Dollars and Sense

This is the moment I realized I had played this before.

I thought Fallout 3 was a great game.  I played it for sixty something hours.  I played the main quest through in its entirety.  I spent hours just roaming the countryside looking for interesting things, of which there were many.  I used internet faqs and YouTube videos to find the bobble head dolls so I could get an achievement.  So naturally, when Fallout:  New Vegas was announced, I was psyched.  New adventurers to be had in the fallout universe?  In Las Vegas?  Sign me up!  It was a release day purchase for me.  I played New Vegas a little over an hour on that first night…..and haven’t touched it again since.  So what happened?  I realized something when I turned on the game for the first time and got to the main menu.  The menu was the EXACT same one as Fallout 3.  I was about to play the same game.  The characters were different, the story was different,  I’m not saying there were no changes.  I just realized while staring at the main menu that while I had enjoyed playing Fallout 3 I just wasn’t interested in playing more of the same.  Now this isn’t true for every series.  I’ve played all the Call of Duty’s, all the Assassin’s Creed games, both Bioshocks, both Gears of War, Halo 3 and Halo Reach.  I am not championing myself as too cool for sequels.  They have their place.  I’m just growing concerned that developers might be cashing in, literally most of the time, on brand names at an amazingly high rate recently.  I’m growing even MORE concerned that we, as gamers, only have ourselves to blame.

Post 100- Everything you want to see

Okay, this is it!  The 100th post of Faceplant!  Enosh, Elrood and I are pretty excited about it, though that’s mainly because I’m pretty sure all three of us never actually expected to be able to keep up the 3-post-a-week schedule that you guys have come to expect out of us.  It’s been a trial, no, a journey, and I don’t think we’re done quite yet.  The three of us decided that we need to do something unique for our first sketchy foray into triple digit posts.  Elrood suggested we actually do a second General Mishmash podcast (god forbid!).  Enosh…  probably suggested something else when I wasn’t paying attention.  Unfortunately for all of you, post 100 lands on a Tophat Monday, so instead we’re going to take a look at YOU GUYS instead, interspersed with my awesomely awful MS Paint skills.

Fallout New Vegas: A wasteland, a platinum poker chip and one dedicated courier

This does not bode well.

A lot of games are scheduled to come out as we take the forward plunge into the holiday season, but for some reason the one about the horrific, irradiated desert surrounding the ruins of the sleaziest city in the United States was the one that caught my interest the most.  Fallout: New Vegas puts a bit of a western spin on the established franchise and gives us yet another look into how the rest of the country is surviving the apocalypse.  Sure Washington DC has seen better days, and man California is a total wasteland, but seriously who cares about that?  Did all the prostitutes survive?  Oh god let Vegas be okay.

The Hype Machine Rolls on

I was on the phone with Tophat recently when he made an accurate observation.

“Elrood, the amount of hype for Halo Reach is insane.  Even if it was the best game ever, there is no possible way it could live up to all the publicity it’s getting,” he said.

“Tophat, we’ve known each other since fourth grade, why did you call me Elrood?”, I responded.

“I have forgotten your real name! Please help!”, he yelled.

Tophat being insane aside, he has a point.