Dear Blag,
So I finished all my holiday shopping early this year, and after having braved the stores and taken in the seasonal storm of real news, as well as editorial BS, I've done a little bit of thinking of my own.
One thing that keeps coming to mind is the weather. I'm constantly reminded of it, looking out my window, or walking around outside, or watching TV. In Toronto, our snow removal service gets kind of a bad reputation, due mostly to an event that happened years ago that no one remembers. Of course, it's something we'll never really live down, and have become increasingly panicked over the slightest sign of snow at the outset of winter every year. It reminds me of the way they treat snowfall in the United States.
But I have more interesting things to talk about besides the weather. Christmas shopping has taught me something very important. People who commute a lot on public transit know three very important things.
1. On escalators, walk left, stand right.
2. If you need to stop in a crowded terminal, move to the side and get out of the way.
3. Respect personal space, and keep your eyes open.
The problem with the holidays, of course, is that those who rarely commute (or do so but don't respect the rules) come out of the woodwork in droves, dashing to the stores to get their Christmas shopping done before it's too late. This means that basically everyone in the city has to cram onto an already packed subway at rush hour, and breathe into the mouths of the commuters who just need to get to and from work or school. It is a common sight to see people walking in horizontal lines of five or six teenagers, all texting and gabbing, incapable of hearing the obvious cries of "excuse me" behind them. All too often I see parents barging through line-ups or crowds to get at the subway doors first -- as if the train will not still be there if they get on last.
The panic that this causes is incredible. It's an adrenaline rush, for sure; one which many people crave every year. But it really is pandemonium, and causes all manner of pile-ups and dramadies in public. So it occurs to me that it isn't the weather that keeps Toronto from functioning in the winter... it's the people.
So frazzled are we to get our Christmas shopping done, and still be able to commute on public transit, that we cause delays, accidents, mishaps, and even injuries. The sheer volume of rude or oblivious passengers and shoppers is more dangerous than the snow and ice itself! Have you ever seen a bus delayed by snow? No, they have a very good snow removal fleet in Toronto, and the amount of snow we get is barely enough to cause a real stir. The real problem is that the streets are packed with people who don't know how to drive, walk, or commute.
And that's why the problems are almost invariably resolved by February. People are weird.
December 7, 2010
December 6, 2010
Fallout: New Vegas
Dear Blag,
Today I think I'm ready to talk frankly about Fallout: New Vegas. Given how much time I've spent playing it, it may come as a surprise to you that I still haven't actually completed the main campaign. Instead, I've been playing it the way I play most Bethesda releases: creating a menagerie of characters, and then picking which one I like best before pursuing the game's final conclusion. Of course, seeing as this is a Bethesda game, this process can be quite lengthy. However, despite my rather unusual play style, I think I can speak honestly about the game at this point.
First Impressions:
Fallout is always awesome when it comes to gameplay and story, but this time the story feels a little weak. It develops well, and the characters and events are fun and colourful, but the premise itself feels forced. The introduction isn't what I've come to expect from Bethesda, though it works from a mechanical standpoint. The one thing I can say for certain is that New Vegas never fails to disappoint when it comes to immersion. Sure, the graphics engine is showing its age, and the glitches are too numerous and hilarious to even mention, but the actions you take as a character feel important. Many RPGs give you a "good" or a "bad" choice, which nets you an overall score on a scale of "good" and "bad", and such a mechanic can feel very forced and very unsatisfying. New Vegas, on the other hand, will often give you a choice between a variety of warring factions, or present you with an opportunity to do a relative amount of "good" or "bad" to a certain individual or group of people. These opportunities are vital in the game's faction system, and even smaller decisions, like choosing to shoot someone in the face to acquire an item instead of asking nicely for it, give you a sense of gravity and consequence, with nearly immediate results.
As someone who enjoys the moral compass in some more polished games, I have a tendency to play such roles with a certain degree of hostility. When presented with a moral decision between, say, killing a town full of rubes or killing a gang of ruffians, I will often side with the gangsters. But New Vegas has a tendency (particularly in the later stages of the game) to offer more conflicting choices, with less obvious conclusions. Even though I work for a legion of - let's face it - douchebags, not all of my missions will involve blowing up bus full of orphans. A considerable effort has gone into making the story convoluted and controversial, which depends almost entirely on the choices of the player.
