As a reward to myself for finishing Blood Hunt, I finally got around to buying and playing Fallout New Vegas. I forced myself to wait because I knew it wasn’t going to be a six-hour first-person shooter, or even a 25-hour game like Mass Effect 2. No, I knew I was going to drop 70-plus hours into the game. That’s how I am with RPGs, especially open-world RPGs like Bethesda’s become known for.

I haven’t in fact “finished” or “beat” the game because I’ve only seem one sequence of innumerable possible endings, but there are certain stories I’ll never see (siding with Caesar for example), and certain other ones that I’m saving for an inevitable replay sometime down the road, so for the most part I feel finished, and won’t be going back to it for a while. With about 79 hours put into the game, and every single location on the world map visited (including exploring all the caves and buildings, not just getting close to them so that the map marker highlights), I think I’m at least qualified to write my review.

So here’s what’s weird: I’m not sure whether to complain about the game’s highly derivative aspects first, or laud the things it does far better than Fallout 3 first. There are plenty of both, and although I clearly enjoyed the title it’s a bit hard for me to give it a “great” because of all the ways it could have improved on Fallout 3 but didn’t. On the other hand, it succeeds so spectacularly on certain levels that … you know what? Let’s just start with what it got right.

(note: I’m not going to explain the plot here. I hate reviews that do that, not because of spoilers but because it’s a waste of space and time. You can find out the plot from the millions of previews on the web.)

The Good

Fallout: New Vegas had a few people working on it – most notably Feargus Urquhart and Chris Avellone, who were major contributors to the original two Fallout games. While I felt Fallout 3 did a fine job of nailing the “feel” of the Fallout universe and presenting a compelling story, I think New Vegas does a superior job of following in the footsteps of the originals. The overall storyline is more convoluted with no “right” route or goal clearly highlighted. There’s a “good vs. evil” sideline, but only if you believe the NCR is good, and there is plenty of compelling evidence placed within the game to show that they are not.

There also way more marked side quests (a lack of which bothered me in Fallout 3). Many of the characters are directly related to people you met or worked with in Fallout and Fallout 2, including at least one possible companion. You also get to learn more about some of the well-established pre-war companies like RobCo. In general, it all adds up to feeling just a bit more like Fallout than Fallout 3 did, which works for me as a huge fan of the first two games (Fallout remains on my ten best games of all time list).

The concept of managing your reputation with various factions has been reintroduced, and might actually be stronger than in any of the three previous titles (I don’t really factor in the non-RPG spin-off games when thinking about the history of the franchise — just the RPGs). While there are still some extremely obvious karma choices, there are many interactions which are intertwined, and helping one faction can hinder your reputation with others. It’s actually quite possible to gain “mixed” karma ratings where people are mildly bewildered with your actions. I tend to play a heavily light-side character, and I still had a couple of factions (and not necessarily the evil ones) who were a little sketchy in their opinion of me. The “bad guys” – Ceasar’s Legion – hated my guts, of course.

Another thing that New Vegas does better than Fallout 3 is packing more punch into a tighter area. The game map for New Vegas seems slightly smaller than Fallout 3′s Washington DC metro area (especially when you account for the large amount of inaccessible mountain area), but there are fewer “filler” locations and a total lack of “oh my god where the hell am I?” subway stations (thank you, Obsidian). With the noteable exception of a few parts of New Vegas, everything is open to the outside world. When you do find a filler-esque location (such as a cavern, or a mine), many of them are tied into side quests and have a reason for existing. Those that don’t are kept mercifully short. There are very few multi-map cavern/bunker crawls, unlike in Fallout 3 where often a cave system would often have three or even four separate areas. While this gaves Fallout 3 a bit more breadth than New Vegas, it didn’t really add much depth, and it added a ton of repetition to the game. In fact, the last three Bethesda RPGS — Oblivon, Fallout 3 and New Vegas — have gotten progressively better about this. I’m hoping the trend continues in the upcoming Skyrim.

New Vegas also gives you optional companions who have a whole lot more depth than the companions in Fallout 3 did. They’ve got lengthy back-stories, each companion has an entire quest-line that allows you to choose between different upgrades to their abilities and change their endings, and they have a lot more to say about the places you visit and the movement of the plot-line. The revamped companion interface wheel is also a million, billion times nicer to use than navigating through dialog trees, and I applaud whomever designed it.

