Game Overdose: Fallout 3 vs. Fallout: New Vegas DLC face-off.

Given the obnoxiously hot weather out there, the fact that I’m still poor (soon to be addressed, hopefully!) and the fact that the reportedly final DLC came out recently, I’ve decided to do a Fallout 3 vs Fallout: New Vegas comparison.

What’s a better way to enjoy unseasonable sun than sat inside wandering through a post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland? DOING IT AGAIN!

Daily Dosage 12/09

 

Hi all, as I’m currently balancing working life with personal life, today I’m only going to fire off on releases and deals. I promise I’ll try to prep these things a little bit better!

Daily Dosage 08/09

Todays news and releases, as well as a few deals!

Daily Dosage 07/09

Today I point out a few flaws in the logic of fox news (not that it really needs any given its swiss-cheese mindset). Deals here as well!

Daily Dosage 06/09

Hey all, open wide for today’s Daily Dosage! (yes, that is meant to be a pill in the image!)

Daily Dosage 05/09

Hi all, sorry for the brief week off, but life stuff got in the way! (bear in mind none of us on the West Londoner get paid for this… yet).

So here’s todays Releases, Deals and News and a continuation of our topics Glossary.

Daily Dosage 24/08

Daily Dosage 23/08

Hello, and welcome to Game Overdose: Daily Dosage. We’ve got gaming news, releases, deals and more! Our Current Topic is a Glossary of Gaming, and today’s subject is “Horror”.

Daily Dosage 18/08

Hi all, it’s your Daily Gaming Dosage with news, new releases, deals, information and our current topic; a gaming glossary!

Today I talk about RPGs (the genre rather than the rocket), and deliver a nice big smattering of gaming news from around the web.

Daily Dosage 17/08

Releases Today:

From Dust has finally come to the PC, a few weeks after its XBLA debut.

Toy Soldiers: Cold War is out on the XBLA.

Also worth a note, though it’s rather obscure is Fighting Fantasy: Talisman of Death for the PSN

Deals:

Online Digital DL

Steam: Midweek Madness is up with Section 8: Prejudice and Prototype, also todays deal is Front Mission Evolved.

D2D: Are currently sporting a sale on all Southpeak Games until friday. This includes Section 8 as well! They also have deals on
Hacker Evolution Duality, X-Blades and D2D Indie Sack Pack Vol. 1 which is their own collection of some cool indie games.

News from around the Web:

MCV have a new article that Sucker Punch will be releasing the next installment of Infamous as a download only title on the PSN. It’s only a spin-off title though, a la Undead Nightmare, so don’t get too excited.

IGN have a quick-fire top 5 stories from Gamescon about Sony.

CVG have their own “5 things we learned at the Sony conference” article, as well as an article on the new Wii model coming out this year… without backwards compatibility. Hopefully that’s not a nod towards changes expected with their other consoles…

GameSpot have a trailer from the new Uncharted and a hands on with Rayman Origins.

AllAboutTheGames have multiple trailers from gamescon… Borderlands 2, Battlefield 3 multiplayer, UFC Undisputed 3, Mass Effect 3…

Gamasutra have an article about the new PS3 price drop.

N4G have some screens for the new Dark Souls game coming out, as well as the Gamescon Trailer.

Topic: Glossary

As a continuation of our glossary, I felt I should delve into everyone’s favourite….

First Person Shooter

Typical FPS setup. Gun in front, Health and ammo appear on the HUD at the bottom. Image from wikipedia.

Or “FPS” to pretty much anyone that’s ever touch a controller. First truly popularised with Doom (though the medium arguably existed long before) and subsequently for about 2 years afterwards all FPS’s were called “Doom-like games” until someone finally realised it was a genre in its own right. They exploded onto the market as one of the strongest genres in games.

Originally they were almost a PC exclusive, as mouse and keyboard was a favoured input method, aided greatly with the rise of the optical mouse. However, more recently there’s been a steady rise of them on consoles as well. Examples like GoldenEye 007, Halo and TimeSplitters are particularly strong, where they were built with consoles in mind, and as such have allowances for the vastly different input (dual analogue sticks).

“First Person Shooters” as the name suggests are shooting games in the first person. Essentially, if you’re looking at things from the view-point of your character (you see what they see, the camera is their eyes) and you’ve got some variety of firearm, whether modern, classic, absurd or sci-fi floating around in front, the chances are you’re playing a first person shooter.

You probably would have heard of FPS through the ever-popular Call of Duty (“COD”) and Battlefield series, most notable in that they all tend to look and play more or less the same. That’s the problem with FPS, it’s a popular yet somewhat uninspired genre that tends to go stagnant fairly quickly, and some companies have no problem with re-releasing the same title with some tweaks and polishing every 2 to 3 years. Not to say the gameplay’s bad, they’re actually well balanced and highly polished, but I guess I’m just not that into paying full-retail price each year for hyper-masculine, machismo-fuelled army-porn.

There’s some exceptions however, I’ve already spoken of Teamfortress 2 and its unique art-style. Brink tried something else with its parkour system, including the “Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain” SMART system, and Rage promises to offer some uniqueness as a story-driven solo FPS.

Thanks in part to the age of broadband FPS’s are a particular favourite as multiplayer games. Everyone’s in pretty much the same boat, armed with a gun trying to shoot someone else, and the first person aspect adds to the adrenaline-fueled “if I go out there will that sniper get me?!” action!

I also have no doubt that the it’s competitive nature of online FPSs and their players that leads to laziness in games companies, releasing a slightly updated game every few years. The fans will buy it because they don’t want different, they want the same, just slightly better. If it was too different (and ergo, difficult to learn) the fans would be in uproar…

However, games in the first person have no small popularity. From a designers point of view there’s no easier way to build immersion than by physically sitting you in the skull of the character you control, in a bizarre Cartesian Theatre manner, so not all first person games, not even those with guns are automatically an FPS. Plus it means you don’t actually technically need to design a main character, as they’re pretty much a faceless protagonist in most games.

Take Mirror’s Edge, the focus on guns in that is minuscule, but it’s still first person. So could you truly call it a First Person shooter? Heck, Minecraft is first person and that sure as hell isn’t an FPS!

Also, do not confuse FPS’s with their younger brother, the Third person shooter. Games like Gears of War, Uncharted, Resident Evil 4 and Red Dead Redemption are all better classified as 3rd person shooters. While they involve guns and shooting people, the floating camera and use of cover systems lends to a different game-play style, though no less engaging. Of course, not every game in which you can see your character is automatically a TPS! Over-shoulder shooting tends to be the give-away!

A common trend you’ll see now a days is the breeding of FPS with RPG. Games like Deus Ex and more recently Fallout 3 contain elements of both. In this way the First Person Shooter mechanic is used more as a narrative and gameplay medium, rather than the focus of the game itself, which is more on story and character development (both statistically and emotionally) than simply “shootin’ d00dz”. This helps to keep the genre fresh by incorporating new ideas, as well as deliver a more well-rounded experience. Such is gamings pedigree.

However, defining whether a game is more an FPS or an RPG is another matter… for another time.

That’s all for now, see you tomorrow!