Love/hate #16 LA NOIRE

I first played this back in 2014 or 2015 I think. I watched the review of it like so many other things on Zero Punctuation and for some reason it stuck with me. What sold it was the memes. I had to see what it was all about and was not disappointed.

^ the mandatory image

The actual gameplay is typical Rockstar, slightly clunky walking and driving, the latter suiting the late 1940's. Some damn good looking cars were made back in that era. Unlike GTA or RDR you can't just whip out your sidearm and blow away pedestrians - you are part of the LAPD. Even Nick Kang had a karma system to stop him doing this too liberally, Cole Phelps must get by running over the occasional street walker and get a few points deducted from his mission record.

^ Cole, the hero and the villain (ha)

I kind of liked how they melded the flashbacks showing Cole the by the books officer in the army being a total disaster (well, it's complicated) and being an absolute star in the police (with your help). Nice kind of redemption to it, though it all kind of goes to crap as you can imagine.

The actual interrogations and gathering of evidence is the absolute best part of the game. Any car chases can be painful - don't skip driving to destinations, you'll get rusty. Foot chases can be intense. It all adds up to putting a case together, getting the questions right using the right evidence or intuition* and hopefully putting the right criminal in the slammer.

Almost every case in every department is entertaining in some way or another. I actually think it runs out of steam during the late Homicide cases of all things and into Vice. Cole is best as an exceptional underdog rather than as the certified best. When he loses room to maneuver in the late game we get introduced to someone so frustratingly good and perfect he makes us miss Cole dearly.

^ Who's the best partner? Stefan is a great help at the start and fully deserves to be where Cole should stay, in Homicide, later on. I actually really love those first 3-4 cases in Traffic. Rusty 'helps' you out in Homicide for the whole 6 cases he is entertaining but wholly useless; thankfully they all drive and chase the same way and are all equally useless in a firefight. Roy Earl is the worst, fun to see how he moves about like the corrupt cop he is. I sat in on his little 'meeting' with the chief there. Bastard. Herschel Biggs is great and just the right guy to help Cole when he's down - though it takes him a while to get there.

Conclusion?

I mainly posted this as I realised I had a heap of screenshots (well, 34) from my recent playthrough on Steam. I have played it a number of times on the 360, it was one of my absolute favourite games of recent times. I'll hopefully come back to this and expand on it a bit more as it deserves. Love, love, love.

Glitch/bugs:

(only there because the door wouldn't open for ages :'( oh well)

Love/hate #15 Fallout 3 playthrough #8 (?) 1st time Very Evil + DLC comments *spoilers* 2016 DRAFT DIG-UP

Fallout 3 and me + memories of the one time I played a Very Evil character , intro written 15/03/2018 remembering a playthrough from May 2016!

There are just so many opportunities to be evil. In the Vault growing up and from the moment you exit there are so many opportunities to just cut loose and be a dick. Go to Megaton and destroy it. Fuck up the lives and relationships of Rivet City, from drug additions, jilted lovers and suicidal old men. Help the slaves and then help them into the hands of the slavers, then kill them with pocket grenades and stealth. Enslave people yourself. Help all the clearly wrong people get what they want in every situation. Reluctantly fight for the Brotherhood and screw them over wherever possible. Reluctantly fight the Enclave and embrace everything they give you and do everything they tell you to do, then drink the consequences later (heh).



^The worst 1000 caps you'll EVER spend. Didn't last one fight.

This was just one of those many games in the 2000's where it had to be clear-cut black and white with an occasional, difficult yet rewarding neutral playthrough which I also did in Fallout 3. I mainly just kind of 'fell into' Pure Good status in Fable and Fallout and the like and then used all that banked up good boy credit to occasionally rob what I wanted while the NPCs cheered. The conclusion was usually after the game was completely finished and I'd go on a rampage and kill everyone in Bowerstone/Megaton whatever, have a chuckle and then move on to some other game. This was the one time I deliberately went in and clicked the third option at the bottom, almost always the jackass dickhead evil response but it was great craic. Having not really played Fallout 4, it is a shame they replaced this supposedly with mostly positives.




Broken Steel

I actually really liked the amended ending DLC. In my recent Very Evil playthrough I made Sarah Lyons walk in and activate the Purifier and she did not survive into the Broken Steel expansion, which I had not seen happening before. Every other playthrough I must have walked in myself and activated it.

It is always nice to see Liberty Prime in action but sadly he dies very shortly into the new expansion, which is a good motivation to go fuck up these Enclave guys.

This takes you to Old Olney where you need to find a Tesla Coil to make the Tesla Cannon in order to fight the Enclave bases more effectively. After navigating the maze of Deathclaws it's possible to zip straight to the end via a locked door and get the Coil without much effort.



The final part involves going through the Presidential Metro (raiders, ghouls, super mutants galore) which is incredibly satisfying if you stealth through and murder everything using either the Chinese Stealth Suit, Stealth Boys or just plain old fashioned sneaking. You eventually use the metro to reach Adams Air Force Base and an army of turrets and Enclave soldiers are there. I recall being able to call in BoS support to help out but in my Very Evil run this did not happen, maybe because Sarah Lyons was dead.

I actually liked the Enclave over the Brotherhood of Steel as the latter were portrayed as lawful good (read: insufferably good and arrogant) so it's nice to be able to destroy them at the end by having the Launcher destroy the Citadel.

Point Lookout

They tried really hard to give this place character and it just never really worked for me. My Very Evil girl just arrived there and I deliberately got the Explorer perk (I never usually get it) to reveal all the locations so I can breeze around and get the achievement for finding all the locations.

