Let me start by saying that I will not review the game, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D. If you have ever considered yourself a gamer, then you have heard that praise at some point in your life. That tends to happen when a game is widely considered to be one of the best ever made. Instead, I will review the technical aspects and improved functionality for the 3DS. READ MORE »
The PSP needs no introduction; it has become one of the more infamous handhelds over the years with its sparse game library, constant iterative revisions, and an overblown price tag. The platform went so far as to release a PSP that couldn’t even play a huge percentage of the games you’d already bought. But we don’t speak of the defunct PSP Go around ‘round these parts.
Nevertheless, the PSP deserves a bit more credit than it gets. It’s now 2011, and the PSP’s big brother, the NGP, is on its way and you must be wondering, why should I all of a sudden care about the PSP. The NGP claims to be near as powerful as the PS3 in terms of visual power for screen real estate, and ditches the less than savory UMD drive of the PSP for a more conventional flash card based medium. The NGP will finally bring the handheld experience as close to having a home gaming console in your pocket as it’s likely to get for a long time (assuming somebody out there has some pretty spacious pockets).
But forget about all that marketing chest beating. We’re going to run through six reasons you shouldn’t count the PSP out just yet. READ MORE »
We are quickly coming up on the anniversary of Fallout 3‘s release, and even after twelve months I still find myself as excited as a little kid dying to get home and get back to the Wasteland. After a year, and well over 100 hours of gameplay on one (one!) playthrough I still can’t put the game down. Its awful to think about all the new games I’ve neglected (Halo 3: ODST, Red Faction, inFamous), all because I just can’t stop playing Fallout.
But enough gushing! Why is it, that of all the games I’ve played in two decades as a gamer, why is Fallout 3 so hard to let go of?
For me, it’s the diversity and the realism. Many games have claimed to be open-ended, have advertised diverse gameplay, and some of them deliver on these promises…to a certain extent. None of them quite stand up to Fallout though. Not even its big brother Oblivion has quite the same level of choices. Diverse gameplay and innovative concepts are often stuffed down your throat from the get go, especially in this generation of games; Bethesda has thankfully never done that. The point I’m trying to make is that even after all this time, I’m still finding new things to do, still figuring out the ways in which my actions affect the virtual world around me.
The realism is the other element that keeps me coming back; the game is not a narrative, its an experience. By that, I mean that 99% of the game is optional, and only about 60% is doable (by my calculations at least), because every choice has different paths, whether you notice them or not. The game has such a natural flow, that you never feel like your choosing between story or side quest, a good choice or an evil one. You simply go, and as you do your choices shape the adventure and determine, in many cases, which parts make up the story and which parts don’t.
The most important part for me now though is the emotional bond I’ve formed with the game. After so much time devoted to a single run through, I actually care what happens to my traveling companions Fawkes the super mutant, and Dogmeat, the German Shepherd. I consider that connection in and of itself a grand achievement for the development team.
Another new writer joining us here at False Travels. Big Boss joins us to bring some review mojo to the worlds of TV, movies, comics, and PS3 games (in other words, what ever the hell he wants). It looks like he’ll become a regular..that’s right folks, we’re going to start expanding this thing, slowly but surely.
I will start by saying I never liked Stargate. The movie was silly and the subsequent TV series, SG-1 and Atlantis, were in my opinion awful. I only gave Stargate Universe (or SGU) a chance because for some unexplained reason, I feel compelled to watch anything featuring Robert Carlyle. I was in for a helluva surprise: gone is the silly episodic structure and light hearted feel of Stargates past. This is a whole new breed, following closely in the footsteps of such sci-fi titans as Battlestar Galactica and LOST.
The premiere kicks off with about 40 or so people being launched like rag dolls from a stargate onto the floor of a hanger, many injured and dying, then the show immediately begins cutting back to the days prior. Like LOST, the show bounces back and forth between past and present, often without warning.
In the first hour we really only get to know 3 key characters. Enter the morally ambiguous mad scientist Dr. Rush, his unassuming pseudo sidekick/college student/math wiz Eli, and a marine officer named Young, who appears to be suffering from debilitating health problems and a failing marriage long before being zapped across the cosmos. All three characters manage to fit together and into the Stargate universe well; they never seem out of place. The backstory given for each of them is engaging and meaningful, rather than being flashbacks for the sake of flashbacks.
Thus far the writing, directing, and special effects are all pretty much top notch. It’s a very interesting, and beautiful beginning to a series, but really doesn’t let on much of what the show is about; to be fair though, I’ve only seen the first episode. The other missing element is the villain, although any number of the stranded space travelers could snap at anytime and become the antagonist. It really depends on the direction the show takes. There is definite potential here, potential that very few series premieres have.
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