Sunday, 24 July 2011 by Marcus Aquinas.

For various reasons, I started a different blog here at TESGuides. The main purpose was to keep the gaming stuff off of this one and put it in its own little cubbyhole. Although I’m leaving my gaming posts in the archives here, I have reposted them at the new site:

The Adventurer’s Journal: http://www.tesguides.com/blog/

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Sunday, 24 July 2011 by Marcus Aquinas.

After playing through the new “Old World Blues” DLC for Fallout: New Vegas, I decided to go back and start a new character and run through the game again with all of the existing DLCs in place. I’ll post a review of OWB in a bit, but I need to take back a couple of comments about “Honest Hearts”. On this playthrough I noticed a couple of issues that I didn’t mention in my original review, so I want to add those. Overall, I’m downgrading the DLC to a 7 (out of 10) because of them. Again, I’m tacking on half a point because they rendered Zion so nicely. I’m relatively sure that this is not something that’s unique to my installation, hence the downgrade.

Problem 1: companion pathfinding. You have three companions that you can pick up in your travels through Zion National Park. All of them exhibit the same behavior. Because of the layout, their pathfinding algorithm falls way short of where it needs to be. Because their pathfinding is so sucky, you end up at the top of the canyon, while they’re running around looking for a path to your location. It gets so bad at times that they will completely disappear from your radar. If you’re a Lone Wanderer, this isn’t such a big deal. But when you’re needing someone to watch your back and they’re nowhere to be found, you can get really hozed really fast.

Problem 2: companion aggression. This might be something that manifests in the basic game, but I hadn’t noticed it being as bad as it is here. With the great differences in vertical distance between points in the same map area, this could be due to the layout of the place, but your companions will run off after enemies at the drop of a hat. This is not such a problem in casual mode because they won’t die on you. In Hardcore mode, though, you’re going to be lucky to keep these folks alive through more than one or two encounters.

Problem 3: critter spawning. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it happen right in front of me. My character had a 10 in Perception: 8 in SPECIAL, +1 for an implant and +1 for the hat. That means I will almost always be aware of the bad guys before they’re aware of me. But I had wondered why it seemed like I was getting ambushed so frequently. I would fast travel to a location, immediately scope out the area, see no signs of hostile activity, start to go about my business and BAM! Attacked. I finally saw the problem in action at the General Store and Park Ranger HQ. I had just finished cleaning out the store and was walking to the HQ building when a Radscorpion materialized right in front of me. It didn’t come up over a rise in the ground or anything like that. It just appeared. What’s the use of pumping all of those points into an attribute that won’t help you avoid this kind of thing? I don’t think this is a game engine problem because it never happens in the Mojave. It must be something unique to this DLC and it aggravates me no end.

Problem 4: appearing/disappearing map points. On my first playthrough I had missed Clark’s final resting place at Red Gate, so I had only collected five of the six caches. I made it a point on this playthrough to try to collect all of those and still only came up with five of six. Somewhere near the northern center of the map I noticed a map point that I hadn’t discovered and headed off in that direction only to have the empty triangle marker disappear from my HUD. I circled around the area and the silly thing would appear and then disappear again. I’m pretty sure this is a cave containing the last of the caches and it frustrates me no end that I cannot find it. This might be something on my system (FONV does tend to crash and burn on occasion), but either something is on the HUD or it isn’t – there shouldn’t be any smoke and mirrors.

Because of all of these problems (most importantly the pathfinding and ambush issues), I’m going back and docking a point from my initial rating. I’ll still give it a half-point for being so pretty, but that only leaves it with a 7 instead of an 8.

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Saturday, 9 July 2011 by Marcus Aquinas.

I guess this could be taken as a sort of open letter to the Ubisoft Montreal developers. Doubt they’ll read it, but I can at least vent my spleen on “Assassin’s Creed 2” and “Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood”. On the bright side, they might do something to fix the problem before “Assassin’s Creed: Revelations” hits in November.

I’m not generally a big fan of third-person games, but a few things combined to get me playing in this franchise. First the opportunity to go roaming around in the medieval period, even if only as it exists in the minds of game developers, was a major attraction. Second, and probably most importantly, Steam had a sale on “Assassin’s Creed” and “Assassin’s Creed 2”. The big draw was “Assassin’s Creed 2”. Roaming around in Renaissance Italy was much more attractive than Crusades-era Jerusalem. On the whole, I found AC2 to be much more polished than the original, which is to be expected if a developer is doing their job well. Then, lo and behold, Steam had a sale on “Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood”, so I picked that up after completing about half or two-thirds of AC2 and found it to be even more polished than AC2.

Overall, I would not put these among the “must play games” (hate that term - I’ll do penance for using it later), but if you like third-person stealth shooters, a lot of running, jumping, special moves, cool gear, and a good mission-oriented story, then you’ll definitely enjoy these. The games are available for Windows, xBox360 and PS3 (Brotherhood is also available for Mac). Unless you’re a real franchise “gotta have it now” fanboy, catch them on sale somewhere. Careful, though. They’re pretty good games and might well turn you into a franchise fanboy.

All games have their quirks and oddities. They’re what makes an Ubisoft game different from, say, an Eidos game. But when those quirks and oddities get in the way of gameplay, then something needs to change. My biggest gripe about AC2 and AC Brotherhood revolves around camera control. In normal gameplay, this isn’t a problem. In certain parts of the game, however, the camera controls lock, essentially changing the third-person game into a platformer.

