A lot of things have happened since I began Fallout: New Vegas. I got a dog. I turned 30. A new year began. I became a PS3 owner. I actually had put down New Vegas after the first 15 hours and my impressions – I got distracted by Starcraft and other things. When I picked it back up, my goal was to blow through the main storyline so I could get to Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, which I’m dying to play. That was over two weeks ago (fifty hours of game time). Turns out Fallout: New Vegas, is a lot better than I thought.

War Gets More Complicated
And that’s a good thing. When I got back into the game, I thought powering through the main storyline was going to be easy. I think you could probably finish the entire game in 10-12 hours if you skipped all the sidequests. There’s one problem. It’s IMPOSSIBLE to resist the sidequests (for me, at least. Further proof I should never buy WoW).

New Vegas takes you to the Mojave Wasteland, the surrounding areas around New Vegas. Like Fallout 3, there are a lot of things to see and do. Unlike Fallout 3, the quests in New Vegas present a more cohesive picture of the entire wasteland and the story benefits greatly from this. You play as the courier, a man or woman tasked with bringing a platinum chip to the enigmatic Mr. House who rules over New Vegas. After an ignominious beginning, you go on a quest to get revenge on those who have wronged you – a quest that ultimately determines the very FATE OF NEW VEGAS ITSELF.

While it seems hokey, Obsidian, the makers of the original Fallout games, have done an amazing job with the story. New to Fallout: New Vegas is the concept of factions. In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, various tribes and groups have risen to varying degrees of power. In your travails across the wasteland you interact with all of these groups, and depending on your interactions with them, they take varying views on your character. You can go anywhere from Idolized to Vilified and all the stops in between, including neat halfway reputations like “Soft-Hearted Devil.”

The reputation system isn’t a cheap substitute for the karma system either (which is still there, although I’m not sure why). Your reputations with various groups has a direct bearing on how the endgame plays out. Your various alliances and enemies play out in one huge clash in the end. While the payoff wasn’t as big as it could have been, I still loved the endgame.

Fallout: New Vegas is a bit like a chess game. The bulk of the game involves multiple pieces moving into place for one final confrontation – where the pieces ends up depend a lot on the player’s actions. It made me feel like my actions had much more of a consequence, and subsequently made me want to finish all the quests. Like Fallout 3: when New Vegas ends, it just ends – but the ending sequence is wrapped up more nicely and you get to see what happens to all the major players. It’s a nice touch, though I still would have preferred to keep playing with my save.

War with Friends
One other thing I’d like to note is the improved companion system. I felt like companions were kind of random add-ons in Fallout 3. Despite over sixty hours in that game, I don’t think I ever even found the dog. In New Vegas, however, I thought the companions were great additions to my party. For starters, I though each of them had interesting and compelling backstories which made them fun to fight with. A lot of the companions come from the different factions in the world, so you get more insight into those factions through their eyes.

Secondly, each companion has a sort of “loyalty quest”, to borrow a term from Mass Effect 2, that can upgrade their abilities. Some of these quests are unmarked, but all of them are pretty interesting. Obsidian has done a great job with characterization, each of the companions is unique and their loyalty quests dig even more into their characters. It’s a lot of fun and yields benefits in combat as well.

Speaking of combat, even though it’s the same dice roll-based combat with VATS from Fallout 3, the fact that you can bring two companions along with you (one mech, one human) really helps things out. A lot of times I just moved into a position that put my companions at an advantage and they mopped up the opposition. It’s still a bit weird that you can line an enemy up in their crosshairs and not hit them because of probabilities, but I got used to it in the first game so it didn’t bother me here.

War with Bugs
Unfortunately, it should be noted that bugs still exist in New Vegas, and I’m not talking about radroaches. My game locked up three or four times over the course of my entire playthrough, although I’ve had friends complain about more lockups. Most things have been fixed with patches so you should be good to go if you play now, but it’s still not a perfect experience. The framerate dips sometimes and I’ve even heard of “invisible” Deathclaws. Thank goodness I never met one of those. I should also mention that sometimes the map system sucks.

Bugs aside, Fallout is still great. I especially loved trips into the vaults, which provided some of the most challenging gameplay I experienced. The stories of the vaults are very clever, so even though your character doesn’t start out as a vault dweller (a first), you still get the feel of what vault life is like.

War Never Changes
There’s so much more I want to say about the game, but I think you can tell by now that I really enjoyed it. I want to go back and play through some of the other storylines, since the story can end any one of four ways (and the sub-stories have multiple endings as well). I didn’t even get to mention how fun it is to gamble, flying ghouls, funny jokes, and new perks.

If I had one word to describe Fallout: New Vegas, it would be the word BIG. The story feels big. The world is super big. The conflict is big. It even hits upon politics, which is impressive. It’s such a massive undertaking that I’m willing to forgive the bugs and problems. It’s just an amazing experience that is not to be missed. I’d suggest taking on this game during a lull in your gaming, because it will definitely take up a bunch of your time. If you loved Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas is a definite upgrade in my opinion. If you can only buy one game for the next three months, New Vegas will do you right. Check it out.

Final Grade: A-

Our Awards & Holiday Shopping Guide are just about done, but today I get to talk about some of my favorite categories. Which stories really stuck with me this year? What new IPs are out there that might stand the test of time? And how do all the sequels this year stack up? Hit the jump to find out!

Best Story

Mass Effect 2
Alan Wake
Heavy Rain
Red Dead Redemption [winner]
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West
Fallout: New Vegas

I really enjoy the stories in games, and this year had a few good ones. Mass Effect 2 didn’t necessarily live up to the story of the original, but I still enjoyed the story a lot. Even though it was mostly about building up your squad, I found the back stories and personalities of each character very compelling. Mass Effect 2 isn’t the greatest story, but it’s still an enjoyable ride, and the last mission is a great payoff.

Alan Wake almost won this category, until we realized the ending was a bit cheesy. It’s too bad, because this story about a horror fiction in a creepy lake town had all the makings of a real winner. The ambiance, the twists and turns in the story, and the premise are all great. It’s just too bad the “twist” at the end is a little too cliche. Still, Alan Wake is a story worthy of Stephen King.

I loved Heavy Rain and was seriously considering picking it as the winner as well. Then I started thinking about it more, and realized that if this is the STORY category, Heavy Rain just has too many plot holes to win the category. It’s still a great story, but there is a website out there that points out all the plot holes (Google it if you’re interested). I really enjoyed searching for a serial killer and the dark story – it’s just…did I mention plot holes? As a game, though, the plot holes are kind of fun!

At first, Red Dead Redemption seemed like a long shot, but I eventually decided to give the game a try. I’m glad I did, and Red Dead Redemption ended up winning Leveling Down’s Best Story award. Red Dead Redemption is a great……redemption story, one with a cool main character, a unique old school western world, and a lot of fun side missions. GTA IV kind of wore on me at the end because Niko’s character rang hollow – I don’t feel the same way about John Marston. The story keeps you wanting more, and the ending really tugs at the heart strings.

My runner up in this category is Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. Red Dead Redemption is a deeper, more nuanced story. Enslaved is a summer blockbuster. The story is a fast and action packed ride that never stops. You are moving from locale to locale, set piece to set piece as the game just barrels on towards it’s conclusion. It’s a lot of fun: the popcorn flick of this year’s crop of video games.

