 |
|
May 16th, 2017 at 17:09:45 - Fallout 4 (PC) |
So I've been playing this for a couple months and never posted an entry. Woops! I thought about it a couple times, but there's really not a lot to say. Let's slot it in between the other Fallout FPS games.
Worst: Fallout 3
Middle: Fallout 4
Best: New Vegas
What did I like about Fallout 4?
It's denser than Fallout 3 was. Still a large place, but more stuff to explore. By the end all the different buildings were feeling pretty same-y, but most of them told a little story through enemies, emails, computer terminals, robots, and other means. I remember going in some robotics factory and reading the employees' email-based D&D game. Or stumbling upon a doorway with a bunch of arrows pointing to it. I decided to go in, and there was a maze with tons of traps. Nice ammo and other loot awaited, but I was disappointed not to find a unique NPC living there. Like, "Ah, you made it through my maze of traps! I'm clearly a really interesting character with a neat story and a cool quest line!" There's a cool quest where you get to pretend to be a superhero, and there were a handful of other solid, memorable ones.
The interplay of the different factions was cool, and I like that there weren't too many. Some games give you sooo many factions or guilds to join, but this really had three or four (if you count the Minutemen). And I like that I didn't realize they were all going to come into conflict at first, but then I saw it start to happen and it was making me anxious! I was pretty committed to the Minutemen and the Railroad, and I guess luckily hadn't done much except meet the Brotherhood of Steel. But when the story led me to the Institute, I just had to side with them, which meant I had to assassinate the Railroad leadership and annihilate the Brotherhood of Steel. I didn't mind the latter, but the first was tough. I was like one quest away from liberating all the synths from the Institute (which I'm sure would have made them enemies).
I enjoyed the combat. VATS gloriously returns, and I made a sniper/rifle-based character to exploit VATS. I could headshot anyone with 95% accuracy by the end of the game, have a 35% chance upon kill to refill all my AP, and just constantly refilled my crit meter. Brutal. I would have liked to re-do my character stat allocation though. I initially put something like 10 perception, 10 intelligence, and 8 agility. I was thinking intelligence because you could make weapon mods and get more junk to build settlements with. Turns out I absolutely hated bothering with all that, so my intelligence points were pretty much wasted. I got the perks I wanted and started filling up luck next. But I should have had perception, agility, luck, and charisma instead I think. I didn't like not being able to effectively persuade anyone the whole game either. But I knew I was making that choice at least.
I also enjoyed the overarching story. It had some stupid plot points, but the twist about Shaun was cool. Definitely did not see that coming. If you follow the main storyline, the game is probably not long at all. I spent 54 hours, but did a ton of side quests and spent way too much time poking through garbage in abandoned houses.
What did I dislike about Fallout 4?
Poking through garbage in abandoned houses. There is so much junk laying around everywhere to pick up. Every now and then there will be something valuable, like a magazine, or some good ammo, but it's like playing slots. I just had to look at everything. What if there's a safe? Gotta read the computer terminal. Maybe some purified water in the fridge? I had plenty of everything the whole game (except the first 5 hours or so) but I still felt compelled to rummage because it was there. All that crap is components for crafting, so if you're crafting, you need to constantly be picking it up.
I've (re)learned that I really don't care for crafting games. I didn't like settlements. I ended up ignoring them. Didn't care about the settlers. Didn't want to use workshops. Never upgraded a weapon or built a mod. My weapons were fine, and I was better off not managing NPCs' farms. The build interface sucked too, and scrapping items was really annoying. You have to hold V to go into build mode, then walk around and push R to scrap an object, then push Enter to confirm. For the amount of crap you have to scrap, that should all be one button, not require like three button presses and two hands for every.single.item. So as one might expect, my settlements were in poor condition and I don't think any of them were much more than 50% happiness. And I'll give you a hint: it doesn't matter one bit!
Like Fallout 3 before it (and unlike New Vegas), NPCs were generally pretty dull. The game wasn't funny. Towns weren't that interesting. Settlements and farms were the same boring thing over and over. Fallout 4 added repeating quests that never ended that I would do several times before I realized I wasn't moving anything forward. I really hate "dailies" in single-player games if they aren't clearly marked as such. There were some weird quest moments that made no sense. For example, this one Institute quest has you going to Bunker Hill to capture a synth, but the Railroad is there trying to save it and the Brotherhood of Steel is there trying to destroy it. Not one person shot at me. I've got an army of Institute synths and coursers behind me, and no one shoots at me. So I waltzed in, completed my objective, walked past the Railroad members who were now just standing still with no one to fire at since the synth was gone, and left. Weird.
Anyway, Fallout 4 definitely had more personality than Fallout 3, but it doesn't hold a candle to New Vegas, and that is so disappointing. I was hoping it would be more like New Vegas, but I guess at least it was somewhere in between and not just an update of Fallout 3. I think I'll skip the next one unless it gets like rave reviews.
add a comment  - read this GameLog  |
|
Apr 2nd, 2017 at 16:37:06 - Papers, Please (PC) |
Unexpectedly finished quickly. I got 4 or 5 of the possible 20 endings (being put in jail and executed for treason, successfully escaping to a nearby country, entire family dead, in jail for shooting a civilian...). The game continued putting pressure on to break the government's rules. I was offered bribes for various reasons, whether to help an opposition political group, to sell a watch I was entrusted to keep, to let someone through without proper documentation, etc. I see how these are supposed to be tough decisions, but maybe because I first ended the game when my entire family died, I wasn't real sympathetic to anyone claiming that they'd be killed if I didn't let them through, or they feared the checkpoint would be closed next time. If my character had no family, I'm sure I would have helped strangers more because I wouldn't be worried about taking care of my own.
