Film Review: Where The Wild Things Are

Before going into this movie I really didn’t know what to expect; as a child I was never exposed to the book, and never had any casual run-ins with it as I got older. So when I found out they were making a movie of it, I didn’t really pay much attention to it.
However, that all changed when the release date for the movie grew close, and it started to garner a lot of good press. Needless to say, I went into this movie with a certain sense of intrigue – and rightfully so; this movie had me completely captivated from the very beginning. Director Spike Jonze has done a great job of adapting what is essentially a fairly simple coming-of-age children’s book into a full-length movie, and Where The Wild Things Are is clearly far more than just a kids movie.

Film Review: Paranormal Activity

Get used to this view.

Just in case you’ve been living under a rock for the past six months, Paranormal Activity is a 2007 film that was just recently released in US theaters and released on DVD/Blu-Ray last week. It’s shot documentary-style, like an unfunny version of The Office. It follows the story of a couple who think they are haunted. Obviously, some shit goes down, because otherwise this would be a very, very boring film.

That being said, if you watch this film at home, it can quickly turn into something very, very boring. A quick text to a friend or pause for some mid-movie tinkling can ruin the experience. Where Paranormal Activity succeeds is in its slow, measured and terrifying escalation, all convincingly done through the two actors (who use their real-life names, btw) and virtually no special effects. I love the fact that this movie was filmed for $15,000, in one week and in the director’s home. I wonder if he has trouble sleeping at night now? For being a handheld-cam movie, there’s hardly any shaky moments, which is a blessing. The version I saw was had the theatrical ending (of the three that are available), but by the time the ending comes around, it doesn’t really matter. It’s the experience that brought you there that counts.

Amazingly enough, I thought Paranormal Activity lived up pretty well to its hype; I was never truly scared, but I was definitely uneasy the entire time. Definitely a movie you can only truly enjoy once, I’d say it’s a worthy rental.

Bayonetta Gets a 9.5. I Think Somebody’s Thinking With The Wrong Head

IGN gave Bayonetta the following score: 9.5/”Incredible”. As Russ pointed out earlier, the PS3 version only got an 8.2 on the PS3, but that’s more of a hardware problem. They’re the same game.

Here are some other games that B-netta is either as good as or better than according to the scores:

Modern Warfare 2: 9.5

Uncharted 2: 9.5

Assassin’s Creed 2: 9.2

Rock Band 2: 9

Fallout 3: 9.4 PS3, 9.6 Xbox 360

The Orange Box: 9.5

Mass Effect: 9.4

Bioshock: 9.4 PS3, 9.7 Xbox 360

…and so on. Truth be told, I’ve only played the Bayonetta demo, and although I liked it, I can’t help but be a little skeptical of that 9.5, especially since it received a higher mark than the IGN’s Top 360 game of all time, Mass Effect. Also, until I play the game  (which may or may not ever happen) and it proves me wrong, I refuse to believe that it is right up there with Fallout 3. There is just no damned way.

iPhone Game Review: Babel Rising

It seems like iPhone game maker BulkyPix has released somewhere between two and three hundred titles in just the last few months (actually it’s more like six, but man can they send out some emails!). Only one of which though puts you in the sandals of a wrathful deity trying to stop peasants from building a tower to your Heavenly home.

The game is called Babel Rising, and tasks the player with stopping the completion of a tower by doing things like zapping the workers with lightning, washing them away with a tsunami, sending a rain of fireballs upon them, or a few other natural disasters. Think of it as a “tower offense” game. The ultimate goal is to delay the completion of the tower of Babel as long as possible, and gain points by killing the workers; complete with score multipliers gained by killing a bunch of them at once. The game also sports achievements, and Open Feint connectivity so you can see your friends’ scores.

All-in-all, it’s a good $.99 game. There isn’t much depth to it, seeing how there is only one level and all the powers are available to you from the very beginning. I would have really loved to see something to add to the replayability, such as early levels that start off easy with only a few powers, and becomes more challenging with greater unlockable powers. Handing the player everything right off that bat takes much of the incentive out of returning to it over and over again, and makes it feel more like a “Lite” version of a larger game.

