A roundup of lately achieved Achievements

I’ve been adding to my Gamerscore as of late via multiple games, and I think now’s a good time to share with you some of my grand accomplishments. I’m talking about Achievements, naturally. Y’know, those little blooping bloops that pop up now and then when gaming on the Xbox 360 and doing something, um, specific. I love ’em. And hate ’em, too. Facebook lists my relationship with them as “complicated.”

Moving along…

From Borderlands, I pinged–or rather dinged–this one last night after clearing out three to four “trivial” difficulty quests:

Ding! Overleveled (15G): Reached Level 51

The game’s a bit dull now that I’m a pretty high level, playing solo, and on my second run through the same ol’ quests. I do sincerely doubt I’ll climb much higher with Roland, but maybe I should try playing as Lilith to mix things up for a bit.

From Fallout: New Vegas, I completed a number of quests recently, but only one was actually tied to an Achievement:

Return to Sender (20G): Completed Return to Sender

This quest was…a bit of a downer. In many ways. First, you have to find a bunch of ranger stations and tell them about fixing their radios. Then you have to go back to each ranger station again to ask about odd reports coming over their radios. This means a lot of fast traveling, which doubly means a lot of loading screen. I swear I’ve stared at that spinning roulette wheel so much that I’ve seen its very soul. And then it ends sadly with a cloud of confusion over Jareth’s head.

From Street Fighter IV, I got a couple Achievements recently as I continue the long climb to the top, but this one is a goodie:

Super Combo Master (10G): Perform 100 Super Combos.

Why is this a goodie? Weeeeeeeell…super combos are hard to perform! There. I said it. Now you know just how much of a fighting game n00b I am.

From Mini Ninjas, a not-so mini (ninja) amount of Gamerscore for a grindy Achievement:

Now You See Me… (40G): Defeat 100 enemies with stealth attack

And lastly, from Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection, we have this one from Super Thunder Blade, a game I never played and never will play again:

Get to the Chopper (15G): Super Thunder Blade: Score over 1,500,000 points in the first level

This ol’ shoot and flying as frantic as possible game is horrible. You have a limited number of lives and must dodge an array of bullets–the biggest problem is the controls as moving the chopper out of death’s way is tougher than expected. But the Achievement’s name gets points, both from me and the Governator.

Okay, that’s all for now. Quite a roundup, eh?

True facts about Dead Money DLC for Fallout: New Vegas

Evidently, there’s new facts about the recently announced DLC Dead Money for Fallout: New Vegas, and one tidbit really surprised me. Spoiler: it’s the level cap increase to 35. A-whaaaaat? Anyways, here’s a better summary of everything y’all should now know (taken directly from Bethesda’s website):

Description:

As the victim of a raw deal you must work alongside three other captured wastelanders to recover the legendary treasure of the Sierra Madre Casino. In Dead Money, your life hangs in the balance as you face new terrain, foes, and choices. It is up to you how you play your cards in the quest to survive.

Story:

Welcome to the Sierra Madre Casino! The casino’s mythical contents are lusted after by desperate wasteland scavengers, who tell stories of intact treasure of the old world buried deep within its vault. Lured here by a mysterious radio signal advertising the long-awaited grand opening of the casino, you are thrown into a high stakes game where you’ll have to work with three other lost souls if you want to survive.

Key Features:

• Take part in a suspenseful post-apocalyptic casino heist in which you’ll need to work with three companions, each of whom has their own motivation for helping you.
• Add hours of extended gameplay where you’ll encounter the mysterious Ghost People, pre-war death traps and the holographic security system of the Sierra Madre.
• Navigate your way through a challenging new storyline, with even tougher choices.
• New perks, achievements, and a raised level cap to 35!

Okay. Perks and Achievements are expected, but this level cap increase feels…odd. Oddly absurd. Not that I’m complaining. I have no reason to complain about a game that wants me to keep playing it, but back in the day, back during vanilla Fallout 3, the level cap was 20, and I think a lot of players felt that threshold was reached far too quickly. So they increased it with the Broken Steel DLC to 30, which felt more natural. Around level 10 you’re doing okay, by level 20 you’ve got some great perks and weapons, and once level 30 rings its bell you are basically considered a god among wastelanders.

So it made sense to see Fallout: New Vegas ship with the level cap already to 30. Many gamers got used to that cap, and I guess now many will have to get used to 35, but it still just doesn’t feel right. Maybe Borderlands put too much pressure on game devs to continuously climb higher?

