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.

I’m still in the middle of BioShock 2, so I’m going to kick this week’s gaming entries off with a gaming topic that I’ve been wrestling with for a while now: “open-world” sandbox gameplay design. It seems like it’s getting more and more popular these days, and while I may be in the minority for this, I don’t think I am a fan. Grand Theft Auto III made sandbox gameplay popular, and ever since then, we’ve seen several games in the last few years implement this “feature’ from Burnout to Halo. The addition of basically being forced to travel everywhere to actually start a mission certainly makes a game longer, but does it make a game more enjoyable?

Sandbox/open-world gameplay design is really tough to naildown, as there are many games out there that have some implementation of it while not necessarily relying on it. I think back to the old school NES days, and games like Kung-Fu, Super Mario Bros. 1-4, etc. all were pretty much focused on the missions. While the later Super Mario Bros. games started drifting towards more traveling between missions (like Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World), it wasn’t until Super Mario 64 that you were forced to go open doors to start a level on a huge castle map. And it’s that jump to all this “downtime” between the missions is what is starting to annoy me. Here are some examples of recent games that tackle (or deal with) open-world gameplay.

Burnout Revenge vs Burnout Paradise
Burnout Paradise is probably one of the strongest examples of a sandbox style game. Prior to Burnout Paradise, the previous Burnout games, including my favorite, Burnout Revenge, were all level based and selectable from a mission menu. You would choose which race/challenge you wanted to compete in, and the race would start. If you lost, you could simply start the race/challenge again from the menu.

When Burnout Paradise was first released, the game was an open world so you actually had to drive everywhere in order to find a mission to start it. Is there really a lot of fun in having to drive several minutes to find a mission to take on? What if you don’t want to do that particular mission? You have to drive across town in order to do the mission you want to do? And on top of that, when the game was first released, if you lost a mission, that was it. You would end up somewhere else on the map (wherever you lost in that mission), and you would have to drive all the way back to the mission start location to start the mission again. Thankfully, that has since been patched so quick restarts are now in the game (after a lot of people complained), but my annoyance remains that I have to physically waste time driving everywhere I want to actually start a mission.

I do realize that it’s fun to play through an open world sandbox with friends online, but it’s not something that really provides a tangible benefit from gameplay. It’s like I’ve now being forced to commute anywhere I want to start a mission when it was fine before that.

Halo 3: ODST
Halo 3: ODST was the first Halo to implement a sandbox-style world, forcing you to travel through the streets of New Mombasa in order to find equipment from your squad that would trigger their flashback missions. While I still prefer no sandbox to sandbox style game design, I thought it worked quite well for ODST and I probably enjoyed the Halo 3: ODST campaign more than any other Halo’s campaign. I’m still trying to determine why I wasn’t as bothered by the Halo 3: ODST sandbox, and I think it’s most likely because the primary aspect of Halo 3: ODST, the combat, was still present during the sandbox mode. As you moved from one area to another, you still had to take on enemies, so it almost didn’t feel like a sandbox at all. In my previous example with Burnout Paradise, the driving from one mission to another was NOT the primary aspect of Burnout Paradise. Driving is not the same as racing.

Grand Theft Auto IV (& its expansions)
Having recently beaten The Lost and the Damned expansion, I was annoyed that I had to keep traveling across the map in order to get to a new mission. The problem with the Grand Theft Auto games is that if the sandbox was taken away and the game was just a series of missions, I think the game would probably fall on its face and not get the high marks it usually gets. If you could take away the driving between missions in Burnout Paradise, and even all of that hub traveling in Halo 3: ODST, both of those games would still be quite enjoyable to play, and would thus be played like a Call of Duty campaign: mission after mission after mission. And that’s honestly the gameplay design choice I would always prefer.

Grand Theft Auto IV is tough because the sandbox + mission structure are so intertwined in that both of the parts together are what make the game enjoyable. If the game was just one or the other, neither is strong enough to be entirely fun, but I can see why the kids like it. The combat system in GTA IV is laughably poor compared to any 3rd person shooter these days, and the only reason anyone would enjoy the sandbox gameplay of having to drive anywhere you need to go is because you enjoy stealing vehicles and killing civilians. It’s just not my thing. To be fair though, GTA IV implemented taxis, allowing you to fast-travel to anywhere you want to go, which was a MAJOR reason I was able to beat this game but none of the previous GTA games on the PS2. Thank you for that. And The Lost and the Damned allow you to call your friends to bring you weapons or motorcycles, which also eliminate needless commuting and errands you would be forced to run otherwise in order to actually play the game.

Assassin’s Creed 1 & 2
The Assassin’s Creed games are like historical Grand Theft Auto games, in that they are open world and you move across town in order to pick up new missions. Of course, back then you didn’t have cars so you would have to run across rooftops and use a horse to travel from one town to another. Assassin’s Creed 1 was pretty bad when it came to being forced to “commute” through its open world, but Assassin’s Creed II fixed a lot of problems that were inherent in the first game to make it much easier to play. In the sequel, you no longer had to ride a horse for like 15 minutes to get from one town to another – instead you just warped to it. Assassin’s Creed II also had fast-travel spots in various towns, allowing you to quickly move from one point to another on a map. This didn’t eliminate all “time-wasting commuting” between missions and such, but it made the game a lot less annoying. It’s a step in the right direction, and one of the reasons why I consider it to be the best sequel of 2009.

The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion & Fallout 3
Both of these games have huge sandbox style worlds from Bethesda Softworks. You could honestly travel on foot throughout both games for hours and still feel lost. I actually think that Oblivion and Fallout 3 handle their sandbox gameplay design the best. In both games, you have to physically commute to any new location in the world, but once you have gotten there, you can always fast-travel back to that spot. This allows for exploration, but doesn’t force you to waste unnecessary time commuting back to the spot. No complaints here, and if future sandbox games all incorporated fast-travel like this, maybe sandbox games are evolving.

Final Fantasy X & Final Fantasy XIII
RPGs may have been the first real games that forced this “open-world” sandbox into gaming as you had to navigate across an overworld to go from a town to a dungeon and such with random encounters along the way. But like Halo, RPG games primarily focus on combat so the random encounters in the overworld are not so bad. The Final Fantasy games are going a little bit crazier in this aspect and really evolving. When Final Fantasy X released on the PS2, it was the first Final Fantasy game with no overworld map. People were gasping that you just got in your airship, and selected the zone you wanted to travel to you and you would just start there. It may have been jarring at first, but it turned out to be awesome. The overworld was commuting that I don’t miss at all.

Final Fantasy XIII is going even one step further – apparently there are no towns in this game. I don’t know how it works since I haven’t read too much about it, but my impression is that a “town” will simply be a location you can go to, and then you will have a menu of some sort that you can navigate and pick “Armor shop”, “weapon shop”, “Item shop”, etc. all from a menu as opposed to running around town into various buildings looking for the shops. If I’m now being forced to travel through a menu to get what I need to do instead of running around a huge town for hours, that works for me.

In Conclusion
When done right, sandbox style games can work, as I’ve mentioned several games that have ways that don’t force you to commute – at least all the time. But what I’m hoping for is that the future’s games don’t rely on the sandbox gameplay design to artificially lengthen their games. If Crackdown 2 is being heralded as a 30 hour game but 15 of those hours are actually traveling to get to each mission or boss, then is it really a 30 hour game?

If I were to give my opinion to game designers, it would be to focus on the actual gameplay itself. Make everything as simple as you can such that we gamers can actually enjoy the game. Games like Burnout Revenge, Gears of War, and Modern Warfare all have missions that are forced one right after another or are selected from a menu. If you want to make players travel across a sandbox to get to these missions, please show some consideration as to whether or not the forced commuting really adds value. Sandbox gameplay is not necessarily a step forward in gameplay design!

It’s that time of the year again…as 2009 draws to a close and the holiday season is upon us, cmfl3x and I decided that we wanted to do our own “Leveling Down” gaming awards for 2009 where we choose winners in several categories for Xbox 360 games that have been released in 2009. At the same time, we also wanted to preserve the holiday shopping guide that Leveling Down produced last year but felt that the awards and the shopping guide were too similar.

Instead of separate 2009 awards and holiday shopping guide posts, we’ve decided to combine them this year into one. Every game we’ve nominated within our awards are games worth considering for the holidays, but at the same time, we’re also declaring the winner. Consider the awards as, if you can only buy one game from the nominees of the category, buy the winner. But if you are further interested in other games from the category, you should definitely pick them up as well as they have aspects that all make them worth considering. Game boxes have been provided for all nominees, and all of them link to Amazon, our gaming retailer of the year due to not only their ridiculous gaming deals, but their constant vigilance in price matching practically all competitors.

Our 2009 awards/shopping guide will span all week, with cmfl3x and me alternating posts and writing about a few categories each day. This will culminate on Friday when we both share our own nominations for Game of the Year, and our picks for Game of the Year. I will kick things off today with three categories: 2009′s Best Fighting Game, Best Role Playing Game, and Best First Person Shooter for the Xbox 360.

Best Xbox 360 Fighting Game of 2009

Street Fighter IV [winner]
BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger
Marvel vs Capcom 2
Tekken 6

It’s hard to believe that Street Fighter IV released this year since it was back in February that the game came out. Compared to the other fighting games that were released in 2009, Street Fighter IV reigns supreme. It is THE sequel to Street Fighter II for many of us that grew up with the game, and jumped off the band wagon once Street Fighter III came out. It unites fans of the classic Street Fighter games with fans of the more current Street Fighter games – a remarkable feat. The roster is huge and full of fan favorites, the gameplay is simple to learn yet deep enough to be played at a competitive level, the graphics are truly revolutionary and fitting for this generation, and the excellent matchmaking allows fans to play the game competitively from the comfort of their own homes. In short, it’s easy to understand why Street Fighter IV is our 2009 fighting game of the year.

