4 posts tagged “fallout”
I've been picking away at Flash over the last few days, experimenting with how to best produce the main character's animations for our team project. I decided to draw a little dude in kung-fu pajamas, since kung-fu pajamas are super easy to draw. I drew his head, torso, and limbs as separate objects:
After that, I put them together to get a sense of how tall he would be and how the pieces would overlap. One of Flash's cool tricks is that you can arrange these pieces in front of or behind each other, and make it look as if you've spent all this time and effort creating these complex animations when, really, you're just moving arm positions most of the time.
Anyway, I got him running about 30 minutes ago, so now I'm gonna take a break from Flash and so something far more entertaining.....write the next installment of the Fallout Journals.
Fallout Journals: Now Where Were We?
When we last left the post-nuclear world of Fallout, I had just purchased an AWESOME leather jacket. Let's do a quick recap to see how I got such a sweet jacket.
So I was exploring the Old Town in the Hub, the eastern section of the trading city where all the lowlifes go to get whatever it is that needs a-gettin'. I passed by two lovely Skags on my way to the downtown core.
I met up with this crazy guy, wandering around, and muttering to himself. I kinda did my best to avoid contact as I pushed past him and continued my exploration of town.
Crazy guy was standing just out side of a beat-down house; I checked inside to see if anyone might know anything about water chips. I discovered an old mutant named Harold; he came from the very first Vault that opened after the War. He looks like crap, to be honest with you.
SO I give Harold 5 bottle caps and talk to him for a while. Turns out he has some information that might be a clue to what's happening with the caravans......(dramatic chord).......
Hmmm....mutants attacking caravans, huh? Sounds pretty bad. Harold tells me that all the mutants seem to be coming from an abandoned military base - a while back, he and some others tried to enter the base and kill the mutants / wipe out the source of mutation. But they didn't do so well. Apparently, there's a ton of military-grade robot security drones to get past before you face the mutants. Right, okay then. Harold told me where the base was, but I stopped listening after "robot security drones." My blue jumpsuit with lucky number 13 emblazoned on the back - in yellow, no less - needs to be upgraded, STAT.
So I leave Harold, say goodbye to Crazy Guy, and continue exploring Old Town.
Now, because the dealer across the street also sells...well, other stuff, I couldn't get a screenshot of the premises. But anyway, I talked to him about Rad-Away, bought some scorpion poison antidote.....and just as I was finishing up, I noticed he was selling a LEATHER JACKET for like 500 caps. So I drop the money immediately and suit up in my new gear. I already feel more badass.
Crimson Caravan Blues
January 3rd finally rolls around. I've done 2 runs for the Far Go Traders already, and I'm starting to feel like a seasoned veteran of the wastelands. I stride over to the Crimson Caravan at the crack of dawn, ready to start making some serious caps.
So I roll out with the caravan. On our first trek to Junktown, we got ambushed!!! By.....8 insects. Hmmm...they kinda look like praying mantises. I kinda laugh and think to myself, "Well, this should be about as hard as killing rats."
It look exactly 1 complete combat turn to get to this screen.
Wow. I guess I underestimated the powerful side-effects of exposure to nuclear radiation. No problem, I'll just reload my save game and try again. And this time, our caravan runs into 3 Raiders...."Only 3?" I think. "This is gonna be easy! There's four of us!!" I load my gun and prepare to fight; the Raider farthest away from me points his rifle and fires, and I take a critical hit in the leg for 12 HP of damage.
Ouch....that's like a third of my HP gone in 1 attack. Thank God there's 4 of us....oh, but WAIT, the Crimson Caravaneers couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a rocket launcher. **facepalm** I watch each of my 'allies' aim and miss entirely as the Raiders move in for the kill, cruelly taunting us with each step.
I manage to get in one last shot before they're on top of us. BANG! I line up a perfect headshot....and do 7 HP of damage. SEVEN. I got hit the leg and took 12 HP damage!!! WTF?!?!?!?!? I don't see any helmets on these raiders's heads.....what, do they have ADAMANTIUM SKULLS? (k, I'm a little bitter)
This battle lasts 3 full combat rounds.
I'm beginning to think these guys call themselves the Crimson Caravan because their caravans are stained with the blood of the n00bs that can't even hit Raiders standing in front of them. ARGH.
After about a half-dozen hopeless attempts (one trip brought us into the path of 7 Raiders, and my HP was at -5 before it was our turn to fight), I gave up. Time for a new tack.
Plan B: Hire Help, Kill Scorpions
Somewhere between beatings on the Crimson Caravan tour, I remembered that pesky Radscorpion problem back in Shady Sands. I also remembered a fella named Ian who offered to help me out for like 100 bottle caps, and I definitely began to think I could use some help.
