Goodbye, Mojave Wasteland

I finally wrapped up Fallout: New Vegas to the point it's going to get wrapped up. I finished Dead Money and did Old World Blues, which was a farcical sci-fi adventure, then went to the only remaining undiscovered location on my Mojave Wasteland map, a Deathclaw-infested quarry. Overall I think the DLC offerings in these games are sort of weak as compared to the main world and story content. I'd probably rather see them done as extensions or layers on top of the base game rather than separate discrete places and plots. Honest Hearts and Old World Blues were the better of the two, I felt, and Dead Money and Lonesome Road weaker and more constrained, which is odd considering how wide open Fallout usually is as a game. Next up will be this fall's Fallout 4, which I am very excited to play, of course. I also have Fallout Tactics that I've never touched, as well. Maybe I'll save that for sometime later.

I checked out Multiwinia for the GameBytes podcast. I was expecting nothing more than a slapped-on multiplayer mode for the original game, Darwinia, but this is actually more than that. Having not played Darwinia, I can't elaborate too much, but Multiwinia does have its own campaign missions, if you can call them that, in addition to multiplayer modes. It's an RTS reduced down to the pure essence of the genre, selecting little men and send them forth to conquer in your name. You win if you control more strategic points for a longer period of time than the opposition. It was OK, but a little too reductive for my taste, and with a control scheme that is a little too unconventional for the genre, I think.

My N game for the podcast this week is Nier, the Cavia action/JRPG game on PS3 from a few years back. All I've really heard about this game is how interesting it is in that it frequently changes up the game type and has a very novel, and spoilt for me, twist at the end of the game, or at the beginning of the New Game+ mode. We've just moved into our new house, and during the move I got a chance to play through the opening half hour or so. It's already weird. It was snowing in summer in the city and I fought shadow creatures with the help of a magic book, then some 1300ish years passed by and Nier and his daughter are the same ages and now living in a pastoral fantasy fishing village, apparently. I'm looking forward to playing more tonight.

Endless Detour

I am still working on Fallout: New Vegas DLC, Dead Money, specifically. These are all fairly long and involved, and this one is kind of a drag in some respects because of the extremely tough and numerous enemies you are mostly railroaded into killing. The story is at least fairly interesting, though, involving a heist scenario in a ruined casino resort.

I decided I wanted to get serious about my strategy 4X chops, in particular Amplitude's dual series, Endless Space and Endless Legend, as well as the offshoot Dungeon of the Endless. I'm starting by trying to really learn how to play Endless Space. I've begun a game on the Newbie setting as a pretty basic faction, and that is just starting to ramp up after an hour or two of playtime this week. I've been very busy elsewhere, but I want to get back to this soon.

King's Bounty: The Legend. My K game for the Game Bytes podcast. I have a few entries in this series I've never played, having only looked at the Facebook version of this first game that came out years ago and probably floundered and went away, just guessing. It's an adequate concept for a game, growing an army and doing quests in a stock fantasy world, fighting tactical battles on a hex grid in between. Not terribly interesting, but engaging enough to while away some time, as far as I could tell. Maybe the Armored Princess or Crossworlds sequels will be more interesting.

Lugaru HD: My L game. What if Max Payne was a rabbit that did Kung Fu in a wild, Russian steppe like location? That's kind of what Lugaru is like, minus the bullet-time, but with a pretty complex context-sensitive hand-to-hand fighting move set. Intriguing, wacky, and difficult. A curiosity.