Hey everyone, it's been a while since my last post. Lots of things in my life going off like hand grenades of drama tossed into my little living room of productivity. But as the holiday that celebrates being 1/2 way out of the darkness of winter has passed, and the small fact that I simply can't sleep, I decided what a better time than any to toss you all a delicious update. Mmmmm tastes like chocolate.
Ok, this one's a bit of a post as I'm reviewing 3 games back to back to back. I am going to throw stuff out there in the order of "completion" or what ever cause some games just don't "complete." This review is on 3 RPG's so I feel comfortable linking them in one post.
The games: Fable III, Fallout: Las Vegas, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.
Let us put on our safety purple rubber laboratory gloves and get right down o business.
Fable III:
This was a little bit of a surprise for me. As it stood so far, my relationship from Lion Head Studios was that of a love/hate dynamic. They would throw out a game, such as Black and White, that I would love and then throw out, Black and White 2, which would be more of the same that I didn't enjoy quite as much as the original. This was how it was with their flagship creation of Fable. Fable 1 was a very nicely put together solid game. It wasn't the best game of all time, mind you, but it was more than playable. The story was great, the options were dynamic, It had lots of little things to do and see. But here's where we get to the biggest problem about the Fable series, hype. They promised quite a great deal with Fable I, skills that changed as they were used (swing a bat for a long time, and your strength is based on the swinging) and levels that would manipulate in certain ways, boarder-less levels, and all sorts of fun little tidbits. Hearing these, at the time Fable I came out, I sorta had a certain.... feeling that current tech wasn't as good as they were letting us to believe. Well, the game came out, and I was both right and wrong at the same time. Although Fable didn't do as much as was promised, It did do a great deal. The biggest achievement for me, was the story line. It was a big and very epic story, and I loved it quite a bit.
Continuing on, Fable II....was rubbish. The story was poorly written, you stumble through it like blind person with no arms to feel out what's in front of you, so you fall down the stairs. The "big game changing choices" you had to make were either not important, or made redundant and obsolete later (the biggest end game one is done away with in the DLC). The last boss was, well, anti-climactic. Not to mention the most overlooked problematic issue of fable II of all time: Single slot auto-save. That's right, the whole game resides over one save slot, which is an auto-save. They wanted to make your choices feel more "permanent", but what they didn't realize, was that if your game has an issue, say a bug, you can't "go back to an earlier save" and re-try it. Your either stuck, or you have to start from the beginning. And the BUGS! Quite a large percentage of U.S. players couldn't get the game to work, an even greater percentage had a game breaking bug, like a quest giver, one that's NEEDED, to continue the main story plot, either wouldn't be where they were supposed to be and just went missing, or would just smile dumbly at the player, not recognizing it needs to start talking again. And the hype continued: Cinematic fights, no real "one way to get places", fence hopping, interactive dog companion. The promises went on and on! Inclusive multi-player....ok the multi-player just wasn't. Sure you could join some one's game, but you get like 4 stock characters to choose from (no customization), and it's 2 characters that share 1 camera, even if your over xbox live, 1 camera. Really really poor idea. About the only thing they did deliver on, was the dog companion...and even then, it was pretty annoying for upkeep.
Ok, so why am I talking about the previous games for Fable III? It's because Fable III is a sort of "apology" for the previous games, primarily Fable II. Fable III was EVERYTHING they promised for II, it's what II should have been plus a little extra. It's as if the media director looked in on projects, and hyped up the wrong game (hyping 3 when they were releasing 2). The dog is less annoying. The guns work, the fighting works, the auto-saves stagger sorta. Enough that if something happens poorly, there's a chance you can go back within a few moments to where it might not happen again. The multi-player is great, and by great I mean right. Cameras are dynamic to playres (unless your playing on the same xbox, but that's not that big of deal.) The characters are YOUR characters, not some ugly stock model like in the last game. 2nd player can customize options, just gotta coordinate who's going to gun room when, lol. Clothing looks, decent. AND THERE'S NO LUMBERJACK GIRL BUG! (lumberjack girl: In Fable II part of the story plot has you in a specific outfit. Problem was, they made the outfit for a very specific male character model. When they put it on the player character, it over-rides what your character looked like, with what the male model looked like, even if you were female! So you get wide shoulders, a stocky torso, and a big cleft chin, aka Lumberjack Girl.) The most entertaining thing about Fable III is the evolving combat cinema kills. It's random, it depends on how your killing and what your killing with, but every once and a while, your character will kill in quite the funny ways. Level design needed a little bit of work in places. (invisible walls need looked at on some of the moving platforms.) I really liked the smooth level transitions, the loading times were not that bad really, if at all. The elimination of the menu system was a GREAT idea. Loved outfit selection. Needed a bit better color selection and well "more". It needed at least 1 other type of weapon in each category. The have heavy hammer, small sword, long rifle, dueling pistol, and that's it. They just needed one more type of gun and one more type of melee and the game would have been greatly more "open" to style. It needed a few more tattoo designs, and better collectible item rewards (about 4 chests or more give you gold. As not as redundant as the previous game, gold still doesn't really matter that much in this game.) Some of the weapon designs were great, some of the armor designs were amazing. The star power, as British star power goes, was phenomenal (only a little sad that a Dr. Who reference wasn't used, oh well, lol.). The characters were great, and wonderfully portrayed...though I wish your actions could decide if you could save 1 or 2. But yeah. (As a side note, so you all know this isn't all just butter and kisses, is that the last boss was disappointing. It really felt like it should have been a multi-stage fight, with the first stage that you are given in the game now, evolving to either 1 or 2 more stages of increasing pace and difficulty.)
Overall I give it an 8/10: It's got "That twinkle". There is something a little special about this game that makes it pretty spectacular.
