Benie's Games Blog

So I paid $11.24 for it instead of what I was hoping it would be. Yeah, the 25% off didn’t take the price down as much as I’d thought.
Anyway, was it worth paying for, and downloading it in 5-10 minutes? I do know that it took awhile doing it’s ‘Performing first time setup…’ thing, occasionally causing my computer to temporarily freeze up.

So far, I’m actually neutral to say if it was worth it or not. How I do love these hype-filled games, and me thinking I can do this and that, then finally get it and realizing… I was wrong and feel utterly disappointed.
But I guess it’s just me, expecting a miracle from an early Alpha game. Not all games started off like Minecraft did.

So, I’m just going to go over what I like, don’t like, and what I hope will be improved in the future;

Likes:
– Able to pilot the ship of the spawn point, that they showed in the tutorial.
– To walk around the ship. It even has an exterior view in the front.

Dislikes:
– Controls are a bit, iffy when it comes to rotating a large ship. I think it’s due to the lack of maneuvering thrusters on the ship. I know large ships are slower and it makes perfect sense. But I can make large ships in Gmod’s Spacebuild that can rotate better.
– Small ships are pretty fast, but hard to slow down.
– You can’t go to the sun. It’s not that you run into invisible walls. All asteroids near the sun are just part of the background. The only asteroids that are real, are within 200 or so meters around the start area.

Requests:
– Waypoint system like in Miner Wars 2081, but improved to set our own waypoints. I was trying to reach the sun and I lost sight of the spawn platform.
– Lock the speed when the ship is moving, for cruise control. The promised “walk though ship while ship is moving” statement is currently misleading.
– Remote control the ship when not at the cockpit.
– First Person view for large ships.
– Occasional Solar Flares as a challenge. They can hurt you, but not your ships/stations in its Creative mode. It should when it comes to its Survival mode.
– Damage Reports for how damaged a ship/station is and what needs to be repaired.
– Able to “lock” small ships in big ships (aka, transport them).
– Warp drive object for small and big ships, if they ever make the play area bigger.
– The Quick Start 2 scenario is a bit sluggish on my computer (due to the space station), and has been reported by others. It’s not that bad, still playable. But you can feel the choppiness. I’m sure the game will be optimized to fix this.

Anyway, though, I do see great things for this game in the future; like blueprints, coms systems, factions, weapons, and Multiplayer. It’s my fault for having such high hopes for being able to do everything in an Alpha game.
But, the money’s spent. I am interested in what they do to improve this game.

I haven’t played Kerbal Space Program in months, and this update isn’t going to bring me back to it. It still has ridiculously-long load times, from what I’ve seen of a few videos.
This update, all its purpose was to get the ball rolling on Career Mode, a feature a lot of veteran KSP players have wanted. Me? This update did nothing to fix the issues with 0.21.1 that made me uninterested in it.

Plus, I find this whole Research and Development thing, a bore.. and completely not what I was hoping.
What did I want? Sandbox mode to have a purpose, instead of “we go to space, because we can”. To get actual samples from planets using rovers; them actually having their real purpose instead of just for ground transport. And for bases, to have a point of their existence. I’m sick of “because we can”! I want reason. I want a purpose to playing this game. I guess I’m asking too much, am I?

Career Mode’s Research and Development, the fact you can collect samples and send them back to Kerbin, this is what I wanted to see. What I didn’t… is they reward you by unlocking the same rocket parts that you have unlimited access to in Sandbox mode.
I’m sure that’s fine and dandy for people that want to be challenged; like the veterans and people that love to be challenged, but that’s not for me.

I… I just don’t see the point in earning the same parts you’ve gotten for free in Sandbox mode, for as long as this game has been around. And they try to sugarcoat it by saying “it’s for SCIENCE!!”. You can do the SAME FUC–..

Alright.. I’m just going to stop my rant here before I get a headache.

Keen Software House was kind enough to post a new video, showing off how to actually play Space Engineers, once you buy it. It teaches you the basic commands, such as how to move your guy (the engineer) and how to build stuff in space.
The controls are customizable, so that’s great.

From what I can tell, ship and station building is like building in Little Big Planet (I so want that game because it looks fun as hell), but the Inventory, I was like “Oh my god, it’s LIKE MINECRAFT!!” I mean, it looked like a spot on copy of the Creative Inventory of Minecraft, just somewhat modified.
Each build area has its own set inventory of parts that you can work with, but you always start with the Armor Block, as that’s your main building material for ships. But you can also paint them.
What I do like, is its build part is a hell of a lot easier than KSP. You’ll have free control over what you build. Just be careful you don’t bump into it while building. Do remember, you are in Outer Space. And there’s no pause button like in Little Big Planet.

