See, I completed Fallout 3, and almost all of the sidequests (none of the DLC though), must have spent a good 80 hours on that game, but if I'm quite honest, I didn't think it was that good of a game. It's one of those games, that while I'm playing it, with its bugs left right and centre, wandering about this dull landscape looking desperately for things to do, only to go "oh well that sounds rubbish" the moment I get a quest... Somehow, despite these things, I kept on playing it. Bethesda just seem to make games like that. They're more addictive and compulsive than actual fun. But now that I've finished it, I've got no compulsion to go back to do the DLC or anything.

I ended up getting the GotY edition to get the DLC and I understand your point. To be honest I really think you're right and I would like to rescind my previous statement. After thinking effects that Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, and Dragon Age had compared to Oblivion and Fallout 3 it was more of an addictive feeling than having a ton of fun. And yes the game is buggy as hell.

Played Left 4 Dead 2 tonight for the first time in about a month. I forgot how much fun VS. Mode is.

So do I. I am replaying Mass Effect 1 so I can get my renegade female Shephard into ME2.

gah, so annoying being stuck in the Austrian Tyrol until may so can't fekkin get any new games....

am replaying Batman Arkham asylum... its good, but not as much fun the second time through :(

I am taking a break because I am still working through Dragon Age and the last bits of Borderlands.

Anyone picked up BioShock 2 yet? I am interested to hear about what some people who aren't paid games journalists think of it.

I never actually played BioShock all the way through. I found it became tedious simply because the best strategy was to continuously fling yourself at enemies until they all die knowing that if you die you will respawn seconds later mere feet away. Since none of the enemies regenerated health It made the game trivially easy and I lost interest after harvesting the first Little Sister. I can't really make any more observations about it since I didn't experience the complete story. Although I will say the moral choices, from what I could tell, came down to harvest or don't. Not really a "tough" choice, you are either the savior and hero or the devil and villain. To me a tough moral choice would be one where the result of both the "good" and "evil" route both present a unique list of pros and cons. I feel like the final decisions in both Mass Effect games represent that type of choice best.

I personally thought Bioshock was brilliant. I can't see where you found any faults in the graphics, 99% of it was absolutely beautiful and the whole atmosphere around the game was so intense and actually quite scary; I mean walking through corridors flooded with water because of the place actually falling apart, then shitting yourself as your confronted by a massive Big Daddy only to discover the Little Sister hasn't met it yet and it peacefully walks past you. Then you have to make the decision whether or not to go and kill this pretty much harmless creature and then harvest and absorb a little girl, or leave it be. I found that, though pretty simple in the number of choices, to be a pretty interesting and morally difficult choice. Yeah I guess Mass Effect may be better, haven't played the second one, but I thought that Bioshock's were more than satisfying. I loved the Plasmids, and unlike you thought all of them were pretty cool but my favourite was the insects just because it was just so fucking sick.

Also I thought GTA4's moral choices, though few and far between, were actually quite good. I mean yeah shooting one of two criminals in the head may not sound that tougher choice but if you actually really dig deep into the game and get all the relationships up and become friends with these people it's actually kinda weird cos your SPOILER KINDA sitting there aiming down a sniper scope at a two brothers - a corrupt cop and a heroin-addict mobster and you have to choose whether or not to give the addict a second chance at life (you find out his fuck-ups through his other family members and the missions), or you can choose to give the cop a chance of getting rid of all his past and starting fresh for good with the risk of him actually turning out to be a scumbag. I mean yeah these outcomes might not effect you but in a weird way they do at the time, and it's really down to whether or not you get 'engaged' in the story or if your just out for 100% - in which case its clear which ones the better one to kill. But yeah, my rant over.

My problem with Bioshock's graphics is demonstrable thus:

Pretty good:


Really fucking bad:


The most common enemy, and indeed every single human character in the game, looked unbelievably awful, animated poorly, and that really bothered me, because the Big Daddies, and the world itself are pretty well realised. But for some reason skin and clothing both have the same ridiculously contoured and ridiculously shiny look that make them look like they've been wrapped in plastic and lit by tiny spotlights. And they all walk about with their arms out at ridiculously inhuman angles. I know Splicers are supposed to be ugly, but these didn't look ugly because of their facial modifications or their deformities, but because their clothes and skin were covered in huge unmoving pitch-black creases and folds offset by ultra-contrast shiny wet highlights.

It has always bothered me how nobody else really seems to pick up on that, because to me it's glaringly obvious and extremely off-putting.