A Fallout 3 Expansion I’d Like to See
Like Nadia, I’ve been playing a lot of Fallout 3 recently. I’m not sure how much time she’s currently sunk into the game, but I’m a certified addict; it looks like Bethesda’s post-apocalyptic RPG will eventually be one of the very few titles that’s received over 100 hours of my attention. Everywhere I look in the Washington D.C. Wasteland, I’m constantly surprised by the amount of detail lavished upon even the most unimportant of areas–which probably explains why I’m so devoted to exploring every corner of the war-torn landscape, as if it was some very disgusting English Muffin.
Sorry.
Bethesda hasn’t been shy about adding more content to the world of Fallout 3; to date, there’s been three hefty expansions to the original adventure, each adding a bit more to Fallout’s veritable buffet of gaming. But out of all of this expanded content, one vital element of the original game has been completely ignored. Here’s a hint: if I have to hear “Butcher Pete” one more time, I might need to be kept away from sharp objects in the foreseeable future.
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Tags: bethesda, bob mackey, dlc, fallout 3, music
Bionic Commando is Love: Atmosphere and Theme in Game Soundtracks
Just two weeks ago, Brandon Sheffield wrote an excellent editorial on the failings of modern videogames soundtracks. As games have become longer, more complex, and, yes, more cinematic, their accompanying music has become more atmospheric than tuneful, more intent on creating a mood than a memorable melody. Sheffield made the point that the beloved songs from gaming’s 8- and 16-bit glory days are remembered first and foremost because players were forced to listen to them so many times. The technology available at the time afforded game composers only so much space and range so their songs were simple and short. Games were also played in shorter bursts and their difficulty was more demanding so repetition was an inherent aspect of sitting down with a game. We remember the Mario theme song not only because Koji Kondo was an excellent composer but because we heard it many, many times. If you were forced to listen to that brief a melody repeatedly while wandering Fallout 3’s nuclear wasteland, chances are you’d lose your damn mind.
Bionic Commando’s music strikes a careful balance between old and new. GRIN’s Simon Viklund, who composed the soundtrack for both the new Bionic Commando and last year’s remake Rearmed, is a man who remembers when videogame songs stuck in your brain. He actually used to hold a cassette player up to his television to record the soundtracks off his NES games. The new Bionic Commando’s doesn’t preserve the NES game’s tunes as faithfully as Rearmed’s club-beat-infused remixes, but it does house almost every original melody inside its sweeping songs. At the beginning of Bionic Commando, music is rare, fitting into the common mode of providing atmosphere. It was quite a disappointment. As the game has progressed though, particularly in its third level The Park, the music has become more constant and tuneful. The music that plays here shifts back and forth between a lilting piano melody and driving alterna-rock with very little dead silence in-between, and it does wonders for the overall tone of the game. The next level, a forest area preceding a boss fight, features a melancholic orchestral reimagining of the theme from Area 5 of the NES game.
Sheffield said in his essay that the key to memorable game music is to defy a player’s expectation with strange music unusual to games broadly, his examples being the licensed period-specific songs in Bioshock and Katamari Damacy’s eccentric J-pop. Simon Viklund has created another solution with his Bionic Commando soundtrack, songs that serve both atmosphere and theme, marrying the best of the past with today’s technology.
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Tags: bionic commando, Brandon Sheffield, capcom, fallout 3, gamasutra, grin, john constantine, koji kondo, mega man 2, OST, simon viklund, super mario bros
Lessons From Fallout 3: The Economy Doesn’t Bend to My Will
In the RPG genre, there is one constant: even if the world is in the iron grip of Cordor the Communist Conquerer, the merchants always have an endless supply of product. They also have a bottomless wallet with which to buy your crummy cast-offs after you upgrade your duds.
Fallout 3’s economics threw me for a loop not once, but twice: first, by having one of the game’s primary shopkeepers lock up at night (red-haired Moira is as eccentric as you’d expect someone in a poisoned environment to be, but she’s not dumb), and second by giving them a limited till with which to buy my junk.
