Finding the Joy

When I first finished my first full (and thorough) playthrough of Fallout 4 I was only semi-impressed with the latest game in post-apocalyptic RPG series.  Lately I've had an urge to re-visit the Commonwealth and right the wrongs of my first adventure.  I haven't purchased any of the new DLC (I will wait till it goes on sale...DLC is pricey!) so this adventure is largely similar to my first go-round.  I've decided to do a few things different this time--things like siding with the Brotherhood of Steel rather than the Railroad and rolling a character who is melee focused rather than the sneak n' snipe from game numero uno.  As I find myself getting bored...again...I am trying to focus on the things I enjoy about the sprawling worlds created by Bethesda.

Even though I have always found many of the quests in Fallout 4 to be minimally engaging, I have always enjoyed the fact that each location has it's own unique story.  Whether you are stumbling through a raider camp or picking your way through a destroyed office building, there is a fascinating story about the people/mutants/ghouls/? that inhabit the area.  I recently finished a simple quest that found me returning an overdue book to the Boston Public Library for the friendly ghoul storekeeper in Goodneighbor.  Daisy's book was 200 years overdue and desperately needed to be returned.  She also had fond memories of the library and hoped that you could clear out all the pesky supermutants that had taken up residence there.  After slashing through a pile of supermutants and aggressive Protectrons you reach the back room of the library and learn that a desperate group of staffers had been trying to record as much of the information as they could before it was all destroyed.  They had fought off the supermutants until the last man had been killed.  The story unfolds as you hack into computer terminals throughout the building and eventually find the body of the last librarian.  These small stories make exploration just a little bit more interesting.

The Fallout series has always had a certain sense of quirky charm.  The original games were filled with goofy easter eggs and the occasional strange encounter.  Fallout 4 continues this trend by including those few strange encounters.  Maybe you're casually exploring the bathroom of a ruined building...you never know what might be hidden behind a closed stall door--it could be a ghoul, or it could be a teddy bear wearing glasses and smoking a cigar.  Or maybe it's a body stuffed into a basketball hoop--those raiders must play by different rules.

What is it with raiders and mannequins?
This quirky scene helped me increase my hacking skills.

The biggest highlight of the games for me are the numerous (like the stars!) items that are scattered throughout the map.  You might find a suitcase in the back of the burnt out shell of a vehicle in the middle of nowhere or loot 25 coffee cups from an abandoned diner.  I don't think I've encountered another game with the sheer volume of items that are contained in Fallout 4.  Thanks to the settlement system looting all that junk is finally rewarding.

Maybe someday I will add-on a few of the more worthy DLC.  Until then, I'm focusing on the small things between bouts of Fallout 4 boredom.  More teddy bears wearing glasses, please.

Secret Trucker

As I continue trying to sort out my sale purchases, I've finally come across a game (games actually) that I feel good about.  Yes!  I can live with the satisfaction of knowing that I didn't completely impulse buy my way into a pile of games that I hate and will never play.  I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but I have been successfully virtually piloting big rigs on the roads of Europe and the United States....and I like it.

There have always been a few games that I've felt really uncool playing--The Sims would top that list.  For some weird reason I enjoy simulation games.  I don't think they are for everyone and that most people would scoff at games like Viscera Cleanup Detail.  Well, you can add Eurotruck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator to the list.  What kind of weirdo wants to play a game where you are doing a job?  Not only that, but a job that sounds immensely boring....you drive a truck, deliver freight, and manage your own trucking company.  It turns out that it's not boring and that there's something enjoyable about cruising around, making money and pimping out your truck.

So what's the point of ETS2 or ATS?  Exploration and world domination.  As you make more money you can buy more garages and trucks, hire more drivers and go on to become a virtual trucking billionaire.  Billionaire might be a little far fetched...but you get the picture.  Or you can go at it from more of the exploration viewpoint--there are thousands upon thousands of virtual miles of roads to drive.  The landscapes are beautiful and inspired by real places in Europe and the United States.  Not that you have much time to be admiring the scenery...

My purple Peterbilt in American Truck Simulator.

I decided to start my adventures in trucking in Europe.  Starting a new game in ETS2 can be a little intimidating--you have to pick a preferred control scheme (there are a wide variety of options including keyboard controls, mouse controls, and options for those with fancy wheel controller setups), a type of truck you prefer (I don't know anything about trucks so I picked the prettiest), your preferred type of transmission (as a beginner I would highly recommend going with simple), and a name and logo for your new trucking company.  Phew!  After you've done all those things you are given a tiny garage and your first job.

