Fallout 3

[Harrison]

Very nice. I always try to resist buying such guides until I'm played a game a lot first, otherwise it is so tempting to read things in the book before you have seen or discovered them in the actual game, and that can really ruin some nice (or bad) surprises in a game's story/plot or environment. And I think that is very much the case in Fallout 3 where you discover something new in every area you visit that is different.

[v85rawdeal]

I also find out to be one of the most atmospherically tense games at the moment. Not knowing if that red blip over the next hill is a mangy mutt or a bounty hunter coming to collect!!!

[J T]

Difficult to say what I'm going to play next, I still have to play:

- Lost Planet
- Crackdown
- GTA IV
- Assassin's Creed
- Halo 3
- Lost Odyssey
- Folklore
- Gears of War
- Gears of War 2
- Mirror's Edge (will probably get it next week)
- Metal Gear Solid 4
- Eternal Sonata
- Blue Dragon
- Enchanted Arms
- Bioshock
- Fable II
- Dead Rising
- Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction
- Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

...and of course Fallout 3.

Crackdown is ace, it's a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. Shame about a few niggles and glitches here and there - but I really do rate this game very highly.

[Demon Cleaner]

Now I also got Resistance 2. Difficult to say which one I'm gonna play first I played Crackdown for a couple of hours and I quite enjoyed it, but I think I have other games that are far better.

[Harrison]

Fallout 3. You've got to play Fallout 3!

[Demon Cleaner]

Fallout 3. You've got to play Fallout 3!

I know, I know, but as I still have so many games to play, I'd prefer one which I could finish faster. If I begin with Fallout, I'm gone for 100 hours.

[Teho]

That's true. I think I've spent at least that with it since it was released and I'm still not done with. And I've also recently bought Resistance 2, LittleBigPlanet, Mirror's Edge and Far Cry 2, But haven't looked at any of them yet. And that's just recently, I have a ton of more stuff I'd like to have a look at lying around. Some things are over a year old now. *sigh*

Fallout 3 is allright though.

[Demon Cleaner]

I started with Resistance 2 yesterday, saw that you were online and playing Fallout Teho

[Harrison]

I expect Far Cry 2 will take nearly as much time as Fallout 3. It's not linear like the first one and there is a huge map to explore with loads of people to meet, missions to complete etc... I only played it for a few hours when I got it and that already opened up a load of opportunities for many different directions and tasks.

Sometimes I do think games can be a little bit too open. I like the first Far Cry because, while it was was level/area based, it was an evolving story. With more open non-linear games you can easily complete a game's main quest/mission, but never see 70% of the game or a lot of the sights, people, events, missions, quests, items, weapons etc... You could argue that it just requires the played to explore and use their own motivation to discover as much as possible, but sometimes you just want to be led though a story and enjoy it. That's one reason I'm enjoying Dead Space.

[Demon Cleaner]

Far Cry 2 seems to get very tedious later in the game, due to this open world feature. I really don't need open worlds, I can cope with games that are linear, at least I get the feeling I don't miss anything. Dead Space was linear, but that gave me the feeling not to stray around too much. The way indicator in Dead Space is ace imo, every game should have such a help, which you could disable if wanted.

When I play RPGs I like to do everything, but with an open world, you often finish the main story in 20 hours, whereas you can play for 50 and more hours just doing sidequests. I know that I don't need to do them, but when they are there I just tend to explore everything what is possible, and gather every little item which is in the game, even if it's not useful.