PC review: Fallout 4

After their release of the fifth major Elder Scrolls title, Bethesda has returned to the post-apocalyptic setting of the Fallout series, with Fallout 4 being set in the Commonwealth, formerly the area surrounding Boston. Fenway Park has been reorganized into the central hub known as Diamond City, and the cityscape is a hodgepodge of old New England brick buildings with towering paneled steel skyscrapers. Following the example set forth by Obsidian’s Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 4 effectively allows players to roam freely once the hour-long run of tutorial quests has been cleared.

Prior to the core game taking place, players bear witness to life before the bombs dropped in the small suburb of Sanctuary. Character creation grants a great degree of customization options, including the gender of the protagonist, and for the first time in the series, the main character speaks to allies and enemies alike. After being visited by a Vault-Tec representative and reserving their space in Vault 111, the happy family life is interrupted as news breaks on the television of the first bombs dropping. Grabbing their infant son Shaun, the protagonist and his/her spouse run for Vault 111, and are sealed inside just as a mushroom cloud paints the horizon.

Inside Vault 111, the couple and their baby are ushered into cryostasis pods, where they are frozen in time to outlast the nuclear radiation above ground. However, the protagonist’s sleep is interrupted early after a small band of scientists and a raider crack the seal on their spouse’s pod, and kill them in a struggle to steal their baby. The protagonist is forced to watch helplessly as their child is taken away, and they are left as the only surviving adult in Vault 111, drifting back off to cryostasis-induced sleep for a bit until their pod is finally cracked open, and they are freed to venture forth into the wastes of the Commonwealth in search of their son and the individuals responsible for his kidnapping.

Fallout 4 suffers from a similar problem as The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, in that the main story doesn’t offer a particularly compelling narrative, and that side quests relating to the game’s various major factions are consistently more interesting, more widely varied in their offerings, and generally more challenging. Simply playing the main story missions will not last particularly long, and the ultimate goal of finding one’s lost son pales even in the company of bringing clean water to the people of the Capital Wasteland in Fallout 3. It is far easier to sink hours into establishing the band of regional do-gooders known as the Minutemen, helping human-like Synths who wish to escape their Institute overlords via a new-age Underground Railroad, and uncovering the twisted goals of Vault-Tec in the other regional Vaults.

While the option to roam largely wherever one’s heart desires early on is very much appreciated, the game world, though large, is still much smaller than other open-world contemporaries like Grand Theft Auto V or Xenoblade Chronicles X. Still, the Commonwealth is littered with many locations to discover, and exploration feels rewarding. Leveling up in Fallout 4 proceeds faster than in Fallout 3 or New Vegas, and Fallout 4 technically lacks a level cap. This is partially due to the much broader offerings of the perk system – classics like Bloody Mess, Lady Killer, and Mysterious Stranger make their returns, but a whole slew of new ones round out the list, and all serve comparably useful ends. The V.A.T.S. system, which slows time for players to hone their attacks to specific body parts on enemies, remains effectively unchanged from the last outing.

A core part of the Fallout series’ identity stems from its 1950’s retro-future aesthetic, while the games are also largely recognized for their dark humor. Bethesda has selected many catchy tunes for Diamond City Radio to broadcast, though a good handful of these songs are reused from Fallout 3. The humor in Fallout 4, meanwhile, is split quite evenly between dry, situational humor and the less effective instances of characters taking a none-too-subtle push of exclaiming just how much violence and death can be entertaining in this decayed world. It’s an unfortunate step backwards, as both Fallout 3 and New Vegas excelled at the much more engaging approach of ‘showing over telling’.

Fallout 4 also utilizes a small selection of dialogue options when interacting with quest-specific characters or companions. Generally, two of these options end up resulting in the same responses, while one is a negative response or decline of engaging in conversation, and the fourth and final option is almost always a sarcastic statement. The sarcastic options rarely add anything valuable to the conversation, while the three other options are often vague descriptors for the full sentences that your protagonist will ultimately dish out. Dialogue options that are colored in yellow, orange, or red are persuasive and threatening approaches, and their respective color is dependent on how far you have leveled up their associated perks. Nine times out of ten, though, it feels like the dialogue options serve more to boost your affinity ratings with companion characters than they do to progress whatever quest you are currently undertaking.

In a similar vein, Fallout 4’s quests and indoor environments are more linear in design than those in Fallout 3, New Vegas, or even The Elder Scrolls titles. While they may not be as expansive overall, these locations are much easier to navigate, reducing the likelihood that you will find yourself lost in some deep and winding labyrinth. The wait times as these areas load is longer than one would expect from a game of this generation, and Fallout 4’s bugs and glitches are plentiful. While I never encountered any hiccups that were game-breaking, I did find three or four glitches each time that I fired the game up – whether it was a stray bullet that ricocheted off a car and caused it to fly forward like a Frisbee, NPCs pushing one another around during dialogue sequences, full sentences being skipped for no discernible reason, or Deathclaws clipping through buildings only to launch sky-high and immediately die upon their return to the ground, Fallout 4 lacks a considerable amount of polish in this department.

