As many of you know I have been running Windows 7 on my netbook and I have been greatly impressed with it.
Microsoft has now released an early upgrade offer where pre-ordering the newest version will save you a lot of money. You can preorder the Home Premium edition for $49.99 (about half off) or you can order the Professional version for $99 (about half off).
Xbox360 Review: Sacred 2: Fallen Angel
For the past week and a half I have been spending quite a bit of time playing sacred 2: Fallen Angel (Ascaron) on my Xbox360. When I first heard about the game my initial thoughts were on the line of, "oh no, not another Diablo clone!" What I have come to learn is that even though it does have some elements of the Diablo games it also has elements of one of my favorite Fantasy RPG computer games; Baldur's Gate. Yes, Sacred 2: Fallen Angel is not so much a Diablo clone as it is a game with roots in both Diablo and Baldur's Gate. So the game is not so much a clone as it is a child of those two venerable titles.
To get the basics out of the way let me start by telling you that there are six character classes to pick from and each one can be customized to a great degree as you level up. The game world is immense, huge even! If you like the sandbox style of RPG then you better bring along your shovel and crab shaped bucket because Sacred 2: Fallen Angel has more sand than you can shake a stick at! Couple this with a huge amount of sidequests (600+) and two different campaigns (light and dark) and you have a game that you can play for a very long, long, long time.
Unlike its PC counterpart the Xbox360 version of the game limits you to four players total over Xbox Live. You can also have a second player join you on the same console in a shared (not split) screen environment. Much like Diablo (and Baldur's Gate to a lesser degree) the game truly shines in a multi-player format. Enough with the broad overview let's get down to brass tacks, shall we?
Just this afternoon I found myself with a hankering for some potato chips. It's not very often that I eat these things on account of how their grease tends to have a highly negative impact on my digestive tract. Every now and then though I just can't help myself and I succumb to the desire.
I stopped by a local convenience store to find my bag of chips and after a few minutes of perusing their selection I settled on the Ridges chips made by Wise. I think it might have been the words "Big Munch" next to the 99 cent price tag that pulled me in. I used to always buy the Cape Cod chips but I thought I might give Wise a shot at some of my hard earned cash.
The bag was clearly larger than any other bag in its price grouping and according to the weight data it contained 2.375 oz / 67g of chips. With that said I had also forgotten that Wise chips tend to be on the heavy side when you compare them to other chips. This is due in part to them not slicing their chips as finely as some other brands are prone to do.
After returning to my office space I proceeded to pop open the back and eat. That is when I came to a rather rude discovery.
Even tough the bag was large, and the weight clearly marked, I was more than a little bit surprised to see how much of the bag was filled with air. Looking into the bag it seemed like a very long way before those chips appeared. In fact, as you can see from the pictures, the chips took up about 1/3 of the available space inside the bag!
There is a lesson to be learned here and it does not only apply to chips. Whenever you go shopping it is always important to look not only at the price but also at the unit price when compared to similar items. Quality is also a very important factor but when all other things are equal I always try to use unit price as a basis for making my purchasing decision.
A few days ago I took my daughter with me to the grocery store to pick up a few items. One of her staple foods is Mac-n-Cheese. Unfortunately for us she has a preference for the SpongeBob licensed Mac-n-Cheese, which costs a little more than the basic elbow shaped product.
We do give her a weekly allowance of $5 that she is able to spend as she sees fit and she is pretty good with her own money. Seeing an opportunity for some learning I made a point of showing her the prices and unit prices of everything we purchased. She quickly caught on and when we arrived at the Mac-n-Cheese aisle she put the plain elbow variety in the cart and saved us about 25 cents per box.
When we got to the paper towel aisle things became a little bit more complicated. This happened because we had the option of buying them as single roles (most expensive), two-packs or 24-packs. As I am sure you can imagine the 24-pack was the best deal but I then had to explain to her that even though the pricing was the best it was not the best deal for us because we lack adequate storage space to keep the extra rolls. In the end we paid a little more and got the two pack.
