Tag Archives: Fallout 3

Thirteenth Platinum Trophy: Fallout: New Vegas

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Posted by Rob on November 10, 2011 – 2:27 pm
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I received the Platinum trophy in Fallout: New Vegas today, and just in time with Skyrim arriving tomorrow. It took over a year, since I had pre-ordered New Vegas brand-spanking new last October. It ended up taking four playthroughs but it was all worth it. Plus Bethesda made the game is so fun that it never really felt like a chore. I had received the Platinum in Fallout 3 so I figured I would work towards doing the same in New Vegas.

There were some pain in the ass trophies to get in order to receive the Platinum, the two biggest regarding gambling. I had to win thirty games of Caravan (a card game played in the Fallout story) for the Know When to Fold Them trophy. It’s a really annoying game because the rules are a bit confusing at first, but once I finally understood the basics I was doing pretty good. If you’re in the midst of doing it, don’t worry about tracking down extra cards to make a custom set…I received the trophy using just the default deck. The other trophy that was annoying was The Courier Who Broke the Bank, which requires you to win so much money at the three main New Vegas casinos that you are banned from gambling there. I initially started trying roulette, but was getting nowhere. Then I tried my hand at Blackjack and was winning crazy money. My biggest word of advice is to make sure you have a lot of luck…I had my luck maxed out at 10 for my casino playthrough and it made things a heck of a lot easier. Read More »

Getting Into Some New Games

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Posted by Rob on December 6, 2010 – 12:42 am
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WWE SvR 2011 continues to take up a good chunk of what gaming time I have…or at least it was, until I finally unleashed Borderlands this weekend. I had forgotten how much fun it was, and I decided to start from scratch and re-roll a new character. I’m currently playing a Hunter, focusing on the Rogue skill set. The thing I realized today is that Borderlands is has many similarities with Fallout 3 and New Vegas, in that it successfully merges the FPS and RPG genres into one neat, awesome package. I’m pretty addicted to Borderlands right now, and I’m regretting taking a year to finally buy it. This one will be lasting quite some time, between four distinct characters and all the juicy DLC which I have but have not touched yet.

On the DS front, I am getting into Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure. The game is a surprise hit, and is also a combo of genres, to a degree. The meat of the game plays as a platformer, as you control Professor Hatsworth in a quest for a golden suit. One of the great features of the game is that Hatsworth is a British chap, and has the look of an aristocratic, eccentric British adventurer, complete with elephant gun, sword, cane, and monocle. Oh, and the bowler hat! The twist is that while the platforming action is going on the top screen, the bottom screen contains an advancing puzzle of blocks, kind of like Bejeweled. Eventually, if the blocks get to far up, they will begin to invade the platforming screen and can cause trouble. Thus, as you run around the main level, you will continually have to stop that and switch to the puzzle screen to clear it out. Doing this is also what gives Hatsworth health, extra lives, and “energy” which is used to more powerful projectiles, as well as for donning a gigantic robotic suit. It’s proven to be quite the addictive game so far.

The Factions in New Vegas Are Fickle

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Posted by Rob on November 16, 2010 – 12:35 am
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One of the neat revampings of Fallout: New Vegas was that the “morality” scale from Fallout 3 (how good or bad you were determined how people reacted to you) was replaced with factions. In New Vegas, each “faction”, which could be a city, town, or a group/gang, has a different view of you based on the quests you take and who you kill. So some towns can love you while others will despise you.

The problem is that this gets confusing, and as you get to about the middle of the game, you have tons of quests at your disposal for different factions. Problem is that you don’t know how different factions will react to your completion of the quest until you complete it. For example, I was researching five different factions for some robot dude. Upon giving him information of the last of the five factions, two totally other factions suddenly got mad at me, and one was ended up disliking me due to it. So these factions that were in no way involved directly with this quest had their perception of me change upon it’s completion.

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It’s Going to Be a Busy Week

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Posted by Rob on October 26, 2010 – 8:28 am
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For many gamers, this is where the gaming season really takes shape, as the months September through December are the prime months for developers to unleash the massively epic games they have been working on. This year is no exception, except for the fact that all the games I have been looking forward to for the year are out as of today, and I will be having most of them in my house by the end of the week. Having all these games at once is going to be torture as I’m torn between what I want to play.

