(Creed’s note: This is a re-run of a piece that appeared a little while ago at Citizen Game)

Operation: Anchorage, the first piece of downloadable content for Bethesda’s RPG extraordinaire Fallout 3 became available this past week. It’s available on the Xbox 360 and PC platform via Microsoft’s Live service (Marketplace and GFWL respectively) for 800 Microsoft points. And, for reasons I cannot yet comprehend, people have actually bought it.

For a start, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to pay to add more content to the game yet. I’ve sunk well over 30 hours of play time into Fallout 3, completing it twice, and I still have yet to visit even half the locations within the game. It’s not exactly desperately in need of new content, is it? There’s nothing that’s obviously missing from the game story or quest-wise that I can think of, bar a higher level cap and a proper bloody ending, and at least one of those won’t be rectified until Bethesda release another of the planned three DLC packs further down the line.

What Fallout 3 currently needs, as Oblivion did around this time after its release several years ago, is tweaking. Bugs still need to be quashed and there’s so many less than stellar aspects of the game that a handful of mods could so easily improve. I dislike the interface, the size of the dialogue text and the idiotic AI in Fallout, to name just three things, and I’ve no doubt we’ll see some excellent community fixes and changes for these soon enough. It happened with Oblivion, and that’s twice the game with the proper modifications. Fallout will be the same.

So, right now, I’d contend that the DLC currently available doesn’t provide anything additional that the stand alone game really needs. If it didn’t cost anything I’d download it for the sake of satisfying my curiosity. You really can’t argue with the deficiencies of freely offered additional content and be taken seriously, and I wouldn’t try despite my reservations expressed above. But Bethesda and Microsoft expect us to pay for this. You don’t need it, certainly, and it doesn’t fundamentally improve what’s already there, so why would anyone want to buy it? I sat down and had a little think about the costs and the little bit of math (wait, come back!) involved just further reinforces how silly this (expensive, as we’ll see) DLC pack seems to be. 

O:A is currently 800 MS points, on either platform, and this equates to about €9.60 in, you know, real money. Ignoring for a second that you can’t actually just buy the 800 points you need (You have to buy 1000 for some stupid, arbitrary reason), and assuming that the next two DLC packs will be priced similarly (not unreasonable), then if you want to buy all the DLC as it becomes available you’ll end up spending about €28.80 on those three packs alone. Now, I purchased Fallout on the day of its release for €35 (on PC) from Play.com, and it seems a little ridiculous to me that I’ll need to spend nearly as much again for a few expansion packs that provide a few extra hours play. 

And that cost is further increased by the fact I can’t just buy the points I need. I can’t buy 2400 points, I have to buy 2500. So I end up having to spend €30, all in, with a 100 points left over that I can’t claim back. Being primarily a PC gamer this is especially irritating, as with every other piece of game-related software I’ve ever want to buy (ever!) all I’ve needed is my credit card or my Paypal account, and I pay exactly what I need to. If something is €4.37all I need pay is €4.37. I’m not required to deposit €5 with the seller and then let him hold on to the change on the off chance I may wish to purchase something from him at an indeterminate point in the future. Microsoft, your fun bucks system is really god-damned dumb. 

As it stands, if O:A was the only planned DLC pack, €9.60 represents 27.5% of the cost of the original game. And you need to buy 1000 points to get it, which is €12 and 34% of the cost of the original. According to an early review at Eurogamer the first pack provides around 2.5 hours of new experience that isn’t very good. I don’t know about you, but I think paying a third of the price of the original game for something that doesn’t come close to offering even 1% of the level of content compared to the original is downright stupid.

Batman: Arkham Asylum is coming.  And my God does it look impressive.

Superherohype.com have posted the trailer for the new Batman game. I hate to be premature about this, but it looks like they FINALLY have landed a decent Batman game. Some of you may have noticed that Kevin Conroy AND Mark Hamill have both returned to reprise their voice-acting roles as Batman and The Joker respectively. Check out the trailer and join the anticipation.

