Achievements of the Week – The Welcome Home Edition

Oh look, another week at Grinding Down coming to a close. These things just sort of creep on me. Like creepy creepers. Like your hairy uncle that drinks too much at family gatherings. Um…

Right, moving on. Did I play more Deus Ex: Human Revolution and scour China for all of its secrets? Nope. Did I continue on with Mafia II to sneak into some government building and steal gas stamps? Nope. Did I get back into Bastion after going silent on the game for many, many weeks? Nope. Did I play the latest DLC for Fallout: New Vegas? You bet your sweet buttocks I did. And that’s basically all I played. Still dealing with a lot of stress and lack of time/energy. Hopefully, after the next few weeks, that will all be in the past. Hopefully.

From Fallout: New Vegas…

Condemned to Repeat It (20G): Decided the fate of all the Divide Dwellers

Hometown Hero (30G): Completed Lonesome Road.

So far, until more FAQs come out and the wikia is expanded, there are two ways that I know of for dealing with Ulysses, the final boss of Lonesome Road. And they are…

::SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS::

You can talk your way through it, first needing a speech skill check of 90, and then who knows what else after that. Or you can kill him. But to do so, you must first deal with a swarm of medical eyebots that are constantly healing him and constantly respawning, as well as a seemingly endlessly attack from marked men. Chances are you have ED-E with you, but he goes down very fast. Trying to take on Ulysess, two to three eyebots, and at least two marked men at once eats up a lot of stimpaks. There are machines that will stop the eyebots from spawning, but you need a 100 in either Repair or Science to do so. Guess which three skills my character Kapture neglected to focus on during this playthrough? Speech, Science, and Repair.

Basically, I was screwed, and this became even more evident after failing the fight over ten times and trying every tactic in the book. Actually, there was one final tactic left: I changed the difficulty from Normal to Very Easy. Sigh. Not ideal, but it worked; I used Pew Pew to weaken Ulysses farther than ever before and then turned him to ash with a well-timed V.A.T.S. headshot.

After that, there’s some choices involving a nuke, which, even though I clearly labeled this section as spoilery, I will not go into. Maybe another post. They’re pretty interesting, and from what I can tell, actually have a lasting effect when returning to the Mojave Wasteland.

But yeah, between Ulysses and Deus Ex: Human Revolution‘s Barrett, I’m not having a great time with boss battles lately. Why can’t we all just eat cake and talk about how great The Beatles are and then end the night with songs around the campfire? I mean, really.

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That’s it from me. How did y’all do this week? I’m guessing many of y’all played Gears of War 3 since that was the big name to drop recently. Let everyone know what Achievements you unlocked in the comments below!

The best road to progress is the Lonesome Road in Fallout: New Vegas

It was with great excitement and muted sadness that I purchased Lonesome Road last night, downloaded it, and then loaded up my character Kapture, a creepy man sitting pretty at level 34 that loves his Energy weapons. This hardened weirdo has conquered the Mojave, visited a grand casino, met the Burned Man, and obliterated a bunch of crazy brain-obsessed robots. And now, he has one more adventure, a road, dangerous and unpredictable, riddled with bombs and monsters, and he must walk it alone to find the answers of his past.

I played for about two hours or so last night, and it was a good time. Fun new weapons and the wonderful gift of a newish companion. A little scary, a little too much talking, and a little tough in certain parts. And yes, I also died probably nine or ten times, but that’s not my fault. Nobody told me there would be Deathclaws. Anyways, you get a Pip-Boy message, alerting you that a man named Ulysses is looking for you. Supposedly, this is the courier that was originally meant to deliver the Platinum Chip. Seek him out and discover his reasonings for turning the job down. Once in the Divide, you’ll follow a fairly linear path, all while Ulysses talks to you. And he talks a lot. Unfortunately, while the subject is interesting, listening to him is not; he has this slow, odd way of speaking, drawing every word and phrase out longer than it needs to be. There was a ton of chatter in Old World Blues, but the writing was much more surprising there; here, a lot of Ulysses’ thoughts are easy to guess before even picking the dialogue option, and then waiting for him to finish up his dramatic drawl about homes and roads and Old World blah blah blah is like torture.