Going Back In Time With Fallout
After spending so much time playing with Fallout 3 and all of the current DLC I couldn't help but begin to feel a little bit nostalgic about the original game from 1997. I still remember the original spiral bound instruction manual that came with the game. I remember loading that game up in my old Windows 95 computer (I think it had some sort of AMD chip in it) and playing for a little while before getting killed by radscorpions. I have no idea where that book is now but I do know the CD-ROM for the game is likely to be inside that book.
I never got very far in the original game and it came out the same year I got married so my computer gaming days were somewhat on the way out. I never made it any further than Shady Sands and Vault 15 but I did enjoy the game and the fear of radscorpions has long stuck with me. I still cringe a bit when I encounter those beasts in Fallout 3!
I never played any of the other Fallout games until the latest one arrived on the Xbox360. I often wanted to revisit the world of Fallout and play through the original game but I was never able to locate the disks. That problem has come to an end because only a few short days ago I found a compilation of the first three Fallout games on a DVD-ROM and purchased it.
Returning to Vault 13
Getting back into the swing of the game was very easy. I played through the escape from Vault 13 and the rat tunnel so many times that I still knew where everything was. I didn't even forget to stop by shady sands for a bit of rope before heading on to Vault 15. After acquiring the 10mm SMG in Vault 15 I returned to Shady Sands and, for the first time, I did not get killed by radscorpions along the way! Not only did I not get killed by them but I even took out their lair nearby!
With my Fallout groove on I proceeded to explore the world that I had let pass me by a decade ago. What was I thinking way back then? This game is awesome and has held up very well over the years. I also have to say that if I had played Fallout all the way through I would have been using the hunting rifle in Fallout 3 a lot more often than I used the 10mm SMG.
The DVD Pack
The DVD-ROM pack includes not just Fallout but Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics for under $20. That is three games (some better than others) for under $20! With that low price in mind I picked it up and was not disappointed.
One thing many old gamers (especially PC gamers) are aware of is the fact that most games need to be patched for bugs found after they are released. The games on this disk are patched and in some cases they are patched again.
For example, the Fallout game comes in three varieties; patched, high-res and community patched. The basic game is the 1.2 version that fixed a good number of bugs from the initial release. The community patched version fixes even more bugs and has a large readme file listing the bugs that were fixed. The high-res version is based on version 1.2 and allows you to run the game at a higher resolution. Considering this game was made to run at 640x480 this high-res version allows you to completely utilize your screen real estate. The DOS version is also on the disk though you should not need to use it.
For Fallout 2 there is a patched and a community patched version. For Tactics you also get an editor. However, since I have not played these two yet I really can't talk about them.
The Test of Time
After spending numerous hours in the original Fallout world I began to think about some of the complaints leveled at Bethesda when Fallout 3 was released. Some said it was just 'Oblivion with guns' while others lamented the change to an FPS style of gameplay.
What I am finding is that Fallout 3 is a worthy successor to the Fallout name. It does capture a lot of the humor and feel of the original game and some things are clearly inspired from the original. Dogmeat anyone?
What I am also seeing is that you can play through the entirety of the Fallout quest in a matter of hours. What I thought would take a long time given the games 120 day allowance for finding the water chip ended up being only a 2+ hour job. The opposite holds true in Fallout 3 because you can't complete the main quests in less than eight hours of constant gaming. That may just be a sing of the times or a case of things going faster once you know where to go.
When I first started playing the game I relied too much on the burst setting of the 10mm SMG and paid the price. Without ammo to feed that beast I was stuck using my knife in hand-to-hand and often getting myself killed. I also found myself nervous in combat because in the original game you don't see the enemy life bar. Think about that, you could have the enemy within an inch of his life and you don't know.
