- Recommended
- Open-world
- Available for Wii U and Switch
- amiibo functionality
- Long game
I was interested in the Switch, but more more interested in BotW. I decided to buy the Wii U version of...

I saw that clip of Bill Maher as he just recently posted it. I kind of agree with his analysis, but I don't know that it's quite comparable to nicotine. I do play Words With Friends daily and I have other games I play. Gaming takes up a majority of my time, but I don't dare call it an addiction. I also watch stuff on YouTube, Amazon, and Netflix.
I'm surprised you decided to stop playing Hearthstone. You're the most enthusiastic Hearthstone gamer I know. I can compare my own relevant experience though. I've played Ark quite a lot in the last two years, in single player mode, on a server, and with mods. I took some breaks, sure, but there's always more to come back to since development is still on-going. I haven't played it much lately, which means there's plenty of "new" stuff for me. It seems like with two more patches all the creatures will be released. They're almost done with this stage of development, which has gotten extended.
I used to spend more time on Facebook and even played more apps, but I stopped. I got unhappy with my newsfeed and decided to ignore it and that's worked out for me. I'd be fine without it, but it provides and easy way to be in touch with many.
> I saw that clip of Bill Maher as he just recently posted it. I kind of agree with his analysis, but I don't know that it's quite comparable to nicotine.
It's not a perfect analogy but I think for some people it's a good one. If you look at the habits of people now lots of us are buried in our phones and less responsive to people. I'm not saying smartphones are bad, I think they are one of the coolest inventions of all time but they allow us the ability to be connected 24/7 and I think that comes with a real world cost. For instance, I put my phone down when i'm with my son and am spending time watching him because I find that if I have my phone I spend more time doing that than playing with him. He is 11 months old now and I don't want to miss much as he is so sweet and if I was really hooked on Hearthstone or something else that would really take away from time with him.
> I'm surprised you decided to stop playing Hearthstone. You're the most enthusiastic Hearthstone gamer I know.
Yeah, it's a great game and if I had to make a top 50 list it would be on it! I love gaming but I think it's a good thing to see what other games are out there and see if I could play something else for a time. I still plan on coming back to Hearthstone at some point but it's good to just step away for no other reason than I can and it's been a nice change.
> I used to spend more time on Facebook and even played more apps, but I stopped. I got unhappy with my newsfeed and decided to ignore it and that's worked out for me. I'd be fine without it, but it provides and easy way to be in touch with many.
I used to check Facebook more times a day than I could count. Hundreds maybe. In the end I found the discussions to largely be toxic, the information I was taking in to not be useful and I didn't find the time I spent there to be something I was happy with. I now just go there to share baby pictures (because people asked me to) and that's about it. Funny thing is I thought that not logging in for a week would mean I wouldn't know what was happening in the world but I still read news sites so I still understand current events. I just miss people telling me what they think about it because i'm not reading that anymore.
I think in the end I like being able to focus my time in ways I think is useful and so far it's worked out pretty well. I also like talking about this kind of thing because I like thinking about it. Is the time we spend most of our lives on really how we want to live? Maybe for everyone it is, but i've found that thinking about it and figuring out where you want to be can inform the choices you make and that can have a useful outcome on your life.
>It's not a perfect analogy but I think for some people it's a good one. If you look at the habits of people now lots of us are buried in our phones and less responsive to people. I'm not saying smartphones are bad, I think they are one of the coolest inventions of all time but they allow us the ability to be connected 24/7 and I think that comes with a real world cost. For instance, I put my phone down when i'm with my son and am spending time watching him because I find that if I have my phone I spend more time doing that than playing with him. He is 11 months old now and I don't want to miss much as he is so sweet and if I was really hooked on Hearthstone or something else that would really take away from time with him.
I agree with you. I always see people on their phones, driving, walking, standing, sitting, etc. The Internet is hype. LOL I don't spend much time on my phone unless I'm not at home. Then it still depends. If I'm out of Pokeballs and not near a Pokestop, then there's not much reason for me to play Pokemon Go. Haha.
