Fallout 3 Mod Review - Alton, IL

Fallout 3 Mod Review - Alton, IL

Score: +5/-5

Summary: New worldspace. Feels too much like the Capital Wasteland.

Why Get This: You like the Capital Wasteland post-apocalypse feel and want to explore more in that environment.

It's sad to say bad things about something when so much work has obviously gone into it, but just because a mod is big doesn't mean it's good. Just because a mod has a lot of fans doesn't mean it's good either (case in point: the severely flawed Oblivion mod Tears of the Fiend). There are basic elements of game and story design that can fail a game or mod by ruining your experience.

The mod isn't particularly bad, either. Overall, my feeling is that it is mediocre, just on a vast scale compared to other mods. Some of that is, obviously, personal opinion. If, for example, you are not bored of the Capital Wasteland ambiance, then this mod lets you continue in that vein, and have some new quests to do. For me, there's a sense of "nothing new to see or do".
++ It's a new worldspace to explore, especially if you have searched through the entire Capital Wasteland already.
+ There are various non-quest-related locations to explore, some of which are laid out quite interestingly.
+ Voiceovers and .BIK movie sequences.
+ Less busy outdoors compared to the Capital Wasteland where you can't run in any direction for more than 15 seconds without having to kill something.
- Quite a bit of the world is essentially cut-and-pasted from Fallout 3 and modified. For example, New Godfrey is a stripped down version of Megaton. This may or may not bother you. For me, there was too much of a sense of familiarity. I didn't download a worldspace mod to see the Capital Wasteland again. This really made me truly realize just how much effort really goes into Fallout 3, where just about every location is very different from every other. They even tried to make each trainstation in Fallout 3 have its own character even though they necessarily all look very much alike.
- Needs more polish (such as doors that can be Activated but do not open; and NPCs that have no dialogue at all when you talk to them). For a large enough worldspace that this mod is, that is a lot of work with very little return since the key aspects of the mod (world and quests) presently work without breaking -- which is more than many smaller mods can say. This made me appreciate all the grunt work that goes into Fallout 3, which is of course very much bigger.
- The story progresses in an implausible way. For example, the Underground Railroad initially distrusts you, so to let you prove yourself, they entrust you with restoring their power? Nevermind that if you were really an enemy, you now know where that is and can sabotage it? A later scene shows just how weakly the story is put together (nicely summarized by this forum post):

Vault overseer guy: "Yeah, so we were like...mistreated and starved and stuff! That's why we butcher loads of people! So join us and help us butcher more people!"


My character: "I MIGHT have been more inclined to help you if you hadn't had a guy bash my face in with a bat before stealing my stuff on two separate occasions. Learn to be diplomatic, moron, and you MIGHT actually make friends."


Vault overseer guy: "OMG! I thought you would be different! :'("


*he leaves you in an easily escapable situation instead of killing you after you said you'd fight for his enemies.*
- You are captured and stripped of gear in a couple of cutscenes. This is only because the script disarmed you. Otherwise you'd have shot back and killed all the baddies. Surely there was another way to present information or have a dialogue with the main bad guy. Instead, the storytellers decide to use one of the most annoying events in roleplaying: Automatic capture of your player character. In this case, it is made even worse by how implausible it is.
- The quests were boring enough that I didn't bother continuing past the choose-your-side scene. Mostly they were go-there-kill-that events which weren't more interesting than encountering some raiders in the Wasteland.

Skyrim Hoarders

This is why we have the Bag of Holding.

CollegeHumor’s Favorite Funny Videos

Glarthir, is, incidentally a character in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Not a hoarder. Paranoid, though.

Fallout 3 Mod Review - A Trail of Crumbs

Fallout 3 Mod Review - A Trail of Crumbs

Score: +0

Summary: Adds more loot in safes and a small player home, if you visit a sequence of non-quest game locations. Official website here.

Why Get This: More loot, custom armour, and a perk.

You must really want the perk and the armour to really bother with this mod. And in a game where you are more or less invincible at level 12 or so and with access to more loot than you can haul, and new perks and toys won't really change anything, there is a certain pointlessness to this mod.

On the other hand, if you are an explorer who is bent on seeing every nook and cranny of the Fallout 3 game world, then you might as well get this mod since the perk and armour won't unbalance the game any more than the vanilla game already does, and you're visiting the affected locations anyway. Just don't expect this mod to add anything special to your experience of Fallout 3.

Fallout 3 Mod Review - The Regulators

Fallout 3 Mod Review - The Regulators

Score: +2/-2

Summary: Adds gangs of humans to kill.