First up is Fallout: New Vegas, which I have rented from Gamefly. Despite the freezing and other bugs/glitches, the game has been a very enjoyable experience. It has the same feel of Fallout 3, but with a new environment, although many of the interior buildings and NPC characters have been recycled from Fallout 3, and are just given new names. As of right now I’m about twenty five hours or so into the game and at level 21, but there is still plenty to do. I have no doubt that, at this rate, I will max out my character at level thirty way before the end of the game. Read More »

New Vegas Bug Blues

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Posted by Rob on October 24, 2010 – 11:51 pm
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Fallout 3 was a game that had a reputation for being “buggy” or “glitchy.” Across all my playthroughs, I don’t remember ever really coming across anything that bugged out the game. Nothing weird ever happened, and the game never froze. I was hoping that my luck would last me through New Vegas, but unfortunately it has not, and I am now subjected to a bug or two every time I sit down to play. Some of the bugs I’ve encountered:

  • The worst bug, by far, is when the game freezes. The worst part is that it can happen anytime, anywhere. The game has frozen when I search a dead body, when I find a new location and the name of the location came up on screen…heck, just five minutes ago it froze during a load screen (which prompted me to quit playing for the night and vent my rage here.) I’ve also had the game freeze for no good reason, just as I am randomly wandering the Mojave Waste. Let me tell you, I have learned very quick to be a constant saver, and I now do a manual save almost every five minutes. It’s very annoying when the game freezes, and you have to manually get up and turn the PlayStation off and then on again (the controller will not work while frozen, so you won’t be able to turn off the console from the comfort of wherever you are playing from.) I really hope the developers are working to fix this particular glitch, because it is extremely annoying.
  • Quite a few times I’ve had friendly faction members attack my companions. At one point I walked into a building with two companions, talked to a guy about a quest, and as I turned to leave he started sneaking and then shot at one of my companions until they fell unconscious. Luckily none of the other faction members, nor my other companion, opened fire, which stopped it from escalating to an all-out brawl. Still, it is pretty darn annoying, and I have taken to leaving my companions behind when going into highly populated areas. Read More »

First Impressions of Fallout: New Vegas on the PS3

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Posted by Rob on October 21, 2010 – 2:37 pm
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I received Fallout: New Vegas from Gamefly yesterday, between then and this morning I was able to put a couple of hours into the campaign. While New Vegas is an entirely new name with a new storyline, main character, and location, it still feels like it could have simply been DLC from Fallout 3. The few changes that have been made are for the better, but in the end they are more like “tweaks” than all-out changes, and you will definitely feel like you are playing Fallout 3 as you wander the Mojave Desert. Don’t worry, I didn’t pop in any story-revealing spoilers or anything like that.

The game starts off similar to Fallout 3, where we are introduced to the main character and then go through the process of creating him or her. All of the stats from the first game (S.P.E.C.I.A.L.) are here again, and after creating the cosmetic appearance of your character’s face, you assign values to the SPECIAL rating. From there, a doctor will ask you some psychological questions to get your other skills figured out. One thing that is different is that there is now a “Survival” skill that you can put points towards, which will enhance how much health you receive from food and water. The process is all similar to how it was done in Fallout 3, where you used the “baby book” to determine your starting SPECIAL’s and took the GOAT to determine your skills. One new thing in New Vegas is the inclusion of starting perks. After getting your skills assigned, you will have the option of taking up to two special traits. The tricky thing is that while they will boost some aspect of the game, they will also lower another aspect. For example, one will increase your gunfire speed by 20%, but will make you 20% less accurate. It’s your choice if you take these traits or not; you can take, none, one, or two. Once this is finished, you can take your first steps into the Mojave Desert wastes. Read More »

No Longer Buying Single Player Games

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Posted by Rob on October 11, 2010 – 9:59 pm
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I think I have some kind of crazy, compulsive problem where I have this “need” to have a media collection…I used to buy tons of games, DVDs, CDs, and books just to say “look at my collection.” Tons of CDs were never listen to, even more books were never read, and some DVDs still sit on my case in their original wrapping, having never been watched. Over the past year or two…actually since moving into my current apartment, I have severely cut down on my spending, but there is still one bad habit I maintain…buying single player games.

