Being a Devil and True Mortal in Fallout 3 isn’t tricky at all

Well, I did it. I saw the chance, and I took it, and I think I’m somewhat okay with it despite the fact that the way I unlocked True Mortal was most definitely 100% evil. First, let’s ooh and ahh over these two Fallout 3 Achievements I pinged back to back last night:

Devil (20G): Reached Level 30 with Bad Karma

True Mortal (20G): Reached Level 30 with Neutral Karma

Mmm pretty. And here’s how I got them. I leveled my bad karma girl Samantha up to about 3/4s of Level 29 by tossing some Nuka Grenades at Super Mutant Overlords and watching them–from a safe distance–burn. Then she fast-traveled back to Tenpenny Tower wherein Sam rested until about 1:00 am. Using some Stealth Boys (I left my ninja invisibility suit in my room), Samantha crept towards those sleeping in their beds and proceeded to murder each and every one of ’em, snagging a meaty bonus thanks to the Mr. Sandman perk. Then, right before slitting Mr. Burke’s throat as he dreamed about big explosions and punching puppies, I saved my game. Then I had her slice, and bam, Level 30 achieved with bad karma. Reloaded my game to do it again, but this time, for my perk, I picked the one that re-sets your karma to neutral. And that was that. Rather easy, and I’m thankful to not have to grind from Level 20 to Level 30 on my third play of Fallout 3, as that is simpy the longest, hardest part to do.

Speaking of that, I need some help. I used a good karma beard dude named Pauly for my first playthrough in Fallout 3, and a bad karma redheaded woman named Samantha for my second playthrough. Not sure what direction I want to go in for my third. I do know, however, that I want to get Dogmeat as early as I can, as well as focus on either melee weapons or unarmed to get a different outlook on the gameplay. Here’s a male/female version of what I’d like to use stat-wise:

MALE/FEMALE CHARACTER

Name: Jimbob Jollywag or Babs or Tyrion
Race: ??? (African American, Asian, Caucasian, Hispanic)
Karma: Neutral
S.P.E.C.I.A.L. skills: Strength 7, Perception 5, Endurance 6, Charisma 5, Intelligence 6, Agility 5, Luck 6
Tag skills: Melee Weapons, Repair, Explosives

With this, I’d be focused on whacking people to death with batons and baseball bats, repairing my whacking sticks, and tossing grenades when things get too tough. I’m sure I’ll sneak a few pistol shots in, too, but I don’t want to go down the same small weapons path as before. Not sure what early perks I’d take though. Suggestions?

And I’m definitely open to suggestions for names and/or what a character should look like. Consider this the beginning of a Let’s Play that you’ll never see the rest of!

For help with this mockup as well as a good idea as to how this character would progress, I used the Fallout 3 Character Creator website.

That’s Fallout 3 karma for ya

As evil aligned Samantha creeps closer to Level 30 in Fallout 3, I’m contemplating cheating. Only, when you sit back and look at it, it’s really not cheating at all. In fact, Bethesda seems to be encouraging me to do this. This being saving my game just before leveling up, reloading, and then changing my karma from evil to neutral before I hit Level 30 to unlock an Achievement for both karma cutoffs. It’s that or I play the entire game for a third time, something that is not looking like fun for me as I’m currently, well, very busy. And going insane. Y’know how it is.

Anyways, there’s a couple of perks that automatically switch one’s karma level around so that I don’t have to go find a Wasteland bum I’ve not yet killed and give him a hundred bottles of purified water. Even though the game itself is providing me with ways to switch my karma status right before I level up, it still feels wrong. Part of me is screaming, “Cheater! Achievement whore!” And yet another is nudging me gently, as if to say, “You know, you’re getting married soon. And Fallout: New Vegas is almost here. Time really is of the essence. Do it, and then you’d only have to play through the game as a neutral karma dude until you hit Level 20. Do it. For all of us.”

Cheat, don’t cheat. It’s cheating. it’s not cheating. Ughhhh….

