No service for you!

EA is shutting down online servers for its older and less popular games, such as The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II, Sims Carnival, and a great number of sports titles for various systems. The full list and killswitch dates can be found over at Giant Bomb.

I don’t own or play any of these games; this all-consuming shutdown does not affect me.

And yet it does.

I’ve always been a single-player game kind of fella. Online gaming is something that I never thought I’d get into, and so I didn’t. A few times during college, after working out a lot of firewall kinks, I would play some Command & Conquer: Red Alert late at night with my best friend a few states away, but other than that…didn’t ever see the point. I also never had a gaming PC so-to-say or any consoles that thrived on online gaming, such as an Xbox at that time. Just a PlayStation 2, and I think you needed a special degree to get that hooked up to the Interwebz. There were, of course, a few games I would’ve loved to try playing online, namely Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal and Diablo II, but the stars were not meant to align.

So, how does server shutdowns for games I don’t even play affect me? It only makes me more bitter and cautious towards online gaming. I want games to last forever, and nowadays there’s a heavy focus on social gaming (hello, Facebook!)–and without actual people, there’s nothing to play. That kind of perspective is dangerous and insulting, especially for hardened RPG fanatics that have spent countless hours alone grinding characters to perfection. In fact, some games’ multiplayer trumps single-player campaigns in terms of length and content and love. Boo to that. I’ve dabbled in GTA IV‘s online activity and found it bland and annoying; so far, the only current online experience I’ve had that was pretty successful was in Borderlands. I purposely steer clear of online, multiplayer-heavy games, and with the constant threat of server shutdown, it seems, to me, a pointless thing to invest in.

Goodbye, EA Sports FIFA Manager 10. I hardly knew ya.

All shall bow before the Master of the Mojave

Last night, while playing some Fallout: New Vegas, I found out how good I am at walking around, stumbling into numerous locales, and unlocking trivial amounts of XP:

Master of the Mojave (25G): You Discovered 125 locations.

Yowza. That’s a big number. And because the world is full of magic, it’s also the same number of comments I currently have over at this Freshly Pressed post (I’m sure this coincidence won’t last long as this link linking to it will count as a comment as well, thus pushing it to 126).

But yeah…discovering locations. It’s an addicting thing, especially in a world as expansive as Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. The hooks are twofold: one is seeing a light gray mark on your HUD, indicating an undiscovered location is nearby, waiting for you, hungering for you…and the other trick is simply seeing a glimmer of something in the distance and fully knowing that you could walk over to it and see what’s happening. And one’s reward for discovering a location is a tiny bit of XP and the ability to fast-travel to it in the future. My favorite part, however, is the sound Obsidian added to finding a location: it’s a deep, low boom that can put nerves on end. I love hearing it every time. In Fallout 3, it was a ka-ching kind of sound, which worked, but does not create the effect of uncertainty and gloom that the Mojave Wasteland loves to ooze.

125 locations is the cap for Achievement purposes, but I suspest there’s still a good number of places left to discover. Haven’t even ventured into Deathclaw territory yet, such as Quarry Junction. Just need Jareth (who is really a Bono clone) to repair his Chinese stealth suit, and then we’re good to go.

All Achievements Achieved: Harm’s Way

Harm’s Way is one of two finalists for the Doritos Unlock Xbox competition where developers created Doritos-themed games. The other game is Doritos Crash Course. Ironically, both games are not, um, Doritos-themed, but full-fledged arcade titles with their own strengths and weaknesses. The ultimate winner of the competition was rightfully Doritos Crash Course, but the mega-chip company also tossed $50,000 at the Harm’s Way‘s creator for a job well done. Not too shabby. It’s definitely better than a lifetime supply of their All-nighter Cheeseburger chips. ::barfs::

Right. So, Harm’s Way is a racing game, but with a twist. One can try to beat their opponents by manning a turret and blowing other cars to bits before they cross the finish line. Conversely, if you’re controlling a car, other opponents can do this to you too. And that’s it. You race, you shoot, you explode, you swing around corners, you admire the above-par graphics, you sit in a turret and wait for cars to come around the corner, and you unlock Achievements with ease.

The hardest Achievement, surprisingly, was this one:

Affiliation (10G): Join a multiplayer game for the first time

Yup. Both Harm’s Way and Doritos Crash Course accounted for more than two million combined downloads since being released for free on Xbox Live Arcade, but it took me weeks to actually find enough people to start up a multiplayer game. Funny, that. Now that all 12 Achievements have been unlocked, I don’t really foresee myself playing this one ever again. Racing games, even ones with twists, aren’t my thing, and I’d rather work on my timeliness over at Doritos Crash Course. I mean, that game won for a reason–it’s a ton of fun!

I’m going to try to make All Achievements Achieved (AAA) a thingy. I’m really close on 100%-ing a few other games as you can see from the sidebar list. This will also help immensely with the backlog slack and my overall mental stability.