I leave the Hub and return to the much more peaceful Shady Sands. I immediately head over to Ian's place and offer him 100 caps to join the gang. He accepts - and I get 100 XP! Tidy. Things are looking up already.
Now, if I've learned one thing from my brief dalliances with the Raiders, it's that good help is hard to find. I ask Ian what qualifies him to take on this position.
Excellent: it sounds like he can aim a gun. Alright, then, enough chit-chat! Let's kill some giant scorpions!!!
I'm a little nervous as Ian and I reach the Radscorpions' cave; I really need to kill something and make some money. (Oh yeah, I need to find a "rope" somewhere too, so I can explore old Vault 15! Gotta remember that...)
We head into the cave and it isn't long before we meet our first Radscorpion. I manage to fire off a shot and hit the scorpion in the brain, causing critical damage. Ian takes 2 shots with his submachine gun, and - BAM - we got ourselves a dead Radscorpion. I didn't take a single HP of damage. Well, that went well. It's hard not to admire Ian's prowess with a gun after having suffered the buffoonery of the Crimson Caravan.
Ian is certainly no stranger to action - he even seems to enjoy inflicting pain on these creatures. Once, while we were killing this particularly gruesome Radscorpion, Ian just walked up to it, put his gun to the beast's head, and muttered, "Let's see if you enjoy this."
BANG. The creature slumped noiselessly to the ground. I just stood there, in awe of what had happened. I felt so....safe....with Ian. Like everything was going to be OK. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was going to make it through the wastelands just fine, and maybe even find a water chip for my friends back in Vault 13.
We worked in silence, side-by-side, swiftly killing these wretched Radscorpions. It wasn't long before we were done. I took a few scorpion tails to bring back to Shady Sands as proof of our victory. We headed back to town, neither of us speaking, but both of us (was he though? I don't know) feeling that a strange bond had formed between us.
Back in Shady Sands, I speak with Aradesh, who thanks me for ridding the town of its scorpion problem. He also advises me to being the scorpion tails over to Razlo, a scientist trying to develop an antidote to the scorpion's sting. I wonder why it's needed now that Ian and I have killed them all, but hey, whatever - I head over to Razlo's place, give him the tails, and collect even more XP!
So now I'm at Level 3, I've got some money, a sweet leather jacket.....and Ian. It's getting late. Ian and I decide to take our night's rest in Shady Sands. I find a quiet room with a warm, comfortable bed. A very nice looking bed.
Ian and I exchange awkward glances. Ian mumbles a question under his harsh, whiskey-soaked breath:
Never mind, Ian. Never mind.
OK, the weekend is over, and I need to write about games today. No more of this personal, "I want to really explore my feelings" type of blog entry. I'm sure you all care very little about my fascination with Cezanne. Today, Gaming Zen gets back on track, and today we'll be devoting exclusive coverage to the only thing that matters, the raison d'etre of our species, the final goal of our shared evolutionary journey......
....yes, of course I meant videogames.
Review Round-up: New Super Mario Brothers (Nintendo DS)
Christine and I have been giving my new DS a lot of love lately. Professor Layton and the Curious Village was a fine first purchase, and we will certainly go back to playing that game eventually. The dear Professor, however, was relegated to the shelf after a chance visit to by brother Daniel's new house revealed that he also has a DS, one that he bought while still living in Toronto. He has a bunch of games for it too - some Brain Age stuff, a golf game I think.....and the super-fantastic, highly addictive New Super Mario Brothers.
Mario has been a busy little plumber lately. It ain't enough for him to be saving princesses and fixing leaky pipes these days...no, he has to compete in go kart races, golf tournaments, tennis matches, and soccer (sorry....football) matches with the rest of Mushroom Kingdom inhabitants. He's also been throwing these semi-regular parties that look like cute, colorful board games but are actually expletive-laden exercises in betrayal and grounds for dissolving friendships.
New Super Mario Brothers is a return to form for Mario and Luigi - it puts the boys back in a 2D side-scrolling platformer, and asks the player to guide our intrepid plumbers from the left side of the screen to the right side, over and over, until he or she has found every secret, in every level. Oh, yeah, sure, you have to save the Princess as well (don't you always?), but the real fun here is finding every little secret coin, power-up, and block tucked away in the most obscure corners of the levels.
The structure of the game is very similar to anyone who's played one of the classic Mario games, especially Super Mario 3 or Super Mario World: you start with Mario standing on a map of World 1, and you must complete a level to continue further down the path. Like most Mario games in the past, each world has a theme: the first world is the cushy, happy Mushroom Kingdom world that introduces you to some new stuff and gets you warmed up; World 2 is the classic desert World; World 3 is an island world with lots of swimming levels; World 5 is the CURSED ICE WORLD where you routinely slip and fall to your death - well, I'm sure you get the idea. The top screen shows where you are in the world; the lower screen displays what worlds you can travel to (just by tapping on it with your finger! Coooool....) and what power-up item you have in reserve (this kinda works like Super Mario World, but it's not as good, becuase if you're using a power-up that the game deems 'better', you won't be able to switch from it. Example: if you're wearing the Shell and have a Fire Flower in reserve, you can't switch to Fire Mario, even if it would be better. BOOOOOOOO!!!!! OK, rant over).