So yeah, I’m battling with myself. I really would love to have everything completed in Fallout 3 before I dive head-first into Fallout: New Vegas, as the completionist in me sees that it is possible, and so it must be done. I will say that I’m extremely thankful not to see karma-tied Achievements in the next game, but the ones for dealing X amount of damage with specific weapon types will be my new bane. If you don’t remember, I’m not a big fan of BIG GUNS. Yup. So, we’ll see how this goes. There’s also the possibility that I might just forget to even save at a convenient time and screw myself out of this opportunity.

Just about finished with The Saboteur

Well, I had a successful weekend grinding ambient freeplay events into oblivion in The Saboteur. How successful, you ask? Just check out this string of Achievements unlocked over the past two days:

Tourist (15G): You collected all monument postcards.

Wrecking Crew (15G): You completed 333 ambient freeplay in Paris Area 1.

Unnatural Disaster (15G): You completed 212 ambient freeplay in Paris Area 2. 

Walking WMD (15G): You completed 239 ambient freeplay in Paris Area 3.

Guerilla Warfare (15G): You completed 425 ambient freeplay in the countryside.

Whew. The toughest part about this grinding was…not quitting. Especially in Paris Area 1, 2, and 3, because in those areas, the majority of ambient freeplay events are on the roofs of buildings, and if there’s one thing Sean’s not, it’s Assassin’s Creed. Climbing roofs and up tall, bulky buildings is slow and unfun, clunky to put it perfectly, and some buildings seem nearly unclimbable. They are not, but it could take a good ten minutes or so just to find the one ledge that will get things going in the right direction. Frustrating when all one is looking for is a silly little postcard. I definitely had more fun blowing up Nazis in the countryside, using trees for cover and running alongside streams. Plus, y’know, cows. Mooo. Er, right. Anyways, at this point, there’s four Achievements left in the game. Two seem impossible for me, one is a maybe, but would require even more repetitive grinding, and the last is halfway complete, but I just don’t know if I need to play The Saboteur anymore. I’ve seen a lot already, blown up just about everything–in fact, there’s only 10 white dots left on my map. Check out my e-peen! But yeah, with a nearly empty map, there’s only running around and listening to Sean curse. Guess me and him are more or less fini.

Spent 75,000 contraband in The Saboteur, and all I got was this lousy Achievement

Yay, I can finally stop fully stocking up on weapons and ammo for guns I don’t even use in The Saboteur because I unlocked the following Achievement last night:

Saint Honoré (15G): You spent 75,000 contraband.

That took awhile, and yes, I’m including my own goofiness here from when I played for two nights straight and forgot to save each time. Oof. Basically, my strategy for this was as so: fill up on grenades and dynamite, buy ammo for ALL weapons, grab two, with one of them in particular the rocket launcher, go out and destroy some Nazi white dots until I ran out of ammunition, die, and do it all over again. Simple, but slow. I also was kind of banking on popping some other Achievements along the way–like the ones for clearing X ambient freeplay events in Paris Area 1, Paris Area 2, Paris Area 3, and the surrounding countryside–but that hasn’t happened yet. Phooey. Sure feels like I blew up a ton of Nazi guardtowers.

Reviewing the Achievements list, I’m a little uncertain about many of them. Solid Gold asks that Sean earned every gold level perk, which is not an easy task. I have four or five to go, but I’m struggling with the ones that say to blow up 10 Nazi soldiers with dynamite in like 10 seconds, as well as the perk specific for Nazi vehicles. I think I missed the boat on the Liberator of France Achievement as that deals with inspiring the people of France, most likely tied to a side mission no longer available, and I am only working off of one save file. The remainder do just involve a lot more grinding (finding postcards, kissing women, rescuing innocent civilians), which I feel like I’m going to get tired of very soon. If I don’t finish everything up here that I want to complete by the time I get Fallout: New Vegas…well, it mostly won’t ever get done then. Oh well. I’m okay with not 1,000 Gamerscoring this one, but it might’ve been nice since it’s very much an underdog release. It’s definitely given me a lot of content to eat up for a minimal price tag of $17.00 used.

