The Obsessive Gamer

Narrow, opinionated and yes- obsessive.

Modding FO3 after 1.5

		Friday, 29 May 09 - 08:10 PM (GMT -06:00) By Holly Fredrickson in Gaming

Depending on your intimacy with the Fallout 3 modding scene, you may or may not know that Bethesda's latest patch for the game (1.5) was intended, like all patches, to fix things and also to pave the way for Bethesda's "final" DLC, Broken Steel. (They have since announced two more dropping later this summer, so... go figure)

If you use mods at all, you'll also likely know that patch 1.5 continued Bethesda's disappointing trend of breaking far more things than it fixed- in this case, namely, user-created mods.

The modding community has come up with at least two major solutions to the problems imposed by the 1.5 patch: JustinOther's Fake Patch and the Master Update utility of Elminster's wonderful FO3Edit program. I personally prefer the latter; it's easier in my opinion, reversible and more "hands off" than the Fake Patch approach.

Once I had utilized the Master Update method, I went on a modding spree the likes of which my hard drive has not seen since the days of Oblivion. I've been playing Fable 2, not Fallout 3, for the past few weeks and I felt like I had lost time to make up for. Here's a few of my new favorite mods (and modders):

Alexscorpion's Sniper Gear - adds some of the best-looking sniper rifles I've ever seen to the game.

joefoxx's Fallout Classic Weapons Mod - the nostalgia of this mod is lost on me, as I never played the first two games. However, I know shiny, cool guns when I see them.

necKros' Some Katanas - for the badass samurai in all of us.

For texture replacers, go check out the mods of NMC (Megaton and Rivet City!), skykappa (awesome new Nuka Cola and water bottles) and ObsidianStag (amazing clutter and book re-textures).

Antistar's Weapon Mod Kits - allows you to upgrade and customize your guns.

Xodarap's Fallout Overhaul (XFO) - my favorite of the many gameplay overhauls, thanks to this one's modular and customizable nature.

OldManMose's GNR - More Where That Came From - adds between 20-100 new songs to Three Dog's radio station. All of the new additions were carefully selected to match the feel of the existing soundtrack.

Azar's Gypsy Outfits - your female characters should be able to look stylish while they're out roaming the wastes.

farbentier's Sunglasses Collection - also helps with the aforementioned style issues of the original game.

Also, a couple of mods to keep an eye on as they work through their beta phases:

The Settler RTS - basically adds a village-building simulation aspect to the game. Still in early beta stages, but coming along nicely.

MERC - Combat Currency - the first chapter of an ambitious, story-driven mod featuring your very own squad of mercenary warriors! Still has some kinks to be worked out, judging from player feedback.

J3X's Driveable Motorcycle - the most promising of the various motorcycle mods, even in its beta stages it's fairly polished.

Gearing up for E3

		Friday, 29 May 09 - 07:48 PM (GMT -06:00) By Holly Fredrickson in Gaming

E3, that most glorious of video game showcases, kicks off next week and will last from June 2nd to the 4th. The big three hardware giants will be there (and perhaps a fourth?) as well as every game publisher and developer worth their salt. The big-name reveals have already begun, thanks to several pre-E3 trailers and teasers, several of which premiered on GameTrailers TV last night.

Bethesda revealed their next project last night; a mysterious game called Brink. Not much is known about the title yet (except that it's clearly not an Elder Scrolls V game...) but we'll likely learn more next week!

BioWare was also busy, posting a new trailer for both Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins. A lot of information and rumor has been slowly coalescing around both titles. A few tidbits of confirmed information include DA:O's release date (Oct. 20) and ME's surprisingly good start in the Japanese software market, where it ranked in at #3 on this week's list despite the general lack of 360s in the land of the Rising Sun.

Mass Effect 2, Fallout 3 Updates

		Monday, 20 April 09 - 08:10 PM (GMT -06:00) By Holly Fredrickson in Gaming

I apologize for the hiatus; the semester is wrapping up here, and the usual hectic craziness was not helped by my having to take a few days off for some minor surgery.

