Game Babble: Fallout 4

Well surprise, surprise. Life didn't turn out quite as I had expected. Granted the same happened to my nanowrimo. I did, however, managed to write 15 000 words full of complete and utter shite on the last day. It is the most words I've ever written in a day (I think) and I spent two days recovering.

Behold!

Now November is a terrible month for me. It's the month of working overtime, swearing at people, being sworn at by people, insane deadlines, insaner expectations and the shedding of a tear or two. It is the worst time to try and be creative.

And besides, Fallout 4 came out.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen. The long, long, long, long awaited sequel finally rolled it's irradiated butt through the doors and it is beautiful. How beautiful you ask? Well, that I can't tell you because my super dooper game pc (well moderately super) isn't powerful enough to fully show how awesomely pretty the game is. Needless to say, it is still beautiful. Tons. a bit too demanding perhaps for the pc, but we'll overlook that on account of everything else.

Let the babbling begin:

Let me spoil you horrendously by saying 1. You lived in the time prior to the war. 2. You get bullied into a vault where you're turned into an ice cube for 200 years. 3. Someone steals something precious to you and does things that will make more than one person flip their lid. 4. You get thawed out and find the world got somewhat crispier since you last saw it.

There, now you don't have to play it. You know everything.

Well, everything that starts off the game. So maybe you should play it.

The challenge with open-world games has always been striking the balance between freedom of choice and driving the character's motivations. Either you get that the player isn't invested and mostly detached from everything their character would probably feel something for, or the story is on rails. Fallout 4 also struggles. I found myself enjoying the open road and lack of responsibility (well, somewhat lack, I'll get to that later). Then I'd finally reach an area and discussion that triggers the next main story thread, and my character's voice trembles and is very upset. And then I am moved and have this moment of 'Oh, I suppose I should care'. One mission later and I'm back to exploring the open world, all the lovely places with silent stories, all the lovely places where people shoot at me for no good reason, and I forget about that caring bit. I'm having too much fun doing other stuff.

It can be a little jarring.

But then, I have yet to play a game that gets this balance right.

Since I've mentioned it, let me say that I really enjoy the voice acting in this game. There hasn't been a situation like I got in Oblivion and Skyrim where characters began sounding the same. I'm sure that at some point I feel like they've melded together but at present they don't.

For interest, the female main character (aka Sole Survivor) is voiced by Courtenay Taylor - Jack from Mass Effect, Juhani from SW KotOR. And then I had my OOHHHH!!! moment while checking the wiki for voice actors. Claudia Christian - Susan Ivanova from Babylon 5!! - is also adding her voice to the game.

Ah hem. So yes, there's that.

Everything is essentially been updated and upgraded. There will be tons of other reviews spending time on how exactly. What I enjoy about the game is walking into a 'house' seeing all that was left behind and puzzling out the story. Pointless, but so much detail was put into this game that it is delightful. The VATS system no longer stops everything but only slows things down considerably, giving you that feeling that combat is still flowing and you better move your butt and decide where you want to shoot the dude. Weapons handling feels good. Upgrading weapons and armour is a mix of essential and redundant. You tinker to make things better but don't expect that you won't stumble over some other delightful thing later.

The leveling up system has changed. Less stats, more perks. Here you select what your character will be good at without having to look too much at the numbers. Allow them to be better at rifles, for example. Make them better crafters. Have them scrounge through things with better success. Some might find the simplicity annoying, but it does make you feel that you're creating a unique character in a sense. While you could choose perks all across the board, it makes you the typical Jack of all Trades and master of none.

Right let's get back to that matter of responsibility. Early on in the game, you find Dogmeat (side

note, your companions can no longer die, so you don't have to avoid taking along some like your favourite German Sheppard. He's not going to kick it. Which is good because they tend to keep tumbling off of high places and making clumsy asses of themselves.

But I digress, So after you meet Dogmeat, you (can) wonder down into a town where you (may) meet people, save said people (if you want to), and escort them back to the location you start at namely Sanctuary Hills. Here they start a settlement, or more accurately, YOU start their settlement. This is where the crafters and builders are free to go insane and build beds and shelters and defenses and stuff. There is good and bad too it. One the one hand, the number of settlements you build gives you the resources and help you might find really necessary while travelling the ruins of Boston. You simply shoot a flare gun into the air and they come running (apparently, I haven't actually tried this yet). Or, you later can build artillery, chuck smoke grenades and run away like hell while the bombs come raining down.

