Slowtrain

I especially like the parts where rifle bullets drop as fast as if you were throwing them and the save-corrupting bugs really made my day. The atmosphere was pretty cool, though. Did you try STALKER: CLear Sky? It is considerably less buggy and has a lot of good gameplay improvements. But to me it has lost some of the atmosphere that made the first one so great.

Just dial down the difficulty, MC! That's what it is there for. Doom 1 on nightmare difficulty was harder than most shooters nowadays anyway.

lol. That's fab. Farcry is pretty fun. Graphics that were awesome once are only so-so now. If you want another recommendation for shooters: I highly recommend STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl. It can be quite buggy in places and the story is sonmewhat indecipherable and 90% of the dialogue is Ukrainian or RUssian or whatever. But it is still an awesome fps. Its atmosphere is unmatched.

It was pretty amusing grabbing soldiers and throwing them off of buildings and through walls and stuff.

I've known about the Fallout bible for some time, but only vaguely and I don't care about it it one way or the other. If any FO game deviates from the bible, well, I won't know and wouldn't care if I did.

You might have played it that way but it's not what the games "wants" you to do. Both Far Cry and Crysis allow you to go in guns blazing or take a stealthy approach. I actually think Crysis gave you more options when it came to stealth. Yes, I think you are right, HK. I was able to stealth large portions of Crysis, staying under the heavy cover, evading the helicopters and never firing a shot. I don't recall stealth being nearly so useful or even possible in Farcry. FOr me the single biggest downside of Crysis (besides the aliens) was that the soldiers really seemed like faceless cannon fodder vs the Farcry merc who seemed to actually have personaility. Also, I think there were some more interesting levels in Farcry. IIRC it was a pretty long game with quite a variety in levels. But I loved the extended tank battle in Crysis. That was awesome.

I thought Farcry was better overall. Though I thought that the suit was really cool and I enjoyed the Crysis take on weapon's more. But the Farcry mercs were way more fun to fight than the soldiers in Crysis and the trigens were more fun less annoying than their counterparts in Crysis. Actuaslly, I never thought I would use the words "Trigens" and "fun" in the same sentence. heh.

I thought the first half of Crsysis was pretty fun. I enjoyed the suits the weapons, the environment. MAybe not a classic game, but very very solid. The second half was horrible though and I never finished the game,

Use the RL from the roof. of the main building. Be aware: there used to be a bug with that mission. If the tanks did not blow up properly, the next leg of the mission wouldn't open up. It may have been fixed in a patch, but it happened to me twice. Each time I Was able to get around it by replaying that battle.

lol. I hear you. It always sucks when one starts with a simple comment or observation, and BOOM! the next thing one knows, it's an argument. It's like, wait, how the heck did I get involved in this?

Otoh, if people will pay it, you might as well charge it. I'm kinda surprised Blizzard doesn't charge more. Even at $50 USD/month would they lose a lot of subscribers? I'm sure they would lose some, but they can afford to lose a few if they raise rates from $15 to $50. I mean people pay $10+ for a 90 minute movie at the theater. That's ridiculous to me. Compared to that a MMO at $50/month is a great deal.

I'd love to see the craftable weapons made a little less silly. I mean an enormous Deathclaw gauntlet made out of a severed Deathclaw hand and a flaming sword made out of a motorcyle blade are good for the LuLZ. And they are both effective weapons. But something a little less absurd would be appreciated. Also, if you are going to include a sword again (which is fine), can it please sling across the back rather than at the hip. It would feel a little less like a swords and sorcery thing that way.

I read that a lot these days about Fallout 2. I'm not sure how much truth there is to it, or how much it is just the thing to say atm. I didn't play a lot of Fallout 2 (compared to Fallout) so my memory of it is not very good. The areas that I do remember best: Klamath, The Den, Redding, I don't recall as being silly or having any particular silliness associated with them. Perhaps some examples from those who remember Fallout 2 better than I do would be in order. Regardless, my statement about FO3 being silly isn't really intended to be taken as a comparison to either Fallout 1 or 2. Its just a commentary on Fallout 3. Games, movies, books, all can be predicated on what is fundamentally a silly idea (a guy dressing up like a bat and beating up an evil guy dressed up like a clown), But it does not follow that the treatment of the idea by the writer director, designer has to be silly. One can take a silly idea and treat it quite seriously to great effect.

silly funny Thre's a difference. Fallout 3 spends way too much time in the silly end of the spectrum, imo.

Hell, no. You're a lot smarter than me. I rate Oblivion so low not only because it bores me to tears, but also because there are a lot of parts to the game that either don't work or are poorly implemented. Bioshock bores me as well, but the game is polished and works, though it is so inspired I can't be overly impressed especially in view of what levine has done before. STALKER, while I concure is ugly in places and has bugs galore, an incomprehensible story, an a sometimes shoddy AI (though still better than other fine games like Deus Ex), does freeform shooter gameplay better than anything I have ever played and has an awesome feel/atmosphere. It's all subjective of course.

