Harsh on the Wastelands

After about 20-30 hours of trying to play through Fallout 3 and becoming tremendously bored by some of the vague/tedious side quests, I wrote a hasty and harsh review of Fallout 3. Now, I've finished it, and I have to say: I was wrong.

I don't know why, but since watching WALL-E, way back, I've just been overly critical of all movies/games I've tried. It's ironic that it is not a horrible disappointment that led me to jadedness, but rather a true gem.

Anyway, concerning Fallout 3. Some of my previous complaints were valid. For instance, the original Fallout did better with its "talking heads" than Fallout 3 does with its fully 3D heads, mostly due to a lack of expressiveness and some crude lip-syncing at times. Oh, and it got pretty annoying that all Super Mutants and Ghouls sound exactly the same, but I suppose that's what happens when you have a game that requires voice acting for every single creature, rather than the select few in Fallout 1 and 2.

I've never been much for free-roaming environments. I tend to lose focus on the story and just go off on my own, likely never to return before I stop playing the game out of boredom. I was determined to finish Fallout 3 before Left 4 Dead was released, though, so I created a new character and started again, this time ONLY doing the main quest, and absolutely zero side quests. Meh, some side quests are neat, and I'm anxious to see where some threads lead, but I can do that later, when I get the urge. Right now, I just wanted to see it through to the end.

Doing the main quests I'd done before was, naturally, a drag, but things quickly livened up when the plot progressed to the point that I found myself in a virtual world (within a virtual world, of course). It just struck the right awesome string, broke the jadedness, and I loved it since, from super-AI, to huge, hulking robots. I finished the main quest of the game in under 12 hours, but it was a very satisfying experience, with multiple possible endings (though mine was a bit lame, as I'd done no side quests, and thus had few, if any, impact slides at the end [example | example -- Fallout 1 and Arcanum, respectively -- both include huge spoilers).

All-in-all, from what I've seen, it's a fantastic game. Very satisfying in its story and themes, all while remaining quite impressively true to its roots. Hell, the ending is much like Fallout 2's ending... but better, actually.

Curses to the Nostalgia Critic

I really hate commenting on random things I find on the internet, because it just leads to a bunch of, "hey, this obscure thing is neat, check it out!" or, "this obscure thing sucks, don't check it out!" It's not the job of an article, and more one of a random link generator, like my tidbits gadget to the left right, there. -->

However, today's (or rather late last night's) Nostalgia Critic is just... the worst. Not in what he does (he's awesome), but in what he reviews.

Just... just look.



Now, I've gone out of my way to see many of the movies that are considered horrible, either by his review or others'. This includes Batman and Robin (Nostalgia Critic's "worst movie ever"), Plan 9, and others. For some movies, I'm glad I never saw them, based solely on reviews. This one... just takes the cake. Based on the review alone, this looks like the most painful, disturbing, disgusting, stupid movie, EVER. And what's even worse is that it's by George Lucas. Jesus, when I watched the original Star Wars trilogy as a child, I saw only genius. How was I to know that it and the (original) Indiana Jones movies were rare gems in an otherwise barren wall of shit that were probably only successful based on when they were released.

This looks SO BAD, I feel honestly scarred, which is why I felt it necessary to share.

Hell, Plan 9 was bad, but watchable. Just the thought of Howard the Duck now makes me want to run, screaming.

There's my two cents.

Rock Bottom

OMG SO CUTE!

Belated Retort of Modern Significance and Cultural Reference

To sum up Stephen Spielberg's creation, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, "Rosebud must have fallen off the wall."

Demoing the New

Okay, after seeing all the good articles about Left 4 Dead on its fansite, I simply couldn't resist but buy it. Generally, I hate online games, but I get the feeling that I'll love this. I've got my demo all preloaded and ready for playing tomorrow, and I can't wait! I mean, look at this Valve genius:



Hopefully EA doesn't mess it up in some way. I love Valve, and have learned to hate EA. What happens when they combine?

Another game that looks like a buttload of fun, but unfortunately hasn't so far released a demo for PC (I hate it when consoles get special treatment) is Mirror's Edge. Just look:



Again, EA's tag. Let's hope that they don't screw things up like they seemed to with Spore.

UPDATE: Apparently, EA Games is only attached to Left 4 Dead because they sell the retail games, as opposed to the fully Steam-based online-purchased version (which is the one I preordered). Hopefully that means the fat slob known as EA won't get its greasy fingers all over a beautiful product.

See The Falls... In Fall

So I had a project in my Photoshop class that calls for us making a travel poster about a local community, using our own pictures. I'm no photographer, and, after the fact, I was very disappointed to discover that my pictures weren't nearly large enough to fill the background of a 11 by 17 inch, 150 dpi poster. As much as it hurt me to scale up an image to fit, which is a HUGE no-no, I've managed to draw attention away (thanks to darkening the background, adding saturation, and blurring the result to make it look intentional), and, I must say, the final result turned out surprisingly well. I'm fairly pleased, considering I went in with no idea what I was doing and made it in about an hour.

Design Counts

Obama wins. As I said, it's all in the website design.