It is fun while it lasts, though, it’s priced fairly, and even passes the girlfriend test. BulkyPix has nice line of solid games, such as the hit Hysteria Project, and this is another fun one to check out.

Film Review: Triangle

Watched this film after a recommendation from someone at my work. I was expecting a horror film, and I was pleasantly surprised with this compelling, cerebral thriller. Don’t get me wrong – this film is horribly acted, and it suffers from some really unintuitive leaps in storyline – but it’s the best low-budget thriller/suspense film that I’ve ever seen.

A group of cliche horror characters board a sailboat for a fun and relaxing jaunt off the coast of Florida, and shit gets crazy, and I’m not going to give anything away. It hasn’t been released in the US yet, and I’m not going to tell you where to find it, but when it is available for rental or purchase, check it out. Let me know if I’m dumb for liking it.

Comic Review: Batman – Hush

Batman: Hush is the second Batman comic I’ve ever read, the first being Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. I’ve had a hard time getting into superhero comics, especially the tried-and-true old timers like Batman and Superman – I just feel like I know their stories already. Batman: Hush is unique in that it brings together just about every Batman villain for a romp through Gotham, while adding a new villain, Hush, who is unique to this 12-issue story arc.

Jeph Loeb (who wrote another lauded Batman story arc, The Long Halloween, which is next on my reading list) gives us a fitting tone for this series – at its heart it is a detective story, with everything unfolding in the last couple issues. The whole thing had me guessing (granted, I’m not the most informed comic reader, so I was still grasping at a lot of plot elements and characters), although I was disappointed with the very end. Altogether, though, it’s the best DC comic I’ve read that’s come out in the past decade (it ran from 2002-2003), and definitely worth flipping through.

Film Review: Moon

Not to be confused with that vampire/werewolf film everyone loves, Moon is a story set in the near future where we humans, being smart little buggers, figure out how to extract helium-3 from the moon as a source of clean energy. Sam Rockwell plays the part of the only employee onboard a helium-3 extraction site, who is at the end of a three-year contract. Things start to go crazy, and it’s an unexpected and engaging film.

I don’t want to talk too much about it but I’ll say that I was afraid that is was going to go into predictable 2001 or Solaris territory, and it doesn’t. Frankly, I don’t know how they pulled it off (especially on a budget of only $5 million – egads!) but they made a truly original statement from a tried-and-true premise. One of my favorite films of the year.

Review: PixelJunk Shooter

Q-Games have made quite a name for themselves on the PlayStation Network. With each new release, they demonstrate their expertise on fun gameplay design and cement themselves as the best developer on the PSN. PixelJunk Shooter follows in the tradition of their previous releases in that it’s based upon a well-known game genre, in this case dual-stick shooter, and adds their unique spin to it. It is nowhere near as abstract as their previous effort, Eden, in fact it’s probably the most literal of the bunch. That’s not so much a detractor as PJ Shooter is their most accessible title to date.

It’s immediately apparent that PJ Shooter is not-your-average arcade shooter. You guide your missile-wielding spaceship through an underground world to rescue a colony of trapped miners, scientists and explorers. A host of monsters inhabit the caves as well, each with their own set of abilities to kill you and your survivors. The real obstacle though are the different elements that make up the world. There are streams of water running through, as well as volcanoes that spew out molten lava. You do encounter more elements as you go along, but I certainly won’t spoil them for you here.

To traverse these caves, you have to manipulate the flow of these elements, with each element having a distinct effect on each other and your ship. The lava melts ice, water solidifies lava, ice freezes water and so on… The levels were obviously built with that mechanic in mind, with each becoming a little puzzle you have to figure out. You also have to manage your ship’s heat level. Magma radiates heat to the point of exploding your ship but water instantly brings down the thermometer. The deeper you go, the more the game throws at you with new elements, enemies and powerups. Thankfully it’s never too difficult to figure out the situation, but it still remains rewarding nonetheless. PJ Shooter is short, but perfectionist-like Trophy requirements will have to coming back for a second round. You could probably also expect an expansion pack to be coming soon, much in the same vein as previous titles.

