Unplugged Wednesday: The Stand (Comic series)

The Stand is a great book. I haven't read much Stephen King outside of The Dark Tower series, but when I read The Stand earlier this year, I found that I was missing out on a lot. However, this isn't about the original book, instead this is about the new comic book adaptation that Marvel Comics has begun to release. Sadly, since I do not have a good comic shop near me, I've only had the chance to read the first issue.

On the whole, it's a good adaptation. The art is good and it's not nearly as wordy as the book can be at times, but as I read the issue, I kept getting the feeling that I was missing something. Not that the plot is hard to follow or anything, I just really felt like it was turning out to be The Stand Lite.

I really think that instead of trying to retell the exact same story as the book, it would have been a bit more interesting for them to take the world that King established in the original novel and use that as a basis for starting different stories to tell. Who knows, that could be the plan down the line, but I didn't really feel like they were going to do that since the issue was basically the first few chapters of the book setting up the same group of characters for the same plotline.

All that grumbling aside, it's still a good read. I think it will be a good way to get people to read the original novel so that they can get all the extra details. Also, I have hope that in future issues they'll add in little bits that weren't in the book (maybe add in a few side stories or something). That's my hope anyway.

By the way, since today is the 5th of November, go read V for Vendetta tonight.

New Release Tuesday - Fallout 3

Hello and Welcome.

This will be our first entry in "Fallout" week (sorry for missing yesterday...).

So, lets talk a little bit about Fallout 3 shall we?

 

First, a brief history of Fallout.  Fallout was originally developed by Black Isle studios and Interplay, whose most notable games include the Baldur's Gate series..  The rights to Fallout 3 where sold to Bethesda (makers of The Elder Scrolls Games: Morrowind, and Oblivion being the most recent.)

The previous versions of Fallout where Isometric Turn-Based RPGS.  Fallout 3 takes the system used in Oblivion, the 1st and 3rd person perspective and twitch based action.  The new feature in Fallout 3's combat system that we didn't see in Oblivion is the V.A.T.S system.  The V.A.T.S. system allows you to spend a set amount of action points to target specific parts of your adversary's body: Head, Torso, right and left, arms and legs, as well as their weapon.  This typically ends in a the targeted body part exploding in a bloody mess.  One hilarious result of these explosions:  each piece of your enemy is searchable.  I found two pieces of armor, a gun, and some ammo in a jaw bone.  A JAW BONE.

V.A.T.S. in action

Other than the V.A.T.S. system, combat is inaccurate and annoying.  And don't even think about using the 3rd person view.  It is really only good for watching your character skate around D.C. and looking at his armor.  I find myself running out of ammo and switching to a crappy baseball bat, or board full of nails, which tends to do very little damage very slowly.  This means that I end up losing most of my health during each fight.  This further complicates my situation because I am always low on health items.  And the ones I DO have all increase my radiation levels significantly.

Visually, Fallout 3 exceeds Oblivion in most aspects.  I say most because there are no lush landscapes that you would expect in a fantasy game.  However, the level of detail in each ruinous city, town, and ravaged landscape is very impressive

The scope of this game is very ambitous.  With a total of 200 possible endings (though each only minor change from the previous) it should keep people (like me, who tends to get all or most of the endings in games like this) busy for a long time.  The endings are based on choices your character makes through out the game many with far reaching consequences, like setting off the nuclear device in the town of Megaton ( I did. ).

There are many things in the asthetic of Fallout 3 that reminds me of some other great First Person games recently.  The black humor of all the fallout games, but specifically the radio stations and music (which I love), remind me of Bioshock.  The open areas, and mutated enemies, and general lonliness of most areas reminds me of Half Life 2.

Though there are some negatives in Fallout 3, in general, my journey from vault 101 across the vast wastelands of post-WW3 Washington D.C. has been an enjoyable one.   If you enjoyed Oblivion, or Bioshock, you will love Fallout 3.

~K