Not surprisingly, Fallout: New Vegas rounds out the nominees in Best Story. Obsidian, the makers of the original Fallouts, did an amazing job with the story. They have taken all the great things in Fallout 3 but improved on the story. New Vegas involves a series of different warring factions and you have to decide where your loyalties will lie. It’s a lot of fun and feels a lot bigger and graver than Fallout 3′s story: that’s a great thing.

Best New IP

Bayonetta [winner - tie]
Darksiders
MAG
Heavy Rain
Alan Wake
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West [winner - tie]
Vanquish

It was actually kind of tough to come up with a winner in this category. As espion4ge has mentioned, 2010 kind of feels like the year of the sequel.

espion4ge chose Bayonetta as his winner in this category. He absolutely loved this game, and this is what he had to say about it:
When I think of the Best New IP category, I think of the game that I would like to see a sequel from moreso than any other. Since Bayonetta was my favorite action/adventure game of the year, I can’t imagine anyone being surprised that this is the game I would love to see a sequel from most. The game had what I considered perfect gameplay design, oozed a sexy style in its female protagonist and combat mechanics, and has set the new bar for action/adventure games. If other current action/adventure games matched the level of gameplay that Bayonetta provided, I wouldn’t be as zealous to play a new Bayonetta sequel. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to see anything out now or on the horizon that can provide this old-school hardcore gamer the thrills and highs that Bayonetta could. Even if the sequel has a storyline as non-coherent as the first, with the gameplay so good, I won’t even care. Now Platinum – please release a sequel!

Darksiders feels like a Zelda knock-off, but in a good way. The game feels like an homage to Zelda, but a worthy game in and of itself. Even though it feels like Zelda, the premise is very un-Zelda: in a post-apocalyptic world, you play as one of the four horsemen in the apocalypse. Instead of killing weird things that shoot rocks out of their mouths, you are killing angels and demons. Anyway, Darksiders is a lot of fun and a nice little new IP.

MAG (Massive Action Game) is a super ambitious first person shooter on the PS3 that almost lived up to the hype. It allows up to 256 players to duke it out in massive battles. More interestingly, there is a promotion system where you can work your way up from a grunt to a commander who oversees squads in battle. It takes unlockables in a new direction, and a sequel should be coming soon.

Now while the story was riddled with holes, Heavy Rain as a whole is an amazing new IP. Quantic Dream billed it as interactive drama, and it stands as one of the most unique games released this year. The control scheme makes a player really feel like a part of the action, and the different ways that the story can play out really make your decisions feel weighty and important. I doubt there will be a sequel (it wouldn’t make sense), but I’d love to see another game in this vein released.

Alan Wake is also a great new IP, and the story was continued through various DLC offerings. I’m pretty sure the series could still sustain a sequel, although there’s not much more for me to say that I didn’t say in Best Story.

My winner in this category is Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. Besides being a popcorn flick, this game is also a lot of fun. The gameplay is pretty simple to pick up, but deep enough not to get boring. It also takes place in a unique post-apocalyptic world, a completely different world than Darksiders. I really hope this game gets a sequel, but I don’t know if it has the niche following that Bayonetta does – my fingers are crossed!

Rounding out this category is Vanquish, a third person shooter that takes place in the future (but not post apocalyptic! Seriously, what is with the future!?) You have an awesome suit. You fight Russians. DARPA is involved. It’s kind of like Metal Gear Solid, minus sneaking and extended cut scenes but plus Gears of War type action. The game has kind of flown under the radar, but with mostly positive reviews, it’s worth a look.

Best Sequel

Mass Effect 2 [winner - tie]
BioShock 2
Dead Rising 2
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Civilization V
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty [winner - tie]

To start things off, here’s espion4ge:
How does one decide on the best sequel for a game among this year’s so many sequels? I like to think of a Best Sequel as a sort of “Most Improved” award. What sequel among this list of nominees has considerably improved over its predecessor? While all the games in this category are good in their own way, some of them are arguably not better than their predecessor. Mass Effect 2 is a definite huge improvement over the first one. In my review of the first one years ago, I was actually not a huge fan of the game at all. The storyline was interesting, but the game itself was short, the scope of the world was tiny with mundane optional planets to drive around, and the Achievements were poorly designed (how many times am I supposed to go through this game?). Bioware listened to all of the negative feedback from the first game, and fixed every issue I had with the original game – making the sequel an amazing product. The game is lengthy now, the galaxy feels a lot more vast, there are new characters to recruit, and even the choices you made in the first game affect the sequel – something that I have not ever seen done before to this degree. In short, Mass Effect 2 is the best sequel of the year and I applaud the developers for learning from the first game.

People weren’t sure that Bioshock 2 should even have made, but in the end it turned out pretty well. Even though it couldn’t top the story of the original, subtle tweaks to the gameplay and plasmids along with a brand new protagonist AND antagonist combined to make a game that drew on all the great aspects of the first. Thus Bioshock 2 is a solid sequel, it isn’t a major improvement but it didn’t feel like a cheap cash in either.

Dead Rising 2, on the other hand, did feel a bit like a cash in. Ameliorating that feeling is the fact that the original came out like four years ago. Dead Rising 2 is one of those sequels that feels exactly like its predecessor, for better or worse. It’s still the same zombie killing fun you remember from Dead Rising, but it also contains a lot of the same glitches and bad design choices as well. It’s a game for fans of the original, but I’d personally recommend Case Zero.

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, feels like a major expansion pack to Assassin’s Creed 2 – an awesome one. You get to gallivant through the one major city in Italy you missed, Rome, while advancing the story and setting things up for Assassin’s Creed 3. The combat has been streamlined for the better – one of the few things I didn’t like about Assassin’s Creed 2. More importantly, there is this awesome new guild of assassins that you can use to do your assassinations for you. How is that not a winner?

Of course, a list of best sequels wouldn’t be complete without the token Call of Duty game. Treyarch seems determined to get out of Infinity Ward’s shadow, and Call of Duty: Black Ops is their best Call of Duty game yet. With an interesting single player and a slower but more balanced feeling multiplayer, Black Ops is a solid entry in the series. I wish they could have included SpecOps, but with so much to do on one disc, it’s tough to complain.

As espion4ge pointed out elsewhere, if you are interested in jumping into a time machine and traveling 24 hours into the future without knowing where the time went, Civilization V is your best bet. The game has become more user-friendly and accessible and is still just as addicting. What that pretty much means is that you’ll get addicted faster. Civ V is THE turn based strategy game, and you could feasibly get by playing ONLY Civ V for the next year.

Speaking of games you can play for one year straight, my winner in this category is Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty. Although it feels a lot like the original, Blizzard has made a lot of tweaks for a better experience. The interface has become easier to use with “smart” groups, making the gameplay more accessible and less frustrating. The addition of the Wing Commander-esque navigation menus between missions is a lot of fun, and the story is great and ends on a nice cliffhanger. The only thing bad I have to say about Starcraft 2 is that it gets me in trouble with my wife. It’s difficult for me to pay attention to her when my allies are in combat!

Welcome to Leveling Down’s 3rd Annual Gaming Awards/Holiday Shopping Guide! For those of you that are first time readers of our awards/holiday shopping guide, cmfl3x and I have basically compiled a list of various games released this year into different categories. We choose a “winner” of each category, but at the same time, all games mentioned as nominees in each category are worth considering – hence, the shopping guide aspect of it. If you can only pick one game from the category, go with the winner. If you enjoy that category a lot, consider checking out all of the nominees on that list!