Visually, the game is striking. Don’t be fooled by its cartoony style. Its 2D landscapes are brought to life with fluidity and movement. The physics at play are enriching; the gushing of water and spurts of magma elevate the scene as a feast for the eyes. As is tradition in the PixelJunk series, the music was overseen by a collaborator – this time by electronic duo High Frequency Bandwidth. By mixing in weird bloops, bleeps and various other sounds, the music manages to have this other-worldly feel, which fits in perfectly to the game’s settings.

The game includes local co-op which doesn’t change much in terms of gameplay, it’s an appreciated gesture nonetheless. Other features include PSP remote play functionality, leaderboards and video screen capture recording to YouTube.

PixelJunk Shooter may be built along a simple premise but it’s the constant introduction and mix of new elements that keeps things interesting and fresh. To see at the end of the game all those factors brought together coherently and with such thoughtfulness is nothing short of brilliant. It concludes what is another great year for the PSN, cementing it as a great host for imaginative titles.

review: geospark

Some partnerships were meant to be (Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy) while others turn out to be trainwrecks (Paula Abdul and MC Skat Kat). Thankfully the collaboration between Imangi Studios and Critical Thought Games falls into the faller category. Together they’ve created geoSpark, combining the simple gameplay Imangi is known for with the visual style of Critical Thought Games. The game may follow the same archetype of other path-finding games on the iPhone but it manages to advance upon them by stripping the core elements down while injecting exciting gameplay mechanics that shake things up.

The premise is simple. Your goal is to eliminate floating shapes, known as “sparks”, on screen by either tapping them or dragging identical ones into each other to form a chain. There’s a risk-reward system in either style. Tapping is easy but inefficient and chaining while more rewarding, creates a gravity well where sparks are more likely to be pulled into each other. You die when two different sparks collide, either by you dragging an incompatible spark into another or by two wayward sparks eventually crashing into each other if you’re too slow to stop them. It gets pretty intense knowing that only one mistake can cost you the whole game but that’s all part of the arcade experience. There’s always a “one-more-time” hook to beat that high score that’s always in the top right hand corner.

While each game is unique, the pattern of which type of spark comes is the same for every play through. It would’ve been nice to see a random generation of sparks rather than knowing what to visually expect next. OpenFeint integration, while always appreciated, comes in only a global leaderboard. Achievements would’ve been nice to add variety and encourage different styles of gameplay. My caveats with the game aren’t dealbreakers by any means, especially considering its $0.99 price.

Second Opinion: Assassin’s Creed 2

I’ve been going back and forth about the necessity of this post. Giang already did a top-notch review a couple weeks ago, but there’s a few things I’d like to add, if only because I played a shit-ton of Assassin’s Creed and I’d like to add my perspective from someone who’d already spent considerable time in the animus before AC2.

It’s slightly spoilerish, so I’m going to put it after the break. I don’t discuss any plot elements, but I do give away most of the game’s mission elements and nuances that you’d probably like to find out for yourself.

Threevue Review: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Giang:
The original Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare quickly became the pinnacle of the FPS genre. Its inevitable sequel, while arriving in a midst of anticipation, expectation and a little controversy, delivers a package that packs a punch and is a blast to play. The campaign may tangle itself under its own narrative but improvements to multiplayer and the addition of Spec-Ops should resonate to the masses.

