#this is how all of the buildings in fallout new vegas are designed

[gremlingottoosilly]

Now, Fallout!AU for Raider!Konig and fem!Reader...

Konig as a raider. Your typical one - wall of meat, muscles, mean motherfucker who doesn't really care who to kill and who to fuck after. It might be from one of the less drug-addicted gangs, most of the shit never works on him anyway. Might be radiation, might be mild mutation - no one cares. He isn't a leader of the gang, never good at working with people and commanding them - but he is good at shooting people and taking their stuff. He is good at spotting and sniping, despite people around laughing at his huge form scrambling behind a stolen sniper riffle. This is how he spots you, actually. A vault dweller - this much is obvious. You can lead him to your stash, a can deep in the ground. Filled with people, vault-dwelling rats - the ones that are too fucking good for this place. Konig thinks he hates them - but honestly, half of the wasteland does. You do look good in that tight suit of yours. Bright blue on the dry yellow of the ground below. he wondered who designed the suits - if people knew that every dumb underground rat would be spotted from at least 3 kilometres away in that bright blue thing. Works for him, though. He flips off the guy who didn't want to spot for his position. His rank in the gang is high enough to just get a guy by his neck and force him on guard duty - all while he is getting ready to catch the little rat. It was a while since he saw someone so pretty - honestly, only Vault dwellers can be considered pretty at this point. Clean skin, moderately clean hair. He knows that if he gets to smell you, you'd have this awesome stench of cleanliness. Would be lovely to push his nose into your hair as he fucks you on his bunk. Might even clean his room a bit so the underworld princess won't be too disgusted at the perspective of being chained to his bunk. A prized property. Pretty helpless thing.

Konig drags you to the compound with ease. You're too startled at the sight of a giant hooded man approaching you with a very mean gun on his hip - not even in his hands, since he is confident he can snap your neck with just two fingers. You whine like a brain calf being split in two at some posh casino far in New Vegas - he brushes his hand over your ass, gripping it. Patting it. You do have a weapon - he disposes of it now, just getting it to his pocket. You freeze when he takes your pip-boy off, snapping it off your wrist with ease. You mouth a little plead with your lips. Konig laughs. You have a Vault location in here - it's funny how such a silly thing is going to be the doom of your people. The gang leader would probably be sad they didn't get to torture you for information, but Konig is making sure the whole gang will be satisfied hearing your moans and cries the whole night. Everyone knows that Konig is a beast - and that if they try to get the leftovers of a pretty Vault girl, they will be used as a target practice next. You do smell good. Konig takes note of breaking into some abandoned building and trying to fetch water and cleaning supplies so you could continue to smell nice. Wants to doll up his pretty Vault snatch - even finds some old, pre-war dresses. Plays house as long as gang allows it. Some of the younger members give you a pitied look, hearing your little sobs every time Konig forces you to move. Some of the older members know that the moans you're letting out aren't the ones of pain. Konig isn't the one to share and to talk, so he never even brags about his girl. Just has her attached to his hip, clinging to his armor since he is the only one who you know here. At least you know him, somehow. At least you know he likes his pretty Vault rat too much to let you get hurt. By anyone but him, that is.

[assumptionprime]

I need to rant about the Fallout show

Because this is the person I am. Full spoilers, so I’m putting it behind a Keep Reading:

I’m a huge sucker for Fallout (yes even 3&4). And I went into the Fallout show with some… trepidation. Amazon has been a mixed bag on adaptations, we could have been blessed with a Good Omens, or cursed by a Rings of Power. But early buzz and reviews seemed positive, so I slammed the whole thing in one night with my spouse (we were staying at my in-laws house and they have Prime. Time was a factor.)

And y’know? I was really enjoying it! The characters were fun, the plot was engaging enough, and the costumes and visual design were extremely on point. There were some minor lore quibbles to be had: Ghouls needing some kind of medicine to not go feral. Really, more Enclave holdouts? Timeline and date whoopsies. Wait are they in California? Where the hell is the NCR?

I made a face at Shady Sands being bombed and the NCR collapsing. But I wasn’t completely out of the story. Based on what I had seen so far, I thought it was building to a reveal that the Brotherhood had done it. That the more zealous turn they took in Fallout 4, which has clearly carried to how they are portrayed in the show, lead them to bombing the NCR. War never changes, as they say. Maximus even says when asked what happened to Shady Sands: “The same thing that always happens.” Yeah, it leans into Bethesda’s weird desire to keep the Fallout world in a state of perpetual wastelands full of raiders and no civilization, but it wasn’t so terrible that I couldn’t still enjoy the show.