As cmfl3x and I discussed the various categories and selected winners for each one, some categories we did not always agree on the same winner. This year, instead of forcing one another to see agree on the same game, we have instead allowed for ties – so there is a potential of two winners for each category. Our gaming tastes are not exactly the same and I didn’t think any of you would gain much from us forcing only one winner.

Our 2010 Gaming/Awards/Holiday Shopping Guide will span across all gaming platforms, and will run over the next two weeks on our normal Monday, Wednesday, and Friday posting schedule. Next Friday’s entry will conclude this year’s feature with our 2010 Game of the Year.

Without further ado, hit the jump for today’s categories: Best Action/Adventure Game and Best Role Playing Game.

Best Action/Adventure Game of 2010

Bayonetta [winner - tie]
Darksiders
God of War III
Alan Wake
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood [winner - tie]

For those that don’t know much about Bayonetta, it’s basically like Devil May Cry, but on crack and stars a female protagonist covered in her own hair. Everything is over the top: guns strapped to boots, combos that end with her hair forming huge fists to crush opponents – the list goes on. The crazy part about it all is that everything about it works. While the storyline is lacking in Bayonetta, it’s a game that is an exhilarating rush from start to finish and the most enjoyable action/adventure game I’ve played this console generation. Of course, Bayonetta is a little more heavy on the action than the adventure part of the category, but for those not bothered by the lack of a strong storyline will be in for a treat with this game. It’s my pick for  2010 Best Action/Adventure game of the year.

2010 kicked off the year with a great start with same day release of both Bayonetta and Darksiders. For those of you that recall, I was dismayed how when I went to pick up Bayonetta on launch day at my local Gamestop, I was surprised that there was a lot more hype for another game called Darksiders – a game I had never heard of until the day I picked up Bayonetta. I’m actually about to start playing Darksiders (finally) for the first time now, and from what I hear, it’s gotten good reviews as it seems to combine the adventure elements of Legend of Zelda with the darker themes of God of War. In short – if you ever wanted to play a darker Zelda-like game in HD, Darksiders is the way to go. The sequel has already been announced, so get a move on!

God of War III is the final God of War game in the epic trilogy that began on the PS2. For fans of the first two games, God of War III is a spectacular and epic conclusion to the tale in glorious HD. One of the major strengths of the God of War games is its epic storyline revolving around the God-killer, Kratos. God of War III is no exception, but if you have not played the first two, I highly recommend picking up the God of War: Collection as they have been redone for the PS3. Don’t start the God of War series with God of War III – end with it!

I just completed Alan Wake this past weekend, and while my conclusion about the game wasn’t exemplary, I realize that it’s mainly because it doesn’t pander well to a hardcore gamer like myself. But for those that sit in-between the hardcore “Bayonetta action gamer” and the “Wii Sports only” casual gamer, Alan Wake is great. It presents an interesting tale with enough hand-holding that it makes for a great action/adventure game to share with those that are looking for a game with a more spooky theme and yet aren’t too quick with the controller.

Surprisingly, I have not picked up Castlevania: Lords of Shadow yet. It’s a reboot to the series developed by a small Spanish studio with Hideo Kojima, the guy behind Metal Gear Solid, overlooking part of its development. I got a chance to check out the demo, and it seems to play similar to the God of War games, but with a more European look and feel. God of War fans will most likely enjoy this game, as it felt very similar to me but I’m sure it has Castlevania touches.

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is developer Ninja Theory’s first multi-platform title after their 2007 PS3 exclusive, Heavenly Sword. In Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, players control a man named Monkey, who travels with Trip, a woman who has pretty much enslaved him and “forces him” to help her in her quest. The action/adventure aspect of the game revolves around Monkey’s vast combat abilities as they encounter all manners of mech-like enemies on their travels. cmfl3x got a chance to play through this one and had a lot of positive things to say about it.

The final major action/adventure title released this year was Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. cmfl3x felt that this was his winner for Action/Adventure game of the year, and here’s what he had to say about it:
While Bayonetta is a worthy winner in this category, that game is a bit too crazy for my tastes. I personally prefer the simple running and jumping in the Assassin’s Creed series, and the ability to be stealthy and sneaky. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, adds another fun gameplay element to the mix – now you can use your guild to assassinate people. This involves assassin’s dropping in from the sky, appearing from the shadows, and other awesome methods of murder. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, has also simplified the fighting, adding an Arkham Asylum-esque button press/timing system. Sure, the game is pretty similar to Assassin’s Creed 2, just with a few new bells and whistles, but I asked myself, “Is that such a bad thing?” Probably not.

Best Role Playing Game of 2010

Mass Effect 2 [winner]
Final Fantasy XIII
Resonance of Fate
Nier
Fallout: New Vegas
Fable III

Among the role playing games of 2010, it was an easy choice for both cmfl3x and me to select Mass Effect 2 as the Role Playing Game of the Year. While the game lacks the hardcore stats and gear collecting of more traditional role playing games, Mass Effect 2 manages to do something that I didn’t think was possible: present a stream-lined role playing game that is highly enjoyable for gamers of all types. The developers seem to have made nearly all the right choices and focusing the game on what’s fun. The amount of speech and speech choices that Mass Effect 2 provides is staggering, and go a long way in providing a unique role playing game experience. It is the quintessential game that anyone can play – even non-RPG fans. The quality of the game is top notch, and for those that have yet to play the game on the PC or Xbox 360, it’s probably worth checking out the first game just to appreciate its storyline better – even though it is rougher around the edges. For Playstation 3 owners, don’t fret: Mass Effect 2 will be released on the Playstation 3 early next year, with a summary of Mass Effect 1 included.

I was not a big fan of Final Fantasy XIII, but I think it’s such a major RPG title that it is one worth considering. The game is a very linear RPG throughout its 50 hour course. I did enjoy the combat mechanism of having to switch character classes on the fly during combat, but when that’s the only thing the game has going for it for 50 hours, it got old fast for me. Ironically, once you beat the game, the entire world and sidequests open up, and that’s where you are then able to do the hardcore Japanese RPG farming for resources to construct elite gear. Will people last that long? It’s really up to you – I can imagine some not even lasting past the first 20 hours since all of that is basically the tutorial, but for those that have a special fondness for Final Fantasy, maybe this game will still be up your ally.

Interestingly enough, while Final Fantasy XIII made some departures that left the more traditionalist Japanese RPG fans out in the cold, another Japanese RPG, Resonance of Fate, was released one week later. While Final Fantasy XIII made gameplay changes that seemed to really polarize opinions of gamers, Resonance of Fate is probably the best Japanese RPG game for fans of more classic Japanese RPG games as this game comes from tri-Ace, the Japanese studio that brought us Infinite Undiscovery, Star Ocean, and Valkyrie Profile. In Resonance of Fate, the game takes place in the future, with combat revolving more on action and gunplay. While the storyline is typical Japanese RPG fare, the one thing that Resonance of Fate does that Final Fantasy XIII could not was keep the traditional Japanese RPG gameplay elements that fans of the genre have come to grow and love.