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger is our runner up for fighting game of the year. Developed by the makers of Guilty Gear, BlazBlue came out of nowhere for me and after I picked it up and played it, I had a great time. The game is fresh with completely new characters, contains very functional matchmaking, and a single player mode that has players really learning about the storyline and background of each character. I would have liked to see more characters, as BlazBlue’s playable roster doesn’t compare to Street Fighter IV’s, but the game should be next on your list to buy if you’re a fighting game fan and Street Fighter IV has lost its appeal for you.

Marvel vs Capcom 2 is a $15 Xbox Live Arcade title, and while it’s worth mentioning here as a fighting game to look into, it is beginning to show its age. All the craziness of the game is still there and matchmaking works online, but at this rate you’re either still a fan or have moved on. Today’s fighting games are a bit less frenetic, but if jonesin’ to play as Spiderman and Wolverine once again, Marvel vs Capcom 2 will deliver. Just be aware that the character list is quite unbalanced and you may get frustrated playing online against others that have been playing it for many years.

Tekken 6 is the last fighting game to be released in 2009 worth considering for fighting game fans. At its initial launch, the game’s online was terrible but over Thanksgiving Namco has since released a patch to alleviate the problems. I haven’t played the Tekken games since the PS2, but I have picked up Tekken 6 and plan to delve into it later this month. The game has a huge roster of characters, but for some reason or another, its core gameplay has never really resonated with me compared to other fighting games. Tekken tends to focus more on juggling combos than traditional combos, and has single-player departures that tend to suck. Tekken 6 appears to be no different. I don’t see much innovation in this game compared to Street Fighter IV and BlazBlue, the other stronger titles in this category. Still, it’s the only 3D fighter released this year, so if you prefer that to 2D fighters, this is the game to get.

Best Xbox 360 Role Playing Game of 2009

Star Ocean: The Last Hope
Sacred 2: Fallen Angel
Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition
Magna Carta 2
Dragon Age: Origins [winner]

2009 was a tough year for role playing game fans on the Xbox 360. After the deluge of titles from Mystwalker and Square Enix in the past, we’re left with just one pure Japanese RPG released in 2009: Star Ocean: The Last Hope. I actually owned this game for a while, and tried it out for a bit. It’s not a bad game, as it follows traditional J-RPG classic RPG design. If you like J-RPGs and the idea of spending hundreds of hours in a sci-fi based one, Star Ocean 4 is worth considering – even if the reviews of the game are less than stellar. It seems like American reviewers don’t really enjoy J-RPG games much these days, as they didn’t score Lost Odyssey too highly either so if you liked games like Lost Odyssey, perhaps Star Ocean: The Last Hope may also provide you with similar enjoyment.

Sacred 2 was a 360 port originally released on the PC. I tried out the PC demo and while it was decent, I wasn’t going to seriously play it enough to get it. It’s gotten mixed reviews, but it resonates strongly with the right crowd. If you’re a Diablo fan and enjoy collecting loot in an action-RPG style game, Sacred 2 is the only game you’ll be able to play this year on the 360 that can handle that. However, there are inherent technical issues with the game, with complaints such as slowdown, interface problems, and other minor things that account for a lack of presentation. Players also complain about the lack of a pause feature. But, if you want an action-RPG game to play on the 360, this is most likely the primary replacement to Too Human.

Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition I mention here only because it was released this year. With it being our pick for 2008′s game of the year, it cannot seriously be considered as a competitor for this year. Having said that, if you have not played the game yet, this is the definitive title to get as the game of the year edition contains all five released downloadable content that would have cost players $50 or so alone for just downloading. The most important part of the DLC is that it raises the level cap from 20 to 30, ensuring a much lengthier experience you can enjoy in the world of Fallout 3.

Magna Carta 2 is a Korean developed J-RPG game, and I say “J-RPG” because the developers have created it specifically adhering to Japanese RPG game design. However, the game actually plays more like an action-RPG, and is very reminiscent of Infinite Undiscovery. Sadly, Infinite Undiscovery and Magna Carta 2 were devastated by american reviewers. I personally enjoyed Infinite Undiscovery a lot, and because of that I’ve already picked up Magna Carta 2. There are still fans for both games, and there seem to be more fans of Magna Carta 2 than I would have thought. So with Magna Carta 2, perhaps it’s worth not listening to the reviewers if this type of game interests you.

The final nominee we have for best 360 role playing game of 2009 is Dragon Age: Origins. Compared to the other games, it was easy to realize that Dragon Age: Origins would be our winner even though neither cmfl3x and I have even played through it yet. It’s in my backlog (like practically every other big game released this holiday season), but I’ve read enough about it and even played the web-based game to understand what it’s going for. To be honest, it wins by default because Fallout 3: GotY is ineligible, and the other three RPG games are good for only certain types of RPG fan types, while Dragon Age: Origins brings it all together. If you are simply a general RPG fan, Dragon Age: Origins is the game to buy. The game is quite lengthy, has a deep storyline, and is developed by the team behind RPG greats such as Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, and the game is considered the spiritual successor to the PC franchise Baldur’s Gate. The one big negative to the game appears to be the graphics. The game looks gorgeous on the PC, but on the 360 version, complaints seem to condemn the game as having Xbox 1 level graphics. I’m sure they can’t be that bad, but that is perhaps the biggest thing to consider. Most people recommend picking the PC version if possible but if the 360 is all you got, it’s still the best RPG game of this year.

Best Xbox 360 First Person Shooter of 2009

Battlefield 1943
Halo 3: ODST
Borderlands
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 [winner]
Left 4 Dead 2

What defines what is the best first person shooter of the year? Of course it would have to be played in first person, but what I’m thinking about is when one is shopping for a gamer who doesn’t have any of this year’s top FPS games and is a FPS fan, the winner of this category is the game to get. Which is the overall package that will delight a FPS fan?

Battlefield 1943 is an Xbox Live Arcade only title, and while it has a hard time comparing to the other games on this nominee list, it holds its own as quite an enjoyable Live Arcade title. The game released in the summer of 2009 for $15, and prior to that, there had been no other online FPS game for fans to engage in. Battlefield 1943 definitely scratched the itch, as it brought the core Battlefield Conquest gameplay back, with three different land maps and an air map. Does it still hold up compared to this holiday season’s titles? Not really, but for a fraction of the cost, it’s still worth checking out for multiplayer FPS fans.

Halo 3: ODST did not release to rave reviews like its predecessors. It did some interesting things with the “open world” campaign and Firefight modes, but many felt that its $59.99 price tag was far too high for what it provided: a 6 hour campaign, co-op Firefight without matchmaking, and all of the Halo 3 multiplayer with all DLC maps and three new ones. Most fans of Halo already had Halo 3, so while it sounds like a good deal for those completely new to Halo, people were upset that they were spending $60 to complete a short campaign and play Firefight. The game did not have legs, and many players have already moved onto either Modern Warfare 2 or Left 4 Dead 2. Is it a good game? Sure it’s worth playing if you’re a Halo fan and the Firefight mode is a lot of fun with friends. But with no truely new multiplayer component, it’s a game that will most likely gather dust once you’ve gone through it.

Borderlands is more of a mixture between FPS and RPG, as you play the game in first person and shoot guns but you have to adhere to RPG principles like finding new weapons for damage upgrades and taking into account damage increases and reduction due to player and enemy level differences. Borderlands proves that this mixture between FPS and RPG works brilliantly, and for fans of both genres, the game is worth picking up. Unfortunately, like Halo 3: ODST, it doesn’t seem to be a game that has legs. It’s quite lengthier than Halo 3: ODST (at about 25 hours for each playthrough, with 2 playthroughs required to max out at level 50), and even provides 4-player co-op, but the RPG limitations prevent co-op from really being possible unless you have a dedicated crew that will only play it together at the exact same time.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is the juggernaut in this list, and easily the winner of this category due to it being a more complete package than any other FPS on this list. If you want to play the game’s multiplayer, it’s awesome and has so many things going on that you could be engaged with it for months or years. There’s so much going on that I’ve even had to write a guide for it, and it’s so fun that even when you die you can’t help but keep coming back. At the same time, the campaign, while a bit on the short side at 6 hours, is also quite a thrillride from start to finish with a storyline that has you on the edge of your seat at practically every level. Still on top of that, if you wanted even more from the game, there’s an entirely new mode called Special Ops that consists of over 20 levels that you can play through co-op with a friend. These levels are quite enjoyable, ranging from one player in an AC-130 covering another player as he makes his way across the map to both players holding out together against several waves of increasingly difficult enemies. In all, Modern Warfare 2 is the First Person Shooter of 2009, and should not be missed. It has practically everything a first person shooter fan could ever want.

Left 4 Dead 2 was released one week after Modern Warfare 2, and amusingly enough, I am now writing about it in the paragraph after gushing about how amazing Modern Warfare 2 is and why it won. Left 4 Dead 2 actually pulls second in this category for 2009, as it brings more to the table over its predecessor: more special infected zombies, more weapons, more levels, longer levels, more adversarial modes, increased difficulty, and the list goes on. Of course, whether it was all necessary is questionable by fans of the original but I will definitely admit that if I ever get tired of Modern Warfare 2, I can see Left 4 Dead 2 carrying my FPS burden until Battlefield: Bad Company 2 releases in March. My recommendation is to pick up Modern Warfare 2 & Left 4 Dead 2, but if it can only be one for your FPS fan, it’s Modern Warfare 2 all the way.