Going through single-player is an engrossing experience for many reasons. Gunplay is as smooth and rewarding as ever, allowing enemies to be dealt with utmost efficiency. The game looks beautiful at being horrific and the persistent sound of war coupled with a sweeping soundtrack underscores the authentic blockbuster experience. Modern Warfare 2 constantly emphasizes spectacle rather than emergent gameplay, which is probably my biggest gripe with the game. Mission briefing screens are convoluted and an inelegant narrative device. When their purpose is to string missions together into a single narrative thread, they fall flat and conversations go over your head. You’re quickly dropped into the field ready for your mission at hand. A little story telling could have gone a long way here, but the game seems intent on delivering you nonstop conflicts.

The finesse and subtlety of the original Modern Warfare is gone and is replaced by a constant bombardment of frenetic action. While that’s great for your eyeballs, the game doesn’t quite reach the emotional zenith that the first game had. You can throw out the idea of plausibility because you’re constantly making these leaps of logic around the plot holes. A lot of it has to do with the pacing – it’s intense and turbulent, oftentimes on the brink of manic. It’s unfortunate that the game happily puts you in the backseat as the constant observer. There’s a distinct disconnect between your avatar and your surroundings and it’s a rare occurrence that you feel that you’re interacting with the environment – unless you count shooting at it. Case in point – the “No Russian” level. They build up the idea that you’re sacrificing a part of yourself to do this horrible deed, when in reality you have no idea who this character is and never will. The scene hits at a gut instinct level but will always feel incongruous to the main story and shallow in execution.

Multiplayer hasn’t been revamped by any means, but refined to make it more accessible, more strategic and essentially more satisfying. If you have a strong partner who is willing to communicate and work as a team, Spec-Ops is a uniquely fun experience. I’m glad Infinity Ward didn’t opt for another take on Hoard mode as the variety of gameplay and level of tactical engagement is a fine example of Infinity Ward’s skill as a level creator. Classic multiplayer has been restructured to give you plenty of load-outs – in terms of weapons and perks. All these changes lead to a very customisable experience and a more varied battlefield.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is a force to be reckoned with. Its aggressive single player campaign may leave you dazed and confused, but where it deserves most praise lies in its unrivaled multiplayer. This game will have you playing for a very long time – at least until the next Modern Warfare hits.

91/100

Mark:
At their very core, game reviews should answer the following question: “Should I buy this game?” For COD:MW2, the answer yes, you should…and no, you shouldn’t.

There is no doubt that this is an amazing game. It looks great, it plays great, it feels great, and there is very little that is actually wrong with it. The single player is an intense campaign that sheds the fat of all the military FPS’s before it, and inserts you directly into the heart of the beast. However, a single playthrough yields only about 6-8 hours of game time with little replay value. The multiplayer is almost RPG-ish in its depth and customizeability (new word, just go with it), and offers a vast array of intense battles, and for who is into that sort of thing (me), has endless replayability (two new words invented in one sentence. I feel ol’ Bill Shakespeare).

So, the only way to get a full $60 worth out of this game is to be able to dedicate at a minimum 20 hours to the multiplayer, and even then you are barely scratching the surface of what’s available. If you’re not prepared to do that, save yourself fifty bucks and rent it, because it is definitely worth experiencing at least once. Whichever you decide to do, just make sure you play that damned thing. It’s great.

97/100

Russ:
Two weeks into this game, and the only thing I can think of is the fact that I hope they don’t come out with another Call of Duty game for three years. There is a two-year gap between Modern Warfares, and in that time Infinity Ward was able to make a too-short, too-shallow, epic singleplayer game, an excellent new co-op feature (Special Ops) and the best FPS multiplayer game I’ve experienced.

There are a lot of issues with the single player, but it boils down to just one false idea: that a great story comes secondary to great gaming moments. The singleplayer element of this game feels like it was pieced together after they had decided on all its climatic scenes, leaving the player shouting, “That was awesome! What’s happening!?!” more often than not. More development time and some help with the writing could go a long way, and I think that enough of the fans’ cries about the shallow storytelling will go a long way over at Infinity Ward’s offices.