And there are some new things too - new power-ups! In a nod to Alice in Wonderland, Miyamoto has included two new mushrooms, one that makes you a towering giant that can run through anything (lots of fun, but it only lasts a short time), and another that makes you a mini-Mario, even smaller than regular Mario, who can fit through small cracks and enter tiny pipes. Mario also gets a blue shell power-up (not that blue shell, Mario Kart fans!) that protects him from most enemies when he ducks and provides a spinning shell attack. Pretty sweet, but they should have let him throw hammers, too.
Things I liked
1. The graphics are excellent - they use beautiful 3D models for all of the graphics, which makes Mario and his foes
really come alive. One of the best looking Mario
games, for sure.
2. The level music is fantastic.
3. This game is a mashup of all the Marios that game
before it. You'll see enemies you recognize from
Mario 64 in one level, and then play another level with
those white squids form the first Mario game. Mario's
move set is like a 'best-of' compilation: he can do
wall jumps, butt stomps, hang from ledges, swing
around on metal fences, and pretty much do
everything you want Mario to do. EXCEPT ONE
THING, but we'll get to that.
4. Lots of secrets to keep me going back to play levels
over again.
5. Christine is a huge Mario fan, but she can't play
those crazy 3D games - they just give her a
headache. It's awesome to have a new Mario game
we can both play.
Things I didn't like
1. Often, you'll need a Shell or a Mini-Mushroom power-up to find hidden exits in a level - and for some crazy,
annoying reason they decided to make the Shell
and Mini-Mushroom the two hardest power-ups to
get in the game. They can almost never be found in
a level - so it's a good idea have to remember the
levels where you can find them, because you'll be
returning often. There are mini-games and special
boxes that give up a random item, but that's just an
exercise in frustration when you're looking for a
specific power-up.
2. Mario cannot fly in this game. I'm sorry, but that's
inexcusable. I can see that they may have had
trouble with flying power-ups in the 3D games and
are still trying to figure out how to do it properly, but
this is a 2D Mario!! I want to fly, dammit!! There is
no reason why Mario shouldn't have his trusty Leaf
power-up. Even a Feather wold do.
3. The ghosts' sound effects are kinda annoying.
4. Overall, not enough new power-ups - and the new
ones are kinda unexciting. The Shell power-up can
be a liability, really; after running for a few seconds,
Shell Mario tucks into his Shell and does the
spinning attack. Which you cannot control at all. If
you're like me, you're constantly holding down the B button to run, so I was always tucking into the shell
without meaning to, and often results in Shell Mario spinning into a pit and losing a man. And when
you actually want to kill an enemy with it, you have to back up and get a running start, so if you hit the enemy
before you start the tuck you lose the Shell. So, you should just get to throw hammers like in Super Mario 3.
5. When you get a Mega-Mushroom and turn giant, you always revert to Super Mario - even if you had a Shell of a
Fire Flower! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I could go on and complain about more stuff but the thing is that NSMB does so many things right that it's easy to forgive its mistakes. This is definitely one of the best Mario games I've played, and being able to play it on the bus while I head to school makes it even better.
If you have a DS, get this game!
Fallout Journals: Working on It!!!
I've got a new journal entry to chronicle the continuing adventures of None, but where I've already wrote like a million words on Mario I need to go and do something else for a while. Maybe I'll come back to this later....or maybe I'll just write about it tomorrow. We'll see.
People that come to Gaming Zen know that, when they come here, they are getting the bleeding edge of Internet and gaming news. Bleeding. There is nothing launched onto the 'Net that doesn't escape our notice here. We stand at the gates of the Web, noting all that which enters into the flood of data and bringing the best best back here for your enjoyment.
Well, folks, have I got a scoop for you: the game that will most likely be crowned Game of the Year in 2008.
Well, now I got myself thinking about Fallout. I think I'll have to play a little bit later.
I think my most-anticipated game of the moment is Fallout 3, by Bethseda Softworks. I'm playing the first Fallout game and Bethseda's last game, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, at the same time. I'm trying to mash them together in my head to see what Fallout 3 will be like, but the guys at Bethseda have already said they're not gonna just slap some Mad-Max skins on the Oblivion game engine. It'll be interesting to see how true they stay to the combat engine in Fallout, which is turn-based and allows the player to target specific body parts, each with a different percentage chance of hitting.
