First Thoughts & Computer Woes

Today I come to you all from not a computer, I come from an Xbox. Through a series of unfortunate events, the laptop has stopped working, and my attempts of re-installing the OS at this point of time have proven fruitless. However, I then realized that I have a chatpad and (regretfully) Internet Explorer on the Xbox. I put 2 and 2 together, and begun the post. It won' be quite as pretty as my old, MS Word typed ones, but it will get some content out, with minor spelling errors.

Since we're already on the Xbox, why not talk about their games while I'm at it? Namely, Halo 4. I won' lie, I was originally agaimst a sequel. I wamted it to die with the Covenant, but quickly I saw that they weren't just milking the old cash cow, but had brought some new ideas in as well.

I haven't completed the campaign just yet, but I have played through a good chunk of ot, and gotten a bit into War Games as well. Its apparent to me that what is happening now is not just a revival, but a shift towards a new direction. Normally, I'm heavily against milking a story, but Halo has something more to it. Halo's got a whole, vast, lore and universe surrounding it. Master Chieft is just a man, but he is a soldier. Soldiers just don't fight one fght. Sierra 117 is a lifer, and his end is not in sight.

So far, Halo 4 is dragging in the feeling of Halo, the quintessential needs of it (that big battle feel and boop, boop, beep before a game starts) and puts it in a new situation. The plot is heavy and thick. Its, at this point at least, possibly more Halo than some of its predocessors.

I look forward to cpleting the game, and giving a more full review, and hopefully, on an actual computer.

--Santa

Movies: We're Back

I’ve heard a lot about 007. Good old James Bond. Last Friday I went to see it in theaters, and I have to admit—it was a big event for me. My first 007 in the theatre. I haven’t really seen much of the famous spy, but I figured it was a good place to start (especially since Lincoln wasn’t out yet). I’ll be honest, I’m not much of a rough-and-tumble action sort of guy when it comes to my preferred types of movies. Normally I’m more of a comedy man, but 007 caught my eye (and my friends insisted).

Skyfall starts with Bond on a mission to recover a hard drive with some information about spies in secret agencies encrypted onto it. Failing to recover this data, and in a horrible accident, Bond is shot while riding on a train and falls into a river (hence, a cliché reference to the name, but not the true reason for the title). Bond, a couple of months later, comes back into the scene again after MI6 is attacked by a terrorist organization, and soon finds himself embroiled in international spy warfare once again.

Seeing that I have no background on Bond except for my small memories of some classics and what I know from the parodies that Austin Powers left me with, this is a really broken Bond. I kind of remember seeing Bond as the perfect guy—this one is almost defeated, weaker… not perfect. He’s real. This lends a lot more feelings to the story, especially since the franchise is 50 years old now, and needs something to keep it going. Daniel Craig proves how smooth, and chunk he can be. However, I will say that there is a noticeable lack of gadgets, which although saddening, is much more real. I gave Bond a 8.25/10. Not the best movie I ever saw, but certainly entertaining, and a fairly nice plot for an action-y movie.

--Santa

PS: Coming up soon will be some new posts. Expect some LoL news, a bit of talking on Saxxy’s, and of course, Halo 4.

Flashback: Never Changes

Whenever I have to think back to why I love Bethesda, two series come to mind—The Elder Scrolls and Fallout. I’ve talked about both numerous times on the Workshop, namely Skyrim, Oblivion and New Vegas, but I think that it’s time to champion the one that I feels stands out the most from the 7^th generation of gaming: Fallout 3. This is something I had to put a lot of thinking into. I loved Oblivion, and even spent more time on it then I did on Fallout 3, but as I’m about to get into, there’s a strong reason why I gave Fallout 3 the best of the 4 choices.