Dead Money, the first DLC announced for Fallout: New Vegas

Bethesda Softworks just announced the first piece of downloadable content for their bug-happy Fallout: New Vegas. It’s called Dead Money, is exclusive to Xbox 360 as of the moment, and sounds a little something like so:

As the victim of a raw deal you must work alongside three other captured wastelanders to recover the legendary treasure of the Sierra Madre Casino. In Dead Money, your life hangs in the balance as you face new terrain, foes, and choices. It is up to you how you play your cards in the quest to survive.

Definitely comes off as a bit ho-hum, especially considering just how different each piece of DLC in Fallout 3 strived to be. I mean, one took you to Alaska, the other to a slave factory in Pennsylvania, another to backwater hickville, and a fourth to freakin’ outer space. Granted, Dead Money does seem to promise new terrain and foes, but I have a stinky feeling that it will kind of be more of the same Nevada landscape and enemy types with new skins. Actually, maybe more like just an elaborated sidequest or something, rather than DLC priced at 800 Microsoft Points. We’ll have to wait and see. Hits Xbox 360 on December 21, 2010.

The full press release with corporate talky talk is available here.

Getting closer to “beating” Dragon Quest IX…maybe

You know, I really am a crazy person to play three epic RPGs–Fallout: New Vegas, Chrono Trigger, and Dragon Quest IX–all at the same time. It basically means that I can only make tiny bits of progress on each of them, and that I want to play them all extensively, but I just can’t. There’s not enough time this side of New Jersey, and alas, it hurts, because all three are really deep RPGs with tons to do and see.

That said, thanks to some idleness over the weekend as Tara and I dog-sat Tucker and Chewy, I cut a bit deeper into DQIX. Finally completed the sidequest A Masky Task, which reads as so: Malinda from Stornway wants to see if you can make a malleable mask even more beautiful with alchemy. She said she would be happy enough just to see the result, but if you give it to her, she’ll swap it for a jaguarment. Sounds kind of easy, right?

Wrong.

First of all, I’ve had this sidequest in my log since the beginning of August, and it’s been annoying me since then. Had to look up exactly what was needed, and I found out that there was a lot of alchemy involved. As well as grinding for ingredients. I finally got the last set of butterfly wings needed this weekend, and ta-da, quest completed. My reward was a jaguarment, which I don’t think I’ll ever use. How wonderful!

[Some spoilers about final boss stuff coming up. You’ve been warned!]

That grinding did help though, getting three of my characters to LV 47, and my fourth, the priest, to LV 45. I figured that was pretty good for the final boss fight, and thus flew directly to the Realm of the Almighty to do battle with Corvus. He’s a Celestrian gone bad. Very bad. My first fight against him did not go well, but this second time, my team of four took him down thoughtfully and carefully, thanks to spells like Egg On and Multiheal. No one died, and we all lived to see another day.

That is…until Corvus sent a dragon after us! So, a second boss fight. Fine. That’s pretty much the standard with RPGs. The dragon itself wasn’t very challenging thanks to the fact that it did not use a lot of group attacks. He fell in due time, and again, Hadwynnn, Juniper, Tarla, and Kingsley all made it out alive.

Is it over now? Did I win? Time for cake and confetti? Nope.

Time to fight Corvus again. Only this time he’s mutated and taken on a new form. Evil form 2.0. And his attacks are extremely tough, much more damaging than before. Around 80 HP to 130 HP depending on what attack he chooses. Killed my priest really fast with a divebomb thingy, which left me struggling to keep it together. The fight ended as expected, with everyone’s name in red.

So, looks like I have some more grinding to do for money and alchemy items to make better weapons. I guess I’m going to try to wait until everyone is around LV 52 or so before tackling Corvus again. Hopefully by then, they’ll be rockin’ some crazy good gear, as well as some new spells. I’m pretty anxious to “beat” DQIX just so I can get to all the extra content I know is there waiting for me.

Back online, back in the know-how

I had to unplug my Xbox 360 from the Internet many weeks ago. It was sad, as if I was cutting off the very vein that pumped blood into my videogame baby’s heart. How would I know what games my friends were playing? How would my Achievements get tracked? How would I know what new demos and patches were available to make my gaming time that much better?

The short answer: I wouldn’t know anything.

That’s changed though as Tara and I recently got Internet set up in the Leaky Cauldron. However, we didn’t pick up a wireless Internet router yet–though we most certainly will soon–thus forcing me to constantly switch wires in and out from laptops and such to give the ol’ Xbox 360 online access. And so yesterday I took the time and patience to get online, and I’m glad I did because there’s been a small backlog of things I wanted to get done. You want a list? You like lists? Well then…here, have a teeny list.

