Fallout 3

I'm going to start by saying I absolutely hated Oblivion. It felt clunky, uninspired and irritating to play. Aside from the visually astounding graphics (which, let's face it are not hard to come by anymore) and the awesome voice acting from Patrick Stewart (Uriel Septum, Emperor of stupid names) and Sean Bean, the game held no merit for me.

Fastest Plot NPC Death ever?

Fallout 3 on the other hand. Oblivion with guns? Hang on a minute....Whatever Bethesda did, they fixed everything I hated about Oblahvion. The game is set in a post apocalyptic future, where nukes have gone off and the ol' US of A is effectively a sinder. Oh yeah but not everyone is dead. Some chose to hide out in mystical underground bunkers called 'Vaults', only to emerge after the bombs have dropped to find everyone is either dead, emaciated by radiation or an idiot. Mostly the latter. You are a denizen of Vault 101, you were born (apparently) and raised there. Your father is Liam Neeson (Fantastic choice, I wish my Dad was Liam Neeson) but one day in your late teens; he disapears off into the wastelands, and naturally you go after him. So begins the epic tale of Fallout 3.

There goes....everything!

Now that mindless sword slashing and bunny hopping (that's right, in an RPG) had been replaced with gun fire and heavy weapons, I felt much more at home. The one think that did irk me was the random accuracy issues with nearly all weapons. When you fired a weapon, rounds would literally just float in whatever direction suited them best at the time, it's almost as if Mr Vault 101 had a nasty case of the shakes all the damn time. This is probably to at least make killing enemies a challenge, otherwise you could probably just sit back with the hunting rifle and kill everyone with headshots. That and you have the wonderfully convenient Vault-tec assisted targetting system ,or V.A.T.S, which allows you to freeze time and choose a body part to mutilate with your weapon of choice, at the cost of action points per shot (or burst of shots in the case of automatic weapons).HaaaaaAAAARRGGGHHH...

You have your main story quest which is obviously starting out your search for Daddy dearest, and the usual bevy of side quests which rear their ugly heads in the form of various peoples' annoying problems that generally involve you going to some bat shit mad area of the Capital Wasteland, oh yes its set in and around D.C., to be rewarded with what is usually a good quantity of items/bottlecaps (the currency) etc but occasionally bugger all (see: a pat on the back). Traversing the wasteland can become quite fun, instead of the monotonous task you'd think it could be. There's varying enemies, different camps of raiders etc scattered over the land as well as the occasional settlement (sometimes bombed out). On top of this you still have the option to quick travel assuming you've visited the location first.

So secure you'll never be allowed to leave!

I feel like a could gone for pages about the depth of the game, it has the standard of most RPGs, statistics, perks/talents, leveling up, good path/evil with separate endings, but the game also has so much more depth and character than most RPGs. I can honestly say that Fallout 3 is one of the most deep and well written RPGs I've ever played. Most importantly however, it has what Oblivion lacked most, consistent immersion. When you played Oblivion, just when you were getting into it, the game would trip and fall on it's arse, wiping any sense of truly being part of the game world. When you play Fallout 3 you can sit and play for several hours without ever breaking focus, and when you eventually have to stop to eat/sleep/excrete bodily toxins, you wont want to. When a friend recently asked me what the best RPG available on the PS3 (as well as Xbox 360 and PC) was at current, I immediately answered with "Fallout 3." and I'd say the same to anyone else. Buy this game, you need it in your life.

Superbad - Mini-Review

Okay I watched this last night. It wasn't as great as people made it out to be. It was basically a film of two halves for me. The stuff with Seth and Evan was just plain annoying. Seth was a fat idiot who got on my nerves and Evan was one massive Self-Cock block. Now Fogol and the two cops of the other hand, that was great, hilarious, I laughed out loud at almost every scene with those three. If they'd just gone and focused the film around McLovin and the cops, it would have been a much funnier film overall. It made me wanna go smoke at points, and thats bad.