Conversely, character models look quite good on the whole. Standouts include companion characters like Piper (whose animations are highly expressive), Nick Valentine (with a network of mechanical pieces visible through his cracked facial structure), and the Mr. Handy models (whose eyes are constantly zooming and retracting, while bobbing up and down, independent of one another). In fact, the companion characters are one of the game’s strongest points. While human-friendly Super Mutant Strong and canine pal Dogmeat operate almost exactly the same as their equivalents in previous games, Piper is a reporter determined uncover a Synth conspiracy in Diamond City, Nick Valentine is a slick trenchcoat-wearing private eye with considerable knowledge of the Commonwealth, Deacon is a ‘far-out’ beatnik master of disguise assisting The Railroad in their aims of freeing runaway Synths from the enigmatic Institute, and Curie is a pre-war Miss Nanny robot who fills the role of questioning ‘where do the lines between man and machine blur’ with her insistence on research and finding a way to be inspired beyond her programming. On the whole, Fallout 4’s characters are a nicely varied bunch, with a few being among the best the series has seen to date. Upon reaching maximum affinity levels with each companion, players earn an additional perk specific to that companion’s behavior, while some companions can even be romanced.

Helping NPCs on various quests can unlock new settlements for you to establish and build structures, defenses, workbenches, food, water, and energy. It’s a welcome addition that not only increases the play time value of Fallout 4, but also finally makes use of the various junk items you discover in your journeys. Cans, toy rocket ships, fallen trees, turret switchboards, old cameras, and many other assorted items can be taken to workbenches and broken down into base resources, which can then be recycled for constructing settlement necessities. While this settlement management system is neither the most fleshed-out, nor the most actively rewarding version of such an addition to an open-world game, it does bring something fresh and coherent into the mix.

Additional workbenches can be used to concoct health items, and customize weapons and armor. Pieces of Power Armor can also be repaired here. The iconic Brotherhood of Steel Power Armor functions differently than in previous games, effectively acting as a limited exoskeleton or vehicle, able to take its own damage before you yourself are physically wounded. Power Armor also runs on energy cores than can be gathered from generators scattered across the Commonwealth. The more of these cores in your possession, the longer you can make use of the Power Armor. Pieces of the many versions of the Power Armor can be swapped out and paired with one another, and there are many Power Armor frames in the Commonwealth to scavenge these pieces from. The Power Armor is especially useful for taking on stronger foes like Deathclaws, which appear more frequently in Fallout 4 than in previous games, and can also make short work of Super Mutants or Ghouls, two enemy types which travel in generally larger numbers than before. It is not uncommon for eight or more Ghouls to attempt to overwhelm players, while Super Mutant ranks often include one suicide runner who will attempt to rush players with a Mini Nuke in hand.

As is tradition for the series, Fallout 4 requires you to keep an even eye on your health bar and your radiation level. The higher your radiation level, the greater portion of your health bar it takes up, temporarily reducing the maximum level you are able to heal to until you are either able to find RadAway or pay a doctor NPC with the Commonwealth’s bottlecap currency. By and large, Fallout 4 feels surprisingly less the part of an RPG than its predecessors. It isn’t uncommon to find high level, specialized weaponry during one of your many quests, even during the game’s earliest hours. This sort of negates the need to hold onto common weapons for customization. The wide selection of perks is truly a high point of Fallout 4’s ‘play-as-you-want’ design, but the game feels more like an open-world adventure/survival title with a mild amount of RPG elements thrown in than a proper RPG.

My rating: 7.5 (out of 10)

DLC review: Fallout: New Vegas - Dead Money

After your Pip-Boy picks up a new radio signal, you are granted access to an abandoned bunker formerly used by the Brotherhood of Steel. Moments after entering, gas fills the bunker and you pass out only to awaken in the courtyard of the Sierra Madre, a first-class casino that never got a chance to see its glory days thanks to the nuclear war. You are instructed by Father Elijah to seek out three others who will participate in a heist with you, and he informs you that - thanks to the explosive collar around your neck - you have no choice but to cooperate. The first stretch of your mission has you rounding up your partners-in-crime - a split-personality super mutant named Dog, a mute human named Christine, and a former musical star Ghoul named Dean Domino. While Father Elijah comes across as a demanding prick, these three prove a colorful cast amidst the hopeless backdrop of the Sierra Madre.

From the moment you set foot inside the Sierra Madre Villa, you are denied use of anything and everything you might have gathered during your adventures in the Mojave. Your weapons, apparel, aid, and bottle caps have all been taken by Father Elijah. While the Sierra Madre Villa is a decent size, there isn't much of anything to explore. There is a hologram merchant who can sell you a few useful items, but you'll have to sell other things that you find in the area, since you have no caps on you. Certain areas are blocked off by toxic gas, though Dean Domino grants you a perk that allows you to walk through it unharmed. Far more frustrating are the numerous traps inside of seemingly every building and the speakers that set your collar on a timed countdown. Some speakers are easy to spot and can be destroyed, saving your life. Others cannot be destroyed at all and you must find a nearby computer terminal in order to shut off the speakers and save your brain from being splattered all over the walls. The DLC does not bother to differentiate between the two types of speakers, and thus it is up to you, the player, to be extra cautious anytime your collar begins to beep.