I found a very expensive geiger counter in a shop but I could not afford to buy it. I wish I had because after entering a place that I thought was safe I found myself to be suffering from radiation poisoning. Unlike in Fallout 3 healing chems are not exactly plentiful. Ammo and caps also fall into the 'not plentiful' column which makes each shot very valuable.
After you acquire your first laser weapon you don't simply equip it and shoot it at every hostile you see. That weapon does not come with any spare ammo so you end up holding onto it for those special occasions that you think may need it. In fact you will often find yourself holstering your gun and wading into hand-to-hand with a crowbar to save on ammo!
Conclusion
If you like Fallout 3 or old-style single-player RPG games on the PC then you should investigate getting a copy of this game. It stands up well to other games from its time and though it is not as expansive as modern RPG titles it is still very enjoyable.
There are a few minor graphic issues but they can normally be worked around by setting the game to run in Win98 mode. The most common is where the entire screen turns black and you have to move the pointer around to uncover the screen. I had some other issues on Windows 7 with DOSBox and without. the most common problem is where colors do not match up. This likely some sort of color palette problem.
If you are feeling particularly nostalgic you might want to check out a mirror of the original Fallout website!
Riddick contest comes to an end
I would like to thank everyone who took the time to enter the contest. I'd also like all of you to know that we only received five entries! If you did not enter (for whatever reason) you blew an easy chance at winning an awesome $60 game!
We have a winner! Rob Pitt is the owner of a shiny new PS3 copy of the Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena game.
I have more swag to give away so keep an eye out for future contesta.
Entries that did not win:
Review: The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
Where do I begin?
The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is a game for the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. The single player storyline of Dark Athena is set after the events of the 2004 title The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. Unlike its predecessor Dark Athena includes a large multi-player portion. The game also includes a remastered version of the original Butcher Bay game.
Plot
Sometime after escaping from Butcher Bay with Johns, Riddick's ship is found by the mercs aboard the Dark Athena who pull it aboard for salvage and body harvesting. Lucky for Riddick (and unlucky for the mercs) Riddick's cryo tank releases him before the mercs board the ship. While Riddick hides in the ceiling the mercs come aboard and take John's unconscious body away. It is during all of this that Riddick acquires his first weapon, a hatpin from Gale Revas's (the captain of the Dark Athena) head.
It is now up to you, in the role of Riddick, to escape from the Dark Athena. You will use stealth for most of the early part of the game. Guns are not acquired until much later though you can use the guns of defeated drones but you can't take the guns from them.
There are a few side quests that can be performed for achievements but these are not needed to complete the game.
(more...)
Since the release of Broken Steel I have been feeling more and more like starting Fallout 3 all over again and playing through as a new character. While this idea was going through my head I started to wonder what the core perks were that most players always (or always should) take.
After that little brainstorming session I came up with my top five list of perks that all players should take when playing the game. They are listed in the order in which they can be taken and do not include perks gained through questing.
Comprehension – This perk doubles the effectiveness of skill books by allowing you to gain two points on a skill rather than only one point when the book is read. With 324 skill books in the game (roughly 25 per skill) this skill turns what could be a 25 point bonus for each skill into a 50 point bonus. Couple this with the skill bobble heads and you have a whopping 60 point bonus for each skill.
Since each skill starts with a minimum of 7 (based on Intelligence) taking the Comprehension perk means that you will only need to add 33 points (or less) to each skill over the course of your 30 levels to max them all out. If your Intelligence is a 5 each skill starts at 15!
With that said it is important to understand that you want your skills to max out as soon as possible so even with an Intelligence of 5 you will be gaining 14 skill points per level for a total of 390 skill points (or 30 per skill with 30 points left over). When you add in your three tag skills (+45 skill points) you find yourself with a grand total of 1,083 skill points to distribute across 13 skills. That means you will be able to put approximately 83 points into each skill over the course of your character's 30 levels. 83 + 15 = 98.
So, assuming you started with an Intelligence of five (and never found the Intelligence bobble head) each of your skills will be at 98 when you hit level 30. OR you could have 12 skills at 100 and one skill at 74. Without this perk all of your skills would be 25 points lower after reading all of the skill books.