>I used to check Facebook more times a day than I could count. Hundreds maybe. In the end I found the discussions to largely be toxic, the information I was taking in to not be useful and I didn't find the time I spent there to be something I was happy with. I now just go there to share baby pictures (because people asked me to) and that's about it. Funny thing is I thought that not logging in for a week would mean I wouldn't know what was happening in the world but I still read news sites so I still understand current events. I just miss people telling me what they think about it because i'm not reading that anymore
Yes, my experience is similar, it's too toxic and negative. I also "get my news" from a wide variety of other sources, much of which I read or watch on YouTube.
> The Internet is hype.
Truest statement ever.
I look forward to hearing more about this game. I was only vaguely aware of it, but it looks great!
How is Prey? I don't know anything about it, perhaps I should watch that video.
I'm playing Twilight Princess HD right now so that I can get a stronger Wolf Link in Breath of the Wild via my amiibo. I'm working on getting through the Cave of Ordeals and I'm near the end of the game. I'm also playing Fallout Shelter on Steam and Pokemon Go.
Prey looks super good! I can't wait to try it.
I finally bought Overwatch, and that's been fun. I love my Junkrat. Started replaying the Mass Effect Trilogy on Twitch. It amazes me how dated and stiff the first one seems in just a few years. Just finished Until Dawn for the first time. I thought it was really fun until my favorite character died in the last 3 minutes of the game. Still a bit salty about it.
I need to get the Mass Effect series, I've never played it. I have ME2, it came free on Origin.
I finished Twilight Princess HD, without finishing the Cave of Ordeals. I did, however, manage to get my data uploaded to my Wolf Link amiibo, so soon I'm going to jump into BotW with a better Wolf Link.
Not too much at the moment. I took a break from FFXV for awhile, but recently jumped back in to try the timed quests that started back up this month.
I've also dusted off my PSP and been playing Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together. It's a fun and surprisingly challenging tactics game in the same vein as Final Fantasy Tactics. The game hits that sweet spot of being challenging without being frustrating.
I am about 85 hours into Breath of the Wild. Still enjoying it quite a bit. I think this is the most that I have put into a game.
Playing Prey but I haven't felt up to it lately, crazy deep-head allergies are not great for sitting at a PC for extended periods of time. But that's re-awakened Mario Run for me. The balance changes they've made to the Toad Rally have really helped.
*growls at Travis's Mario Run Mii*
Seriously, the only Toad Rally I can never seem to win is against Travis lol (your Mii is unmistakable)
> How is Prey? I don't know anything about it, perhaps I should watch that video.
It's a good shooter that seems to be fairly interesting. I'm not very far in so I can't give a super complete view of the game but if you love really polished sc-fi single player shooters this one is well worth looking into.
Eat it Farnsworth!
Lol. I love the airship runs.
It seems the only games I'm playing lately are Rocket League and Dirty Bomb. Dirty Bomb is a fairly standard FPS in the style of TF2, or maybe even Overwatch but not so over the top. The fact that it's free to play is awesome, but what's really cool is that it's very much skill/class based, without any 'pay to win' bs.
I did sample the Prey demo on PS4, and it was absolutely amazing. So fun, and I look forward to picking it up soon (probably on PS4). It has this really cool way of feeling like the best first-person sci-fi games of the past, while still feeling fresh and new.
A few days ago, I decided to replay Fallout: New Vegas. I've finished it on the PS3, but I got it on Steam last year. Playing quite a bit of Fallout Shelter on Steam made me want to play another Fallout game again. I may hold off on Breath of the Wild for a little bit longer.
Fallout: New Vegas is one of those at the top of my Wall of Shame (such a tall wall...). Not that I ever finished any of the other Fallouts, but I really enjoyed the time I spent in 3. Next on the list, though, is going to have to be Darksiders 2, especially with the recent reveal that #3 will be coming soon. Too many great games.
After playing Fallout New Vegas, my enthusiasm dwindled. So, I'm back to playing Breath of the Wild. I'm not too far in, I just got spoilers from "the old man" and Impa. I'm glad that I get to use my Wolf Link amiibo, he really helps!
Did you complete Twilight Princess on the Wii? I played it around the time you bought it but never completed it and sort of bailed around the water temple. I have a plan to come back and play it at some point though but it might be on some Switch re-release as I don't really play the Wii much these days.
Yes, I completed it once or twice. I'm past the water temple now. Vinny started playing it more, too, when he saw me playing it.