I learned not to flaunt my wealth. At one point I took a lot of money from someone and moved into a nicer apartment. My neighbors immediately reported me for my newfound wealth and I came under investigation. My savings was taken and I had to move back into a super cheap apartment. I wonder if the game can be completed after moving into a nice apartment. Just take other bribes (not the super big one that I took), and get real efficient with processing paperwork and it's probably doable. Is there yet another better apartment to move into later? What are the benefits? Just social status?
It's interesting how rules compound the job. It becomes more and more time-consuming to process paperwork the more rules there are. And the more international incidents there are, the more rules there are, but also the more people seeking entry. But the more rules there are, the more likely you are to make a mistake. By the end of the game there are two pages of rules to follow. But you still need to work swiftly because you have to pay for rent, food, and heat. But if you work too swiftly and make mistakes, you get fined. What a juggling act.
Papers, Please! made me think about immigration and politics. That's awesome. I want to know more about the developer, and I wonder if this game gets used in classes to illustrate the difficulty of setting and enforcing immigration policy.
add a comment - read this GameLog |
|
Apr 2nd, 2017 at 09:51:29 - Day of the Tentacle Remastered (PC) |
Hehe, silly old adventure game. I played it with a walkthrough, which I've learned is the only way I really enjoy tough point-and-clicks. This one in particular, there's no way I would have gotten very far without help. It involves time travel, and saving the world from sentient tentacles. It also features the Founding Fathers, heavy metal, a talking horse, a mummy, mad scientists, and more. You switch between three main characters who get stuck in various time periods, and many of the puzzles involve sending things back and forth in time. So like, at one point someone needs vinegar, so you put wine in a time capsule, and open it with a character in the future. Voila. There are a lot of silly moments; it's very much like an old slapstick cartoon. I did laugh out loud a couple times, but I can't remember why. My favorite character was Laverne, who is deadpan and morbid. Bernard, the nerdy science student, was fun, and I liked Hoagie, the heavy metal roadie, too. I suspect that Hoagie was an inspiration for Tim Schafer's Brutal Legend. Anyway, it's cool that this got a remastered version, as it's considered a classic game in the adventure genre. I enjoyed speeding through it with the walkthrough, and have more old gaming references in my head.
add a comment - read this GameLog |
|
Apr 1st, 2017 at 21:42:11 - Papers, Please (PC) |
What a strange game! I knew it was going to be different, but I wasn't prepared for quite what it asks me to do, that is, make strenuous decisions as fast as possible by scanning documents.
I imagine I'm better at this game than most people. As a long-time copy editor and writer, I'm adept at finding consistency issues within and between documents. Nonetheless, my immigration checkpoint supervisor just informed me that I had 21 violations. 21. I don't know who I am anymore.
Oh wait, I'm an immigration officer in a fictional Eastern European communist country in the early 80s. As local and global events happen (terrorist attacks, murders, worker strikes, etc.) my instructions for who to target and how to check documents changes. In fact, it becomes ever more complicated with more rules, exceptions, and technology.
I have to process as many people as possible each work day, and I get $5 per person processed. But if I make too many mistakes, I get fined $5 at a time ($10 if I really fudge up). I've struck a deal with a police officer, and I get a kickback for every couple people I detain. That is, some discrepancies between documents (e.g., mismatched ID numbers) can have severe penalties for the unfortunate person seeking entry.
I have to work as fast as possible because I'm supporting a family of 5. (Why none of them work, I have no idea. Oh wait, I'm taking employment for granted. But wait, isn't there low unemployment in communism? Or is that just the ideal?) I have a wife and child, a mother-in-law, and an uncle. I need to set aside money for rent each day, plus I have the option of paying for heat and food (and medicine when someone gets sick). I actually played through the game once and only lasted 7 days because my entire family died. This second time around though, I'm doing much better. I had like $30 on day 10 or something (I'd been broke since like day 3 the first time) and actually someone gave me $1000 (there's some shady political resistance stuff going on) that I will probably get in trouble for.
It's a really interesting game because you have to go fast, but you've got motivation to do the job carefully to some extent to avoid fines, but also to detain people. And every so often some sort of special character will come through that you need to look out for. And it gets more and more tedious. For example, just now, people have started forging seals on official documents, so I have to check images of seals now too. And I was threatened for not playing by the rules of this sinister political organization (I denied entry to one of their members without realizing it). And my inspector will return in a few days to check on my accuracy.
I can set aside moral qualms about type 1 and type 2 errors since I'm in a game frame, but I would prefer that my family not get sick and die, as that is an end game state and is reminding me of the anxiety-inducing This War of Mine. One thing that is driving me crazy though, and that is genius, is that the game penalizes you for not catching discrepancies in all sorts of minor details, like the person's sex. So you have to look at the person, look at their name, determine sex, and compare to what's written in their passport. I got fined a couple times for getting it wrong, and was thinking that I was just misinterpreting. Then a man showed up and gave his reason for immigration "to be with my husband." I'm thinking, "ooooh, this is the point of the rigid sex categorization." I let him in and I got fined for a sex mismatch. Since he had a husband, he should have been a woman, but everything in his info was masculine. That's homophobic communist and authoritarian countries for you. You've got to follow the logic of the game. Then the next time, I caught a sex discrepancy and interrogated the person. (If you use a machine to check information against other information and find something invalid, you can interrogate). The person said they didn't know what I was talking about, so the option came up to do a body scan. Holy crap. So you see in the scan that the self-identified male appears not to have a penis, and therefore, is lying, and so must be detained. The handling of sex has been the most jarring thing about the game. I look forward to seeing what other tricks of social commentary it has up its sleeve.
add a comment - read this GameLog |
