Backwards Compatible

When there is a lack of new games to review, I'll try to review some older games in the segment called "Backwards Compatible". Yes, the name is from the television program "Good Game", but until I can get a better one, it will have to do.

Fallout: New Vegas

Fallout: New Vegas

Genre: FPS/RPG

Platform: PS3/PC/XBox360

Overall Rating: 4/5

Graphics: 8.5/10

Game-play: 9.75/10

Story: 7/10

Soundtrack: 5/10

Price: Varying depending on platform and retail method.

The Fallout franchise returns once more with Fallout: New Vegas. Set in the post-apocalyptic setting of New Vegas you play as the Courier. The story follows your path to find the man who shot you in the head, buried you in the Mojave (pronounced: Moh-Hav-Eh) wastelands, and return the favour. But to do that, your going to have to track this dirt-bags ass all the way across the wastelands and into the New Vegas Strip itself. 

The game returns with everything known and loved from the previous Fallout games and more. This include the V.A.T.S system, the weird and wacky perks and the guns, lots and lots of guns. One of the new features of New Vegas is the weapon modification which give a wide variety of weapons even more killing power. These range from a simple sniper scope for the Varmit Rifle, to a high powered laser recycler for the laser RCW (i.e a laser sub-machine gun). My only problem was the time it took to walk to new locations.

Fallout: New Vegas returns with a whole new set of perks set for any play style. For those of you unfamiliar with the Fallout series, perks are like abilities or skills that are acquired ever second level, they all provide both good characteristics and bad ones too, so no perk is a typical "must". While there are the fan favourites like Mysterious Stranger and Bloody Mess, there are a whole new set of perks which have their own pluses and minuses. Personally my favourites were Rad Child (radiation sickness gives you health regeneration) and Bloody Mess (all enemies have a greater chance of exploding when critical'd). The V.A.T.S system was flawless, providing another alternative to normal FPS gameplay by allowing you to auto-aim a particular part of the body and letting the game use a percentage to see if you hit them, this was a feature I used very often, particularly as the anti-materiel rifle is hard as hell to use on multiple targets due to the recoil. The enemies also were very fun to kill, especially with high damage weapons which have a large chance of gibbing them.

The graphics were okay, New Vegas had some pretty good graphics, especially with the facial animation, which I had to say were really good, where you determine a characters feelings from the subtle facial expressions, rather than the over top ones normally found in-game. Also, the render distance for the Mojave Wasteland was very impressive, I found that at no point did the game have to stop and pause while it loaded except from entering and leaving buildings. The only problem was that in crowded areas like the Atomic Wrangler (a really popular bar/casino) I did start to have frame rate issues when I was playing on Ultra. 

The soundtrack in Fallout games are generally exceptional, having great songs that both fit the timeline and are great to listen too, but in New Vegas I found myself disappointed, for all the radio stations seem to loop rather frequently and with a rather disappointing song list. I really did get tired of listening to Mr. New Vegas tell me about the same town burning down over and over again. I would suggest just getting your iPod or opening iTunes to your own playlist(s) of songs instead.

Overall a very high quality game of the standard I expect, and receive from, Bethesda Studios. Easily one of the best games of the year.

Dragon Nest

Dragon Nest
Genre: MMORPG / Fantasy
Platform: PC
Overall Rating 3.5/5
Graphics: 7/10
Gamplay: 6.5/10
Story: 8/10 (Note this score is relative to most MMORPGs and should not be used to compare with other games like the Witcher or Mass Effect)
Soundtrack: 6/10

Dragon Nest is the new MMORPG by Nexon America, who are known mostly for their games Maplestory, Combat Arms and Vindictus (not available in Oceania). Dragon Nest is a branch from your normal RPG, for instead of using your mouse to do everything, Dragon Nest makes full use of both keyboard and most with an FPS/Fallout style keyboard layout. The gameplay is both fast-paced and action packed in a way which is rather surprising for an MMORPG.

The combat system is easily the main selling point of this game, the very natural controls make combat almost instinctive and adds more depth than most games of this class. Each class plays quite differently. The Warrior class is all about the combos, your attacks are both fast and quite destructive, allowing you to rack up high combos and the skills are an extension of this style most allowing skillful players high combos in their 50s. The Archers are all about damage from a distance. They are both fast and agile allowing players to demolish enemies from and quickly disappear before the aggression is returned. The Sorceress is a master of wreaking elemental destruction on the battlefield, she uses her powers to inflict elemental attacks for massive damage. The Priest is both a healer and a fighter. Being able to cast healing spells, buffs, and has the highest pool of health. The Priest is able to take a kicking and keep on ticking.

The graphics are extremely good for an MMORPG. Though don't let this phase you, for on the low-medium settings this game could probably be played on your average dual core with a 500MB graphics card. Though turning this game up to max will require you to have a decent computer. The art style is similar to borderlands with the cell shading on some character models.

Though, unfortunately, this is still is in an open beta phase so there is a level cap at 24 and there is a lot of content to come. Still for a game in Beta, I'm pretty impressed