As far as Mass Effect 2 news goes, there's definitely something brewing on the horizon. It's been hinted that we should expect some kind of big news to break before E3- either sequel or DLC related- I don't know. BioWare has launched their own twitter channel, appropriately named BioFeed, and will surely use it to tease their fans incessantly.

Fallout 3 continues to occupy my spare time, such as it is. We should be hearing some more about the next DLC pack, Broken Steel, awfully soon, given that it's supposed to be releasing in the near future. But after the fiasco that was The Pitt, I wouldn't be surprised if Bethsoft takes their sweet time before releasing BS.
(Update: A new interview about Broken Steel just released over at Gamespot.)

There's also the big news of a recently-announced brand new Fallout game, Fallout New Vegas, which will be developed by Obsidian and is set to come out sometime next year.

Mass Effect 2: a closer look

		Saturday, 28 March 09 - 10:38 AM (GMT -06:00) By Holly Fredrickson in Gaming

The GDC has come and gone and as expected, wasn't the source of any huge reveals. The more interesting ME2-related info came in the form of an in-depth interview by Geoff Keighley of GameTrailers.com.

Geoff's interview at BioWare touched briefly on their in-development MMORPG, The Old Republic, but spent the most time exploring their two upcoming titles; Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2.

ME2 project lead, Casey Hudson, does a good job of sidestepping Geoff's tougher questions and remaining infuriatingly vague in the answers he does give. Anyone hoping this interview might once and for all answer the question of "Is Shepard dead or not?" are going to be disappointed. There is light at the end of the tunnel, however, as Casey promises us that this year's E3 will answer a lot of questions.

The GDC wasn't a complete dud, however. A leaked video of BioWare's technical level-design seminar (featuring ME2 of course) does give us a glimpse into some early development gameplay footage, and a brief cutscene. The video should be taken with a heavy dose of salt, as anyone who watched the pre-release ME videos knows, things change radically during development, and whole levels can disappear and not make it into the final package.

The community comes through

		Friday, 27 March 09 - 04:21 PM (GMT -06:00) By Holly Fredrickson in Gaming

It's been a few days since I downloaded the Pitt. And now, finally, I'm playing it for the first time. Not because Bethesda fixed their own buggy DLC- because a modder, Quarn (of Unofficial Oblivion Patch fame), did their job for them.

So if you've been experiencing persistent crashes on approach to get your slave disguise for the Pitt, go download his patch post haste. And thank him while you're at it.

Trouble with The Pitt

		Tuesday, 24 March 09 - 04:57 PM (GMT -06:00) By Holly Fredrickson in Gaming

I suppose I should have expected something like this. While installing and playing Bethesda's last DLC was smooth sailing for me, lots of other people had problems getting it to work. This time around, I guess it was my turn for a dose of bad karma.

I noticed after installing The Pitt that the game seemed to be crashing more than usual (I had earlier resigned myself to it crashing every few hours) but attributed it to a new mod I had installed. Eventually though, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to walk to the start of the quest- I was crashing too often. So I fast traveled as near as I could to the location of the mysterious radio signal and hiked the rest of the (short) way.

After helping the quest starter, a gruff-voiced guy named Werhner, fend off some attacking raiders, I was quickly brought up to speed on the situation in the Pitt and what I could do about it. First things first though, and I needed to acquire a slave outfit to sneak into the slaver camp. So off I go to the west, following my quest arrow and saving often, because I crashed a few times. But I kept crashing, and at approximately the same area.

'No big deal,' I thought, 'maybe there's a bad mesh or texture ahead; I'll take a different route.'

So I loaded up my save near Werhner and began a very circuitous route to the next quest objective. At approximately the same distance as before, my game crashed. Again and again I tried to reach the new location, but each time my game crashed to the desktop.