When it comes down to it, few games can receive the praise of being a solid experience without any “buts”. BioShock was incredible but it was too short. Halo 3 was fun and had a lot of content but it also suffered from a loosely concocted (and confusing) storyline. Braid lacked multiplayer (just kidding, that game was nearly perfect). When it comes down to it, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 falls into that same trap, but its highs seem so much higher than its lows that I’m willing to forgive it, just like many games before. I was hesitant to give this game the same chance I’d given Call of Duty 4 (what can I say, I’ve disliked every Treyarch-produced Call of Duty and the whole thing has left me a little bitter), but I’m glad it turned out so freaking fun.

95/100

Steve:
If you read our impressions piece, you already know that our initial thoughts on Modern Warfare 2 were really quite positive.  Have my thoughts changed after finishing the solo campaign and spending more time with the multiplayer?  The answer to that question, is yes.  And no.

This contradiction indicates the kind of confusion I felt after playing Modern Warfare 2.  On one hand, the games set-pieces are stunning, leaving you with that ”oh my god I can’t believe I just did that!” feeling of exhilaration, yet the story itself is confusing, muddled, and a little bit silly.  Some sections of the game pair you up with an NPC partner to covertly take down entire groups of enemies, which makes you feel both tactical and powerful.  However, other sections leave you on your own with little indication as to how to reach your next objective, which forces you to resort to trial and error.  This usually results in multiple unfair deaths; dying repeatedly because you don’t know what you’re supposed to do makes you feel less like special-ops, and more like special-ed.

This confusion even extends to the multiplayer, which, whilst still addictive, and definitely the games biggest selling point, is still as unbalanced towards novices as Call Of Duty 4 was, and doesn’t bring a whole lot of new features to the table; whilst the new maps help to keep things feeling fresh, there are a couple of which are flat, empty, and devoid of any real distinguishable features, which makes them almost no fun to play.

However, these are all relatively minor gripes, and whilst I have a few small problems with the game, I certainly have no major objections with it.  Whilst I think it’s possibly fair to say that Modern Warfare 2 isn’t quite as good as it could have been, it’s also fair to say that it’s still a great game, it’s still far better than most of its competition, and the multiplayer is definitely going to keep me coming back for a long time to come.

91/100

Tyler:
Can you imagine what an amazing place Infinity Ward was in just before launching CODMW2? The last COD4: MW was a run-away success and that momentum (read: money) could do nothing but make their next game better– so long as they follow along the same lines as the last title. But what it seems like IW did was follow a little too close to the beaten path this time around, inevitably reaching the end of the road and stepping in the same pile of “slow motion,not-really-a-quick-time-event-but-kinda-sorta-is, only time for one more last-ditch effort to kill the bad guy”. There were too many times (twice) in this game where I actually had to ask myself, “Wait, am I playing a level from COD4?”. This is mainly the fault of the guns-before-narrative nature of the COD game-line, illustrated perfectly by the lazy use of loading screen voice overs for plot progression.

But what do we really care about? Where will you be spending the vast majority of your time with this game? That’s right– online. The complaints I had about the multiplayer side of Modern Warfare have all been addressed in one way or another with MW2. Split-screen co-op has been givin in a round-about way with Spec-Ops splitscreen. The general clutter of the HUD has been clean up considerably for the online matches giving a very clear frame in which to display the ‘splosions. Extreme Rapings happen far less with the implementation of death perks and the rebalanced array of regular perks.  More levels, guns, teams, equipment… the hit it out of the park in respect to multiplayer. That’s it… man, I hate going last, all the good talking points are taken.

92/100

Found Sound: Pinback

It’s not often that I’m dead wrong when it comes to my gut instinct about music. I’m a snobby motherfucker most of the time, and I know what I like and what I won’t like. And for some reason, I got it in my head that the band Pinback wasn’t for me, even though some of their first releases were on a record label I deeply respect (Absolutely Kosher Records) and they’ve always received favorable reviews.

