Fallout: New Vegas - Xbox 360

I rank Fallout 3 as one of my favorite games of all time. Single player wise it's probably the game that I've spent the most time on. I absolutely love it. When I heard there was a new Fallout game coming out I was excited like a fat kid in a candy store. I didn't want to wait, I wanted it now. I didn't care that it wasn't Bethesda making it, I just wanted more Fallout goodness.

Then there was what felt like an eternity of waiting. Seeing screenshots, teaser videos, magazine previews, all for a game that I wanted oh so badly. I soaked it up like a sponge, every time they gave up a morsel of information I ate it up. I don't remember the last time I remember being this excited about a game.

For some reason I had it in my head that it was coming out November 27th, I had that day mentally marked on the calendar. I was scrounging together money trying not to make my bank account weep... that's when I learned I was a week off, it was actually coming out November 19th. This is like learning as a kid that Christmas is going to be on the 18th this year. I was pumped, I was getting the game earlier then expected.

Ahhh the intro. The intro to the Fallout games are absolutely phenomenal, Ron Perlman sets the mood for the undertaking you're about to endure. If Fallout 3 was about what happens to the land after the nuclear strike, Fallout: New Vegas is about what happens to the people. You'll be constantly trying to figure out what side you're on, who you'll betray, who you'll fight for and who you will kill. Fallout New Vegas is about choices. Sometimes they're good, sometimes they're bad, and a lot of times they're ambiguous.

One of the things that surprised me the most about Fallout: New Vegas is the decisions. In almost every game I've ever played that gives you a choice you know how it will affect the outcome. The choice is between killing an orphan and her puppy or giving her a new mommy and daddy... you know which one is good, and which one is evil. You know how it will affect you. You don't expect to kill an orphan and puppy and be revered by the people. Every game I've ever played with moral decisions pretty much gives it to you in black and white. Right and wrong, good and bad. Fallout: New Vegas is all gray for the most part. Most of the decisions I made I wasn't really sure how they were going to affect me. I didn't know if I was making a right or wrong decision, but I knew I had to make some decision. Everything was in shades of gray. Sure Caesar was evil, but was the NCR good? Who could I trust? Could I trust anyone? To this day I'm not sure if I made the right decisions. My decisions ended up being good, but could they have been better? Should I have made different decisions along the way? Should I have made different allegiances?

Fallout: New Vegas feels almost exactly like Fallout 3. Same game, different setting. Sure there are definitely some differences, mostly the way certain things are handled and the tone of the game in certain parts, but for the most part it is very similar. If you liked Fallout 3, you will like Fallout: New Vegas. It pretty much feels like a 100+ hour expansion pack.

One thing I would like to talk about is the bugs. From the get go this game has been plagued with bugs... apparently. Honestly I only came across one bug the entire 102 hours I played the game. Occasionally my gun would go all wonky, thinking I was standing up when I was actually crouching, this would cause my gun to show up at the top of my screen instead of the middle. Other then that? I didn't run into one other bug. I know a lot of people did, I however did not. Just sayin'.

Did I enjoy Fallout: New Vegas as much as much as Fallout 3? No. I enjoyed it greatly but Fallout 3 I think is still the better game, from what I can tell this is not the popular opinion. A lot of people I've talked to have actually said they prefer Fallout: New Vegas to Fallout 3. Overall I'm confident that if you like one, you'll like the other.

Fallout: New Vegas is a very good game. Compared to Fallout 3 and in its own right. It kept me gripped for 102 hours and I assume that at some point in time I'll be playing it again with different choices. It is a very good game, and it's one of the first games I've played where the choices are not black and white. Go out and get Fallout: New Vegas, it's definitely worth your time and money.

Squid.

Metro 2033 - Review

A while back I read about Metro 2033 in Official Xbox Magazine, they had a couple page preview. I remember being rather excited about it, it looked great and I love those types of games. Then I didn't hear anything about it for a while. I had almost completely forgot about until I noticed a release date for it. I quickly added it to my Gamefly queue and hoped they would have it by the time my disc got there.

After playing a few hours I realized that Metro 2033 is a game I should have hated. It's incredibly dark, there's escort missions, and it's occasionally very difficult to stealth... but for some reason, I enjoyed it.

Let's start off with the things I thought I wouldn't like.