Desperate to rule out my mods as the problem, I went way back in my archives and dug up one of the earliest saves I had of my current character- a save right before leaving the vault. Without changing my mod list at all, I booted up this save, exited the vault and headed straight to Werhner with the brand-spanking new character. Then I started off gingerly to get my slave disguise... and I made it all the way to the new slaver base.

So my mods aren't the problem, as it turns out. But now I'm at a loss as to what is. Surfing the Bethesda forums, I've found numerous people experiencing the exact same problem as me, and no one has an answer.

Fallout 3 Update

		Thursday, 19 March 09 - 09:11 PM (GMT -06:00) By Holly Fredrickson in Gaming

Spring break always seems to go by fast, and this year was no exception. I did manage to get some quality time in with Fallout 3. I restarted my Teagan character and with the help of a level-slowing mod, managed to explore all of the wastes without quite hitting level 20. And I realized that while Fallout 3 is probably more nuanced and detailed than Oblivion, it's also not nearly as large. I believe Pete Hines once said that FO3 was roughly 50-80% the size of Oblivion, and I find myself agreeing with him on that one, though I think capping it at 80% is a bit on the generous side.

At least Fallout 3 is getting better DLC than Oblivion did. No horse armor here; I enjoyed Operation: Anchorage despite it being combat heavy, and I'm looking forward to The Pitt, which is supposed to be more story-based than O:A was. The new trailer for it showcases the "action" (of course) but I think the underlying story idea is a very cool one; infiltrating slaver bases never gets old.

In other news, Mass Effect 2 was officially announced. Which was odd, given that everybody already knew about it. There was that trailer for it released a month before it was officially "announced". And that industry report that as good as announced it a full year before that. And then there was BioWare telling us all along, since as early as 2006, that Mass Effect was being planned as a trilogy... But hey, I guess publicity is worth the price of admission.

The Game Developer's Conference is coming up soon and might yield some interesting tidbits of news. Mass Effect 2 is supposed to be there (will we see some gameplay footage?) as well as PixelJunk Eden Encore, inFamous and Fat Princess. The GDC is historically not the event to expect any huge reveals... but with some people still stinging from last year's stunted E3, who knows what we may see this March 23-27?

Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne impressions

		Friday, 06 March 09 - 05:34 PM (GMT -06:00) By Holly Fredrickson in General

I can't get anything past you guys; The Stolen Throne is not actually a game but a book about a game. Yes, I've said the nasty b-word... book.

But as anyone who's read the Mass Effect books will know, these books about games have a certain way of setting up the games they preview. And if you're really going crazy waiting for a game, then you'll take whatever scraps of information and foreshadowing you can get your hands on. Maybe that's why these video game novels seem to be getting more common; they have a built-in fanbase of not particularly discriminating readers.

Maybe my snobbish side is showing, but I consider myself pretty well read and a pretty discriminating reader. Yet I keep buying these novels despite their typical mediocrity- why? Well, maybe because I really am that desperate for insight. But maybe also because they're fun to read. Like popcorn flicks, these novels are often fast-paced and frenetic- quick reads that you don't have to give yourself a headache pondering the deeper implications of. Or go back and re-read whole chapters because you missed the metaphor.

The Stolen Throne fits the generalizations perfectly. I'm only into the second chapter, but already I can tell that it will be a fun read and uncomplicated. You feel sympathy for the characters (well, most of them) but probably won't think much about them after putting down the book. The world of Dragon Age is illuminated well here, and its the atmosphere and history I find myself enjoying the most. If you've read any other books in the fantasy genre at all, then this book will feel very familiar to you. But that's not necessarily a bad thing, as the authors I feel being channeled here- George R.R. Martin and Terry Goodkind to name a few- are masters of their craft and the kind you'd want to emulate.

All in all, I'd recommend this book to fans of Dragon Age, but not necessarily to fantasy fans looking for their next read. This novel succeeds at what it sets out to do- which is showcasing BioWare's next game- and that's enough.