Stay tuned tomorrow when cmfl3x presents our next categories!

Amazon’s gaming deal of the day is Fallout 3 – unfortunately, only the PS3 version is on sale. If you haven’t played the game that cmfl3x and I both rate as our game of the year for 2008, you don’t know what you’re missing. Pick it up…now!

Also consider these two recent price drops on EA PS3 games as well:
Mercenaries 2 $19.99 (360 version is still $29.99) [Amazon.com]
Battlefield: Bad Company $19.99 (360 version is still $29.99) [Amazon.com]
Army of Two $19.99 (360 version is also $19.99) [Amazon.com]

Fallout 3 PS3 $34.98 [Amazon.com]

cmfl3x asked me a little while back if I was looking forward to the Fallout 3 downloadable content. He seemed pretty excited about it and I felt bad telling him but no, I didn’t share in his excitement. In fact, while there are games I may fully enjoy, like Ninja Gaiden II or Fallout 3, I’ll never buy their DLC. To this day, I have not paid for downloadable content for any traditional game, and I don’t plan on ever doing so. Why? Because I don’t believe in what it stands for. Obviously if downloadable content is free, such as Burnout Paradise’s motorcycles and whatnot, or BioShock’s extra plasmids, then sure – it is always welcome. It’s when it starts getting charged for that it gets on my nerves.

I actually wrote up an entire article just knocking on it, but then felt it may come off as too much of a rant so I held off. I figure that if I could turn it into a discussion topic with cmfl3x, it’d be a little more civil.

Let’s look at what type of monster paid downloadable content has become and why I choose to avoid it.

The biggest argument for publishers/developers to charge us for downloadable content is that we get more content for our favorite games. We can explore new things and play the games even longer. Woohoo! But honestly, do I want to pay for a couple more multiplayer levels in a game and maybe a new small planet or island I can explore instead of putting all of that money towards a new game with a more complete experience? And with game publishers and developers fully embracing downloadable content, it looks like more bad than good has come out of it for us consumers. Here’s why I think so.

1. Paid DLC is rarely even a part of the main game
Games like Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Fable II are heavy single player games that have all gotten or are getting paid DLC that allows you to travel to a small island somewhere to explore a new area. That’s all great but compared to how huge the in-game worlds of these games already are to begin with, these little diversions for $10 comes up a little short compared to what we’re already used to. In Fallout 3′s $60 retail package I can explore over a hundred unique areas and now I’m being charged another $10 to explore just a single new one? And now that we’ve maxed out our characters in games like Fallout 3 and Fable II, what’s the point of even playing these new diversions? Did people really think the Mass Effect DLC was worth its price? It’s like you buy a $10 movie ticket, and then buy another $2 ticket to go watch 10 minutes of footage of the characters in the movie you like doing something completely separate from the movie where it’s not part of the plot, has no relevance, nor does it contribute anything to the movie itself.

2. Paid DLC segments the userbase for online games
Games like Halo 3, Gears of War, and Call of Duty 4 have had map packs released that cost about $10 or so for a few new maps. But did we really sit down to think how this works out? When everyone buys a game, everyone has that map. But then when DLC comes out and only a fraction of the people buy the map, those are the only people you will end up playing with if you bought the map packs. Now you have a segment of the online audience playing the core maps, and another segment playing the core maps and the DLC maps. That’s all great but it screws over friends who can/want to buy the new maps versus the ones that don’t. Everyone has to pay or no one does in order for everyone to play together. Why not just make it all free like it is on the PC?

3. Paid DLC is just a fix for developers not finishing their game
Paid DLC is an easy way out for developer strapped on time as a consequence of poor management of the project. With the advent of title updates, we already have to deal with developers skipping thorough testing because they know they can always patch our games later down the road. But now with paid DLC, they even just cut out entire levels in their games if they’re running short on time. After all, that not only gives them a nice extension on their poorly organized release, but also gives them some extra money while they’re at it. (See Tomb Raider: Underworld.)

4. Paid DLC is an easy way for developers to make an extra buck
Horse armor anyone? If you remember Oblivion’s first DLC, there was an uproar over Bethesda Softworks trying to charge a couple dollars to simply put an armor texture on your horse. That was it. While the industry has since learned from that fiasco, that hasn’t stopped their decision to release new character costumes that you can buy for a couple dollars (see Ninja Gaiden II, Dead Space). This is honestly no different than the horse armor but I guess because it is the character you are controlling, players are less prone to complain. I still think it’s a rip-off all around since it really takes an insignificant amount of time to simply add a new art texture into the game.

5. Paid DLC is an easy way for developers to hold features ransom
The best example of this is Soul Calibur IV. This game came out with Yoda exclusive to the Xbox 360 version and Darth Vader exclusive to the PS3 version. Fans were asking if there was any way to unlock the other character on their system and Namco continued to deny it. Well, just when the game dropped from popularity, Namco released a $5 DLC to allow you to unlock the other Star Wars character on your console. Great. This character could have already been included, but was intentionally withheld simply to force users to buy it later. And what about times when you see paid DLC that’s the size of less than a meg? It means the content was sitting right there on your disc already but the developers decided to lock it so you’d have to pay for it. Games like the Dance Dance Revolution Universe series and Virtua Fighter 5 are guilty of this. If that’s not the biggest slap in the face, I don’t know what is.

In summary, for the most part I think paid DLC is a terrible “evolution” in gaming. It’s a monetizing of gaming not unlike the airline industry where we now have to pay for food, pillows, blankets, check our bags, or to even pick our own seats. The problem though, is that we’ve grown to accept it. When companies that are used to giving free content to their userbase on the PC (like Epic and Valve) want to do it on the 360, Microsoft will rarely let them. It now becomes Microsoft’s decision to price stuff accordingly because if they let companies that want to give out maps for free but other companies are charging, it makes everything seem out of wack. But unlike the airline industry where we have to fly, we don’t have to buy DLC. So I will continue my lone crusade and boycott buying any and all DLC content.

Correct me if I’m wrong, cmfl3x!

Well, espion4ge, unfortunately I can’t disagree with you completely, but I do think DLC does have its strong points. I probably will get Operation: Anchorage, eventually, but I’m trying to decide whether to wait for Broken Steel, the third DLC for Fallout 3 coming in March, first. Broken Steel will raise the level cap so I can at least get experience from Operation: Anchorage.

Honestly, your reasons for hating DLC are pretty valid, so I’m not going to try to refute them here. In fact, it really annoys me too when companies use DLC to make up for not finishing development on time. I pass on those kinds of DLC. Also, the nickel and dime DLC, like the new character in Castle Crashers, or new outfits for my avatar are the kinds of things I stay away from. I’d probably say, though, that monetized DLC is here to stay (which you know), and in some ways, it’s a necessary evil.

The fact of the matter is, we live in terrible economic times, which everyone knows. Developers and publishers are losing money just like everyone else, and they need ways to sustain themselves cheaply, and DLC is an answer to that. Gaming companies have been laying people off in droves. Without extra income from DLC, who knows whether some of these developers will even still be around in a year or so? That might sound over dramatic, but I don’t think it’s that far away from reality.

Meanwhile, I think there are some legitimate ways that companies can pull off DLC and not rip off consumers. I think a good example is GTAIV’s upcoming The Lost and the Damned. Liberty City is an amazingly well put together location, and the idea of basically creating another “game” to be played in it makes sense to me. Liberty City is a game world that deserves to have another story told in it. Sure, it’s not part of the main story, but it’s basically like buying an Arcade game that takes advantage of a pre-rendered game world.

Another factor at play is, consumers want more from their games and want to go deeper into the experience. The main game in Fallout 3 dropped hints about another city called The Pitt that was overrun by ghouls. As I was playing the game, I found myself interested in seeing how the nuclear war had affected some other cities. Well, then two months later Bethesda announces that the 2nd DLC for Fallout 3 will be The Pitt! Clever in-game marketing? Obviously. But the fact is, it’s the developer’s job to make me want to buy the DLC. In this case, I think they’ve done a good job.

Ultimately, I think it’s important to realize that video games are a business. Very few companies think like Valve, who is incredible about putting out new, free content for their users. And like you said, Microsoft forces Valve to charge for content that Valve releases on the PC for free. But you could argue that even Valve has been charging for DLC with Episodes 1 and 2 of Half Life 2 (although the Orange Box made up for all of that).

I respect your decision not to buy DLC, because when it comes down to it, companies will only put out DLC if people will buy it. Unfortunately, just like things like Wii Play, people buy DLC for all sorts of reasons that aren’t really in hardcore gamers’ control. I’m sure there are people who love buying new outfits for their characters or their horses. Which means that like it or not, DLC is here to stay. As for me, I’ll let the developers convince me that their DLC is worth it, and if I think it is, then I’ll probably buy it.

A question for you, do you buy DLC for Rock Band?

Rock Band is a different case, and while I mentioned that I did have some Rock Band DLC in my original writeup, I decided to remove it when sharing my thoughts with you because I figured you would bring that point forward as at least one legitimate defense for paid DLC.

