I was really trying to finish Far Cry 2 first, but I couldn’t help it. Now I’ve gone and immersed myself in the Washington, DC wasteland.

My first impression of the game (once I’d emerged from the Vault) was that it’s hella more difficult than Oblivion. Traipsing around and straying too far from civilization in Fallout spells doom early in the game, whereas Oblivion’s Cyrodiil was much more friendly, inviting you to travel around to check out forest, swim through rivers, and once in a while you’d encounter a lone bandit or animal. Rarely ever two or more at once.

Fallout is a different beast.

In Fallout, if your level 2 character stumbles upon a band of raiders early on, you might just be immediately killed. Because unlike Oblivion, you can’t just flee from the threat toward a civilized area and have the guards take care of things. In Fallout everyone’s got guns, and mad range with those guns. There’s nowhere to run if you’ve gone astray into the wilderness. If you had enough speed in Oblivion, you could outrun basically any enemy and have it chase you to the gates of town to be swiftly dispatched by town security. Wolves, bears, mountain lions, anything. Anything except the occasional magic-caster.

You’re also performing a deadly balancing act every time you’re on the move and require medical attention. Stimpaks are great, but not always in abundant supply. Oblivion allowed me to slay a deer and eat the venison for health, or chow down on some bread or fruit from a camp. Not so in the Capital Wasteland. Everything is irradiated. You can heal and take a number of rads for consuming the food, just make sure you’ve got some Rad-Away to clean yourself up once you’re glowing green with radiation.

I’m actually extremely excited to discover its level of difficulty. And how true to the old school original it is. Even down to the sound effects of using the Pip-Boy, the design and structure of the Vault, the myriad drugs to become addicted to, the Karma system, it seems like it’s all here.

I’ve only just now reached the Galaxy News Radio headquarters in DC in the game. I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface and I’m at the 6 or so hour mark.

Last week I downloaded the Shivering Isles expansion pack for Oblivion. After a lengthy download (it clocks in somewhere near the 1GB mark), I played for a solid 6 hours or so over the weekend and needless to say, I’m impressed. Bethesda has really hit the nail on the head in the downloadable content department. And they’ve managed to release an expansion that serves as a great supplement and compelling extension of the story to one of the greatest games ever made.

After the purchase and download, nothing is immediately different as you load up the game except for the “Loading additional content” message, which now takes a solid minute if you’ve got all the downloadable extras. As you approach Niben Bay in the game, you receive a message about a strange door, the head-shaped gateway to the Shivering Isles:

As you pass through you’re taken to a place called “The Fringe” on the edge of the Isles. At this point you’re tasked with investigating the town of Passwall and figuring out how to eliminate “the Gatekeeper”, a giant ogre-like creature without a face. From there is where you enter the Shivering Isles proper. You have two places to explore: Mania, land of euphoria and Willy Wonka-esque landscapes; or Dementia, a dark, sinister environment that feels like that sheisty swamp in the Neverending Story. The Swamp of Depression or whatever it’s called.

The conversations with the NPCs in Shivering Isles are all pretty hilarious. Since most of the inhabitants are some sort of insane, this makes the quests rather interesting. You’ll have to deliver tongs and calipers to a homeless guy that’s trying to build a skyboat. But since the boat requires water, he’s having a hard time getting the water to fly through the air so that the boat may also fly through the air. Crazy, I know, but don’t worry… the tools will help him accomplish said goal. In another quest you’ll have to help a man find a safe place to sleep outside because he’s too scared the walls of his house will collapse on him. Your job is to find him someplace to sleep away from all that danger. Oh yeah, and dialogue with Sheogorath is utterly ridiculous.

My favorite addition, however, is the inclusion of numerous new enemies, armor types, weapons, and plants/potion ingredients. Enemies have different animations and combat styles and it becomes easier to create some sweet new potions and poisons.

The Shivering Isles is without a doubt the most striking piece of downloadable content for any game yet released on the Xbox 360. Well worth the price (2400 MS points, translates to roughly… who knows, I suck at math). My next download better be for Crackdown. I know you’re reading this, Realtime Worlds. So please make it happen. For the children.

Bethesda Softworks’ second significant add-on and first real “expansion pack” for Oblivion is slated to hit shelves (virtual shelves, that is) on the 27th of March. It’ll come as a substantially sized download via Xbox Live Marketplace and it’ll be 2400 Microsoft points, which is something like $30. I’m currently about 80 hours into Oblivion, but I just started on the main quest for the game over the weekend. So I’ve got quite a bit to accomplish yet in the game, and this will add even more playability to this individual game. This is definitely a welcome addition to an already stellar RPG experience. Bethesda’s got the right idea… screw all this “episodic content” BS and just design a game that can be augmented and built on to in the future without a hassle. Much better than the Valve approach of just developing each “episode” for so long that they’re like full games, only without as much content. So far Bethesda’s the only one to pull it off properly (we’ve had several house add-ons and the Knights of the Nine… did I mention HORSE ARMOR?), and they’ve done an amazing job.