So lets start with the easiest one. Fallout New Vegas is a game by Bethesda that follows Fallout 3. The series took a bit of a break, but when Fallout 3 hit it was a phoenix from the ashes of rpgs of the old days. It was long, deep, engrossing, story driven, and amazing. The vats system, love it or hate it, allowed the rpg vets to get there turn based on, and the game also had a first person mode that kinda let shooter fans... well... shoot from a first person perspective. The flaws of the game where not enough to keep it from becoming an instant rpg classic. Solid work from Bethesda.
Well in comes Fallout New Vegas. From the get go you can tell the story got a shot of adrenaline as far as pacing goes. The first scene is actually of YOUR character getting shot in the head. Very instant sort of feel to it. Gotta love that. And that is fantastic. The game is a solid one. The post-apocalypse has never looked so damn good. Its something to behold. Desolate and expansive, the area around Vegas and outside of California is great. The story is one of rebellion and blood shed. As with Bethesda you kind of have an open ended feel to it, but Caesars Legion is painted as mongrels, horrible scoundrels, heathens, while the New California Republic is painted as a government trying to do SOMETHING in the world that you are now forced to live. Sometimes not for the best, but atleast for a cause. Moral ambiguity lends well here and allows the player to feel really like they have to pick either the semi tyrannical regime of the NCR or the INSANE people in the legion. I just noticed a little bit of irony... But not the point
The bad thing about this game... Its Fallout 3 again. There are little changes here and there, but nothing significant. The mechanics, the feel of motion and such are all the same. If you played Fallout 3 you will INSTANTLY know the controls. It is great for an rpg, but some people may find it disheartening that its more of the same...
Except the story. The story is deep engaging and with many different subplots. Every town has its own weight to it. People that know you, remember you, and have a story to tell. Its amazing how deep an rpg can get....
And then Fable 3 came along. And I was amazing at how deep a shallow game can be. The first half of this game is just like Fable 2. Gather a group to help fight an evil ruler. This time the ruler was your brother, your father being the player character from Fable 2. The mechanics changed a bit. In Fable 2 you had 3 colored orbs that came out of people. You gained more yellow orbs for using ranged attacks, green for melee, and red for magic power usage. The more of each gained 3 different experience bars with three different levels for each trait. The more you used melee the buffer you got and the better with your sword you became. In this that idea is scrapped. On the Road to Rule you open chests with different levels of those three traits and you just gain flat experience which gets you tokens to spend. Making the game a bit shallower... I hated that. In Fable and Fable 2 there was a sense of having to practice things to get better, now half way through I could easily just get enough to switch my skills. Easier, but at the cost of something that was defining of the series. It plays well though and I can't fault a game changer that may have made it easier for other to grasp the game a bit.
~~~~~~~~~~~ SPOILER ALERT~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The second half of the game you overthrow your brother. You become king, and you find out the evil things your brother was doing was not without cause. Now the darkness, a magical evil force that is consuming the land just across the sea from your own, is coming towards Albion. It is destructive, as most evil forces are. Now, this poses a problem. Seems your brother was doing evil things because they saved him money, allowing him to gain a mighty large treasury to fund an army to save the kingdom. Now you have 3 options at this point. Do all the good things, spend all the money, and therefore have no money to protect your kingdom thereby letting everyone die. Two, be evil gain a huge treasury and save EVERYONE in your kingdom. Or do all the good things, and try to gain enough money to fill the treasury enough to help Albion save itself from ruin..... Which if you play the game legit is really hard. Interesting moral choices. You do quests every day, make choices for your kingdom thus getting you money or losing it. Then face the darkness defeat it and... Well the ending I'll let you find.
Now, if you want to know a secret... In the game lies a mechanic to buy and rent houses and buy shops. Each one will gain you money every 5 minutes.... You have 364 days till the darkness invades Albion.... But the days don't change unless you do all the quests for that day... So buy a bunch of houses pawnbrokers tattoo parlors barber shops and such around Albion... leave your controller laying on the ground so the camera spins and you don't time out, and leave it be a night or two. All the money, and you can be good... Or you could play a jackass. Your choice
~~~~~~~Spoilers Over~~~~~~~~~
Now... Black Ops. I won't bother with story or mechanics. Everyone has bought this damn thing like it gives you nudes of Kat Von D or something. Everyone grabbed this game. The Call of Duty games of late have been some of the most popular games on the market. The single player is like a war movie. You feel like a powerful bad ass, and yet have super low points of sadness, like any war movie should do. The mulitplayer is engaging. Great for casual players, the jump in jump out rounds are easy to play, fast paced, fun guntastic games. The leveling system allows for a deep meta game though where the hardcore can race to gain the highest level, or prestige, dropping themselves back to lvl 1. It is a great formula. The story here take a bit of a conspiracy slant. Some fans may not like the single player story because it isn't as much like the last 3 call of duty games as far as story is concerned, taking a more cerebral approach, but I enjoyed the mind game of it. The multiplayer is great, and if your on it add Cilero on xbox live.
To be honest I don't trust treyarch as a developer, but after every last one of my friends got it I kind of had to... And I'm glad I did, totally worth it. Treyarch has been lackluster in the past, but they really did it well this time.
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