Could be useful...

But, they're like the sims. You need to make them happy by doing annoying things like planting crops, building beds, building defenses. While some are shown to be hitting things with hammers from time to time, no one seems to know how to actually use one and build things themselves. Some might like it, total control and all of that. I find it frustrating. You have the opportunity to make yourself a good home in the wastelands, people. Take some initiative!

There are things I can nitpick about. There are four things I will mention since I think they're the most ... well not annoying, but they bug me somewhat.

1. XP for building and crafting:
Maybe it's to nudge you on to building settlements, but you get XP for every single thing you build.

While it sounds great in the beginning, I ended up feeling that I didn't actually do much to get all those higher levels the game was congratulating me on. You get XP for every plant you plant even. I felt they were far too generous in that regard and it actually pushes me away from building settlements.

I want to feel like my character is growing as she sees the world, faces down obstacles, runs away from Deathclaws, screaming and finding shelter in the nick of time (or running through a raider camp and having the two groups kill each other off). I don't want to get that Level up notice from sticking a carrot into the ground.

2. Programming bugs:
Bethesda, we'll love this game as much as we did Fallout 3, as bug-ridden as it was, but that doesn't mean we want to see the same kinds of bugs in this game. You should have moved on by now. But there you have it. Similar bugs pop up in FO4 as in FO3. Dead bodies still jerk around as if their nervous systems haven't figured out that they're dead yet. The pipboy screen sometimes comes up blank of invisible (reloading helps). Objects and people still have moments where they mimic X-Men's Shadow Cat and you see pieces disappear through walls and such.

My favourite example of this is an old lady in Diamond City. She sits politely in a dress with her hands in on her lap. Only, her fingers go through the dress... thus seeming even more determined to defend her modesty...

3.Trust:
Seems an annoying nitpick, but here's an example that might explain the problem. I meet mister metal head. He is part of an organisation of very arrogant metal heads who tell you things like "Move along, outsider," and "If you're not part of us, you're nothing." So, not a nice bunch of people. But despite this, I decided to be a good neighbour because, shame, the one is injured and they need a radio signal sorted to proceed with evacuation. Main metal head and I get to the station, hook up the beacon, Bob's your auntie, and the mission is completed. And then the metal head invites me to join the metal head organisation.

'Scuse me? You were an arrogant bastard just three seconds ago, you don't know me from Adam's

cousin, and you want me to join the asshole brigade because I knew how to flip a switch?

Apparently, yes. It's that simple.

In the game, you get offered the position of general, become part of the metal heads for helping them with a radio beacon, become part of a Grease-esque power armour gang for sticking a part into a nearby machine, and goodness knows what else. You immediately get trusted after completing small tasks even when you have no reason whatsoever of trusting them. It felt like a cheap reward and what could have been meaningful introductions and initiations into these organisations (ala Oblivion).

4. Music selection:
The selection of songs are very, very, very limited. Maybe a silly nitpick, but you can only listen to Butcher Pete so many times. I'd have loved if they at least included some of the songs from FO3 and FO: New Vegas. I check in on the radio every now and again, but mostly I tend to just keep it off. Which is a pity. It's such a nifty feature.

Conclusion
If you loved Fallout 3, you're enjoy its successor. There are some things you might not like, but if you want to be the lone wanderer, nothing is stopping you. I would say someone who isn't used to the open-world idea might find yourself losing whatever "main story threads" are floating around. In the end, I take each day as they come. One day I help build beds, the other day I gather parts to build beds. Some days I do missions, other days I wander from random door to random door and see what lies beyond.

In the end the choice is yours and if I have to rate it, I'd probably give it as close as a ten out of ten as I can get while muttering over all of the above.

Nanowrimo 2015

Let's start with me, because I am awesome and this blog is all about me, really. Well, no, but I am the poor sod writing this so it is thus a good place to start, no?

I can't say, in all honesty, that the past two years have been the most unpleasant in my life, but the experiences therein have included some tough times - the lightest of which was the double burglary of my residence within five days... The f- ahem, annoying gentlemen broke in once as a scouting mission and then ransacked the place the second time.

I will add that there were some saving graces in the experience.

