Just Cause 3 - Just Cuz I Can

JUST CAUSE 3 UPDATE

My new obsession right now is Just Cause 3. There are a few things that have left me grinning like an idiot and giggling, so I'm off to an excellent start. I'm planning on reviewing this one now.

Staytuned. I promise it will be written sooner than three month from now.

Fallout 4 - Bored Never Changes

FALLOUT 4

A SPARSE WASTELAND

By Shelby Steiner

I just wanted to start by thanking my reader for taking the time to read this (my wife is so supportive).

It’s safe to say that I’m a little late to the game here. Fallout 4 has already been out for almost four months now; I meant to write this about a week after the game released. However, things have been getting in the way and I’ve been getting distracted by other games like Destiny, Corpse of Discovery, Tomb Raider, and Rainbow Six. Add on top of all this, my class schedule for college and work, and I’m sure you’ll understand why this took so long. At this point it will serve less as a way to inform potential consumers of the game, and more as a critique of the game itself. That said, keep reading.

TL:DR Skip down to the Revelations

Fallout 4 is an interesting entry in the series of the popular post-apocalyptic games. Following the success of Fallout 3, and to a lesser extent, the spinoff Fallout: New Vegas; Fallout 4 was met with extreme hype and critical praise. Sadly, what makes Bethesda’s most recent entry interesting isn’t that the game itself, but rather the way the game feels.

Gameplay (Alright)

1

Fallout 4’s gameplay is fairly simplistic, albeit with a few changes from previous games in the series. VATS, which was introduced in Fallout 3 as a throwback to the series’ turn-based beginnings, no longer pauses combat, instead it slows down time. As a concept, I felt as it was the final nail in the coffin that was Fallout’s call-back to its heritage, but despite the purist in me screaming out, it felt like it fits better. Old school VATS felt like cheating most of the time since it allowed the player to stop the action completely and give a huge advantage. Now that edge has been whittled down a little, forcing the player back into the action.

More generally, the shooting and movement have been improved. Weapons give the feeling that they are actually connected to the controls (unlike the laggy controls of Fallout 3/NV) and there are many base level weapons to choose from. Almost every weapon has a plethora of customization options thrown at you as well, giving you a near-infinite number of possible combinations to create. The only thing that saddened me was the change from New Vegas’ array of weaponry to a very truncated and oddly designed list.

A pet peeve of mine regarding the weapons in Fallout is the design choices

Bethesda made. The firearms seem to have been made to look like early 1900’s

style weapons; the assault rifle in particular has a look that resembles a Maxim

machinegun. Other things like the combat rifle being chambered for .45 rounds

but having a magazine designed to look like it holds 7.62mm NATO rounds is

puzzling to me. What can I say; I’m a bit of a gun nut. Don’t judge me.

Far more detrimental to the game are the changes to the series’ conversation system. Bethesda decided to axe the old way of doing things to adopt a system that is somewhat similar to Bioware’s conversation wheel design in Dragon Age 2. Conversations now only allow four choices, and most interactions follow the formula of offering a nice, mean, sarcastic, and disengage option. A common complaint I’ve seen regarding the change is that the player can’t see what is actually going to be said in a conversation, leaving the options up for (often incorrect) interpretation.

All in all, the gameplay itself doesn’t appear to have improved at all in this sequel, and in some areas even appeared to take a step backwards. I’ll give credit where credit is due however, the gunplay feels much more streamlined. So there’s that.

Presentation (Okay, I guess)
1

The visual presentation of Fallout 4 is competent, and that’s about the best I can say. This is perhaps due to Bethesda’s choice to use a modified version of their Creation engine (from Skyrim) to provide the backbone for the game. Fallout 4 doesn’t look bad. Not anything like Fallout 3 looked like, but sadly it also doesn’t look particularly good in comparison to other games released recently. It’s all just kinda meh.

The audio in comparison fares better, offering a decent soundtrack despite using a large number of songs from previous Bethesda Fallout games. The rest of the audio is really what sold me on the presentation. Fallout 4 just oozes atmosphere in the audio. Wandering in the open wastes feels desolate and dangerous. The sounds of enemies skittering and patrolling around you, the warble of a Sentrybot locking onto you, and the alert of your fusion core running low in your Power Armor all serve well to suck you into the game.

Did I mention that some of the soundtrack was reused? I was thrown back into memories of Fallout: New Vegas when I heard one of the songs they used in that game.