I have bought several Rock Band DLC tracks – probably about 15 or so songs. They are actually the only DLC I’ve ever bought for the 360, and I think that for the most part paid DLC in Rock Band is fine. This is because Rock Band is more about the music than the actual game. People want to sing and play instruments to songs they like, and with such a varied taste in music from one consumer to another, this is really the only possible solution.

For me, I tend to like pop rock bands from the 90s and up, so stuff like Weezer, Green Day (where is Green Day content anyway?!), Fallout Boy, All-American Rejects, etc. are my bread and butter for music games.

It would certainly be nice if all of the Rock Band DLC was free, but I understand that there’s a cost to licensing the use of the song, work needs to be done in making it playable by 4 people, etc. It’s not the same as an additional minor diversion to the main game. it’s very much a part of the main game since some people may just play the same 10 songs they bought for the life of their Rock Band game and that’s all they wanted to do. I tend to skip all the heavy metal songs in Rock Band so paid DLC is my only real option to enjoy the game how I best want to.

But what concerns me about Rock Band (and Guitar Hero) is that with how much money they’re making in DLC, the developers would intentionally withhold highly requested songs from sequels simply so they could charge for them separately later. Take for example, the 20 promised free DLC tracks with Rock Band 2 purchase. People were all excited about the songs and then we find out that no one has even heard of these songs or even the groups themselves. There could have been more well-known bands on that list of 20 songs, but they were probably held back to be charged for later. I’m just concerned that Rock Band 3, for example, may not have as good of a playlist as it should simply because the developers are intentionally withholding songs to sell later. It’s a minor issue though, since I probably get more out of a $2 song in Rock Band than a $10 island in Fable II.

Seriously, where IS Green Day!?

2 dollars for 4 instruments worth of gameplay really is a pretty good deal. What would be the absolute worst, I think, is if not only they hold back the good songs, but they start charging a premium for them. Say 3 dollars instead of 2. Especially with the way things have been going on iTunes lately, that could be a possibility, and wouldn’t be a good one.

I think ultimately you are probably right that DLC is another example of companies trying to rip us off. I wish I could have the same moral standards as you, but when it comes to being a consumer I am mostly a sucker: If they hype it and it sounds good I’ll probably buy it. I try to exact my revenge by buying games on sale. Small consolation, I know.

Since money is tighter these days, I will pick and choose what I purchase, especially for download, carefully. I’ve decided definitively to hold off on Operation: Anchorage right now. Though I would love to bust some communist heads, that level cap is a real bummer. I’m also more interested in what The Pitt and Broken Steel have to offer anyway, especially since Broken Steel supposedly extends the storyline a bit (plus fighting alongside the Brotherhood is cool).

Until then, I probably won’t even consider buying any DLC. Unless Valve comes out with some new maps for Left 4 Dead. Man, wouldn’t new maps for Left 4 Dead at least TEMPT you? What if they were like, 5 bucks? Just kidding…you should stick to your morals…maybe. [Editor's note: This discussion of Left 4 Dead DLC was before Wednesday's news that it would be free on the PC and 360.]

Left 4 Dead is a tough choice – especially if I see that PC gamers get all the stuff for free and we have to pay $10. I’ll probably pass, as once again, my morals are telling me that if I submit and pay the $10, it puts me down a slippery slope for buying DLC. Maybe I’ll just save that $10 and put it towards the PC version of the game.

I do want to go back to one point you mentioned earlier though, and that is how the current economic climate is bad so companies need to release paid DLC to help make some money to stay afloat. But if you think about it, the income from the paid DLC is only a tiny fraction of retail sales. Is it really worth it to charge for this stuff considering the good will and fanbase the companies could garner by just making the DLC free? I’m fiercely loyal to Blizzard, and am now starting to be pretty loyal to Valve too. These are companies that certainly don’t release paid DLC and thrive in today’s economy. Anything they release, I’ll buy. Don’t other companies want that level of appeal? Having such a strong fanbase that you can actually hold conventions with $100 tickets and still sell out?

In a way, this current economic climate may benefit us hardcore gamers. Being hardcore generally means we are well-versed in gaming and are serious about it. Isn’t it better if game companies die off as a result of releasing mundane games in a struggling economy since we won’t buy them? It’s during this time that the companies would have to “bring it” and release games that aren’t shovelware. If the game is good, it should sell itself right?

I remember how BioShock was almost canceled because no publisher was willing to pick up the game. They all thought it would not sell but it instead went on to become game of the year last year and sold millions. I guess this discussion is almost moving towards a discussion on whether DLC should even be charged for. And I honestly don’t think it should be. Maybe it seems harsh, but I want companies that release bad games to fail – not to extend their life by nickle and diming us. In a way, it has similarities to the banks these days asking for a bailout of taxpayers’ money for mistakes they made. It just so happens that our bailout for mediocre games these days is paid DLC. I’m not bailing out anyone!!

Yeah, I guess it all comes down to the different philosophies of different companies. Blizzard and Valve have both proven they can make boatloads of money by putting the consumer first. EA has proven it can make boatloads of money by continuously putting out sequels to mediocre games. And as you pointed out in your Mirror’s Edge review, when they tried something different they got burned financially. That’s why these companies like bailouts. Brilliant analogy, btw.

But maybe you’re right, the lower tier companies trying to nickel and dime us with DLC and cheap sequels might end up losing out and shutting down. Like, who is seriously going to buy the Prince of Persia DLC? (Actually, I don’t want to know the answer. Plus Ubisoft isn’t small, although no one is safe). As for me, I won’t mind buying DLC if it’s for a game I really love. But the funny thing about this little debate is I can’t think of a single piece of DLC that I have bought outside of Rock Band! I got all the Halo maps for free thru various machinations I think.

But yea, I can still fight for DLC at some level in principle because I will eventually purchase something for Fallout 3 and Left 4 Dead and not lose too much sleep over it.

Yeah – looks like we all just have to coexist in a happy medium of some companies not charging while others do. I think that my thoughts on the matter are obviously more skewed towards being a hardcore gamer, and remember how things were “back in the day”. Maybe this generation is a bit different now, especially with the amount of casual gamers playing these days. For all we know, it could be the casual gamers that are buying most of this paid DLC. I remember how appalled I was a while back that EA was selling DLC that would just unlock features of a game in case you found it too hard. What the heck? But they are still doing it even today, with Skate 2′s paid DLC. So apparently people buy it! Maybe not you and me, but I guess it’s the same idea as people in MMORPG’s paying real money for in-game gold. The hardcore gamer would never stoop to such levels, but maybe the casual gamers are what are lining the pockets of these mediocre game developers on the 360…

I’ve created a new section for Leveling Down called Discussion. In this section we will be posting gaming related discussion that either cmfl3x or I may have from time to time with members of the gaming community or even just between ourselves. In some ways, this isn’t really different from one of us posting an article and the other one commenting on it but we’ve structured it in such a way that we expect the other to sort of reply – at least to have somewhat of a conversation. These posts may be nothing more than idle chit-chat, but I guess this is what aging hardcore gamers chit-chat about. Feel free to jump into the discussion with your comments as well.

This first discussion topic was suggested to me by cmfl3x, as he asked me how I felt about how morality was currently handled in video games.

cmfl3x: One thing I’ve been thinking about is how different games handle “morality” issues – the strengths and weaknesses, where we hope games can go, etc. Like, what differentiates the morality choices in different games like Fable, Fallout, Mass Effect, or even Bioshock? How does the way the game handle choice enhance the experience or cheapen it? I dunno, something like that. Haha, do you have any idea what I am saying?

espion4ge: It’s funny to think about games with morality, because for me, it’s a no-brainer to always go the good route. I think that’s inherently my nature since maybe I read too many comic books as a kid and believe in good always prevailing, justice, and all that. I actually have trouble playing games like GTA just because I don’t really get much enjoyment running over pedestrians and such.

But when it comes to the games you mentioned, I feel that they are really at in their infancy or aren’t handled completely well yet. What I don’t like is how in games like BioShock and Fable 2, you pretty much are more rewarded if you go the “good path”. it’s almost like there’s no reason to go the bad path and the game conditions you so with all of the positive feedback you get back. Why kill a Little Sister when you can save her and get basically the same reward? It would have made more sense if you decided to save the Little Sister and not gotten anything out of it – then it really comes down to you deciding morally that you want to do it purely out of conscience than because the reward is greater. Fable 2 is practically the same way – if you do bad things people will react differently towards you, you’ll grow horns, have flies flying around you, etc. I’m sure there is a certain type of gamer that likes that, but why do you have to be ugly and generally disliked just because you’re playing an evil path? You can still be cool.

Mass Effect and Fallout 3 do a little bit more of a decent job on handling morality, in that the games have a more neutral stance on the matter instead of “wanting you” to play good. But honestly, perhaps Mass Effect was too symmetrical because you were often given the option to either threaten or persuade someone, and they basically led to the same result. The Karma system wasn’t too bad in Fallout 3 – I liked that you could pick up followers depending on what type of moral standing you had but it was all still just number crunching anyway if you wanted to change morality. Want to be good when you’ve been bad the whole game? Just give bottled water to the beggar until you’re good. Want to be bad when you’ve been good the whole game? Just kill citizens over and over.

I don’t think we’re quite there yet in terms of gaming, but hopefully gameplay elements become more interesting because of it. The problem is, it’s difficult to set it up well in a game. I don’t like how some games have achievements for playing the game good and then evil, only to discover that they’re practically the same.

cmfl3x: In a gameplay sense, I agree that it’s annoying that you are rewarded for being good, because in that kind of system all choices are not created equal. At the same time, I don’t think I particularly want to see games rewarding people too much for being bad. Maybe I’m old fashioned but I don’t think that’s a message we should be imparting on our youth, especially in a more realistic setting. That’s probably why games like Fable make you fat and ugly when you’re bad, to turn you off from that. What you propose though, getting no reward for being good, could work.