I've also noticed that the map has oddly been a bit reversed, or at least in some areas. When looking for Poes, I looked up the guide on the web. In one location, two were on the western side of the desert, but on the Wii U version that spot is on the eastern side. There was also one on the western side of the bridge to Castle Town, but on the Wii U version it's on the eastern side. I'm not sure why they changed the map.
I've also noticed that I've collected some stamps. I don't remember them being in the original game.
I got Bottle & Cappy a few weeks ago and I like that they come to your shelter to increase everyones morale and I can touch to get caps but I haven't ever see Bottle dance for the free Quantum. I'm hoarding Quantum now and have something like 60+ bottles of it. Like you i've found that not buying anything is just fine and honestly if I did buy lunchboxes or the like I think the game MIGHT be too easy. Right now the difficulty seems just about right and i'm just balancing playing with quests and making sure to grow my vault at the right clip. Right now I have 48 people in my vault and once the two kids are grown I plan to hit the big 50 soon! I've got two really solid quest groups that can clear anything i've assigned them and really think the best part about Fallout Shelter is the quest system. The original game missed it and I think having that makes Fallout Shelter WAY more interesting and WAY more fun a mobile game.
And yeah, it's like free and it's so good now. I think Bethesda is making money from it too so that's good to hear because I really want a Fallout Shelter 2, whatever that may look like. Or more updates to this version, that would be awesome too.
I'm so glad you got B&C. Bottle dances, but not as often. Sometimes he'll give you caps, sometimes Quantum. One time he gave me 5 Quantums! Wow, how'd you get so much Quantum? I've collected some, but I use them on quests, to either get my crew there quicker, or return quicker.
I agree that the difficulty is about right. It's still not incredibly easy. I'm not sure how many times I've done this, but I've restarted my vault (on all platforms) quite a few times. I've been on some hard quests that I've had to give up. I think if my better dwellers weren't already on a quest, they would have done better.
For some reason, I went through a few large breeding phases, so getting my population up wasn't a problem, until I had too many. I actually looked up how to get rid of extra dwellers and the best suggestion I found was to send them out to the Wasteland, which I thought was genius. You can only have less than 30 dwellers out exploring at a time, but doing this helped me get rid of my excessive population.
I really like the quest system, too. It's more adventurous and fun. The background music comes from the series and it makes me want to play other Fallout games again. I kind of suck at getting good critical hits. I wish the critical hit thing was different, but it's ok. Usually, even the worst critical hit does a hell of a lot of damage.
I can't really imagine a Fallout Shelter 2 right now, but they've already added a lot to the game in the year I've been able to play it. I think it's a really good game and, again, I like it a lot more than I thought I would. As I mentioned (perhaps in my other post), I played it a little bit and forgot about it until recently when I saw a friend playing it on his phone. At this time, it just arrived on Steam and I decided to focus on it more, especially on Steam for the achievements.
Anyway, Jon, you saw my last comment in my other post where I said that I should write a "proper review" of this game and you encouraged me, so here it is. :)
I think I'll soon go ahead and work this post into a Steam review.
> Wow, how'd you get so much Quantum?
Quantum collection from Quests I just don't spend it so it adds up.
> I really like the quest system, too. It's more adventurous and fun. The background music comes from the series and it makes me want to play other Fallout games again.
Yeah totally. I really do feel to urge to return to Fallout 4 or 3 when i'm playing quests and the choice they made to include the original game music for those quests was a great idea. It really just puts you right there in the game in that moment and it feels like Fallout.
> I can't really imagine a Fallout Shelter 2 right now
So this version is incredible and the updates doubly so. This game was hella successful and my thought is it will become a franchise because it was so popular. I think they could do another version with more features, deeper gameplay, etc with the same premise that is both mobile and PC focused. I mean, that's what these kinds of things typically do. If success find next big thing and make new thing. We'll always have Fallout Shelter for sure but my guess is they will either keep updating FS or another one is in the works.
I had to edit my post. Themes are for the Diner and Living Quarters. They are based on the Fallout 4 factions. I was thinking that they were more specific, such as Railroad for the Diner and Institute for Living Quarters, but that seems to be wrong.
