Fallout 4!

Hi there folks. Back again with a review. Yes I thought that would be surprising. This time around though we are going to enjoy the post apocalypse again but courtesy of Bethesada Softworks in continuing the existing series. With all the super mutants, screwy robots and more crazed cults and raiders at the ready. This is Fallout 4.

I'm gonna need a bigger gun.

This time around we make our way to Massachusetts' very own Commonwealth of Boston. You are a parent and spouse in the year 2077 after the last war. You are set to deliver a speech for your surviving unit and hope to establish some compassion. As a father/mother you have a newborn month old son you have named Shaun. With your Mr. Handy Codsworth assisting your new bundle, life is pretty good. Why there is even an underground vault in your neighborhood fully built just in case of nuclear fallout. Vault 111 is ready to go as a Vault-Tec sales rep reserves you and your family for a spot as you are a former soldier with time served. Well having a little insurance isn't a bad thing and offers peace of mind...until your TV report exclaims ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile)have been launched for key locations in the US.

You grab your little one and spouse and run like hell is nipping at your feet. Vault-Tec preps you all for decontamination is a suspicious looking chamber but before you know it, you are cryogenic frozen. Time passes and you see a gunman and two techs making off with your baby and shooting your spouse. You pass out due to the cryo cooling you. Next thing you know alarms are going off, your cryo pod releases you as you rush to your wife/husband who has sadly died. You have a son to find. The world has completely trashed and left in ruins. Your home, neighborhood in Sanctuary Hills and even your Mr. Handy bot has all aged and dilapidated. Codsworth tells you it has been over 200 years since you went to the vault. Somehow you must tread these old streets and find your son at all costs.

JETPACK!!!

Unlike the first 4 games, we have never seen the life prior the nuclear fallout with a future technological amazement with a 1950s revival appearance in vehicles, clothes, music and lingo. Following as the fifth game of this series this action RPG that can be first or third-person view with combat and it is open ended allowing to walk all over the map. Power armor is littered all over the Commonwealth giving you a bit more speed than just running across the road, increases strength and armored to handle incoming bullets, laser and plasma blasts.

Well the pros and cons have to be addressed about this game to give it an objective look. The pros are such: Multiple weapons that can be modified and improved, armor that can save you and your companions, dialogue options making the game go in different directions and a voice cast that brings these beings to life. The graphics really sell the show and the lip syncing was damn impressive.

The cons however are thus: Loading screens take anywhere from 30 seconds to maybe up to 5 minutes. The lag between entering different buildings, floors or locations can drag in the similar fashion. Sexual nature of your character has to be heterosexual unlike Fallout: New Vegas, given you gay, bi-sexual and hetro options. Locking up is also not uncommon as it has been for the entire series but bugs will be bugs. You always seem to have to sign on to one faction or another because you against the world is...odd? No clue there. In spite of the lagging and error hiccups the re-play-ability is there, I have had this game since November, and still haven't found every last location in the game. The funniest part of this game is shaping, coloring and altering your character's face and body to how you want your character to look like. People have been known to spend way too much time on it.

Nick picking...the lock.

Post Apocalypse Week: Damnation Alley

Howdy wastelanders and welcome back to Day 3 of Post Apocalypse Week. We have been chugging along nicely from the fallouts and viral plagues so how about a nice nuclear holocaust this time around?   Very loosely based on the heroic fantasy writer Roger Zelazny (The Guns of Avalon, The Hand of Oberon, Trumps of Doom, Blood of Amber, Jack of Shadows Isle of the Dead and Damnation Alley) comes a tale of survivors after the final war, World War III via nuclear strike.  Is there anything or anyone left out there to rebuild or is the world that was a thing of the past?   So keep your shotgun handy, watch out for radroaches and fire up your Landmaster.  This is Damnation Alley.

YOOOO JOOOOOOEEE!!

Maj. Eugene Denton: Tanner this is Denton! This whole town is infested with killer spoilers.  I repeat: KILLER SPOILERS!

