Monday, 30 May, 2011

Finally, a decent adventure game graces our screens
And it's none other than Jane Jensen's latest effort, Gray Matter. Check out the linky to the left for the review. Gaming-wise, this is the most fun I've had in a long, long time.

Sunday, 26th December, 2010

Gaming again
I was astounded to realise that I hadn't posted anything here since May. That's partly due to the fact that I haven't been gaming much of late, or even following the gaming industry news on the dozen or so sites I used to read regularly. And I wouldn't even be writing this now if our flight to sunnier climes for the holidays hadn't been cancelled due to the fierce weather conditions prevailing in northern Europe. But there you go.

I did eventually manage to pick up a copy of Fallout: New Vegas, and though I've only logged a few hours on it so far, I'd like to share my first impressions of the game with you. Firstly, as with all Bethesda games since Morrowind, the graphics are pretty wow:

The Mohave Wasteland

I've only explored two locations so far: Goodsprings, the village where you start off, and a neighbouring town called Primm that has been taken over by escaped convicts. You play this game as a courier that was waylaid and left for dead while trying to make a delivery to a casino in New Vegas. I've got one lead concerning the possible whereabouts of the person that tried to do me in, and that will take me to a small town in the middle of nowhere... if I can get there in one piece, that is. As with all Fallout games, the wasteland is filled with dangerous critters. I've got my hands full right now with packs of Feral Ghouls that are pretty tough to take on in this early stage of the game. But Fallout games have good balance, and invariably, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. So I'm sure I'll figure out a way to muddle through somehow.

The casino in Primm

There seem to be quite a few new weapons and ammo types in Fallout: New Vegas, and you can build a lot more things than in Fallout 3, and even recycle things like ammo casings to make bullets, on the workbenches you find scattered around the place. You can also create non-tech stuff at campfires. The quests seem pretty good so far, so I'm quite sure this game will turn out to be a blast, as has been the case with all of the Fallout games to date. I'll be doing a review in a few weeks time, but have decided to forego compiling one of my comprehensive guides for this one. I feel that I did a pretty good job on my Fallout 3 guide but these games are becoming so huge that it's not possible to compete with the likes of Wikia that have hundreds of contributors on the case (I even wound up pitching in a bit on their Fallout 3 effort). Ah well, such is progress.

Saturday, 8th May, 2010

Music for a video game?
Regular readers here (I know you're out there... somewhere) may remember that a little less than a year ago, most of my hobby time was being consumed by what is otherwise known in geekdom as The Project. The resulting web site:

semisolidradio.com

is ticking over rather nicely. But hey, *cough* shameless plug here *cough* these fledging sites need all the help they can get. Anyway, I just put a new track up there called The Monochrome Waltz. The composer, my friend Ian, is aware of my penchant for video games, and thought this might make good background music for a game. I concur.

Anyway, be cool if some of you headed over there, joined the site, and posted some comments on the songs. If you want to take the lazy tack, that's fine too. You don't need to be signed up to download the songs.

Wednesday, 31st March, 2010

Agatha rules!
Completed the Agatha's Song quest in Fallout 3, and fleshed out a few other areas in the guide. A handy side effect of completing this quest is... that in the process of finding the vault where the artefact you are retrieving for Agatha resides, you stumble upon the locations of all the vaults in the Capital Wasteland :-) More on these vaults to follow in the guide, but for now:

Fallout 3 guide

Sunday, 21st March, 2010

Fallout 3 guide updated
I finally finished the You Gotta Shoot 'Em in the Head quest. New areas thereby covered are The Republic of Dave and Fort Constantine. Also, I stumbled across a really nice weapon, the Alien Blaster, that can be found in a crashed saucer. Go for it:

Fallout 3 guide

Wednesday, 17th March, 2010

Not so simple, Simon
Firstly, a Happy St. Paddy's Day to you all from jolly ol' Ireland.

I just returned from Goa a few weeks ago, and was having trouble getting back into Mass Effect. So I decided to put that one aside for the time being, and go for something completely different... like a 17-year old classic adventure game: Simon the Sorcerer. The version I have is the talkie CD one that was originally produced in 1993. But it was re-released in 2002, supposedly having been reworked to be XP compatible. Well, not on my XP it wasn't. But never fear, I got it working with ScummVM instead.

Since it had been so long since I last played it the puzzles were still fresh. And they're pretty difficult to boot. So I wrote a walkthrough that includes instructions on getting it up and running with ScummVM. You might want to check it out if you decide to revisit this classic yourself.

Monday, 11th January, 2010

Back in the saddle
Got my act together and started gaming again. What kick-started me this time was Dragon Age: Origins, Bioware's latest effort in a genre that they have come to almost completely dominate since their 1998 debut with Baldur's Gate. Origins features a unique backstory for each race/class, 6 in all, that you get to play through before you come anywhere near the main quest. I sense that I'm coming to the end of the backstory for my Dalish Elf rogue, and so far I'm having a blast.

And... I also started Mass Effect (also by Bioware) again from scratch. To be honest, I hadn't gotten very far with it the first time because I couldn't come to grips with the combat. But now I've got it more or less sussed due to a lengthy session this weekend, and managed to get past the place where I was previously bogged down.

So now I have a new dilemma: which one do I play through first...