War Never Changes

I picked up Relic's newest, Company of Heroes 2, this past week, and spent a few hours being trounced online and fighting my way through the first few eastern front campaign missions. It seems like, and reviews seem to corroborate this, that it's mostly more Company of Heroes. Not that that is a bad thing, I just get the sense that people were hoping for more. Maybe I am just a sucker or too new to the series to know better, but I am fine with with my full-price purchase on this one. I want to see Relic continue making cool games like they do. I am sure I will get more than my money's worth out of CoH2 when all is said and done.

So, I went back to playing Fallout: New Vegas again, and I couldn't even tell you why, aside from a vague hesitancy to put it away, and a desire to explore more of the Mojave wasteland and flesh out some of my companions' histories. I actually ran into a character from Fallout 2, a companion of The Chosen One in that game, no less. Marcus the supermutant runs Jacobstown, a supermutant/nightkin town outside of New Vegas.

And sticking with the Fallout theme, I started a replay of the first game in the series this weekend, on a bit of lark exploring what it is like to roleplay an evil character in a game. I chose Fallout because I love the world and have really been into it lately, but also because it is a game that offers a tremendous amount of freedom to the player and for the most part is very laissez-faire about directing you to do such and such. It also does not pass judgement on your decisions, and the world will continue to play out and evolve around them, if for example, you kill large swaths of important NPCs in the world. Not that that is the particular route I am going down for my evil play through.

I am trying to play my character, Charity, as a young, impetuous, power-hungry woman who doesn't mind getting her hands bloody in chasing power. She's not overly concerned with finding the water chip to save her vault, but if it will serve as a macguffin to send her on an adventure around the wasteland consolidating a power base for whatever ultimate plan of domination she has in mind, then she'll go with it.

I'm curious to see how well the game supports this kind of character within its greater plot structure. Will I be able to take control over the supermutant army at Mariposa from The Master, and use them to my own will?