Dead Money introduces two new types of enemies, the first ones you encounter being the various rankings of Ghost People that inhabit the Sierra Madre Villa outside of the actual casino. The Ghost People place an interesting spin on traditional combat, as they are capable of jumping incredible distances as they dodge your attacks. They bear a creepy visage by wearing gas masks and hoods, and they will only fall unconscious when their health bar reaches zero. If you do not follow this up by hacking their limbs off, the Ghost People will rise back up and continue fighting. However, combat as a whole proves rather frustrating, as only a very small number of stimpacks can be found in the Sierra Madre. Access to food is also restricted, as the vast majority of it is accessible only through vending machines that require you to collect Sierra Madre chips. And as most of these chips are found in areas crawling with Ghost People, the result is zero-sum as you've fought long and hard to spend your chips and end up using all of your food to heal the wounds that you earned fighting to get those chips in the first place. To top things off, once you've completed the first leg of your trials in the Sierra Madre Villa, the game sends a horde of Ghost People to throw spears and gas bombs at you while your struggle to make your way back to the central fountain so that you can continue on to the casino portion. Hologram patrols await within, and they can strike you down with a just a few ranged hits. Combat is incredibly unforgiving, even if you are playing with a fully leveled-up character, and this entire approach seems poorly planned.

The casino portion is relatively short - less than an hour if you have decent stats in lock picking. You will interact with your three partners briefly, in scenarios that test your abilities to sneak and play defensively. As you explore the upper floors of the Sierra Madre and the vault beneath, the loudspeakers come back into play, though it is (once again) frequently unclear if the speakers in the immediate area can actually be destroyed or if you simply need to high-tail it to a nearby safe zone (usually a secluded corner or hallway between rooms). What should be a relatively short distance to travel ends up taking the most time out of anything in the casino, and frequent saves are recommended.

In the end, you don't earn as much in the way of special items or equipment as you do in the other Fallout: New Vegas DLC packs. Those weapons that are exclusive to the Sierra Madre prove mediocre when compared to the high end of what the Mojave can offer. The presentation of the Sierra Madre incorporates an atmosphere along the lines of action-horror, which is an interesting and welcome spin on the adventure-RPG formula already established. In many ways, Dead Money feels like more work than it's worth, and can be thoroughly frustrating in large chunks. It is not uncommon for the early DLC packs for a game to feel weaker than those that follow, but it seems counter-intuitive for Bethesda to have released the most challenging one first.

My rating: 6 (out of 10)*

*(rating applies solely to downloadable content, not its inclusion with the content on the original game disc or other downloadable content)

DLC review: Fallout: New Vegas - Lonesome Road

In Fallout: New Vegas, you were made aware of the fact that you were not the only courier in the Mojave - just the one carrying the all-important Platinum Chip. In the Lonesome Road DLC, you finally come face-to-face with another courier, though not in the manner you might expect. Beyond a pile of rubble in the Mojave lies passage to the Lonesome Road - a path that weaves into a long-abandoned area known as the Divide. Along the way, the protagonist courier will discover ruins of a city and the few Marked Men of the Legion sent to scour it. Walking among the ghosts of the Divide, the courier will rediscover his past and make one very important decision regarding the future.

The Lonesome Road lives up to its name from the moment you begin walking along it. Though you will have encounters with enemies like the Marked Men, wild Tunnelers and Deathclaws, the journey is entirely concerned with you and your fellow courier. You are not allowed to bring any companion characters along, as per Fallout DLC tradition, but you will meet up with another ED-E robot with his own small tale to tell. You can collect optional upgrades for him, making him a relatively useful ally in combat.

Unlike previous New Vegas DLC, keeping an eye on your radiation level is a key component to Lonesome Road. Not only is there a good chance that you might wander into areas with significant amounts of radiation, but your Pip-Boy's radiation detecting abilities will help you to locate small nuclear warheads that block your path. A laser detonator, which is given to you early in your trek across the Divide, allows you to blow up these warheads from a safe distance. You will encounter the vast majority of these warheads in order, due to the overall linear nature of this DLC. But there are a handful that lie off the main path and can grant access to areas teeming with vicious Tunnelers or stacked with medical supplies and ammunition.

As mentioned before, the one person in your company from start to finish is Ulysses, your fellow courier, who regularly converses with you through the ED-E robot. Ulysses' cryptic messages gradually reveal that you once visited the Divide, and that he has found something of great worth buried in the wreckage. Though most of the answers to what Ulysses is posing you with are not reconciled until the last half hour of the experience, the element of mystery is what makes the story so intriguing. Ulysses is by far one of the most entertaining, complex, and human characters in the world of New Vegas. The dusty atmosphere and solid storytelling realized within the confines of this desolate realm mesh surprisingly well with the linear direction of the Lonesome Road, and in the end makes for the strongest add-on to Fallout: New Vegas.

