Lagumbay.com Reflections on Love, Rage, and Fear

My first entry into the Fallout universe was with Fallout 3, which I enjoyed immensely. I liked its cool VATS combat system, its graphic carnage, and the wonderful choose-your-own adventure storytelling. Even the lock picking and hacking mini-games were cool. I actually wrote javascript code to help me compare the “hacking” passwords since I never was good at “Mastermind.” I liked Fallout 3 so much that I actually re-bought the game for the GOTY expansion packs…but only got halfway through Mothership Zeta.

Fallout: New Vegas isn’t about “The Wanderer” whose personal quest for answers led him to bigger events and storylines that gained him prestige and a place in history. No, Fallout: New Vegas is about “The Courier” whose personal quest for answers leads him to bigger events and storylines that gain him prestige and a place in history.

The story starts with The Courier getting shot in the head while trying to deliver The Pinnacle Chip to Gutierrez. The Courier wakes up at Doc. Brown’s house suffering from slight amnesia, which makes for a good tie-in to the stat-building start of the RPG. Strangely enough, The Courier had very similar stats to The Wanderer’s GOAT scores, which meant that I played the same sneak/snipe hack/pick style in both games.

There was the addition of what I considered a slightly Hitman-esque gameplay aspect with faction clothing. While I was dressed in normal clothing, Powder Gangers shot me on sight. Dressed as a Powder Ganger, a Powder Ganger shot me only after he realized that I got point blank critical hits on two of…

Wait, where was I? Oh yeah, two of his friends. It made things feel a little more 47, which was nice. If they could integrate blades of chaos into the game, that would’ve been even cooler.

Along the way, I acquired quests, appeased townsfolk, ticked off Caesar’s Legion, gained a really handy Eyebot, and died a few times since I was apparently highly allergic to Cazad…

Cazador stings. There were quite a few OMG moments early like the lottery at Nipton and the associated crucifixions done by Caesar’s Legion. Very early in the game, I came to the realization that I didn’t like those guys much and started to shoot them at any opportunity. At Novac, I ran across someone who felt the same way about the Legion as I did. His name is Cr…

Hold on a sec…his name is Craig Boone and boy does he have a story to tell! Of course I had to hang out with him a while before he trusted me enough to open up with the back story, but damn his story was heartbreakingly good. There were other companions, a few of whom were more pleasant to walk around with than Boonie (Veronica had the best one-liners), but it had been decided that Fallout: New Vegas was going to be…

Fallout: New Vegas was going to be the feel-good bromance story of the season.

And you know what? It WAS a good story as I had expected from a Fallout sequel/expansion. The combat system was fun. There were a few stats decisions that I regretted later on, but overall, the game’s story carried it through, and the decisions I had to make later in the game became…

The decisions later in the game became harder and harder to make as it affected how the game ended, whose faction won, and whom I wanted to have control of New Vegas. But the storytelling, the wonderful storytelling! The near-constant decisions and intersecting quest lines made for a very immersive…

The near-constant decisions and intersecting quest lines made for a very immersive game…EXCEPT FOR THE GOD DAMN LOCKUPS that required hard-reboots on my PS3. Even though I had the “save early, save often” mentality, saving immediately after leaving a loading screen (when entering a new area) took some time as the system seemed to be doing things in the background which cause the LOAD/SAVE functions to be greyed out.

I’ve frozen just after exiting a building, I’ve frozen at the VATS targeting screen, I’ve frozen after a slow-mo critical strike kill, I’ve frozen after completing a conversation, and I’ve frozen AT THE GAME’S OWN AUTOSAVE FUNCTION which ended up being corrupted by the hard-reset which cost me about twenty minutes of having to do things over. At first it didn’t seem to freeze up at all. Then the freeze-ups seemed tolerable, excusable even. Later on in the game, the freeze-ups just kicked me right out of stride. I had so many freezes at the battle for Hoover Dam that I actually stopped playing for the night. That’s like turning off Star Wars in the middle of the Death Star trench run. In the end, though, we bought and played the game. I finished one storyline and am about to finish another. Reluctantly, I have to admit that while game makers shouldn’t be able to get away with releasing a game that locks up as much as this game does; I think Obsidian has done just that.