Originality (Not terrible, not good)
1

Fallout 4 definitely suffers in this department. Many of the features, hell even the engine itself honestly, are taken from previous Fallout entries. Unfortunately, quest structure has even taken a bit of a step backward; most quests start with talking to someone about their problem and end with you hunting down some interchangeable enemy. Sure the same could be said for many other games, but in Fallout 4, it just feels more apparent because there is far less variety compared to other games that Bethesda has developed. For instance, I can remember a Dark Brotherhood quest from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion where the player is tasked with eliminating an entire party of targets in a locked house, but I can’t remember a unique quest in Fallout 4 for the life of me.

However, Fallout 4 does have something going for it. It’s the game feature that I’ve spent by leaps-and-bounds the largest amount of time messing with: settlement construction. My wife can attest to the hours upon hours that I’ve ­wasted spent building my various encampments and fortresses. What makes this feature even more compelling is that even though the tools aren’t very varied, and not necessarily very good either, I still was sucked in. There was simply no hope for me.           

Story and Multiplayer (Meh)

1

This is one of those areas that Fallout 4 falls flat on its proverbial ass. It simply does not provide a compelling story. You are shoehorned into being a specific character with a singular motivation that is instantly derailed the moment the player is offered his/her first sidequest. You’re thrown into the Wasteland after surviving the nuclear holocaust in a Vault where you are cryogenically frozen. Your baby is kidnapped and your husband/wife is murdered, providing the player with motivation I guess. I’m not a heartless person by any means, but I didn’t care at all about the protagonist’s wife or child in my playthrough. It appears to me that Bethesda thought that the equivalent of saying “This is your family so care about them” was enough to motivate me to chase after my baby and save him from his captors.

It really wasn’t enough, Bethesda. I’m sorry to disappoint. My newborn settlements were far more important to me than my newborn son. My wife was soon replaced by Piper without a thought. My character was apparently a heartless jackass.

The sidequests were decent enough I suppose. A few were pretty interesting, but nothing on the level of The Republic of Dave or scouring though Vault 22. I can’t even remember one well enough to look it up in a wiki article. Actually, that isn’t true. I ran across as settlement in Fallout 4 that was a small, walled town that had a bit of a creepy vibe to it. It ended just like every other quest for me however: I had to kill everyone.

X-Factor: Settlements (Pretty good)

1.5

The thing that kept me going for so long with Fallout 4 was the settlement building. Like I said earlier, I would spend hours upon hours constructing my safe havens, scouring the wastes for resources, trading with merchants for useful items, and defending my towns on occasion. The problem I ran into was that the constraints put on me were too confining. In some areas it was hardly noticeable, like in Hangman’s Alley. Bigger areas like Sanctuary, Spectacle Island, and Abernathy Farm don’t have the same limitations though. These are all large, open spaces with tons of room to build, but you have a specified limit to how much you can build in those locations (probably to avoid using too much memory).

The problem with this is that you could still have tons of open space to build, but can’t because the game won’t allow you to. The settlement system suffers from other issues as well like not giving you any indication about how to send caravans to other locations to distribute building materials, not giving you any indication about what person is assigned to a particular job (unless they’re performing it at the time), and not giving you a way to make your damn fences make contact with the ground on sloped surfaces.

As you can tell, I spent the majority of my time here.

TL:DR STOP HERE

Revelations

I don’t regret my time with Fallout 4 at all. In fact I enjoyed most of my time with the game, though I still don’t understand why people think it is so difficult. The complaint I have with the game is just that it is incredibly shallow. Once you’ve done a few quests, built a settlement, and found some followers; you’ve pretty much seen everything the game has to offer. At this point, I’ve attempted to jump back in and continue playing to finish the quests that I had started and see more of the world, but every time I boot up the game and start playing I’m quickly bored.

I’d say this is definitely worth trying, either by renting the game or buying it at a cheaper price. I just can’t really recommend it as a purchase when Bethesda has done far better in the past.

5.5 RADS OUT OF 10

Fallout 4 is not a bad game, but it isn't all that great either. I remember getting sucked into Fallout 3 and New Vegas, spending weeks of my gaming time playing them, but Fallout 4 doesn't do that for me. Instead, I played it fervently for about three weeks and forgot about it. It's just a disappointing game.

Fallout 4 - Work In Progress

A FALLING OUT

Sneaking around with the puppy

It has been a few days since the release of Fallout 4. Boston and it's outlying areas have been proving to be quite the distraction. I will be uploading a review here soon once I've had some more time with the story, no spoilers of course!

Halo 5: Guardians Review - Locke Up The Chief

HALO 5: GUARDIANS

343 REDEFINES 'SPARTAN'

By Shelby Steiner... Obviously...