Jon, how many pets do you have? I have more than 5 I think. I think I have 3 or more dogs, 2 cats, and 1 bird. I should be getting another soon, I think one of the quests one of my groups is working on has one for a reward. I think it'd be cool if you could get these pets in another Fallout game. More pets in this game would be cool, too.
Oh! When sending dwellers out to the Wasteland, I think of it as though they were born and raised in the Vault and now it's time for them to go out into the world and experience it for themselves. I've sent a lot out due to extreme population, which I try to keep under control. Many of those I've sent out were level 1 males. I specifically sent those males out to spread their seeds. I've kept most of the females, although there have been a few I've gotten rid of or not revived. I don't like dwellers roaming around in my Vault. It makes tracking B&C more difficult, since they use the elevators. It also makes finding the Mysterious Stranger more difficult. So, I keep my population down and everyone assigned to a room so I don't have to deal with that.
I've also copied this post into a Steam review with minor changes.
> Jon, how many pets do you have? I have more than 5 I think
That's sounds like about how many I have. I have a cat that isn't assigned a bird and the rest are dogs. The cat just grants happiness and Bottle and Cappy keep the vault near 100% happy. But right now some individual people are at 75% happiness because of some recent vault attacks so it's at about 85% happiness now total for the vault. It's usually much higher though.
I don't have extreme population yet as i'm at 53 and only let that number grow to less than 5 per day. Soon i'll be up there though. Right now when someone is born or is attracted to my vault through the radio signal I onboard them by putting them to work to boost them to 75% happiness then start training their stats. Strength is the first and I usually cap people out at 6 and then move to Agility, Endurance, Intellect, Perception, Charisma and finally Luck. When people are out of training they are still level one so I put them on Power duty OR drop them in the Wasteland until they are level 30 which is about 14-15 hours. Then they are ready for solid work/vault defense or put them in a Quest group which is currently full.
But I used to just have people with normally low stats and I think it's easier to work with people which much higher stats naturally. That said if you have them produce offspring the offspring don't inherit the high stats so it's really just individual based OR if you get a cool person through a Lunchbox that could net you someone with unnaturally high stats. Occasionally i'll set a new person to work but it's rare and when I can train them to get higher stats.
My pets have different abilities. One gives a bonus S.P.E.C.I.A.L. point to the child of the pregnant mother with the cat. One of my dogs increases junk found in the Wasteland. Another dog increases health regeneration. I can't recall what abilities my other pets have.
Raids don't get far in my base. I have the vault door, elevator, then tier 2 water processing room. On the next floor is another tier 2 water processing room, elevator, and then my hospital, I think. Death Claws barely reach that last room on the second floor, everything else either doesn't make it past the vault door, or barely makes it to the water processing room I have on that top floor. I have 2 dwellers in the vault door room, and a Mr. Handy on that top floor. I'm about to get another Mr. Handy that I'll put on my 2nd floor.
Nice, so you're training your dwellers much sooner than I did. That's great! I've had some dwellers max a stat, so I put them in the appropriate room.
I've gotten plenty of dwellers from lunchboxes. I think I got a new one in the last 24 hours.
Also, are you playing the mobile or PC version? I kind of hate the mobile version, because my phone isn't very big and it's hard to see everything. I'm really not too fond of touch controls either as I often touch it wrong and I do something I don't want to, like destroying a rock instead of accessing the menu. I haven't checked on my mobile game in a while, but I've been playing it on Steam frequently throughout the day.
I thought I took some in-game screenshots, but I can't find them. There's an old one located in my folder. Maybe I didn't do something right. I'll try to get some screenshots with Steam (F12 I think) and post a link here. I remember you suggested that and I didn't for a long time because I was still working on my tier 2 room upgrades and my dwellers were very unhappy at the time.
Oh! I started saving, I have about 80,000 caps. I need 90,000 to upgrade my weapon crafting room so that I can make Legendary weapons. :)
> Also, are you playing the mobile or PC version? I kind of hate the mobile version, because my phone isn't very big and it's hard to see everything.
On my phone. I have an iPhone 6S Plus so my phone is fairly large. Not to say I don't fat finger things on occasion but I do think the phone version is quite good.
Awesome! I think even with a bigger screen, I'd still much prefer to play one of the PC versions. As far as I know, this game isn't available w/ Amazon, so I can't play it on my Kindle. It would be cool because that screen is 8.9".