So yeah, the new trailer for FF13 went live. Needless to say it looks astounding. There’s not much to say about it really. The plot seems as complex as ever. The combat system looks frantic and fun. But until we see a bit more from it we can only hope the quality from the previous entries in the series remains true. Although, frankly, I just want to see an updated FF7.

The trailer can be seen at Gamespot.com and the game itself may eventually hit our shores late this year or early next year.

Right, for those of you out there who are equally as enthralled by Guitar Hero as we are this should be a treat.

A few days ago, Metallica.com posted the official track list for the upcoming Guitar Hero: Metallica game. Along with that they posted when the game would be released. The game will look to hit stores outside North America in Early May. Ok, I know it’s not really a launch date, but it’s significantly better than the “first half of 2009″ time period given previously.

For those of you too lazy to click, here’s the track list:

Metallica Songs:

All Nightmare Long
Battery
Creeping Death
Disposable Heroes
Dyers Eve
Enter Sandman
Fade To Black
Fight Fire With Fire
For Whom The Bell Tolls
Frantic
Fuel
Hit The Lights
King Nothing
Master of Puppets
Mercyful Fate (Medley)
No Leaf Clover
Nothing Else Matters
One
Orion
Sad But True
Seek And Destroy
The Memory Remains
The Shortest Straw
The Thing That Should Not Be
The Unforgiven
Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
Wherever I May Roam
Whiplash

Songs from other bands:

Alice In Chains – No Excuses
Bob Seger – Turn The Page
Corrosion of Conformity – Albatross
Diamond Head – Am I Evil?
Foo Fighters – Stacked Actors
Judas Priest – Hell Bent For Leather
Kyuss – Demon Cleaner
Lynyrd Skynyrd – Tuesdays Gone
Machine Head – Beautiful Mourning
Mastodon – Blood And Thunder
Mercyful Fate – Evil
Michael Schenker Group – Armed and Ready
Motorhead – Ace of Spades
Queen – Stone Cold Crazy
Samhain – Mother of Mercy
Slayer – War Ensemble
Social Distortion – Mommy’s Little Monster
Suicidal Tendencies – War Inside My Head
System of a Down – Toxicity
The Sword – Black River
Thin Lizzy – The Boys Are Back in Town

This list is, of course, subject to change. But looks like a cool list. I, for one, can’t wait to give Ace of Spades a crack.

We here at The Irish Gamers are big Bruce Campbell fans. I’d go so far as to say I’m obsessed but let’s not go there. But there’s good news and bad news for those of you who share the feeling that this man is awesomeness personified. The good news is that Campbells eagerly-anticipated new flick “My Name is Bruce” is finally coming across the Atlantic. The bad news is that it’s limited release meaning it’s unlikely to hit Irish shores. 

BUT, I’m not going to let that stop me! I’ve managed to score a ticket to the late night screening in London which will be introduced by the man himself! If you want a ticket then get booking. Here is the link for the cinema to get your tickets.

For those less inclined to go travelling for their movies (i.e. most people that are not me) The DVD will be released on 3rd March.

Hail to the King baby!

In almost every game these days, on starting, you must choose how hard the path ahead will be. More often than not you will be left with 3 simple choices – Easy, medium or hard. Will you take the easy route, enjoying the feeling of nigh-invulnerability but being left with very few real challenges? Or perhaps you are one to start on medium – a mode which attempts to find that balance between too easy and too hard but invariably fails and ends up skewed towards one or the other (sometimes both at different stages of the game)? You may even dare to attack hard mode first go, knowing you are in for an uphill struggle, but each bit of progress you make is hard fought and truly satisfying.  OK, so sometimes there is the 4th difficulty setting. This goes under the guise of many names; Nightmare, Delta, Insane, etc. No matter what it’s called it’s going to be brutal and unless you’re damned good at the game, is not going to be in any way fun, more a lesson in frustration.