My rating: 8.75 (out of 10)*

*(rating applies solely to downloadable content, not its inclusion with the content on the original game disc or other downloadable content)

DLC review: Fallout: New Vegas - Old World Blues

After receiving yet another radio broadcast, you find yourself drawn to a drive-in movie theater where a satellite seems to have crashed. A brief interaction with it, and you are whisked away to Big Mountain, an old research facility from the pre-war era that has apparently been forgotten. Sometime between your disappearance from the Mojave and your arrival at Big Mt., your brain, heart, and spine were removed in the name of science. How are you made aware of this? Because the first individuals you encounter are the five scientists responsible for your body being partially dissected.

These scientists - or rather, what is left of them, as they are effectively brains in jars with monitors for faces - make for an oddball group. The de facto leader of the group is Dr. Klein, who wishes to impress you with his vast scientific knowledge - which is curious, since he views your lack of a human brain as equivalent to you being an animal. Dr. Borous spends much of his time reminiscing on his high school days and is paranoid that you might be a commie like so many of his former classmates. Absent-minded Dr. O forgets where he places things as frequently as he forgets what he is talking about, while 8 is incapable of producing anything other than static due to an accident. Finally , Dr. Dala seems the most invested in your body's current state, but not because she has any genuine care for your well being. She is obsessed with the movements and functions of the human form, and comes across as equal parts creepy and horny.

The whole experience carries a 1950s/1960s sci-fi B-movie vibe about it, with the goal being to upgrade the central Think Tank's facilities in order to fight back against the evil Dr. Mobius. As you explore the different laboratories around Big Mt. you will encounter robo-scorpions, a school where cybernetic dogs patrol the hallways, and artillery test sites, to name but a few. Travelling from one spot to another may lead to a run-in with enemies like Nightstalkers, animated corpses wearing Y-17 trauma override harnesses, and other hostile lobotomites. At times, these enemies will spawn with no apparent rhyme or reason, and can easily overwhelm you if you are not carrying sufficient aid supplies.

Conversely, there are a few new toys you can pick up in Big Mt. that prove rather useful. At the outset, you gain two guns - one that is a sonic emitter, and the other that is a heavy repeating machine gun with the brain of a dog attached to it. The former proves invaluable against the variety of robots crawling about the region, and can be upgraded with new audio clips as you find them. There is also a stealth suit waiting to be discovered in one of the labs that not only helps you avoid detection, but will also heal your wounds as you take damage in the midst of battle. The suit will talk to you on occasion, indicating that there are enemies nearby or that the area is now safe. The only downside is that the suit has a rare tendency to waste medical supplies - it is smart with staggering the use of stimpacks, but will sometimes burn through Med-X faster than need be.

The curious cast of characters does not stop with the five scientists. Adjacent to the Think Tank is The Sink, another area that acts as part of the core of Big Mountain. Therein, you will find an eclectic cast of appliances that require upgrading. Muggy is a pint-sized Securitron who is painfully aware of his usefulness as he is programmed for the sole purpose of cleaning coffee mugs for scientists who no longer have bodies. Two flirtatious female light switches are seemingly jealous of one another, while the toaster believes he will one day be capable of burning up everyone on the planet. There is even a book chute who has taken up the task of collecting texts from before the war and wiping their pages clean in order to maintain an Orwellian order. Upgrading this amusing lot proves somewhat tedious and mundane, however, as each item retrieved requires you to find a few more items, which requires you to find a few more items. And since none of these items are ever in particularly close proximity to one another, the process wears quickly. Even the optional quests have you running in circles, which quickly becomes more annoying than fun.

By the time you've concluded your adventures in Big Mt., you'll have acquired a few new perks and weapons to bring back to the Mojave. The main questline only runs a couple of hours, and it is nice to see that Bethesda included some sidequests beyond it. However, the whole experience is more about style than substance, and Old World Blues feels like a missed opportunity in more ways than one.

My rating: 7 (out of 10)*

*(rating applies solely to downloadable content, not its inclusion with the content on the original game disc or other downloadable content)

DLC review: Fallout: New Vegas - Honest Hearts

After picking up a radio broadcast asking for help promoting a caravan company in distant regions, the North Passage becomes accessible, wherein you will meet a small group headed out to Zion National Park in the hopes of promoting trade with a new market. At the outset of your journey, you are only allowed a set number of pounds worth of items that you are able to carry with you. This number can be slightly higher if your stats allow for it, but before you even set foot inside Zion, you will have to think carefully about which items you bring along. Should you choose to leave most of your medical supplies behind, you can live off the fat of the land as there is an abundance of plant life to heal with. The enemy types you encounter are much more limited than in the Mojave, lending to the overall straightforward path the Honest Hearts DLC sets you on.