But yeah, new locales, new weapons, new perks, new items, new recipes, an increase of +5 to the level cap (now sitting mighty at 50), and new enemy types. It’s what one now expects from a DLC pack for the Fallout franchise, and I’m enjoying it so far. I don’t want to rush through it too fast, seeing as it is the final hurrah until Fallout 4 or Fallout: New Jersey. Granted, I still need to do a Hardcore playthrough…

I didn’t realize I was doing this, just finishing the quest The Launch, but here ya go, the first Achievement unlocked in the Lonesome Road DLC:

Condemned to Repeat It (20G): Decided the fate of all the Divide Dwellers

I also learned from our last story-driven DLC that I was pronouncing ED-E wrong in my head. For some reason, I was calling our little trumpeting eyebot eee-dee-eee, not ed-dee. Like Eddie. Turns out, the dude who made him, well…calls him Eddie. I get that now. However, my brain still refuses to get it right. Oh wells.

And now, some random gameplay tips:

• Make sure your lockpicking skill is decent, at least 50+ with some skill magazines to help from time to time. There’s a lot of lockpicking so far.
• Watch out for glitches where Deathclaws randomly appear inside a ruined trailer and smack the skin off your character. It happened to me, and Tara is a witness. She thought it was a dinosaur at first. I then came up with a new song, which I sang all the way through that Deathclaws-infested stretch of road.
• Pack a lot of Rad-X and/or RadAway. Heck, bring along a Radiation Suit just to be safe. The Divide is not a place one wants to take a deep breath and smell the roses.
• Auto-Inject stimpaks are brilliant; pick up every one you can.
• Don’t stand directly in front of a not-yet-detonated nuke and shoot it. DON’T DO IT.

Good luck, fellow Couriers!

Achievements of the Week – The Back to Business Edition

I missed doing Achievements of the Week last week. Tara and I were on the road for most of that Friday, heading down to Maryland for SPX 2011. Totally worth it, and I’m sorry if I had you on the edge of your seat waiting for an update that never came. That means this edition is covering two weeks’ time. Don’t worry. I didn’t unlock a ton, just a handful in Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Mafia II. But now that we finally got the Internet set up at Grimmauld Place, it means I’m back in business, ready to officially track Achievements as they pop. You may cheer if you want. I can’t hear you from the other side of your screen.

Okay, here we go!

From Mafia II…

I’ve unlocked seven Achievements so far, but I’ll only showcase a few here. Story-based ones like “completed Chapter One” are kind of uninteresting. Don’t even try to argue otherwise.

Back to Business (10G): Do your first job for Mike Bruski.

This involved stealing a car and bringing it back in good condition. I definitely did the first half of that equation, but can’t confidently say that the car looked good when I pulled it into his yard. Those street signs just come out of nowhere, I swear it.

He Who Pays the Barber (10G): Improve the dockworkers’ haircuts.

The Achievement text is a bit misleading. Vito did not actually take out a pair of scissors, clippers, and a comb, doing wonders to these workers’ hair and bringing about all new styles and trends, like the Rachel. He simply beat up those that did not want to chip in for the “get a haircut” fund, and that was that. However, a haircut minigame would’ve been more fun as the hand-to-hand combat in Mafia II leaves a lot to be desired.

Collector’s Item (10G): Find at least one collectible in the game.

Porn. I found a porno mag. Oh my. What is this, Shadow Hearts: Covenant?

From Deus Ex: Human Revolution…

The Bull (25G): You defeated Lawrence Barrett, elite member of a secret mercenary hit squad.

Already wrote about this doozy earlier today: click, click, click.

Yes Boss (15G): You had an argument with your boss, David Sarif, and won.

I love these secret Achievements in Deus Ex: Human Revolution; they remind of the dialogue-centered ones in L.A. Noire and are all so more rewarding when they pop because I did not even expect them. I was just roleplaying Jensen to my style, being honest and ethical, taking his boss to task for something I can’t go into yet for spoiler reasons, and there ya go.

Sentimental Value (10G): You kept Megan’s bracelet for yourself. Apparently, letting go really is the hardest part.

I actually meant to give this back to Megan’s mother at the end of the sidequest, but hit the wrong button. Oops. Also…muhahaha!

