Fallout 3 : Into The Pitt Review

How did the Liberation of Anchorage go for you?  For me, I came out of that Outcast camp with a lot of ammo, some new instruments of death, and a badass suit of power armor.  But not even these goodies can prepare you for what lies in what was known as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Upon downloading the content, your Pip-Boy 3000 once again detects a radio signal being broadcasted throughout the Wasteland.  It’s an escaped slave, and apparently he knows where all these raiders and slavers are coming from.  He goes on to say that The Pitt (Pittsburgh) is the Slaver capital of the Wasteland, and he needs you to infiltrate the camps and sabotage the leader of The Pitt and it’s operations.  You can’t even take your buddies…you have to go alone.  Even worse, you have to go alone completely naked aside from your slaver disguise.  That’s right.  No weapons or help are coming with you this time…besides a crummy sidearm.

This is your first time outside the D.C. area.  This is also when you realize what humanity has become;  completely destructive.  Even Pittsburgh, the huge steel industrial juggernaut, has become nothing more then a radioactive hellhole.  You think the radiation is bad in D.C.?  The radiation here, if exposed to long enough, will turn you into creatures that not even a group of slavers dare fight.  When you enter, you are to meet with an inside agent working for the runaway slave you ran into back in D.C.  The objective is clear:  overthrow the slavers camp, and set free the slaves.  Well, I’m not going to spoil anything for you, but I will tell you what you will have to do to in order to achieve your goal.

Remember in that other game Bethesda made…oh, what was it called…it was GOTY….oh yeah, Oblivion?  Remember the arena you could enter and fight to the death to be crowned champion of the arena?  Yeah, think that, only for your freedom.  Yes, you will fight for your freedom in a slaver’s arena in a battle to the death.  Let the bloodshed begin.

Into the Pitt is a great lil package for DLC, but there is ONE big thing that really bothered me about it.  There is literally no terrain to explore…it’s TINY.  Basically, its the outskirts of Pittsburgh, along with the downtown and uptown areas.  THAT’S IT!  You can literally finish this whole thing in 4 hours.  The upside?  The armory you return back to the Wasteland with.  A new set of power armor, new weapons, and when you complete all the quests, you have access to the steel mill to produce any type of ammo you want out of junk you dont need anymore.  You can even melt ammo you dont use into another type of ammo.  Don’t use those .44 magnum rounds?  Turn it into some microfusion cells.  God knows those are hard to find…

So go, free the slaves from The Pitt…or become their new master.  Whatever makes you happy. Whether you’re the messiah of the wasteland, or the scourge of humanity…it still costs 800 MS points.  If you really have nothing left to do in the Wasteland, this is so worth the download just for the goodies that comes out of it, not to mention the quests were FUN as hell.

Overall Score : 8/10 - Awesome Expansion, and worth the download.

The next Fallout 3 Package to be reviewed will be Broken Steel, which is the pack that increases your level cap to 30; and picks up from where you left off in the original storyline.  Guranteed adrenaline, as you will be in a direct conflict between the Brotherhood of Steel and the Enclave!  OH SNAP, CAN YOU SAY HUGE EXPLOSIONS AND LOTS OF DEATH!?!?

Until next time, this is THUHREE DAWWGGG!!!! AWWOOOOO!!! And you’re reading this from Wiispace.com…bringing you the truth, no matter how BAD it hurts.

And now, some music…

Rock Band Unplugged (PSP) Review

Music games. They’re not going away, whether you like it or not. People like the fact they can be ‘rock stars’, just by pressing buttons on a plastic guitar. Guitar Hero, and I’m talking about the original, introduced the concept with its large, full-sized plastic guitar. Rock Band, the original, built upon that by adding drums and a microphone. Guitar Hero: On Tour added a guitar peripheral that plugs into your Nintendo DS. Now, the portable instrument-playing game is making its way to Sony’s portable gaming system, in the form of Rock Band Unplugged for the PSP.