Upon arriving in Zion National Park, the caravan party you are travelling with is ambushed by savage White Leg tribals. Once you are the only survivor, Follows-Chalk, a member of the Dead Horses tribe, comes to your rescue and explains there are two men like you - men who came from outside of Zion - and that one of them, Joshua Graham, would like to speak with you. As it turns out, Joshua was once a high-ranking officer in Ceaser's Legion, but was set on fire and thrown into the Grand Canyon. How exactly he survived is never made clear, but he was bandaged up, moved to Zion, and fell in good favor with the Dead Horses tribe. Similarly, a man named David found himself welcome among the tribals known as The Sorrows.

Follows-Chalk is one of the first friendly characters you encounter upon entering Zion, and serves as your companion as you explore the area and complete quests. He is far more talkative than the other companions from the main game (none of whom are allowed to accompany you here), but his quips make the Dead Horse culture seem a bit more rich and believable. The same goes for Waking Cloud, a proud female Sorrow who accompanies you during the second leg of your quest to save Zion. Joshua is perhaps the most deep and well thought-out of the small cast in Honest Hearts. He constantly references scripture and though he and Daniel seek a similar goal, their means of reaching it could not be more different.

The creative staff has done the best they can with the graphical limitations of Fallout: New Vegas, using colorful palettes and lighting effects that dance off the rock walls of Zion National Park. The world is designed as a sort of staggered series of cliffs and valleys, with one large river running through the middle. Even when you cannot see it, the slopes make it fairly obvious where you are in relation to the river, and its centralized location makes it incredibly difficult to get lost. Even so, the fact that the entirety of Zion is made up of this series of brown rock formations causes the surroundings to get boring to look at near the final stretch. This is not aided by the fact that all of the indoor locations are simple caves and ranger stations. But the visuals don't feel stale for too long, as the main quest only runs a few hours in length.

My rating: 8 (out of 10)*

*(rating applies solely to downloadable content, not its inclusion with the content on the original game disc or other downloadable content)

Xbox 360 review: Fallout: New Vegas

Following the success of Bethesda's revival of the post-apocalyptic franchise in the form of Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas carries on much of the legacy, adding in a few new gameplay features as well as a somewhat different approach to the layout of the world. This time around, the story follows a courier who has been tasked with delivering a platinum poker chip to one of the Mojave's VIPs. Unfortunately, the Courier has a run-in with a rather unfriendly New Vegas thug named Benny, who shoots and buries him in a small town graveyard. Miraculously, the Courier survives and - following a series of optional tutorial tasks in the town of Goodsprings - sets out to unravel the mysteries surrounding Benny and the Platinum Chip.

It becomes quite apparent early on that the Platinum Chip is of great value to a number of the major factions of the Mojave. Despite its appearance, the Platinum Chip is embedded with hardware that allows it to interact with certain computers, and it has the potential to turn the tide of the long-running struggle between the New California Republic and Caesar's Legion over control of the Mojave. The element of making decisions that influence your karma is still present in New Vegas, though it is not as important a factor as in Fallout 3. Instead, making alliances and enemies is key. Aiding certain factions will open up some quests while barring access to others, and it is impossible to be on everyone's good side at any given time. You will have to think carefully about which paths you wish to take, though this presents a huge element of freedom, as no two playthroughs will be quite the same.

In fact, the freedom to do whatever you want is what makes New Vegas so much more accessible than its predecessor. Whereas Fallout 3 started you off in a vault and then sent you on a path through the Capital Wasteland - an area largely designed around ruined buildings, empty streets, and narrow subway tunnels - Fallout: New Vegas allows you to have your run of the desert, every one of its vast open expanses ready to be explored. Granted, there are some areas home to wildlife and enemies that require some leveling up before you can hold your own against them. But the sidequests feel less like a required means of boosting EXP in order to progress further in the main game, and more like the developers put thoughtful care behind nearly each and every one.

Because New Vegas still has electricity and clean water, it is much easier to find fresh food. This in turn decreases the likelihood that the Courier will receive radiation poisoning. The variety of enemies also differs from those in Fallout 3. Instead of facing down the hulking super mutants time and time again, the Courier will have more frequent run-ins with the mutated wildlife of Nightstalkers and Cazadors, as well as groups of Fiends, Powder Gangers, and whatever factions you choose to align yourself against. Leveling up progresses in the same manner, and a number of perks - including bloody mess, better critical hits, and earning experience points at a slightly faster rate - are retained. Some perks will be earned over time based on repeated behavior, such as a higher damage against specific enemies after you have killed enough of them.

Unlike Fallout 3, New Vegas does not opt for major focus on one single story. True, the game follows the Courier from start to finish, but it takes on a multi-layered approach, shaping the different factions and exploring their investment in the treasures of the Mojave. The more time you spend getting to know these groups, the more rewarding the experience will be. That said, the original plot point concerning Benny builds up for the better portion of the first half of the game, but never reaches the boiling point one might hope for. Each ending to his story ends up feeling lackluster in comparison to the choices made regarding the NCR, Caesar's Legion, or Mr. House.

