Fallout 3

An exhausted and slightly irradiated Colleen hangs outside Craterside Supply in Megaton

So many years ago when I was young I played a game called Wasteland for the Commodore 64. It was an absolutely brilliant game that took place in the post-nuclear war USA. I even kept in touch with one of the designers of the game who amazingly I happened to befriend because he lived nearby in Arizona. Then, in the 90's, Fallout 1 and 2 came out, which were both inspired in part by Wasteland. They were really good games.

Over a decade later we now have Fallout 3. It is truly one of the most fun experiences I've had in a long time. The Oblivion engine gives such a sense of realism to the game and the landscape, features, and plotlines all hearken back to the earlier fallout series. I hear Fallout purists are unhappy with the lack of tactical options that the first ones have, but I think the V.A.T.S. combat system makes up for that quite well. It just seems a lot more fun in realtime. Also, the blood and gore is just all over the place in this game, which is a big bonus.

The only problem I really had was the ending, which just didn't seem to fit and felt really contrived after all the work you do and the options which should be available to you by the time you reach the ending. Either way, it still is a great ending overall and takes into account alot of what you've done through the game. The soundtrack is just awesome too and you'll find yourself singing old swing-style tunes now and then. You will also learn that the bees are the stingiest way back home as well. I'm not sure why that's a good thing, but it just is, dammit.

Spore

An epic Pufferyip gets taken down by a pack of GnuLomls!

Sometimes a game comes along that just so rocks, you have no idea what to do about it! Lately, I've discovered two of these awesome games--Spore and Fallout 3. I'll have a review on Fallout 3 soon, but this article will be devoted to Spore.

Spore is easily one of the most creative games to come out in the past 5 years. It has all the hallmarks of originality and freeform play. The concept is so simple! You start as a small cell and evolve your way up the food chain until you reach civilization and eventually space!

The game progresses pretty slow up until the space stage, but the Creature phase is the most fun until then. In the creature phase you get to develop your creature with limb parts you find and make friends with little ones out there. The best part is that Spore downloads creations from everyone who's playing the game, which means you end up with a massive library of available content! My creature, the Kixxie, was a very sociable creature and didn't do any fighting the whole way up the food chain.

The space phase is where things get super awesome! You can travel to planets and colonize them and there's an overarching theme that every player's game discovers--the Grox! The Grox are kinda like the Borg of the galaxy, yet much cuter. I'm having so much fun in the space phase right now, just flying to planets, exploring wormholes and finding all sorts of neat civilizations. Between trading spice, discovering lost artifacts, exploring and balancing all your alliances, this game has everything!