The video shows that you can easily whip up a simple ship in under a minute. Cockpit for controlling the ship. Thrusters for maneuvering. Engine to power everything. Gyroscope to control your ship in space. And the actual ship body… all you need, and you got yourself a ship. You can even fucking walk inside your ship as it’s moving… that, is why I want this game. You can’t really do that in Kerbal Space Program, or even G-Mod’s SpaceBuild. Can you imagine how much rollplaying you could do?
You’ll need a Gravity Generator installed on your ship to allow you to walk inside of it, by the way.
And for reactors, it’s not as hard as I thought. It’s similar to Kerbal Space Program. Pop a few engines on, and you got power running all through the ship. Of course, this is an early Alpha build, and I’m sure the realism will increase overtime.

It also shows how to make stations, but doesn’t go into a lot of detail. Though I imagine it should be easy enough to make a cargo bay for small ships, and docking areas for large ones. Just be careful not to crash into them.

It doesn’t list if Solar Flares are in the game, but I imagine later in its development, it’ll be in its Survival mode as a form of a challenge.

What started as the one of the best Half-Life 2 mods ever made, is now its own game. The Stanley Parable is a game, based off of choice.. or is it? Maybe, you’re just playing into the narrator’s evil plot. The mod version was very simple. You moved through rooms, pushing buttons… as if you were told to. Who’s really in charge of the gameplay? You? .. Or the narrator?

For years, you’ve been Worker # 427; codenamed “Stanley”, doing the same job, day after day, week after week… but one day, everything changes. No job comes up, and all of your co-workers have disappeared. You really have no point in life that isn’t related to your job, since you love it so much. It’s up to you, to search for your missing co-workers. Just be careful what door you go through…

The game has no true plot. It has no ending. It’s just you, wondering forever, and slowly going insane at the same time due to being all alone with a voice from the unknown in your head.
Some say that graphics make a game good. This thing, dismisses that claim and gives you the true thing for a good game; the story!
Because without a story, the game has no meaning; no point. That is, unless you can build stuff (aka a Sandbox).

Going back to the actual game. Even the achievements.. oh my god, they are hilarious. One, to go outside and not play the game for 5 years. I don’t think I’ll be alive that long.
Another one, telling you to play the game and beat it on a Tuesday. How in the hell would that be achievable? Still, I would try it.

Currently until October 23rd (the release date of Space Engineers) it’s on sale for $11.99. That’s three bucks off the original price. Not much of a savings, I’ll admit. But still… how can you say no to an awesome and sometimes hilarious narrative-driven story like this?

People like Raphael did. Don’t be like him. Get this game. NOW! NOW, DAMNIT!!

PS… the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never…….

The countdown to one of the most anticipated Indie Sandbox games is fast approaching. Tomorrow, they’re offering a brief window of opportunity (starting at or around 12pm EDT) to buy and own a copy of Space Engineers, and get a 25% off the purchase price.
However, this deal is only for people that bought Miner Wars 2081 through their website.

Ones that bought it through Steam like myself, aren’t out of this deal. They will only have to wait ’till the 23rd, and they too can get the 25% discount. Why is this? They don’t have the technology to detect if you’re using a Steam copy. They will on the 23rd.

Space Engineers is currently set at a price of $14.99, which I’m sure will go up once more features are added and bugs are squished (like Minecraft did). That’s a pretty sweet deal if you ask me for what you can do in that game. And with the discount on the 23rd, it should be something like $3-4.

Don’t have Miner Wars yet? What the hell are you reading this for?! Get that fucking thing! It’s worth the money! Just, try not to go “what the fuck” at the ending.
If you want to know more, see my blog post about Miner Wars 2081.

So I got Crysis 2 Maximum Edition during the Steam weekend sale. As you know, Crysis 2 was temporarily on Steam during its BETA years. Then when it was completed, it disappeared. Now it’s back, and as I said was on sale for $7.49. Its original price is $30, so that’s one hell of a deal there.

From what I saw, the story is very confusing, and darker than Crysis & Warhead. Everytime I try to make sense of it, it seems to throw a curve ball at me. But I think that’s the way EA has always done their storylines; somehow you crave for more at the end.
At least, Crysis & Warhead actually made sense. But for Warhead, doesn’t really clarify the cut scenes with Psycho and O’Neil. My guess is O’Neil used to be part of Raptor Team, then got kicked out for a Code Blue incident.

Anyway, going back to Crysis 2, there’s two new threats. There’s the CELL, and the Cyth. The story never clearly explains how they came to be, except of some unknown alien virus infecting people. Also, occasionally the ground shakes and causes scripted things to fall during the game.

Now the rest of this post is spoilers, but let me just give a spoiler-free recap of what I saw in Crysis 2;
– You play in New York City, under some new threat that doesn’t seem tied at all to the island in Crysis & Warhead. Why is it not, I have no idea.
– You play as a Marine named Alcatraz, yet with your new suit, enemies think you’re someone else.
– In the middle/near the ending, I like how you’re in the thick of what’s going on in the city, instead of being over here when a lot of action is on the other side of the city. You’re not treated as a “one man army” with your ‘super suit’ like in Crysis.
– I can safely say without giving spoilers out, it doesn’t explain what happened to Nomad or Psycho after Crysis & Warhead. Yet I saw in a Alpha video of Crysis 3, Psycho is back.
– Prophet makes a return in Crysis 2, but knowing what happened, I can’t give away without spoilers. He’s also wearing a newer nano suit, called the Nano Suit 2.
– Maximum Speed and Maximum Strength have been built into the new suit. You can now grab onto walls instead of needing Strength to jump over them.
– You can only carry so many weapons. I think that’s the same in Crysis & Warhead, but with the built-in cheats, it’s not a problem.
– Speaking of the built-in cheats, they’ve been disabled due to EA focusing on Multiplayer. Fortunately I was able to use a trainer that works.
– The story feels a lot darker than it was in Crysis & Warhead.
– Every cutscene except the final before the credits roll, is in first person.

So past this point, is mixed with spoilers. I dearly apologize, but I have no real way to explain this game.

As I just said above, I really don’t know what to say about this game. The only good things I’ve seen are the graphics (looks good even on High, but you can go all the way up to Insane graphics, but I’m sure my GPU will be going “WTF!!!” at me.. I so need a better one) and the intense battles at times with the Cyth, and the fact you can preform Stealth Kills that aren’t really possible in Crysis & Warhead (meaning, .
I’m not saying the story is bad, it’s just downright confusing. I try to make sense of it, then it keeps throwing curve balls at me.
There’s two bad guys. One true bad guy, and one… bad then turns neutral then bad then neutral again guy.. what the fuck?

What I can piece out, is what happened on that island in Crysis & Warhead with the North Koreans and the aliens coming from the center, and the -200F sphere, was just a decoy to an even bigger threat all over the planet, and apparently Nano Suits are at fault. Prophet plays a key role in this, even though you as Alcatraz are the one doing the work.
I had originally thought the flyers that are leaving the island, are the ones causing the trouble. Actually, as I said it was just a decoy. A new enemy called the Cyth have emerged and are infecting everyone with some sort of virus that slowly turns people into walking machines.
So, there’s this new team that’s called CELL. I think these are infected Marines, yet they battle the Cyth (maybe as revenge). They are pretty much the cleanup crew, and they only have one real mission… to kill Prophet.

My question mark is, what happened to Nomad if Prophet is here? How did Prophet get there? Why is Prophet seen as the bad guy here? Maybe it does answer the questions, but I’m not seeing them.
I do know Strictland’s daughter is there. Strictland is the guy you talk to in Crysis after Prophet goes MIA.

The ending, I don’t fucking get. It reminds me of Dead Space 2’s ending with all of the spires. Somehow Prophet is still alive, but in another… area. I don’t know. But it seems the player character dies here. I just… ok, I’m just going to stop myself from thinking so hard before I hurt myself.
I do know in Crysis 3, Psycho returns, and the CELL are still after Prophet.

Four DLCs, each with its own ending about how the Courier did something, be it good or bad, and what he helped, or destroyed.

I’ve completed all of them. So each one gets thoughts. Spoilers again.

Dead Money
I was happy to be done with this DLC. It’s probably one of the most difficult DLCs I’ve played. A creepy place, the sun blocked out by the aftermath of the Nuclear Apocalypse. Humanoid-like zombies called ‘Ghost People’ that are attracted to sound and come back to life if you don’t sever their limbs.
And having an explosive collar around my neck wasn’t fun, especially when I tend to panic when I don’t have control over something.. such as having a radio causing the collar to start beeping until it goes BOOM, and off goes your head.
For most of the time in the DLC, all I wanted to do was fucking go home and pretend I never came here.

The ending… that was tense. You had to run, while your collar is beeping, and everything’s exploding around you, and you have less than a minute to get the fuck out of there. It took me about 6 times to do it. And when I finally got out, I was able to rip off my collar and get out of there! This is a DLC I’m not doing again, anytime soon.
It was, different than what I thought it would be. I had thought you would be inside of a casino or something, and then bad guys come and capture you and three other people, and all three of you need to work together and get out of the casino.