Another highly underrated Japanese RPG that was released this year is Square-Enix’s Nier. Final Fantasy XIII, Resonance of Fate, and Nier were the three primary RPGs that came out of Japan this year, and while they all tried to innovate in various ways, only Resonance of Fate and Nier kept traditional gameplay elements alongside their new features. Nier is a bit more of an action-RPG game, as players take control of the sword-wielding Nier, who looks for a cure for his daughter. While critics seemed to have panned Nier (as a Japanese RPG fan, I don’t really trust Western critics on their JRPG reviews), it tends to get a lot better reviews from actual Japanese RPG fans.

Fallout: New Vegas is the next major Fallout title after 2008′s Fallout 3. New Vegas uses the same engine as Fallout 3, but takes place in New Vegas and is developed by a different studio comprised of several people that worked on the original Fallout 1 and 2 games. While the game is not quite innovative and at times feels like more of an expansion to Fallout 3 than its own standalone game, fans of Fallout 3 will no doubt enjoy this game.

Fable III rounds out the RPG category for this year, and like Fallout: New Vegas, is the next game in the series after the last one in 2008. While it is a decent game in and of itself (and probably a pretty good game to get into for those that have never played the series before), Fable III makes some drastic changes from the previous title that do not seem to sit well with long-time fans of the series. With the amount of features simplified/streamlined, some even call the game Fable 1.9 – as in a game that feels more like a predecessor of Fable 2 than its sequel. But, like Final Fantasy XIII, there are people that enjoy the game, so consider checking out the various reviews to see if it’s the right RPG for you.

Stay tuned for Wednesday when cmfl3x presents the next categories: Best Live Arcade/PSN Game, Best Music Game, and Best Multiplayer Game!

Maybe I’ve leveled down after all. I had been planning to write impressions on Black Ops single player today, but I still haven’t gotten past the fifth mission. I’m stuck halfway through DJ Hero’s tracklist because I’ve been too lazy to switch the disc. I have a whopping 20 (or 30?) points in Fallout: New Vegas. What’s happened to me? It can’t just be cmr3x…can it?

Although I have a lot of new responsibilities taking care of cmr3x, I don’t think she is the issue. Consider:

Fact: When I started playing Fallout: New Vegas, I didn’t look up any of the Achievements. In fact, about ten hours in I noticed I had only gotten one or two of the Achievements. At that point I flipped through the Achievement list, but I still didn’t bother going online to find out if there are missable Achievements, whether you can get all the Achievements in one playthrough, etc.

Analysis: This is a pretty big change for me. I only missed one of the bobblehead achievements in Fallout 3 and was pretty obsessive about making sure I got through everything. I’m sure I’ll get a lot of the Achievements in New Vegas, but not because I’m trying, just through the normal course of the game. I was tempted to look things up, but then I realized I was too tired to care. And this was all BEFORE we got the dog.

Fact: I’ve been focusing mostly on Black Ops multiplayer, and have only managed to do five single player missions in a week.

Analysis: This reveals a couple of things for me. #1, maybe Black Ops single player isn’t that strong. I dunno if that’s true, but it’s possible. Also, I’m super confused in it which is slowing me down. Secondly, I’ve been focused on multiplayer because I’ve been enjoying it, even though there are absolutely no achievements to be had. In past CODs, I finished all the Achievements before really getting into multiplayer. Again, it seems as if I’m playing games just to have fun, not to get Achievements. What’s happening here?!

Fact: I think more about my dog’s achievements than my video game achievements.

Analysis: “What’s that,” you say? “Dogs give achievements!?” I wish, that would be awesome. But it’s the opposite: dogs EARN achievements. It’s pretty crazy, but I think half of a dog’s life is about earning achievements. THEY are the true achievaholics! The whole training process is basically about giving the dog achievements, i.e., treats. Sitting down? Bam, achievement. Rolling over? Bam, achievement. Peeing outside. BAM, 100 point achievement! And the dog loves it. She hungers for it. All she wants is recognition for her accomplishments.

So maybe as the achievement giver, achievement earning has become less enticing for me. Why find special bottlecaps in New Vegas when I can GIVE an achievement to my dog by hiding treats all over the place? Priorities change, I guess. Or do they? I guess I’ll find out!

P.S. – I promise not to turn my entries into dogblogs. Thank you for indulging me for the past two weeks.

Even though Broken Steel was the 3rd DLC pack that was released for Fallout 3 after Operation Anchorage and The Pitt, I decided to skip that expansion pack and jump straight to the last two. The most notable thing about Broken Steel is the expansion of the level cap to level 30, and I wanted to spend my time leveling with Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta before finishing Fallout 3 off for good with Broken Steel. I will write a final article in the future that reviews Broken Steel as well as the Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition as a whole. Hit the jump to see my reviews on Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta.

In Point Lookout, you face enemies that don’t look quite human – inbred hicks!

Point Lookout
Cost: 800 MS points ($10) if bought separately
Additional Achievements: 4 for a total of 100 Achievement points
Length to complete: about 9 hours

As of now, I’ve completed all five DLC packs for Fallout 3 so I can easily say that Point Lookout is my favorite of the five DLC packs. Point Lookout is the only expansion that actually feels like a real expansion, as it takes the player to a different “mini-world”. For those that have played the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and its expansion, Shivering Isles – this Point Lookout expansion pack feels as significant as that one.

The Point Lookout expansion is named after Point Lookout State Park in Maryland. On the park grounds, there are something like 30 different locations that can be visited on the map, several different interesting quest lines that I want to avoid spoiling, and new enemies that reside in the swampland that the park has become. While nearly all of the other expansion packs take place in 1-2 zones, Point Lookout’s 30 zones make it feel like a mini-Fallout 3: a smaller “sandbox” of places to explore, but not lacking in the greatness and fun of the original game. Point Lookout is what I wished The Pitt would be. Considering this expansion took me nine hours to complete, that’s longer than most FPS campaigns!

Final Thoughts
To be honest, I have no real negative words to say about Point Lookout. It delivers in the all the ways an expansion pack should. Of course, is any expansion pack for any game really necessary? For fans of Fallout 3, if you want more things to do and explore, Point Lookout is the best and most satisfying of the five expansions in terms of content. Would I recommend it for $10? You could certainly do far worse, but consider that the full game is 60+ hours long and can be had for for $20-$30, 9 hours more content for $10 today is a bit steep. If you are simply hungry for more content on the vanilla version of Fallout 3 though, Point Lookout is highly recommended.

Final Grade: B+
Worth Buying? More so than any of the other expansion packs.
Worth Playing on GotY disc? One of the main reasons why you should get it!

The Mothership Zeta DLC has you squaring off against aliens on an alien spaceship.

Mothership Zeta
Cost: 800 MS points ($10) if bought separately
Additional Achievements: 4 for a total of 100 Achievement points
Length to complete: about 5 hours

Mothership Zeta is the last of the five DLC expansion packs released for Fallout 3, and it is also the craziest. In Mothership Zeta, you are whisked aboard an alien spaceship and have to work with other human captives to take down the aliens and escape. One positive thing that has to be said about Mothership Zeta is that it does a great job presenting the stereotypical alien abduction storyline and premise. You find humans that have been experimented on by the aliens, get to listen to human recordings both humorous and scary, and you also get to use alien weapons to take on your alien kidnappers. The aliens themselves look stereotypically alien, and have stereotypically amusing alien voices. Make no mistake – this is an alien abduction expansion pack.

