I don't mind it, but some people are really bothered by the fact that it's fully dark by 4:30... I will admit though, it is kind of a shock really, going from 5:30 one day to 4:30 the next. I liked things better when DST ended a bit earlier so there was a bit more time to adjust...
But yeah, even though I was expecting it and don't mind, it sure seemed to get dark very early today.
It appears they actually had a team division, and "cute" won out. Now I'm fine with a game looking unrealistic, but the extent of "cute" apparently didn't stop there, it went into the gameplay. A few years ago, the game was actually far more in depth, and they spent the long delays all this time effectively REMOVING content!
I still don't have Spore. I've seen how it actually plays now and a lot of my past interest decayed. It's sad really. It isn't Will Wright's fault it seems, but other forces in the company.
I can certainly hope that, if not resolved via expansions, a "Spore 2" (or a full rename, perhaps actually calling it "Sim Everything" as they originally wanted to) would be far more faithful to the original vision.
Currently, the YouTube vid has less than 150,000 views and it was posted today, so it's not yet the viral sensation that it most certainly will be. So here's your chance to be among the first wave of people to listen to it! Anyways, two Montreal prank callers got ahold of Sarah Palin and were pretending to be French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Palin is basically irrelevant at this point and will be completely forgotten after Tuesday, and the call would have been funnier had it been made three weeks ago. Still, it's pretty funny hearing lines like "I must say, Governor Palin, I love the documentary they made on your life, you know, Hustler’s "Nailin Palin."
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From the Palin Campaign: "Governor Palin received a phone call on Saturday from a French Canadian talk show host claiming to be French President Nicholas Sarkozy. Governor Palin was mildly amused to learn that she had joined the ranks of heads of state, including President Sarkozy, and other celebrities in being targeted by these pranksters. C'est la vie."
Also, this is the woman that President Sarkozy married:
They put up a demo of this game on XBox Live, so I went and downloaded it. I'm very much impressed. It's a lot better than videos do justice.
At first I thought "what am I just driving around?" but to play it, I found that it's no driving game. It's still a wacky platformer, you just end up moving in a car instead of with a character. In fact you can still use your character if you want, but the point is there's still all sorts of jiggy hunting and the speed just means all the more wackiness. There's these suctiony guys who drag your car all over the dang place, and you can construct it by all sorts of means, and the physics system makes the cars behave in all sorts of weird ways.
Grunty's back, and she's a mechanic now, but so is everyone it seems. The demo has really impressed me!
Without a doubt AWESOME. It's familiar enough that you know Bethesda developed it, but definitely it's own game.
The graphics are bumped up from Oblivion and painted with several thick coats of pure atmosphere, aided by some great music and sound work. Characters look much more like real people than the horrid monsters that infested previous Bethesda games and their voices are much less mechanical and a lot more fluid, something that benefits from better and more diverse writing.
Yes, the game is brown, brown, BROWN, unlike the lush green of Oblivion, but somehow it feels so much more fun to explore. Every little room and building and out-of-the-way corner of the world feels like it was put there for you to gawk at, rather than randomly generated using some computer program. Indoor areas are particularly nice, especially with soft light filtering through the windows.
Did I mention that the writing and voice acting is greatly improved? Because it is. Each town has numerous NPCs with their own personality and voice actor, as well as numerous lines of dialogue. There's also multiple dialogue options in virtually every conversation. Not all of them make a big difference, but you can tailor your responses to suit the character your playing as.
Character faces, while vastly improved, don't move too much aside from flapping lips. It's certainly not a game-breaker, but it's annoying to listen to someone yelling at you in panic while their face shows dull boredom. Especially when everything else in Fallout 3 has seen such a huge improvement over previous Bethesda games.
V.A.T.S. is cool, even if it is something of a glorified cheat button. Basically, it lets you hit enemies on any part of their body, generally with a high degree of accuracy even at low gun skill levels. But holy Moses is it fun to use. Not using V.A.T.S. is still very much a viable option, but it feels positively pedestrian compared to its skill-based brother.
There's lot of healing sources around, generally in the form of water fountains or sinks and the like, but the trade-off is that it gives you a dose of radiation. So it's best to keep some RAD-X on hand when things get dicey. Or, take your chances and hope the next town isn't too far off. Weapons, armor, and ammo are fairly plentiful, especially in raider camps, but guns wear out over time and the areas in between are...well...mostly barren. Money also seems to be farely tight, so don't blow your caps on useless stuff.
So far I haven't really used my skills too much, although I did notice that one sidequest requires a repair skill of at least 30 to complete. There's also a ton of perks that offer you various skills and bonuses. I'm sticking with the old Swift Learned mainstay to start out with.
I've only played for about 3 hours so far, but this could very well be my favorite games this year. It's THAT good. Based on first impressions alone I'd be very temped to give it a high 9.
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