Full Gamerscore magically earned for LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4

It was a bit of a grind, playing the same levels over and over, pestered with some frustration thanks to glitches telling me that there were Gold Bricks where Gold Bricks were not, but another LEGO game has fallen under the power of my mighty gaming fist. Either way, all Achievements have now been unlocked for LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4. Sadly, the majority of them were extremely tame, and I feel like Traveller’s Tales really missed a lot of opportunities with this one. Sure, other LEGO games were just as mild when it came to in-game tasks, but LEGO Batman had a couple nifty Achievements that dealt with gliding for a specific distance and backflipping about as Robin, and the groundwork here is so diverse and magical that it is, ultimately, a shame it got wasted. Basically, the bulk of Achievements here are about doing X a Y amount of times.

Like so:

• Destroy 50 plants with Lumos Solem spell
• Collect all House Crests in Years 1, 2, 3, and 4
• Rescue all students in peril
• Defeat 10 enemies with a Muggle character
• Defeat 20 enemies with Fang
• Scare 20 students using a ghost character
• Defeat 20 spiders with Ron
• Fall asleep typing up this lame list

By and far, the only shining light Achievement-wise is this nod at a certain stealthy dude that might get sorted into Slytherin if the Sorting Hat ever got on his head (I hope some of you get that; hint: ssssssssnakes):

Solid Snape (15G): Hide in a barrel as Snape

Yup, that’s it. A funny one, too. The rest are…extremely uninspired.

Another swing-and-a-miss from TT involves the Mauraders’ Map. In Year 3, Harry and Ron are chasing Peter Pettigrew down a dark Hogwarts hallway. Well, not Pettigrew exactly. More like Scabbers (spoiler!). Anyways, just like in the movie version, fancy script floats in the air showing the location of several characters, moving as they move. It looks awesome; it’s also the only time it happens. I think that, after completing Year 3, Harry should have gotten to keep the map to use around Hogwarts, because that place is a bit big and confusing, and it would’ve really helped with the game’s immersion. Maybe they can remedy this in LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7.

I’ve got other complaints (and praises! I promise I loved a lot, too!) for LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4, but I think I’ll save ’em for a full writeup.

Magically easy money strategy in LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4

There’s lots of things to buy in LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4. More so than any other LEGO games. Spells, characters, Gold Bricks, Red Bricks…oh yeah. One’s going to need a lot of studs–the LEGO equivalent to real world money–and I’m here to show y’all a good strategy for acquiring lots of them as you play. Yes, I’m totally aware that simple password cheats exist to help you rack up the studs via multipliers, but personally…that comes across as cheating in my mind. I’d rather earn everything over time than just simply unlock it all in under 30 seconds.

Anyways, once you have access to the Foutain Courtyard at Hogwarts (which further gives you access to the Quidditch Training Field and the Clock Tower), you’ll be able to destroy all the statues around the fountain. Do this. Then use Wingardium Leviosa on the resulting pieces to unlock a Red Brick, also known as a parcel for owl delivery. Bring it over to the local owl, and you’ll unlock the Red Brick for Collect Ghost Studs. Immediately go to Diagon Alley and purchase this ability, which I believe costs like 90,000 studs; the sooner you turn it on, the better your bank account becomes.

During the main missions of the games, a ghost (Nearly Headless Nick, I believe) will be your guide around the castlegrounds and to your next important location. He leaves behind a trail of ghostly studs, which, without this new ability unlocked, give no actual…uh, studdage. Once you do turn this extra feature on, each ghostly stud gives you 1,000 studs. Ka-ching, ka-ching! Now all you gotta do is follow him around each and every time, sometimes leaving an area and coming back to follow him some more. The studs will accumulate really fast. Once you’ve completed all four years, however, the ghost will no longer be active…so, the sooner you get this, the better. Remember, the spell Accio costs four million studs. Let me show you what that looks like in number form: 4,000,000. Get to it!