The crafting system has also been greatly expanded for people who love turning raw ingredients into usable stuff. As someone who ignores crafting as much as possible in every RPG he’s ever played, I … ignored it as much as possible. But it was there, and I’m sure I could’ve saved a whole lot of money on ammo and other goods if I’d used it. Also, if you’re insane enough to play the game in hardcore mode, where it tracks your sleep, thirst, and hunger, then you will absolutely need a high survival skill, and all the crafting abilities it bequeaths. Otherwise the crows of the Mojave will be picking your bones clean in short order.

Strong voice acting has always been a hallmark of the Fallout series, and this is still the case with New Vegas. Many of the major characters (and a few minor ones) are played by Hollywood actors, and the rest are fleshed out by talented and experienced voice actors who do a good job of giving life to the supporting dialog.

The Less-Good

I’ve heard mention that many people felt New Vegas seemed like “a glorified mod” and I understand why. A massive amount of art assets are recycled from Fallout 3, from bunkers to burned-out sheds. Even in character creation, I don’t think so much as a single new haircut or beard style was added, which was more of a bummer than it seems because it means all of the characters you meet in the world look identical to residents of post-apocalyptic Washington DC, despite the fact that Nevada is frankly much further ahead in the “restoring the world to order” department than the Northeast is. A lot of new content was made for the game, most noticeably in the various casinos and other areas around the New Vegas strip, but it’s sometimes hard to differentiate the two games.

Another frustration, for me, was that the game makes an extreme effort to prevent you from overpowering your character. Perks have been reduced to once every two levels, so you only get 15 total instead of Fallout 3′s twenty (on the plus side, you do level 30 times, so you can still max several skills if you have a high intelligence). For those of us who want to play a game where our character eventually evolves into a super-powered cyber-genius whose skill in combat is matched only by his stealth and silver tongue (and who think Perks are the single greatest thing about Fallout), it’s frustrating not to get as many of them. Of course, the original game only gave you one every three levels, so I guess every two is still better.

If you do the side quests as they come along, you’ll hit the level cap long before you have visited every point on the map. I did; in fact, I hadn’t even entered New Vegas proper until somewhere around level 26 or 27. When I hit the cap, continuing to do quests just felt pointless to me, so I downloaded a mod that set it to 50 instead of 30. Problem solved. I beat the game at level 38. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t have wasted two early perks on the “10% extra experience points” set.

I also preferred Fallout 3′s somewhat more open approach to enemy strength. In New Vegas, there is a definite path the game tries to lead you on (roughly: south along the western border, then east along the southern border, then up towards Vegas). Trying to deviate from this route lands you rapidly in areas stocked with brutally powerful deathclaws, and gigantic wasps that hit like a mortar shell. In many cases it seems you may be able to sneak by on the borders but — SURPRISE! — invisible walls abound in the Mojave desert. There are areas of incline that you absolutely should be able to scale, but can’t, and in some cases you can even hit invisible walls on flat planes. This is a game design tactic that needs to die a quick, merciful death, and I was sorry to see it show up in this title.

The casinos in the game are kind of a let-down. They’re fancy and fun to wander, but many of the areas are remarkably empty — amusingly, one will often hear background noise indicating a huge crowd despite there being only two dealers and one other gambler in the room with you. I understand this is probably due to performance limitations, especially on the consoles, but it was still a bit of a letdown to walk into Gomorrah for the first time and find a gigantic and mostly empty room full of tables. Oh, also, the “choice” between blackjack, roulette and slots at the casinos isn’t really much of a choice. Blackjack’s the only game where the odds don’t overwhelmingly favor the house (and let’s be honest – they still get a sizable edge). A version of poker would’ve been nice, though I understand that would’ve involved a lot of AI coding. Craps would’ve been pretty great too, just because it usually takes at least a little longer to burn through 200 bucks.

In Summary

In the end, New Vegas ends up being a lot like Fallout 2: it uses essentially the same engine, recycles a LOT of art assets, but is a somewhat more complicated game than its predecessor. Also there’s more gambling and whores than in the first game.

While New Vegas is by no means perfect, it’s an impressive title with an intricate story, characters you grow to have feelings about, and an unbelievable amount of stuff to do. I think Obsidian did a great job in a fairly limited time of creating an interesting and enjoyable game world that’s populated with outstanding characters, and fits very well into Fallout canon. I don’t know where the series is going from here, and whether the task of planning it out will be given to Bethesda’s core team or to Obsidian, but either way I’ll be happy, because both have proved that the franchise is in good hands.

