The Lair of the Monkey

A recent marathon session of Fallout 3 set me back at around 2 hours (an extremely long time for me, given that I don’t actually have all that much time to play when I write so much).  I thought I’d tell you what I had:

1. Two coffees
2. A bag of crisps
3. A Mars bar

As you can see from this list, gaming clearly does nothing for your health or fitness, as I consumed rubbish and in essence sat exploring a virtual world.  Yes, this article is tongue-in-cheek…

If you like comedy takes on video games, then look no further than this edition of Stolen Pixels.  It pokes fun at the ‘Perk’ system featured in Fallout 3.  The ‘less crashes’ perk certainly gets my vote, as I’m still having problems with the game.  Most recently, Dad and Prof Li turned blue, apart from their heads, which turned a decidedly zombie-ish green.  Horrifying.  Simply horrifying.

There’s no doubt that little Flash games are brilliant.  You can have a quick bash of them during your lunch break, or you can use them to unwind when you get home, safe in the knowledge that they won’t overly tax you.  Robo-Evolution is a little gem of the genre, where you have to collect various powerups to create the ultimate robot.  Bear in mind there are only a couple of levels, but your robot can start out life as any of these items:

• Egg
• Flower
• Pear
• Lips
• Deep-fried prawn

So, all very strange, mysterious and very Japanese.  I love it.  Go play Robo-Evolution now!

9/10
Whichever system you buy Fallout 3 on, believe the hype.  I never normally say that, but this is truly an epic game in a number of ways…ranging from the many ways in which you can choose how to play the game all the way through to the superb atmosphere provided throughout.  In a different style to my normal reviews, I thought we’d break it down into the component elements:

Graphics
Fallout 3 uses the same engine as The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion (Bethesda’s other masterpiece), and it shows.  Huge vistas are shown before you, with crumbling landscapes, all destroyed by-ways and all manner of interesting buildings just waiting for you to navigate to.  Perhaps one of the most notable areas of improvement however are the character models.  The facial detail is certainly improved.

Does it look good by today’s standards?  Oh yeah.  Even on my laptop I had it running at quite a high resolution – although when there’s a lot going on you may notice a bit of a hit in performance.

Sound
The music is subtle and can add a great deal of tension to the actual gameplay, whilst the sounds can at time have you on edge.  The wilderness is a strange place that should have you on edge – and the effects you’ll hear will provide just that atmosphere.  Character voice acting is on the whole very good, with few jarring moments.

Gameplay
There’s a lot in Fallout 3 that makes it a special game – even the character creation (that brings you up through your various critical moments in the vault of being born, being ten and taking your tests) tells you the game is S.P.E.C.I.A.L.  - which is exactly what the character stat and levelling system is!

To read more, visit my review on Forever Geek.

Well, the review is coming soon, but here are my initial thoughts on this game from Bethesda:

• Excellent character creation system
• V.A.T.S. works well - which I’m surprised at
• Excellent, tense action sequences
• Good character models
• Some side quests to rival the main story
• Some slightly tedious fetch and retrieve quests
• A few crashes - Bethesda have already mentioned there’ll be a patch

I’m really glad the game is living up to my expectations and the best element so far is the ability to just wander off wherever you like.  A briliant sci-fi, action, blackly humerous RPG.

Kotaku has a brilliant excerpt from another article about Half-Life 2.

The crux of it is that Gordon Freeman remains silent in order for us to be more immersed in the game and experience it on a whole new level.

Do you believe this?  Here’s my response:

Obviously this post is a little late - but then this is being uploaded on All Hallows’ Day so it’s not that far off.  With that in mind, before I go and cook something like pumpkin pie, let’s see what you could (or should) have been playing on the ’scariest game of the year’:

• Forbidden Siren (pictured)
• Silent Hill (just about any of them)
• Resident Evil 4 (it does have some spooky moments, especially at the start)
• Clock Tower
• Condemned

There are other horror games out there that are more than worth a look - and Dead Space is a brilliant game with a fantastically scary sci-fi horror edge.  I’d go so far as to say it does for games what Alien did for sci-fi.  More info as I get to grips with it.  I’m off to go and make that pumpkin pie and find more horror films to watch as Resident Evil 4 isn’t as scary with an AK-47 with infinite bullets…

Yes that’s right, the game has finally arrived for review.

This is in part due to my missing the postman and having to wait until I can pick it up, but first impressions are very good indeed.  As mentioned in the title, the copy is the PC version and I can reassure you that the game looks bloody brilliant.

More to the point, the character creation has you being born and developing your character at different ages to decide your stats, skills etc.  Just brilliant.  I’m not out of the Vault yet but as soon as I am making sure to catch up with the rest of my news in a future post on The Lair of the Monkey gaming blog.  I can’t wait to get my hands on the V.A.T.S. system and the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. character stats system (whilst annoying to type) is a joy for players of the original games!

Yes, that’s Tanooki Mario.  Perhaps we should just take this back to the idea that this is, in fact, Mario.  See the title above?  Gaming has changed so much compared to the ‘good old days’ and it’s this gaming blogger’s take that the good old days weren’t in fact that good - if that’s what we had to interact with.  So, this is why gaming is better:

1. These days, gaming is much more sophisticated
2. This graphical representation, this avatar, isn’t self-depreciating or self-referencing - it’s merely silly
3. Gaming isn’t just about a quick moment of fun any more, it’s moved into the realm of art.  So much so, that we now have games like Silent Hill, Shadow of the Colossus and Brothers In Arms
4. If gaming never tried to reach out and be more than this, we’d have very little today
5. Would you play games if you were controlling him?  I doubt it, you’ve been fed way too much GTA

Ultimately, gaming has moved on an incredible amount since these early beginnings, which really makes me wonder why Nintendo hasn’t followed suit.  Instead, it has found a formula that has worked - in the form of the Wii and DS.  However, that means it has left many of us behind.  Nintendo, I salute you - but as long as you insist on using these caricatures then I’m afraid I won’t be having fun with your franchises in the future.  Let’s let Mario et al go to pasture for a while eh?

Originally when I received my Nokia N95, I saw that it could run Java applications etc, so I was expecting it to handle some very simple games.  However, I’ve had some fun with Orcs & Elves (a roleplayer in a similar graphical style to the original Doom) and Burnout - which was by far and away the most fun I’ve had on a mobile platform in some significant time.  Not since Tetris did I feel this grabbed - except for the controls.  It just doesn’t feel up to the mark, with cars more akin to trucks in their handling.  Nonetheless, the game remains a lot of fun.

Will mobile phones ever be a real, viable gaming platform or will they continue to serve up fodder that’s too slow, too demanding on the processor or simply ill-thought out for the medium?  I’m not sure I know the answer here, but I do know that there are a wealth of older genres (such as puzzlers like Myst) that could work really, really well.