While this expansion pack takes place completely on the alien spaceship, it’s quite large considering it was five hours long just aboard the ship. To be honest, I felt it was too long at times – I would get bored roaming through the hallways and engaging alien after alien. While Operation: Anchorage was far too short to be worth its price, Mothership Zeta’s content consisting of too large an alien ship to explore just feels drawn out. I would have preferred a bit more variety in this expansion pack – especially since this came after Point Lookout where variety and exploration was the name of the game.

Final Thoughts
The primary negative and positive for this expansion pack is the fact that it takes place completely on an alien spaceship. Five hours gets boring when you’re in the same place the entire time, but Bethesda Softworks has done a great job in bringing the spaceship to life. While I did grow tired of the setting, I loved being able to use the alien weapons – shooting rayguns and the larger weapons to completely disintegrate foes was something I never grew tired of. I even brought the alien weaponry back down to Fallout 3′s DC locale and continued using them for the rest of my Fallout 3 game because they were so fun (and powerful). But paying $10 primarily to get access to some alien weaponry? Pass unless you have the Game of the Year Edition.

Final Grade: C
Worth Buying? No
Worth Playing on GotY disc? Sure, for something very different!

Going into this year’s holiday gaming season, I am lacking enthusiasm. I don’t know if it’s because I’m busier now or if the current games this holiday season are just not as exciting as in the last couple of years. To be honest, most of the games I am about to call out I haven’t played yet, but based on buzz I am reading and demos I’ve played today’s entry will sort of be my knee-jerk reaction as to why I am not excited about what’s in store for the 2010 holiday season.

The problem is, we have so many sequels that are worse than their predecessors or sequels that don’t exactly blow their predecessors out of the water. This leads me to find practically all of them lacking in the excitement category that I have had in past holiday seasons. How many sequels are being released this holiday season? Let’s see!

The Force Unleashed 2
It seems like a lot of people were fans of the first Force Unleashed game, commenting about how cool the storyline was and all that. Unfortunately, I thought the gameplay was lackluster at best, as can be read in my review. If a game has a decent story but lacks gameplay – it might as well be a film or a TV show since it has no business being a game. With this second one, even critics are trashing The Force Unleashed II and calling it a simple cash grab so I’ll definitely be steering clear.

Medal of Honor
This big reboot to the franchise had the potential to be good, but instead fell on its face. I hear that the 6-hour campaign isn’t so bad, but people usually buy FPS games to play multiplayer. Sadly, that is where Medal of Honor doesn’t quite hold up so well. DICE, the developers behind Battlefield and Battlefield: Bad Company, were not the ones that developed the single player for Medal of Honor. But they were responsible for Medal of Honor’s multiplayer and so they implemented Call of Duty style gameplay in combination with Bad Company style gameplay. Medal of Honor multiplayer thus sits in this weird limbo between both major franchises, alienatinating fans of the two games it’s trying to merge. (I guess this game is maybe better than Medal of Honor’s true predecessor: Medal of Honor: Airborne, but I still consider it more of a sequel for Battlefield since the multiplayer was created by DICE.)

Fable III
Apparently, Fable III is a simpler version of Fable II, disappointing fans of the second one. On top of that [MINOR SPOILER AHEAD], the game has angered many players who have made it to the end because it screws them over without even giving them a chance to see it coming. Am I really excited to play this? I was, but maybe I should just go back and replay Fable II instead?

Fallout: New Vegas
Yeah, I’m putting New Vegas on the list of “lackluster” sequels even though I bought it, haven’t even played it yet, and of course I’ll probably end up enjoying it. I loved Fallout 3, yet I was never really too interested in picking up Fallout: New Vegas since there was barely any buzz about it. Is it really all that different from Fallout 3? It’s still marred by all sorts of technical issues that Fallout 3 contained (such as freezing, memory leaks, etc.), but this time around, it doesn’t have the gigantic leap from Fallout 2 to Fallout 3 to counterbalance it. I guess I won’t know until I give New Vegas a spin, but even now, it doesn’t really feel like a fresh sequel, since it’s more of the same. In this case for me, more of the same is good since I loved Fallout 3, but in terms of excitement? Not too much.

DJ Hero 2
cmfl3x picked this one up and seems to be really enjoying it, but from my point of view, I am not excited with it. Unlike the other sequels already mentioned on this list, DJ Hero 2 has been getting reviews that seem to indicate that it is a slightly better game than its predecessor. But does it really feel like a fresh sequel? A couple of new, yet non-revolutionary features and a new soundtrack are enough to call the game a sequel? Did the gameplay really change that much between the first and the second one such that a sequel needed to have been released just one year after the first? And what’s with the lack of compatibility between the soundtracks of the first and second game? I guess Activision wants to quickly make as much as it can off of DJ Hero before DJ’ing also goes the way of Guitar Hero.

Rock Band 3
Rock Band 3 is a game that got so many great reviews that I considered buying it. Unlike DJ Hero 2, Rock Band 3 really brings all sorts of new and innovative features over Rock Band 2. Rock Band 3 still has major problems going against it though, even if it’s nearly a flawless game. The first is that I still can’t help but feel tired about the entire music game genre. If I don’t feel like partaking in Rock Band 3′s major new features such as picking up the key-tar or learning to play with real musical instruments, is Rock Band 3 really that different from the second one? Some even complain that something like 20% of the songs on the Rock Band 3 soundtrack are already present in other music games too. I gave the demo a try this past weekend, and it honestly didn’t feel any different than its predecessors. I think the feature about Rock Band that I enjoy the most – being able to play drums on my favorite songs, doesn’t exactly require me to pick up Rock Band 3 to do so. Maybe that explains my lack of excitement for Rock Band 3.

Call of Duty: Black Ops
The verdict is still out on this one, as there is a lot of potential for good and bad. Good: currency system so players have their own choice as to what they want to unlock. Bad: Treyarch is the developer – enough said. Good: Zombie mode returns. Bad: Setting is not present day, so we may end up with antiquated or goofy stuff (i.e. ray gun). At the end of the day, Black Ops is another Call of Duty game in an “off year” since it’s not made by Infinity Ward. It should be a decent title, but I don’t think Modern Warfare 2 is even old yet by this point. Can both games co-exist?

Holiday 2010 vs Holiday 2009 & Holiday 2008
So what do we have in terms of new IPs to enjoy this holiday season?The 4-6 hour single player game Vanquish? Enslaved: Oddyssey to the West – a game with a fine storyline, but bland gameplay mechanics? Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – a Japanese franchise given the God of War gameplay makeover (not a compliment in my book) from a Western studio? Or how about Majin & the Forsaken Kingdom – a Japanese developed title that probably won’t even make a dent in the Western market due to its simplistic execution? I’ve played demos to nearly all of these titles, and none of them had my blood pumping.

Compare this year’s holiday season crop with the past couple holiday years. Last season we got to play some really strong sequels: Modern Warfare 2, Assassin’s Creed II, and Left 4 Dead 2. There were also several new IPs that delivered: Brutal Legend, Borderlands, DJ Hero, and Dragon Age: Origins.

Back in 2008, we had some big sequels as well: Fable II, Far Cry 2, Saints Row 2, Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, and arguably, Call of Duty: World at War. And again, the original IPs then were strong too, thanks to titles like Dead Space, Mirror’s Edge, and Left 4 Dead.