I think a huge part of that has to be because video games are still considered a kid's hobby. Even though the average age of gamers is now around the mid-late 30's, for some reason developers and publishers are still pushing out game content that is more suitable for an adolescent than for someone who is 38.

edit: I keep looking for the Tons of Guns options in the FO3 menu and I JUST CAN'T FIND IT!

I read your post and though ti was cool. It is always ncie when a developer antic[ates the player and you do something like you did, and Boom, the game has an answer. That is classic crog dev work righ there. ANd, yeah, sorry for the gun talk. I don't usually go on like that, but the inconsistency of the "Chinese Assault Rifle" being present in such numbers and that it fires a NATO round, is just one of those odd little things that sits in my head when I play FO3 and bugs me. I mean, yeah its a game so who cares. But I would argue, why do something inconsistent in a gameworld if you don't have to?

I was thinking the standard NATO 7.62 * 51mm. If you want to use an AK variant in the game then it should fire the 7.62 *39 or the 5.45 *39 for the submachine gun variants. I would just think IF there is an AK variant in the game it should use AK rounds. Maybe make them rare and somewhat special or something. Otoh, If it's too much pointless work to introduce a different cartridge type, just stick with only US/NATO rifles instead and a single cartridge for all of them. IIRC, the 5.56 is based on the .223 Remington but is somewhat different having been respecced by the military to be suitable in its role. Additonally, I believe the official NATO 5.56 round is somewhat different from the original US 5.56 Based on the anti-commie propaganda present in FO3 (Hello, Mr. Gutsy!), I'm not even sure the presence of so many Chinese rifles in the gameworld even makes sense. edit: Which is why I had thought there had been some kind of invasion, at least in the DC area. I was trying to find a rationale for all the Chinese gear.

It's just a personal thing, but I don't really consider endgame narrations or movies as in-game consequences. I kind of consider tham a design cop-out instead of actually doing the harder work of making my pc's actions matter within the context of the time I spend actually playing the game. Yeah. IIRC after you finish helping him, then come back to see him, he never really treats you any differently from when he first meets you. ALthough I think his prices are better becasue he likes you more.

Here, while I agree with you, I cannot but think overly emotional/close relationship would have ruined the feel of FO. FO puts more focus on the world rather than drama between individuals, which makes it feel dry for better or worse. NPCs are relatively convincing and they have their own lives in the setting but they don't have too much emotional bond with PC. On the other hand, role-playing games such as Planescpape:Torment focus on drama between characters. In such games, however, settings on the player character tends to be more detailed and fixated to enhance the emotional experience. Either type of "story-telling" is established in its own way. That said, in FO:NV, I wonder how Obsidian designers to keep the balance between drama and the dry feel, especially if Chris Avellone is working on the dialogue. IMO, I think he improved some parts of FO2 but diminished the feel of FO, to some extent. For me, Fallout was able to make wandering around in a mostly empty world, poking your nose into things for no reason other than it's there, convincing and enjoyable in a way that Bethesda has never been able to do. Not in their ES games and not in FO3. I'm not entirely sure why that is, really. Fallout 1 suffers from some of the same flaws as Fo3 because of that mode of story-telling, yet it seems to work better. FOr example: Junktown, for me personally, is the greatest "level" I have ever played in a crpg. A great feel to the town, a huge amount of interesting content jammed into place. The main Junktown quest of Killian vs Gizmo was fun. But ultimately, when it was all over there were once again no consequencs to what you had done. Gizmo's casino stood empty; Killian didn't acknowledge your pc. Similar to Fallout 3. Difference being that overall Junktown still kicks the poo out of Megaton in terms of just about everything.

Sorry if it wasn't clear, but I was joking. No problem. Your posts are often so deadpan it's hard to tell a jocular Josh from a serious Josh. Anyway, wouldn't the 7.62 be a more fitting military cartridge for Fallout's neo-1950's mythos than the 5.56? Battle rifles of the 50s like the FN-FAL and the M14 used those heavy rounds. The 5.56 wasn't developed as a military round until when, the late 60's early 70's or thereabouts. Also, wouldn't it be more interesting for Warsaw Pact weapons to fire Warsaw Pact rounds? edit: speaking of which: are we going to get some (or all) new weapons in NV

Hey, I love FO. But it ain't exactly bursting with riveting narrative. It's characters aren't bad: Killian, Gizmo, Aradesh, Butch, Harold etc. They have some personality, but they don't really contribute much drama to the game.

Bioshock was woefully uninspired regardless of what it was called.

They were all imported, rechambered, and sporterized. Oh. I thought they were left over from an invasion or something. WOuldn't there by more m14s and M1's around then imported Chinese weapons?