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That’s it, folks. Have a great weekend gaming, and we’ll see what new Achievements pop up for next week. Hopefully some from the last story-based DLC for Fallout: New Vegas, Lonesome Road. Need more Fallout: New Vegas, now and for forever…

Tell me what you’ve unlocked recently in the comments below!

Two couriers to finally meet in Lonesome Road DLC

Are those…reskinned Trogs decorated with Christmas lights? Well, we’ll find out soon enough, as Lonesome Road, the final story-related DLC for Fallout: New Vegas, releases simultaneously on all platforms on September 20, 2011. This one has been building for quite some time now, with references to the original Courier that opted out of the Platinum Chip job appearing in the main game and then getting some more hints in Dead Money. The previous DLC, Old World Blues, also revealed more about Ulysses and was the best package yet, with amazing characters, hilarious dialogue, and a lot of neat weapons…hopefully this last hurrah can be even better.

Some leaked Achievements for Lonesome Road hint at the possibility of letting players–for the first time–bring companions with them, namely ED-E. If so, f*ck yes! If not, f*ck off. Curious to see how that works.

That said, check out the new trailer:

Hi, my name is Paul, and I’m a spoiled sneaker

I’ve been spoiled when it comes to sneaking. My latest sleuthing through future Detroit in Deus Ex: Human Revolution has definitely proved this. Mostly because I keep getting spotted by enemy units.

In Metal Gear Solid, Solid Snake had his Soliton radar at his disposal, right from the word hide. This showed enemy positions and vision cones, as well as outlines of boxes or trucks or barriers; it only became unusable during alert, evasion, and jamming phases, but otherwise, it was a great way to know who was where and how to get around them, either by crawling on the floor or making one’s way under a table.

In Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, we have a similar radar, now circular and in the lower right-hand corner of the screen, but serving the same purpose. Sometimes it can get cluttered with a hundred and five icon markers, but otherwise, it has enemies in red and shows them clearly coming after/looking for you. Oh look, a hiding spot there, there, and there. Sneaking made simple. Thanks, handy radar!

In Grinding Down fav The Saboteur, we have another circular radar, now in the lower left-hand corner, with red dots for Nazi soldiers. You couldn’t really assess their walking patterns, but you could see just how many threats were in a size-able area stretching several buildings and streets, and that was pretty vital when trying to breach an occupied location.

In Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, if you kept crouched and remained in the shadows, you could totally skirt detection. There were also some handy items like Stealth Boys and armor like the Chinese stealth armor, also known as the Hēi Guǐ, which basically guaranteed safety through patrolled sections. Increasing your Perception skill and having ED-E by your side would help detect enemies at greater distances, making it all the more easy to avoid ’em to begin with, especially Deathclaws and Cazadors.

However, in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, if Adam Jensen really wants to know where his enemies are and how far they can see and where they are looking and what their walking patterns are…well, we have too purchase it through an augmentation upgrade, and even then, it takes a few Praxis points to get things back to what I’ve come to know and expect in a radar. See, totally spoiled. Right now, I just unlocked the “cones of vision” augmentation, which helps a wee bit, but not enough to make me a true futuristic ninja. I am constantly getting spotted. All I have is a radar of dots, a handful of specks that do not make sense to me. To better hide, I need to fully upgrade three augmentations:

• Radar System: Track enemy and friendly troops, turrets, cameras, and robots.
• Infolink: Communicate discretely on the battlefield.
• Stealth Enhancer: Provides stealth-related information and allows Jensen to mark and track enemies.

Yeah, too bad I didn’t understand this from the get-go, and I spent some points elsewhere, slowing true ninja progression to a crawl. Naturally, I’m trying to go through all of Deus Ex: Human Revolution in a kind and caring way, not killing a single soul (though from what I’ve read, boss battles have to end in death, mine or theirs), and so sneaking through enemy-infested buildings is my main path, but it’s hard when one has run out of tranq darts and keeps getting spotted by a guy halfway across the room, a dot that did not even pop up yet on Jensen’s radar. Hopefully things get easier with upgrades, but who knows if the game’s even sneakable for much longer.