But then.

BUT THEN.

Episode 8, and the reveal of Vault-Tec apparently being the ones who dropped the first bomb in the Great War.

I was surprised to hear that some fans have apparently been debating over who fired first? Some even asked Tim Cain about it?

That’s really odd to me because, in the games, there is already a pretty definitive answer to which side sparked the Great War:

Who fucking cares?

The world ended. What does it matter who shot first?

There is no China, no United States, no communists or capitalists left to fight about it. 

It's a powerful little bit of lore.

For all the posturing, all the promises from each nation that their way is the true way, all the nationalism, the militarism, and blind loyalty to flags over humanity, they both lost. Everyone lost. All that remains of the ideologies and nations that were so important to the people of 2077 is faint echoes over vast expanses of radioactive ash.

Who started the end?

No one knows. No one cares.

It only matters that their conflict was so bitter, so all-consuming, that one of them dropped their bombs, and the other dropped theirs in return.

The truest legacy of the old world is the devastation left by their final, most horrific war.

Can we do better?

Then the show says "Nah, Vault-Tec did it. It's not a commentary on human nature and the futility of self-destructive conflict, it was actually these guys, these mustache twirling villains huddled in a darkened room literally plotting to end the whole world so they can rule what's left."

And I can see the attempt to make this a critique of capitalism. I actually paused the show to praise a bit of writing when Coop is talking with Charlie before the war, when Charlie tells him that the “cattle ranchers are in charge” to illustrate how capitalism and corporations hold too much sway over the government, it felt very in line with how in New Vegas one of the recurring critiques of the NCR is that all the real power is in the hands of the “brahmin barons.” Nice parallel, spot on!

But “we’ll set off total thermonuclear war so we can rule the ashes and have a True Monopoly” isn’t capitalism. It’s just dumb “we’re the baddies” writing.

And then Shady Sands was also Vault-Tec?! Forget any meaning in the NCR falling to the same corruption and/or factional fighting that consumed the old world, they were literally just bombed by the evil shadow conspiracy that apparently also killed the old world. Hank gives this speech about factions fighting and the futility of it all while we see the Brotherhood fighting Moldaver’s NCR remnant, and like, no! You can’t say that when you’ve made it so neither the old world or the NCR fell to war with another faction! It was you! You and your band of cryogenic supervillains!

I don't care that they changed it. Timelines and dates and little retcons don’t bother me all that much. I care that they changed it to something so much worse.

[charlioak]

full reference for my fallout new vegas companion oc, oviedo! realized I never made him a ref, so I wanted to make his extra special <3

extra info below! (it's a lot)

Introductory Stuff! oviedo vasquez is an NCR ranger. he is stationed at the colorado cliffside at the order of the NCR, observing the legion through his rifle's scope. it is intended that the courier can meet oviedo while working the NCR questline, and can even elect him as a companion after completing his companion quest, MOON RIVER. oviedo can be swayed from the clutches of the NCR and into the courier's debt after the completion of his quest. he is a very faithful man, and very dangerous, too. he will stay by the courier's side unless they side with the legion, to which he will not tolerate them any longer. oviedo also has a long-lost daughter named cassandra; the last remnant of his past he desperately struggles to find. he doesn't talk much about her, nor his past... Personality Notes! oviedo is very blunt. he is standoffish at first and can be read as rude, but beneath that rough exterior is a very loyal, and very hurt, man.  the NCR has molded oviedo into a lethal sniper, thus he is potent with his weapon of choice and very resourceful out in the mojave. he's been with the NCR long enough to become a ranger. if you can stand his distance and periodic blunt insults, you'd find oviedo to be a very useful companion.  he cares about you. a lot. even if it seems like he doesn't. Character Design Notes! some notes on the Cool Dad Companion...... this info has been borrowed from his artfight profile, so some of the language is based around helping others draw him!

oviedo has four jagged scars on the right side of his face. they trail down his neck and stop before his collarbone

he has a golden upper-right canine

hairstyle can be played with! he often sports the mullet. the graying hair is integral

facial hair pretty much stays the same :]c

outfit generally stays the same. for a simpler approach, i'll just take off his hat, duster, and glasses.

lastly, but most importantly, oviedo is latino. please don't whitewash him!