I’m currently replaying the game solo to collect EVERYTHING as my OCD demands and finish up the Achievements list. I’m leaving the game data Tara and I played together alone until we can get explore the castlegrounds as one happy couple; she’s gonna be so excited to unlock Mad-Eye Moody. Heck, I was thrilled to see that Neville could use his pet frog! This game should really be called LEGO Harry Potter: Fan Service. I’m still very happy with a lot of it, too, but the boss battles disappoint me each and every time.

Achievements for Fallout: New Vegas lack glitz and glam

With a month or so to go until its release, the Achievements list for Fallout: New Vegas was bound to be spoiled early. And now it has. Everyone toss your poker chips into the air and give a shout of joy! Well…mild joy. Alas, the Achievements are rather uninspired. They follow the same format, more or less, as Fallout 3, with a chunk given for completing quests, another for reaching specific levels (though this time without karma), and others for doing X a number of times. The toughest-looking Achievement is probably Hardcore, which demands you play the game from start to finish on hardcore difficulty. Everything else should just come naturally with time and persistence. I’m guessing snowglobes are the new bobbleheads. And sadly, there’s no random Achievements like Fallout 3‘s Pyschotic Prankster (10G; Placed a grenade or mine while pickpocketing). It’s all plain Jane.

I guess that’s okay. I mean, truthfully, I don’t play games just for Achievements…but I kind of expected a little more flair here given the Vegas setting and all. The names are pretty solid, but the actions to earn them are yawn-worthy. I half-expected some for maybe beating the game without killing anyone or another for strippers.

Fallout: New Vegas is set to release on October 19, 2010, for the PS3, PC, and Xbox 360, and I’ll be honeymooning in Florida, spending my time storming Hogwarts and riding all the non-scary rides. Oh well. The game will have to wait for my grand return.

So…ready to see ’em? Click the linky below to see the full list of Achievements for Fallout: New Vegas.

Scott, if your life had a face, I’d punch it and gain XP

Yesterday, after work, Tara and I went looking for apartments. Cause, more than likely, we’re gonna need a place to live after we get married. The one we saw is decent; it’s old and old-like, and it has these slanted ceilings to it because it’s basically the third floor, and these slanted ceilings are going to do battle with me and my head. Tara will be fine; she’s a short thing. But yeah, the timing of things to come and the constant worry of money and/or lack of money…well, it hit us hard with The Stress. Thankfully, I knew that once I got back to my pad that there’d be a light of happiness and distraction. See, Scott Pilgrim VS. The World: The Game hit Xbox Live just yesterday. Sure, those Playstationheads have already got to enjoy it now for a week, but I’ve had to bide my time accordingly. Not like I have things to do or anything. ::ahem::

So, this game…it’s hard. And it sounds beautiful. And the animations are top-notch. And I died a lot as Kim, and I could only beat Ramona’s first evil ex as a level 4 Scott. And I spent almost all of my money on sushi. And I love the references to all things O’Malley like the Kupek graffiti or seeing Lost at Sea in the bookstore. It’s Scott Pilgrim the Game, through and through.

One thing I don’t like though is how it controls, but the majority of that blame falls upon the Xbox 360’s controller. The left analog stick does not allow for quick side-stepping and yet the d-pad below it is not in the best place for this kind of button-mashing game. My thumb’s natural instinct is to go to the analog stick, and this leads to many faulty moves. And I don’t think I ever hit the block button once, but maybe I should rethink that considering how beat up Kim got.

Managed to snag three Achievements though:

Dirty Trick (10G): Defeated an enemy by throwing an object at him while he was already down.

Shopaholic (20G): Bought all the items of a shop during the same visit.

New Challenger (10G): Defeated Matthew Patel without losing a life.

That last one had me nervous. Patel wiped the floor with Kim thanks to his hipster demon girls, but Scott has a great kick-uppercut combo that slowly whittled him down into coins. After that, the world map opened to two areas, one that I’ve already gone to (the shopping district). Didn’t have any more time to play as the pillows were calling out my name. Might try more tonight, but every review says that the game gets extremely challenging for solo players. Gotta wait for Tara to join me in cold, snowy, pixelated Toronto. However, I’m not totally convinced on the RPG elements within, as the leveling up system is…decidedly odd. Will have to (pun-intended) experience it more.