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Tags: fallout 3, lessons from fallout 3, nadia oxford
Videogames: A Complete History, From the Beginning of Time to the End
Written by Joe Bernardi
After our Metal Gear Solid 2 Day celebration, it occurred to us that several of the best videogames of all time (and Dino Crisis 2) take place at specific points in our calendar. We here at 61FPS recognize that we must both learn from the follies of the past as well as be aware of our impending future. From civilization’s uneventful birth to its death at the hands of nuclear bombs, robots, and the devil, we hereby present the past and future according to videogames.
January 1, 4000 B.C. – Civilization begins, according to Sid Meier
In which Sid Meier tells us when it all began. Note: Meier was the first to point out that building giant pyramids prevents anarchy. Who are we to disagree?
December 24, 1924 – Alone in the Dark 2
Depending on your attitude towards experiencing supernatural terror versus spending an evening with your family, in 1924 Supernatural Detective Edward Camby had either the best or the worst Christmas ever.
September 3, 1943 – Metro City mayor and Final Fight star Mike Haggar born
In which it is revealed in Metro City Hospital’s Natal Ward that Hagar was born with that mustache.
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Tags: alone in the dark, civ, civilization, Fallout, fallout 2, fallout 3, final fight, house of the dead, joe Bernardi, mega man x, resident evil, silent hill, street fighter, xcom
Trailer Review: Fallout 3: Broken Steel
‘Bout time.
Continue reading »
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Tags: bethesda, bob mackey, broken steel, dlc, fallout 3, operation: anchorage, the pitt
Lessons From Fallout 3: You Can Save The World With a Bat
There’s no replacement for hands-on learning. As our nuclear annihilation draws inexorably closer, I say we ought to pull children out of these sissy public schools and drop them off in the forest with a knife and some twine. Those who survive will roam the desolate wastelands when the attacks happen, and ultimately pass on their seed (to some prostitute dying of nuclear syphilis contracted from a Brahman).
My travels across Fallout 3’s Capital Wasteland have taught me that I don’t even need a knife and string; I’m surviving quite nicely thanks to Ol’ Slammy, my childhood baseball bat. I shoot like a blind sloth, even with VATS, and scavenging ammo has been hard. Roving bandits are generally the ones who carry metal, and I don’t seem to flush them out very often. Instead, every mutated dog across America wants a chance to close in and hump my leg. My reward for giving them a very stern “NO” is solely plutonium-rich dogmeat, so I just don’t waste the ammo.
Ol’ Slammy and I had a bonding moment last night. I was meandering over rocks and putrid pond scum, marveling over the fact that the crickets of planet Earth still had something to chirr about. I passed close to an overturned trailer, and a Super Mutant Brute lurched out into the night air, possibly to have a cigarette.
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Tags: fallout 3, lessons from fallout 3, nadia oxford, xbox 360
Lessons From Fallout 3: It’s All Right To Die
I’ve been picking at Fallout 3 lately, slowly making my way across the wind-blown wasteland, boots crunching over the rubble one kilometre at a time.
Then a giant mole rat bites my ass, and it’s back to start. Man, Lucy’s poor family is never going to get their daughter’s letter.
Fallout 3 is my first extensive experience with a Western RPG, and I’m pretty overwhelmed. Mackey felt similarly intimidated when he started on his cross-country tour of the United States of Wasted Rock; that’s because both of us are what the kids these days call “JRPG faggets.” Japanese RPGs like to tell you specifically how things should be done, whereas Western role-playing games want you to, well, play a role.
Both genres have their strengths and weaknesses. In the case of Fallout 3, your escape from Vault 101 is like being pushed out of the womb all over again. Agoraphobia sets in very quickly; there’s nobody telling you exactly where to go, or what to do. No one greets you right outside the Vault to scream in your ear, “DRAGON LIVES N OF RIVER.”
It’s liberating, and so very terrifying.
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Tags: casual gaming, fallout 3, hardcore gaming, jrpgs, nadia oxford, role-playing games, rpgs
John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself. 
Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.
Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.
Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines.
Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.
Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.
Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.