1. They waited for me to go to work. These two incidents both occurred during daytime - the last during soft rain - so they really didn't want to face whoever lived in the house. I was safe.
2.They did not in any way, shape or form harm my animals. The horror stories one hears, and the fact that my animals are like my children, makes this a wonderful thing.
3. I managed to recover financially quite quickly based on the particular timing (got a bonus, got my tax money back, yay me). So yes I lost a LOT, but I did manage to fill up what I had lost initially by what I would not have usually received. One can argue that there was a LOT more that now could have been done with said funds - to which I would agree, considering some of the things coming up this year.
4. I learnt that bravery is most certainly not the absence of fear. There is something truly frightening about walking through the house with a grass hockey stick on your shoulder, searching the house for the cause of a noise you heard... And both amusing and satisfying to know that you not only imagined it, but conducted yourself in a controlled manner rather than running away screaming like a girl. Not that I wasn't terrified out of my mind, but it was a rather unique experience (Hopefully unique. I don't want to deal with that again, as light as it was).
5. The item I own that is of the most monetary value is my bed. They didn't steal that. So I can sleep comfortably still. Yay!

So yes. Miserable two years, but it's okay. I have made it thus far. And I'm here. And I'm writing. Sorta. Not fast enough in the opinion of some. But I am here. And hyper because I'm still awake after midnight. And this has been quite a tangent...

ANYHOO!

This year will be my tenth year participating. Thus far, I have succeeded at my goal five times. On top of the minimum goal I should achieve, I'm hoping to put out a blog post once every two weeks as well. No guarantees, but that's what I'm hoping for. They will not be about nanowrimo (though I might slide a little of that in here) and I won't be counting it as part of the word goal (though I am sure I will be tempted to), but it is something I need to focus on. The blog. Not nano. Oh, also, I don't know what happened to the missing pictures on some of the previous posts. I will try to fix it later. Maybe.

What is NaNoWriMo?
National Novel Writing Month is an (international) initiative to get people to start off writing whatever they please in the shape of a story for the month of November. It's all quantity of words over quality of output.

How does it work?

The original idea was that, on the first of November, you start writing on a brand new story. You write as much as possible with the goal of hitting at least a minimum of 50 000 words by the end of the month. It sounds a massive amount of words, but it isn't actually as much as you would initially think. There are some variations and 'rebellions' to the standard expected task. For example, some people would rather continue a story they're already working on, using November to churn out more material. Some student have used Nanowrimo to charge through writing their dissertations and theses. (Probably feces at the end of it that can be cleaned up into something much better).

Here are some points of clarity:

This is a race, but not a true competition. Your goal is to get 50 000 words and you are certainly going to type as fast as you can. You can interact with people in your own area or around the world and instill a competitive edge to the exercise by 'racing' each other to get the highest word count within a particular time. But, in the end, you are a winner by reaching 50 000. And you get a pat on the head for achieving it.

No one will see what you write. It isn't a matter of other people reading what you write or that you are required to share. I think most people will be too busy writing, that they would not really be all that interested in reading your work when they are writing their own. This is a race for words. Plain and simple. From the 25th you will be asked to paste your writing into a word count text box to 'validate' your 50k. This program counts but doesn't copy the text. However, should you be paranoid about it - or if you are writing by hand and can't actually copy those words over (and yes some people do write by hand... and typewriters... because well, why not? -  you can use a text generator site such as Blind Text Generator to generate the necessary amount of words. (UPDATE: A reader has given me another link worth trying out Website Planet Loren Ipsum Generator. It's apparently user friendly and ad free.) But wait, doesn't this mean you will be able to cheat? Well...

...Yes, you will have the ability to cheat. There are no safeguards against cheating. You are given a textbox from the beginning of the months in which to type in your word count and you can increase that number as much as you want, should you choose to do so. But really, what is the point? If you want to be an idiot about it, no one will stop you. There are enough 'veterans' participating who would be able to sniff it out, but they can do nothing but express displeasure at you. Most of them will simply ignore you as the insignificant fly you are. This is your race against yourself primarily. If you want to con yourself then... well, that's your own psychological issue.

You do not have to talk to people. If you want to play the lone ranger, you absolutely can. As said before, this is your race.

You do not have to undergo this exercise on your own. NaNoWriMo presents you with an opportunity to meet people. You can do so with the anonymity of a screen name, or your actual name (that's up to you). The people who communicate on the forums come from all walks of life. And marriages HAVE occurred because of meeting people here - I've witnessed two. You also do not have to worry about getting married, I am sure us single wolves have sufficient internet pepper spray to veer it off. Hey, I've managed for ten years. So why not?