New dashboard, ew dashboard: Before I could do anything, I was prompted with a notification that a new system update was available. I downloaded it and was treated to a very Wii-like tutorial on how to go through menus and push buttons; I quickly quit out as I’m not that big of an idiot. The style of the dashboard is very much in line with that of the new Xbox.com, meaning I don’t really love it. A lot of…white space. Oh well. Flipping between menus seems quicker though.

Fallout: New Vegas patch 1 of 4,506: Popped in the game’s disc and was quickly alerted that an update was available. Downloaded it rather quickly, and I’m not sure what exactly it fixed (or unfixed), but the game’s been playing about the same for me since I got it. Though last night my gun went invisible again on me. Grr.

Bonus content code confusion: So, I bought Fallout: New Vegas brand new a week or so after it was released at GameStop. I did not pre-order it. However, when I opened up the case, there was a postcard in there with a download code for the Classic Pack, which includes the following:

• Armored Vault 13 Suit – Extensively patched up and dotted with piecemeal armor, this outfit is an homage to the classic ending of the original Fallout.
• Vault 13 Canteen – This handy device is useful for staving off dehydration and providing a small amount of healing in the Mojave Wasteland.
• Weathered 10mm Pistol – A well-worn 10mm pistol that packs an extra punch despite its modest size.
• 5 Stimpaks – Food and water are good for long-term healing, but when the fighting is fierce, Stimpaks help keep Wastelanders upright.

So, yeah. Uh, I got a pre-order bonus buying the game brand new a week later. Good job, GameStop? Either way, the code worked fine, and the canteen is cool even though I’m not playing Hardcore mode just yet.

Expanding Borderlands’ lands: Had to also get the latest patch for Borderlands which gives players a brand new–and free–level cap, as well as rebalancing some of the enemies and fixing glitches with the last piece of DLC. Since I have the Secret Armory DLC, my new level cap is a crazy sexy 69. Sad, I’m still a mid-50ish Soldier, but I’m working on it. Nice to just have it though in case I can get back online and play some rounds with the First Hourers. What’s interesting is that I figured I should play a bit too and not just get the free patch, but I died horribly right away to some brutes because I was trying to play Borderlands using the control scheme from Fallout: New Vegas. Oi!

And that’s kinda it. Oh, and my Achievements finally updated so that I could correct my counts here on Grinding Down. Yes, very important. I know, I know. Pulled the Internet plug on the Xbox 360 again last night, but it felt good to be back, if only for a little bit. Got a lot done, too. This has not been a very exciting post, but I’m not gonna apologize for it; you either love my craziness or you go eat something harmful.

One man’s journey to skip all dialogue in Fallout: New Vegas

It’s probably obvious, but I love to read.

And so it pained me, deeply, both emotionally and physically, to watch a good friend of mine play some Fallout: New Vegas over the weekend. Why? Well…he ran through dialogue options with Sonic the Hedgehog-like speed, more often than not just selecting the top dialogue choice to get through the entire tree with the push of a single button. Optional quest objectives popped up on the left and faded just as fast, and he even ended up turning in a quest, too, with little interest in hearing what so-and-so had to say about the job he did.

On the flip, that’s what I care about most.

Take, for instance, the quest Ghost Town Gunfight, wherein the Courier is tasked with either siding with the dangerous Powder Gangers or protecting Goodsprings from them. I played the part of Guardian Angel, wanting to help out the town that helped me out. But there’s more. By speaking to a number of townspeople, the Courier could convince them to join the fight, thus turning the tide greatly. This took some charm and quick work, and I got everyone’s help except for Easy Pete’s. All attacking Powder Gangers died during the attack, and no one from Goodsprings lost their lives. I was so proud of this that I immediately went to each and every one of them to chat about the fight, to see if they cared at all that I went above and beyond to save their dusty skin. To dig as deep as I could.

Most merely said a line or two of dialogue, and that was it. We’ve never spoken of the incident since. However, it was still important to me to find out.

Now, this post’s subject line is a bit misleading. I wouldn’t say it’s my friend’s journey to barely invest in the story and spoken words of the Mojave Wastelanders; heck, it might have just been because Tara and I were over late and he didn’t want to bog down the gaming time with a lot of sitting around and listening to exposition. His dude looks a bit like Tony Stark with a beret, and I was eager to see him shoot some raiders up. I’m sure every now and then he takes the time to get into the quests from more than just the quest log descriptions; if not, alas, there’s a lot to be missed.

Or maybe that’s just me. I love words, after all. And when compared to Fallout 3‘s 40,000 lines of recorded dialogue, Fallout: New Vegas really does give me a lot to take in with over 65,000 lines.