It wasn’t until the other day that I even gave them a shot, and I was surprised and annoyed by how much I liked them. I didn’t expect catchy music; in fact, somehow from seeing the Offcell EP cover about six years ago I had surmised they were a math rock band (you know, because the cover has a graph on it!) and figured they made lo-fi, angular and dissonant music, which is the exact opposite of the truth. Their songs have a distinctive aura of progression about them, while still maintaining a comfortable, catchy quality to every track. Overall, the songs remind me of a young, mopey Death Cab For Cutie. I was mostly annoyed because now I have like six albums to go through. So far, I’ve liked nearly everything I’ve heard, and the only time I reach for the “skip” button is when they make something super-poppy with fake drums, which is probably 10% of the time.

All I can say is that I’m dumb, and shouldn’t jump to conclusions with music so much. Then again, being skeptical has saved me from making some horrible purchases as well, so who knows.

Gadgetronic: Netgear XAVB101 Powerline Ethernet Adapter Kit

Great in theory, shitty in practice.

I bought the Netgear XAVB101 Powerline Ethernet Adapter Kit based on what someone had told me – that you connect one of the adapters to your router and plug it into the wall, and then plug the other one into the wall somewhere else in the house and then into your computer and BAM! you’ve got a 200mbps, secure LAN without any wires strewn across the house. Bet you didn’t know you could route the internet through your electrical system, huh? You can connect up to 16 adapters in one house, which means you could have super-fast gaming (it doesn’t require drivers, so it would work on the Xbox 360 and PS3) as well as internet downloads aplenty. The only thing stopping you would be your internet speed.

I picked this kit up because I thought it would be a great way to secure my iMac and keep the internet blazingly fast. On wireless, I was getting pretty good speeds, but not quite at what my ISP says I should be getting. After setting everything up, I tested the internet speed, and it was 1/3 the speed of my wireless LAN. I don’t know if it has to do with my house’s electrical wiring, but needless to say I was disappointed and took the thing back. Hopefully others will have better luck with it than me, but as it stands I can’t recommend it to anyone.

Review: Assassin’s Creed 2

The original Assassin’s Creed was a love or hate affair. While some people enjoyed its impressive world and methodical combat system, others found the repetitive gameplay unbearable and eventually a dealbreaker. Ubisoft Montreal have obviously taken the criticism in, and developed a game that feels monumental in scope and easily bests its predecessor.

From the get-go, Ezio is a much more relatable character than Altair ever was. He’s charming, rich and carefree – pretty much a Renaissance-era playboy. And when the story thrusts you, meaning Ezio, into a deep entanglement of conspiracies and betrayal, you readily take on the responsibility to exact revenge.

After revenge.

The story may approach melodrama territory, but it is Ezio’s good-natured spirit that brings it down to Earth. And unlike Altair, Ezio maintains his affability and is never too grief-stricken or consumed with vengeance. There’s a light-hearted tone to the conversations and it fits in well with the eccentric people of Renaissance Italy.

The main story missions may be based on an ultimate assassination, but they somehow weave in more varied tasks and objectives. You may be meeting up with your buddy Leonardo Da Vinci one moment, or you may be attending some masquerade fair the next. It’s all paced very naturally, with the story and tasks elegantly progressing into one another. There’s always a forward momentum and you never feel that you have nothing to do. There will always be viewpoints to climb to, races to run, treasures to find and expensive art to buy. All of these side missions propel you to explore the vast cities that are signature of the franchise. This time, not only do you get to frolic on rooftops and mingle with the people on street level, secret tombs have been added to the cities. The focus is on platforming and puzzle-solving, often highlighting how varied this game can be.

The control scheme, while feeling instinctive at times, can be difficult to handle at first. Because a lot of it is contextually based, you may find yourself doing something you didn’t intend to. Your stealthy approach may be foiled by a clumsy encounter but it’s forgivable as the game gives you plenty of options to deal with the situation.

I saw a lot of potential in the first Assassin’s Creed game with it’s vast cityscapes and elaborate mythology. It’s great to see Ubisoft retool the game with such elegance and confidence and push out something that is consistently interesting throughout.