Scrounger – This perk increases the amount of ammunition you find in containers around the DC Wasteland. Closely related to the earlier perk Fortune Finder this one is clearly better.
What makes it better you ask? It's better because when you find caps you have to convert them into something else (by bartering) before they become useful. Ammo, on the other hand, is useful as soon as you put it on your weapon!
Ammo can also be sold for caps and is never worth less than one cap. Caps, however are not exchangeable one-for-one when purchasing ammo except when buying the lower end ammo.
Strong Back – After you get a few guns you almost never wade into hand-to-hand with the denizens of the Capital Wasteland so why bother raising your Strength? What is there was a way to get the carry bonus benefit for having a high strength without having to raise your strength? There is and this is the perk.
Every point you raise your strength raises your carry weight by 10 pounds. The Strong Back perk raises your carry weight by 50 pounds! That is a 25% bonus for a character with the minimum strength of 5 (200 lbs base carry weight) for the cost of one perk.
Once you start looting heavy weapons and armor off of the enemies you defeat having a high carry weight becomes extremely important. This is especially true when you raid the armory in an Enclave outpost and find yourself unable to carry all of the cool stuff you find! Nothing hurts more than having to decide which named weapon to leave behind because you can't carry everything!
Animal Friend – Fighting off Mole Rats and Wild Dogs is not much of a challenge after you get a few levels under your belt but there is one beast of the Wasteland that is strong enough to take out Radscorpions and even wounded Deathclaws. I'm talking about the Yao Guai. These mutated bears are tough, fast and like to hide behind things before they attack you.
Having this perk turns those animal enemies into neutral friends. Taking this perk a second time turns those same animals into friends who will help you in a fight! I have not seen a reason to take this perk twice because if a friendly animal is close by I can usually just run towards them and they will cheerfully attack whatever is chasing after me!
Grim Reaper's Sprint – Nothing says “this game loves me” like seeing your action points refill after killing an enemy. If you use VATS this is the perk you have to have. It is hands-down the best of the level 20 perks in the game.
What's that? A room with six Enclave Troopers in it? If you don't have this perk you better have some good FPS skills because after the first one goes down you will be out of action points. However, with this perk as soon as the first trooper goes down your action points will be full again and you can quickly target the next one! Wash, rinse and repeat!
The above list of perks are good no matter what type of character you are playing as. I try to avoid the perks that give you skill points to one or two skills because I find them to be a waste when you have the Comprehension perk. Those perks do speed up your ability to increase a skill but with the level cap increased to 30 those perks have lost much of their luster.
The Entomologist perk has gained some new usefulness with the introduction of the Albino Radscorpions. Those things have no real weakness so if you find yourself encountering them a lot you might want to consider grabbing that perk.
In the end the choice of perks is always up to you and the type of character you are trying to create. After playing the game you will find a certain archetype appeals best to you and breaking free from that mold can be hard (right Grimjesta the sneak-sniper?) but also rewarding.
Contest: The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
Listen up everyone. We just received an extra copy of The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena from the publisher and we want to pass it on to you!
Now, in order to make things interesting we have decided to go with a "demotivational" poster making contest. If you want to win this contest you need to take an image of Riddick (from a game, movie, wherever) and turn it into a demotivational poster. The winner will receive a free copy of the game for the PS3. (Don't have a PS3? Most 'big box' stores will allow you to take it back without a receipt and exchange it for the 360 version. Just tell 'em your uncle got it for you or something!)
How To Enter
1. Find a cool image of Riddick. (Here or via Google.)
2. Think up a witty thing to write on it.
3. Create the poster using Motivator: Create your own customized motivational poster or a graphics program.
4. Email your entry to me via steve (at) hmtk (dot) com with the Subject of "Riddick Contest".
On Wednesday May 20, 2009 we will pick a winner. That winner will receive a free copy of the game.
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