The atmosphere is top-notch, and the team behind New Vegas really captured the essence of the American west and found a way to perfectly balance it with a retro future setting. Beyond the Elvis impersonators, strippers, and casino thugs that line the streets of New Vegas, there are plenty cowboy-themed characters, farmsteads, campgrounds, and mines scattered across the Mojave to keep the exploration side of things interesting. While you visit them, you can tune your Pip-Boy to a few radio stations that play the music of Dean Martin, Kay Kyser, Marty Robbins, Guy Mitchell, and more.

The voice actors put forth quite a performance, too. Matthew Perry does well in his portrayal of Benny, but the companion characters are the ones who often steal the spotlight. Lily is a Super Mutant who was once an old lady, and thus expresses many grandmotherly tendencies. Danny Trejo voices Raul, a ghoul who is handy at repairing your equipment, but could often care less to jump feet first into a tense situation. Felicia Day lends her voice to Veronica, a young member of the Brotherhood of Steel who provides you with a plethora of information (and opinions) regarding the various factions in the Mojave. Even Rex, the cybernetic dog who does little more than bark, adds a little personality to your company.

Fallout: New Vegas is not the prettiest game current-gen consoles have to offer. Some textures will take a moment or two to pop, and though character models move fluidly, their facial expressions are limited. But with everything else that New Vegas does well, it's easy to look past the visual shortcomings. There's a whole lot to explore in the Mojave, and no matter how you choose to approach it, know that you will have blast doing so.

My rating: 8.75 (out of 10)

Dishonored E3 gameplay trailer

I saw the teaser trailer for Dishonored earlier this year and was rather indifferent toward it, but now it has my full attention. If I'm being completely honest, the gameplay does look like it borrows heavily from Bioshock, and there even seem to be some elements inspired by Assassin's Creed. Heck, the semi-cel-shaded graphical style looks almost exactly like that of Bioshock Infinite. But this trailer is so full of atmosphere that I can't help but be excited to find out more between now and the October 9th release date. The fact that Bethesda is tied to the game is a plus.



Also, is it just me, or do those walker things look vaguely similar to the Striders from Half-Life 2?

The Elder Scrolls Online announced

Bethesda is taking their popular RPG series into the realm of online gaming. This should come as little surprise. Rumors of an online Elder Scrolls game have been circulating the internet for years. And with the huge success of Skyrim, it's perfect timing for Bethesda to uveil this new entry into the series. The Elder Scrolls Online will allow players to join one of three factions as they explore the entirety of Tamriel, and is scheduled for a 2013 release.

DLC review: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Shivering Isles

After a mysterious portal opens up on an island in the middle of Niben Bay, players are granted the ability to travel to the Shivering Isles. This new region, ruled by Sheogorath, is split into two halves. The Mania portion is governed by Duke Thadon, who takes pleasure in his experiences with mind-altering drugs. The inhabitants of this portion of the island are often paranoid, though cheerful enough when compared to the depressing lot that inhabits the Dementia side. Some of the Dementia citizens even express a desire to kill Duchess Syl, plotting with one of her own guards.

The Shivering Isles are nowhere near as large as the main game's realm of Cyrodill. Still, both the Mania and Dementia halves host a significant number of sidequests, and the realm itself is teeming with life - citizens and monsters alike. The enemy designs are some of the most creative in the entire Oblivion package, and many present a much more tactical dynamic to combat. The characters are quite diverse, even though there are only a handful that are key to the main storyline, and this shows just how much extra effort Bethesda put into this DLC.

The story follows the same main character from Cyrodill, as Sheogorath has him travelling around the Shivering Isles in an attempt to stop Jyggalag and the Greymarch from taking over his lands and bringing an end to his time as ruler. As Sheogorath informs players, this is a cycle that happens at the end of every era, and he is determined to bring it to a halt. None of the missions last particularly long, though the dungeon areas exhibit a strong balance of tactical combat and clever puzzles.

About halfway through the main quest, players must make a decision to align themselves with one side of the island or the other. During this portion of the quest, as well as a couple of segments that follow thereafter, players will be accompanied by either the Golden Saints or the Dark Seducers (depending on their alignment). These AI companions prove both stronger and more competent than the forces that gathered at Bruma toward the end of the main storyline of The Elder Scrolls IV. The commanding role also presents a nice change of pace from the early missions of dungeon-crawling solo.

The Shivering Isles have some of the most beautifully rendered environments in the Oblivion universe, with half-sunken villages and giant mushrooms twisting their way toward a skybox decorated with a nebula of red and violet hues. Sheogorath also proves the most oddball, yet lovable character in the game. He constantly greets the character in a cheerful manner, yet follows up with a bizarre "Come back again soon, or I'll pluck out your eyes!"