BONUS: Companion Quest and Perk? Huh? MOON RIVER is oviedo's companion quest! working the NCR's questline, the courier can meet oviedo at his post by the colorado river. he'll ignore you until you mention you've been ordered to work with him, and he really cannot ignore his orders. the legion is planning an attack on the NCR encampment across the river - or so is the NCR's hunch. they need someone inconspicuous to retrieve proof of this hunch, and that someone is you, of course! totally not because oviedo wants to be left alone and so he sends you into the legion incognito, risking your life - nope, not at all! under oviedo's guidance and sniper protection, the quest is easily completed. the pair of you present your findings together afterwards. oviedo will then pull you aside and be honest with you, informing you of how you'd overcome his expectations and that he is in your favor. now you can travel together! the courier can also complete MOON RIVER without working the NCR questline. to do this, you can find oviedo at his post by the colorado river and pass a few incremental speech checks. if speech checks fail, the courier can persuade him with charms using the black widow or confirmed bachelor perks. oviedo is... kind of a hopeless romantic and likes praise. so yeah. HAHAH if the courier has a negative reputation with the NCR (i.e. legion build) then oviedo will shoot at you before you can get too close. just... instantly aggro'ed by scent I suppose? EYES OF THE HAWK is oviedo's companion perk. it is a VATS enhancement. while traveling with oviedo, you have increased VATS chances of 50% using a scoped weapon, or increased VATS chances of 30% using a non-scoped weapon. Trivia!

you made it this far. here, take this. (gives you oviedo... no quest needed!)

oviedo is bilingual! spanish is his first language :-)

he has a daughter named cassandra. she's 23.

you can take his hat!

you can take his sunglasses!

you can even take his gun!

if you place cigarettes in oviedo's inventory, he will scold you and not smoke them.

oviedo is terrified of fire geckos. he will run from them.

oviedo's dialogue gradually gets nicer the longer you two travel together! <3 awwwww!

[strangecloud]

Do you remember your first Skyrim playthrough?

I played Skyrim on the 360 when it came out. I remember the starting Helgen cutscene making me uncomfortable, being carried to an executioner's block. The character I ended up playing was a paladin sort of dude who instead of shielding or avoiding blows would use Restoration to heal himself back up when he inevitably got hit.

I've been on an Elder Scrolls kick lately, playing Morrowind and Skyrim and even some ESO. I think they're good games, but I believe I've puzzled out why so many people prefer Morrowind over the rest of the series.

When I say the starting cutscene in Skyrim made me uncomfortable back in like, 2011, I mean it has since lost any of that power. I've just seen it so many times. I think this is the core of why Skyrim, despite being indubitably an absolute achievement in game design, seems to be less and less appreciated as time goes on. Simply put, most people have played it to the point that it's almost like a solved game.

This is a phenomenon that has happened to me across some games, even my favorite game of all time, Fallout New Vegas. I've just played it so darn much that the whole thing is predictable, like I can see all the decisions and consequences without even booting up the game. This contradiction of the medium has been commented on and explored by the metafiction of games like Undertale. The artificiality of an entirely predictable system, no matter how lifelike, will lessen your investment.

And it's not the game's fault. If anything, a game being good to the point of wearing out its welcome with diminishing returns because people just insist on playing it over and over again is a crowning achievement. However, transcending that, making a game that's quality to the point of beating that almost invincible limitation? That's on a whole other level.

Enter: Morrowind.

On the surface, Morrowind just looks like an old ass game. Everything is a little weird, to the way combat works to how it expects you to visually navigate the world with directions, sometimes daisy-chaining instructions on how to get where you're going. You know, go here following a path, to ask this person who actually knows where you want to go how to get there. And then follow a path again. The game expects you to study in-game lore books to figure out what to do. Like, actually roleplaying a researcher poring over tomes for answers. It's real weird.

But it makes a lot more sense when you consider, all of this, intentionally or not, contributes to a very interesting result. It makes the game a kind of perennial experience.

Even if you know what you're looking for, there's no map markers telling you where most things are in Morrowind. Some things might be easier to do off the top of your head when you're familiar with the game but even then, most of the time there's nothing for it but to knuckle down and search around. Like, actually paying attention to the world instead of some compass or map.