After the mansion section which is meh you undergo a ritual which is probably the best part, the hallucinations are fantastically dark. The rivalry between the Ghoul and the Brain (heh) never really grabbed me but we'll see after this playthrough. You have to pick a side but it makes little difference.



The mutated inbred swamp people, the proliferation of ghouls and bugs and the tribal-raiders just never grabbed me, they only fight you and can't be interacted with. They would nail semi-interesting tribals later in the New Vegas DLC.

Apparently some of the side missions are cool so I must give it a proper run through this time.

Into the Pitt

I have never, ever been able to play this DLC, it always crashed on me in the first area as it's a huge road with lots of things going on which is bug central.

I'd love to play it and may give it a whirl this time around though I have a feeling it will crash again!

Mothership Zeta

While this might seem the most interesting they somehow messed it up. What could have been turned into an awkward dungeon crawl with frustrating obstacles to get around (everything piece of scenery is in the way) and enemies that just shoot at you. The aliens are not particularly interesting, being cartoonish grey aliens who just blast you with some old and new alien weaponry. From the Alien Blaster being rare and powerful to finding one every few encounters takes away its mystique. The new alien weaponry is also kind of bleh. The angle with the people from across time and space also fell flat, all of them being weak companions with little or no backstory. They would refine this in later DLCs (Sierra Madre and the various companions).



Operation: Anchorage

A pure shoot or sneak fest. There is not that much to it but going back to Alaska in virtual reality in the time of the war with China is super interesting. Weapons don't break or deteriorate, armour and pick ups are almost a non-factor you just go from health and ammo supplies and shoot up invading Communist troops.



The main companion Benji is kind of grating after a while but otherwise this is probably my favourite due to how uncomplicated it is. It had very few pretensions and is a whole lot of fun right the way through, whether you sneak around or blast up the enemies it doesn't matter. The others had some gimmicks that fell flat and were kind of disappointing after a while. I usually play this DLC around the 20-25 levels to get about 2-3 levels of experience. The rewards at the end are very nice, including the almighty Chinese Stealth Suit which should make me play it even earlier in the game just to get it. PHAT LOOTZ.

Civ 4 18 civs Pangaea test Marathon Monarch episode 7

Kind of a desultory ending to a decent game, the insanity of the first half kind of killed the competition off also their insistence on not researching Rifling - though they had steel Cannons, Airships (in limited supply) and had just gained access to Machine Guns and Steel ships, the land war was what mattered.

Frickin' slaughter here actually makes Lincoln renounce Charlemagne's protection.

^ My allies actually beat me to a variety of locations as we feasted on the Viking-Zulu-Ethiopian Empire.

^ He concedes quite lightly. Mao and Lincoln follow in exact sequence after he goes under.

^  Thought he would be the real big bad.

^ They all have NICE technologies.

^ Rameses looking chuffed. Top score and managed to displace one of my early win Roman games. Might return with either Earth map or another crazy 18 civ random script map next time. This was good fun and I was probably lucky not have got dog-piled by advanced civs earlier in the game. Weak or dead neighbours also played a part and the West never consolidating but remaining fractured yet advanced hurt any chance of a real foe. I recall a Pangaea game where Bismarck vassal'd have the continent while I killed off two people and was forced to fight him and his many subordinates. I had to go through Japan to get to him and managed to isolate and destroy his stack which broke his hold over his vassals and the game just turned completely my way.

Stack of Dooms are huge in this game, a huge part that is but as warfare gets more complex toward the end there can be numerous smaller armies but there is always that one main force to attack or run away from. It can be really satisfying to destroy an equally matched or superior force by manoeuvre and good use of collateral damage from siege weapons and flanking from mounted forces. I was lucky they never bothered with Rifling (sometimes they do focus on it or acquire it through various means) else I would have much farther to go, though my domestic situation was just starting to calm down post-slavery and post-draft.

Civ 4 18 civs Pangaea test Marathon Monarch episode 6

Almost there. Attacking Genghis and almost winning now.

^ His lands. His giant stack of doom is still in the Zulu lands there on the left.

^ I declared on him and then didn't try and topple the vote. Everyone said 'no' to ending the war so it's all good.

^ Early concessions - I forgot he had some land south of me.

^ My stack squares off with his in Celtic lands. I will now try and get him to move onto the lowland so he will lose that hill defence bonus.

^ He's getting closer...

^ There we go!

^ A terrible clash of arms, we took so many casualties in this game at 60% or more odds in our favour, but I guess that's civ.

^ Tons of promotions available next turn and despite surviving with a large number of troops intact after our assault his counterattack fails miserably, we lose 4 guys while he loses every other battle.

^ Still not giving in. The amount of red relations here and wars versus all 9+ of my vassals...

^ A quick look at the global situation.

^ Set up a rainforest squad here to distract him while I build up again and try attacking from two different sides. Here and further west around this body of water, right under his belly.

^ Press toward the Christian holy city of Bibracte. Once Elizabeth's, then Genghis' for the last few centuries and now soon to be mine.

^ She falls. Note the incredible 100+ gold generated by the holy site being here. I'm keeping this.

^ Not good enough for him, though he offers a Zulu city.

^ I mass whip a Cavalry force in most cities. This along with drafting here and there for the next few turns should drive my Power up and make him submit faster, or at least allow me to attack better.

^ My jungle force have resisted a good few attacks.

^ Bibracte pops out of civil unrest and sure enough drives my income up.

^ After attacking him a bit on both sides he concedes.

^ I am now almost there re: land area, you need 51% to dominate and population. I think a portion of my vassals' scores are added to mine to get this figure.

^ Look at the conga line of troops heading west!

^ The final battle, my Cavalry and Riflemen versus Charlemagne's steel Cannons.