Cleaning House: Threevue Review: Fallout 3

Believe it or not, quite a few things happen behind the scenes here at Threevue HQ. For instance, did you know that we spend lots of time procrastinating, napping, and dry-heaving from worry worting? Bet you didn’t. And because we’re so busy, sometimes we let reviews of games slide right through the cracks. Cleaning House is a feature in which we attempt to right the wrongs of our past, and provide you with some quality, half-assed product. Enjoy!

Russ:
Although I don’t want to admit it, I was slightly drawn towards Oblivion. But its mixed reviews and fantasy-world setting were enough to keep me away, anxiously waiting for my swan song (at least initially): Fallout 3 was developed by the same company, and there wasn’t an elf to be found anywhere. I haven’t played a solid RPG in a while – I feel that games like Mass Effect and Fable II were more like “adventure” games than a bonafide grinding/leveling role-playing experience – and I was ready to jump in whole-heartedly.

I’m glad I did. Fallout 3‘s FPS viewpoint brings an intimacy I’ve never experienced in an RPG, and I loved it. Most of my RPG experiences don’t expand beyond the Final Fantasy games, and I’ve never felt any connection with the main characters; but in Fallout 3, I was immersed. If you look beyond the critics’ gripes (mostly just pop-up and somewhat glitchy gameplay) you’ll find yourself dropped into a world that is both parts old and new, ugly and beautiful, frustrating and exhilarating. I completed all 30 missions and discovered 100 locations in less than 40 hours of gameplay, and I was disappointed that my adventure ended so quickly. Thankfully, the DLC extended the experience significantly, although in hindsight I partially wish I had waited for the Game of the Year edition and spent $60 instead of the $110 I paid altogether. Then again, experiencing each new chapter of the game as it was released was a lot of fun, too. At the end of the day, Fallout 3 is one of the best games of 2008 that bled well into 2009, and a truly must-have experience for any Xbox 360 owner.

93/100

Tyler:
Russ said it; Fallout 3 is an experience. And in that experience is a gigantic whirlwind of people, locations, items, enemies and a storyline that sometimes collide into each other in less than favorable ways. In this game’s case, it’s unforeseen glitches. Dead NPCs, prematurely-ended quests and accidental thievery can put a damper on any adventurer’s journey through the wastes. Thankfully these instances in Fallout 3 are hardly game-enders; in fact, they serve to reinforce the notion that this game is massive. So massive that it’s hard to feel satisfied even when completing side-quests. As a player you feel that there has to be more out there, another quest in the next town. That’s what Fallout 3 gives you. Now that’s pretty immersive if you ask me.

While those collisions don’t ruin the game, they do tend to break the illusion and the flow of the play. Added to this are the rickety animations and robotic models of the characters, the repetitive dungeons subways segments and fact that sometimes the game just doesn’t give you clear information and you kill the wrong people or make the wrong deal. I can deal with those things, the only real wish I have for Fallout is the tightening of the shooting. Think of how you firefights in COD4 play out… skillfully, accurately and with a certain finesse, right? Now how about Fallout 3… stiff, analog and not the most fun, am I right? If you don’t agree then just imagine playing the whole game without VATS. Good luck sniping!

I hope it’s clear that I frontloaded this review with all the worst things I have to say. In the end, after playing the game for so many hours, helping the tykes in Little Lamplight, fending off the Garys, leaving Vault 101 for the last time and fighting along with Liberty Prime, I came to really love this game. Like, “one of my favorite games of all time” love it. All of the misgivings I listed above are still there, but like Dennis Quaid in Enemy Mine, I’ve now spent years with something that I originally had trouble dealing with, but after so much time I now I know and love it (and it’s having my baby). I’m still not done with the game, but Ive played it for over 80 hours. With two more DLC packs to go, I’m very hesitant to complete what has been one of the best video game experiences of my life.