Fallout 3 is definitely one of my favorite moral choice type games, even though like you said you can “change your karma” more or less whenever you want. What Fallout 3 does is it puts you in a world full of characters who already are morally predisposed one way or another and allows you to choose the role you play in that world, as you alluded to in your review.

The Capitol Wasteland is a messed up place, and its residents are all over the place morally. Some are trying to rebuild a functioning society, others are just trying to get everything they can for themselves. Your choices in each quest affects the communities that have been formed, for good or for ill or sometimes both. You have a real sense that your actions matter, even if its only on a small scale. A few times I found myself just staring at my screen trying to decide what to do, because like reality, sometimes it is not clear what is “right” or “wrong” in Fallout. Sure you can reload a save, but that takes away from some of the immersion factor.

I would love to see a game that builds on these types of choices by not only affecting NPCs but the game world itself. Imagine a city as well developed as Liberty City where you aren’t constrained to playing as a gangster. GTAIV’s moral choices boiled down to shoot or don’t shoot someone or choose who out of two people you want to shoot. The choices are okay in and of themselves, but imagine if the world changed depending on your choices. In Fable, your look changes depending on your choices. How cool would it be if the game world looks, sounds, and feels different depending on your choices?

Obviously, it’d be tough to pull a game like this off, especially if some of the changes to the game world are more unexpected (e.g., kill a gangster, but instead of the city getting better, another gangster who is much worse takes their place). But I think it would give a real feeling of importance to the gamer about their choices.

It would have been cool if Bioshock 2, a prequel, was designed like that. Rapture is going to a dark place as we all know, but as a character in Rapture, am I going to work to slow down the process or speed it up? I’d buy a game like that in a heartbeat.

espion4ge: Actually you are right about Fallout 3 – maybe it’s the best game out now that explores moral choice. When I think back to it, while I do think the Karma system was a little silly, even if you were to strip that moral indicator completely out of the game you could have still played it as a very evil character since there were plenty of things you could do. And in a certain context of the game, Fallout 3′s setting really allows you to do that since sometimes you have to do what is considered “evil” simply to just survive.

Thinking back – yeah Fallout 3 had a lot of things you could do if you so inclined – killing anyone you wanted, stealing practically anything, enslaving people, lying to them, etc. I guess since I rarely went down the evil path, I never really saw the other side of that game nor was I curious to try it out. And if you were to really think about it, what gives you the right in the game to even take another man’s life? Just because he enslaves other humans, is that really your call?

I do agree with you though that maybe games do have sort of a moral responsibility to teach kids to be good. While you and me are adults already and can play Grand Theft Auto games without influencing our real lives, kids may not know better. In fact, with each of us probably having our own kids eventually in the future, I would probably prefer that they got any sort of conditioning from media outlets to be a good person. Seeing how big the game industry has me thinking that there should be some responsibility to bringing up kids to be good people too, if possible. It worked with comics didn’t it? Kids like Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, etc. and thus are more excited to do the right thing.

Perhaps exploring the concept of moral choice in video games might not be a good idea if children of the future may become influenced in a bad way. Or maybe they could learn from seeing the consequences of their actions in videogames? Ugh – analyzing the role of morality in videogames is tougher than I thought. You could probably write a college research paper on this subject and it still probably wouldn’t be completely unrefutable.

Fallout 3 is in every sense of the word, a role-playing game. It’s not a role-playing game that has come to be associated with Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior but rather, a game where you get to choose a specific role for your character and play that role throughout the game. I consider Fallout 3 to be more an adventure game first and foremost, with minor RPG elements. You can honestly just play through the game looking for rifles and shooting at enemies, and not even really worry about the stats and Perks you want to assign your character.

In this day and age where almost everyone has played Call of Duty 4, they understand what assigning perks to your character means though. In short, I think the gaming world has grown up a little such that Fallout 3 can and should really be played by everyone. It’s the best single player game released this year. I still firmly believe that if you enjoyed BioShock and want something with more depth and satisfaction, then Fallout 3 should be the next purchase you make. And if you haven’t played BioShock yet, what’s wrong with you?

Good
- excellent recreation of a post-nuclear DC wasteland
- immersive gameplay that can have you playing hours without even noticing
- no set way to go through the game allows for playing the game in many different roles

Bad
- level cap stops progression too early in the game
- lack of a variety of enemy types
- lack of a minimap window on the main screen (but map is accessible in menu)

Intro
The Fallout series has been a cult classic among PC gamers for many years. Fallout 1 and 2 were originally developed by Black Isle Studios and released in 1997 and 1998. The games were quite popular due to their unique post-nuclear setting and storyline in combination with an engaging turn-based RPG. While I never played Fallout 1 or 2 when they were released back in 1997 and 1998, I became a pretty big fan of the development studio after buying their subsequent releases: Planescape: Torment in 1999, Icewind Dale in 2000, and Icewind Dale II in 2002. All of these were excellent computer RPG games – Planescape: Torment especially so for its intriguing storyline.

In 2003, Interplay, the publishing company that owned Black Isle Studios, underwent some serious financial trouble. There was no choice but to let the entire team behind Black Isle Studios go, and the development studio was completely killed off as the developers were all let go and joined other companies. Interplay then went on to sell the Fallout license to Bethesda Softworks for a little under $6 million. Bethesda Softworks, the company that was already up to its fourth iteration in the Elder Scrolls games with Oblivion, wanted to develop a new Fallout title using their game engine and game mechanics.

While some hardcore Fallout fans are not happy with the way Bethesda Softworks handled the sequel and its jump to a 3D action-RPG game, the game has nonetheless been awarded high reviews all around and sold nearly five million copies worldwide. The game was released in 3 versions: a regular version, a collector’s edition with a bobblehead, a lunchbox, and a making of DVD, and a 3rd Amazon exclusive version that contains the collector’s edition as well a life-size replica of the Pip-Boy used in the game. Some consider this their game of the year for 2008, and I am in that same camp as well.

Celebrating your 10th birthday in the Vault without a care in the world…

Storyline and Premise
Fallout 3 takes place in a post-apocalyptic Washington DC in the 23rd century. In this world the main character (male or female) is born in Vault 101, a fallout shelter that is locked up to prevent its inhabitants from the remnants of nuclear radiation. As the main character grows up in the vault, he/she one day discovers that his father has left the vault. At this point the player also decides to leave the vault (much to the chagrin of the vault overseer) to discover where his father went and why.

Once the player sets foot into the outside world he sees what has happened. Irradiated bugs scorpions and bugs are running wild. Remaining human survivors are holed up in shanty towns trying to find access to fresh water. Nuclear radiation has crippled the physical features of certain humans, turning them into disgusting looking beings that are either still able to function in society or have become rabid in subway tunnels. Mutants slaughter innocent humans and bag up their body parts. With no police, even certain humans resort to forming gangs and rob/kill unchecked. Through all of this, the player must journey through and make sense of not only what his father left for, but help (or hinder) the DC area as its remaining inhabitants try to simply survive.

Fallout 3 is a very long game. It’s an adventure game first, where the player will travel the DC area (now known as the Capital Wasteland) looking for help, ammo, money, etc. simply to survive. It’s possible to stick to the main questline and beat the game in perhaps a dozen hours, but the sidequests that are offered in various towns in the game really should not be missed. Plus, helping people, finding equipment, and making money, will make the main quest that much easier to get through.

Customize your character enough and you too will be able to blow off enemy legs with ease.

Gameplay Mechanics
Character Customization: S.P.E.C.I.A.L. System
The most difficult part to playing Fallout 3 is understanding the character customization system. At its heart it’s RPG stat based. Fallout 3 does a wonderful job of “sugar-coating” everything though, so that you don’t actually have to wonder about numbers much at all. Still, if your only hesitance to jump into this game is worrying about how much of the game is RPG, try to see if you can handle my explanation. If you get it, then you should be fine.

The primary governance of your character relies on the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system. As soon as you are born, you have to decide how you want them to be balanced out. I think that each of the seven attributes can be between 1 and 10, but you have a set number of maybe 35 points total so you can’t max everything. I believe it’s possible to simply go 5 for everything and just be completely normal (and boring!).

Because the attributes are introduced to you as soon as you are born, they are described in a childish way but make them easy to understand.

STRENGTH: “S is for Strength, and that means I am strong! I can carry more toys and swing stuff all day long!”
Strength allows you to carry more items in your pack (every item has a specific weight) and increases the damage you do if you want to be a melee-oriented character.

PERCEPTION: “P is for Perception, a long funny word! It means what I tasted, smelled, saw and heard!”
Perception allows you to notice your surroundings more, so you can spot enemies further away, avoid traps, etc.

ENDURANCE: “E is for Endurance, and that’s how long I can play! I’m always really healthy, and have energy all day!”
Endurance is related to how much life you have in your lifebar – the more endurance, the more damage you can withstand and at the same time, allows you to fight better barehanded.

CHARISMA: “C is for Charisma, it’s why people think I’m great! I make my friends laugh and smile, and never want to hate!”
Charisma is generally how other people will perceive you. If you have high charisma, other characters will tend to respond to you more favorably, whether through more speech options, better deals when selling and buying items, etc.