The Happening

So then, The Happening. A film that has been almost universally slammed with the turkey award by reviewers. A select few have however given it slightly more positive reviews, that pick up on some of the finer (See: Less Crap) points of the film. If anything I have more respect for these critics than any of the others, simply because it seems like they've actually bothered to watch the film with an open mind. So basically they've done they're fucking job, whereas others have picked the mindless simpleton route (one taken far too often in the deteriorating world of film critics) of just saying everything about it was shit and moved on. However this is a review, not a rant about overpaid, idiotic critics claiming 300 was jingoistic. No this is my review damnit.



M. Night Shymalan has been making abnormal horror films for a while now. He directed and wrote Sicth Sense. Good Film. He did the same with Unbreakable. Also a good film. He wrote and directed Signs, and that film for one, scared the shit out of me when I saw it, and that's what you want from a horror film; to be scared. I have this awful bloody habit of watching horror films late at night with nothing to keep me company but a desk lamp, and this usually heightens the experience, albeit a perticularly scary one. More on this later however. The Happening is Shymalan's latest horror offering, following from what (I've been told) the sin against Paul Giamatti that Lady in the Water. Since Signs, things seem to have gone down hill, however I would register 'The Happening' as a slight bump in that downward scale, as opposed to a continuation of negativity. While the film is no classic, it's not a turkey either.


What appears to be the problem here is that it's badly written, which is surprising considering Shymalan's track record thus far. What this leads to is almost apathy from some of the main characters, with Wahlberg spouting one of the least emotional 'Oh My God' s I've ever heard. But I feel it's made up for with the scary bits, again more on that soon. Mark Wahlberg plays the lead role, a teacher who seems to be a bit more observant than the rest of East Coast America. So suddenly everybody starts dying on the Easy Coast of the states, everyone shits themselves and goes smarmy with the usual 'Terrorists are using Biological Weapons' stuff. However the plot moves on and as more and more people die, it is realised it's not in fact Al-Qaeda, it's that utter bitch mother nature, specifically those sneaky bastard trees. So Wahlberg and his former lady escape off intot the great American outdoors with his best mates kid (He was dead so it's cool I guess). The trees are releasing a chemical into the air that when inhaled causes a person to kill them self with what ever means are available at the time. For example, a man starts a large lawn mower going in a circle then lies down in front of it. Nifty. I won't elaborate on the plot further but needless to say, people are dying, and in interesting ways too.


So basic plot outline, now on to why I like the film. The Horror part. There's something terribly harrowing about watching an entire city full of people all stop and take their lives at once. That fearful sense of recognition on one of the characters face when they know what's just or is about to happen(ed). Despite what's killing people being invisible, there's a sign involved in knowing when it's about to hit. It's not everywhere at once you see. That sign being a strong gust of wind being heard as it shakes the grass and plants nearby. I don't know why, but it is actually quite scary. Especially at 2 AM on a Thursday morning, in the dark. It's this horror factor that redeems this film in my eyes. It gives you a reason to watch it. That and Mark Wahlberg. I love Mark Wahlberg.


So, The Happening. Not a great film, but not a bad film for those who enjoy a good horror. So my recommendation is rent it, or buy it if your a Shymalan fan. I may buy it when it eventually goes super cheap, as these films inevitably do. But give it a watch, by whatever methods you prefer.

Rainbow Six Vegas 2

First a little background. The Rainbow Six games have always focused on realism, which is an admirable quality in a world near invincible shooter characters who seem to be so tooled up with gear that a small nuke couldn't stop them. The RB6 Vegas games changed that somewhat, and while you still take realistic damage (a single headshot WILL kill you) the annoying little health bar (see below) that was ever present at the bottom of the previous Rainbow games have been removed. While this may knock back the realism a little bit, it's an appreciated change as it increases survivability and the fun factor of the game. Instead your health now gradually recoups and the more you've been shot the harder it is to focus, so as your health 'regenerates' everything comes back into focus. Thus it is still desirable not to get shot but the gun-toting terrorists. Job done, nice one Ubi.


