What are you playing?

uh oh

o _ o

boe's undertale trigger strikes again

Metal gear was supposed to be the best Story driven game this year. Fallout was supposed to be right behind it. The only one I feel did a good job of being a great game with a great story was The Witcher 3. If you told me last year I'd think a Witcher game would be higher on my list than entries from kojima and bethesda, I'd have asked you to lay off the drugs.

Fallout games have never been particularly story-driven. The main character speaks in Fallout 4, but the story isn't really any deeper than it has been in the other entries. Because they're sandboxes, the elegance of the Fallout games (especially Fallout 3 onwards) is that they manage tell hundreds of small stories using very limited exposition. The stories that play out amongst the world's pre-war and post-war inhabitants via small things like terminal entries and holotapes and diaries and object placement are pretty eloquent at times, painting a broad picture with very little. There are so many unmarked, non-quest related stories that you can find in the Fallout games that are really clever, short-stories and I think they more than make up for the lack of a central storyline because they make the world feel very, very alive. The post-Fallout 3 games certainly wouldn't work without them, because they're a large part of what makes exploring the wasteland entertaining and interesting.

But yeah, expecting the game to be story-driven as far as the central plot goes? That's never been the case nor the intention. It's a sandbox, it's much more about world-building than the central plot.

That part of fallout you're describing is still there. using things like terminals and the world around you to paint a picture of this post apocalypse is still there in spades. the environment guys didn't take a day off.
The problem lies with them deciding that they wanted the PLAYER to build all the major towns besides like 3-5 of them and in doing so made the wasteland feel empty. the remaining interesting places were inhabited by raiders who automatically start shooting as soon as they spot you.

What the fuck was the point of having a combat arena where they have fights and gamble on them or a robot race track where they do a similar thing and then just make everything immediately go hostile when you approach.  The only living beings that are not hostile and not unnamed npcs exist in like one of a handful of places.


Fallout 3 had tons of little towns with people, who usually had quests (that weren't ambient repeatable shit) for you to do. Fallout 4 just doesn't and feels lifeless because of it. I can build cool settlements all day but when all the npc's are unamed settlers why the fuck should i bother?

The race track was the worst of it, I think.

I was playing Fallout 1 and I was in some town, talking to people and thought the people seemed a little assholy. It didn't really bother me much, but when I was about to leave I thought to check who these people even were. Raiders lo.
It's annoying that bethesda has taken the laz route and just made all the raider in the game hostile. (Or atleast 99.9% I think there's like 2 that will talk to you in FO3.)

I'm hoping for a mod that allows you to talk to the race track dudes and maybe even bet on races.

I actually thought that was a strong part of the narrative. The idea that the Minutemen were the only thing really holding things together out in the Wasteland is driven home by how ridiculously lawless everywhere is outside of Goodneighbour and Diamond City. It's not like the Railroad can help keep things together because they need to stay hidden, and The Institute clearly have no interest in helping those above ground given the distrust that exists between them and the rest of the Commonwealth. Essentially, The Commonwealth is an area where there's a very recent power vacuum that's been left by the disintegration of the Minutemen, and given that none of the more "civil" powers in the area are willing (or able) to fill that vacuum it makes sense that the Commonwealth is largely full of lawless scum. So it didn't really bother me one bit that there weren't more settlements that were friendly, because I thought it added much more to the world-building and the narrative than it took away. Especially when you consider the fact that terminal entries etc. add a lot of background to the infighting between different settlements of Raiders that you find dotted around the landscape, which I thought was a really good touch because it added more to the Raiders than just having them all be faceless and unnamed would.

Fallout 4 pros: open world, lots of stuff to collect, settlement building and crafting is neat, gunplay is awesome and much better than fallout 3, exploration is rewarding

Fallout 4 cons: dialogue is indisputably awful, settlement building gets old quick, nothing feels handcrafted, quests have the originality of a free to play mmo, you can do a lot of stuff but it feels as though there's no point to most of it

Bethesda's writing team from the days of morrowind and oblivion have completely disbanded by now and it shows. Todd Howard and his crew released an entertaining game, but it feels half baked. Even if they intended it as a sandbox, its still a half baked sandbox because resources are so limited in the fallout universe by design. I still really like the game. But I feel like anyone who would choose it as game of the year over something like witcher 3 must be misinformed. IN MY OPINION

I haven't played either Fallout or Witcher, but I have seen Malson play both them quite a bit. Of the two, I'd be more likely to pick up the Witcher in a heartbeat. The quests are interesting, the dialogue is well-written, the gameplay is fun to watch, and the overall look of the game is beautiful. I got pretty bored watching him play Fallout... The gameplay just didn't look fun, nor did the dialogue seem particularly interesting.

wow that is racistism ok

wow yuyu hates sand people

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsELFp6s-lo" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsELFp6s-lo</a>

also halo
let's be real here though who doesn't?

yes >:| it's tru

I was trying to play through Xenoblade X, but... Ugh... It just didn't rope me in like Xenoblade Chronicles did.
I want to finish it, but it's taking me waaaaay longer than expected.

*sigh*

Dark Souls and Dark Souls 3.
I beat Dark Souls 3, and that made me want to play the first again.

