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I’d been hoping to hold off on the Fallout: New Vegas DLC until it got cheap, but I’ve been bored so I tried out the first one, Dead Money. It’s loosely based on The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and it’s very dark, story-wise. Greed and backstabbing and these spooky guys in old-timey diving suits but with green glowing eyes and, in somewhat typical Fallout fashion, there’s no way to come out if it with a really positive ending.

Gameplay-wise, they actually tried out some interesting ideas. You’re captured by a guy who puts an explosive collar around your neck so you kinda have to do what he wants. But radios and speakers all over the place interfere with the collars, so if you’re near one that’s on, your collar starts beeping and will soon explode. So there’s lots of running around looking for a radio to shoot, or trying to sprint out of range of the radio before you die. There’s also an unkillable holographic security system, where (a lot of the time) all you can do is reprogram their movements, which creates some puzzles where you sneak around to the reprogramming stations until they’re moving in a pattern that allows you to get to your destination.

Despite the interesting game ideas, it was unsatisfying on a few levels. First, it’s entirely self-contained. You lose all your stuff and your companions when you go there, once there, you can’t leave, when you’re done, you can’t go back, and the companions you have when you’re there can’t follow you out. And the setting and characters aren’t mentioned at all in the rest of the game, except for one. And him, his characterization seems off, based on what we were told about him. Second, they spend quite a bit of time forcing teases for what I assume is the next DLC, constantly referring to another courier and “the Big Empty” (it’s possible that when going there, it’ll fill in some gaps and explain how the antagonist changed so much from what we’re told about him prior to Dead Money). Third, it has very little sense of humor. The story is much more tragedy/horror than… the dark scifi adventure comedy, or whatever you’d describe Fallout as normally.

But I’m a total sucker, and I’ll probably end up playing the rest of the DLC stuff. Mostly because Stargate gets boring, I’m not totally addicted to any of the longer comics series I’m trying to get through, and I don’t think there are any other video games coming out any time soon that I’m interested in.

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Batman: Arkham Asylum is a perfectly ok but not all that exciting.

Random things about it:

• Controls are complicated. Fortunately, the game tells you what to do. But unfortunately, the game tells you what to do. Like every time. When you die because you didn’t sneak up on some guys properly, the loading screen before you start that section over again often tells you exactly how to sneak up on them.
• The combat animations are impressive. One problem I run into is anticipating the attacks, right clicking to counter too early, at which point I pull out a batarang and then I get hit by the guy. But yeah, while cool, combat animations do not make for a game.
• Harley Quinn’s slutty nurse costume is awful, and is infecting comics with its crappiness.
• The mix of B:TAS voice actors and new ones is jarring. Kevin Conroy’s Batman, Mark Hamill’s Joker, and Arleen Sorkin’s Harley are great, Commissioner Gordon is all wrong (he should have a grandfatherly voice, but he has a gritty voice that would work for someone like Harvey Bullock), and although the Riddler isn’t necessarily bad, I miss John Glover.
• The Riddler challenges are the most fun part of the game, except that most of the time it’s an issue of running around and finding the thing you need to find rather than figuring it out. “It must be a tombstone, now let me run around for 5 minutes until I find out.”

The game is entirely playable, and for $10 I guess that’s not bad. But given all the people raving about how great it was, I’m quite disappointed. On the plus side, I can play it for 30 minutes and stop without feeling compelled to keep going, so I can keep up with my normal schedule of important things like TV and comics.

Having finally finished Fallout: New Vegas (and begun the process of debating the purchase of the DLC), I moved on to the other cheap game from the Steam summer sale: Batman: Arkham Asylum. What follows is not at all a review of the game itself, which I’ve only just started, but of the infuriating process of beginning the game.

I started game and after seeing all the company logos and the “click to start” screen I was all ready for some Batman action. Except first I was asked to enter the product key. I was then presented with some Windows Live bullshit. Since it’s a single player game, I have no interest in this and attempted to cancel. I was told that if I don’t sign in, I can’t save. This blows, since if my internet connection dies, playing single player games is one of the better ways to pass the connection-less time. But fine, after declining the data mining option, I signed in with my ~15 year old hotmail account. I Entered the product key a second time for some reason. The windows live game software required an update, no idea why I had to sign in to find this out, but whatever. The game exited, downloaded the update, and restarted. I signed in with hotmail account again. This account was not set up for windows/xbox live, so I was then redirected to a webpage. Somehow, I was randomly assigned a gamertag, which I think is like your publicly displayed username for such things, without ever having an opportunity to choose one. I don’t think I’d ever want to be known as AutumnBloom54 or whatever, so if I ever actually attempt to play multiplayer games through this terrible service, I’ll have to figure out how to change that or create a new account. So after finishing the gaming account setup, I returned to the game, where I had to sign in again. I then had to enter the product key a third time. Finally, after all this, I was able to play the game.