If only I hadn’t been so coddled over the years…

Achievements of the Week – The Legend of the Boar Edition

Posting this very early on this bright and sunny Friday as I’ll be spending it mostly moving, sweating, and moving and sweating at the same time. And who knows when we’ll have Internet again. Pray for Tara and I’s well-being as we leave the attic known as the Leaky Cauldron and head to the house in the woods, which she calls Godric’s Hollow and I call Grimmauld Place. Should be a crazy time…

Anyways, this week, I unlocked two Achievements with legend in their title and then sat idly on a boar for five minutes while checking my email. This is the very definition of excitement, I know.

From Fallout: New Vegas…

The Legend of the Star (20G): Completed The Legend of the Star.

Not going to say too much about this here as I am working on a big boy blog post, as this quest was a bit demanding, and I obviously didn’t ping this baby until my third character, wherein I really had to concentrate and pay attention to the fact that these Sunset Sarsaparilla star bottle caps were not gonna find themselves. Also, the quest’s reward is nothing great. Oi. Regardless, glad this one’s done as it was the last Achievements left for sidequests.

Caravan Master (30G): Won 30 games of Caravan.

Way back in June 2011, I wrote a rather informative blog post about how to play Caravan; you’d think, with that knowledge, that I’d have knocked this Achievement out a lot sooner than this. The problem is that the game got patched shortly after that, and the patch did things to Caravan. Cruel, nasty things. They made it so that opposing players could play cards such as kings, queens, and jacks against your own stacks, thus ruining your hard work to 26. The guy near Gun Runners was impossible, doing this every other turn. Fed up, I went back to my old staple of NCR ambassador Dennis Crocker, and while he occasionally messed up a stack of mine, it was less frequent. Six won games later, and there ya go.

Tara said,”Wham, bam, Caravan!” when I unlocked this. Love that dork.

From Nier…

The Book of Legend (20G): Grimoire Weiss joined your party.

All Aboared! (10G): You rode a boar for at least five minutes.

One of the early sidequests in Nier, given to you by some no-name villager, involves taking down a wild boar terrorizing…uh, sheep. Or people. It doesn’t matter. You just need to go kill a boar. After you do that, it seems other boars have heard of Nier’s horrible deed and are now tame around him, ready for riding. The Achievement’s descriptions says to ride the boar for five minutes, but I merely climbed on its back, put the controller down, checked what was up with Gmail and Twitter, peed, and came back to that oh-so-sweet pinging sound. All aboared indeed.

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And that’s it. Depending on our Internet status at the new house, there may or may not be an Achievements of the Week for next week. We’ll see.

Unlock any good ones lately, Grinding Down readers? Tell me in the comments below.

Achievements of the Week – The Correct Party Position Edition

Well, here’s a new Grinding Down segment that I am going to strive to make a thing. Every Friday, when I remember or care or feel like it is necessary, I’ll round up some of my favorite Achievements that I unlocked during the week. Not all of them, mind you. Just the fun ones, the ones with some story to them, the questionable. Alas, there might be some weeks where I unlock zero Achievements, with the blame either on my gaming skills or lack of playing time or me spontaneously combusting. Yup, you read that right. I don’t want to get all predictable on y’all…

From Portal…

Partygoer (5G): Make the correct party escort submission position decision.

Terminal Velocity (5G): Fall 30,000 feet.

It’s a little after one in the morning, and I have to use the bathroom. I’m currently playing Portal in total darkness, the ceiling fan humming overhead, dulling GLaDOS and hypnotizing me towards sleep. In a tiny alcove, I create a blue portal overhead and an orange portal on the floor, and then I fall–I fall continuously, gaining speed and momentum, turning my TV screen into a seizure-inducing weapon. I leave the room for some quiet time on the throne, and when I return, I’ve unlocked the above Achievement.

From Half-Life 2…

Bone Breaker (5G): Kill 30 enemies with thrown physics objects.

I’m still not really that good with the Gravity Gun, but every now and then I am able to pick up discarded saw blades with it, and those slice through Combine like warm knives through walking sticks of butter. Um…what? Forget it. Used that method a few more times, and ping, Achievement unlocked.

From Fallout: New Vegas…

Make Up Your Mind (20G): Made up your mind… about your brain.