[spoils]Dark Souls 2 can rot and die. I have no want to play that again. Before 3, I disliked 2. Now after playing 3, 2 feels unplayable. Didn't think I'd come to hate 2 any more than I already did.[/spoils]

EDIT: Oh yeah, also I'm playing Witcher 2.

I was trying to play through Xenoblade X, but... Ugh... It just didn't rope me in like Xenoblade Chronicles did.
I want to finish it, but it's taking me waaaaay longer than expected.

*sigh*

We watched Malson's roommate played Xenoblade X and he had several complaints about it (especially with the music and characters)... He stopped playing once he got to a certain point where it was supposed to "get better" and said that it was still awful. o_o

I really wanna play Xenoblade Chronicles though! ;_;

I was trying to play through Xenoblade X, but... Ugh... It just didn't rope me in like Xenoblade Chronicles did.
I want to finish it, but it's taking me waaaaay longer than expected.

*sigh*

We watched Malson's roommate played Xenoblade X and he had several complaints about it (especially with the music and characters)... He stopped playing once he got to a certain point where it was supposed to "get better" and said that it was still awful. o_o

I really wanna play Xenoblade Chronicles though! ;_;

You know, the music is just about the only ok thing with XBX, but it still is def put to shame compared to the first game, that's an absolute certainty.

And I also have to agree that XBX is just a PAIN to play - they tried so hard to make it sci-fi that they took away the fantasy and adventure out of the story, even made the gameplay and locations just downright confusing which totally takes the FUN out of it. The characters are pretty blah in comparison, and it doesn't feel consistent with the first when you get to play an ACTUAL protagonist and instead are prompted to create your own toon that literally says nothing in the game. Boring.

The landscapes are designed beautifully, creatures very first-game feel, but it just lacks the story. Honestly.
And without the story, it is just... Yeah, I'm not really sure if I NEED to finish it by this point. XD
If I do, I have to actually re-start the game and put it on Easy Mode down from Normal because Normal is like playing on hardcore mode and just frustrating as all get-out, and I'm the type of person that isn't easily stumped by console games and it bothers the hell out of me. XD

*sigh*


But Xenoblade Chronicles I could sing praises about until I'm blue in the face.
It is actually my FAVORITE game now.
Just beautifully created, from the scenery, to the characters, to the story, and even the gameplay is fun.
It was a JOY to play. I played it back-to-back after I finished the first go, and I have never done that with a game.

Definitely play it. It's awesome. :3

I played some of Amnesia: Dark Descent today. This game is not scary. Everyone that said it is scary is a giant WUSS ok. OOOOO these rooms are dark !!! \/\/ ( ) \/\/ there's strange noises sometimes !!!! WHOA THE WIND IS BLOWING

Let me just say: *yawn*

Puzzles so far haven't been very interesting so I'm not sure if there will be enough to keep my interest. It has a good atmosphere, at least, but wow this game was incredibly overhyped.

it takes more than dark rooms, strange noises, and blowing wind to scare a leader of the hard rock buttcracks gang !!

That's true

Also Amnesia is boring as shit. I remember when it came out and everyone on RMRK was like "omg so scary" but what the fuck. Most overhyped horror game ever. Hardest thing about the puzzles is being able to do them in the dark. SO SPOOKY

I just want to make sure everyone knows it's a boring game, and that everyone who was afraid of it should feel bad.

if you recall I played it back then because roph wanted me to stream it, I was so bored that roph stopped watching because I wasn't scared, it's 90% attempts at jump scares.

If it had good puzzles maybe, but the only "puzzle" I ran into before I quit was wander around and find items to be allowed press the use key on a chemistry set for some reason.

I'm playing Dead Siland.

if you recall I played it back then because roph wanted me to stream it, I was so bored that roph stopped watching because I wasn't scared, it's 90% attempts at jump scares.

If it had good puzzles maybe, but the only "puzzle" I ran into before I quit was wander around and find items to be allowed press the use key on a chemistry set for some reason.

I don't remember that but that definitely sounds like roph lol.

I stuck around in hopes the puzzles would be interesting but they just weren't. They could have been though. You need to create an acid to dissolve this mysterious biological tissue blocking your path, and must acquire the ingredients and create it? Cool! Oh... you don't actually have to create it correctly or anything, you just put everything in a bottle and the ingredients are found along the only path you can take...

After that the only puzzles are encountering locked doors and finding the key in the only other place you can look, and figuring out how to open locked doors while hiding from enemies.

I got past the prison and to the beginning of the sewer and stopped there. The infamous "water" part of the game was not scary. It was tense but I wasn't like OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD it was just "dangit I gotta run and jump correctly or I'll be dead". The prison wasn't hard like everyone said, it was just "hide behind barrels until the thing goes away", and if the thing sees you and it's too late I never screamed and ran in terror I just figured "well, I'm dead" and stood there and let it kill me and started again because there's no punishment for dying. And usually dying starts you in a better location than you were in, plus you keep all your progress, so hey.

I'm playing Dead Siland.

me2

right, like it wasn't scary it was just like "shit i better not let this thing spot me or i have to play the game longer."

I'm playing Sydney's World right now.
Inclusive a let's play. (\ô/)

If, like me, you think Kirby is amazing, and a high point in our industry's history of game design, don't hesitate to get it.

If you think Kirby is a stupid child's game nothing here will change your mind.