I really came to this realization this morning. Over the weekend I had beaten Trine, Scott Pilgrim, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, and DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue, so this morning I needed something to play while waiting for Shell to get ready. I was lying on the floor, looking at my game collection, and I realized that I had a lot of single player games that I will probably never play again. Games like BioShock, God of War, Uncharted: Drakes Fortune, and Dragon Age: Origins were all great, wonderful, classic games, but I would probably never play them again; especially since I always have something new to play through Gamefly. So I sat there, and I said “you know Rob, you paid $60 for these games when they came out, you spent less than a month playing through them, and once you beat it, you move on to the next game.” I realized how stupid it was for me to buy these games that I would never play again. I have Gamefly…I can rent any game whenever I want, and usually get it the week it releases if I plan my queue right. It’s so silly for me to be buying these single player games! Read More »

Upcoming October Gaming

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Posted by Rob on October 6, 2010 – 7:33 am
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October is now upon us, and there are quite a few decent games coming out this month. It took me awhile to sort through what I really wanted, but there are two titles coming out that I will definitely be playing in Octoer. Luckily, with Fable II on it’s way back to Gamefly, I am able to select any of the October releases to play. The other I have already pre-ordered.

With Fable II shipped back, I could pick any of the releases of 10/19 and 10/26, and there were four large tempting ones: Smackdown vs. Raw 2011, Fallout: New Vegas, Fable III, and Star Wars: Force Unleashed 2. I loved the other games in each of these games’ series, so it was hard to decide which was best. I loved Fallout 3 to no end, and played through it three times, and would probably love going through a fourth. I enjoyed Fable II, and am really curious to see if Fable III is successful in improving upon what it’s already accomplished. As for Star Wars: Force Unleashed, I never got the full experience; I played through it on the Wii and never the PS3 or 360, but I still enjoyed the general story and looked forward to the sequel. But in the end, I decided on New Vegas.

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Fifth Platinum Trophy: Fallout 3

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Posted by Rob on August 18, 2010 – 3:19 pm
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It took me quite some time, and a few playthroughs, but today I finally received the Platinum Trophy in Fallout 3, making it my fifth one total (would have been my sixth if Lego Harry Potter hadn’t glitched out on me). I had to wait a bit since SOMEONE had my copy of Fallout 3 for over a year. However, when I first popped it back on I was shocked to see that I had a level 19 “evil” character, so I quickly went on a rampage long enough to hit level 20 and snag that trophy. I then started a new good character from scratch and went through the game again, making sure that at levels 8, 14, and 20 I was “neutral”, to snag those trophies, since I already had all the “good” trophies.

Along the way I picked up all the missing trophies, which included some side missions I had missed, doing some speech challenges, hacking some computers, and hunting down all the super mutant behemoths. I will admit that, in order to find everything I was missing, I did turn to the Fallout 3 Wiki for guidance. Mind you, even though I now have the Platinum trophy, I do not have all the trophies. As of right now I have 54% trophies for Fallout 3, due to the five DLC add-ons, which I am not ready to pick up now. I will wait it out a bit still, and maybe pick up one every now and then to space them out, simply because there are five of them and they are expensive, considering each add-on is $10.

Anywho, playing through the game again made me realize how much I missed exploring the Capital Wasteland. I had a heck of a lot of fun going through the game again, and I look forward to expanding it more with future DLC purchases.

Back in LittleBigPlanet

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Posted by Rob on May 8, 2010 – 11:59 am
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LittleBigPlanet was one of the first games I bought for the PS3.I remember that soon after getting the system, Toys R Us had a buy three get one free sale, and I used that as an opportunity to stock up on some PS3 titles. I liked LBP in the beginning, but I remember eventually getting bored with it (plus I was stuck on a boss that I couldn’t get past, which was frustrating.) I never got into the level creation either, so eventually I sold the game off and put the credit towards Fallout 3.

Lately I’ve been missing it, and wanted to get back into it. So when I saw that the GOTY edition had hit the $30 Greatest Hit Collection, I was tempted to pick it up again. Then came my $25 gift card to Gamestop, and the day that Gamestop had a 10%off, free shipping online sale, so my gift card ended up paying for almost all the game (I think I had to put a dollar and change on my credit card.)

So now that I have the game, I’ve really been enjoying it. I got through the Metal Gear levels, which were fun. The game was fun in itself, but the addition of combat with the paint gun was a brilliant idea, yet still cute enough to fit the LBP environment. I also just picked up the Pirates of the Caribbean levels, but haven’t checked them out yet.

I’m also in the midst of making my own level. I’m a little rusty on the controls (because there is a lot to do in the game and a lot of information to remember when making your own level), so I’ll probably go through the tutorials again to refresh my memory. However, I have been enjoying playing around in it, as I love creating content in games (just like all the ridiculous CAWs I make in the WWE games.)