Not to spoil too much about this, but the conversation leading up to this Achievement is simply fantastic. Like nothing before. Really exemplary of how great this add-on is for the Fallout franchise. If only all DLC could be as strong as this old boy. I’m guessing this Achievement can’t be missed, no matter what your decision is.

From Bastion…

Pet Sitter (10G): Get four different domesticated creatures in the Bastion.

I unlocked a few other Achievements in Bastion, but they are all tied to the story and are pretty spoilerific, so I won’t broadcast ’em here. I’m getting closer to completing the game, and might even try for a full 200 here. We’ll see. I always end up getting distracted or losing interest (am I right, Torchlight?).

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And thanks to all these Achievements, here’s a nice little surprise:

Nifty. Sure, it’s not a palindrome or a nice, solid round number with lots of zeroes, but I’ll take it for its uniqueness nonetheless.

That’s it for our very first Achievements of the Week! What do y’all think of this feature? Stunned silence will be interpreted as glorious, panty-throwing praise. And please share below in the comments your favorite unlocked Achievement from the week.

Meet The Sink’s numerous personality modules from Fallout: New Vegas

Without a doubt, Old World Blues is the best DLC add-on for Fallout: New Vegas so far. It has stellar writing, wonderful voice acting, memorable characters, and a decently sized map to explore as you please. It stands a fraction taller than Point Lookout for delivering a great, bite-sized Fallout experience, even if at times it could be a little too chatty, a little too difficult, and a little too reliant on energy weapons for success. Thankfully, my current character Kapture was already a 100 in the Energy Weapons skill before heading over to Big Mountain to be swarmed by Roboscorpions and frenzied Securitrons. One might also want to consider a character high in Speech, as there are a lot of, um, things to speak with, and yes, I said things, not people. Let’s get into that.

All My Friends Have Off Switches is a faux main story quest in Old World Blues; it doesn’t necessarily have to be completed, but I feel like many gamers will go after it, and it mostly runs parallel with the true main story quest, making it easier to pick up some–not all–of the personality modules as they go mucking about the Big Empty. You are basically tasked with finding holotapes that contain personalities for specific items in The Sink, which is your home-away-from-home for now. Installing these personalities will bring the items to life, and after much talking, you’ll learn what benefits they can offer. There are 10 personalities to unearth, as you’ll soon see below:

#1 – The Sink Central Intelligence Unit is a human-accessible computer responsible for Big MT’s data storage. It can repair your weapons and armor up to 100, switch off/on the other personalities in The Sink, and act as a traveling merchant, with a decent stock of items. It has a thin British accent.

#2 – The Sink’s Sink is a nice, if a bit OCD sink. Obsessed with cleanliness, the Sink is also upgradable, allowing the Courier to bottle his or her own water if they happen to have empty bottles. I never took advantage of this, but I bet it’s great for players on Hardcore difficulty.

#3 – This Auto-Doc is actually a prototype built by Dr. Mobius many moons ago. It seems to have a military-like personality, and it can provide the Courier with the following benefits: a haircut, facial reconstruction, implants of varying price, switch out brains, spines, and hearts, and change the player’s traits (only once).

#4 – This personality is a little creepy. Or should I say…seedy? The Biological Research Station is a computer mainframe that is capable of cloning and planting dried seeds that will harvest after three days. It also refers to the Courier as “baby” and makes way too many sexual references. Tara was especially perturbed.

#5 – Blind Diode Jefferson is The Sink’s talking jukebox, but don’t expect much music outta it. You might even say it’s got the blues…the old world blues. By finding special holotapes, Blind Diode Jefferson can update the Sonic Emitter with new traits and bonuses.

#6 – The Book Chute likes to eradicate sedition. What does that mean? Well, bring it lots of pre-war books, and the chute will wipe them clean, readying them for…um, that I didn’t get to discover. Checking online tells me that you’ll be able to make your own skill books with the right amount of blank books and specific items. That’s neat!

#7 – Light Switch 01 is a very seductive light switch that, while appearing to be sentient, is actually not. There seems to be some conflict between it and the light switch in the other room.

 

#8 – Not much different from Light Switch 01, but a few special dialogue options come up with Light Switch 02 if you’ve got the right perks on ya.