These changes happen without warning and at points where falling necessitates either a checkpoint reload (because you died and neither game does saved games) or a long climb back to try again (assuming you survived the fall). When this happens, the normal movement controls also change. Forward, back and strafing are not what they normally appear to be because you’re not in a third-person environment. This probably accounts for the falling, dying, reloading and general frustration: the controls don’t work the way you expected because the game changed.

Short version, Ubisoft? Don’t change genres. If you’re going to be a third-person game, stay third-person. If you can’t do that, then either give warning or give some on-screen help showing the new control orientation.

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Friday, 20 May 2011 by Marcus Aquinas.

• Graphics – outstanding (although the engine is looking a bit dated by this point)
• Gameplay – very good
• New content – “Meh with a bullet”; some new weapons, no truly new creatures
• Story – good
• Replayability – another resounding “Meh”; you will need to play it through a couple of times in order to collect all of the achievements. The best reason to replay is the graphics and the walk through Zion National Park.
• Overall: 8 out of 10 points (I’d give it a 7.5, but it’s just too pretty)

I was among the fanboys eagerly awaiting the release of the next DLC for Fallout: New Vegas. My anxiety was relieved on the 17th when it became available on Steam ($9.99). The download went much faster than I anticipated, even at Steam’s paltry 300kbs transfer rate with the whole package weighing in at about 500MB. In anticipation of playing it, I had created a new character, playing it up to Level 15 and trying to be fairly even-handed in my skill-point distributions, except for pumping points into Repair to be able to get the “Jury Rigging” perk as soon as it became available. After activating the DLC and launching the game (and observing that my level cap had been raised by 5 more points), I was ready to leave the Mojave for the wilds of Zion.

Like the “Dead Money”, “Honest Hearts” will not allow you to take any companions with you. Unlike “Dead Money”, it does not automatically remove them from your party, leaving that little chore to you (ED-E is reportedly a little glitched in this regard – exercise caution and keep a save just in case). Figuring this to be the case, I had left all companions cooling their heels at the Lucky 38 and thought I was ready to go. Such was not to be. There is a 100-pound weight limit. Even with 10 Strength and the Strong Back perk, 100 pounds of gear is the limit. You may either put your extra gear in a handy crate (retrieving it when you come back after completing the DLC), or bribe/intimidate one of your fellow caravan guards into carrying a little extra for you. But at least it didn’t strip all of my gear away. I was not playing Hardcore mode, and so pared myself down to what I figured would be the bare minimum needed for an extended absence: three or four weapons, one light armor, a couple of specialized outfits, and the usual assortment of healing and chems.

After managing to survive the ambush that leaves you on your own it was pure eye-candy. The developers rendered the landscape and scenery in such a breath-takingly beautiful way that my initial impulse was to simply wander the area and take it all in. The abundance of overland encounters kind of put the kibosh on that for a while, but it really is a beautiful addition.

In the Mojave, the shortest distance is pretty much a straight line. In Zion, there are no straight lines. Compass markers are abundant, but the overriding idea is “you can’t get there from here”. This DLC is not for the navigationally challenged and there are areas on the overland map where fast travel is simply not permitted. You only option is to hoof it. Fortunately (or perhaps not, depending on your wants), the area isn’t terribly large, so getting from place to place isn’t a major hurdle. It’s just very easy to get turned around in some of those canyons. But it’s an absolutely gorgeous experience and put Zion National Park on my list of places to visit in the near future. If nothing else, Obsidian should get some sort of kickback from the National Park Service for this.

There are a few new weapons available, including the game’s only moddable melee weapon, the War Club. The most common new firearm will probably be either the 1911 .45 automatic or the Thomson sub-machinegun, both having a couple of mods available and both are generally picked up off of the corpses of those foolish enough to take you on. You will pick up a few Tomahawks, which make nice thrown weapons. Additionally, there are a handful of unique weapons for the collectors out there. For my money, the most welcome addition was the Yau Guai Gauntlet, which fulfills the same function, but does slightly better than the Deathclaw Gauntlet that never made it into the final game. You may complete a fairly simple quest to get yours.

There are no truly new creatures added to the mix. The Yau Guai is an import from Fallout 3. Geckos, Mantises, Spore Plants and Spore Carriers are revisions of existing creatures. White Legs are just re-skinned raiders. I found this to be a little disappointing.

There are some new characters and a couple of new companions, none of whom will remain after you complete the DLC. Your companions’ side comments while travelling are cute and humorous, but might get on your nerves after a while due to the rate of repetition. Voice-acting and accents were very well done and match well with the storyline.

The story itself is decent, although nothing out of the ordinary. It meshes well with the rest of the game and is dished up in bits and pieces throughout the DLC. There is also a hidden storyline that you can follow, but you’ll need to find the bits and pieces of it scattered across Zion in order for it to make sense.

On the whole, the DLC is probably worth your ten bucks. It fills in a few holes in the New Vegas backstory, adds a bit of new material and is a fun add-on. It will not keep me occupied until “Old World Blues” hits in June, but was a very nice diversion. This is pure speculation on my part, but I’d expect something like a GOTY edition in the fall where you can pick up all four DLCs for one low price.

On a cautionary note, I have noticed that my game is more unstable after adding the DLC than before. I had four or five CTDs (crash-to-desktop) while playing it. I DO NOT attribute this to the DLC itself. My best guess is either the last patch, one of the Patch Tuesday items or the fact that I had to install DirectX9 for another game. Because of that uncertainty, I am not holding any instability against “Honest Hearts”.

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