It's meant to be fun. This is your opportunity to murder whatever language you so choose by writing a random story that can make no sense. If you want to write about a duck who crossed the road, then grew fur and shifted into a wolf who died, and became an undead human zombie who has an issue with rotting teeth and a hunger for vegans, you go right ahead and write it.  No grammar required. No nothing. BS to your heart's content. You do have some serious writing folk, but you can enjoy the buffoonery on behalf of them. If you are the serious writing type, just make sure you're having a blast.

There might be no prize, but damn do you feel like a million bucks. You have achieved something at the end. You have written a story the length of some classic novels such as Animal Farm. You have spent a month allowing yourself to do something creative and in the end you've come up with a product - regardless of what utter shite it is. And let me tell you, it is often such shite that it's not worth printing it on paper and using it for toilet paper. But it's real and you made it happen.

Okay, there might be one or two prizes... sorta. What winning does allow you is to get discount on certain writing software. Which can be rather cool. But the ultimate prize is a pdf that you can scribble your own name on, frame it and hang it on your wall... or stick it to your CV... Nah, I wouldn't recommend the latter...

In the ten, non-consecutive, years that I've been taking part in nanowrimo, I have met some amazing people, and less than amazing people. I've had awesome discussions about interests that I have. Interests that I struggle to find like-minded people for in the city that I live. That sounds very dodgy... I mean like being a geek and playing games and such. Really, all innocent past times. And no, I doth not protest too much. I have also had years in which I didn't participate in the forums at all. Granted, I ended up losing motivation and without a group cheering me on, I didn't finish nano. But maybe you are better at it than I am. It's been a lovely mechanism to connect to people and broaden my horizons - and I'm not a social creature at heart, so that says something.

My enjoyment of nanowrimo exceeds any other major occasion, event or holiday. Given the time of year, it is actually insanity with work (in my country the end of the year, really is the end of the year and all the paperwork and reports that go along with it), but when committed, I find a great deal of enjoyment from this exercise.

Despite my natural ability to talk twak, I don't consider myself a "writer". Or maybe I should say I don't see myself becoming an "author". I don't care about publishing, I don't care about publicity or whatnot. I like messing around with fanfiction and that's always a large journey for me (because writing is actually hard when you're just mucking about), but that's still okay. I am not ambitious. I just like being able to play in my own mental playground and realise that I'm not the only lunatic in the asylum.

I invite you to join. The doors are wide open and the straitjackets can be found by going in by the first door on your right.

+/-1800 words. More than one needs for a daily avereage... Just saying.

The Legend of Korra

So first things first: I have no idea how to describe the world of the Avatar. But let's try: The four elements mean far more than a normal person might think. For some, it forms the core of their being and enables them to manipulate a particular element they're attuned to. As such the world is divided into governments focused on an element. However there is one person in every generation, someone linked to the spirit world and empowered to make use of all four elements - earth, fire, air, water. This person, the Avatar, is tasked with bringing balance to the world, the elements and the realm of the spirit beyond that which normal mortals can see. It is not for them to rule or dictate, but to guide and preserve. And so as an authority of their own, they travel the world to do what they can, however they can.

There have been two different series based in this universe. The first was Avatar: The Last Airbender of which a movie was made. The second was The Legend of Korra set a generation after the first and revolving around a different avatar.

 As I'm looking at the end of the second series, there will be a few small spoilers. Be forewarned.

Now that the second series is over and I've finished it, I guess it's an appropriate time to write about it.

When the Legend of Korra first came out, I have to admit that I was unsure. As much as I enjoyed Avatar: The Last Airbender, I had to go through a massive slog over insanely kiddie episodes to get to the end... and I'm still something of a Zukatara shipper. Aang and Katara were far too siblingesque for me to ever root of them. Anyhoo, kiddie-ish.

So it was with that uncertainty that I viewed Korra's story, I only got into it and watched the entire series after it finished and the Korasami bomb got dropped. It made me want to give the show another shot. Which I did and I managed to finish the series in a month. And... I'm really impressed. With the exception of one or two episodes, every one of them seemed to have a specific goal, a specific point it wanted to make in the series as a whole. The characters grew perhaps without the viewer realising it until the very end. If anything, the Legend of Korra was what the Last Airbender was not: a story I could watch without ever feeling that I was watching a kid's show. And I really and truly appreciated that.

