of another place and time

I finally stopped playing Spore and have been playing Fallout 3 instead. I picked it up just because everyone else was raving about it, but I was really more interested in Red Alert 3. However the night I got the games my internet was down, which means I couldn't activate RA3 (thanks, brave new world of PC copy protection) so I got a jump on Fallout. And I have to say I'm impressed.

I beat the main storyline fairly handily but that's not really the point of the game. It's an open-world RPG and they want you to explore so much that the secondary quests have the same achievement scores as the primary ones. I never played the first two games so I'm having a hard time getting a feel for the game. I keep expecting it to have scary things jump out everywhere, like any other game or movie. (Particularly window scares) Of course you have to fight baddies, but it's not like that. A lot of the horror is not that something horrible is going on wherever you're at, but that something horrible happened long ago. It doesn't even come out and say what happened but you can pick up pieces of evidence to put it together. I guess if they took cheap shots like window scares, people would be less inclined to explore and try to learn about this world. This game is a master of immersion. Part of that is just the stillness. If you stand still and listen there is almost nothing - the Capital Wasteland is very tranquil. So any unusual noise at all means you'll be on edge. Even if it's just you tripping over empty bottles on the ground.

Incidentally I did finally get RA3 up after Qwest fixed my damn internet, and shall we say I'm less than impressed.

In other news, Top Gear just did another America show. It started off kind of slow, and since their visas were only for producing factual shows and not entertainment shows they couldn't do any interesting side challenges (lest Bruce Willis show up in a Dept. of State helicopter gunship). It finally started picking up when they got to Bonneville as they pursued speed targets at Speed Week. Top Gear Top Tip: when driving on salt, pump up your tires until they almost explode. It was interesting to see them look at a new aspect of car culture and it makes me more excited about the Genesis Coupe, though I'm still wondering which loadout would be better - Grand Touring or Track.