The RB6 Vegas games are set after the book by Tom Clancy (which is one hell of a read, even if i did take me a year + to finish the damn thing) where the team you knew have since retired to government etc positions or whatever. One of them now directs the team but I forget who. They're all probably in the background somewhere. What Vegas 2 is in essence is an expansion of the first game. The stories are interlocking and you very much get a nice perspective of what's going down with the other team while the one in Vegas 1 were getting shot up in casinos.


The game improves on a lot of areas where Vegas 1 was weak. For example, although Vegas 1 was a fun game and all, it had little replay value for me. Vegas 2 has introduced a new rank and Aces system which means as you play you'll rank up and gain new unlocks. You unlock new weapons to use with the ACEs system which awards points which go towards ranks for actions that fall under Marksmanship, CQB and Assault. Each has it's own unique set of weapons to unlock and the game is very careful not to let any of these weapons fall into your possession as the game progresses. I haven't seen head or tail of an AK-47 thus far and it's near the top of the Assault unlocks. It's this kind of system that made me go back after finishing the game on Easy, to try the harder difficulties (which award more experience/ACE points). On top of this the cover and squad control feels much smoother and they've also added voice controls for squad commands although I've yet to try them. It also adds a very high level of customisation to your character, when you first start playing you choose the appearance of the main protagonist and as you advance you can change you body armour to suit your play style whether you prefer to be a heavily armoured behemoth of a Special Forces Operative or perhaps a more agile lightly armoured fairy git. Whatever floats your boat I guess.

The game still uses the immensely popular Unreal 3 Engine and the graphics are relatively unchanged from the first game, although things look crisper and shinier than before. The game has relatively little in the way of 'options' when it comes to graphics control. You can change the resolution but that's about and the game chooses what's best for your machine which is alright but it sucks if you wanna play around and fine what's best for you. That said it's still very good for choosing the right options, on my meagre machine things only really tend to slow down in smokey/exploding/manymanyterrorist situations. It's amusing to flick on the Heat Vision and see what it would be like if the game was running at top FPS. The sound quality is excellent with the right kit, half way through playing the game I upgraded from crumbly on-board sound to a Sound Blaster 4 with 5.1 and the difference was somewhat sexual. There's nothing better than bouncing down a building and then flying through a window guns blazing to some unsuspecting freedom fighter reading the paper in glorious 5.1. The Multiplayer is the usual mix of Deathmatch and the like you'd expect in an FPS, but theres also a Terrorist Hunt gametype which you can do both On and Offline to let you play with your hard earned guns and cause lots of collateral damage in the process. To top that off you can play the game through in Co-Op with your mates and double team those evil renegades. Nothing like replacing the stable but somewhat stupid AI (Get the fuck out of the way so I can shoot those guys! Oh great now he's dead and you've stolen my kills!) to get the job done good and proper.

Overall the game feels good to play. It's not the greatest game ever and I'll likely grow tired of it eventually, but it'll certainly be longer than your average game. If your a fan of Rainbow Six games then certainly buy this, if your a fan of FPS games buy this, hell if you like shooting stuff buy this. It's fun for the whole (See: Most) family.

A Blog you say?

My general opinion on blogs is one of distaste. The idea of some random individual from some random country in the world posting how awful/great their life is doesn't sit well with me. On top of that; it annoys me. To sum up, they're stupid.

But wait you say, this is what your doing right now, blogging! Hypocrite!

While this maybe true I intend to use this space to vent information of a critical nature, as opposed to that of a a stupid one. I look around me in my life and I see friends writing stuff, mostly short stories/novels but none the less writing. It makes me think 'Why the hell don't I do that? Oh right, I'm lazy.' So I see this as possibly a low maintenance alternative to writing full blown magnificent octopus (Magnum Oppus). What I want to do is just write my own little reviews of stuff I play, see, even read for the sake of my own literary advancement. I don't have any intention of becoming a writer, I just want to do something like this. They'd basically be my own opinions, why I like or dislike a game. No meaningless score at the end, if you want numbers go troll metacritic.

So there you go, expect something in the next few hours probably. Probably.