TL:DR START SCROLLING

Halo 5 marks the first new entry in the series on the Xbox One. In many ways, it is probably the most fun I've had with a Halo game in a very long time. I'm already a strange person when you consider what Halo games I've liked. I disliked Halo Reach but loved Halo 3 ODST, for instance. To me, ODST marked a change in the usual recipe that Bungie had been using to create their series. Gone was the super-soldier mentality; you played as a rookie ODST trooper. Yeah, you weren't a standard ground-pounder, but you weren't a Spartan either. The game introduced an open battlefield to the single player game, breaking up the traditional linearity of the franchise...

But I'm not reviewing ODST. I forgot that...

Gameplay (Good!)
2

Halo 5 exhibits all of the usual trademarks of the series. Enemies are pretty durable, even on the lower difficulties, forcing the player(s) to be more mobile. Added into the standard arsenal of abilities is Ground Pound, Slide, Thrusters, Clambering, Charge, and Smart Scope.

Out of these, the one most likely to offend vets of the series is the Smart Scope. It essentially is an 'iron sights' mechanic that allows the player to zoom in a little and take a shot. It basically takes the place of the old binocular zoom mode. Rest assured in the knowledge that getting hurt still knocks you out of your zoom. A unique addition to this is that if you are in the air (while jumping or falling), using Smart Scope causes you to float in the air for a moment allowing you to line up a shot or two. The downside to this is that it leaves you extremely exposed, as floating in the air in plain sight would do... Go figure.

Your Ground Pound ability pretty much allows you to hover in the air for a moment, aim for a target, and smash down onto the unfortunate soul; dealing massive damage. This move is very similar to the Titan's Fist of Havoc ability in Destiny... minus the extremely overpowered nature. Using Ground Pound can be tricky as it requires timing to line up the attack, but it remains an effective tool.

Charge is triggered by attempting to melee an enemy while sprinting. Anyone can see how similar it is to the Destiny Titan's ability, Storm Fist (sensing a pattern?).

Thrusters allow a sort of dodge. 343 evidently saw the usefulness of making this a basic ability instead of a armor power, which is pretty nice. Fun to use too!

Rounding out the sweet new moves are Clamber and Slide. Well, they're not as cool as the others, but they are useful at least. Clamber allows the player to access higher ground easier and Slide is basically taken from the Call of Duty playbook, crouching while sprinting makes you slide a bit like a ninja.

All in all, the gameplay has improved quite a bit. Battles are more fast-paced because of the added mobility, which makes you feel like a true badass when you pull something off. It's a marked improvement over the OG Halo movement which was pretty slow.

Presentation (Good Again!)
2

Halo 5 is a visually impressive game; there is no doubt about it. 343 made a concession to ensure a 60 fps benchmark, namely sacrificing resolution on the fly. Despite that it may sound like Halo 5 would look like hot garbage on a barge floating down the Hudson, it doesn't. The smoothness of the game helps make the drop in resolution near-unnoticeable. Besides, you'll be distracted by all of the pretty colors, Grunts sounding like cute little sociopaths, and plasma burrowing it's way into your armor.

Audio takes the cake too. The voice acting and sound effects really draw you in. You can even use your headphones and your loot-sonar-thingy to pretend like you're using a metal detector to help find the collectibles littered throughout each level.

Originality (Okay...)
1

Unfortunately, this is where Halo 5 starts to stumble. Halo 5 does introduce some new things, like the aforementioned abilities and a new multiplayer mode. Hell, it even has the first immersive justification for co-op in the campaign (you can play as the different members of each squad). However, there really isn't anything all that new. The abilities you have now as a player are either moves that you had in previous games, former armor abilities, or essentially ripped from other games. If you combine all of this and you'll start to see that the game isn't all that fresh...

Story and Multiplayer (Okay I guess)
1

I'm going to get this out of the way: There isn't any splitscreen play. There, I said it. Now it didn't affect my wife and I very much since we both play on our own systems but the omission does feel, weird. Gone are the days of sitting in a room with your buddies and playing some Halo splitscreen, either blowing through the campaign or pretending to not be screen-cheating while you hunt your friend down with an energy sword (now that I think about it; at least screen cheating is finally dead...). So there... Whew.

Now that all that nastiness is out of the way, we have the story. The short story... The story that involves only one, admittedly awesome, cutscene of Master Chief beating the hell out of Locke despite Microsoft marketing the game as an ongoing battle between the two. But it's just that, a cutscene. Many of the awesome moments of the game involve you simply staring at the screen, watching event unfold. The breathtaking introduction battle that takes place before you're handed the reins is a perfect example and immediately sets disappointment in your lap to mock you for letting your jaw drop during the mini-movie. It was incredibly jarring going from the intro to gameplay, watching as Team Osiris decimates an entire legion of Covenant while barreling down a mountainside, to comparatively hum-drum gameplay.