And last but not least, I’ve also started checking out some of the community levels. There were so many trophies I never received due to my avoidance of the online player-created levels, but now I’m feeling good about it and enjoying it. The game is a really fun game, and I’m mad at myself for getting frustrated with it and sending it on its way because I lost a lot of good play time that I could have had with it.

Playstation 3/ PSN Still Glitched Out

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Posted by Rob on March 1, 2010 – 6:27 pm
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So last night, it was around 10:00pm, and I was ready to get my game on. Before I hopped on, I checked my e-mail and checked out joystiq, and I saw a notice that the PS3 was busted, and warned against turning the PS3 on. While it wasn’t entirely clear what the issue was, I didn’t want to risk anything, so I didn’t go on.

It has now been about 22 hours, and the PSN is still messed up. Reports have been flying around that you can’t play most games, and that you will run the risk of losing trophies and save files. While I did not experience any of this personally, Steve happened to be on his PS3 last night.

Steve was playing Fallout 3, and he had no problem actually playing the game. He did realize two things though. First, his save files were getting the wrong date imprinted on them. Secondly, he was unable to see his Fallout 3 trophies. What will become of his saves and trophies?! We will not know, until it is safe to turn the system back on and to look over the damage.

The worst part is that I received Dynasty Warriors: Strike Force in from Gamefly, and I can’t play it!!!

PS3 Review: Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard

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Posted by Rob on January 6, 2010 – 1:01 am
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Steve recently purchased Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard from Gamefly for a sweet $7 and change. After playing through it, he let me hold on to it for a playthrough (since he has been holding on to my copy of Fallout 3 for like a year now). While it is a run of the mill third person shooter, the story is what makes this game such a blast to play.

It gets a bit complicated, but Eat Lead is the first game to feature Matt Hazard. However, in the game you take on the role of Matt Hazard, who has been in video games for 25 years, from the 8-bit generation to the present. Basically, Matt finds himself thrown into a game world where he is forced to save friends and face foes from his previous games. On my initial playthrough, I assumed that there were previous Matt Hazard games, and thats where all this story and enemies were coming from, but I was wrong, and its all made up to make the story.

eat-lead-pop

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PS3 Quick Review: Borderlands

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Posted by Rob on October 23, 2009 – 6:24 am
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I got home from my college class at around 7:45. After wolfing down dinner and finishing up some school work, it was a little after 9:00pm, and I was ready to pop Borderlands in and try it out. I wont be around Friday or Saturday, and I have a bunch of school work to do Sunday, so I wanted to use the opportunity to get to see what Borderlands was all about.

Its pretty great.

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Borderlands is on the Way

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Posted by Rob on October 21, 2009 – 6:29 am
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Ive been looking forward to the game for awhile. Its was being marketed as a FPS/RPG hybrid, which automatically made me think of Fallout 3. Throw in the setting of a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and I was even more sold on the fact that it was going to bring back wonderful memories of Fallout 3. One of the biggest differences is that Borderlands will offer four player online co-op, while Fallout was just a single-player game.

So needless to say, I was mighty pleased when Gamefly e-mailed me yesterday informing me that Borderlands is on the way. I am very curious to play it for myself and see if it really is as awesome as it sounds. But now the only problem is actually finding time to play it…

How I Spent My Birthday

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Posted by Rob on April 15, 2009 – 3:14 pm
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Well, I woke up bright and early at 7:30am, and played around on the internet a bit. Then I went to the gym, and when I got back I popped in RE5 and played it for a few hours until beating it. It took a few hours, but it was worth it. Talked to my parents and Cara, and chatted with Steve a bit. Then I ate some lunch and read some of Brisingr. I then popped in Fallout 3 and played that for a bit.

Right now its 3:15. I have to get ready for work pretty soon. Im also gonna stop at Hollywood Video. They called me yesterday and told me that I could come in today for a free rental. New video game, here I come!

My Day Off

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Posted by Rob on April 10, 2009 – 4:31 pm
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So this is what I did today.

6:45am- woke up cause cat was being a pain

7am-10am- played Fallout 3 and ate breakfast

10am-11am- read Brisingr, packed

11am-12:30- played Fallout 3

12:30-1:30- packed, ate luch, showered, loaded up car, cleaned out car

1:30-2:30- played Fallout 3 while waiting for mailman to come drop off Godfather 2 from Gamefly

2:30-4pm- played Godfather 2

4pm-now (4:30)- waiting for Shell to get home so we can leave
A very fruitful day indeed.