Here’s a bunch of links to cool Fallout: New Vegas thingies

So, there’s this game out that I’m currently obsessed over. I’m sure you can figure out which one it is. No, it’s not Ben 10 Ultimate Alien: Cosmic Destruction. Anyways, let me share some nifty links with y’all…

Over at Grimly Enthusiatic, a journal of the Courier’s days in the Mojave Wasteland. It’s not really an actual journal journal, as in “dear world, here’s what I did today, I am so lonely,” but rather a loglist of odd bugs and glitches. Looks like some desert folk can’t tell the difference between a male/female Courier.

Over at 1Up, read and take in their Fallout: New Vegas survival guide. Some very good tips, especially the whole “play to your strenths” one. Quick note: the guide contradicts itself by saying that Science, Repair, and Lock-picking are the best skills to tag and then says in the text that Science, Lock-picking, and Speech are the best. I’ve yet to really find a good use for lock-picking, but having a good Speech skill is nearly essential. Oh so essential. Tag it. TAG IT RIGHT NOW, KIDS.

Over at Popmatters, two interesting articles: Sex Workers and Sex Slavery in Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout: The Scrounging Simulator. I can’t really comment on the first one as I haven’t done any quests related to slavery and prostitutes in the latest game, but I do wholeheartedly agreed with the second article. During these tough times, it is important to learn to carry only what you need, only what will keep you going forward.

Over at G4TV, there’s a Fallout Fall Fashion Show. Pretty hilarious stuff. Actually, after watching, most of the outfits seem inspired more from Fallout 3 happenings rather than Fallout: New Vegas. Oh well. I’m sure many will still dig ’em. “Seriously, I’m gonna loot that body.”

Lastly, over at Kotaku, actor/rapper Ice-T is also dealing with the bugs and quirks in the Mojave Wasteland. Don’t really get it, but that’s just me. I’m still waiting for someone more like Zooey Deschanel to openly admit how much of a Fallout fan she is…

Okay, that’s all for now. Happy reading!

Found my first bugs in Fallout: New Vegas, and I’m not talking about radroaches or bloatflies

Fallout: New Vegas was only released like two weeks ago, and the world mostly knows it for being an extremely buggy game. And we’re not talking about a wasteland full of mutated swarms of praying mantises or radroaches; no, these are programming bugs, wonky coding and scripting that can totally ruin one’s gameplay session. Or, in my case, help keep me alive for a few more minutes. More on that later. But yeah, bugs. LET ME SHOW YOU THEM, says LOLCAT.

How bad can it be? Well, the game shipped, and several players found a rather unsettling bug in the very first few minutes. Not a good start. Luckily, Doc Mitchell’s head stayed put for my first playthrough. Over the past few days, thanks to a patch, Obsidian Entertainment passed along 200 scripting and quest bug fixes for those connected to the Internet. Me? Nope, no Web yet. Still gotta call Comcast and get it all set up at the Leaky Cauldron, which means I’m playing vanilla Fallout: New Vegas, the true layer, broken and spotty, the way it was meant to be played because, well, the game shipped like this, and that’s actually a little sad. They had like two years to toy with that engine. But Fallout 3 prepared me for glitchy gameplay, and there’s nothing too terrible to really get me to put this game aside.

So, last night, while working on the quest My Kind of Town I came across three different bugs.

Buggy bug #1: I entered an NCR tent near Primm to find a trooper standing on top of a chair as if she was five years old and throwing a tantrum for a cookie before dinner. Tara and I laughed out loud and waited for her to walk off the chair back to the floor. Which she did quickly. Odd, all in all.

Buggy bug #2: Being chased by two radscorpions, which, if both hit me, would be certain death. Thankfully, one of the radscorpions walked into a rock…and got stuck there. Like…inside the rock. I could target it with V.A.T.S. and all, but it was not moving from that rock. Sweet. I took care of its brother and then left it to die a rocky death.

Buggy bug #3: Now, this is the one that worries me. Was in the NCRCF, taking out Powder Gangers left and right in search of a new sheriff when all of a sudden…my gun disappeared. Poof. Gone. No more 9mm pistol. Yet I could still fire and damage enemies. I just had no way of aiming, but V.A.T.S. still worked as well. I tried putting my weapon away and taking it back out so to speak, but nothing showed. So I hid in a corner, freaking out with a bunch of corpses and bent cans. Then, without reason or sound, the gun came back. Thankfully, the room was already cleared out by then. This kind of bug can be very damaging though, and I hope I don’t see it happen again.

But at least no quests have wonked out on me…yet. That would be the saddest thing ever, like not being able to finish one’s favorite meal. I love quests. I love starting them, following them, and finishing them. Especially Fallout quests; they are so inventive and open, and they can be done this way or that way or not even done at all.