Getting used to driving with the keyboard and mouse controls took me a little while.  The keyboard controls the throttle and you steer by gently pushing the mouse either left or right (notice that I said gently.  If you jerk the mouse around you are bound to have problems).  It's not too difficult.  The real difficulty comes from driving a behemoth truck with a huge trailer.  Unlike being in a normal car or truck, you have to be very aware of the position of your trailer.  If you take a corner too sharply you risk ramming your trailer into a variety of objects...other vehicles, guardrails, walls, road signs, road signals, etc.  None of these actions result in anything good--hitting objects can damage your freight resulting in penalties and hitting other vehicles will result in a fine that is deducted from your bank roll.  You also have to manage costs for things like refueling and repairs.

As you get more experience you are able to pick talents that allow you to make the most of your driving skills.  You can pick longer trips, carry high value or even dangerous cargoes, or get better gas mileage.  All of this is in pursuit of earning enough cash to buy a bigger garage and expand your fleet.

My first thought when I first started playing ETS2 was "ooh this is like Grand Theft Auto!"  Don't be tempted into that thinking!  In ETS2 you are expected to (mostly) follow the rules of the road.  There's no cruising through traffic signals (I suppose you could if you wanted to accrue some crazy fines) or ramming your way through other vehicles.

Just like driving in real life, the Truck Simulator games require a large amount of focus.  I have found that I have to pace myself when playing or else I get tired.  There are fun details in the fact that you can add your own music or internet radio streams to play while you drive.

If you're in the market for a low-stress game to enjoy I would recommend either Eurotruck Simulator or it's American cousin, American Truck Simulator.  So far they have been my favorite purchases from the recent Steam Summer Sale.

Wading Through the Pile of Shame

Now that the Steam sale has ended we can all spend time ogling the new additions to our gaming libraries.  We can begin strategizing the best methods to gradually reduce the pile of shame from our wanton spending.  I probably spent more during this Steam sale than I have in several previous sales and I am already feeling like I may have gotten a few duds.  Impulse grabs can result in some poor choices.  However, I also feel like I may have grabbed some genuine gems.

The art style of "The Banner Saga" is beautiful and unique.

I decided to start my trudge through my sale purchases with The Banner Saga.  I would classify The Banner Saga as part choose your own adventure and part turn-based combat RPGish like thing (that's specific enough, right?).  Uniquely, it is set in a world that is influenced by Norse mythology and the story plays out like the plot of a great epic.  The story starts with a group of Varl. a race of giants who are sort of enemies but also protectors of humans.  These Varl are working to create some sort of lasting alliance between the races and are on a quest to reach the capital city to cement this alliance.  Making this alliance turns out to be very difficult because of the resurgence of the enemies of the Varl, the Dredge.  For no apparent reason the Dredge have started attacking settlements.  As you lead the Varl you realize that these attacks are more than just sporadic and that there is something much larger going on.

The player gets to make many choices about what happens along the trek to the capital city.  Sometimes you run into random encounters that require you to make choices about certain situations--do you choose to rescue a village that's under attack or do you pass by and protect your group?  Do you ruthlessly march your group towards the capital or do you try to rest frequently to preserve morale?  After you've made your choice there's a chance you might end up in combat.  The combat system in The Banner Saga is....interesting.  I'm not going to call it fun, because it's not.  You possess a small group of units--each unit has unique abilities but seem to fall into certain roles like shieldbearers who are tank-like or warhawks who are can do higher amounts of damage.  Combat is turn-based so you get to decide the order of attack for your units.  Each unit possesses two unique stats--armor and strength.  Sounds simple, right?  It probably is, but it's also not.  Armor is the amount of damage that your unit can block, but it can be damaged.  The more confusing and difficult aspect is strength.  Strength represents both the attack power of a single unit as well as the amount of health that the unit has.  To disable a unit you must reduce its strength to 0.  This usually requires damaging both the armor and the strength of a unit.  The downside is that the more that your units get attacked, the weaker they get (which makes logical sense...but makes combat much more challenging).  Units also possess willpower which allows them to move further or add a little extra to their attacks.  Willpower is limited so you have to choose the most opportune times to utilize those valuable points.  Especially in the beginning of the game the combat can be very confusing and not much fun.  I was confused for many of the early battles and didn't really figure out the mechanics until the end of the game.  It is frustrating and makes combat only mildly enjoyable.

