Wading through the pile pt. 2

Alright so a little later than I originally foretold, but better late than never the old adage goes. I took some time to delve into Fable 2 this week and, while I haven't really been able to get super deep into it (I'll tell you why shortly), I have come away with a decent impression about the game. First and foremost the issues with the game being jumpy during disk reads (the same with the original fable) are still present in the second installment. I was really hoping that they would have made a way for the "hero" to be able to only rely on one tree skill, strength, or will to get through the game. I tried my hand at a magic user and I have to say that the new spell system is unwieldy at best and unusable in a lot of the combat situations I have encountered. On top of this the player has to delve into the strength tree in order to get their health up otherwise you run around with the constant threat that a wayward leaf may slam your pitiful health pool down to zero. However the game play is as fun as the first one was and the interesting story and side quests/mini games make up for the failings that I previously mentioned. I hope to finish this title soon, but lately some other things have kept me busy.

I recently traded in my original launch 360 for the new, and very much improved, resident evil limited edition console. As the box says it comes with a copy of RE5 and this is the reason why I can't get anything else done lately. The game is simply stunning and the game play is compelling. I will post more on how the story works out later, but from a technical standpoint, the game is executed very well. I hope also to try out the co-op mode with a friend later this week so I will let you all know how that goes.

In the PC arena I picked up Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment. This "micro expansion" basically adds two new defensive features to the game: star bases and space mines. The star bases are tactical gems unto themselves and finally gives players an ability to counter the devastating effects of the TEC Novalith Cannon. The expansion only costs $10, but is it worth the money in this ramshackle economy we have to deal with? In my case I looked at it as, I have spent $10 on worse so I say that it was a good purchase for the money.

Wading Through the Pile

Ok so with the past Christmas boon and the going out of sale gaming goldmine that was the former Circuit City Store, I have had a lot of gaming goodness to wade through. It started off with Fall Out 3. This game is amazing if not daunting in it's scope. Think Morrowind, but a post-apocalyptic setting which instantly makes it a hundred times better for me. Like Morrowind the game provides an insane amount of distractions from the main story line which often lead to many mini story arcs and lots of loot boons to help you get through the game. The only problem with these types of games (for me) is that I will try to do each and every distraction and never finish the game so I had to put it aside and move on to some of the other games I got.

The second game was Star Wars: Force Unleashed. I actually, despite my earlier qualms about the demo, enjoyed the game quite a bit. The story was an interesting take on what could have happened between the prequel trilogy and the original trilogy and I actually like the story more that the story in episodes 1-3 combined. I definetly didn't feel like the force was "unleashed" in any way, and at times I felt like for this supreme force wielder he was pretty weak. However, I understand the need to balance the game as to make the game still challenging. They were definitely too liberal with their use of the "cinemaction" moments specifically to take out the harder NPCs. There is one encounter in particular that takes the cake for the most frustrating of these encounters...it has to do with star destroyers, but that is all I am giving away.

Next I jumped to Too Human. The game is fun. That's really all that I can say that was positive about it. The negatives are that the controls can be extremely clumsy, the voice acting and the story in general can get pretty hammy (but not enough to make it enjoyable) and the camera occasionally freaks out and gets stuck at a weird angle. If you can get the game for cheap by all means pick it up, because it has moderate replay value and is enjoyable. However, I don't think it is worth the $59.99 price tag the game still garners.

I will post again tomorrow with the rest of the titles I picked up.