So, yeah. Fallout: New Vegas is kind of a crappy game from a programming bird’s eye view. However, that won’t stop me from having a good time. Think I might even head to the strip soon…

Oh, the folks you’ll meet in New Vegas: Doc Mitchell

Doc Mitchell is the very first in-game character you’ll meet in Fallout: New Vegas. He’s the surgeon in the small town of Goodsprings, as well as possibly a former vault dweller from years past. His main role is to help you, the Courier, with the character creation process, and he does this in a number of ways. First, he asks you for your name, which I told him was Jareth; he did not seem too impressed with this choice. Next he asks you to examine the Vit-O-Matic Vigor-Tester, which is how you assign your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. points. Lastly, he runs you through a word association quiz and some Rorschach tests to determine which three skills to tag you with. This system works much better than it did in Fallout 3, streamlining the process and just chugging along at a better clip.

Before you leave the doctor’s house, Mitchell will give you some items: a Pip-Boy 3000, pistol, and  a jumpsuit from Vault 21 (thus the reason I suspect he once lived in a vault for a bit). You can also find a number of items in his house. I found some ammo, a doctor’s bag, and miscellaneou junk that was ripe for selling. If you need to heal up or cure some radiation poisoning and want to pay a lot of caps for it (100 and 50, respectively), he’s the man to see, but I know there’s cheaper options available. Just go drink out of the rad-free toilet in his bathroom a couple dozen times.

Doc Mitchell is voiced by Michael Hogan who is most notably known as everyone’s favorite one-eyed XO Colonel Saul Tigh from frakkin’ Battlestar Galactica. He’s not as rough-sounding in Fallout: New Vegas, and definitely slows down his words a bit, as if he has all the time in the world to tell you what you need to hear. Also, I love that Tigh and Mitchell even look very much alike:

Just throw a cowboy mustache on him and we’re good to go!

Currently, I’m gearing up to convince the doctor to help me in aiding the town against some nasty gang of escaped prisoners. I’m looking forward to seeing his role expand over time, but I suspect he might just be a one-shot deal, there only to help the Courier get started and nothing more. Time will tell, of course.

Not sure if this whole “oh, the characters you’ll meet in New Vegas” feature will be a thing or not, but I might write a bit more about other characters I meet as I traverse the Mojave Wasteland. Heck, there’s enough interesting folk in Goodsprings alone (come on, Ringo!) for at least four or five more posts…

Oh, hey, I’m back and you can now all cheer

Hi.

::hooray yippee woohoo:::

Okay, settle down. It’s not like I’m–

::wahoooooo::

Aw, so you did miss me, dear readers? That’s swell. I missed–

::so much frakkin’ confetti everywhere::

–you, too. But not too much–I was on my honeymoon in Walt Disney World after all. Hard to miss nearly anything when you’re in the happiest place on Earth.

Now…since this is a videogame blog and not a wedding blog, let’s see what I got to play over the last numerous days: Dragon Quest IX and Picross 3D.

THAT’S IT. I had my entire DS collection with me, and I only ever switched out the cartridges twice. Unless you want to count me not going crazy over missing out on Fallout: New Vegas fun as a game. Cause I played that a lot. A LOT. But I did a good job about not pestering Tara over it. And we’re still married! Hooray!

But yeah…I grinded in DQIX like never before thanks to airplane rides. I was able to raise my party of four by four whole levels from roughly 41 to 45, taking down both nasty forms of  King Godwyn, and have now made my way to the Realm of the Almighty for what I suspect is the final boss battle. I say that like it means something, but with DQIX, it really  doesn’t. Beating the final boss does not mean completing the game, but it will open up a slew of more sidequests, as well as give me more breathing room for grinding new characters and completing all those lists (alchemy, item, clothing, so on). Speaking of sidequests, I finished a couple of ’em, the most frustrating being Prat’s the Way to Do It, wherein I needed to get my Minstrel character to land two critical hits with the Pratfall ability. No easy task. Grinding helped though, and when I nailed the second one I was genuinely surprised and happy; I hate giving up a sidequest to make room for another one that seems impossible to do (uh, like that metal slime one). I also ended up completing two treasure maps, killing some legendary bosses like Shogum and Nemean–I think those are references to previous DQ games, but I don’t recognize ’em.

Oh, and the tally of completed puzzles in Picross 3D is now 279. Impressed? Well…you should be!

So, yeah. Not an amazing amout of gaming got done during the wedding/honeymoon time, as was to be expected. But that’s all about to change. Here I come, Fallout: New Vegas!