After fighting several frustrating bouts of combat and making some possibly catastrophic decisions about your caravan, the story forks off to a group of humans who are running into similar problems.  The Dredge (a race of stone people?  Basically your mortal enemy) have begun attacking human settlements and you must flee before you become overwhelmed.  It's here that we're introduced to the key human characters Rook and Alette--a father/daughter duo who take on the task of trying to save the villagers who are fleeing from the Dredge.  The human party is made up of ranged units as well as melee.  Archers are useful for picking off enemies at a distance and as long as your melee units are able to keep the enemies away, they can have some powerful attacks.

I would recommend The Banner Saga to someone who enjoys an interesting story.  If you're looking for some sort of intense turn-based combat then you should look elsewhere.  The combat is really where The Banner Saga is weak.  I enjoyed the story, the art style, and the difficulty of making choices that could directly effect people in my caravan.  Oh, and it's actually fairly short--I finished the story in 11 hours.  It could probably be stretched longer depending on the number of combat encounters that you have.  Is it worth playing?  Yes.  Is it worth paying full price?  No.  I would definitely wait for another sale before picking it up.

Remasters? Directors Cut? o.O

Even though I've made a few (eight, I think) purchases in the current Steam Sale, I found myself replaying Wasteland 2.  My Steam library had recently sprouted a few extra games in the form of several free "directors cut" versions of games.  Firstly, let's emphasize the "free."  I didn't pay for these upgrades, they just miraculously appeared in my library.  Free is great!  But then the question remains...do these "directors cut" and "remastered" versions really offer anything new or better?  That's firmly up for debate.

Check your Steam/GoG library for this free upgrade!

It had been awhile since I had played the Kickstarter remake of the 1980's classic RPG Wasteland.  I didn't back it on Kicktarter, but picked it up a few months after it was initially released on Steam (2014?).  I remembered that I had enjoyed playing it but that it had been somewhat challenging (mostly due to my poor character design) and that it was a bit of a buggy mess.  I decided that I would give the directors cut a spin.  The description in my library made it sound like it would be a vast improvement on the base game.  Hmmm...kind of.

The main difference that I noticed between the base game and the directors cut was the addition of voice acting.  I remember very little spoken dialogue in the base game.  The main questline seemed to have a little bit of voice acting but that's really it.  The directors cut features much more voice acting and now most of the key characters have actual spoken dialogue.  The addition of this spoken dialogue does add something to the game.  It's fun to hear Scotchmo remark on the state of his pants or to hear Rose disparaging your current situation.  The voice acting is actually pretty good too.

I also felt like there was a much wider range or companions than there had been in the base game (but, this could be due to my total ignorance of the fact that if you told someone "no" that they couldn't join your party that they were then completely unavailable for recruitment).  From the very beginning of the game I picked up Angela Deth as a companion.  She's a higher level companion and can give a starting team a big boost.  Unfortunately she's a temporary team member (this fact completely screwed up my first effort to re-play the game...I had to start over when she left my party).  Angela has lots of unique dialogue as does every other NPC you pick up and plug into your squad.

Character design has also been much improved in the directors cut.  When you initially design your character you can pick from a long list of "quirks."  These quirks can grant your character a very strange set set of benefits that seem to also be accompanied by drawbacks.  You can take a quirk that grants you additional skill points on every even level but takes away skill points on every odd level (huh?).  Another addition to the talent system are "perks" (a nod to Fallout?) which you get every 3-5 levels.  These perks are directly related to the skills your character has and can greatly benefit your party.  For example, a character with enough skill points in mechanical repair can take a perk that prevents any critical failures.  I fully took advantage of the "perks" but chose not to take any "quirks."  I'm a wuss who just didn't want to risk the negative drawbacks.

The first time I played through Wasteland 2 it had numerous bugs that greatly altered chunks of the storyline.  The directors cut appears to have mostly weeded out the most annoying bugs (this is semi-spoilers but in the original version you couldn't make peace between Hollywood and the Bastion unless you followed the questline in a very specific order--it's completely possible and easily doable in the DC).  There are still a few--don't try to leave Damonta with Bart the cowboy in toe...he gets confused and you can't rescue the cows.  It made the experience much less frustrating...but it's still a bit of a letdown that there are still a few pesky bugs floating around.

So I guess my verdict on remasters and directors cuts is that they do add something to games that you might have already finished.  I wouldn't expect a vastly different experience, but it's nice for when you feel like replaying something that you haven't touched for awhile.  If developers are willing to offer them for free to those who have already purchased the game...cool!  If not, I probably won't do it.  (Be on the lookout for upcoming remasters for the Bioshock games, rumor has it that they are going to be free to those who already own the games.)