The character building works almost the same. You can steer your character into some set of gear you really want, assuming you know it exists and how to get it, but until then you're mostly gonna use whatever fits. Random magical items are more likely to dictate your effectiveness than anything else. You just don't control your builds and progression as much.

And the main story and lore are probably the best in the series. There's just so much to think about, find out, and discover. Even the little blurbs that random NPCs will spout about how their job works are very well written and made with a ton of thought. It's like the anti-Skyrim, the more you put into it, the more you get in return.

All this to say, playing Morrowind is still a rewarding experience decades after it was released, because there's a weird kind of harmony in its crazy designs. It's like it was made to be played and enjoyed forever, there's so much in there. Even if you've played it before many times, you might just forget where an important item is and have to navigate manually. You might decide to make a wacky character that leads you down factions and quests you've never done. You might find out some fact about the lore you've never really thought about.

It just keeps going.

I'm not one of those people who resent modern Bethesda for "dumbing down" or "selling out". I love Skyrim, but there's very little it can give me after all these years. On the other hand, Morrowind just keeps on giving.

I think that's the difference, and I think that's why people like it so much.

[bi-force-1]

Fallout London First Impressions/Semi-Organized Thoughts

Things I'm not a fan of;

The female player character combat sounds, while not the worst I've ever heard, are bad to the point of distraction at times. I was streaming it for some friends and we broke out in laughter at various points because of how unnatural they sound. Don't know what the male sounds are like yet.

Biggest complaint though, the choice to freeze the player in place during important 'cut scenes.' At two points early in the game, a mysterious agent talks to you and does your basic mysterious exposition talk stuff. I assume it's to prevent you missing these moments, but by the level design I kind of already can't.

In both cases you can't proceed anyways because the agent has to unlock doors for you. It felt less egregious in the hallway because I wasn't sure what was about to happen and it was a small space with nothing to see anyways. The second time in the atrium got on my nerves though. Here's this huge space I could be exploring while the agent talks at me through some big tv screens, but instead I am stuck waiting.

Bugs I've encountered;

Churchill the dog companion. Nice guy. His footsteps are absurdly loud. It's like there's a small horse stomping around near my head. I assume this is not intended hence filing it under bugs, but I was forced to leave him behind because of it.

Beware ye who try to fast travel. Seems prone to causing crashes so always save before you try. I also crashed twice when taking the train out of the starting area into the main world.

There's a sequence on a boat. It seemed like the boat got stuck for a moment and then I fell through it into highly radioactive water and died.

Things I'm enjoying

Honestly, pretty much all of it.

I can't really help but compare it to New Vegas' relationship to Fallout 3. Where 3 and 4 have their drawn out intros, in New Vegas and London you wake up in front of some doctors. Pick your face, states, and traits, and bing bang boom you're on the move soon after trying to figure out who you are and who did this to you. Oh yeah, much like New Vegas, they brought back traits again. The perk system also got reworked/reskinned to be closer to how it was before 4 as well.

The world building especially though. After spending so much time being frustrated at Bethesda for not seeming to think very deeply about the ways the East Coast might be different from the West Coast, it's so nice to see all the thought put into how things would be different in Britain. Using tickets from the Underground as currency. Ion Brew as the local soda of choice. London Ghouls I believe prefer to go by the term Commuter? Viewing the term ghoul much the same way US Ghouls view zombie it seems. Though I've only heard that from one ghoul so far.

The ATTA-Boy is especially cute. A handheld version of the Pip-Boy that was reverse engineered off of scavenged/stolen Roboco Pip-Boys.

I've gotten myself involved in some kind of gang turf war. Can't wait to see where that goes.

Also the array of local creatures they've made is great. The giant leeches are awful, good job guys. Radshrews, giant ladybugs, mangy foxes. The Fish People. Can't wait to see what else is out there.

Last thought, Greenwich Footbridge was a horrifying experience (positive). Nothing like being trapped in a flooded tunnel full of ghouls.