In short, Shivering Isles is a great DLC package. It has a fantastic balance in its gameplay, quirky characters, and a storyline that is honestly better than the main questline of The Elder Scrolls IV. It's a curious look into what chaos and order mean for an inverted world. Players will have a number of reasons to care about the main quest and be thoroughly engaged. Plus, they might find a few really cool additions to their arsenal along the way.

My rating: 9.25 (out of 10)*

*(rating applies solely to downloadable content, not its inclusion with the content on the original game disc or other downloadable content)

Xbox 360 review: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

The story of The Elder Scrolls IV opens with the player-controlled character locked in a cell in the Imperial City. Here, players will determine their race and physical attributes, as well as special skill sets based upon a star sign. Before players can begin their adventures in Cyrodill, they must first escort Uriel Septim, current emperor of the land, through a network of underground tunnels as they evade the assassins of the Mythic Dawn. As it so happens, the entrance to this escape route begins in your very own prison cell, and Uriel Septim believes this is no coincidence. All off this acts as a rather lengthy combat tutorial, though players can just as easily let the AI Imperial Guards take to the forefront of combat.

As Uriel's final moments draw near, he asks the player to seek out Martin, the next in line to claim the throne. Leaving through the sewers, players will emerge unharmed and now free to roam about the hills, mountains, plains, and forests of Cyrodill. Players now have the freedom to choose to engage in the main story, or to spend time tackling sidequests, and there are benefits to both. The main story introduces players to key areas and can often reward them with powerful weapons and armor found in the dungeon areas. The sidequests take time, but will yield results in the form of experience to increase skills as well as some small treasures that can be sold.

There is some nice variation in the architectural style and geographic layout of the various towns players will visit during their journeys. Some are more memorable than others, like the snow-laden cabins of Bruma and the stacked wooden houses that line the trench river in Bravil. But as a whole, the artistic direction of the game sets players in a rather generic medieval fantasy world. Which is not to say there is nothing to do there, with an abundance of optional sidequests at their disposal.

The sidequests - most notably the major ones of the Dark Brotherhood and the Mages, Fighters, and Thieves' Guilds - will make up the bulk of the gaming experience in terms of time and variety. The main storyline pales in comparison to any one of these. The protagonist's aiding Martin doesn't make for a downright terrible narrative, but it isn't until approximately two-thirds of the way in that the narrative becomes genuinely interesting. From there, things become really intense and action-packed, but everything leading up to it is a series of boring labyrinth searches, wherein players will be accompanied by AI-controlled Jauffre, whose tendencies to charge headlong into battle prove more of a burden than a help.

The game's management system is pretty straightforward. Weapons, armor, and alchemic ingredients are all allocated to one section of the menu, while sidequests and the world map are on another. The third and final set of tabs details character abilities, skill levels, and their special attributes that come with whatever star sign players choose at the beginning of the game. This format provides ease of access to anything players might need to review during their journeys.

The level-up system isn't very involved. So long as players keep hacking away at enemies, they will increase their skill in arms combat after a predetermined number have been killed. The same goes for number of jumps made to increase agility, and number of locks opened to increase security. Games like thos in the Final Fantasy series would encourage players to spend their experience points with the knowledge of what skills will benefit them in particular ways, but Oblivion doesn't give many pointers in this department. Instead, it touches briefly on the combat skills, which will be key to the main story. As far as the rest are concerned, they will only be explored in the sidequests.

Aside from the first gate at Kvatch and the final Great Gate, the Oblivion Gates scattered across Cyrodill are completely optional. Most of them have a similar layout, with some of the ones encountered deeper in the wilds being larger than those nearest the towns. The gates are home to Daedric Princes, some of the most clever AI enemies in the game, as well as some of the most versatile monsters. The towers and gates present players with some of the game's best puzzle elements. After they have acquired a Sigil Stone and destroy its respective Oblivion Gate, players will generally find their skill sets to have received a substantial boost. It may not always be in the best interest of players to tackle an Oblivion Gate, but the results are certainly worth the time and effort.

For one of the earliest major releases on the Xbox 360, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion looks very good. By today's visual standards, it hasn't aged particularly well, though the water effects are still convincing enough. The skybox, on the other hand, is still one of the most gorgeous in any game in recent memory. the soundtracks presents a beautiful contrast of epic military fanfare with soothing, mystical melodies. The gameplay is pretty fluid, though enemies tend to stick to a few tactics, often favoring the 'charge headfirst' method. The story is quite strong, though players may find themselves largely disinterested until the latter portions amp it up.

My rating: 8.0 (out of 10)

Xbox 360 review: Fallout 3

I'm not particularly familiar with the other entries into the Fallout series, but I am familiar with Bethesda's work on the Elder Scrolls series. In Elder Scrolls, players were allowed to choose their race and class, and then follow a series of quests relevant to the main story as well as a number of other optional side quests, and the basic formula is carried over to Fallout 3. The major differences, though, are the amount of freedoms in play style granted in Fallout 3, as well as the genuine development of the Lone Wanderer, the game's main character. For an American style RPG, Fallout 3 is surprisingly involved and the story quite engaging.