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Note 1: New Vegas is currently available on Steam or at various retail outlets for around twenty bucks. If you haven’t played it yet, it’s a steal at that price.

Note 2: With rare exceptions, I don’t do DLC. By all indications the New Vegas DLC is very good, so this game might be an exception once all the stuff is out and packaged together into one purchase. Maybe on the next play-through!

• Platform: Xbox 360
• One Word: Streamlined
• Two Words: Shepard Lives!
• Worth It: Yes
• Scale: terrible | poor | fair | good | great

This review contains spoilers from the first 15 minutes of the game, where something major happens. If you haven’t already heard about it, you might be upset at me for mentioning it. Proceed with caution.

When a game is already great, it’s often a tough act to follow. Many sequels to great games have been extremely good games in their own right, but did not quite live up to the original (see: my recent review of BioShock 2). Other sequels to great games are just plain not as good. It’s a rare thing indeed to find a sequel to a great game which is better than the original in virtually all ways. Mass Effect 2 is one of these sequels.

At the end of the first Mass Effect,

• Platform: Xbox 360
• One Word: Depth
• Two Words: Swarming Splicers
• Worth It: Yes
• Scale: terrible | poor | fair | good | great

The Long Version

I’m pretty torn about giving BioShock 2 only a “good” and not a “great” rating. I mean, here is a game far more ambitious in its storyline and symbolism than 90% of the dreck out there, but at the same time, whenever you start to really get into exploring these new parts of Rapture, it decides to throw an army of splicers at you and bog you down in pointless, repetitive combat. The game delivers excellent dialog, creates compelling characters for you to interact with, and features a few interesting moral choices … but it also tries too hard to shoehorn the new villain into the existing Rapture storyline, so much so that one is left wondering how it would be possible to have seen no sign of her influence during the first game. On the one hand, I played the game for hours basically every day after I bought it until I’d beaten it. On the other hand, I spent a decent chunk of those hours bitching to my wife (thanks, hon!) about how little fun I was having during yet another massive firefight.

I think what it comes down to is that the net result of the changes to the game play from the first game made this one more hardcore, and it has been a long time since I was a hardcore gamer. I no longer play games, even first-person shooters, for the combat. I don’t care that I can fight with plasmids and weapons at the same time, because I never found having to switch to be particularly cumbersome in the first place, since you were rarely facing more than a couple of enemies at a time. I don’t care that the weapons and plasmids are generally beefed up from the first game, because I never thought the ones in the first game needed much improvement. I didn’t come back to Rapture because I loved fighting legions of the same four splicers in the first game and wanted to fight many more.

I came back to Rapture because its decayed, art-deco beauty and tragic history make it without question one of the most compelling video game environments ever conceived. Nearly every part of Rapture is a work of art, and to explore it means contemplating what it might be like to exist there, to live in an underwater city, never seeing the sunlight, but with constant access to the beauty and mystery of the ocean depths. The original BioShock was so damn compelling because it was so gorgeous, and had gone so horribly wrong.

Fortunately, in this aspect, the game delivers. The Rapture of BioShock 2 is even more decayed than that of the first game (though, oddly, it didn’t seem as wet), but there are still glimpses of stunning beauty all around. While I was disappointed that we didn’t revisit any of the original areas, the new parts of Rapture shown in BioShock 2 fit right in and make sense as parts of the city. We’re given information on how Rapture was built, and how people originally got around it (a sort of undersea subway system) before the invention of personal bathyspheres.

In late 2009 Crispy Gamer acquired GamerDNA.com, 360Voice.com, TweetMyGaming.com, and an associated ad network running ads on multiple privately-owned gaming websites. The board of directors, excited by the massive increase in page views and ad sales opportunities, decided that it was time to cut costs on the Crispy Gamer front, consolidate down to one company, and focus mainly on revenue. They laid off Crispy Gamer’s entire editorial staff, including the managing editor, the copy-editor, the senior writer, and several contract writers. They alerted the other freelancers that there would be no further work coming in. They also told the development team, consisting of myself, my friend Gabe, and our Junior Engineer Stanley, that our services would only be needed for a few more weeks as they transitioned Crispy Gamer to a more basic website.

