Fallout: New Vegas

I can't wait.

 

Collectors edition, ordered.

 

Well, I got the collectors edition of the last one, the one with the Pipboy. I felt I had to this time too.

 

I love the original Fallout games from Black Isle (I own, and still play regularly, most everything they ever created). Same for Bethesda's open-world RPGs; I have the entire Elder Scrolls series, as well as Fallout 3, installed. I'm currently playing Oblivion through for about the tenth time.

Unfortunately, I doubt I'll be playing this one. Nothing wrong with the game, it actually looks really, really good. It's the decision to use the Steam platform. I don't care about the DRM aspect of Steam, I actually think that is an improvement on the old disk-check method. The privacy aspect bothers me, that and requiring a constant internet connection to install and play a single-player RPG is just stupid.

 

Agreed.

 

That's the most objectionable part. A few years ago, I bought something (Two Worlds or The Witcher, IIRC) without realizing that you had to have an internet connection to activate it. I installed and played it, went through a few system reinstalls and upgrades, and realized that I couldn't activate it anymore, because I had installed it too many times or whatever. I hadn't even finished it yet. Now, I still play games I bought in the late 1980's; I never really stop playing a game once I buy it. I ended up fixing the game executable with a hex editor so it would run, so it's all good, but I find the notion of having to ask permission to install a game that I purchased objectionable, so I won't buy those anymore. I know this one comes with unlimited installs, but I still won't buy it without an offline install option.

Not many places have my CC info, actually, but I'm not too worried about that part -- CC fraud is pretty easy to detect and limit damage from. However, they know what games you have installed, how often you play them, your progress in them, mods you have installed, stuff like that, and it is information I would personally prefer not to share, though I totally get where someone wouldn't care at all.

I have to agree with you, here. Honestly, I think Steam is a great service, and one that makes gaming a lot more user-friendly. However, it's not something I personally feel comfortable participating in.

 

Last game I got on the PC was Star Craft II. Even then I only got it for the PC because I couldn't get it for anything else.

DRM, Steam et al made me switch to a console for 99% of my gaming. Took a little getting used to, but there is just a lot more out there for the consoles. (Except MMORPGs)

 

As far as selection? I have always been under the impression that PC gaming afforded the most customizable content. Take for example Company of Heroes (an RTS)--the community can edit and create all new maps. This really extends the life of the game, but as far as I know (and I could be wrong) you can't do this with consoles.

 

Yep, depends on the game. Some have extensive map editing and sharing capabilities.

 

For me, two things make PC gaming really interesting.

First is the depth of gameplay allowed by having a powerful general purpose computer with a hundred-button controller available. In the late 1980s and early-to-mid 1990s, when I started gaming, consoles couldn't touch the depth of gameplay, graphical quality, and sheer fun of the best PC games. As in, not even close. Much of the disparity could be attributed to the fact that the consoles of the era, in order to be affordable, had specs like 6502 or M68K CPUs and RAM sizes measured in small numbers of KB (64KB was a lot for the time). Hardware that was state-of-the-art a decade prior. Even my modest system at the time had a 25 mHz CPU, 8MB of RAM, and a 300-odd MB hard disk. Additionally, in order to be able to even display a 320x240 256-color scene at a reasonable framerate, consoles had a video subsystem which was sprite-based rather than a generic framebuffer (basically, a system where the game engine is built into the hardware, and you can't use a different one or make your own). Basically, console users were limited to a series of simplistic button-mashing platform games. Nothing wrong with that style of gameplay; I had a few PC games like that myself. I just wouldn't want to be limited to them exclusively. Now, of course, the disparity between PCs and consoles is mostly erased -- the only remaining disadvantage consoles have is the controllers. Yeah, you can get a keyboard and mouse for some, but there's no installed base to speak of, so games have to be coded to work with a controller. However, for whatever reason (probably tradition and target audience), most console games are still of the button-masher variety, which I can't get into at all anymore (they're a young man's game, I guess ). I have a console, and I don't play it all that often, because there are only a handful of games available for it that interest me. The good console games, though, are as good as any PC game.

Second is, as you pointed out, customizability (Company of Heroes is a great game, by the way). PC games have had this forever; it's part of the PC gaming culture. It also greatly increases the playable life of the game -- people are still making maps for Doom, two decades later. I still remember when TES: Oblivion came out for the PC and XBox 360 simultaneously. It was, and still is, an amazing game on either platform (and the XBox 360 probably wouldn't have been nearly as successful without it, it's that good). I didn't have an XBox, so I bought the PC version. A friend did, and bought the XBox version. We had both been eagerly anticipating the game, counting down the days to release, talking endlessly about our planned character builds. We went together to Gamestop to buy it. We loaded our copies up at about the same time, and we were both floored by the customizability available in the first part of the character creation, where you pick your race and gender and set up your character's face. We talked on the phone while we spent two hours at that screen. We both modeled our characters on actual people, trying to get the face to look exactly like theirs. He based his on another friend who had come over to see the game. I based mine on my wife, who very patiently sat in a chair next to me for two hours while I molded a Breton into her likeness. Once we actually got started, we were blown away by how lifelike the world was, how NPCs had their own objectives to meet, how they carried on conversations with each other. Over the next few days, the story evolved in different directions for each of us as we took our characters in their own directions. Fast forward a few weeks, he's finished the game, and that's it. He's on to something else. I figured out how to work the game editor (PC only) and I'm overhauling the gameplay. I've got an NPC modded to be a spoon collector who will kill whoever he needs to in order to get more of them, I've reworked archery to work in a way that I think is more realistic, I've adjusted drop rates on a lot of loot to make the game more challenging. I changed some of the high-level bosses to be really dangerous. I'm playing through again to try it out. Other people are modding it too, and posting their mods online. I've downloaded a bunch of theirs, and I'm trying them too. In short, I'm just getting started with the game (I'm currently playing through again, for about the tenth time, actually). My friend doesn't feel like he missed out; he's a console guy, and that world works differently. There, you get a game, play it through, then trade it in when you're done and get another. Maybe you even rent your games, play through them in a couple of days, then bring them back and forget them. Nothing wrong with any of this, it's just a different subculture, with different ideas about what makes a good game. Although, going by some of the comments here, this aspect of it is starting to change, too.

 

Symen, you must come play with us! Download Company of Heroes Online...loads of fun, and free!

 

I don't have the time to mod games like I used to. Too much stuff to play.

Right now on my plate are
Fall Out - New Vegas
Alan Wake
Dead Rising 2
Mass Effect 2's DLC (played the game completely through 3 times)
Red Dead Redemption's DLC
Assassins Creed II (I didn't get very far into it when I bought it)

Still on the need to buy list
Kirby's Epic Yarn
Castlevania: Lord of Shadows
Rock Band 3
Fable III (I still need to play Fable II)
Vanquish
Dragons Age Origins
Luche Libra

That is why I don't miss gaming on the PC that much. I've already got a full plate of stuff to do. I like being able to grab a game and not think, "Will it work on my system? Does it look better on ATI or Nvidia hardware? Will I have to turn off 90% of the features to run it?"

Granted I still do that. "Does it look better on the PS3 or 360? Same? 360 it is."

 

One complaint about Fallout:NV. There doesn't seem to be as much music in it as 3 had. I have heard one song twice in a row several times. It sets the mood, but not enough of it.