Obsidian to try Kickstarter?

Double Fine have found success with Kickstarter: the company’s fans have come forward to support them in making the game they want to make, rather than the game they want adjusted by the demands of a publisher.  The donations so far have passed $1,600,000, and are still rising..

Obsidian, developer of Fallout: New Vegas have asked their fans what game they would like to see, if they were also to set up a project via Kickstarter.

The responses so far have been very supportive of the idea, and from the comments it appears fans would like to see an isometric RPG, with turn based combat and a good story.

Skyrim!

I was going to delay my purchase of this game, for financial reasons and in order to try and finish up a few other games first.

However, everyone has been talking about it.. and I found it harder and harder to avoid spoilers, even amongst friends who knew I was avoiding reading anything to do with the game.

I saw some trailers and other game info a long while back, and even then I only skim-read what I found, as I knew I wanted the game anyway.. based on my love for the previous games in the Elder Scrolls series, Oblivion and Morrowind, and before we even come to Bethesda‘s other offerings, Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas.

Dragons!  I was glad of this one..

Once left to my own devices, I wandered off the road slightly and very soon found a campsite complete with bandits.  Surprisingly, I was able to take them on.. providing me with new armour, weapons, and the odd bits of loot in the camp too.  Further along, I discovered three Standing Stones.. and a fantastic view!  I had forgotten how beautiful the game was in the months since I first saw screenshots 🙂

I’m playing more with sword than magic this time, although to start with I’m taking advantage of dual-wielding to allow me to use a sword plus magical attacks.. later on I’ll probably ditch the magic and go for two differently-enchanted swords, saving magic for a second play-through 🙂

Falling Out with New Vegas

After many weeks of being distracted with other games, I went back to try and complete Fallout: New Vegas.  I had left the game at The Strip itself, undecided as to whether to support Mr House or kill him, and therefore support Yes Man..

Having been stalked across the wasteland by Victor, I then wasn’t too keen to put my trust in another slightly creepy computer.

Not only was Yes Man another creepy Securiton, he had also belonged to Benny, who had been willing to kill my character for the sake of the Platinum Chip.  I didn’t want to go with either at this point, but ended up giving the chip to Mr House as the lesser of two evils.. instantly regretted as I realised it also upgraded all his robots..

I did a few more missions, but then he asked me to destroy the Brotherhood of Steel chapter.. not something I wanted.
However, the alternative I was presented with, siding with Yes Man, meant also approving of the Omerta’s desire to go on a rampage on The Strip.. well, I don’t want that either..

This is where I’d almost fallen out with the game before, so I decided to explore instead, hoping some more options would reveal themselves.. and in the meantime, I came across a few things..

I recruited Marcus from Broken Hills in Fallout 2, and kept him in my group for the rest of the game.. so was quite excited when his name was mentioned by a mutant near Black Mountain.  I instantly went to find him at Jacobstown.. he hasn’t changed too much, I guess! 🙂

(From the Fallout Wiki)

Here, I waved goodbye to Boone and recruited a new companion, a crazy Nightkin who thinks I’m her granddaughter.  Originally, I only planned to keep Lily for as long as the mission requiring her, but was seriously impressed and have kept her this far.

Despite having had a message that the NCR would no longer accept my help because of helping Mr House, I have been able to get a variety of quests from various NCR camps.. finding missing supplies, running errands, checking on radio outposts and the like.

Some of these quests appear to be leading me towards joining a battle against the Legion.. something I’m looking forward to! 🙂

Fallout: New Vegas

I’ve also been playing around in the Wasteland over the last few days.. and I’m loving it more than I expected to. 🙂

Victor was fairly giving me the creeps after I’d made my way out of GoodSprings.. turning up here and there.. sneaky sneaky!  I’ve also noticed plenty of mention of places and people from Fallout 2, and I’m wondering quite how much of the old locations I might get to see..

For all the comments I’d heard about bugs, so far, I’ve one had one real problem:  After equipping a disguise, my reputation with all but three locations disappeared, and did not return to normal when I put normal clothes back on.  This resulted in a great deal of NCR hate, with them attacking me on sight despite a couple of good deeds in their favour.  To deal with their hatred, I had to equip a NCR disguise, but this wouldn’t work on named NPCs and they would still attack me.. and in any case, I didn’t want to walk around disguised for the rest of the game.

I braved the forums for a solution, fearing spoilers or a lack of any fix, and found that some disguises seem to screw up your rep.  The fix was an easy one though.. re-equip other disguises, take them off again, and see if your reputation resets.  So I killed a group of Legionaries and used one of their disguises; back to normal.  Phew! 🙂

A friend is slightly ahead of me in the game, and is having fun with Deathclaws.  I remember dealing with a lair full of them in Fallout 1, using up every stim and health item I had.. sniping and going for blinding or crippling the arms was particularly useful.  If they’re as tough now as they were back then, well, let’s say I’m looking forward to the challenge! 🙂

New things at E3

I’ve been looking at some of the info on the games and tech, and there has been plenty to get my interest.

The Fallout series holds a special place in my heart, so after seeing that Fallout: New Vegas has been dated for October 22nd, I’ve mentally written off the end of October in terms of playing other games.  This is despite the announcement of an October 26th release date for Fable III, another game I’ve been looking forward to – it will have to wait until after Fallout 😉

Pre-E3, there were rumours about what Valve might be revealing, after they said they’d be revealing something big.  It looks like the big secret was the fact that Steam is to come to the PS3 – while that’s good news for console players, I was rather hoping for Episode 3.

Portal 2 is on the way, but this was hardly new for E3, though the trailer was quite nice.  I’m quite excited about the co-op mode, and find the idea of playing as a robot or turret rather amusing 🙂

In addition to the two Warhammer 40,000 games, Dark Millennium Online and Space Marine, which I mentioned in the last post, THQ have also announced Red Faction: Armageddon, follow-up to Red Faction: Guerilla.  There was also a very brief mention of Darksiders 2.  I have yet to complete Red Faction: Guerrilla or Darksiders – again, with the consoles..

Must try harder 😉

Call of Duty: Black Ops is another game in my wanted list, though not as high up as the previous games.  I enjoyed Modern Warfare 2, but beyond single player, I didn’t find myself playing it so much.
I tend to prefer playing with a few friends rather than strangers with their camping, mic-spamming, teabagging ways.  Though sometimes I still get the latter from friends.. ah well.

Kinect, formerly Natal, is being shown at E3 too.  Along with the child-oriented Kinectimals, there are a large number of fitness and sports type games planned to use the system.  While I love the tech, these titles are very close to titles I already have for the Wii and so what’s on offer here isn’t going to make me rush out to buy the system.
PlayStation Move had more games on offer, but again doesn’t really add much on from the Wii.