[that-stone-butch]

Is Fallout 4 really that bad? As someone who enjoyed FNV, does it make sense to play it in your opinion?

i'm not going to say fallout 4 is a bad game in a vacuum, but it fails to be a fallout game as well as 1, 2, new vegas, and even 3 was at times.

it's not much of a play-your-way RPG. you don't build a character with attributes and skill points and whatnot; it's literally just your SPECIAL points *are* how you level up in fallout 4. the only thing you can do when you level up is spend your one perk point on either increasing a SPECIAL stat, or buying a perk that is gated by SPECIAL stat and level. no tagged skills, no traits, nothing. when building a character, fallout 4 does not respect your intelligence as a player enough to let you have a say over any of the fun shit. it's the antithesis of new vegas' character design and if you enjoyed that then you're in for a real sad time with f4.

additionally, it is mechanically focused on scaling procedurally. instead of being able to take on tougher enemies and score a better weapon like the progression of FNV, in fallout 4 the manner by which your weapons scale to the difficulty is by buying the 'more handgun damage' perk and maybe the 'upgrade weapons even morer' perk, which are both level-gated. this means that the game plays the same at level 10 as it does at level 40. it's just that Super Mutant Orc Man's hit bar is more health, and Perk Upgraded 10mm Pistol is more damage, so it evens out.

furthermore, the story is completely on-rails and the factions are like, really fucking hard to care about when all they have to offer is procedurally generated go to place X, kill all of the raiders/synths/super mutants/critters there, and retrieve mcguffin Y item, rinse and repeat.

while in fallout new vegas (2010), you can build your own character your own way, everyone's fallout 4 character is fundamentally mechanically the same, as well as literally being a voiced character with a set backstory, motivations, and quest line. in FNV you could be whoever you want however you want. in fallout 4, you have to be either Nate or Nora, with their prescribed heterosexual husband/wife, and their baby. if you don't care about this story, then fallout 4 is just an open world crafting game with very constricted mechanics.

i would say fallout 4 makes a sort of fun open world base builder if that's your jam, but if you're a fallout fan through and through it's mostly just worth playing to appreciate all the things that actual fallout games got right. and that's not worth $60 and hours of my time to me.

[self-loving-vampire]

what are some of your favorite rpgs and what do you like about them?

I have written some essays on this before but there's some variety in the games I like and the reasons why I like them, so there isn't really a singular and short answer that applies to all of them.

I tend to prefer games with significant amounts of freedom and immersive worlds, but even that is not a completely solid rule and it is possible for a game to do those things really well in some areas but not so much in others.

For example, consider Gothic 2. It's still one of the most immersive games I have played and I love its world design. It makes for great exploration that makes good use of verticality and has a minimalistic UI.

That is a game that gives you a lot of choice, but only in "secondary" matters (which ends up working anyway because that makes up the bulk of the game if you take your time with it).

You can choose how to build your character, which of the 3 main factions to join, where to go, how to complete various side quests, and so on.

However, the "main quest" of the game is always largely the same. Your choice of faction does determine things like what skills, abilities, and side quests are available to you but the central quests are always the same and there is only one ending.

So it is linear in some ways but not in others. In that sense it has less choice than something like Fallout: New Vegas or Princess Maker 2, but I think it would still be wrong to call it linear without a big asterisk.

It's the same with Ultima 7, another game with a pretty linear main plot but a reasonably immersive open world you can explore as you wish immediately after leaving the starting town. I have fond memories of completely ignoring the main quest, getting a job as a baker, and just roleplaying that I was living in the game's world. A lot of games don't even have the mechanical interactivity to enable stuff like that.

Overall I really like it when games kind of stick to simulating a world in detail and then let you choose who you want to be within that world. I vastly prefer that over having a specific role assigned by someone else and being railroaded into one specific path. This is the ideal I aim for when I run TTRPGs as well.

[forthegothicheroine]

I finished Fallout 1, I'm playing Fallout 2 and I plan to jump to New Vegas after that, any reccomendation? Obviously it's a different genre, but anything else I should keep in mind?

First and foremost, despite being one of the great gaming loves of my life, New Vegas is buggy as all hell. If you're comfortable installing mods, take a look at Viva New Vegas for a guide to the ones you may want and how to install them, especially ones on this page. Either way, save your game frequently!

The biggest gameplay change between the first two games and the later ones is that it's no longer isometric but first or third person. The introductory quests are pretty gentle, so it shouldn't be too hard to get the hang of it.

New Vegas is a more or less direct sequel to Fallout 2 (though I easily jumped in without playing that), so you're all set up as far as lore goes. Poke around and ask people questions, though, because some things have changed!

And now, more tips for anyone playing New Vegas for the first time...

