Fallout 4

    One of the most anticipated games of 2015 hit last month, and unless you've been hiding in an underground bunker(or can't read a title), you know it's Fallout 4. I've been playing it constantly ever since. Last night I got the platinum trophy for PS4 and I figured now is a good time to give it a full review. I haven't seen everything in the game, there's way to much content, but I have seen most of it. And there's a lot.

    For the tl:dr crowd lets do a quick overview. On a scale of 1 to 5, I'd rate this game a really high 4. It's an incredible game but there's to many flaws to give it a full 5. That said, I still consider this a must play title.

Graphical glitches are pretty common.

    Graphics are acceptable but not phenomenal. You'll definitely know what you're looking at, and in some locations it'll take your breath away. But there's some tearing in certain places and you'll frequently have xray vision, allowing you to see inside the player and npc's. Bethesda also seemed to be unable to decide if they wanted to go with ultra realistic or slightly cartoonish. Dogmeat is an incredible rendering of a german shepherd, but sometimes he looks out of place because the landscapes have a more illustrated look to them. That's just one example of what I mean. Both the landscape and Dogmeat are really well done in their respective styles, they just bump up against each other. Which brings me to my next point..
    Bethesda went with an interesting game philosophy for Fallout 4. It's a jack of all trades, but a master of none. It's the maintenance guy who knows how to do everything but isn't a pro at anything, of gaming. You can see this everywhere in the game. It's first person enough to be a shooter but it's clearly not a shooter. It's graphics are awesome but not groundbreaking. There's tons of great content but very little really blows you away. It's a fun city builder but it's tediously implemented. And so on and so on. There's no one element that makes Fallout 4 the incredible experience that it is, but when you add them all up, it's a knockout.
    The story line is pure Fallout. Guy(or Girl, sorta) leaves vault, goes on a quest, does cool stuff in the wasteland, saves the day. Nothing groundbreaking there, but it's always worked for the series and I'm not complaining. It's also almost completely unnecessary. You could ignore the story line and still have a blast playing this game. There are some pretty great twists that I wasn't expecting but I'm not about to spoil it for you.

This is just the northwest portion of the map. The game is huge.

    The world is huge. There are places to go and explore/quest everywhere. They really did a great job fleshing out the world and making it feel alive. Traders walk the ruined highways, beasts roam the countryside, ferals hide in every shattered train car. You'll encounter gorgeous sunny days and miserable radiation storms. Distant explosions and gunfire will remind you that you're not alone in this hellscape. The only problem with this world is that I don't have a car. Hell, even a horse would have been nice in a pinch.
    The sound effects, voice overs, and music are outstanding. Bethesda really nailed it. The radio station music selections are fallout through and through. The original score for the game is breathtaking, it's the kind of song that was waiting to be created. The voice overs are much better than any other Bethesda title I've ever played. Occasionally there's a hiccup but in general they sound more natural. The sound effects kick ass, some guns buzz, some blam, some pop, they all sound unique and match what you expect the weapon to sound like. There were a few times when a sound effect loop would get stuck however. For example, I gave a companion the minigun and after an intense fire fight the noise the gun made got stuck. Really annoying.
    Content wise, the game again delivers but nothing truly mind blowing. You've got the rpg element going strong and VATS targeting really helps remove the first person shooter feel. Or ignore VATS and it's a crazy intense shooter. Hacking and lockpicking mini games are fun and add variety. There's a very minecrafty city building element to get lost in forever. There's crafting and looting. There's some challenging puzzles. A little bit of everything, and then there's the radiant quest system. It works well and always gives you something to do but it definitely feels to mechanical. While doing the radiant quests I was constantly reminded of the Elder Scrolls. Not a bad thing, but something I think they need to work on. The radiant quest system needs more variety and it needs to be molded more for Fallout.
    One of my biggest complaints about this game, is the lack of choice making and real consequences. One of the greatest things about the Fallout universe is that you have an effect on things. With Fallout 4 that seems to have disappeared. Yes you have dialog choices, but the game does everything it can to make sure that your choices line up with the story line Bethesda created. Even when you're a total jerk, it rarely messes things up. The only real difference is the dialog along the way.