Anyway, I just remembered something else I wanted to ask you. What kind of family names do your dwellers have or have you named them yourself? I select whatever name the game gives my babies. What's funny is that the Snow family is HUGE in my vault! I didn't name them (as I said). I even had a dweller named Johnny Snow (again I didn't name him). I'm sure I know which dweller started this and I don't remember how I got him, maybe from a lunchbox. Armstrong is another name, from a really good dweller I'm not sure how I got, again possibly from a lunchbox. I actually saw a variation on this as one dweller had the last name of Armstron (missing "g"). I think maybe his first name took up too many characters, so one was deleted from the end. Cox is another name in my vault that I don't know where it came from. My family trees are quite deep and it'd be awesome if I could actually view my dwellers family trees. I know they often intersect.
> What kind of family names do your dwellers have or have you named them yourself?
Unless I am naming someone after one of my close friends, I just stick with their original birth names with one change. Each baby is marked with a [B] at the end of the last name to denote that it is in fact, a baby or a vault dwellers kid. Reason why is so I don't inbreed and I try and mix the [B]'s with the dwellers I attract with my radio signal. I know brothers and sisters will tell you they are related but with this system I don't even run into a problem at all as I just match last names.
I just updated my Overseers room so I can send out three quest groups and now have three going. It's nice and they all have some pretty nice weapons, armor and upgraded skills.
Well dwellers won't necessarily in-breed. It could just be between parents and their children, but you can see when they say they enjoy spending time with their family. Then you know that you have a pair you can't breed and need to change one of them. That's how I've done it and I still have Snows breeding with Snows. I think somewhere along the line they're all related. Also remember that babies get their last names from either parent.
Yeah, I love having the three quests available. Right now I'm working on getting two of my main quest groups (of three) to train their intelligence, because a quest requires six intelligence at about level 40. I have one quest that requires one level 48 dweller, but I'm not quite there yet. My best dwellers are in their mid-40s.
I seem to recall reading about This War of Mine and it seems a lot like Fallout Shelter, more quest oriented perhaps. I also recall that it had good reviews on Steam. I got it via Twitch Prime, but haven't played it yet. What are your thoughts about it?
I haven't played This War of Mine yet so I can't comment on it. So many games to play
I am putting my Vault in hibernation so I can take a break from the game for a bit. It's fun but it's getting a bit repetitive and I am at 60 dwellers, 3 quest groups and I am growing nicely so I am setting things up so I can take a break and come back to it to get to 100. Basically I am sending out all my quest groups so they can wait at the next quest and max out my vaults energy collection. Basically I am putting the Quest groups "out" so I don't forget which Quest thread they are on and then max out stuff so when I come back I have more than enough caps and resources. So far 100k caps, lots of armor and weapons and in vault equipped dwellers so I am pretty well set.
Wow you're doing really well, I'd say better than I was at your point!
I spent 90k on upgrading my outfit room, now I'm trying to save 60k to do the weapons. I think I had that reversed in a comment or something.
I have two Mr. Handys. They're on the first and second floors. I had to build a fourth reactor, which is at the bottom of my vault, because I was having power issues.
So I just unlocked the nuclear reactor. Does that just do what the power room does but generate more energy? Curious if removing the old power rooms and replacing them makes sense if it's WAY better?
Yes, I believe it does produce more power. I removed my old power rooms and put in the reactors. I didn't do this all at once though, so be careful.
Good idea.
Bethesda won't say whether or not Fallout Shelter is coming to the PS4. They said, "In general, we never talk about whether we will or won't do games/platform/etc. If it isn't announced, we don't talk about it, either way." As a fan of the game I think it would do well on other platforms. However, I'm completely satisfied with the fact that I can play it on PC for free. I'm not a fan of the mobile version simply due to screen size and touch controls.
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/why-bethesda-wont-say-if-fallout-shelter-is-coming/1100-6450061/
One of my dwellers reached level 50 yesterday, which is the max. I also have a Fat Man and Guided Missle Launcher. Those weapons are sweet. I think I can make more of them, too. I haven't been playing as much lately, but I check in with my vault every now and then. There's not too much to do as I complete higher level quests and still have some lower level ones showing up.