With TV and Action film director Jack Smight (The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, I'd Rather Be Rich, The Third Day, Rabbit, Run, Midway and Airport 1975) calling the shots, there is little to no drag time from action beats to dialogue.  We don't have that typical story arc that is slowed down by massive amounts of exposition.   1st Lieutenant Jake Tanner (Jan-Michael Vincent of The Survivors, Shadow of the Hawk, Vigilante Force, Hooper, Airwolf, Dirty Games and Buffalo '66) is on ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missle) duty along with Major Sam Denton (George Peppard of Porkchop Hill, Breakfast at Tiffany's, How the West Was Won, The Bravos and The A-Team) who apparently doesn't like the 1st Lieutenant.   They make their tour around the complex meeting up with Airman Keegan (Paul Winfield of The Horror at 37,000 Feet, Conrack, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, The Terminator and The Serpent and the Rainbow) who is working on a piece he has been painting when early warning radar detects incoming missiles causing them to launch a counteroffensive barrage of their own bringing about the end of the world.

Lord have mercy. I'm the token, aren't I?

Two years later...yeah I know I was stunned that wasn't the end of the flick too.  *Ahem*  Two years later, the Earth is off its gravitational axis, plunged into high yield radiation and massive storms are spread across the planet.   Trying to find any sign of life, Denton settles on Albany as it is the only place they are getting a radio feed at all but the quest is dangerous and they have no back up.  Rather than cross the land on foot our boys have some impressive RVs called Landmasters.  a 12 wheeled juggernaut that manages rough terrain and also can navigate in water similar to a Hummer.  In order to get anywhere at all they must cross what Denton calls Damnation Alley.  the remains of Salt Lake City braving rad storms, rodents and insects of unusual size and possibly roaming bands of gun totting raiders.  Any of you Fallout fans thinking this sounds familiar?  The book it was based on and the movie came first so lump it.  

I had just a few thoughts and points about the film now.  Weighing in at 91 minutes this film gives a pretty impressive feel to the post apocalypse via military.  Their superior training, weapons handling and survival skills makes you feel they have a guanine chance of living.
Our killer cockroaches were actually the Madagascar hissing cockroaches and are about three inches long making my skin crawl enough.  However the giant scorpions are clearly super imposed with the film. Damnation Alley was 20th Century Fox's big budgeted science blockbuster back in 1976 when this dinky modest film called Star Wars was in production and you can pretty well guess which made more coin of the realm.

Roger Zelazny, the author of Damnation Alley saw the first script of the film and assumed that was the basis of the flick when in actuality they removed several key elements from the book to give the script some elbow room.  Zelazny shocked at the film was less than thrilled.

Welcome to the end of the world, baby.

Life in Fallout 3

Hey folks sorry for last week's lack of blog.  I was quite ill. I hope this will make up for it.

Now being a Fallout RPG turn based fan I was skeptical but Fallout 3 turned out to follow Fallout 2 (1997 and 1998 sequel to the original) in the same standing of being open ended with no time limit to speak of.  10 years had passed since Fallout 2 and we were promised by Interplay then Black Isle that we would see a Fallout 3.  Finally after buying the rights Bethesda Softworks brought us our FPS/skill-based/post-apocalyptic dream come true.   Rather than be in California as the two predecessors were, this takes place in the heart of democracy Washington D.C.  After 2077 it is now referred as the Capital Wasteland.  Our great monuments have collapsed, roads and freeways are devastated and no government or police are in control.  Might makes right. 

We start off the game with a series of cut scenes from your character’s birth and growing up in Vault 101.  An underground fallout shelter that is capable of housing 1,000 people.    I should note no matter your sex or skin color your father James is still white and voiced by none other than (Liam Neeson of Darkman, Love Actually, The Phantom Menace and Schindler’s List)  James is a scientist who believes in helping his fellow humanity as best as he can.   As you age you learn more about your relationship with your father and life in Vault 101.   Your mother dies delivering you in childbirth so you are raised solely by your father.  You grow up in spurts through cut scenes, little whispers throughout each aging process hints to events of the past and the present day.   James tells you as an infant a bible passage that reflects his life’s work in trying to better humanity.   At age ten you receive your own Pip-boy 3000.  This arm band computer interfaces with radio signals, tells you your health, points out radiation in your area and inventories your supplies you pick up during the game.   At age 16 you take your Generalized Occupation Aptitude Test or G.O.A.T. to help sum up what career you are best suited for in Vault life. You of course try to weasel your way out of it by faking a cold.  Best of luck with that when your father is the Vault’s chief physician.

