fallout

It’s my fault. I made these purchasing decisions, but I still feel the need to make note of it.

I’m having a serious case of Déjà vu with this holiday season’s games. Let’s break it down:

Fallout: New Vegas

I’m playing this on PC, but through an Xbox 360 controller. While the 1080p resolution and the 60 FPS framerate is a nice improvement, it still feels like Fallout 3. Too much so. The engine is still ugly, but now it’s 1080p worth of ugly. The structure of the dialog, the structure of the quests and the exploitation of the VATS system is all reminiscent of 2008.

I’m 7 hours in and the highlight thus far is the writing. I’m hoping that grows and eventually takes over the game as the key motivator to keep going.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Multiplayer

Issues with spawning and the PS3 tech aside, Black Ops MP is exactly how I picture it in my head. It’s nothing new, just refined. It doesn’t help that all the maps feel very similar to one another. Maybe it’s my fault for expecting too much.

Gran Turismo 5

The core driving and the visuals may have improved, but everything else around it feels very 2005-ish.

My Fault

Like I said, this is all my fault. I chose to pick these games up. It’s also unfair of me to break these down so easily because nearly every game out there would seem trite under the same scrutiny. But that’s how I feel at the moment.

Hell, I’m still playing Bad Company 2 MP and Civilization V. And we all know what to expect out of those games.