Oblivion is good so far, although I'm worried it'll be too easy to get lost once I get out into the real world. I'm still in the first dungeon, trying to escape from prison, so my objectives are still fairly focused. I should try and figure out how to take screenshots of the game, because it sure is pretty. I'm loving Fallout - I have a thing for retro games, and this game just has it all. I think I would really enjoy a new Fallout game which cutting-edge 3D graphics. I got my fingers crossed for this one, Bethseda.
GLaDOS's Secret: A New Way of Looking at Portal
Our good friend and sometime-blogging-nemesis Torbox sent an interesting article my way today. I'm sure most of you gamers out there have played Portal already, right? Portal was a gaming masterpiece: a perfect fusion of storytelling and gaming. One of the highlights of the game is the hilariously sadistic GLaDOS, Portal's antagonist, whose comments and revelations along the way through Aperture Laboratories were equally funny, cruel, and cryptic.
Well, if you believe what this blogger has to say, maybe GLaDOS is deserving of more of your sympathy than you think. I suppose this link warrants a mild spoiler alert; if you haven't played the game yet, this may skew your perception of the story. You should proceed with caution if you don't want any preconceptions about the game before playing it.
Readings from the Sutra: Postmortem
After I finish my programming homework tonight, I'm going to read the new postmortem on Gamasutra. This one is for a game called TimeShift. Can't say that I've played this before, but I seem to recall this being an FPS with pretty graphics and some Matrix-type time control powers. The development studio - Saber Interactive - sounds like they had a rough go of it. I'd be curious to see how this game fared in the marketplace.
IMBC Non-Sequitur: Indie Films I Like
For me "indie" films are those films with a certain kind of unique vibe. Films that feel different from the 90-minute, 3-act, by-the-book Hollywood stuff. I'm not going to take budgets and financial stuff into consideration, becuase by some definitions you could consider Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace to be an independent film.
1) George A Romero's zombie movies. I love these movies. Day of the Dead was my first one.
2) Reservoir Dogs. Some would still say this is Tarantino's best film, and I would agree.
3) Delicatessen. It's amazing to think these are the guys that did Amelie.
4) Breaking the Waves. Pretty much everything that Lars Von Trier does is worth watching.
5) Dancer in the Dark. Another Lars von Trier classic.
6) The Motorcycle Diaries. What a film!
Oh, and you should also watch Zeitgeist. It;s free on Google Video. Talk about the grand-daddy of conspiracies....
That's all for now - I have some work to do on a detailed analysis of Mario's powerups.
This post won't be very long - just enough to keep me in competition. ;)
I'm enjoying this whole blogging thing so far - it's kind of addictive. The added sense of competition with the IMBC is definitely a strong motivator. I don't need to win it all - but I do need to last longer than Pat. And I will, Pat. I will take you down.
(The original comic comes from The Perry Bible Fellowship - thanks, Scott, for sending this to me!)
I am going to conquer Ubuntu Server today. I tried a new installation, and this time it had no trouble connecting to the Internet. I tried to install a graphical user interface for it, and the packages seemed to have installed correctly, but every time I try to run the GUI it crashes. Let me grab a screenshot for you:
Well, this actually is progress: I know now for certain that my previous problem was a networking problem. I need to learn more about VMWare, I think.
In between bouts of Ubuntu installations yesterday, I found a little time to pay Fallout. Fallout is a classic post-apocalyptic RPG, where you play a Vault-dweller (Vault 13, to be exact) asked to leave the safety of the Vault and venture into the world to find a bit of technology that is vital to your Vault's water purifier. The face of the world has been scarred by nuclear war; the outside world isn't the place it used to be.
I am a huge sucker for anything post-apocalyptic, so this game is relevant to my interests. I'm not very far though. I made it outside the safety of the Vault....
and I found...well, another Vault.
Now, I'm in a town called Shady Sands, and I either have to go and kill a bunch of giant scorpions or a band of smugglers to the southeast. While in Shady Sands, however, I found a book. And I read it. I learned A LOT about wilderness survival.
Wow these screenshots are so boring. Next time, I'll post a combat screenshot, I promise.
Shameless non-seqitur for bonus points: Action Figures
I wish I still had my Start Wars action figures. I lost them in a move when I was about 5 years old. I had every character from the first two movies, and was working on a pretty good set for Return of the Jedi. I loved how Luke and Darth Vader had their lightsabers built into their forearms, and you could push on a little tab to make them come out whle you made that "BzzzzZZZZZZZHHHHhhh" sound that lightsabers make. Anyway, I loved those action figures, and if I still had them, I would probably have built a special shrine for them. I liked G.I.Joes too - in truth they were kinda more fun to play with because the Joes had more points of articulation, so you could put them in really cool poses.
This could have been my website.
OK, that qualifies me. Later, skaters.