PS3- Fallout 3

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Posted by Rob on April 4, 2009 – 6:37 am
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So I recently got Fallout 3. Why? I know it was made by the same company that did Oblivion, and that it also used the Oblivion engine, meaning it would have a similar look and feel to Oblivion. Well, that is correct. Fallout 3 is basically Oblivion, except that it takes place in an American nuclear wasteland as opposed to a fantasy realm. Instead of orcs, elves, and magic, you have mutants, giant bugs, and laser guns. Oh, and radiation. Lots of radiation.

I had trouble getting used to the map in this game. It was not as clear as it was in Oblivion, so I found myself getting lost a lot easier. Im starting to get the hang of it now, though. There are also less NPCs to interact with, which makes it harder to find side quests.

There are a lot of good things about this game. First and foremost is leveling. Oblivion’s leveling system was unique and challenging. You only increased stats by doing an action. For example, to raise your armor skill, you had to take hits in combat. To increase your destructive magic skill, you had to cast fireballs or lightning bolts. So sometimes your character would level up, but some of the important stats for combat would not have been increased in that time, so your character had a hard time keeping up with the enemies who leveled up with you. In Fallout 3, every time you level up, you decide what stats to increase. You are given X amount of skill points, and you put them where you want them. Traditional, but tried and true.

The game is a lot of fun, and beautiful to look at. It sounds silly, but the nuclear wasteland of Washington D.C. is very beautiful in the game. The enemies are awesome, whether some punk Raider or a giant super mutant. The weapons are sweet, whether traditional ones such as baseball bats, pistols, and shot guns, up to laser pistols and rifles. You can also make your own weapons, but I havent gotten that far yet.

Oblivion is a vast game. You can easily get lost playing it, and spend hours on it and accomplish nothing. I feel that Fallout 3 is not as expansive, so I see myself actually playing through and finishing it. The same cannot be said for Oblivion. Ive tried twice, and have yet to get anywhere near finishing it.

Gamestop wasnt so bad

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Posted by Rob on April 4, 2009 – 6:27 am
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So Im really lazy. Ive been wanting to sell a bunch of my old PS1 and PS2 games forever now. Im just too lazy to go on ebay and sell them. And I didnt want to trade them in at Gamestop because its a rip-off. But it kept bugging me. I had over 20 games just sitting there doing nothing. So eventually I gave in, and went to Gamestop. I had 9PS games, 10PS2 games, and 5 PS3 games I was trading in. I expected to get about $80-90 for  them. That wasnt too bad…it allowed me to trade in all my games I no longer played for a brand new game.

So I get there, and they dont take back PS1 games. So now Im like, “hmmm…I wonder how much I will get.” My game estimation took in the fact that I had some heavy PS1 hitters such as FFVII and FFTactics. So these are the games I traded in and what I got for them:

SOCOM- 13.87 (the best part is that its not even the full game…its only the online multiplayer version)
Conan- 7.50
Viking- 7.50
MGS4- 21
Simpsons- 12 (I had paid $9 for it new from Best Buy)
Simpsons Road Rage- 4.13
ESPN Hockey- .75
Lord of the Rings- Fellowship of the Ring- 1.13
NHL ’06- 1.05
Robin Hood- 1.13
The Thing- 1.13
Hunter Reckoning- 1.13
Street Fighter Anthology- 13.50
GTA 3- 3.37
XMen Legends- 1.87

SubTotal of 91.06

I then decided to spend 14.99 for the Edge Card and year subscription to Game Informer. This was good because it gave me 10% more trade credit on these games. Also, if you trade in six games or more, you get an extra 40% trade in value. So in the end,  I got 50% extra trade in value, which made the games worth $90. I thought this was a pretty good deal. Sure, some of my PS2 games went for a dollar, but what else am I going to do with them?!

So the grand total I got in store credit was  $76.07.

I spent 50 on Fallout 3 (it was $54.99 used, and I got an extra 10% off thanks to the Edge Card.) I put the rest as a down payment/ reserve on Sacred 2, which comes out in May.

All in all, it was a good experience. The trick is to get as much bonus credit as possible, by trading in games in bulk and having the Edge Card.