 

#9 – Oh, Muggy! You make yourself so hard to love, and yet you are so lovable. It is a neurotic, miniature Securitron that is obsessed with collecting coffee mugs. I get that. I suffer from the very same diseases. Basically, Muggy can turn coffee mugs, tin plates, and coffee pots into miscellaneous items perfect for using at the crafting bench. It also loves to curse. Swoon.

#10 – Last, but certainly not least, is The Sink’s evil-minded Toaster. This thing wants to burn more than just sliced bread, and it’s not afraid to tell you that. It’s special perk is that it can heat up any weapons composed of space-age Saturnite material, as well as help make extra small energy cells and microfusion cells. This very same toaster was originally cut from Fallout 2.

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Whew. That’s a lot of ‘bots. I whole-heartedly recommend you speak with them often and deeply, exhausting as much of their dialogue options as you can. They are all very unique, and given that each (save for the light switches, I guess) offer some kind of benefit or bonus, it’s worth the effort. I found The Sink to be a wonderful, personified hub for my time spent in the Big Empty, and maybe now even for a main playthrough, as it features plenty of storage space, reloading and crafting benches, and helpful robots at arms’ length. For playthrough #4, I’m definitely going to try to do Old World Blues as early as possible (though the game itself warns the Courier that it is meant only for players level 15 and higher, and I struggled at times even at level 28 through 30, so, uh, eep) just to get such a kick-ass base. It definitely trumps Lucky 38 or Victor’s shack.

But there ya go. Hope you liked this little rundown of the ten robotic personality modules you’ll install in The Sink. Good luck finding all their holotapes!

Old World Blues is all talk, no action so far, and that’s fine

I promptly downloaded Old World Blues for Fallout: New Vegas last night when I got home from work. Once MasterChef was finished and poor, lovable Giuseppe was out the door, I loaded up my most recent character Kapture, a dude that loves Energy Weapons and that looks like he’d be right at home watching children playing at a local park from inside his dark, seedy van, and headed to the specific map marker to get things rolling. To start Old World Blues, the Courier must make his way to a drive-in movie theatre, wherein a broken robot satellite will show them a movie. Then it’s lights out, and waking up elsewhere, with strange surgical cuts all over your body.

You’ll make your way inside a large science research building called the Sink (or is it the Think Tank?) at the Big Empty, eventually finding a bunch of whacky robots. The leader, Dr. Klein, will then explain the situation, with colorful commentary from the other local bots peppered throughout. You’re brainless. And have no heart or spine. That’s why you feel so weird, so calm and uncaring. These robots cut those organs out of you, and it’s not entirely clear how you’re, uh, still alive, but whatever, it’s a videogame, and that’s certainly some strong motivation there for completing this newest DLC: recover your brain, heart, and spine. Also, steal some technology from their nemesis Dr. Mobius.

What’s most notable about this DLC is that the first 30 to 45 minutes are spent talking. With crazy robots. Since I don’t ever skip dialogue, a good chunk of my playtime last night was spent with the controller resting gently on my lap, only picking it up occasionally to make a speech selection. Even after the main chunk of talking is dead and done, and the Courier has his main mission, he/she can still explore the Sink and Think Tank to talk further with these deranged robots. I exhausted every dialogue option, gaining three to four more additional sidequests from this. Doctor Dala is extremely creepy, and I was pleasantly surprised–as was Tara–to discover that Doctor O is voiced by a true cartoon doctor…Dr. Venture‘s James Urbaniak!

So far, Old World Blues has some of the strangest and funniest writing to date for the series, with the word penis popping more than you’d ever expect, and drowning in it–the dialogue, not the penises–first and foremost for the DLC is not the worst thing ever. Though I am looking forward to exploring outside the Sink/Think Tank and maybe shooting something. Maybe.

Another day, another patch for Fallout: New Vegas

Old World Blues will be released on all platforms on July 19, but before that can happen, a patch must hit to fix some problems with Fallout: New Vegas. And when I say some, I really mean a plenitude of glitches and bugs and outstanding wonkiness. One might have thought a lot of these would’ve gotten taken care of back when an earlier patch was also put together. Oh well. Can’t get 100% in V.A.T.S.-patching all the time. Right, Obsidian?

This newest patch is a big one, so I’ll put all of its updates and corrections below a cut. Clickity click to read on.