Don't feel compelled to play Hardcore Mode unless you're already doing very well and want a challenge. There's great comedic value in the Hero of the Wastes scrounging around for old potato chips, but counting ammo as part of carrying weight is a killer.

No matter how you want to build your character overall put some points in Speech or Barter or ideally both. This is a game all about talking circles around your enemies.

Also take at least some Science or Lockpick, since you will usually have your choice of those two skills to get into locked buildings.

You don't have to take the sexuality perks (though I always do) but if you're playing a woman and you take Black Widow, it enables you to do the single funniest dialogue tree in the whole game.

There is no specific Designated Good Guy Path- there are three morally grey choices you can make arguments for, and one very obviously evil one. Pick the one you feel your character would believe in, or just the one with the most entertaining quest giver. Where you can really find unambiguous good, you'll find it in the various side quests you can do, and pretty much all of them will contribute to a good ending.

Some people love the DLCs, but I can honestly take or leave them. If you're just going to do one, do Old World Blues.

There is intense environmental storytelling going on, so be sure to read logs and listen to tapes whenever you can. In particular, within the remains of Vault 11, you will find a story that will haunt you forever.

Talk to your companions whenever there's a chance, they're all great and they all have great stories to unlock- for instance, if you want to see the extent of Caesars' Legions's evil firsthand, or find the only sympathetic moments the Enclave get in the whole franchise.

No matter which ending path you pursue, it's worth hearing out House and Caesar just because they have some very good speeches. You can always kill them later.

Don't be ashamed to look stuff up, quests are scattered all over the damn map.

You will eventually get sick of the same songs being played over and over on the radio. When that happens, open up your own music and put on the Johnny Cash cover of Big Iron.

[whoredmode]

ok unrelated to anything but playing fnv w anteros lately got me thinking

i think a fallout AU could totally work….i feel like in the context of the story you could even have a nod to the stilwater spelled w one L joke. like pre-war it was stillwater. but over time due to damaged signage became stilwater. similarly you could do smth w bridgeport/steelport.

i actually think mixing all the games together would work for this bc of how over time the games start to get more futuristic tech but also w the earlier games overall friction between the gangs. also bc it’s so far in the future it’s like why not just put them all together. honestly just for the sake of things, put stilwater and steelport geographically closer together.

especially w respective gang turfs and leaning into that aspect of their general contention, using a mix of the gangs in stilwater would work for this AU. the VK obviously reigning over the old kingdom come records building and nearby buildings downtown. the rollerz having the arena and surrounding old chop shops. the carnales + the brotherhood having the factories on the coastline. dane and eric and other ultor ppl keeping up the creation of the ultor district in the aftermath, keeping it enclosed and outsiders being unable to get in normally, similar to the new vegas strip. ofc the saints have the old church. may have to move some things around and kinda mix the maps from sr1 and sr2 but yeah. the philosotologists could also be a group led by Z/zinyak; they could even be a group comprised of ghouls instead and you could lean on the visual similarities between the zin and ghouls. maybe w the ultor district being such a beacon, it gets the attention of steelport gangs who want to take it over as well. ultor is definitely hoarding a lot of resources and information, so it’s highly valued for a reason. ofc you’d have to get past the masako first.

on a more general worldbuilding and design level tho i feel like you could totally repurpose the fake ads in sriv for this, things like friendly fryer or even genki being a more era-appropriate cartoon mascot. like the pieces are all there. even just the general technological vibes of sriv would play into this pretty well, w more reliance on futuristic weaponry. like walk with me.

[syrupspinner]

i completed Sable

im gonna compare this to so many other games dude you have no idea

when i first finished the tutorial and drove out into the sand dunes proper, i thought about hyrule field. like pretty much every other gamer born after 1999, i dont see it the same way is was seen when it was released. it was a flex - nintendo bragging about how the n64 can make a wide open field. of course theres nothing to do in it, thatd give them a chance to hide a loading zone or mask pop-in; they werent just a magician showing that there was nothing up their sleeve, they took off their shirt. this is what amazed gamers when they first left kakariko village: the sheer scope.

now its just a big, empty field. with technological advancements, thats seen as a failure in modern world design - what, you mean you couldnt be bothered to put anything here?