INTELLIGENCE: “I is for Intelligence, it means I’m really smart! I use my brain for lots of stuff, like science, math and art!”
Intelligence focuses on allowing you to heal more damage with med kits, repair equipment, and hack into computer terminals.

AGILITY: “A is for Agility, that’s how I get around! I move real fast and easy, and I never make a sound!”
Agility is associated most with how fast you can move as well as how sneaky you can be when trying not to be detected. It also allows you a higher action bar in the V.A.T.S. targeting system (which will be explained later).

LUCK: “L is for Luck, and it’s simple, you see! It means that good things always happen to me!”
Luck increases your chance to perform a critical hit on enemy targets, as well as increase your skills (explained next).

So upon first starting the game, you will have to decide how you want to play your character. Do you want him to be a strong, charismatic, and quick character? Then you’d put more of your points towards that. Or you could decide that you want him to be a highly intelligent and perceptive one. It’s all up to you.

If the attributes are too overwhelming for you, you can actually take an “aptitude test” that gives you a series of ten questions or so and how you would react to the situation. They are somewhat amusing too, like if your grandmother gave you a gun and asked you to go kill someone, would you do it? Based on your answers, all of the attributes will be determined for you.

Character Customization: Skills
Once you’ve decided which attributes in the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system you want to assign, it’s time to move onto the Skills you want to master. While the attributes in the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system are stuck and do not increase when you level up in the game, you receive skillpoints when you level up to assign to any of the skills you know. Each skill can go up to 100.

The skills are:

BARTER – the higher this is, the more money you make from selling items or the bigger discount you receive from buying items.
BIG GUNS – increases damage and accuracy on big two handed weapons like the rocket launcher, flamethrower, chaingun, etc.
ENERGY WEAPONS – increases damage and accuracy on laser and plasma weapons.
EXPLOSIVES – increases damage and accuracy with grenades and mines. It also allows you to disarm traps.
LOCKPICK – increases your ability to unlock doors, safes, cash registers, etc.
MEDICINE – increases how much you gain from using health items
MELEE WEAPONS – increases damage and accuracy on melee weapons like baseball bats, knives, etc.
REPAIR – increases the maximum condition which you can repair an item (equipment in this game degrades through use and if not repaired by the player, can generally be repaired by shop owners).
SCIENCE – increases the probability of being able to hack into a computer to access information, open doors, locks, etc.
SMALL GUNS – increases damage and accuracy on the general guns in the game like the assault rifle and shotgun.
SNEAK – lowers probability of being detected when crouched.
SPEECH – having a high enough speech skill adds new speech options when talking to other characters in the game, and the probability that the new speech option will be effective.
UNARMED – increases damage and accuracy when fighting barehanded.

The starting skill values for you in the game are determined by what attributes you chose in the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system, but you can work on any skills you wish throughout the game as you level up. You could spend the first few levels simply dumping all of your skillpoints into the Small Guns skill – maxing it out to 100 to become highly accurate and powerful with a rifle. Of course, that means you may have trouble in civilized areaas, as you may not be able to talk well with others or figure out ways to sneak into someone’s house.

Character Customization: Perks
Whew, this is quite a lot of info to take in at once, but here’s the last part of character customization: Perks. The Perk system is not unlike Perks in Call of Duty multiplayer – you are awarded the ability to learn a new Perk every 2 levels you level up in the game, for a total of 10 learnable Perks when you cap out at level 20. Not all Perks are unlockable either, as each one will only be usable based on if certain S.P.E.C.I.A.L attributes are high enough.

Here are some of the starting ones:

Learnable after Level 2:
DADDY’S BOY/GIRL – increases your Science & Medical skills [requires Intelligence 4]
GUN NUT – increases your Repair and Small Guns skill [requires Agility 4, Intelligence 4]
INTENSE TRAINING – allows you to increase one of your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes by one [no requirements]
LADY KILLER (or BLACK WIDOW if you’re female) – allows you to deal extra damage to opposite gender in combat, as well as opens up extra dialogue options with the opposite gender [no requirements]
LITTLE LEAGUER – increases Explosives & Melee skills [requires Strength 4]
SWIFT LEARNER – increases Experience point gain througout the game [requires Intelligence 4]
THIEF – increases Lockpick & Sneak skills [requires Agility 4, Perception 4]

Learnable after Level 4:
CHILD AT HEART – more favored when conversing with children, and opens up extra dialogue options with children [requires Charisma 4]
COMPREHENSION – every skill book found in the game awards 2 skill points instead of 1 [requires Intelligence 4]
EDUCATED – gain 3 additional skill points to distribute per skill level [requires Intelligence 4]
ENTOMOLOGIST – deals extra damage to insects [requires Intelligence 4, Science 40]
IRON FIST – deals extra damage unarmed [requires Strength 4]
SCOUNDREL – increases your Speech and Barter skills [requires Charisma 4]

Learnable after Level 6:
BLOODY MESS – deal extra damage on all attacks, and victim always dies violently [no requirements]
DEMOLTION EXPERT – all mines, grenades, and missles deal extra damage [requires Explosives 50]
FORTUNE FINDER – increases money gain throughout the game [requires Luck 5]
GUNSLINGER – when using a pistol in V.A.T.S., accuracy increased [no requirements]
LEAD BELLY – take less radiation when drinking water from an irradiated source [requires Endurance 5]
TOUGHNESS – increases damage resistance [requires Endurance 5]

There are plenty more, as well as extra Perks you can learn from doing quests (i.e. these are not accessible through simply leveling up). But with several Perks being unlockable after every couple of levels, one can see how each player’s playthrough of the game can dramatically differ. While I may have chosen to pick a lock to get past a certain area myself, another player may either convince a civilian to unlock the door, or another player may even simply just go in guns blazing through the front door. But if you can digest this RPG aspect of the game, you should be all set.

General Combat
While the game can be played in third person, it is most playable in first person like a shooter since third person is a little “floaty”. It can honestly be played just like a shooter. Run, sneak, move, shoot, reload, etc. without worrying about taking turns attacking an enemy etc. The only thing that prevents this from being a “true shooter” is the accuracy and damage of your weapons, which still are determined by your stats. In a regular shooter, if you see an enemy hundreds of feet away and you lock your crosshair onto him, you can still pick him off as shooter gamers have pinpoint accuracy. In this game, the further you are away from the opponent, the lower the probability you have of hitting him, and this probability is even further reduced depending on how skilled you are with that weapon type. It’s realistic in sort of a way because it makes sense that you can’t be proficient with every single weapon type in the game (who are you, Rambo?) but at the same time it may not be immediately intuitive if you can’t hit someone even though you have him right in your crosshair. Of course, if you raise your skill enough in that particular weapon type, you will be able to pick him off if he’s right in your crosshair.

I’m a little disappointed in the lack of variety of enemy types in the game. I guess since it’s not a fantasy game and it’s supposed to be more realistic, we end up seeing mostly human based enemies. Over half of the enemies you will probably encounter in the game are the mutants, which have pretty much overrun and taken over all of the outside DC area. I got a little tired of fighting them, but to be honest, I’m not sure what other enemy types could have been included and still fit the setting of the game.

In VATS, each body part of the enemy has a certain probability of being hit if you aim for it based on several conditions.

V.A.T.S.
To appease the RPG turn-based fans of the original Fallout games, Bethesda Softworks included the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System, or VATS for short. VATS can be completed avoided the player throughout the entire game if desired, but it actually is quite useful. It’s essentially a queuing system that allows you to freeze the game, target specific body part of the enemy, and then unfreeze the game. Once unfrozen, the player will shoot at the designated targets of the enemy. Targeting specific body parts can have great results. For example, for enemies with melee weapons, shooting them in their legs will disable them from running to you to attack you, and for ranged enemies you can shoot the weapon out of their hands so they can no longer fight. Even with animals, certain body parts are far more damaging to them than others.

Why not use it all the time then? Well, there’s two caveats to the system. The first is that there’s a cooldown associated with using VATS. You have an action meter that refills when you are not in VATS, but once you use it a few times, it will deplete the meter so the next time you can use it again is after it fills up. This is obviously to prevent players from using VATS the entire game (although there’s a Perk at the max level that this meter to instantly fill up when you kill an enemy in the VATS system).

The second is that there’s only a certain probability to hit the designated body part in VATS. If you’re too far away and want to hit someone’s leg, it may be only at 5%. But if you move a lot closer, you’ll see that increase to 95%. It’s all situational when you freeze the game to enter VATS mode. If the enemy’s weakpoint is his back and you try to hit the back when you are facing his front, the percentage in VATS will obviously read 0%. So the VATS system is useful, but at the same time, it’s balanced to prevent it from being too powerful.

Weapons & Items
There are all sorts of weapons and items in the game. Throughout most of the game you will be using regular weapons like shotguns, assault rifles, hunting rifles, etc. But there are actually named “special weapons” in the game, that are extremely powerful versions of the regular weapons. Most of these can only be found through helping characters in the game. For example, helping a woman find out about her father allows you to receive her SMG, which not only does about double the damage of a regular SMG, but also has a much larger clipsize.

Besides weapons, clothing/armor (which generally give you attribute bonuses and reduce damage when worn), you’ll come across lots of random items. Some of these are quite useful like healing items, while others seem completely worthless like plates, cups, toy cars, etc. However, it’s possible to actually find schematics in the game to create weapons out of items you find in the game.