In movies, it is said that good special effects cannot cover for a horrible story. In the case of this game, we have a wonderful story told by someone trying to do an over-exaggerated William Shatner impression. Fallout: New Vegas is immersive and compelling. I just wish it wouldn’t pause inapprop…

MOTHERFSCKER!!!

Real conversation snippets from D&D Online…

“Damn it, my staff is broken!”
“uh huh huh…you broke your staff.”

“I’ll get to try out my new sword. You know, this is the only place you can say that and have it be socially acceptable.”

“Alright, undead! I can control undead! Wait, what? Where the hell do I find an eyelash in gum Arabic? Awww crap.”

“I think I found the guy we’re supposed to kill.”
“I’ll be right there.”
“Watch out, I’m already dead.”
“Oh…me too. Yeah, it’s a level four quest and we’re level three.”
“Ok, well that explains that.”

“Have you seen my dog? Did it follow us through the door?”
“No, I think he’s gone.”
“Damn it, Snoop. Meh, I’ll make a new one.”

“Did you just revive me? How the hell do you do that?”
“I have no idea.”

“Wolves up ahead.”
“Go get ‘em, Snoop! Uh huh huh, dog on dog action.”
“Bitch fight!”

“Nope, I didn’t find anything.”
“Secret door right in front of you.”
“Stupid elf and your search skills.”

“Ahh, spider on my keyboard…in real life. Hold on a sec.”

(on being poisoned by a spider)
“Hey you’ve got the Ultimate Warrior logo on top of your head!”

“How many potions do you have left?”
“I’ve got 10, but as a wizard with a drinking problem, that’ll go by fast.”

Endgame discussion — SPOILERS!!!

Let’s see if I can remember exactly how this all ended…

I finish the Zeus fight and go stabby stabby like a good Kratos, impaling Zeus into Gaia’s heart in a two-for-one deal.  Things fall down all around and Kratos regains consciousness next to a sword-pinned Zeus.  Kratos pulls the sword out and walks away.  We could have ended the story here and I’d have been happy.

However, Zeus goes into spirit form and goes after Mr. K — I’m asked to tap on the circle button but I die anyway.

Everything is dark and I’m suddenly playing a really really slow version of “This Is Your Life.”  Artistic storytelling recap of the previous games all the way back to Pandora, who does her Jesse Jackson impression.  After a long walk and swim, you’re back against Zeus, first-person style.  Short battle, then asked to tap circle to bash Zeus’ head in.  As Kratos pounds on Zeus’ face, the blood splatter covers the screen.  Circle button cue continues to be visible…I keep pressing circle.  Still going…and by this time I’m wondering if the game glitched on me.  The wife, who was watching this part, suggested I stop.  I do, and so does Kratos.  Yay me!  This could have been ending numero dos.

Athena shows up and asks for the power of Pandora back.  This is when we realize that when Kratos opened Pandora’s box the first time (first GOW), all the evil things within affected the gods while Kratos took ‘hope’ into himself.  It wasn’t so much vengeance as it was hope that he was drawing his determination from.  Anyway, Athena asks for the hope back.  Kratos looks at the sword says the line “my vengeance is…” [something] and stabs…himself…releasing hope into the world.  Athena goes “that was supposed to be for me!!!  they don’t know what to do with it!”  Athena walks away, credits roll.  This could have been ending numero tres.

At the end of the credits, we go back to the scene of Kratos’ suicide…except he goes Boba Fett on us by showing a blood trail all the way to the cliff-side of the mountain but no body.  No confirmed death.

Enter the potential God of War IV — “Killed ‘Em All and Back For More”

Now looking into completing the challenges, as well as starting over (probably in easy mode) to mop up some of the trophies and items that I’ve missed.  Looking at the online guides for input…it doesn’t look like I get to keep all my powers when I start over like I was able to in the prior GOW games.  Also, it appears trophies won’t be available if I turn on the bonus items.  Bummer all.  Then there are the bonus videos they supplied, which I haven’t gotten to yet.

And there you have it, my thoughts on playing God of War III.