The amazing things fans do

		Thursday, 05 March 09 - 10:48 AM (GMT -06:00) By Holly Fredrickson in General

I'm sure that every game has its share of devoted followers, and some of them may even be talented, but it seems like Mass Effect has more than its fair share of amazing, creative fans. Their medium covers everything from Wacom tablets to modeling clay to fabric to simple words. The talent of these fans seems to only be surpassed by their generosity and willingness to share their work with other fans, whether it be on the official ME forums or DeviantArt.

As you might have guessed, the asari are a popular subject for these artists-

Olivia L. Bronson's:


ME forumite EmJey's:


But as far as asari fandom goes, Kris Sayer has them all beat with her amazing, handmade Liara costume:


Probably my favorite work of fanart, though, would have to be Deviant YumeDust's amazing portrait of her Shepard:


ME forumite fan_artist attracted even the attention of the developers with his amazing, life-size bust of Garrus:


As I know very well, though, not all means of artistic expression fall within the visual category. Words can be moving in ways that paintings and sculpture just can't. That's why fanfiction holds a special place in my heart, and of all the Mass Effect fanfiction out there, sinvraal's is the cream of the crop. Iunctio is an awesome re-telling of the game through her Shepard's eyes, with characterization and technical details that would make you suspect she's one of the game's developers writing under cover.

LotRO vs. Guild Wars (MMO vs. Instance)

		Friday, 27 February 09 - 01:09 PM (GMT -06:00) By Holly Fredrickson in Gaming

I don't talk often about online gaming for a few reasons; I can't afford monthly subscription fees, and I generally prefer gaming by my lonesome anyways. That's why, when Guild Wars came out in 2005, I was kind of excited. The people making Guild Wars (ArenaNet) wanted to do away with the old system of monthly subscription fees; their radical idea was to make a solidly great game, build a fanatically loyal fanbase in the process and then rely on the sales of their game and it's expansions to fund the game's upkeep and maintenance. Five million copies of the game and its various expansion packs have since been sold, and a sequel is in the works. But for all of that, some people still stubbornly claim that Guild Wars is not a "real" MMO. And maybe in some ways, it's not.

Unlike World of Warcraft or the majority of other MMOs out there, Guild Wars gives players the mixed blessing/curse of their own solitary version of the world (called an instance in MMO parlance) as soon as they venture beyond a town's gate. If you want to have friends along to help you out during your exploring, then you must take them with you from the get-go, 'cause you sure aren't going to meet any outside a town. There are pros and cons to this take on things, as was recently illustrated to me when I tried out the Lord of the Rings: Online ten day trial.

LotRO was a very eye-opening experience for me. Prior to playing, Guild Wars had been my one and only glimpse into MMO gaming and while I understood on an academic level the difference between its instance model and most other MMOs, the differences didn't really hit home until LotRO. When I left a town and went out to explore the countryside in LotRO, there was no loading, no seams at all between the town and the wilderness beating down its front door. And there were other players out there in the wilderness. Players who would randomly come to my aid when they thought I was in trouble. Before long I started mimicking this behavior; if I saw another player out-numbered or out-classed in battle, I'd drop whatever I was doing and go help out. It was a good feeling.

But then I started noticing the problems.

Enemies respawned frequently. I had only played Guild Wars, and was used to the way of thinking that once something's dead, it stays dead. Once I'd cleared out an area of bandits in LotRO, I parked my character amidst their corpses and took a breather. Imagine my surprise when, a few seconds later, a swarm of clones appeared and exacted bloody revenge.

A few times I also found myself waiting in lines to finish or start a quest. These lines were never long (usually just 2-3 people waiting for their turn to take on an important enemy or talk to an NPC), but they did tend to shatter the immersion and flow of the game.

I never witnessed any squabbling for dropped loot, camping, kill-stealing, or any of the other darker behaviors associated with sharing a map with dozens of other people, but I assume these problems do crop up from time to time. But is it worth sacrificing the camaraderie for the safety? I don't know. Ultimately, I went back to Guild Wars because it's free. And I also think its graphics put LotRO to shame, which is a tad awkward, since Guild Wars came out a full two years before LotRO.

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