The Darkness. This game is dark. We're talking Doom 3 dark. We're talking playing an original Gameboy Advance in a closet dark. And yet... this game makes it work. Instead of a hindering you it actually adds to the ambiance of the game. The darkness seems to encompass you. Every little bump in the night seems all that much worse because you're not sure what it is or where it's coming from. All you have is your flashlight and later on in the game, night vision goggles to light your way. Not since Alien Vs. Predator 2 have I seen a game that makes the darkness work so well in its favor.

Escort missions. If there's one thing I hate in a game it's escort missions. Metro 2033 did it right though, it gave me escort missions without me knowing they were escort missions. Occasionally you have a computer controlled teammate that will help you out along the way, occasionally these are escort missions. So if that person dies, you have to start from the last checkpoint. For the most part you won't actually know that it's an escort mission unless you let that person die, and as long as you help them out, for the most part you don't have to worry about them dying.

The problem with stealth isn't really that much of a problem. When you have an AI teammate they're not stealthy so you can't be stealthy. It's occasionally a pain because stealth in this game is awesome, but there are plenty of times when you'll be by yourself so you can just be stealthy then.

So even the points about the game that I thought I wouldn't like turned out to be okay... and after that you had an awesome game.

A really awesome game. When I first heard about the game it sounded a lot like Fallout 3, and since I have a love obsession with Fallout 3 I was totally game. Other then being set in a dystopian, irradiated future it turned out to be nothing like Fallout 3... but instead I got a little gem of a game.

Metro 2033 is like if you mixed Fallout 3, STALKER, and FEAR all into one game. So basically, awesome.

A nuclear war has taken out all of human civilization, those who survived now live in the metro under Moscow. And that's where you meet Artyom, the protagonist of our little story. Basically you're world has been taken over by a bunch of funky mutated creatures who are hell bent on eating your face off as well as the Dark Ones. The Dark ones are the real threat in the world, they have the power to drive humans insane and slaughter entire groups of people... and it's your job to stop them! Lucky Artyom!

So you start out on your quest through the metro, and you're going to meet a lot of people and creatures. Some will want to help and some, again, will want to eat your face. Which keeps things interesting.

This game certainly keeps you on your toes. Whether it's sneaking past a group of enemies, heading down a dark corridor, wondering where that noise came from, or searching for more gas mask filters, you will be on edge.

Seriously, one of the most tense moments in the game came from searching for a gas mask filter. You see the air on the surface is unbreathable, so you need a gas mask as well as filters while on the surface. Run out of filters, you run out of air, which means you die a slow death. There I was, in a huge firefight and I notice I have no filters left. There's still three guys to kill and I can't breath. I start choking for air. Two men down, one to go. I'm gasping. I kill the third. It's a mad dash into houses, cars, corridors looking for a filters. My mask if fogging up, the wind is whipping up snow, I can't see. Finally I spot a shack, I run in and find spare gas mask filters. I can breath again. It was a seriously intense moment... and it wasn't scripted. I ran out of gas mask filters because I had been wandering around. Not because I hit a trigger scene and it happened. It could really happen anywhere... and it was great. Sure if I had died I would have just gone back to my last checkpoint, but I wasn't thinking about that. All I was thinking about was that I needed to find more filters.

There's just so much fun to be had in Metro 2033. My advice, as soon as you can, get some silenced guns. Once you have the night vision goggles it can be so much fun. I was sneaking up on a camp of bad guys, so the first thing I did was shoot out all the lights and shroud them in darkness. Then I pull out the night vision goggles and pick them off one by one as they stumbled around in the dark. Now I know why Buffalo Bill did it in Silence of the Lambs... because it's damn fun, that's why.

Sure Metro 2033 has some flaws: I would have much preferred a save anywhere system to a checkpoints system, sometimes I was unclear on whether the gun I was carrying was better than the gun I could buy/pickup, there were a couple quick time events, and scopes seemed fairly useless. But these were all minor complaints in an otherwise very good game.

This is 4A Games first game, and I'm looking forward to seeing what they do next. This game was a hell of a fun time, do yourself a favor and grab it. If you're a fan of first person shooters I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Squid.

Metro 2033 - Xbox 360

Up next is a game from Gamefly. I saw a preview for Metro 2033 in Official Xbox Magazine a few months ago and thought it looked kind of awesome, like a darker Fallout 3. I haven't heard much about since then, I haven't even really seen in reviews on it good or bad.

I played a little bit of it last night, it was fun. A tad linear, but fun. Guess we'll see if it continues being fun.

Squid.