Me, Valve, etc.

[theweaselking]

Fallout New Vegas, 70% off.

Remember how you liked Fallout 3, and Oblivion? New Vegas is like those two, but better in just about every respect. The best Fallout game ever made, especially now that it's been patched enough that 99% of the stupid crashes that it had when it first came out are gone.

$15, and then $3 each for the two DLC packs out so far.

(Oh, and you didn't hear this from me, but it JUST MIGHT BE possible to share the DLC packs across multiple accounts. And by "just might be" I mean "totally is". For cheap bastards.)

(Also on sale: A bunch of games I don't know, and Bully. Bully is GTA: Middle School, and while that's kind of a fun concept, the execution is complete crap. The controls suck, the story is supposedly GTA-style nonlinear except the clock is always ticking and you barely have enough time to complete the missions-on-rails let alone go for any of the optional ones, and the voice acting sounds like a bunch of middle-schoolers doing their best Video Game Acting voices. For $3.75, you might get your money's worth, but unless you LOVE GTA-style games and have already played GTA 1-4 and expansions, Mafia 1-2 and expansions, and Red Dead Redemption, I recommend you get one of them instead.)

Comments

[negumi.livejournal.com]

Oooh thanks, I didn't realize the DLC's where on sale.

[wyatt1048.livejournal.com]

Dammit, Steam is too busy to download it. I still have Fallout 1 and 2 half played, though - they were going cheap on gog.com until today.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

3 and New Vegas have a very different interface from 1 and 2, for the record - they run on the Oblivion engine, with a first-person view, and default to real-time with turn-based AP stuff being an add-on - but they're still acceptable and great games, respectively.

[wyatt1048.livejournal.com]

Hah! Yes, slight differences may be detected between 1/2 and 3/Vegas. I was disappointed in 3 being less open story-wise that I'd expected, but I hear that Vegas really does things differently. I did enjoy the hardcore mode add on someone released, so I'll be giving the hardcore mode a try!

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

There's a ton of good mods out there.

[kadath.livejournal.com]

Vegas is wide open, and unlike 3, has factions. You can't keep everyone happy. The DLC is better, too. The major problem is that it's buggy as fuck. I don't know if they've patched it for DL; we have a physical copy.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

It has been heavily patched via Steam. The patches should mostly be available for download via non-Steam, as well.

[kadath.livejournal.com]

In that case, recommended without reservations. Great game, almost infinitely replayable.

[kafziel.livejournal.com]

The game is Steam-mandatory, so you're getting the patches through Steam.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

The physical copy too?

(I have a one I haven't gotten around to yet.)

[kafziel.livejournal.com]

Yes, even the physical copy. I bought the physical copy, and had to link it to my Steam account to install it. Which meant that unlike with Fallout 3, when my girlfriend wanted to play it, I had to log in on my Steam on her computer to do it. And then she had to go into Offline Mode so that it would be possible for me to play other Steam games at the same time. It fucking sucked.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Ah, I don't think that will be a problem for me. *sob*

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

This version is, but the offline version isn't, I thought. It's not like MW2 or Portal.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

In fact. (http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas_patches)

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Heh, I never got around to any of the HL2 episodes or L4Ds, and hadn't played Portal 2 yet, and yesterday got the $50-for-everything-Valve pack. Candy coating indeed.

[biomekanic.livejournal.com]

Damn, wish I wasn't broke.

I loved Fallout 3. The last game in the series I played before F3 was Wasteland.

Why yes, I am old.

[hollowpoint.livejournal.com]

Wasteland was a great game, although I seem to recall being repeatedly killed by a giant robot scorpion.

Fallout: lacks giant robot scorpion. :(

[hollowpoint.livejournal.com]

Tch. I have a soft spot for Bully; I found it a lot more charming and entertaining than the latter-day GTAs. Possibly I just find absurd high school stereotypes less irksome than absurd ethnic stereotypes. ;)

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

The controls and the time constraints between missions were really what made it not worth playing further, for me.

[hollowpoint.livejournal.com]

The controls are par for the course with me; less wanky driving, more wanky combat and skateboarding. Cycling and combos are functional enough to be fun, though.

The time constraints weren't such a bother for me; you could usually manage a couple of missions in the evenings and besides, after you've finished all the lessons you're free to do whatever you want. (The Scholarship edition is actually worse because of this; it adds more classes and lessons but the rewards are pointless outfits, but because they're mandatory in the eyes of the game's rules they prove to be an irritating distraction.)

[hollowpoint.livejournal.com]

(When I say "par for the course" there, I am basically saying "it's a last-gen Rockstar game".)

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I never played through to the end of all the lessons - I noticed that lessons were mandatory, that skipping lessons resulted in permanent marks of failure (and WOW some of the console-control twitch-game lessons are hard with a mouse) and that the school year was advancing, and assumed that the game had a hard time limit on *the school year* in the same way it has a hard time limit on everything else.

And I got bored.

[hollowpoint.livejournal.com]

Skipping lessons doesn't mean anything other than a few hours of truancy - you only get the black marks for failing in one of the minigames. Not sure if you can retake the ones you failed - it's a while since I finished the PS2 version, and I only got about halfway through the 360 version.

I think the overall game's time limit is tied to story missions.

Fair play!

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

You can't retake the ones you fail, and you automatically fail them if you don't show up on schedule, at least in the PC version.

[hollowpoint.livejournal.com]

Weird. The latter doesn't happen in the PC or PS2 version. I can see why that would bug you.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

To be clear: I *do* mean the tests, not just the everyday classes, unless I'm misremembering.

[hollowpoint.livejournal.com]

Ah. I don't recall the tests - I assume they're at the end of each chain of five classes.