Why Get This: You like running around the Wasteland. Overpowered perk after 47 missions.
- This mod adds locations which spawn NPCs to kill when you access a computer at the Regulator headquarters. The problem is, there's more than enough killing in the Capital Wasteland to go around that you really don't need a mod spawning a few here and there for you to shoot. There's a certain pointlessness and no-added-content to it.
+- The vanilla Fallout 3 locations are laid out in a much more interesting fashion than the locations added by this mod, which are really just map markers at camp-like locations that already exist in the game. More map markers can, however, make jumping to certain locations more convenient when you don't want to land  exactly in that location (because there might be enemies when you get there).
+ You can add defenses to Regulator HQ, making it a more convenient place to visit.

Game Review - Azkend, Azkend 2: The World Beneath

Game Review - Azkend and Azkend 2: The World Beneath
Score +2/-4 (Azkend), +3/-4 (Azkend 2)

Overview

A match-3 chain game, with occasional hidden object scenes. Nice but static artwork.
+ Very good artwork in background images. More so in Akzend 2, where they more frequently show the artwork, add a bit of animation, and you can review the scenes in your journal.
- /+Azkend story was not very well reflected in the gameplay. This was corrected in Azkend 2, which had a stronger correlation. For example, the "dynamite" powerup is found after you locate four sticks of dynamite in the story, and when you match them, they explode to clear tiles.
-- Too many symbols (especially in Azkend 2, where this situation happens quite early) means you frequently encounter no-moves and reshuffles. The game starts to become more chance than skill.
+- Challenging hidden object games, but you can't go back to redo them and your degree of success appears irrelevant -- you just get pushed through to the next chapter of the story.

How to install a game without Steam downloading

If you've bought a game on DVD and it has to be validated through Steam, chances are the people who put the DVD together were too lazy to tweak the installation to install from Steam. This happened to me with Fallout: New Vegas. There is an official workaround, UNLESS you have a Mac.

Installing from Disc instead of Steam
I try to install my retail game from the included disc(s), but the game begins downloading through Steam instead. What can be done?

Mac Users:
If you are using a Mac, you will not be able to install from the disc. Please double-click on the game in your Library list to begin downloading and installing the software.

Using Steam launch options to install retail games from disc

1. Log in to Steam and click on Library.
2. Right-click on the game, select Delete local content, and confirm.
3. Insert the first disc into your computer.
4. Close Steam (Steam > Exit).
5. Press Windows Key + R to open Run
6. In the Run window type:
   "C:\Program Files\Steam\Steam.exe" -install E:
   Replace E: with the CD/DVD drive you are installing from if is not correct.
   Replace C:\Program Files\Steam if your Steam installation is not in the default location.
7. Press OK. Steam will launch and ask you to sign in if you do not have your password saved. Your installation should continue from the disc.

Note:
This process is only intended for retail store bought copies of Steam games (ie. Left 4 Dead, Modern Warfare 2). It will not work for backup discs of any Steam games.

STEAM is Stupid

Sometimes you really have to wonder about the great disconnect between programmers and users. That, or companies really need to get better focus groups.

Now that I'm in the last stages of Fallout 3, I ordered Fallout: New Vegas (plus all the DLCs, of course) from Amazon. It came in the mail recently and I installed it.

First thing that happened was Steam installing itself. That took long enough, but then... nothing. WTF? Where's my game, dude?

After signing up on Steam (did I really need to do that?), I had to poke around a bit to figure out that I needed to select the game I bought. Even though my game came on a DVD.

Then the stupid thing hung on me.


Restarted, and finally it starts downloading. 9 GB of data. No estimated time because it STOPPED at 1.5 M for the longest time. Eventually it resumed.


While it was downloading, I looked through the DVD. Lo! There was Fallout: New Vegas, just sitting on the DVD. Couldn't Steam have just downloaded a patch? There was a "Play" button that wasn't greyed out. Maybe it's already installed? I clicked on the button. There was a message about starting the game. But it got stuck, because obviously it hadn't finished downloading. Why is the button even available to click on when the installation isn't complete?

I had to Google an answer on how to install FNV without Steam. First answer that came up was a Youtube on where to get a pirated copy via Torrent. Honestly, given all the runaround from Steam, that was probably the best and most convenient answer.
Ever notice how pirates who put up Torrents make things soooo easy to install, but it takes longer with an official copy? Finally, after some scrounging around, I found this on the Steam website: