Weekend!

Saturday: the day of video games, snacks, and video games!

I decided that today, I would go on a small adventure to the game store to trade in the Modnation Racers I received with my copy of Little Big Planet 2 from Subway. Since the game store is doing a 50% bonus for trades, it was a good time to bring stuff down there to unload that I wasn't interested in or could make some extra credit off of. For example, some games that I bought on sale online for around 10$ could be traded back in for 15-20$ using this promotion (also Gamestop still charges decent prices even on some titles, meaning they also give sort of decent trades). I was considering trading in my copy of Golden Sun: Dark Dawn that I purchased on the cheap, and while it was a good trade value, the selection at the local store was really pretty lacking. Disappointment! However, I did end up trading Modnation straight across for Resistance and Motorstorm, which I am pretty pleased with. Perhaps I'll see about going to a different store for a better selection to peruse.

When I got back (Sunchips, personal pan pizza, and Coke Zero in tow), I decided that I should make good use of whatever hours I had to spare and dove into just a bit of Neverwinter Nights 2. I've played it a little, and it's a really absorbing and enjoyable game, despite the fact that I don't completely understand much of the rules behind D&D and the system working behind the scenes. I've barely even scratched the campaign, I can tell, but just absolutely love what I've gotten to play so far. The amount of control that I have over my own character's development, nuances in the story, and my own character's interaction with the world is fantastic.

To give you a brief idea of what I could do, I'm going to spoil a bit of the tutorial and beginning of the game. During the tutorial, you're participating in your village's fair, competing to triumph over four different challenges. One of them involves a brawl against some punk brothers who seem to think they're hot stuff, and find it suitable to try and spew insults at you. Well, of course, I made very sure that I beat them in that tournament and took first place for this year's competition. Soon after the competition, your village is invaded and you need to fend off the attackers while looking for survivors to try and rescue. Naturally, these brothers are some of the survivors you can find and attempt to rescue... That is, if you're willing to forgive their insolent behavior from earlier in the day. Me? Not so much -- the first brother I found, he begged desperately for his life. Did I give him the herbs I got from the priest? No. I told him I would watch him bleed to death, and I did. After he collapsed to the soaked grass, I simply walked away with a smirk on my face and an extra herb in my pocket. When I came across his brother, I let him live, only that he may tell the tale that Mers Brows should not be crossed.

Mers Brows: Heartless killing machine or misunderstood, lovable gentleman?

After the NWN2, I decided to dig into a bit more Fallout: New Vegas. I've been wanting to get at least some sort of ending to the game, but for some reason I have a tough time really getting into the mood for playing it. With Fallout 3, I got sucked into it for hours and hours on end and it really just gripped me. This huge, destroyed world full of mysteries, people to talk to (or explode), places to explore, things to collect, and so on. The music for the game was absolutely fantastic; the soundtrack really fit the game and often really caught in my head like a hook in a fi-- okay, that's probably a bit too sharp. I'm not much of a fan of ridiculous metaphors coming from my own writing. A lot of the landscapes really impressed me, and it was good to just get completely lost in this strange world. With New Vegas, though, it doesn't seem to possess the same charm that 3 did. It's a bit more of a western setting, and while they tried to go for that feel with the world and radio, it really doesn't click with me. Maybe I've missed a quest to help create a better radio signal for the 'good' music, but so far I've heard about six or seven total songs, and roughly two are enjoyable to hear.

Another thing that I really dislike about it is that there is a lot of running. I never noticed this while playing Fallout 3, and it's honestly probably the same in both games, but you run a lot. Even using the fast travel option when available, you'll still find yourself just trotting along from point A to point B. The game really would benefit from some sort of auto-run feature, because I don't want to have to hold the stick in that direction for minutes at a time. To be honest, I could have completely missed this and it might even be in the game, which I secretly hope is true. I really want it to be there. One other thing that bothers me is that, while it's most likely my TV settings, the game is seriously dark sometimes. Mostly indoors, it's often bad enough that I can't even see what's in the room without turning up the in-game brightness setting completely.

It looks something like this on my TV. Yeah, it's dark.

A lot of the quests in the game are quite rewarding, however! Many of them have lots of freedom for how you want to complete them, if you even want to at all. I've been able to finish what would otherwise be long quest chains simply by being able to smooth talk people. There are so many opportunities for characters of differing skill sets to gab their way through situations, which is really nice. 

The evening was like a buffet of all sorts of games as well -- Phantasy Star Portable 2 with the broski Mogs, Team Fortress 2 and Little Big Planet with my lovely gal EmProv, and some Words with Friends tossed around in there somewhere. Today was a good day for gaming, that's for sure! Going to end this here -- I feel content with this post and I've spewed out a fair number of words now.

V for Victory! Em and I pose for the camera.