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Honest Hearts
Reminded me of Zeno Clash, due to the crazy hairstyles of some people there. The DLC alone is beautiful, but also short. The story is very short, for a DLC. It was more eye-candy than anything.
Though I was hoping to see Salt Lake City, and travel on “the old I-80”. Instead, it’s based around Zion National Park in southwestern Utah.
Three things I didn’t like about it. 1, I’ve already mentioned it (story is short). 2, when the start ambush scene happens, some enemies seem scripted not to die by the player.. I plugged several Gauss Rifle rounds into one guy, and didn’t lose even one bar of health). And 3, companions talk too fucking much! Yes, this makes you feel they aren’t just your personal bodyguard, but hearing the same thing every freakin’ time…

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Old World Blues
I absolutely loved this DLC! It has so much funny, some of it having adult content (like hearing the Think Tank talk about my toes and fingers as ‘penises’), talking appliances, a talking Stealth Suit, and even talking scorpions. It was like an adult episode of Annoying Orange. Whoever wrote the script and the ones that did the voice acting (I’m sure there was a lot of laughter) for this DLC.. give them all medals. Well done.
So at the start, you notice that… you’re not really yourself. You’re a “Lobotomite”. You had your brain, heart, and spine removed, and in its place, implants that make you more resistant to damage. And you’re still able to walk, talk, think, and shoot. But there’s a catch.. you’re trapped at Big Mountain (aka the Big Empty), this is due to not having an actual brain to get past the force field surrounding the cavity the mountain was in.
So these brains called the Think Tank, need your help to defeat Dr. Mobius, a once collage now bad guy and his army of Robo-Scorpions (that have stingers that can drain the smarts out of things).. or so they think. Actually, the doctor isn’t evil. He’s trying to keep them in the Dome. Your brain explains (yes, your brain actually talks) that the Think Tank, if they were to escape, would do their experiments on the Mojave Wasteland, and I so don’t want that.

Overall, this seems to be the better of all four DLCs (due to the Rated-R..sometimes insane humor, and the talking scorpions). And these three previous ones seem to all be pointing to the forth and final.

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The Lonesome Road
The final showdown – Courier 5 VS Courier 6. There’s little to no humor compared to the last DLC. It’s a pretty dark story, and an even darker atmosphere (not as bad as Blood Money, though). The story, I still don’t follow even though I completed it. Had to do with flags, The Divide, him walking the East while you walked the West, him getting ‘taught’ by you, you having a package that blew up a place even though you don’t even remember doing so, and warheads.. lots of warheads. Oh, and a special gun that can set them off.
The atmosphere is a post-apocalyptic desolate wasteland, called The Divide.
Ulysses believes the Mojave Wasteland should be blown up; said it got spared, especially New Vegas, due to “old ghosts” and how it can’t just let reality do its thing. Though the conversations about Mr. House, don’t seem like they follow at all of what the the player’s current arc and path of the Main Quest is (currently I’m fighting for an independent New Vegas.. yet Ulysses assumes the Courier is working for Mr. House).
You’re given one companion, which is a modified, more talkative copy of ED-E who unlocks more on ED-E’s past and how his copy showed up in Primm.
At the end, you have a choice to change history, by sending nukes at the NCR, the Legion, both, or not at all. I chose not to launch them and have ED-E try to disable them, which blew him up and caused the entire area to become unstable, forcing me to make a run for the exit.

You also have an option to kill or convince Ulysses what he wants to do is insane and wrong, and have a chance for new beginnings.
Though, I don’t see how this would be close to being linked to Blood Money, as I’ve read it apparently is.. or even serve as its own DLC for it (DLCception!!).

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Overall, the DLCs were good and well-made. I’m glad to do them. On top of it, it helped me to hit the level cap, it seems, which is Level 50. Got all skills maxed out. The only time I will ever fail a speech check now, is if it requires a S.P.E.C.I.A.L skill.

And so I finally did it, after years of not knowing what the hell I was doing due to being lost of the four branches of the Main Quest.
It’s true, that it gives you ample warning before the great battle, letting you know that this is the PoNR(Point of No Return). But at the end, you have the option of going back before you did it, allowing you to do what you didn’t.

Now just a warning. This blog post like all my “thoughts” posts of a game, have SPOILERS. If you haven’t played yet, don’t whine to me if I spoil it. Just close the page or go to another blog entry.

