Black Friday and Cyber Monday are slowly creeping upon us, gamers, much like the Burger King, hiding in the shrubs, ready to pounce and offer you a delicious, sweet deal on a game you've had your eye on.
Unfortunately, this means that we don't really have any sweet, new releases to talk about for next week. So, in lieu of our regular Achievement Preview Spotlight, we're going to hop into the way-back machine with Einstein and Doc Brown and take a retrospective look at three excellent games you can pick up for less than $15 this
Black Friday!
Our first game is a "must-own" for RPG and open world fans.
Fallout 3 brought the wasteland to consoles and allowed gamers to traipse through the Capital Wasteland for hundreds of hours. The "Game of the Year" addition supplements the (already fabulous and massive) game with five great expansions: "Operation: Anchorage", "The Pitt", "Broken Steel", "Point Lookout", and "Mothership Zeta". While the game does a great job of doling out achievements at a nice pace and rewards you for completing side missions, story missions, and general exploration, a few of the best achievements are:
Speech challenges allow you to (at times) circumvent combat and talk people into doing things they otherwise wouldn't want to do. In short, putting points into your "Speech" skill can pay off BIG.
Likewise, the "Pickpocket" skill can let you steal virtually
anything. On the flip side, you can also place almost anything (like, say an explosive) into the pockets of NPCs. If you're rolling an evil karma character, this one is too fun not to do.
Speaking of karma,
Fallout 3 has it. You can either go way bad, way good, or try to skirt that delicious gray area. Being a neutral character may sound a bit boring, but it's a great challenge for those looking to kick it up a notch.
The next game on the Black Friday Spotlight is one that is a must-play for fans of the Caped Crusader.
Perhaps the first game to
really make you feel like you've donned the cape and cowl,
Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY sends you to the eponymous location to wrangle all of Batman's escaped foes. Utilizing all of Batman's skills (detective, gadgets, combat, smarts) makes the player really feel like they're the terror that stalks in the night. The "Game of the Year" edition adds 3D and extra challenge maps. A few of the achievement highlights are:
Predator Challenges are one of the best stealth combat experiences to grace gaming. They force you to keep Batman in the shadows and out of sight while neutralizing a room full of (sometimes-armed) enemies. In short, nothing makes you feel like more of a badass.
While Batman can't fly, Rocksteady did gamers a great service by giving him a glide ability that allows him to jump from great heights and glide across distances. This achievement was a nice challenge and a lot of fun.
And here's your White Whale. Getting 100% completion in
Arkham Asylum is a task that will take you a good number of hours, but reward you with some amazing stories.
The last game in our Black Friday profile may not be everyone's cup of tea, but is a technological marvel nonetheless.
L.A. Noire, is a visual masterpiece by Team Bondi and Rockstar. Utilizing a meticulously crafted, post-WWII Los Angeles,
L.A. Noire puts gamers into the shoes of Cole Phelps who works his way up the food chain in the LAPD solving crimes from the patrol desk all the way up to murder, vice, and arson. This game is also a relatively easy one to 100% and has some wonderful DLC cases. A few of the best achievements are:
The The Shadow achievement in L.A. Noire worth 16 pointsTail a suspect without being spotted, in a single case.
Many gamers like to complain about missions that require you to tail a target and remain unseen, but
L.A. Noire actually got it right, making it challenging without being unfair.
The Lead Foot achievement in L.A. Noire worth 18 pointsKeep the needle above 80mph for more than ten seconds while driving.
Simply put, "I wanna go fast."
The Public Menace achievement in L.A. Noire worth 57 pointsRack up $47,000 in penalties during a single story case.
I'd file this achievement under the category "Rockstar Classic". While
L.A. Noire may not encourage you to wreak havoc like
Grand Theft Auto, they did put this little number in to encourage gamers to get the chaos out of their system.
Honestly, these games and achievements are just the tip of the iceberg, so be sure to check out all of our Black Friday deals coverage (in
the US and the UK (new deals posted daily)).
Your regularly scheduled Achievement Preview Spotlight will return to the homepage next week!
If there's an upcoming game that you'd like to see featured in the Achievement Preview Spotlight, be sure to let us know in the comments!