I ended up discovering my playstyle to be very scavenger-like. Wherever I went, I’d check desks, cabinets, bookshelves, etc. for anything of value and loot it. Each item has a specific weight to it, and when I hit the weight capacity that I could carry, I’d head back to my home and unload all of the stuff before going back out and continuing my exploration. I felt almost like Wall-E, where I was out digging through junk but finding whatever objects I thought would be useful and amassing them in my home. By the end of the game I was practically a Costco, with dozens of cartons of cigarettes, cases of clean drinking water, food, munitions, etc.

One of the Pip-Boy’s functions displays specific damage to your body parts.

Pip-Boy
The Pip-Boy has been a staple in the Fallout series since the first one, and is basically a wrist-bracelet with a screen that monitors and manages all of your personal statistics. It’s basically the in-game menu for you, and it manages your overall health (including radiation and your specific body parts), items, quests, quest notes, the map, etc. It even has a light so you can turn it on in dark areas.

Opening the Pip-Boy and checking out the global map allows you to quick-travel to any location you’ve already discovered. You can also check a more detailed map of your immediate surroundings to look for entrances or areas you have not explored yet. At its heart, the game is about exploring. The Pip-Boy does a great job of managing all of the notes you come across so you can re-read them when needed, or go back to areas to discover new paths. I would have ideally liked the detailed map in a window on the screen like when you play Call of Duty 4 multiplayer or are in GTA/Saint’s Row, but the compass in Fallout 3 suffices. Plus, I guess I just have to open the Pip-Boy to see the detailed map.

Depending on your Karma, you can recruit companions to help you on your adventure.

The Karma System & Companions
A Karma System exists in Fallout 3 where you get good or bad Karma depending on how you go through quests or what you do. If you’re noble and helpful, your good Karma will increase and you will tend to become more admired by good characters in the game, but at the same time neutral or evil players may not like you as much. The opposite is true of you move towards the evil path: kill innocent civilians, stealing items, breaking into people’s safes, etc. All of these result in bad karma which will ultimately make you an Evil character. However, the thing about the Karma system that is nice is that you can move from one end to another at any time in the game. If you start out Evil, it’s never too late to turn over a new leaf and perform good acts to become a good person (and vice versa).

The Karma System directly affects companions in this game. In Fallout 3 you are able to have 2 companions at a time, although one of the two companions has to be the dog that you might find. I never found the dog on my playthrough, but from what I read it doesn’t seem worth it to get the dog since he can be killed off and won’t do a good job of sneaking with you if you want to play a more stealthy game. But the second companion spot is reserved for actually getting other characters to help you in your journeys. This is pretty unique since they will follow you anywhere and you can equip them with whatever gear you want. Of course, certain characters in the game are more evil bent and others are more good bent so depending on how they perceive you, they may not want to follow you around.

There are over one hundred different areas to explore in the game.

Achievement System
The Achievements are a lot better designed this time around than Bethesda Softworks’ previous effort on Oblivion. In that game it was pretty much Achievements for going through the main questline and becoming head of every guild. In this one there are still a few Achievements related to the main questline to sort of guide you to the end of the game, but I like that there are also several Achievements for the more notable sidequests. Many of these I probably would not have even encountered through Normal play if I didn’t know to hunt for them.

For the most part the Achievements in Fallout 3 are quite well-rounded in their design: some progression Achievements, some that are awarded based on whether you play a good, neutral, or evil character through the game, and the rest on accomplishing various optional tasks such as exploring over a hundred different locations on the map, finding collectable bobble-head dolls, and killing five “super bosses”.

Fallout 3 is not a particularly difficult game, so I have no major complaints from their design as I was able to get all of them with a little bit of planning and they did a good job of getting me to really explore the game world as well. The only thing I’m not a fan of here is missable Achievements, and there are a couple that are possible in Fallout 3.

First of all – the bobble-heads. You have to collect all 20 of them for an Achievement, and while I didn’t mind this collection Achievement as much in this game (each one you find gives you a permanent boost to your stats), I didn’t like that a couple of them are missable. Ideally what I like when I play video games is to be able to just play them sitting in my couch without having to run to the computer to check a collectibles guide every few minutes to make sure I didn’t miss something. Unfortunately for some, if you don’t pay attention to the bobble-heads early on enough, it’s quite possible to miss a couple.

The other way to miss out on a couple of Achievements in this game is to do certain storyline quests in an order different than what the developers imagined for you to do. There may be a certain main questline Achievement where you’re supposed to find out where your father went from X, but if you instead go to Y and find out there, it will pretty much end the quest to go talk to X and you won’t get the Achievement for it as you get started on the quest right after that. While it’s nice that the game isn’t super linear, having it so people are completely unable to get an Achievement from simply exploring the game only forces them to have to play “the right way”.

The dog companion ain’t bad in Fallout 3, but he can’t compare to the one in Fable 2.

Final Thoughts
Fallout 3 deserves my 2008 game of the year award because it succeeds most in what it tried to do compared to all of the other games released this year. While many titles released this year have multiplayer offerings, nearly all of them had problems. If your game is going to be primarily a multiplayer game, then make sure that it’s stellar and that it works (see last year’s Call of Duty 4 or Halo 3, for example). If your game is single player only, it better be interesting, engaging, and lengthy to be worth owning and playing through. Fallout 3 has achieved all of that and is recommended for all gamers regardless of what game genres you like.

I give the game an A. If you like playing games, you will enjoy Fallout 3. It’s pretty much that simple. At its foremost, it’s an adventure game that tasks you with exploring and surviving a nuclear wasteland. It successfully blends Resident Evil’s survival horror elements, BioShock’s exploration of a destroyed humanity, and Oblivion’s character development and world depth. How can you not like such a game as this? It would almost be as appalling to me as someone saying they like going to watch movies in the theater but don’t like action movies. This type of game was made for the gamer, just like action movies were made for the big screen.

While I loved the game, it was certainly not flawless (but what game is?). My only real quibble with the game is minor – I didn’t like that the level cap ended so early in the game. Considering how huge the world of Fallout 3 was, I was playing on Normal difficulty and I hit the level cap with perhaps half of the main quest still left and probably half of the map still unexplored. There was just so much left in the game to check out, but once I stopped gaining experience from everything, I was no longer as inclined to explore or fight and hurried through the rest of the game in the last 10 hours of my 60 hour playthrough.

For those that don’t want to end up level capping too early in the game like I did (as in you plan to do everything in the game and devote 100+ hours to it), try changing the difficulty to Very Easy. Apparently the difficulty affects how much experience you gain from enemies, so if you set it on the easiest difficulty, you will gain the least amount of experience so you will be able to keep exploring and leveling. Also keep in mind that unlike Oblivion, once you beat this game, it actually ends. You can’t keep exploring the world after the main questline so save it for last.

2008 has been a tough year in gaming for me to decide on a game of the year. Most of the big name releases this year have all had flaws in some form or another that have prevented them from being a game that clearly rises above the rest. Ninja Gaiden II had its technical issues, Call of Duty: World at War is another WWII rehash in the series, Gears of War 2 has broken matchmaking and balancing even worse than Call of Duty: World at War, Fable II never fully delivers on its epic promise, Dead Space manages to entertain but not kill the competition, and Left 4 Dead’s lack of any sort of persistent stats or ranking prevent it from being less than what it could have really been. Well, I’m glad I finally got around to Fallout 3, and it’s looking like there is a game that may emerge as my game of the year for 2008.

I was a fan of Elder Scrolls: Morrowind and Oblivion, but never played the first two Fallout games on the PC. I figured, Fallout 3 will just be Oblivion with guns so it’ll be awesome right? And while my initial experience was correct: that it would be awesome, it’s not really as much like Oblivion as I dismissed it to be. In fact, it actually gives me more of a BioShock vibe but with a deeper system (which I will get to later).

The game starts with you literally being born, allowing you to choose your gender and name. After some time spent with your childhood and teenage years, you eventually emerge from the vault that you’ve been living in your whole life to a post-nuclear wasteland. I honestly found the early years to be a little boring, including the escape from the vault itself. Something about all of the limitations in place had me off to somewhat of an underwhelming start.

However, once I made it out of the vault and hit the first town of Megaton, things picked up a bit. I want to talk about the first quest and dungeon I encountered in greater detail, so there will definitely be spoilers but I think they’re worth talking about to illustrate the depth of the game. After all, there are dozens of quests and dungeons throughout the game world so this is but a fraction of the game.

————BEGIN SPOILERS————–
The First Quest
The first quest that you come across when you enter the town of Megaton is that there’s a huge atomic bomb in the middle of town. If you talk to the sheriff and offer to dismantle the bomb, he will pay you (you can even try to sweet-talk him into paying you five times more if your Speech skill is high enough). Not too long later when you go to the bar in town, a guy named Mr. Burke will offer to pay you a hefty sum to detonate that same nuke, wiping out the town completely. He assures you that you will be able to do it from a safe distance away. At that point you are given various options. You can either accept his offer, tell him you’ll think about it, or flat out reject him (and kill him too if you wish). There’s even a fourth option: if you’re female with the Black Widow perk you can seduce him into changing his mind or getting someone else to do it.

I flat out rejected him and disarmed the bomb. The sheriff thanked me and it was all a happy ending to the quest. But what if I tried one of the other two options? If I decided to detonate the bomb, the town and all of its inhabitants would be wiped off the map for the rest of the game. Seemed like a huge price to pay. The last option though, is the most interesting: if you tell him you’ll consider it. You can actually go back and talk to the sheriff and tell him what the guy in the bar is up to. At that point, if you’re a good enough person, the sheriff will believe you and accompany you back to the bar to confront the guy. If you’re not that good of a person, he’ll just dismiss you.