Most people would expect when comparing Skyrim, New Vegas, Oblivion and Fallout 3 for greatness, you’d end up with an order like the one I just listed. After all, TES is debatably one of the biggest franchises in all of gaming right now, and although Fallout is big, TES is considered Bethesda’s crowning achievement. However, I think that in this case, Fallout 3 reigns supreme, even over one of my all-time favorites, Oblivion, giving my overall ranking system as:

1.      Fallout 3

2.      The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

3.      The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

4.      Fallout: New Vegas

Now comes the hard part of justification. Starting out with why the two older games got the top two slots takes a bit of referencing back. Even though there are some nice improvements in New Vegas from 3, it doesn’t feel the same. I don’t know if this may be because Obsidian was the lead in making the game, and Bethesda was on Fallout 3, but it is a let-down.

 Oblivion, on the other hand is beaten in a large amount of ways by Skyrim; better graphics, better voice-acting, heavily superior combat system, new and improved items, and more. But, there are two things missing from Skyrim that Oblivion did have—a good central story, and huge amounts of charm. Now, I will admit that of the charm of Oblivion comes from the quirks: being able to jump for 5 seconds, wearing the gray cowl around town and taking it off just before guards come up to attack you so they angrily say “How are you today, Citizen?”, the fantastic effects of Skooma and of course, the fantastic voice acting by all of the guards. I played more than 1000+ hours of Oblivion before I got bored on 3 different characters. I played for just over 400 hours on 2 characters of Skyrim before I got bored of it.

So, how did I decide between the two games in the end? I looked at how I felt playing the two of them. Fallout 3 has a fantastic storyline, and the two games have completely different combat systems, magic and medieval weaponry vs. limited guns and ingenuity. I enjoyed the 2-toned system of Fallout 3’s Enclave and Brotherhood more than the huge amount of sprawling quests of Cyrodil. Although there may be more to do in the bigger world of Tamriel, the wastelands of D.C. truly are alive and unforgettable, giving them my top spot. Deciding 3^rd and 4^th wasn’t hard after that, I love Skyrim, just not as much as Oblivion. Obsidian, although not quite as magical as Bethesda still did a good job, and 4^th place is not a bad spot—they were up against impeccable competition.

Bethesda is a powerful producer and idea maker, but I think the next direction they may want to consider moving in, is one step back. The games, although more resourceful, are missing on what made them great in the first place. They took a chance on the “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” idea, and fixed good systems and made them better, but lost something on the way. Fallout 3 is a prime example of a game that wasn’t perfect, but came damn near close to it. We don’t expect games to be 100% perfect and accurate all of the time. Fallout 3 is a game that gets closer to that bar than any other Bethesda game I’ve played.

--Santa

The Workshop Isn't Dead; Only Sleeping

Remember me?

I don't. Most of the old readers at this point are probably gone, and I don’t blame them. I’ve had to take a very large amount of time off due to some personal stuff which is rather boring to get into. But, I am planning on being back now, as much as I can be. I do believe this calls for a summer update.

So, after I told all of you about my new, super-duper incredible hat, I kind of left and never came back. I was pretty much done with trading; my major goal had been completed. However, I’ve since found a new drive, this one is more to go out and find a new hat that I can love, and I’m feeling that maybe buying some sunbeams across the board may not be a bad idea. I’d have the shiniest heads in all of TF2, on some pretty spectacular hats as well. It would, however, take an astronomically long time to get all of these hats.
It’s a good thing I’m a patient guy.
In the meantime, I’m trading small again. I don’t have much at the moment since a good 90% of my net worth is all stuff I don’t want to sell (like my unusual and vintages) and I’ve only got a few hats and whatnot. And then I got a drop. A #40 drop. Valve decided to give me a little welcoming back present to the market. I’m starting to fell right back at home.

I’m also getting into a few other games again—Civilization V and O-Game.
Yes.
O-Game.
I feel no shame for the second one. Mostly because it gives me something to do as I play Civ, and it’s also cute to just click a few buttons and be good at something. If  you have a few friends, I suggest picking it up, I may talk about it more later, me and this game go about as far back as Toontown and Runescape.

I know it’s not much for a whole “Welcome Back!” post, but it is more than nothing. I’m not quite sure if you can expect a whole “3 posts per week” schedule like I used to do, but I do want to try and hit that 1 per week at the very least. I think that way you can always have something interesting to read.

--Santa