To that end, Gabe and I were still technically employed by Crispy for a few more weeks, working on some back-end changes to the site. It felt a little creepy, like dressing up a friend for his own funeral, but this is a part of the internet startup world: sometimes things don’t go as expected and the board, who let’s not forget invested $8mm in this company, jumps in and assumes control in order to try and recoup their initial investment.

For my own part, I find the timing unfortunate. Beginning with the redesign in May 2009 and moving forward into the summer and fall of 2009, I thought the site had really turned the corner. It was much easier to use, much easier to navigate, and much easier to read than the previous design had been. We’d developed some really cool technology using current AJAX and DHTML techniques, and were looking forward to building even more. Our user community was taking off, with nearly every article getting several comments, and some of them getting dozens. Our numbers were holding steady despite dramatically decreasing the amount of paid traffic … in short: people were using the site, liking it, and coming back without having to be enticed by marketing or ads.

That’s exactly what you want, when you build a website. Unfortunately, that tipping point came too late. Instead of happening at about six months in, it took about eighteen, because there was a lot of stumbling in the first year. This, also, is not exactly uncommon in the world of startups, and I don’t blame the Crispy founders or employees for it — sometimes it takes time to find your voice and establish who you are. It’s just sad, because I’ve been on the other side of things. I started working for GameSpy in 1999, just as it was making its move from “three guys in an office running a couple volunteer sites” to “investment-backed real company with multiple product types”. It was touch-and-go during that time and a single different — not even necessarily bad — decision could’ve submarined the entire company. Instead, we struggled through, figured things out, and became profitable. It’s a great feeling and an amazing thing to have gone through, and I’m sorry that many of my fellow Crispy staffers don’t get to find out what it’s like.

I worked with a lot of good, smart, talented people at Crispy and I’m happy to have spent the last two-plus years there. We may not have made it over the hump, but we came damn close, and I’m proud of what we accomplished with the site. Now it’s time to move on to the next adventure. Gabe and I have both accepted some work with a San Francisco-based startup, for one thing. For another, I’m 35 pages and counting into a business plan for our own internet startup, which we’re hoping will allow us to raise some grant money and be able to employ ourselves full-time. It’s a very busy, very interesting time, but I’m excited about the possibilities out there and looking forward to continuing to learn and improve as a web designer and development director.

Oh, and now that I’m done with CG, you can expect more frequent updates to this blog, too. Woohoo!

I am officially on the job market, so if anyone out there in cyber land has any leads, please send ‘em my way!

With the exception of the photo source used in the Blue Rust pic, all of the photo source was acquired from GrungeTextures.com and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License. If you’re looking for free, quality photo source, GrungeTextures.com and its associated sites have tons!

Without further ado, here are the textures

Blue Rust

Download High Res

Big Bricks

Download High Res

Grimy Wood

Download High Res

Mossy Rock

Download High Res

“No! It’s too strong! I … oh, damn it, the f*cking troll killed Carbomb.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” asks my wife Charlotte, who with a quick glance toward the little bed perched on our window-shelf can see that our cat, Carbomb, is still totally alive and sleeping peacefully.

“Oh,” I say. “I set the game so that if I start with a pet cat, the cat’s name is Carbomb.”

“That’s a game?”

“Sure. This little ‘at’ symbol is me, and that ‘T’ is a troll, and this is a …”

“Sounds great,” she says, and goes back to her book.

Okay, so perhaps not everyone understands the appeal of Nethack. Actually, it seems likely that the vast bulk of today’s gamers have never heard of Nethack, which really is something of a shame. How many games do you know of which have been in near-constant development for thirty years, boast a stunning depth of artificial intelligence unrivaled by modern titles, and will run flawlessly on any computer, of any speed, running any operating system available?

Check out the full article and let me know what you think!

Recent releases like Gears of War 2 and Killzone 2 have offered gamers visual fidelity of unparalleled quality. For over a decade, improving visuals has been the focal point of development in gaming, and titles have advanced by great leaps during that time. We’ve also improved the audio in our games, and arguably even moved into telling deeper, more interesting stories. Text-adventure advocates may disagree with that last point, but certainly we expect a great deal more story from today’s mass-market titles, such as Gears of War, than we did of titles like Bubble Bomb or DOOM.