Korra's story brings in some characters of the first show. You get to see the old team and some of the reoccurring characters that are thought of fondly. What I liked about this is that you also see that they too were only people. Though their deeds were legendary, they were and are by no means perfect. They have made mistakes which filtered through - as no generation does not effect the next in some way.

The creators also managed to bring in some of the show's own memorable characters and artfully stuck them into scenes where they're not necessarily needed but added something to the show, They were almost always in the background but easily noticed. They almost never say anything, but they're people going on with their lives. I loved these little flashes that show you that Republic City is a living entity that has a wholeness to it. It's not only the main cast that grows and changes, but the people in the city as well.

But in the end, the story is about Korra. They managed to create a character whom I wanted to throttle and whom I admired. Korra starts off with the naivety of someone who, due to seclusion, had to paint a world in her imagination rather than grow up experiencing it for herself. You get to watch her become shaped (and on occasion jaded) by the reality of what the world is truly like and through that see her become more than herself.

Do The Thing, Zhu Li! by Hecarti

There's a quote that I heard in my youth that embodies Korra quite well: When you forget yourself, you do something everyone remembers. For good and bad, that's Korra.

In the four seasons, I got to go on a journey with her and I was moved by both her successes and failures. And the story does end in a place where you feel a wholeness. Not only in Korra as a character but also in the series. It didn't leave me hanging.

To quote Varrick, they 'do the thing'.

Why I'll go back to Dragon Age Inquisition at least one more time.

Dragon Age Inquisition and I had some rough moments.

There were the times where it would stick somewhere in a conversation and I'd swivel the stick and press on any imaginary dialogue line hoping that 1. the game would continue and 2. I didn't tell a potentially powerful ally to stick something particularly painful up his arse.

Or the time where I went through all the pain and effort of having my character try and woo someone just to have that person turn around and tell me "Sorry, you're not my type." Didn't help that I didn't think any other character was really worth woo-ing and that, by that time, no one wanted my poor, lonely Inquisitor.

There was also the tedious waiting times, including the real-time periods before missions you sent other people on got completed.

With that being said, I'm definitely going to replay the game.

For those who have followed the Dragon Age thread at least casually, there are many delightful twists. I was quite pleased to see some threads of Origins weave itself in even though I was playing in the default world. I think for those who can create different worlds (which is something one can do here apparently), the game's replayability value shoots up exponentially. From what I've seen on youtube, a number of characters can make a comeback in one way or another. It was especially interesting to see how things with Morrigan changes. Youtube ftw.

But even if you can't change things beyond your default start off, there are still many possibilities and many different options in terms of the story line that may make you curious enough to play again if only to see how things change.

So wait, am I now for or against the game? In my recent post on the game, I wasn't altogether positive about it. Looking at the game now... I'd give it a 7.5/10, maybe even an 8. Pretty high, right?

I think they sort of got more of the ingredients working towards the end. I dare say I felt some of the Bioware magic begin to flow into the narrative. I again loved the interaction between the companions.

There was a bit more going on and I found myself intrigued if not altogether ready to gush. Is that because of my bias? I dunno. There were still things that frustrated me. Things where I felt that it was more a slog than anything else, but I also recognize that it is a really good game. It's better than DA2 and I'll love Origins more, but it is definitely a very strong improvement on so many levels.

And Fantasy Commander Shepard definitely is in there. I remember playing a particular part, looking at the scenery and thinking "This feels familiar. All I need is a gun in my hand and I'm back to fighting the Reapers." I can't fault them for that, but there's no doubt that that particular element is there.

So what will I do in the next play through? Well, I'll send my minions off to do something and just leave my game running more while I do things like cook, clean and administer some hygiene. It'll do wonders for my patience and I'm sure I'll get a bigger reward for it. I'll also make a lot of different choices in terms of the game. It has a big sense of consequence in it - much like Mass Effect 2 had. I wondered at one point whether your level of approval in the eyes of your fellow companions would change something radically, but I haven't seen anything of the kind. At least there are some major choices that do.

And then naturally play a different character. I don't know what yet. I'm not terribly fond of rogues - though these guys have certainly buffed up the close combat even if the archery is still bleh. I might end up playing a dude. Hm... human? Elf? Ve shall zee.