Story-wise, this is a great mechanic. The new "Hardcore Mode" also provides you with some more meticulous aspects of wilderness survival, which is mostly fun, but not altogether necessary. It must also be noted that Hardcore Mode is considerably more time-consuming and (later on) frustrating than what I call "Fun Mode".
Adding all these new features has bolstered the game's staying power, but it also appears to have had a drastic effect on its performance. Fallout: New Vegas functions beautifully on most mid-to-high spec systems, but has a tendency to break and explode from time to time. Quicksaving is a must, which I tend to do anyway, but doing it too often can actually have an adverse effect -- I was once accidentally stuck in a scripted story loop with no conclusion, and was forced to load a much earlier save.
Aside from that, the gameplay is pretty much the same as Fallout 3, which was fun to begin with. The character creation is basically the same, but the "Stat" and "Perk" system has been given a much-needed neutering.
Is it better than Fallout 3? No. But it's definitely par for the course, which leaves me reasonably contented. Also, being given the option to stab people in the face (and subsequently steal all of their things) without immediately dire consequences is almost... Morrowindian. And I'm not sure if that's a compliment, but it's certainly something. And if there's anything I need most in a game it's... that's something.
Today I think I'm ready to talk frankly about Fallout: New Vegas. Given how much time I've spent playing it, it may come as a surprise to you that I still haven't actually completed the main campaign. Instead, I've been playing it the way I play most Bethesda releases: creating a menagerie of characters, and then picking which one I like best before pursuing the game's final conclusion. Of course, seeing as this is a Bethesda game, this process can be quite lengthy. However, despite my rather unusual play style, I think I can speak honestly about the game at this point.
First Impressions:
Fallout is always awesome when it comes to gameplay and story, but this time the story feels a little weak. It develops well, and the characters and events are fun and colourful, but the premise itself feels forced. The introduction isn't what I've come to expect from Bethesda, though it works from a mechanical standpoint. The one thing I can say for certain is that New Vegas never fails to disappoint when it comes to immersion. Sure, the graphics engine is showing its age, and the glitches are too numerous and hilarious to even mention, but the actions you take as a character feel important. Many RPGs give you a "good" or a "bad" choice, which nets you an overall score on a scale of "good" and "bad", and such a mechanic can feel very forced and very unsatisfying. New Vegas, on the other hand, will often give you a choice between a variety of warring factions, or present you with an opportunity to do a relative amount of "good" or "bad" to a certain individual or group of people. These opportunities are vital in the game's faction system, and even smaller decisions, like choosing to shoot someone in the face to acquire an item instead of asking nicely for it, give you a sense of gravity and consequence, with nearly immediate results.
As someone who enjoys the moral compass in some more polished games, I have a tendency to play such roles with a certain degree of hostility. When presented with a moral decision between, say, killing a town full of rubes or killing a gang of ruffians, I will often side with the gangsters. But New Vegas has a tendency (particularly in the later stages of the game) to offer more conflicting choices, with less obvious conclusions. Even though I work for a legion of - let's face it - douchebags, not all of my missions will involve blowing up bus full of orphans. A considerable effort has gone into making the story convoluted and controversial, which depends almost entirely on the choices of the player.
Story-wise, this is a great mechanic. The new "Hardcore Mode" also provides you with some more meticulous aspects of wilderness survival, which is mostly fun, but not altogether necessary. It must also be noted that Hardcore Mode is considerably more time-consuming and (later on) frustrating than what I call "Fun Mode".
Adding all these new features has bolstered the game's staying power, but it also appears to have had a drastic effect on its performance. Fallout: New Vegas functions beautifully on most mid-to-high spec systems, but has a tendency to break and explode from time to time. Quicksaving is a must, which I tend to do anyway, but doing it too often can actually have an adverse effect -- I was once accidentally stuck in a scripted story loop with no conclusion, and was forced to load a much earlier save.
Aside from that, the gameplay is pretty much the same as Fallout 3, which was fun to begin with. The character creation is basically the same, but the "Stat" and "Perk" system has been given a much-needed neutering.
Is it better than Fallout 3? No. But it's definitely par for the course, which leaves me reasonably contented. Also, being given the option to stab people in the face (and subsequently steal all of their things) without immediately dire consequences is almost... Morrowindian. And I'm not sure if that's a compliment, but it's certainly something. And if there's anything I need most in a game it's... that's something.
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