This is what I like about the game – how so many different ways things can play out. When confronted with the sheriff, Mr. Burke will actually attempt to kill the sheriff and will succeed unless you intervene. The moment he pulls his silenced pistol on the sheriff, you can fire your weapon and if you kill Mr. Burke, the sheriff will thank you. Otherwise, the sheriff will be killed and you’ll never see him again for the rest of the game!

The First Dungeon
The town is all well and good, but I was itching to actually fight some enemies. I had just acquired a 10mm handgun, and wanted to see how the combat mechanics were outside of just using a BB gun when I was a kid. As I was wandering the wasteland outside the starting area, I came upon Springvale School. While I didn’t have any quests or anything there, it looked to be its own instance – basically a dungeon in the traditional fantasy RPG sense. I decided to check it out.

Upon entering the school, I discovered that it was run down (like everything else in the world of Fallout 3) but had been taken over by a group of raiders. These humans were in a sense “pirates” in Fallout 3 – scavengers that looked to kill and loot whenever and wherever they could. Upon entering my first fight with a raider lunging at me, I shot a few rounds of my 10mm and was shocked to see that I blew her head cleanly off and it fell to the floor, several feet away from the body. Whoa – this game is pretty violent. But I was still pretty gleeful as I continued sneaking through the school, checking corpses, various desks, and shelves for anything of value that I could use – whether it was healthkits, ammo for my guns, and various other trinkets of value. It felt very BioShock-ish in that dungeon, as it was a two hour romp where I explored the school, fighting off raiders, and reading logs about how the raiders were trying to dig underground to break into the vault I grew up in. The raiders were unsuccessful, as they encountered giant ants in the tunnel which ended up killing those of them that ventured down that far.

I decided to venture down to the tunnel myself to see what was up, and had to fight off several waves of giant ants before I reached a dead end. Two corpses lay on the ground, and after searching the bodies, I was delighted to find that one of them had an assault rifle. Awesome! I was so happy and I guess that was the “treasure” of the dungeon that was Springvale School. I also noticed a shiny book underneath the arm of one of the corpses, and I could not get to the book. Eventually I thought, let me try equipping my hunting knife and see if I can just swing at the arm. That way maybe it’ll knock the corpse off to the side and I can get the book. I was quite surprised that after one swing, the arm was cut completely off. I grabbed the book and ran, but felt a little guilty that I just defiled a corpse. I guess you can cut limbs off corpses in this game.

————-END SPOILERS————–

I’m starting to really enjoy this game now. I’m about 12 hours in, and I find it more appealing than Oblivion’s fantasy world simply because I’m working with handguns, shotguns, and assault rifles instead of daggers, clubs, and swords. Shooting people in targeted areas like their arms or head give combat a more satisfying feel compared to just slicing haphazardly with the sword. I like the precision shooting V.A.T.S. feature of the game. You can play it like a shooter, but the precision mode adds an a welcome layer of strategy to the combat. Depending on your stats and your distance to the enemy, you have a certain % that you will hit a targeted area of the enemy. If you shoot the weapon the enemy is holding enough times, the enemy will drop the weapon. If you damage one of his legs enough, his leg will get disabled and he will not be able to run. Shoot the antenna of a giant ant and it will go into a frenzy, attacking nearby ants for you.

I think the reason why I enjoy the game so much is that it is basically like BioShock + Oblivion, or really, just a much more advanced version of BioShock. Fallout 3 and BioShock share many similarities – you are exploring a world that has been completely destroyed, scrounging up whatever you can find on floors, shelves, and corpses. At the same time, you have various enemies to deal with that would like nothing better than to kill you and loot your corpse.

The location for the game also hits a little close to home, as I grew up and went to school around the DC area. If you know about the landmarks like the various museums, the Monument, and the Metro subway system, it makes the experience even grander. Seeing how various inhabitants have holed up in museums and subway tunnels as a result of the nuclear fallout and constant warfare sometimes sent chills down my spine. No longer was this a fantasy world with dragons flying around, but a very possible scenario if DC was hit by nukes. Maybe that’s why certain nuclear related material was edited out of the Japanese release for the game.

While BioShock had more of a simplistic leveling up system of picking what attributes to equip, Fallout 3 has the more traditional RPG number crunching for your stats. As you level up through each of the 20 levels in the game, you are awarded stat points to distribute towards whatever skills you feel would benefit you most, such as lockpicking, handling various gun types, speaking to others, etc. With the ability to play so many different types of characters, there’s rarely ever just one way to get through the game so people can really build their character however they wish to play. I think that the game does a good job of not making it feel too RPGish – the stats and perks you can learn are well explained and honestly not much different from the Perk system of the Call of Duty games. It’s no hardcore Dungeons & Dragons style RPG with saving throws and all that so I’d still encourage anyone to play this game even if “RPGs are not your thing”.

I also like that it has a classic Resident Evil-style feel to it too: a survival horror theme where you really can run out of ammo if you are not conservative. No longer do I have to deal with a small money cap and unlimited ammo like in Bioshock – Fallout 3 has me scavenging for bottle caps and ammo rounds wherever I go so it really feels like I’m just trying to survive. Eventually I’m hoping that all of these bottlecaps I’m saving will net me some strong weapons.

I’d say that if you enjoyed BioShock, Fallout 3 is not much more of a stretch and should definitely be picked up if you’re in the mood for an immersive 50 hour shooter/RPG. This isn’t 50 hours of turn-based random combat or back and forth traveling – it’s all action and exploration. The game is more of an adventure game than anything, and there’s rarely any backtracking due to the game allowing you to immediately warp to any location you’ve already discovered.

There aren’t too many games I’ve played that are a shooter and RPG hybrid, but Fallout 3 does it and manages to possibly be the best game of 2008. It seems to do everything it set out to do, without leaving the player feeling disappointed. As I play through the game and prepare my eventual review, I can only wonder if the game will stay as excellent as it has been. Something tells me that I have nothing to worry about.

This past week I’ve spent most of my time playing through Gears of War 2. I didn’t really enjoy the first Gears of War too much and had to force myself to beat it, but I enjoyed Gears of Wars 2′s campaign a great deal more. It’s clearly bigger and better as Epic claimed. I appreciated that there was a great deal of variety in the game, and the pacing was excellent. It didn’t have the depth of storyline that Epic was trying to sell (i.e.: “going to rival BioShock!”), but I had fun from beginning to end. After beating it on Normal, I jumped right back into Insane mode and just dusted that a couple of days ago. It was a little bit tough, but I didn’t think it was tougher than the first, as General Raam on Insane solo was probably the toughest boss I’ve ever fought this console generation. I guess coming off of Call of Duty: World at War’s Veteran mode also made this seem like a slight downgrade in difficulty too. There were no infinite enemy respawns here, so just taking your time works.

I also dabbled a bit in the offline multiplayer modes with bots, and while it was slightly entertaining, I can’t help but feel that the multiplayer in the Gears of War series doesn’t flow well due to the mechanics of the game. Gears of War is more about taking cover, popping and shooting, but that’s just not how human players end up playing each other. From what I’ve read so far, it seems that people online just run around shotgunning and chainsawing each other. I tried to play some online, but never got a chance to play due to the horrible design of the matchmaking system. I waited about 5 minutes and said forget it. Some people say they wait 25-45 minutes and still can’t get into a game! I’ll try playing online again some this weekend so I can get a review out for it next week.

Horde mode is pretty fun though and like Call of Duty: World at War’s zombie mode, probably one of the more enjoyable modes of Gears of War 2. While I was only able to play with one buddy Tuesday night, we made it to Wave 10 before deciding to call it quits that night. It was pretty crazy – by Wave 10 we were being attacked by Theron Guards, Bloodmounts, Boomers, and Kantuses (or Kanti?). I think the Horde mode fits in better as a multiplayer for Gears of War 2 since you can focus on taking cover while engaging waves of enemies. And it’s in the true spirit of teamplay like the campaign emphasizes.

I was remarking that I think what makes this type of mode so enjoyable is that it keeps the core gameplay design that made the classics so successful. Gears of War 2′s Horde Mode (and Call of Duty: World at War’s Zombie mode) seem to be this generation’s Space Invaders. Here we were, defending a location and taking cover against wave after wave of attacking enemies. Now to get a modern day realization of other classics like Pac-Man. Oh wait, wouldn’t that be Beautiful Katamari?

With Left 4 Dead on sale on Monday, a few of my other friends ordered the game and I ordered a copy for my brother as well. We gave it a spin last night and I took him through the Death Toll campaign on Normal so he could get used to the game. I think it was a bad idea, as we got through it pretty easily so I’m afraid that the lack of challenge may have put him off a bit. I forgot that he tends to like challenge more than me, and with us dropping Tanks with only a few shotgun blows, he was probably wondering where the fun was to the game. Next time I’ll have to turn it up a notch to Advanced and see if he starts squirming!

I began Fallout 3 as well last night, and I actually got a little bit overwhelmed. Most games I’ll just pop right in and start playing with no problems. But with all of the stats and permanent character upgrades, I have to really sit and plan how I want to make my character in Fallout 3. And with my plan to get the Achievements all in one run, I have to plan even more due to the landscape changing based on how I play through the game, causing certain Achievements to no longer be available. In short, there’s a lot I have to keep track of to play this game in an optimal way without coming across any spoilers. Guess I’ll crank out my spreadsheet today and start figuring out what Perks I want to level so I won’t have to decide on the spot…