Even though the game has no freeplay, this is what I wanted to see that didn’t need a mod to do so; a way to go back before the final quest.
Going through the ending credits, I felt I already had did the wrong thing; allowing NCR to take over the land caused people to be unhappy, since they charge for their protection. Their taxes caused some residences of Goodsprings to leave.
I should had known even siding with the NCR would be trouble.

My next playthrough, is probably the ‘good’ ending. Which is to make the Mojave Wasteland, independent. It’s basically giving the finger to the three main factions (NCR, Caesar’s Legion, and Mr. House) and saying “We don’t need you fucks for protection! We can handle life on our own!”.
The wiki claims it’s the ‘canon ending’; the ‘true’ ending. But the more I think about it in a political way, I don’t even see how this would be possible.

For as many years the NCR controlled the Hoover Dam, to just give up control of one delivery man / hero of the people and his army of robots. Wouldn’t that cause chaos? And how exactly would New Vegas survive without a leader to guide them? Would the Courier take over? And if so, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of an independent New Vegas?
I’m just not really seeing the logic in it. Guess the only way is to play that branch of the Main Quest.

Another thought just crossed my mind. I bet the game is trying to get you to see, they’re both criminals in their own ways.

The NCR does seem like the “good guys”, yet they’re also politicians (and who needs that in this day and age?). They’re taking 95% of the power of the Hoover Dam for themselves and giving only 5% to New Vegas, when it could go to the entire Mojave Wasteland for everyone to use.

And Caesar’s Legion… they’re the bad guys, make no mistake. If they get control, everyone becomes a slave. They need to be wiped off the face of the Earth.

So, that’s my thoughts.

Hey there, this is Mister New Vegas. I’ve seized control of this guy’s blog to give you an important fact. Our game, Fallout: New Vegas is a lot like that Skyrim game without those fire-breathing flying pests…. even though it’s made by the same company, and this was made way before Skyrim was.
In other news… the owner of the blog post is standing next to me with a very large energy weapon, pointing it at my head. I’m guessing my death is immanent.

And now, I want to play one of my very favorite songs for you, just before I die of a horrible death. *plays a random song that has been heard 50+ times already, while the sound of an energy weapon discharge is heard and the sound of a head snapping off the neck*

*cuts off the song* Sorry, everyone. I’m back. I had to use the bathroom and this guy takes my spot. But anyway, what the guy said was true, but I’ll get to that in a bit. Not only am I playing what can be classified as an old game, but I got the Ultimate Edition. It includes four DLCs and other neat stuff like a new arsenal of weapons.

Unfortunately, the new DLCs don’t do anything about extending the actual story of the game. I looked around and saw there was to be a DLC, like Broken Steel that made Fallout 3 have freeplay after completing it.
What kind of pisses me off about the DLCs, some of them recommend you to be a certain level, and another one assumes you remember about the near to ending of the actual game (battle of the Hoover Dam).
They also do not allow companions to follow you in. You have to go alone.

But what truly ticks me off about games with choices that I haven’t played in a long time, when you’re faced with dialog you can’t get out of.
One for example, I didn’t know I was supposed to tell Boone to go away before I entered this one camp. I could had told him to go Peaceful, but seeing he’s NCR, he probably would still be attacking.

So, about the start of this; the guy pretending to be “Mister New Vegas”. So there’s two main factions, similar to Skyrim. You got the NCR; who you presume to be the good guys who say the Legion are the enemies. The Legion are slavers and other things of bad.
And then you got the Legion, who say the NCR are the bad guys; making laws just so the crimes they do are legal.
At the end, you have to side who you want to support on the war of the Hoover Dam. There’s said to be four endings to this game. I imagine two Good endings, and two Bad endings.
Such as, sabotaging the Legion while still working for them, a Good ending. And sabotaging the NCR while still working for them, a Bad ending.

Three things seem to separate this game and Skyrim. One, Skyrim came out months ahead of this game.
Two, Skyrim doesn’t have somewhat of a clear sign who to side with. Where in Fallout: New Vegas, the NCR proves that they’re the good guys and only want what’s best for mankind. And the Legion proves they are slavers. And slavery is bad, kids.
So it shouldn’t be that hard to think of who to side with.
But in Skyrim, you have the Imperials about to chop your head off for a crime you never committed (before being “saved” by a dragon), while the Stormcloaks are trying to tell you that they’re the rightful owners of the land. You don’t know either faction that well, unlike in this game.
Three, you don’t have to side with any faction to complete Skyrim (which is defeating Alduin). Siding with a faction in that game is completely optional. But in FNV, how the final battle happens depends on which side you go with.