It’s sad that this holiday season, I feel like I’ll just be playing the games to go through the motions, and won’t have the kind of excitement I used to have these last couple of years. Having said all this, I’ll probably end up getting all of this holiday season’s releases anyway – especially if Amazon and other retailers go with some crazy sales around Black Friday. Fable III may be worse than its predecessor, but if I can get it for $20, I guess that’s all right.

Like cmfl3x, I also picked up Fallout: New Vegas last week. However, one of the games that was still in my backlog was Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition, which consisted of the Fallout 3 game and the 5 DLC expansion packs that were released for Fallout 3. Before jumping into the “bright lights” of New Vegas, I decided I wanted to bring Fallout 3 to complete closure first. I booted up my final save game from the original Fallout 3 and jumped right into the expansions. So far, I’ve played through the first two DLC packs, and am ready to provide my review on them. I will continue making my way through the packs, and will try to provide my commentary on their value based on whether you are buying them separately or picking up the Game of the Year bundle.

One highlight of Operation: Anchorage is fighting the Chinese ninja-like foes in stealth suits.

Operation: Anchorage
Cost: 800 MS points ($10) if bought separately
Additional Achievements: 4 for a total of 100 Achievement points
Length to complete: about 2 and 1/2 hours

The first of the five DLC packs available for Fallout 3 is Operation: Anchorage. In this expansion, you are tasked with entering a VR simulator of sorts that takes place during the liberation of Alaska by the Americans from the Chinese. Since it’s a simulation, you don’t get to bring any of your gear into it or out of it, but you do gain experience points and are able to make use of the abilities you had before you entered the simulation.

Players will feel divided on the gameplay, but Operation: Anchorage pretty much feels like something out of Call of Duty. It focuses less on other means of making it through the “level” besides running and gunning. I enjoyed it as a FPS experience, but this is not exactly what makes Fallout 3 popular – it lacked characters and a coherent plot to really get attached to. One of the major disconcerting things is that in the simulation, there are ammo machines and health machines that you can use at any time as much as you want to top off your health and ammo. These things are located throughout the level and while they make gameplay more convenient, I still wonder about whether they are appropriate at all. Another thing I found odd was that when enemies get killed, their bodies just disappear right after. Sure it’s a simulation, but does their disappearance really make the game more enjoyable ?

The payout after getting through the mission is actually a pretty good amount of loot. Upon completing the mission, you come out of the simulation and are able to unlock a vault containing armor, weapons, etc. I think I had to make a second trip back to the treasure vault to bring everything back to my house!

Final Thoughts
At $10 on its own, this is probably the worst deal you could buy for Fallout 3 and it is entirely skipable. It is far too short – clocking in at about 2 and a half hours. If you don’t have it, don’t buy it but if you have the GotY disc, it’s worth getting through for the loot at the end provided you like action FPS games.

Final Grade: D+
Worth Buying? No
Worth Playing on GotY disc? Might as well

In The Pitt, you’ll fight a lot of humans that are now known as Trogs. Is that Smeagol?

The Pitt
Cost: 800 MS points ($10) if bought separately
Additional Achievements: 4 for a total of 100 Achievement points
Length to complete: about 5 hours

The Pitt is the second of the Fallout 3 DLC, and unlike Operation: Anchorage, is not a simulation. In The Pitt expansion, you are able to visit what used to be industrial Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. While the region was not hit directly by nukes, it has suffered a great deal due to irradiated water, resulting in the humans inhabiting the area falling into one of three types: slaves, slave-masters, and the insane.

One of the things I liked about The Pitt was that when you enter it, you are pretty much stripped of your belongings by slavers (kept in a secure location until nearly the end of expansion) and brought into The Pitt as a slave. Once inside, you interact with other slaves trying to find a way to free them. In order to do so, you must rise up the ranks so that you can meet with the leader. Another thing I enjoyed about the Pitt expansion is that once you meet with the leader, you have to make a major decision that is actually not so cut and dry. When games provide a choice that is not clearly morally correct one way or the other, it’s thumbs up in my book!

Sadly, The Pitt had one major negative. The primary quest in The Pitt revolves around you collecting ingots all over The Pitt. Yes, that’s right – a good amount of this expansion is searching in every nook and cranny for 100 ingots. Sure, you can just find 10 and be done with the required part of the quest, but most of the major loot that you can get in this expansion is through rewards for turning in ingots in increments of 10. I hate having to look for collectibles in any game, but what made it all the worse with this one is that several of the ingots requiring difficult acrobatics to get to and Fallout 3′s jumping mechanics are terrible. Ever try running and jumping in Fallout 3? You fall before even making the jump more often than not, and falling off of rooftops due to poor jumping mechanics only to have to find your way back up again is not my idea of a good time.

Final Thoughts
The Pitt is definitely a better expansion than Operation: Anchorage. I enjoyed the plot and premise of it, but the entire experience was marred by having to hunt for collectibles. I do wish it was longer and larger – The Pitt is a completely different and expansive area, yet it comes across feeling very small based on how it was presented. Maybe this expansion might have been worth it back when Fallout 3 was retailing for $60, but today, this expansion is probably not worth buying  standalone until it goes on sale for $5 (which it often does). If you have the GotY disc, it’s worth checking this expansion out.

Final Grade: C+
Worth Buying? Wait for it to go on sale at $5
Worth Playing on GotY disc? Yes, but the ingot gathering is not so fun.

War never changes. Nor does Fallout – or so it would seem. I’ve spent almost seven hours in the Mojave Wasteland without even knowing it. That may not seem like a lot of time since I’ve had the game for a week, but life has been pretty busy – for proof, I have barely even played Starcraft in the past week. So is it just nostalgia, or does Vegas bring something new to the Fallout table?

So far, I’m enjoying Fallout: New Vegas, though with some caveats. I’m just going to kind of stream of consciousness these impressions. Although the game might not start as you expect, the opening is pretty cool and does a great job of setting the stage for the rest of the game. After that, New Vegas feels like the Fallout 3 you know and love, but in a new setting. It’s almost like a major expansion or something like that.

The engine is essentially the same, although for some reason I think it looks a little nicer. There were supposed to be a lot of glitches, but I haven’t run into any in my playtime (a lot of which has been post patch). The Mojave Wasteland looks pretty different from the Capitol Wasteland, but the art assets are completely different. It’s pretty impressive. If you can believe it, I still haven’t entered New Vegas itself yet – but I can’t wait. If you’ve ever been to Vegas, that moment when you see the strip lit up in the distance is always breathtaking. I’d been hoping to have experienced the Fallout version of that before writing these impressions, but I’m taking my sweet time – sorry. I’ll update with a comment when that happens.

What have I been taking my sweet time with? As you would expect, Fallout: New Vegas offers tons of side quests and I’ve been meandering around the Mojave Wasteland doing those. A new addition to the gameplay is the “reputation” system. Depending on decisions you make and how you interact with different factions throughout the wasteland you gain different reputations. Groups of people might idolize you while others shun you. This affects how people interact with you and maybe even quests you can get. I’m not sure about that one, as a group that shunned me still offered me work.

I guess I should also mention that Fallout: New Vegas has a hardcore mode, which causes your character to become dehydrated and causes ammo to have weight. It sounds…not fun at all. I already hate the weight restrictions to start with. Needless to say, I am skipping that Achievement.