I used to build my own PCs and the time to upgrade came when I could afford to and whenever I felt the need. I stopped building my own PC when I bought this Alienware years ago. I had the money and needed a better computer. I got everything I wanted, for a hefty price, and I've loved it. Unfortunately, the GTX 690 I selected for its GPU is a dual GPU card and unfortunately not all games are able to harness the power of that setup. So, some games were only able to use half of the 690. It was Ark that made this issue apparent. I wanted to play Ark like it should be played and so I decided to upgrade the GPU to a GTX 980Ti Classified and I love it.
I think this PC is about 5 years old, I've had it for a few years at least. I still see no reason at all to replace it, it's going strong and I love it. Right now the only thing I'd like to change is the hard drive. I'd like to get an SSD, to help speed things up a bit.
That's what I love about having a "full blown gaming tower," because whenever there's a part I want to upgrade, I can do it quite easily.
Oh and I fully agree with graphic in this post, PC is the master race!
Yeah, your Alienware PC is capable of many more years if you update the video card. The SSD would be great too but would require you to reinstall Windows on the SSD as your primary and then you could use your normal HD to have your games on. All in all that would make things load WAY faster as on my laptop I have a boot drive SSD and then spinning drive for installing games and it's wicked fast to boot.
Honestly there's no reason to replace your PC until the CPU can't handle what you want anymore, or if you want more ram than your motherboard can handle.
That was my reasoning this last time-- the CPU couldn't cut it anymore.
But even then, if you focus on upgradeable hardware, you could even replace the mobo/cpu without replacing all the other parts and eventually get into a philosophical conundrum. If you've replaced all the parts of your PC over time, have you replaced the PC?
If you build a house, and then over the span of 20 years take a board out occasionally and replace it until there's nothing left of the original, is it the same house? What if you simultaneously use those replaced boards to build an identical house. Which house is the original?
Perhaps I should go to bed. :D
TL;DR: If you consider the motherboard to be THE PC then the only time you need to upgrade is when you need a new cpu generation that your motherboard can handle or more ram than your motherboard can handle. And something about houses.
Katie helpfully points out that there's already a famous thought experiment for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
I probably read that at some point and was unknowingly channeling it in my previous comment.
Jon, I thought the SSD would help games load faster, too. For me, Ark takes a few minutes to load, so I think putting it on an SSD would make it load much quicker. It doesn't take forever though. My PC runs fine, so I'm not in a hurry to upgrade, but right now an SSD upgrade is the only thing I can think of that I'd change. I have 16 gigs of RAM and that seems to be enough. I could look into upgrading my monitor, so I could get better resolutions, but again I still don't feel a strong need to do that.
Travis, interesting paradox! I wouldn't consider it a new PC unless all or most of the parts were different. Usually, I'd build one and over the course of a few years, I'd end up upgrading it. I've been through a few of them, in fact I think they're all still in my room. It's interesting to think about my PC history and how it evolved over time. But, the primary reason I buy or build tower PCs, because parts are more easily interchangeable.
That is an interesting thought experiement Travis and because of it, I consider replacing the whole thing at intervals. I mean if you don't replace the case and motheboard then it's arguably the same PC but for those reasons I replace it every 5 years or so. Because at that point I have replaced many parts and I like having the old hardware around for historical reasons. For instance my last Desktop is dual booting between Linux and Windows and I use the Linux part as file storage and the Windows part if friends come over so I can play network games with them if they don't have a computer. Still a good machine but not my top notch go to PC anymore.
Yeah, at the point of replacing the motherboard/cpu you might as well. Honestly at that point it isn't much more money to just upgrade it all, if you take out a beefy video card from the price. I tend to get the midrange current-gen video card so it's never the big $400 purchases.
I always by ROG. Have my 4rth gen now
My ASUS ROG is a great laptop. Lots of power and the price was fantastic.
My only quip about it is the size. I'd like something a bit less bulky and when I do it again I won't get a DVD drive. It opens at odd times and it's just not as nice as i'd have thought it would be to have one in a laptop anymore.
I actually have an ASUS motherboard to my left. I'm pretty sure it was the last motherboard I bought.
Phantom Menace.
Was a prequel.
This is a great breakdown of both films.