LEGO Harry Potter’s final boss fight is like an Unforgivable Curse

Unforgivable.

Well, that’s another game beat for 2010.

Over the weekend, Tara and I finished up the last book section of LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4, completing the full game with a lowly completion percentage of about 35%. Yeah, there’s a lot more to collect, as well as Hogwarts to explore and open more Metroid-style. We’ll get there…in time. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. You see, I’m disappointed…greatly. The boss battles here are three steps back from the wonderfully imaginative ones in LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues. Instead of creative and challenging, they were lame and over way too quickly. The Mountain Troll required you to lift its club over its head three times and let it drop; Aragog and his spider kiddies required some trial and error, but it was ultimately easy once you knew what to do; the fight against the Dementors was over fast once you realized you only had to target each one with the Expecto Patronum spell. And now we get to the final boss battle, the big one, the face-to-face duel between Harry and You-Know-Who. In the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, this fight was epic; it came out of nowhere; it gave us the readers our very first tug of emotional death; and it become memorable the moment it was done.

The very same boss fight in LEGO Harry Potter? Eh, not so much. First off, Cedric Diggory is alive during the fight for co-op purposes. Fine, fine. Not a dealbreaker as it allowed Tara to battle the incoming Deatheaters as I, Harry, played wand versus wand with Lord Voldemort. This meant that, when Voldie cast his spell at me, I had to tap X rapid fire until it pushed the spell back into him. Then I did this a second time. And finally, a third. BOSS FIGHT OVER. Wipe nonexistent sweat off your brow. Roll scene and credits. Oophm.

Tara even commented that she felt something was off there. That the maze level leading up to the boss fight was more challenging and clever than that. Which it was. Ten times the challenge. A shame really. Still, we have plenty more game to play…though I did go and grab some easy Achievements last night, namely these three:

Chilled Out (10G): Freeze 20 characters using Glacius

Boo! (10G): Scare 20 students using a ghost character

Back in Time (10G): Use the Time-Turner

The majority of the remaining Achievements involve a lot of replaying. I’ll have to check with Tara if she wants me to wait and do it with her together or if I can plow ahead and go for the full Gamerscore. It’s gonna take some time, but it will be FAR from a challenge.

Oh well. Maybe things will get a bit tougher in LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7. I mean, after all, Umbridge will be in charge for a bit then.

Autosave feature, you do not complete me

I beat The Saboteur some weeks back, but it’s a game I keep on playing. There’s a lot of post-ending grinding to do (mostly for Achievements), and I know it’s not something one completes over the course of a single night. For example, one Achievement asks that Sean spend 75,000 contraband. That’s A LOT. By the game’s end, I had only spent around 45,000, and this Achievement now involves a lot of weapon/ammo buying, and dying to head back to the shop to rinse and repeat. So…slow is the name of the game, but that’s okay with me. I enjoy playing this game in short spurts, killing a couple of Nazi dots and continuing to explore this wonderfully open Paris.

However, I loaded up the game last night to discover that my last save was from early July 2010. Um, no. I had just played the game a few days before…which means all that hard work of blowing up Nazi towers and collecting postcards was all for naught. This also includes the roughly 5,000 contraband I worked on spending to get me closer to the 75,000 mark. And here’s why this happened: I relied on autosave, a function that worked well throughout the main story missions as it saved often and strongly, most often at different mission checkpoints. However, in the post-game world, where there’s no missions left to do, the autosave function does not compute as often as I’d like. I have to wonder if it even does anymore at all. Now there’s only manual saving, something I forgot to do last time. And after seeing all those white dots back on the world map, I will never forget again.

So yeah, I’m a little grumpy over this, and will now most likely take a break from The Saboteur. Just a few days, that’s all. It’s not been my proudest moment. And now I’m reminded of a beautiful little quote from our leading lad Sean Devlin, “Let’s see how proud you are with my f*cking boot up your arse!”