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Lost Planet: Extreme Condition Review

Players: 1 Campaign, Multiplayer Online

Developer: Capcom

Publisher: Capcom

Engine: MT Framework

Platforms: Xbox 360, PC, PS3 (this review is based off of the 360 version)

Release Date: December 21st, 2006

Humans are a violent species.  War rages, cities collapse, countries burn.  This is the backdrop of Lost Planet: Extreme Condition.   Earth has become to hostile to sustain human life, so man ventures out to find a new place to call home.  E.D.N. III, in the year T.C. -80, is just the starting over spot humans are looking for.  A company named NEVEC (Neo-Venus Construction) has taken the lead in the campaign to this new world.  Upon landing on E.D.N. III, amidst colonization efforts, the humans are attacked and subsequently forced to leave the planet by an alien race known as the Akrid’s.  A bug like species that did not want the humans there, nor were they taking kindly to having their planet harvested for another lifeform.

The humans soon discover that these “Akrid” contain a vital energy source, thermal energy, that would sustain their efforts on the planet and support more life.  NEVEC develops the first “Vital Suit” or VS, a robotic suit that is powered by the Thermal Energy, or T-ENG as it’s represented in the game.  This provides a vital weapon to combat the Akrid and allow the humans to fight back against the alien bugs.

Wayne and his father, Gale, are two of the best NEVEC VS pilots in the galaxy, and they have been called to destroy the alien Akrid known as “Green Eye”, a giant Akrid who is the harvester of an abundance of T-ENG.  Things don’t go according to plan and Wayne is left to die on the planet alone until he is discovered 30 years later, his body frozen from the subzero temperatures of the planet.  He is revived by a team of “environmentalists” who are looking for ways to bring warmth back to an otherwise white, snow covered planet.  Luka, Rick, and Yuri are the three that form the when they stumble upon Wayne.

Wayne, after being revived, can only survive off of T-ENG which flows directly through his body from a device attached to his arm called the “harmonizer.”  It gives Wayne a little boost when it counts.  After Wayne gets his feet back under him he joins Luka, Rick, and Yuri in their conquest to stop NEVEC.

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Personally, I loved this game.  The controls, the graphics, the cut scenese, the innovative concept, the Gundam meets Halo type gameplay.  It all seemed to come together to form a very complex yet simple story.

I will go ahead and break the game down into the Good, Bad, and Ugly for you guys once again.  But as always, I’ll start you out with the The Bad.

The Bad

The campaign was too short.  It was 11 missions long, and while not every mission was incredibly short, I did only beat in a couple of days, and that was casually playing it.  I would venture to say that I spend maybe between 10-12 game hours on it.  The cut scenes were rather lengthy and that was good, but the missions themselves didn’t seem that long at all.

In order to kill another human, you have to waste an entire magazine on them.  I don’t know if that was designed to keep you honest or find more innovative ways to kill people, but I hated it.  The machine gun is the best normal weapon throughout the game when you’re not piloting a VS.  There is an abundance of ammo everywhere for it and you cap out at 999 rounds.  Which is fair enough.  But level after level I would come across a band of NEVEC soldiers or “snow pirates” and I would use all my ammo on 7 or 8 guys.  It’s not like I wasn’t aiming either, as there is an auto lockon feature that activates by itself.

The story itself had some flaws and bloopers in it that made me question it at times.  For instance, Wayne on certain missions would be travelling miles away from their base camp, in exreme weather conditions and yet could still talk on his radio crystal clear.  As if it was bright and sunny, and not a cloud in the sky.  When in reality they are in a blizzard 95% of the time and the possibility of maintaining radio communication in conditions such as those are poor at best.

Another discrepancy is the use of the “internet” or whatever it would be called in the year T.C. -80.  How exactly were they able to access the data files of NEVEC database on this planet covered in snow with no hard communication lines?  It’s just weird to me.  Eh, I guess I’m nitpicking.

The Ugly

There is only one real big gripe I have with an otherwise fantastic game, and it’s the mobility of the VS and the controls used for them.  Everytime I got in to pilot one of the VS’s, it would take a couple of seconds for the thing to power on and then when I was up and running, the thing moved slower than dirt.  Why?  I mean, really?  The thing has jet propolsion, why can’t it move faster?  The flying system is weak…as you don’t really fly, you more or less hover around.

Now there are a lot of different VS models throughout the game, with my favorite being the Gundam Wing looking VS.  Alas, they just seemed to be the worst part of the game for me, and that’s sad too because they are the most intrical part of the campaign.

The Good

Oh man, where to begin?  We’ll start with the thrid person switch to first person shooting system that is employed throughout the game.  More and more games are going to this type of outlook with the view points.  Being able to switch back and forth from third person to first is the best improvement you can have in a game.  It was great using my sniper rifle to zoom in on someone, shoot them, and then keep moving without missing a beat because the camera automatically goes to first person view.