The story itself is good enough though. Without spoiling too much, it chronicles Team Osiris being tasked with tracking down Blue Team after the Chief goes AWOL (absent without leave for all you not in-the-know) to search for Cortana. Sadly the story ends similarly to Halo 2, which pissed me off to no end at the time. The game ends at the precipice of extremely dire circumstances in a way that I can best describe as the equivalent of a dramatic reverb... C'mon 343...

Luckily, the multiplayer pulls it together! Guess what? Free map packs! Dedicated servers! Even on my abysmal connection, I was able to play multiplayer in both Warzone and Swat with pretty much zero lag. Get with the times, publishers! I digress. The multiplayer meshes high mobility with the deadly skills of thousands of other players that are far better than you. I spent many hours getting shot in the face, over and over, yet still had a good time.

Warzone in particular proved to be a blast (no pun intended). It seems to combine the best elements of Battlefield, Titanfall, and Halo into a chaotic mess of 13 year olds riddling your inevitable corpse with bullets and shrapnel. The most unique quality of this mode is the adoption of a MOBA-style power up system. Completing matches rewards you with Requisition Points. These REQ Points can be redeemed for REQ Packs that contain a random assortment of gear that ranges from cosmetic items like helmets and badges to weapons and vehicles that can be used in Warzone mode. Luckily, the one-time-use equipment is useable only in Warzone, so there isn't any insta-win option in Slayer for instance. You can buy the REQ Packs with real money, but why would you? You can earn enough points to buy packs on your own pretty easily. Leave the pack buying to others... Otherwise, I have nothing to say to you except: "Thank you for paying for my map packs for me!"

The good thing is that players that aren't interested in Warzone can still play the standard Arena mode, which is more similar to OG Halo's multiplayer. Well, at least as close as you can get without having splitscreen or a Blood Gulch map variant.

No Forge yet. Or Big Team Battles...

All to be added later I guess.

X Factor: Warzone with Microtransactions (Questionable)
0

This is where it gets kinda ugly. Now at least there isn't a season pass or map packs that you'll later have to pay for and REQ Packs are easy to earn without spending money. The unfortunate truth is that this full-priced game attempts to squeeze more money out of you in the form of microtransactions that allow you to buy REQ Packs without earning them. In a way, there is a little justice in the fact that you can't exactly pay to win. The REQ Packs you purchase are still random, so you may not get what you want, which again begs the question: why pay money to get a chance to get what you can earn for free?

Regardless (or irregardless for those that like murdering the English language) of the limitations of the microtransactions, it still makes it difficult to not make a special mention of it.

TL:DR - STOP SCROLLING

Revelations

Halo 5 redefines the meaning of 'Spartan'. Before this most recent entry, Spartan was the name of the super-soldiers that have become the backbone of the lore in the series. Reluctantly, despite my love for Halo 5, I feel that Spartan simply describes the sparseness of the game. 343 crafted something beautiful that sets up what will likely be an epic Halo 6, but that's basically it. Halo 5 is just the new Halo 2.

6 OUT OF 10 GRUNTS

To be perfectly clear, this isn't really a bad score. It's just lower than what I've come to expect from a Halo game. Hopefully Halo 6 is better.

Welcome to Game Reviews by Falcon!

So here's the deal. I love games and I have opinions. Naturally the next step in my evolution is to write about them. Take these reviews with a grain of salt (because it's opinion).

First, I want to lay out my framework. I'm going with the KISS method; or Keep It Simple, Stupid (not the band). I'll grade games on a scale of 0 to 10 [insert arbitrary unit of measurement here] because scales going from 1 to 10 points is so mainstream. Each category of criticism will be graded with a simple Good, Okay, or Bad rating. The overall rating will be based off of this.

Areas of concerns will be in five categories: Gameplay, Presentation, Originality, Story/Multiplayer, and X Factor.

Gameplay will be based on the control of the game, the UI, etc.

Presentation includes the audio and visual splendor. It doesn't need to look realistic to score highly, just visually pleasing. Same goes for audio.

Originality involves the uniqueness of the game. A game with original mechanics will score higher here than yet another cover shooter. Sequels will always take a hit here unless they truly stand out.

Story/Multiplayer is pretty self-explanatory. Can the story be followed (sorry MGS V)? Is the multiplayer addicting like sniffing markers?

X Factor is the wildcard of the game, because that totally makes sense. In other words, this part of the score comes from the special things that don't fall into the other categories. This is something that sets the game apart from others. Games lacking an X Factor will receive a zero for instance.

That is all.