Anyway, it’s safe to say if you enjoyed Fallout 3 you’ll probably enjoy New Vegas. I certainly am. Check it out, or if you are waiting for a price drop, we should have a review up sometime in the future. See you in Vegas!

With my extensive gaming backlog (dozens of games, including pretty much the entire PS3 exclusive library), I made a subconscious decision to stop buying single player games at launch – just because I can wait to pick them up on the cheap much later. I honestly thought that the only game I would pick up between now and the rest of the year would be Call of Duty: Black Ops, since Starcraft 2, Halo: Reach, and Call of Duty: Black Ops would probably keep me busy for months. But then I recently discovered a K-Mart promotion for Fallout: New Vegas, and have now started actually considered buying games at my local K-Mart. Read on what I’ve discovered at K-Mart in terms of video game deal hunting – the good and the bad.

K-Mart’s Fallout: New Vegas Deal
What really put both K-Mart & Fallout: New Vegas on my radar was the promotion I discovered K-Mart was running. This past Friday after work, I dropped by my local K-Mart, and found Fallout: New Vegas coasters for sale. This looked to be the last set, and K-Mart sells it for $5. Even though the DVD box containing the coasters clearly states “Pre-Order Your Copy Today!”, you’re really just buying the coasters only. There’s no pre-order system in place like at Gamestop where you put $5 down on the game and when the game comes out, you get a phone call and the $5 goes towards the purchase of the game.

The main reason I was willing to spend $5 on the coasters was because I read that you would get a coupon for $15 off Fallout: New Vegas at the register. Imagine my surprise when the coupon that printed out stated: $15 off Gaming Purchase – Vald 10/19/2010 – 10/30/2010. This meant that while the coupon could not be used until 10/19/2010 (the date Fallout: New Vegas launches), it could be used on any game purchase. Anyone that simply wants to save $10 off any game between 10/19/2010 and 10/30/2010 might as well pick up the Fallout coasters! In any case, I am going to put the $15 towards Fallout: New Vegas, since this week, K-Mart is also offering a $20 gaming coupon with purchases of Fallout: New Vegas, essentially netting the game to $30 for the game on launch day and the coasters. Pretty good deal!

The Good
K-Mart has generally offered great gaming deals during the first week a game hits store shelves – basically any major title that has already been released or is going to be released this Fall/Winter has been offered with a $20-$25 gaming coupon.

Some Past Deals
Halo Reach (360) all editions – $25 coupon
Medal of Honor (360/PS3) – $25 coupon
NBA Jam (Wii) – $15 coupon
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (360/PS3)- $20 coupon
NBA 2K11 (360/PS3) – $20 coupon
Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light (DS) – $15 coupon
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West – $25 coupon
Final Fantasy XIV Online (PC) – $20 coupon
FIFA 11 (360/PS3) – $20 coupon

Upcoming Deals
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II (360/PS3) – $20 coupon
Rockband 3 (360/PS3) – $20 coupon
The Sims 3 (360/PS3) – $20 coupon
Fable III (360) – $20 coupon
Call of Duty: Black Ops (360/PS3/PC) – should be $20 coupon
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (360/PS3) – should be $20 coupon

Major Deals This Week
Kirby Epic Yarn (Wii) – $20 coupon AND
- buy along with New Super Mario Bros, Metroid: Other M, or Sin and Punishment 2 to save another $20

Vanquish (360/PS3) – $20 coupon AND
-buy along with Uncharted 2 GOTY, Borderlands GOTY, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, Halo Reach, Dead Rising 2, Mafia 2, Red Dead Redemption, F1: 2010, Front Mission Evolved, Quantum Theory, Spiderman: Shattered Dimensions, R.U.S.E., H.A.W.X. 2, God of War 3, or Heavy Rain to save another $30.

Several of these deals K-Mart is offering even surpass Amazon’s deals. Amazon doesn’t have the major combo deals for Kirby Epic Yarn or Vanquish, and is only giving $10 credit for games like Medal of Honor, Fallout: New Vegas, and Rock Band 3. Plus, they took away their $20 credit for Call of Duty: Black Ops, so that means K-Mart is probably going to end up getting my business for the new Call of Duty. I tried the demo of Vanquish, and I came away very disappointed with the game. I would have actually considered picking up Vanquish and Dead Rising 2 for $70, but from the demo, Vanquish seemed like $10 game to me.

The Bad
As great as the deals are at K-Mart, there’s a reason why a lot of us gamers don’t shop their in the first place – myself included. I was surprised the first time I went into K-Mart recently and discovered recent major titles all available for sale. But the person usually working the gaming area is never around, and they have no idea what the games are. This is very different from the experience you would get with a Gamestop clerk, who often plays video games too. (See, Gamestop is good for something!) But yeah the total lack of knowledge or even care by the attendant in that area is jarring.

The lack of knowledge wouldn’t be as bad as it could be but combined with the lack of organization of the gaming section of the store makes it quite a zoo. Big retail stores like Target also have store attendants that don’t necessarily know about the games, but everything is organized nice and neat – each game is in its own area, with the case right behind it containing the stock of that game. At my local K-Mart – all of the games are just stacked in no order whatsoever within the locked glass cabinets. There’s hundreds of games there and I even saw several PS2, and Xbox games. Asking for a particular game is basically impossible. One of my dreams is to actually get access to the case and look through all of the games stacked in the back rows behind the games in front, just to see if I can discover any hidden gems. But alas – even asking for the Fallout: New Vegas coasters was an exercise in frustration for me. The attendant had no idea what I was talking about, and he was really rude too saying something like “Well, do you see it in the case? I’m not going to look for it.” Fortunately for me, I did – but I guess no one is going to see what is stacked in the back rows for all the shelves.

There are also several technical issues I have with the store as well. First off – no pre-orders. Amazon, Gamestop, and even stores like Best Buy and Target allow for video game pre-orders. While I’m not a big fan of pre-ordering at retail stores nor do I think this is a big deal, I just thought it was sad that I was buying a Fallout: New Vegas coaster box from K-Mart that stated “Pre-order Your Copy Today!” and I can’t pre-order. My bigger issues are the following 2 points:

1. Price Drops Have to Be Adjusted Manually By The Store Itself
The Internet has changed the way many of us do business these days – including my ability to shop for game deals. Gamestop is always current with its price drops, and the moment I see a game I want get a price drop on the Gamestop.com website, I can just do a store inventory search, go to the store, and buy it. With K-Mart, I’ll read information online that talks about price drops on games that are decided by corporate, but the problem is, if the store itself doesn’t manually reduce the price on the games, they will still ring up at the regular price at the store. There’s nothing you can do about it. If the store is too lazy/clueless or is unwilling to drop the price of the game, tough luck! Unfortunately, this happens more often than not.

2. The coupons have some pretty tight restrictions
Amazon’s gaming coupons are great because they easily stack into your “gaming credit” pool, and are the first to be used whenever you want to buy a game online. With K-Mart, you cannot stack two coupons of the same barcode type on a single purchase. This means, if you were to buy Halo: Reach twice and get $25 coupons for each of them, you could not use them both together to get $50 off your next game. Also, the coupons are not valid until the following Sunday – so you cannot buy a game, receive the coupon, and then use it immediately on another game right away. Finally, the period of time you are able to use the coupon is very limited – it’s only about a month out before it expires. This isn’t a big deal in the Fall and Winter seasons when so many games are coming out, but even Amazon gives you like a 6-month time slot to use your gaming coupon.