Having a playable character that has the freedom of movement to basically do a bunch of differnet things makes a title so much more fun to play and mess around with.  Throughout the whole game you play as Wayne and a majority of the time you’re outside.  The developers gave Wayne the ability to repel and climb up structures using a grapelling hook type device.  You aim, hit “X”, and then release and you’re soaring through the air.  Basically the whole aiming system was right on task when it came to being able to aim at something and hit it with relative ease.

The story here is phenomenal, and it’s no surprise that Lost Planet 2 is being made, starring Luka.  I half expected this game to be poor excuse for a Halo remake but I was proven dead wrong;  It holds it’s own as a shooter, while delivering a great story with pretty good character development.  It’s got your evil corporation, you’re token bad guy, you’re token good guy turned bad guy, and in every Japanese game…you have your token English guy.  What’s there not to love?

The boss battles were easy enough, never being too incredibly difficult and the alien bugs mixed with rampaging robots is a nice touch.  I would recommend purchasing this game as it does have a multiplayer mode, which I was not able to play as of yet, and it’s pretty cheap if you pick up a copy used.  A worthwhile addition to the library.

Score:

Gameplay: 9

Controls: 8

Graphics: 9.5

Sound: 9

Replay Value: 7

Average Score: 8.5

Fallout 3 : Operation Anchorage Review

Alright, I currently have all the Fallout 3 DLC packages, but I’ll review them by release date, Operation Anchorage being the first.  If your interested in downloading DLC for Fallout 3, but not wanting to take the risk of not being satisfied with the money spent, stay tuned for more information regarding the other packages.  Or, you could just wait until this fall when the GOTY edition releases with all 5 DLC packages on the disc, including the unreleased Mothership Zeta, where you get abducted by aliens and, of course, blow them up in the VATS system.  BUTTT, if you’re the impatient type, the DLC is at your fingertips via XBOX Live.  Alright, here we go!

Operation Anchorage, being the first release, just so happens to be the best DLC for the game, IMO.  When you download the package, your Pip-Boy picks up a Brotherhood Outcast radio signal requesting assistance.  Being the adventerous Lone Wanderer you are, of course you’ll check it out.  You’ll eventually find yourself in a secret Brotherhood Outcast base, and they are in need of your particular skills.  They need you to go through the simulation of the liberation of Anchorage, Alaska from the Chinese Army to unlock the armory in their base, which is rumored to be loaded with guns, armor, and ammo.  Of course, they offer your fair share of the deal, seeing how if you actually die within the simulation, you go into cardiac arrest, and die for real.

This is the Fallout 3 combat all the fans have been looking for.  Heavy resistance, a ton of enemies, and a limited inventory.  You don’t carry your characters HP and AP, but you do carry your perks and skills.  You’ll be under a ton of pressure every time you engage with the enemy.  Stealth is a HUGE factor in this simulation.  You’ll find it a lot easier to take your time and take one enemy out at a time rather then to go in guns blazing.

Operation Anchorage also introduces some new weapons, like the Gauss Rifle.  A 1 shot energy sniper rifle that sends enemies flying unconscious if it lands a critical strike, disabling them momentarily allowing you to get in some extra damage.  Sure, there’s not a TON of new weapons, but when you do eventually unlock the armory, you’ll be rewarded greatly with awesome weapons, a ton of ammo, and some of the best power armor the game has to offer.

Netting about 3-8 hours gameplay is the only downer that goes with this.  It’s not really meant to be an exploration pack.  It was made to be fast paced, action packed, and combat oriented.  It delivers on those categories, but the length and lack of terrain to explore does damper it down a bit too much.  Considering it’s ten dollars a pop for these freakin’ DLC packages, you’d have to be extremely pleased on what new weapons and armor you’ll get in reward for reliving the liberation of Anchorage.

Like Liberty Prime says:  Death is a better alternative then Communism.  Liberate Anchorage for a nominal fee of 800 MS points, and be rewarded with a ton of ammo, a ton of weapons, and some ridiculously awesome power armor.  You’re gonna need it once you download Broken Steel.  The next Fallout 3 DLC review will be Into The Pitt.  Stay Tuned, wastelanders!

Overall Score : 8/10 - Delivers action and fireworks, but is a very shortlived experience.

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