Enough of the Commonwealth

That was pretty quick, really. I blew through the main quest line of Fallout 4, in the end siding with the Institute, wiping out both the Railroad and Brotherhood of Steel to cement their control over the Commonwealth. I didn't really feel the need to roam around poking at the non-essential locations and things, having played a whole lot of 3D Fallout over the last couple of years. I did really enjoy the play of the game, and I think it is nicer overall to play than 3 or New Vegas in terms of feel, even though the differences are not huge. The one aspect I'm still not completely sure how I feel about, even after 50 hours, is the new skill point and perk system. It always felt like the perk points were too few and far between to merely increment a core attribute or the effectiveness of a perk I already possessed.


I'm putting it aside after my first play through, planning to come back to it at a later date for another go-round with a different character build and taking a different path through the main quest. The idea is to play this game more in the way I played Oblivion, using several different characters to go through each of the game's guilds and major quest lines. Yes, you never max anything out on any one character, but the game does always feel fresh that way, and you don't get any of that weirdness associated with being both the leader of these guys and the leader of these other guys, too.


I've also finished up Telltale's Game of Thrones game, which I felt really improved as the episodes went on. I wasn't completely sold on it at first, but by the end of the series I was really into it. There will be more coming, they've revealed, and I'm sure I'll partake.


I got a chance to play Rocket League at a friend's house over the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend, and just like everyone's been raving for the last several months, it's a lot of fun. I picked it up in the Steam sale, the only game I did buy, after selling a bunch of trading cards and TF2/Dota 2 items. I'll have to slot it into my non-RPG, non-Strategy slot, those being the two genres I really want to focus on playing more of in the near to mid- term.


Speaking of role playing, I have decided it is finally time to get back to Mass Effect 3 and wrap up the Reaper war and Shepard's saga. It's been long enough that the EA resentment has faded, and the desire to wrap up a loose end has been brought back to the fore. I feel like I am only about 30-40% into the game, at this point, so it may be a while yet.


I have also made it a point to check out Invisible, Inc. before the end of the year. I'll need to get that in soon.

Post Nukes, a Roleplaying Game

After a very extended time, I have finally moved on from MGSV: The Phantom Pain. In the end I completed all 50 missions, over 100 side ops, all of the dispatch missions, and 10 FOB invasions, as well as stole someone's nuke, developed my own, and decommissioned both.


Winding down MGSV not only took me to the release of Fallout 4, but even a couple of days into that game's period. Fallout is what I'm focusing on now. I'll have to go into more depth on it later, but my initial impressions are that it is more of the same as Fallout 3, with some nice improvements. It feels more like 3, the prior Bethesda Fallout, than New Vegas, which was very much an Obsidian game, clad though it was in Bethesda's clothing.


I'm alright with this duality in the series. These two halves also neatly exist on opposite sides of the former United States. There does seem to be a feel to the East and West Coast Fallout games, which makes good sense lore-wise, as well.


I've been progressing through Telltale's Game of Thrones adventure/roleplaying game, too, and liking it more with each episode. Parts 3 and 4 felt like the series hitting its stride, and I am excited to wrap up the final couple in the next two weeks. I've been playing one a week with Jeremy and LeGrande from the Game Bytes podcast.


I haven't been too concerned with the game backlog in a while. My only real projection into the future at this point is playing more Fallout 4 and finishing out GoT. After that I may go back to dipping into a backlog game weekly, or maybe I'll finally play The Walking Dead season 2, or maybe something completely different will happen. Who can say?

Transition

I'm coming off my Metal Gear high, for one of the last times, probably. MGSV has been an incredible time. Every time I fly into or out of a mission area, I can't help but think about how much I love the game. I've done damn near everything there is to do in the game now, at least once, anyway. There are still a lot of Side Ops undone and even about 5 of the optionally difficult Main Ops, though, so there is still a lot of meat on the bone if I ever want to come back to it later on. The main thing I want to do before putting it aside is to build a nuclear weapon. I just need to wait on materials to be processed at my FOB and be transferred over to Mother Base to give the order. It also takes 30 hours real time for the development of the bomb, so I have a few more days' checking in and running of FOB missions to carry out.


The FOB invasions are the toughest part of the game, I think. You have no buddy to spot enemies on these missions, and you are in areas that are much more confined and difficult to sneak through as compared to the rest of the game, with nowhere to run when the shit hits the fan, and it will, thanks to the presence of security cameras, laser grids, drones, and the large numbers guards patrolling many rival FOBs. This is hardcore mode for MGSV. It wouldn't be so bad if you didn't lose your complete deployment cost and suffer a huge hit to your ranking every time you fail an invasion, but thems the breaks. I think I'm something like 7/16 as far as successes and attempts, as of now.


As I wind down The Phantom Pain, I find myself wanting to go back to Ground Zeroes to see how Camp Omega feels now that I am so much more familiar with the game. There's actually a lot more left to do in that game than I ever got around to, as well.


I began Telltale's Game of Thrones series kind of on a whim, kind of because it will slot in nicely before Fallout 4's release, and partly to talk about on the Game Bytes podcast. I'm toward the beginning of the second episode, and kind of lukewarm on it. Story wise, it's fine. I just really dislike the interactive bits of these games. QTEs and perfunctory pointing and clicking are the bottom of the barrel when it comes to game mechanics, and if it weren't for the licenses and stories of Telltale's games, I don't think I would ever touch them. I really liked The Walking Dead season one, but never because of how great it felt to play. It never did. Nevertheless, here I am.


Something made me go back to revisit, however briefly, Shin Megami Tensei IV recently. I may actually play it even more, since I have a peculiar turn-based JRPG combat itch, which I guess stems from the Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle mobile game I've (still) been playing.


Also on the DBZ front, I let curiosity get the better of me and bought Dragon Ball Z Extreme Butoden for the 3DS. It's a 2D fighter by Arc System Works with a lot of Dragon Ball characters in various canonical and non-canonical situations and battles. It's crap in terms of the connective tissue of the package (no production values, terse hackneyed storytelling), but the core fighting and animation is kind of neat and cool looking, I suppose. Mia seems to think it's OK, at least.