Unfortunately, the characters that populate our games seem to have been lost in the shuffle. One could easily argue that modern gaming characters are shallower and less compelling than their ancestors, some of whom had great reams of text-driven dialogue to spout. Even in a Game of the Year-quality title like Fallout 3, we’re still presented with primary story characters about whom we know virtually nothing, and with whom we have a hard time forming compelling, coherent relationships.

You can read the entire article over at Crispy Gamer!

Additionally, I’ve got an editorial in the editing phase for Crispy, so I’ll post when that goes up.

Additionally part two, I’m working on something fairly awesome with my friend Gabe that we’re hoping to launch this month. More on that soon!

The Short Version

• Platform: Xbox 360
• One Word: Improvement
• Two Words: Funny Action
• Worth It: Yes
• Scale: terrible | poor | fair | good | great

The Long Version

“I am encouraged by any game that uses as much casual profanity as I do.”

So I said to my wife, as we walked along Brooklyn’s Flatbush Avenue, headed for a local watering hole, and she laughed, because she’s watched me play the Penny Arcade games, and knows that it’s true.

I have to admit, I’m a fan of Penny Arcade. Not a completely biased, insane, slavering fanboy, mind you … the comic strip itself has its ups and downs. Some are funnier than others. Some are better drawn than others. That’s going to be the case when you do anything episodic for ten straight years. I also think that Jerry “Tycho” Holkins frequently comes off as a pompous windbag in his news updates (he’d probably agree), and that Mike “Gabriel” Krahulik has some abominable taste in video games (he probably wouldn’t). But I’ve met them in person, and I like them, and I like their work.

That extends to their episodic series of games, On The Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness, or at least to the first two. I can only assume the third and fourth installments will continue to present the quality that’s been available so far.

I bumped Episode 2 up from Episode 1′s “good” to “great” for several reasons, not the least of which that it’s cheaper than the first. They shaved five bucks off the price, and now it’s sitting right at a point that feels about right for the length and level of entertainment you get. This isn’t some 80-hour RPG with a ton of depth; it’s mainly a turn-based beat-em-up with some very minor Adventure and RPG elements. That’s not exactly a template for earning a “great” from me, but the game exceeds the sum of its parts thanks to some clever writing, better implementation on the part of the developers, and an overall tighter package than the first delivered.

The storyline and setting, a deranged version of 1922, really allow Holkins to flex his muscles. The dude knows his ten-cent words, and isn’t afraid to use them liberally. While this makes his news updates sometimes a bit ridiculous, his propensity to lose himself in the language absolutely fits the world created for the game. The sudden, jarring inclusion of casual profanity and modern slang serves well as a comedic foil against the purple prose, and you get a weird cross of Lovecraft and “modern gamer” that’s unique to the game, and in many ways unique to Penny Arcade. Holkins also proves an admirable plotter – the stories make sense, strange though they are, and tick away in a logical manner that keeps the player wanting to open up one more movie, or read one more funny bit of dialog.

Hothead Games, the developers who’ve worked closely with the PA guys to actually put the game together, have really tightened up a couple of the big problems I had with the first game. For one thing, there are multiple difficulty levels now. Hallelujah. The first game was so hard in places that it bordered on un-fun, and though I never did turn the difficulty down from “medium” (the default) in this one, it was always comforting to know that if I got in over my head, I could ramp things down. In addition to difficulty adjustment, they’ve also included outfits that allow your character to gain different bonuses, a LOT more variety into the gameplay (including an amusing puzzle game that springs up in the middle of the plot, involving the infamous Catsby and Twisp characters). Yes, you still end up beating up lots of things, but the game is broken up with puzzle solving and more dialog/movie interactions than the first contained (and it had a bunch).

Additionally, the ending’s better — more of a puzzle than a straight fight, although it involves both. I was a bit disappointed that there wasn’t any teaser trailer for Episode 3 included, but that’s a bit of a nitpick. Overall I was amused and interested by the story, happy with the ending, and found the gameplay more compelling than I did in the first. I continue to enjoy all the various PA characters showing up in strange new roles, and I love the in-jokes for longtime readers like myself (Penny Arcade was first published in an online magazine – loonygames – that I also had a column in, so I’ve literally been reading from the start).

You can do a LOT worse than this for fifteen bucks. If you haven’t already picked it up, I definitely recommend it.