    Wrapping up here, I would highly recommend this game. It pulls you in and makes you forget everything else. I still haven't played the Bloodborne dlc I purchased. Fallout 4 is buggy, and it lacks polish, but more importantly, it's incredibly fun. And fun is why we play these games. You gotta play this game!

1.8 Arrives and the people rejoiced...well, some of em.

  Minecraft 1.8 has arrived and it's been one hell of a trip. Here's a quick recap. Everyone was happily playing 1.7.3 eagerly awaiting what was being hailed the adventure update. Out of nowhere a pre-release version hit the web. Mojang chose rather than fighting the leak to embrace it and use it to find more bugs. The pre-re led to a second pre-re fixes some of these bug and delaying the official release, but not for long. Two days later 1.8 officially hit the scene. Aside from the fact that Mojang had a beta of a beta this is all pretty standard stuff. Or at least it would be in any other community.
  Video game communities are well known for having rowdy members. All our bases are belong to them. Usually this manifests in aggression towards bad games, bad companies, outsiders, the web itself, and even the players themselves. Often the only thing that escapes this scrutiny is the the team behind the game. They get attacked of course, but not on the same level as the others. This tends to be especially true in the indie gaming scene. I hate the term indie btw, I prefer underground gaming but whatever.
  Indie game companies tend to be much closer to their player base. They actively communicate with them and even frequently request feedback on how to make the game better. Because of this intimacy, the gamers themselves tend to be more polite and respectful of the game and everyone involved. They tend to thank and encourage the coders. The coders in turn tend to work harder and with more passion. Everyone wins.
  The best community I've seen so far that exhibits this kind of relationship is dwarf fortress. The game is an underground classic and to those in the scene, it's the measuring stick all other games are measured with. It's complexity and depth is matched only by the wretched ugliness of it graphics and interface. The game is dense, difficult, incredibly fun and the community loves it. They embrace the fact that with such depth you sometimes get nasty bugs. They accept the fact that with games that live in beta things can get hairy. Not only do they embrace these things they actually use the bugs to their advantage and end up having even more fun. Yes both kinds!
  No matter how bad it gets, the community in general, loves ToadyOne and continue to embrace dwarf fortress. This community may be the best in my opinion but they certainly aren't alone. Another game called Cataclysm(not the WOW add on) has the same kind of community. It's much smaller but the respect for the coder is there and so is the understanding that games are not easy to make and take time.
  Which brings me back to Minecraft. Minecraft started out like all the rest, small indie game, tight player base and a coder who has no problem talking to his community. But something about minecraft was special and it suddenly exploded onto the mainstream gaming scene. Everyone seems to love this game and with good reason. It's a lot of fun, it's easy, and it can be played many different ways. Because of this, it's captured a very large player base even though it's still in beta, and as a result has made a lot of money.
  And yet for all that minecraft has going for it, it still has the worst community base I've ever seen. They're rude to each other, they have an unreal amount of trolls, and they're ungrateful. Before we continue, I should point out there are good members, you know who you are so don't get pissed. Now back to the douchebags.
  A large chunk of minecraft's base seems to think that since they paid 20 dollars for a game, they now own Notch(the coder) and have the right to basically act like a bunch of brats. They've decided minecraft should be a 24/7 job and that it should run flawlessly. No matter what notch does, it's not good enough. The players will scream for an update and get one, and then scream that the update sucks, notch should have waited. If he had waited they would have called him lazy. This time in particular it was Jeb's fault the update was late. Turns out jeb is married and his father in law was visiting. The selfish prick actually went an spent time with his wife's dad. The nerve of him. I guess no one told him that he was a slave to minecraft and as such is not entitled to family visits.
  I'm not suggesting the game is perfect or that the developers themselves are perfect. They've made mistakes and there are bugs but there's a difference between acting like an ungrateful prick and helping find bugs and working to help build a game. Everyone that has bought Minecraft knew they were buying an unfinished game. This was never kept a secret. In addition to that, Mojang has given the players free updates, little drm, and access to the finished game when it is done. They have been beyond generous in how they offer up their game.
  In spite of the communities attitude, Notch and Jeb continue to work hard at improving minecraft and they never seem to complain about it. Maybe they realize that the ones screaming the loudest and acting the rudest are just a small percentage of the true minecraft community. A large but silent group of people who love minecraft and appreciate the effort that goes into creating it.