TallGuyCalif's Computer Gaming and Entertainment Site

Category: Games I Like

  • LOTRO Forges of Isengard solo instance

    This is a long video of a mission to clear Saruman’s minions in the Forges of Isengard. This is a solo instance that is not too difficult, but has some tough baddies and lots of loot, particularly reputation items and some legendary items. I nearly bit off more that I could chew at the start, because I pulled 4 enemies, but survived and breezed through the rest.

  • LOTRO Tour Part 7: Bree

    This is a tour through Bree, starting at the west gate, then showing the Prancing Pony, the crafting hall, the town hall, jail, auction house, hunting lodge, and finally ending at the skirmish camp beyond the south gate.

     

  • LOTRO Lore Master Menagerie

    Lore Masters in Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings Online can summon many companions from nature to help fight or even just as decoration. The gallery below shows most of my pets, though I can’t show one without serious re-traiting, so it is omitted.

    My favorites are the Snow Crest Eagle, because Eagles can revive you if you die in battle (by sacrificing themselves), and Slynxy the lynx, which has an awesome stealth attack that can kill some weaker enemies in one shot. BigGrowly is also a good tank and can grab aggro away from the poor squishy Lore Master… DuskyKitty can deal damage, sometimes against groups, so he’s a good choice in some situations.

     

  • Finished Fallout New Vegas

    Despite my getting discouraged at Fallout New Vegas, I finished it. I didn’t like the lack of freedom in the outcome (hey, why can’t I be friends with the NCR at the end?), not did I like that it completely ended the game, and didn’t let me do the last DLC that I hadn’t done. I decided to load an earlier save (the “Continue” option in the game offers to load a save right before the final battle), so I could do the DLC in Zion. The DLC was pretty good and I loved the red rocks and the views. As usual, there was controversy and unhappiness at the end, but it wasn’t quite as unfortunate as the others. So if you haven’t played New Vegas, pick up the new version that includes everything or wait for a sale on Steam or elsewhere. Overall, it was pretty good.

  • Getting Sick of Fallout New Vegas DLC

    I’ve mostly been enjoying Fallout New Vegas, although it is not as engaging as some of my all-time favorite games, like the original Fallout 3, Oblivion, and Dragon Age. I bought the game from Steam with all the available DLCs, and so far have played through 3 of the DLC missions and all of them have some sort of unpleasant ending. The last one I did, Lonesome Road, has, in my opinion, a downright lousy ending: I can nuke one faction or another or both, or else I can sacrifice my companion to stop the nukes. If I just want to be a nice guy, not nuke anyone, but keep my companion, there’s no way out. I chose to nuke the Legion, yet I still wasn’t able to keep my companion (a robot named ED-E, much like the one in the wasteland, but with more personality). The previous DLCs I played, Old World Blues and Dead Money, also had endings that required guns rather than negotiation, though Old World Blues at least lets me go back and visit.

    In short, I’m getting sick of Fallout New Vegas and think I will just get done with it and move on to the many other games I’ve yet to play.

  • New TV – 3D games, here I come!

    I needed a smallish TV for my bedroom, but when I saw a good deal on a Vizio 42″ 3D TV at Costco, I had to buy it. I didn’t think I really NEEDED a 3D TV, but it had all the other features I wanted, so I got it.

    I hooked a PS3 and Xbox 360 into it and then fed the TV’s optical audio output into a Pioneer AV Receiver. That was my first mistake. The TV’s audio support is lousy and it doesn’t just pass through audio signals it can’t decode. Instead, it forces the source to 2 channel stereo PCM or Dolby Digital 5.1. This means all the fancy Blu-Ray sound outputs are useless. I couldn’t even convince the PS3 to use Dolby 5.1, but the XBox did so. Though my receiver is a couple years old, I hooked the PS3 HDMI port straight into it to get the best sound and it passed through the 3D HDMI signal to the TV, so a win all around. Shame on Vizio for messing with the audio, though.

    I haven’t watched any 3D movies, but I tried Uncharted 3 and Killzone 3 in 3D and I’m not going back to 2D games if 3D is available. The Vizio TV is passive 3D, which means it uses polarized glasses and half the resolution is used for each eye, but the quality is still quite good and the 3D adds a lot, at least to those 2 games.

    I had resisted 3D because of cost and because I figured it wouldn’t be very effective, but in this case, passive 3D is comfortable and works very well. I’m now sold on 3D for gaming. I’ll post after I watch a 3D movie on it to let you know my impressions. But if you are thinking of a new TV and have a PS3, get a 3D TV!

  • Enjoying Fallout: New Vegas

    I bought Fallout: New Vegas when it was on sale on Steam last week (the game, plus the Prima guide, plus all the DLC for less than $20), and finally installed it yesterday.

    I loved Fallout 3, so had fairly high expectations for New Vegas. So far, I have enjoyed it a lot. It has the usual inventory management problems that Oblivion, Fallout 3, and apparently Skyrim have, meaning you are strictly weight limited in the amount you can carry and need to discard or use things over the weight.

    The graphics are quite good, as the atmosphere is excellently post-apocalyptic. Animations, particularly for animals walking, is spotty, but doesn’t really detract from the game play. Overall, if you like the idea of a first person RPG, Fallout: New Vegas is a safe bet.

    I think I made a mistake buying the Prima game guide, however. It turns out is a website accessed through Steam, rather than a PDF or other format I can read offline or on an iPad. The guide seems to be missing a lot of images that are referenced in the text and navigation and cross-references are quite poor given that it is a website. I’m sure much more care would have gone into a dead tree book, so I think I will not waste my money in the future.

  • LOTRO Tour Part 6: Stock to Bree

    Leaving the relative safety of the Shire, the road to Bree is dangerous to low-level adventurers. Wolves, bears, and boars wander along the road, while bandit camps are on either side. This area is for players of levels 13-20ish, with many quests that will allow players to explore the area.

    It turns out FRAPS is limited to 32-bit file size, so long captures are broken into several files. This tour leg resulted in 2 files, so I had to use VirtualDub to join them before uploading.

  • LOTRO Tour Part 5: Hobbiton to Stock

    Now I purchase a ride from Hobitton to Stock on the East side of the Shire. I pass by lots of places whose names are recognizable from the Lord of the Rings books. Next up: on to Bree.

     

  • LOTRO Tour Part 4: Tour of the Hill

    In this segment, my Hunter rides around “the Hill” suburb of Hobbiton. The Hill contains the Party Tree and Bag End where Bilbo and Frodo lived. As you can see in the video, the Sackville-Bagginses have moved in already.

    I’m disappointed by how much the compression by YouTube muddies the textures. The game is quite sharp and generally looks good, as do my source videos, but YouTube needs to save bandwidth, so re-compresses quite a bit. I don’t fault them, but it does blur things quite a bit.