 After breaking up a squabble or joining in on it, you take your test and proceed on to Age 19, to be awaken by your friend Amata to discover your father somehow left the Vault and the Overseer is furious.  The chief of the guards beat your father’s assistant Jonas to death.  A man you have known and respected your whole life.  You must choose to escape or be dealt the same.  Fending off radiation enlarged cockroaches and some of the vault security.   Save the ammo folks.  The ball bat does a pretty good job of defending yourself and it is, kill or be killed scenario. You make your way to and out of confides of the home you have known since you were a boy/girl and out into the unknown with nothing more than what you took with you.  Vault 101 is up the hill from a shambled town known as Springvale.  One lone resident silver is hiding out from a neighboring town called Megaton.   You will have to probe her for answers if you care to know.  Or be a brute, kill her and take everything she owns.   An elementary school is not far from Silver’s place is crawling with raiders.  If you are lacking in firepower or armor, my advice is get stocked before waging a fight with these lot.

Wandering out into the wasteland you will encounter raiders that prey on the helpless, Ghouls and Super Mutants, creatures that were once human now mindless monsters that terrorize the surrounding towns.     Meeting pockets of humanity and their plights it is up to you what sort of a person you are going to be.  Will you be a decent compassionate man/woman?   Will you turn into a heartless monster with no cares except your own interests?   Will you be passive to some and help to others that can pay you a wage?   The choice is yours.  Are you to be the savior the Capitol Wasteland or its destructor?   Will you be a hero or villain?  Only you can answer that.     The graphics engine that Bethesda Software developed is phenomenal.   The background, the colors from rusted metal to the rising and setting sun this game was awarded Game of the Year in 2008 and people are still raving about it and recommending it to friends.   Its Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System or V.A.T.S. for short allows characters to train their weapons melee or firearms alike at points of vulnerability.  Ideal for the sniper character or if you just simply think it will take out your target faster.   An amazing voice cast with Liam Neeson and Malcom McDowell to name a few.  Sound captures the imagination so well.  Different outfits and armor can change the pitch of what shoes or boots you are wearing.  Guns and rifles are not a universal lumped effect GOTY allows modifications on everything from characters and armor to the quests and weapons.  I have also been able to play the PS3 console based game and the controls are a bit sensitive but you soon develop a rhythm.  

  A word of warning for those photophobic or seizure prone:  This is a real-time fasted paced game.  There will be a quick pitch in combat especially in V.A.T.S. as you see your character shoot, slash or bash your targets and it could very well be jaunting so my advice is to skip it if you suffer from either affliction.  That being said from the rest of you who are Fallout fans, DO NOT let this one slip through your fingers and enjoys the in-depth story arc and game.

Fallout: Nostalgia and Post Apocalyptic

First off this game is approximately 15 years old at this time what with being produced in 1997 by Interplay.  A post-apocalyptic role playing game that is turn based similar to a table top RPG by Steve Jackson Games called GURPS. 

The world as we know it was destroyed due to atomic fallout during the year 2077.  Most technology is derived by this timeline hails from the conception of the 1950’s.  You will also find that most of the science-fiction tech from movies and pulp comics and magazines are an influence as well.

 Your character is a vault dweller.  This means you have spent the better portion of your life underground in a fallout shelter that was contracted by the government.  Your task is to replace a water chip to replenish your water recycling and main plumbing or everyone you know will die of thirst.   So you will trek out into the unknown and encounter inhabitants of this wasteland that was once the world.   You are the vault’s last hope.   You and you alone will decide the fate of dozens of lives depending on you.

 As you progress throughout the game your skills will increase as you level up.  The lands have mutated into vast deserts and remains of once proud cities. You will see items, landmarks and vehicles that you will recall from your data tapes.  Your PIP boy 2000 is a device that will map your locations, describe artifacts that you pick up or examine and keep track of each task or furthering plot to each new town you happen to.

 The mass radiation has caused simple creatures of the past to grow in size and making it more deadly than before the Great War.  Rats and scorpions as your history stated are now twice if not ten times the size of their predecessors.

  Bartering and conversation will be a must in order to collect more data about the world around you.  Townsfolk are leery of strangers but in general of good spirits to newcomers.  It boils down to proving if you are the sort that can be trusted.  Because the citizens of each town are comprised of farmers, cattle ranchers and laborers so you will seem out of place so they will be naturally confused and cautious.  Main characters in each town will be voiced by many esteem actors and actresses. (CCH Pounder, Richard Dean Anderson, Clancy Brown and Keith David ) to name a few.   As always the narrator is voiced by Ron Perlman  Again, it is vital that you talk to as many people as are willing to talk to you.   Random encounters will raise an eyebrow or two depending on each thing, man, woman or monster so keep your wits about you and your weapon of choice handy.  To survive in this world means to take a life to keep yours.