Moving on:
Fallout: Las Vegas
This was a game that I sort of had high hopes for. I was really excited when my roommate picked it up, and let me start playing. It took me a bit of doing and qutie abit of time, but I did finish it. Well, I finished as much as I wanted out of it. However, after a time...it started becoming, "not worth the effort". This review is going to be a little bit short but really, there's not much to say that hasn't already been said elsewhere for Fallout 3. Basically the game is Fallout 3 with a semi-sorta new map, semi-sorta new characters, semi-sorta new weapons, a semi-sorta new plot, and most of all, new annoying "good idea, bad executions." The graphics aren't much different, the guns aren't much different, the game play isn't much different, the story.....leaves a bit to be desired. There's some funny and fun twists, but overall, it was...well....pretty restrictive. That's sort of the word of the game "Restrictions." Apparently Bethesda studios decided that the players were given too much freedom in Fallout 3 and Oblivion, so they decided do away with that in a couple of ways. The first was the largest restriction: quest and story. Sure you can choose who to ally with, your path of good or evil, but once you choose, your stuck. There isn't any deviation, or unique changes, your given the objectives, complete or not finish the game. Your choice. The 2nd way they restrict the payer is with faction. This was a very good "idea" but a very poor execution. The good idea was simple: you do good things for particular factions, they like you more and give you quests, items, houses, and what not. The bad idea: faction is based on armor. What your wearing depends on standing and rep. This was a really poor idea for a couple of reasons. The first reason, most enemies you fight are faction related enemies. All gear from faction related enemies, other than guns, ammo, food, and miscellaneous items, is faction gear. Your items and gear deteriorate at astounding rates, you might be forced to run around naked even though there's TONS of armor around you, you just can't equip it cause your allies might open fire. your companions will not wear faction armor that opposes with their faction, even though it's 100 times better than what they are wearing. And a personal thing for me, I can't wear trophies of those I've slain. The last way Fallout: Las Vegas is restrictive is invisible walls. They really narrowed the playing field, quite literally, with these. Preventing you access to so many areas cause you just can't figure out the "right way round" even though it looks like you could just "walk" to it. I got very frustrated with areas I should be able to jump to, or even casually stroll too, but just simply couldn't for some unknown reason. And that's pretty much it.
I give it a 7/10: So far so good. The game is decent, not great, but decent. Could really have used a more dynamic choice in characters, a drastic overall of guns, and a redesign in faction mechanics, as well as a demolition project against inviso-wall incorporated.
And Last
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm:
To be honest, I'm just blown away. I have not been able to put this down, and that's saying something as I'm generally not a "massively multi-player" friendly kind of player. I tend to keep to myself, loathing the existence of other characters, wishing that this time would be the time that they broke their legs from jumping 1 too many times (I swear some keyboards have the space bar worn down to a little nub.) But yeah, this has been a very, very, delightful experience. I have yet to play this fully, I have yet to get to the new end game content (levels 80-85), and I have yet to play the new Goblin race. I have been playing levels 1-65 on the werewolves side of things, and besides a few bugs here and there, minor graphic issues, really, or just wrong sound file put into to wrong emote, issues with animations not syncing and just little tid bits like that, overall, it's great O.o. And that's a lot for me to say, as a lot of you know how bad I find World of Warcrack. But Blizzard has made the game....enjoyable. Questing, although still a burden some times, is easily accessible, you don't have to run from one continent to the other to continue, it's all a straight linear line of "if your on this land, go to point X, that land, go to point Y". The random dungeon que makes finding dungeons easier, gear looks decent so forth and this and that. The werewolves, wholly crap the werewolves. It's those little extra things that I so enjoy. The tidbits that have nothing to really "do" in the game, except sit there and be awesome. Levels 1-13 are amazing as you follow the story of your dying people and their heavy "curse" (but as a furry, it's not really a "curse" as much as a "better way of life" lol). The thing that kills me is that the werewolves are a Victorian age British civilization. Accents, architecture, culture, dress, and everything. Even greater, they have a werewolf only quest for top-hats. Yes, only World of Warcraft werewolves get top-hats. The level design for the re-imagined areas are pretty awesome, the big scars, burnt patches, and craters are interesting, as well as the big whirlpools of death spotted here and there (jump, it's fun). I like that the biggest baddest monster (the big dragon called Deathwing, that's the expansion's mascot) comes into random relms, and torches them. I have yet to see it's destruction first hand (I am always 2nd too late, but just in time to see the flames die down), but it looks spectacular. I love the phase tech all over, it makes it seem like your quests actually "do" something rather than "oh, thanks for your time, bye now sucker!" I like the battles all across the land, the Npc's not really doing anything but it looks like they are battling. It adds a bit better air of conflict and a greater scope of what's going on. I'm enjoying all the "underwater" shenanigans as I did play out the humorous "sea legs" first part to the lvl 80 content. Yeah, just enjoyment all around. Oh! And I like how they "specialized" the class talents. Each class gets a choice of 1 of 3 specializations, and depending on that choice depends on what bread and butter move they get. So you can just watch people play and say "oh, your this type of that class". Just a bit of fun there.
Overall World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is getting a 9/10 a Diamond in the Rough. I think that people should at least play the 10 day trial if they can, lol. All in all the changes they have made are great, some refinement is needed but it doesn't subtract much from the overall game. I like it a lot, lol.
So yeah, GOOD TIMES!
Oh and some movies I've seen, not really revies:
Tron was amazing, I nearly raved to the music right there in the theater, just needed glowsticks.
Harry Potter, was...ok, wish they wouldn't do the Michale Bay shaky camera fights and do some choreography instead :( Wish the 2nd part was released at the same time, so you could just sit for 4 hours and watch it from start to finish :(
And there ya go. Enjoy.