The Lone Wanderer (as he/she will later come to be known) is the character players assume control of, and begin the game by customizing their looks and attributes. While no two Lone Wanderers will look quite the same, their intended outcome in the story will carry only slight variation. Growing up in Vault 101, the Lone Wanderer is constantly told that life outside the vault is impossible. When the character's father escapes the Vault, the overseer's daughter suspects that her father may not have been entirely honest with Vault 101's inhabitants and aids the Lone Wanderer in his escape. What lies outside in the remains of Washington D.C. is a struggle for power, and players will encounter the many people caught up in it as they travel through makeshift towns and across the Capital Wasteland in search of their father for answers on why Vault 101 was isolated and - more importantly - why he left so suddenly. With all of that in mind, this is still an American style RPG, and the characters that players encounter will be more fleshed out and interesting than the Lone Wanderer, regardless of what path players choose to take from beginning to end.

Interacting with as many individuals as possible is the best way for players to open up new side quests. Some side quests will require players to interact with characters in a positive or negative tone, which can affect the Lone Wanderer's karma. Ultimately these side quests can earn players small rewards, such as new armor and weaponry, or more valuable rewards, such as the ability to enlist the aid of a partner in combat.

Players are given some freedom in how they wish to take to combat. The option of real-time traditional gun-wielding requires players to aim manually, but (assuming they can hit the broad side of a barn) will almost guarantee a direct hit on an enemy AI. VATS mode freezes the game temporarily and allows players to target specific body parts of enemies. While in this mode, players can see the chance they have of hitting said body part from their current range and the damage already dealt to the body part. This mode has a limited numbers of subsequent uses, and players must wait for it to recharge before using it on the next enemy. VATS mode also generally deals less damage to an enemy, unless a certain body part has reached critical state. This keeps players from becoming too reliant on the system, though when facing down hordes of mutated wildlife in the Capital Wasteland - many of which come charging at players full speed - the usage limit can be a minor annoyance.
Even if players choose not to utilize this system frequently for combat, it can still be a helpful tool for scoping out enemies before they spot you.

Combat is not the only way that players are able to earn experience points. Conversations with the Capital Wasteland's populous and completion of side quests can net players experience points, as can picking locks and hacking terminals. Upon leveling up, players are allowed to choose whichever skills and attributes they wish to improve, as well as a perk they can add to their repertoire. If a player started out with one primary character type in mind but decided later on that they wanted to change their character to better fit a different role, it's no problem. That said, as with any RPG, leveling up takes time and players cannot simply switch their character's strengths and weaknesses back and forth at a moment's notice.

There are some minor inconsistencies in the difficulty setting of Fallout 3. For the most part, the game seems a little too easy on the 'normal' setting, as missions are quite straightforward and players will find they have ample supplies. A few scenarios may require a trial-and-error process from players, but there are almost always loopholes to be found when facing down small groups of enemies. However, on a handful of occasions while travelling the Capital Wasteland from one mission point to the next, players will come across enemies that are either too strong or in too great of numbers to allow them to advance. Players can either temporarily dumb down the difficulty setting and deal with the issue immediately, or they can scour the Capital Wasteland in search of side quests in order to level up. This drastic shift in difficulty is only present a handful of times during the main game, but it stands out enough to cause a bit of an annoyance. In some instances, players will receive aid from the Brotherhood of Steel or partner characters in the Capital Wasteland. In these situations, players can more or less allow the AI to do most of the heavy combat if they so choose, though it will be at the cost of gaining fewer experience points.

Graphically, the game is quite impressive. As much of a decaying city as Washington D.C. has become, colorful advertisements reminiscent of the 1950s plastered over a drab post-apocalyptic world carry a great deal of aesthetic appeal. The attention to detail is impressive - any building that players can enter and explore does not look recycled from any earlier area, and subway tunnels are comprised of varying layouts. Even the rubble and random junk lying around Washington D.C. is varied from one location to the next. The soundtrack is a mixture of licensed and original pieces; the former complimenting the more colorful and amusing elements of the Fallout world, and the latter conveying the epic scale and dire circumstances of the situation at hand.

Despite an overall play style that seems to aim more for a shooter-based RPG experience, there is plenty of variety to be found in Fallout 3. While there are some minor inconsistencies in the main game, the side quests generally allows players more freedom and range from relatively simple to rather demanding, and the rewards tend to reflect this. While the main game's story is very well-executed, it ends all too quickly and Bethesda could have devoted some more time to this aspect. Still, there's rarely a dull moment throughout and RPG fans will find plenty of replay value in scouring every nook and cranny of the vast Capital Wasteland.

My rating: 8.5 (out of 10)

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim gameplay trailer

The first gameplay footage of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has been released (and admittedly much earlier than I expected). It's interesting to see the variety of environments Bethesda has been working on, though I wish they had shown a bit more of the game's story - so far all we really know is that the events of Oblivion were merely prologue to Skyrim. However, a gameplay trailer this early could mean that Bethesda will be revealing more information soon.