Literally the only thing that was handled well about this process was Steam offering up a button to copy the product key to the clipboard. Entering a 16-digit key by hand 3 times, which I think I might have had to do if I had bought a physical copy, would have blown. Steam seems to have an interest in keeping the gaming experience from being shitty, unlike these Windows Live assholes.

All told, it was only about 5 minutes, but that’s just awful for my first experience with a game. Ignoring the general shittiness of requiring online saves, it should not be that hard to background update the software right off the bat, only require me to enter the product key once, and only require me to sign in once. I will have a hard time buying another game that requires Windows Live in the future.

Steam’s summer sale included big discounts on both Fallout: New Vegas and Batman: Arkham Asylum, so I will be struggling to keep up with TV and comics for the next few weeks. And it turned out to be timely, as I got sick Sunday night and barely left my room for 2 days.

New Vegas is what Fallout 3 should have been. Not that Fallout 3 was bad, but it barely tied into the rest of the series, mostly due to the geographical differences (1 and 2 being out west, and 3 in D.C.). I imagine this game was much easier from a technical standpoint (with the same engine and what looks like a lot of models, textures, features, and annoyances (opening a door from the wrong angle pins you against the wall still) completely unchanged from Fallout 3), allowing them to focus on content. This one ties in to the first two games much more than Fallout 3 did, with the NCR playing a big role, at least one character still alive from Fallout 2, and lots of locations and names from previous games coming up. Only one callback to Fallout 3 that I’m aware of.

Anyway, the game is enormous. I feel like for every quest I complete, I acquire two more. I can tell that I like New Vegas a lot more than Fallout 3 because in Fallout 3, I found that I was near the end and just finished the game, intending to go back and replay to catch some of the side quests I missed (which I only got about 1/3 of the way through). In New Vegas, I’m too wrapped up in what’s going on to leave stuff undone. There are two active quests (out of, I think, 13) I have to advance the plot, but I’m putting those off to finish up other quests and to explore. I suspect someone determined to finish could do it in about 20 hours of gameplay, but I’m well over 30 at this point and I expect at least 15 more.

I’m still not clear what faction(s) I want to side with. There’s only one group I’ve found that I seem to be completely in line with, but they’re small potatoes (and somehow my reputation with them is not nearly as good as it is with some people I think are nuts, and don’t plan on helping anymore). And this kind of gray area, lose-lose thing is exactly what belongs in Fallout and to a certain extent what was missing from Fallout 3.

Random things about the game, which will contain some minor spoilers:

• Even though nothing happens (beyond the screen fading to black, a “you are well-rested” message, and, if it’s a prostitute I can’t smooth talk, the loss of caps), I feel compelled to have sex with any young-ish non-ghoul lady character I can. Though the supply of these is surprisingly low, I’ve only found three. Though there’s also one non-prostitute I think I get to bang if I go through a time consuming quest, which, as I said, I’m compelled to do.
• I did not select hardcore mode, thinking it would be impossible, which I now regret. The differences in hardcore mode (that I’m aware of): you need to eat, drink, and sleep from time to time to avoid negative effects, your companions can die, and ammunition has weight. The reason I thought it’d be very challenging is because the supply of non-irradiated food and water was low in previous games. Constantly having to eat seemed like you’d need to be knee-deep in RadAway to handle the radiation. But the introduction of both Sunset Sasparilla and the ability to find food from plants in the waste means a much larger supply of healthy food to keep you going.
• My long-standing Fallout tradition of giving away lots of endurance points in character setup turned out to be a mistake, due to a particular game mechanic. Suffering through a period of lesser stats with an END of 9 would actually have been optimal, due to a particular game mechanic. Oh well.
• One thing I did differently was not make my CHA very low (6) and I took speech as a tag, so for the first time the companion limit (one humanoid, one “other”) is really hurting. I really like the first two I got, so other than the story-dependent time I had to lose one (and picked up another to do its quest), I haven’t changed any, but I’ve already turned down three offers.
• They introduced the idea that certain companions give you certain perks. I have no idea what most of the others others are (my temp non-humanoid would highlight some stuff on the ground or something, I never actually saw it happen), but the first two I picked up give me a larger radar range and to highlight enemies in red when I’m zoomed in. Since I tend towards sniper-type weapons, this combination is invaluable. Plus, for a while, one of my guys was way more powerful than the stuff I was fighting, and I could basically ignore fighting and just wander around and get random bits of XP while he went nuts.
• The introduction of Caravan, a strategy card game to play against random NPCs for money, is both good and bad. Good in the sense that it’s kinda fun to whip people’s asses, but bad in the sense that after going 3-3 during the game learning (and deck building) process, I’ve won 9 straight to the tune of about 10,000 caps. Which is nice, but as long as the game exists, I’m never really short on cash.
• They introduce the ability to use survival to cook things, repair to make regular ammo, and science to make energy weapon ammo. I’ve basically ignored it entirely, due to the aforementioned Caravan money thing, and because my survival/repair skill was very low early on (my science is good, but I haven’t found an energy weapon better than whatever regular gun I was using at the time).
• One thing better in Fallout 3 was the music. The Vegas-y Rat Pack stuff is ok, but the country is pretty unbearable. I find myself going back and forth between no radio (which kicks in the game’s “spooky music” default soundtrack) and the New Vegas radio (when the spooky music gets annoying, and/or for the DJ).
• The selection of voice actors is interesting. I’m afraid to consult imdb for fear of spoilers, but so far I’ve picked out Michael “Tigh” Hogan, Wayne Newton, Felicia Day, Danny Trejo, Rene Auberjonois, Dave Foley, Michael “Worf” Dorn, Alex Rocco, and I think Matthew Perry (though that seems kinda slumming it for him).
• They introduced the “Wild Wasteland” perk to keep the less serious content optional (the only thing I’m sure was due to this perk was a gang of old ladies attacking me with rolling pins, but I suspect some of the radio content (like “Stay classy, New Vegas”) might be perk-dependent as well). Making it an option was a very good idea, since Fallout 2‘s use of a lot of SciFi references was something I loved, but many fans of the original did not care for it.
• Actually arriving on the strip for the first time, I got what I assume was a scripted event off to the side of the street that was nothing short of brilliant.