My Conclusion
K-Mart has carved out a little competitive niche for itself in the gaming deals market. Previously, Gamestop and Amazon were the two stores vying for my hard-earned money: Amazon with its coupons, no tax, and release-date delivery, and Gamestop with its accessibility of brick-and-mortar stores, knowledgeable store reps, B2G1 sales, and beneficial “glitches” on its website from time to time. But K-Mart has brought something to the table that neither store can match: the best prices. Unfortunately, as you can see from my section on all that is bad with the store, it may not necessarily be worth it to go there if you have to deal with the hassles of the way the store is poorly run and the tight limitations of the coupons themselves. I’ll probably just pick up Fallout: New Vegas, use New Vegas’s $20 coupon on Call of Duty: Black Ops, and dump the $20 coupon from Black Ops on something to end my gaming credit at K-Mart. That should conclude my gaming purchases for the rest of the year…hopefully. Now, whether K-Mart will even have Fallout: New Vegas tomorrow is a legitimate question to ask. Guess I’ll find out!

Last Friday I posted about how I felt that EA’s Project $10 initiative is working, and I’m a supporter of it. Hey, I’m all for supporting developers and publishers to make money off their own products and if it came down to it, I wouldn’t mind if the used market disappeared altogether. EA has been coming back into the spotlight in a positive way with gamers these days, while Activision has gone the other way. But there’s one thing that EA is now more guilty of than others at this point that I am annoyed with: DLC for single player games. Read on for my thoughts why.

The Premise
Game publishers have definitely hopped on board the DLC bandwagon these days, as everyone is trying to make a quick buck. The Modern Warfare 2 map pack sold over 2.5 million in its first week, bringing in nearly $40 million for Microsoft and Activision. While I don’t necessarily partake in buying multiplayer DLC, I don’t outright condone it as I do think that new maps can extend the multiplayer enjoyment for games.

What I don’t like is DLC for single player content. A lot of games are doing this nowadays, and it annoys me for several different reasons. Ever read a book or watch a movie and then be told later that there was another chapter that is a part of the book or another 10 minute scene that takes place after the movie? To me, the single player experience for a game is very similar to a book or a film – it’s creative and artistic, and presented in a finite way for it to be enjoyed. Nowadays, game publishers are sticking in some random dungeon here, a hidden island there, or even “missing levels”. When I complete the single player for a game, I like for it to stay completed. Freaking finish the game in the first place or don’t release the “extra DLC” at all! Unfortunately, the game industry is not quite abiding to my wishes. Let’s look at the list of games in EA’s recent history that are guilty of what I am starting to hate.

Dante’s Inferno
I just started playing Dante’s Inferno last night, but I read that one DLC pack has already been released containing another mission and a second DLC pack is on the way. In fact, both of these DLC packs were announced before the game was even released. Come on – couldn’t the two DLC packs for this single player game have simply been released from the get go? Is DLC really the way to prevent people from selling the game? Maybe EA should have considered free DLC – then people would be more inclined to hold onto their games and I wouldn’t have this article to blog about.

Mass Effect 2 (and even the first game)
All was fine and dandy with Mass Effect 2′s DLC until the Kasumi DLC was just released for $7 (although, I’m still annoyed with even the “free missions” that were added to a supposedly complete campaign). Come on – couldn’t this character have already been included in the game to begin with? And people that already beat the game – are they really going to want to go and buy this pack just to pick up another character? They’ve already beaten the game. What’s the point? $7 buys you the ability to play with a new character but you already beat the game. As much as I dislike this Kasumi DLC, it would have actually been better if it was released at the game’s launch, so people could use Kasumi in their initial playthrough of the game. Oh and let’s not forget Mass Effect 1′s pair of silly and stupid DLC.

Army of Two: The 40th Day
The first Army of Two game had a very short campaign, and I’m pretty sure that the second one did as well. So it irks me a great deal to hear about a $10 DLC pack for this recent sequel that contains two new missions. What the heck? Sounds like the developers couldn’t finish the game on time, so they decided to just charge us for their poor planning afterward. Thanks guys. As if your first game wasn’t short enough in the first place.

Dragon Age: Origins
I played through the original Dragon Age: Origins game earlier this year and had a great time with it. It was a lengthy game, but there’s already been enough DLC (two packs and an expansion) that when combined, equal about the cost of the game itself. The DLC packs and the expansion have all gotten bad reviews, and rightly so. For a game that’s epic and already 50 hours long, to be charged $5-$7 for another mini dungeon or $40 for an 20 hour epilogue that doesn’t even really continue the main campaign’s storyline is just a slap in the face to fans. Why not just make the sequel instead of all these minor extensions to an already great and complete game?

What About Non-EA Games?
It’s easy to hate on recent EA games doing this, but to be fair, EA is not the only company partaking in selling DLC for single player games. However, major titles that come to my mind that do have single player DLC are actually a lot more thorough and not necessarily as bad. I’ve yet to play all of the DLC for Fallout 3, but one of them raises your character’s level cap from 20 to 30, which is actually very significant and I can see it contributing a lot to the single player game. Bethesda Softworks’ other 360 game, Oblivion, had all sorts of extra DLC that was totally not worth it – except for Shivering Isles. That DLC was a lengthy and engrossing adventure, and I did enjoy it. Then there’s also games like Grand Theft Auto IV and Resident Evil 5 that have their own DLC, but these DLC packs are completely different campaigns than the main one and I can’t quite hate on those since they were truly developed afterward and did something different. Assassin’s Creed II got a bit of hate with its DLC missions, as they were missing from the original release and Ubisoft was up-front admitting that they could not fit them in before the game shipped. While that was potentially more of a good reason to hate the DLC, I found it refreshing that they were honest and I also agreed with their statement that Assassin’s Creed II already had tremendous value due to its lengthy campaign so I was more willing to forgive them for putting it out there. And finally, I’ve saved the best for last: Final Fantasy XIII. When asked if there would be any Final Fantasy XIII DLC, the producer and director of the game claimed that the final product was already 100% complete. Thank you guys – it’s good to know that some game developers out there still believe in shipping a complete single player product these days.

The Messy Line Between EA’s Two Initiatives
So while we are now all aware of EA’s Project $10 strategy, not all of us were aware of EA’s second “more secretive” initiative: Project DLC Everything. I can see the reasoning behind going with both initiatives: EA of course wants to make more money (or in a sense, reduce the amount of earnable money lost through used sales). In order to do this, it’s in EA’s best interest to have gamers hold onto the games they bought new. Project $10 is a step in the right direction to getting gamers to buying EA games new, but Project DLC Everything is not the right way to keep gamers from selling their single player games. Unlike other major publishers’ DLC, EA seems to be doing whatever they can to nickle and dime us with short DLC that could have easily been included in the game’s release. Is someone really not going to sell Mass Effect 2 now because a $7 DLC pack with an extra character gets released a month after the game comes out? Come on. Compare EA’s DLC to something like GTA4′s The Lost and the Damned and we can see the right way to do DLC and the wrong way. EA should have instead made the second initiative: Project Free DLC. That would have kept more of us inclined to hold onto our games. Of course, I personally would prefer for single player games to just be 100% complete from the get-go, but I can’t fault a game company for wanting to make more money – unless it disrespects its supporters like EA has been.