another step towards getting one of my 2009 resolutions down - so now I just have to finish one of Rainbow 6: Vegas, Bioshock, Mass Effect or Call of Duty 4.
GTA 4 was a fantastic game – it only took me this long to finish because I kept dying in the final mission. I’ve written about it before here and my thoughts haven’t changed really. It’s probably the best realised storytelling experience in the history of video games. I started the DLC pack The Lost & The Damned today as well so I hope that lives up to the expectations of the full game.
Fallout 3 was excellent as well, although no where near the accomplishment of GTA IV. Bethesda did capture the Fallout feel, even if they didn’t manage the humour so well, but I’ll play a Fallout 4 from them, and I’ll definitely take a look at New Vegas when that comes out. I’m glad they resurected the series.
The main achievement was the size of the world I think – it felt both empty and full at the same time and walking though the wasteland was a genuinely scary experience at lower levels. I do wonder who the raiders raided all the time, but I guess the answer is ‘each other’. That said, the story began to lose momentum towards the end and the final few episodes are a bit of a railroad. The actual ending sucks as well – a total anticlimax. I’m told that’s changing with the Broken Steel DLC that came out yesterday.
I think both of these games have shown it’s possible to have genuinely deep gaming experiences on the console, even if the controls aren’t as complex and the inventory not as limitless (although Fallout has a pretty good inventory system).
Fallout 3 & pen and paper RPGs
The Age‘s Screen Play blog had an interesting post yesterday. Chris Avellone from Obsidian Entertainment (developers of the new Fallout: New Vegas game amongst others) apparently tested his design for the original Fallout 3 (never made, not the one that came out last year) by running playtests using a pen-and-paper version of the game, including running simultaneous parties whose actions affected the other group.
You can read all about it here but it sounds pretty damn cool! Given that Avellone worked on the magnificent Planescape: Torment amongst other clasic games, plus has a tabletop background too it would be very interesting to compare the two Fallout 3 based games when New Vegas is released.
There’s actually a longer interview with Avellone from Edge magazine here as well which is worth a read.
More Fallout
Sophie beat me to the punch with her Fallout post, but here’s a bit more.
Shacknews interview with Bethesda’s marketing vice-president about Fallout: New Vegas.
Also, the next lot of DLC for Fallout 3 comes out on May 5. Kotaku has a whole bunch of info on it.
I still haven’t finished Fallout 3 but have decided to get back on the main quest so expect some more reactions soon! Once I finish the main game then I’m planning to get all three DLC packs as well.
Fallout 3
I love the Fallout series. I have played through Fallout and Fallout 2 a number of times and always enjoy it. I was nervous (in a way only a fangirl can be) when I heard that Fallout 3 was finally going to see the light of day, made by the same people as Oblivion. › Continue reading