I am, personally, one of those who attempts to play whatever game in the hardest available difficulty. I enjoy the challenge. I get great satisfaction from accomplishing a mission, completing a level, even killing some of the tougher enemies in this difficulty. Sometimes I struggle, repeat bits countless times trying to get through them, but to me that’s getting the most out of the game. Currently I am going through Fallout 3 on Very Hard. I’ve not cleared the game before and went straight into it at this difficulty setting, which Creed can vouch for. I’m doing the same for Tomb Raider and will repeat this for any games I get. 

On the flipside of this is Creed. He plays games through on Easy first time. There is a logic to this, but I just don’t get it, which leads to the debates. I say debates, it’s usually:
IPC: “You’re playing on Easy? Pussy!”

Creed: ” I enjoy the games more this way. Shut up”

IPC “You shut up, jerk”

Creed: “Your face is a jerk”

And it just gets lost in the ether after this. To be fair, I get that some people just want to progress in story, or whatever, but I don’t understand why they don’t want to earn it.  I’ve won Creed over to my side of things a couple of times. We played through Gears 2 on Hardcore (the hardest difficulty available from the off) and we started into Halo 3 on Legendary (which led to some amazing moments involving me, a hammer and about 10 brutes). I flat out refuse to drop difficulty when at all possible.

There are, of course, some instances where going easy is necessary. For instance, Guitar Hero is a game where I highly recommend starting on Easy to test your skill level and moving up until you find a mode that’s somewhat challenging yet still fun. Civilization (any of them) is another game I am currently playing where if I want to have any hope of doing anything I need to start on an easier mode. 

So here I am, asking the public, what you think. Creed and I will likely never agree on this. Should you man up at the start and tackle hard mode or puss out and go easy? A weighted question I’ll admit, but hey, plead your case and we’ll see what’s what. 

Later peeps,

The IPC

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted , this is due to being heavily burdened with other commitments, but with a new year I shall try to be more active.  I’ll start with this little nugget for you 360 owners.

On January 26th, for one week only, a fully playable demo for Capcoms eagerly anticipated Resident Evil 5 will be available for download. It will cover 2 levels of the game and can be played cooperatively (online and on same console) or single player w/ AI. I can’t speak for Creed, but this was one of the games I personally was willing to buy a PS3 for so when it was announced for 360 I was delighted. Soon enough we’ll all find out if this is going to live up to the expectations set by the immaculate Resident Evil 4, or if it will crumble under the pressure.

Chris Redfield - coming to a console near you soon

More from me soon peeps.

The Guitar Hero franchise is huge. This comes as no surprise. We even have a complete Guitar Hero World Tour setup at IG HQ. But just how huge was hinted at on Friday by Activision’s CEO Mike Griffith. Speaking at CES, he confirmed that since the first title launched in 2005, the Guitar Hero series has amassed $1 billion in sales in the form of traditional retail and DLC.

Which is, you know, huge. In other news, grass is green.

One can’t help but wonder though, if Activision would’ve hit that number if their typical price for a copy of GH:WT wasn’t in the region of €80.

(Via Edge)

The Java Server crew are back with the first podcast of the new year and yours truly was part of the gang discussing games and… er, more games.

It’s here.

Keeping with something of a theme, EA announced today via press release the first expansion to another smash hit of theirs, Red Alert 3. Subtitled Uprising, the game will be a standalone product featuring four mini campaigns; one for each of the existing factions and a bonus campaign about the origins of the Empire of the Rising Sun’s psychic schoolgirl extraordinaire Yuriko. There’ll also be a new Commander’s Challenge mode (an idea possibly borrowed from an earlier C&C title), where players can face off against a set of nine different enemy commanders in various territories.

Curiously, the press release says that the title “will be available for digital download this March.” So, could this mean a traditional retail release is not being considered? If the only way to get this title is via the atrocious EA Downloader service, they can forget about it.