I ran into a problem in Duke Nukem Forever on the first boss, being unable to pass a “strength test” by pressing the jump key repeatedly. Googling suggested I remap the key, which I did, and I finally passed the test. But it turned out that was a fluke, and I continued to struggle with it on each boss. Too fast and I failed, too slow and I failed. Every boss was requiring multiple attempts at what others suggested was such a trivial thing it was stupid to call it a “test.”

I was told the game would take about 10 hours to complete, and I reached the last boss after about 15 hours. I was feeling like a moron. I expected to play a little slower than other people, my generally bad sense of direction translates to video games, and my fighting style is to grab a shotgun and run right at people, so that adds to the disorientation (and I die a little bit more), but it’s more fun that way, so that’s just how I roll. But 50% slower was pretty pathetic.

So against the final boss, you have to pass three of those damn strength tests to rip various parts off of him before he’ll die. The actual fight wasn’t that challenging, dodging rockets is something I’ve had a lot of practice at, and if you can do that, you can survive basically forever. Which is good, because I failed strength tests about 10 times (passing twice) in the over an hour I spent trying to fight this thing. The last time I failed, I was fairly close to destroying a keyboard. But instead, I paused and decided to google for solutions again, since the last time I’d looked was on the night of the release. Maybe there would be suggestions as to how to fix this now.

And there were! A forum post suggested dropping my resolution to 640×480. I was having no framerate issues at all (and I had randomly tried turning off some graphics options in the first boss, wondering if it was some kind of CPU thing, which didn’t help, but I never did try dropping the resolution, since much nicer looking games have worked just fine at 1920×1080), so that seemed like it wouldn’t work, but I tried it anyway. When I resumed the game, everything was now at quadruple speed and I died instantly. But this did mean somehow the game’s timing was messed up and the problem was tied to resolution, so I tried a few resolutions until 1024×768 seemed to be speedy but still playable. I then breezed through the fight, passed all three strength tests on the first tries, the game seemed more action-y and fun at this speed, the subsequent dialogue lacked the 3-5 second pauses that had been driving me nuts the entire game, and, honestly, I bet it would have been a perfectly decent game if I’d played it this way the entire time. But instead, I struggled through an entire game with a non-obvious timing bug that caused it to be slow and boring and stupid the entire time. So fuck this game and everything about it.

I thoroughly enjoyed Duke Nukem 3D almost 15 years ago. Many first person shooters have had better graphics and features and plot, but Duke 3D was the one that hooked me more than any other. It was pure fun.

And in 1998 or so, I was beyond excited for Duke Nukem Forever. The ridiculous development history is well-known (evidenced somewhat amusingly by the parade of company logos you see before the game; 3D realms, 2k, Triptych, Gearbox, and Piranha are the ones I remember, but there might be more). But after ~13 years of waiting, I had to stay up late last night and give it a try.

And oh boy, this game is so terrible. I knew it was probably, but I feel like a sucker for paying for this. I feel like anyone involved should feel ashamed for releasing this. I only played for 45 minutes last night, but it’s just painfully bad. I’ve heard gamers complain about professional reviewers being corrupt (bad reviews will cut off your advance access to games which will end your career as a reviewer), but I’ve never really known for sure. The fact that this has a 62% on Metacritic baffles me, with some reviews in the 80% range.

This next part will contain spoilers, but I’m telling you right now: don’t buy this game. I’m going to keep playing, but it is very likely the worst game I have ever paid money for.