95/100

Giang:
Somehow The Wasteland may be described as a barren landscape. At the same time the world feels so full of life. You quickly learn that this infertile land is one of opportunity – quests, loot, a variety of towns and recognisable landmarks that echo a once standing D.C.. And how you approach it is entirely up to you (it is interesting to note that ironically, the Vaults are a place where life is a fruitless existence).

Most of the missions you encounter can offer reward or ramifications. This all ties in the with the game’s Karma system, dictating whether you’re good, evil or neutral. Progression through the main story line will also present you with these choices, even though they are few and far between. And it all climaxes at a rather dissatisfying ending. All NPCs look like wax mannequins and their animations are startlingly underwhelming. Everyone seems to be ice skating and moon jumping across the world, including yourself when you’re in third person view.

Real-time combat can be a frustrating experience if you opt for the FPS controls. The Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System (V.A.T.S.) rather offers players an opportunity to assess and think about how they might approach the situation – something is near impossible with regular shooting controls. You pause time, target a creature (human, dog, mutant, weird lobster thing) and a specific body part (limb, head, tentacles), each one having a percentage of chance to hit. Once that’s done you press play and watch the decapitation unfold in vivid, blood-spraying slow-mo. It’s an incredibly satisfying and fun to watch system, especially if you have the gratuitous ‘Bloody Mess’ perk turned on.

Gaining a level offers players to cash in skill points and a perk, allowing players to customise their game style. You could go all Rambo, with focus of melee attacks, or be the silent killer, picking off enemies with stealth and precision. What you end up with is a character that should be deeply fine tuned to your playing system.

This game is filled with choices. Where to go, what you do and say, who you kill and how you do it. It can get clumsy at some spots, but otherwise it’s a well imagined world that will keep you continually seeking out for more.

93/100

Steve

Gargantuan: (adjective)
enormous; colossal
Epic: (noun)
A literary or dramatic composition that resembles an extended narrative poem celebrating heroic feats

There are a great number of terms that can be used to describe Fallout 3 when trying to give people a better sense of what the game is all about; action-adventure, RPG/FPS hybrid,  and post-apocalyptic science fiction to name just a few of them.  However, the two definitions listed above are probably the two most apt terms I can think of to describe the experience I had playing this game.

To say that Fallout 3 is huge really does do it a disservice; I put in the region of 130 hours of play time into it (including all of the DLC).  This is due in large part to the fact that playing it is like having the videogame equivalent of ADD – it’s far too easy to start what is essentially a simple 30 minute fetch quest, only to find you’ve spent ten hours wandering around, meeting people, finding new quests, getting into random fights, pillaging loot, and becoming genuinely absorbed into the rich world that Bethesda have created.  In my opinion, this quality is Fallout 3′s single greatest strength, and one which had me captivated by the time I left Vault 101.

It’s because the game is so absorbing that it’s easy to forgive much of the games faults: it’s filled with minor glitches, the FPS elements are a little clunky, sometimes choosing the wrong option in a dialogue tree will result in quests being denied to you; couple this with the game’s too-frequent autosave feature, and you can find yourself having to revert to an older save and replaying sections of the game again just to correct a mistake made in the blink of an eye.  It’s also worth noting that using the VATS system slows the combat down to a crawl – whilst I actually quite liked this (though the combat isn’t exactly frenetic, the slower pace does make it feel more methodical – even tactical) it does make the game quite slow in places.  Those who suffer from a lack of patience may not be so ready to forgive this.

However, as previously mentioned, all of these faults are relatively minor when weighed against just how utterly compelling this game is.  Whilst Fallout 3 may be a little technically deficient in places, it has a vast amount of charm.  For example, a side-quest in one of the DLC packs sees you clear an area of enemies; the game then rewards you, not just with XP for completing the quest, but in a strange juxtaposition to all of the violence that’s just occurred, lets you play tag with a child that lives in the area you’ve just cleared out.  After moments like that, I find it hard to say anything bad about this game at all.

94/100