Fallout: New Vegas – Dead Money DLC is more like deadweight

I really wish I could properly review the first bite of DLC for Fallout: New Vegas, but alas…I cannot. Why? Well, I was unfortunately stuck in the DLC at an unbeatable section with truly little hope to hope for and had to reload an old save from many hours ago (and levels, grrr). Dropped from level 30 to level 26 in a matter of seconds. I absolutely hate doing that as it totally ruins my perception of roleplaying; undoing all my actions, changing my stats and gear and perks yet again, retconning, allowing me to know forthwith what could and could not potentially happen in future locales before I even get there…that’s just not right. But I had to do it. I’ve not yet beaten the main game with my first character, and if I hadn’t made the early save slot, I’d have lost everything.

For shame.

But let me set up Dead Money first. Because, storywise, it’s pretty potent, sinking its hooks in right from the start. The DLC starts like all previous Fallout 3 add-ons, with a mysterious radio signal leading you to a specific location. In this one’s case, it takes you to a hidden bunker where your character is gassed, stripped of all possessions, and forced to wear an explosive slave collar. You wake up near the Sierra Madre hotel before the hologram of Father Elijah. He gives you the big mission: break into the Sierra Madre casino, get into the vault, and pull off a heist. You’ll need to recruit three others for the Ocean’s 11 job, and they also have exploding slave collars on them. They die; you die. The first part of the big mission is to round up the companions; the second part is to open the hotel; and the third is, I assume, raiding it for whatever good loot is available.

I was only able to complete the first two parts…never even making it inside the Sierra Madre. What a crock of Blanco mac and cheese!

The problem with the Dead Money DLC is its gameplay. In the same fashion that Fallout 3’s first add-on of Operation Anchorage was a completely different direction (Call of Duty wannabe), Dead Money is more like a survival horror game with a heavy emphasis on melee and unarmed weaponry. That foretold bad news for my character who, going in at level 26, never put a single point into melee, unarmed, or survival. I’m a stealthy guns dude. The villa around the Sierra Madre is filled with traps, a poisonous cloud, and Ghost People, who are very hard to kill without weapons that dismember. Also, health supplies, ammo, and food are very limited, and the Mojave Wasteland caps currency are tossed aside for Sierra Madre casino chips which, while at first seem bountiful, quickly lessen. So yeah…I got screwed pretty fast.

I’m probably not gonna try this DLC again with my current character. Sadly, it’s the sort of add-on very specific for a type of character, one I’m not ready to build. I can only imagine how impossible survival the villa is in Hardcore mode. No thanks.

That said, God/Dog is a marvelous companion, with topline writing. I wish Dead Money let you take them back with you to the Mojave Wasteland, but I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that in the last chunk of the heist mission some vital decisions about your comrades-in-collars are made. I’m currently now working on some other side missions like Crazy, Crazy, Crazy and trying to recruit Raul as my last main companion. If anything,for 800 Microsoft Points, Dead Money does boost the level cap from 30 to 35, which will give me a bigger excuse to explore before trying to protect the Hoover Dam from destruction.

If Radiant Historia and Radiata Stories had a baby, it’d be called Radiatant Histories

History lesson time!

Atlus made Radiant Historia, which comes out in February 2011 and looks to be a delicious new addition to my Nintendo DS RPG collection. A few members from tri-Ace also worked on it. Tri-Ace made Radiata Stories, a PlayStation 2 RPG that never got a ton of love, but enough love to be remembered. And thus confused over now that a similarly titled game is coming out. How do I know this? Well, here’s two search terms that constantly brought readers to Grinding Down over the last week or so:

• radiata historia
• radiant stories

If you’ve been paying attention so far, you’ll know that both of those titles are incorrect and do not exist. Good thing Radiant Historia and Radiata Stories aren’t releasing at the same time; I can only imagine the looks of disappointment on young gamers’ faces as their parents purchase the wrong title for them, and then they’re stuck roleplaying the life of one snippy Jack Russell.

Either way, there better be a third game called Radiatant Histories that’s not even related to the first two games. If not, the world is missing out on a golden opportunity to actually infect consumers with small doses of dementia.

Sorry, I know…words are confusing. It’s a problem. Best of luck searching for the correct game title!

Grinding Down and the limelight

So, just before 2010 was kicked to the curb by the spicy and brand new 2011, I had a nice surprise thrown my way: Grinding Down got featured on the front page of WordPress.com! (In fact, as of this post’s writing, it’s still being featured. Go, sad pug, go!)

And just in case you are reading this post long in the future and a bunch of different blogs are being featured, here’s a quick screencap:

So freakin’ awesome.

And thanks to everyone that clicked “like” for the post, left a comment, or subscribed to my wee little gaming blog. That sure was kind of you. You certainly deserve some Princess Peach love for that! I have a lot of videogames to catch up on during this new year, and I hope to have a good time here talking about them, whether it’s ranting over Fallout: New Vegas‘s first bit of DLC or Epic Mickey‘s horrible excuse for a camera to praising the guys and gals behind Super Scribblenauts for actually listening to customer complaints and then going about fixing them. Hope you all stick around and join in on the discussions.