sable somehow managed to capture what i can only imagine was the sense of wonder players felt seeing hyrule field, but for a totally different reason. it wasnt a flex of pure technology, it was an exercise in ludonarrative! the way it gets you comfortable with exploring every nook of the ibexii village before showing you a world thats figuratively one hundred times bigger is such a fun way to pull the rug out from the player.

it could have easily been overwhelming in a negative way too, causing an "aw man, ive gotta explore all this?" reaction, but the narrative of sable being able to (instead of having to) explore sets the player up to share this outlook with her. "i get to" turning into "i have to" is the kiss of death for enjoying a game, and i think sable avoids this very well. when i got to the badlands, i didnt think "aw man, i have to climb all these rocks to get to the cartographer" i thought "oh cool, how do i climb these rocks to get to the cartographer?" because i was having fun solving an environmental puzzle.

another comparison i wanna make is to, believe it or not, Fallout. its an open secret that the fallout games are a bit lackluster when it comes to open worlds (I HAVE NOT PLAYED NEW VEGAS), but the originals had a great implementation of subtle directioning and signposting. the most famous example is right at the beginning: between your starting location and your compass's first mark, theres a town, and you need to buy a rope from that town to proceed, and thats how you get wrapped up in a major sidequest and open up a link to the rest of the world. Sable pulls the same trick for me: i was following the compass to the next major village, and i stumbled upon a weird location i couldnt really parse. i could climb a tree and pick up weird smokey seed things, but i couldnt do anything else. when i get to the town, im asked to collect beetle hides for a side quest - and that 'useless' location was called the beetle nest.

while im comparing this to bethesda games, id be remiss if i didnt mention skyrimming. its a phrase i use to describe ramming yourself up a nearly sheer cliffside to see if the physics engine lets you scale it. i did it all the time as a misguided tween playing skyrim for the first time, because i couldnt be bothered finding paths up the mountains. Sable lets you do something similar, but with more intention. the games open world design means it totally accepts you taking unintended routes. i didnt take the easiest route to the badlands village, but i still got there. allowing me to succeed in an unintended way is the mark of a wonderful open world game.

i got to eccria, and full disclosure, i had to crank my graphics settings all the way down. there were too many buildings and npcs for the game to handle. i kept getting lost in the big-ass city, too. when the investigation (side?)quest began i gave up on gathering clues because i straight up couldnt find my way to one of the suspects. i could still finish the quest is the thing, it just ended without any real satisfaction. i think thats great! part of good open-ended design is letting players end without perfectly curated satisfaction.

then i went to the shipyard. was i supposed to be there? thats a silly question to ask about an open world game. anyway, the answer is no, because i spent half an hour trying to climb a mountain for a quest i couldnt finish because i didnt have the right mask. man, this game rules.

man, i havent even talked about the art direction yet. what is there to say? im a sucker for cell shading, and this game leans into it so well! the way the colour palette changes when you go between areas is so cool, like... i cant even put it into words, its just so fun to look at. ive always considered deserts a hard place to make visually interesting, but Sable does such a great job with that

it was at this point that i started aimlessly floating around finishing up sidequests and oddjobs until the endgame. i only started noticing how glitchy the game is at this point. im not holding it against the game at all, because frankly its a miracle that any video game boots to a title screen if you know how programming works (not to say that i do) but its hard not to complain about all the times that things just... didnt load in. sometimes id crash my bike into invisible buildings, sometimes i would just despawn of my bike and have to dismount it to be visible, and one time a chum was invisible. this isnt a skill issue i watched the particles come out of nowhere

in the end, this is a wonderful game. if i had to pick one thing it does best, its the atmosphere. it puts all of its effort into making you feel like a small fish in a big desert, and i really related to my character in the world. also, i dont wanna spoil what masks you get in this game, so ill just say i picked the completionist one with the four-letter name. no its not the fuck mask, dont ask me if theres a fuck mask because im not telling you

[uss-edsall]

One thing I've liked with fallout 76, it's got good decent environmental storytelling in it. It's better at it than Fallout 3, 4, dare I say even New Vegas in some cases.

Fallout is famous for an environmental storytelling thing. It's all of the skeletons who are found in funny poses, or all the teddy bears found in weird places with weird things. They are more injokes than anything else. What they imply is that in a world so full of corpses and shattered civilisation, still picking up the pieces two hundred years later, respect for the dead is wholly gone - life can be ended in a blink and raiders especially would move skeletons into odd positions for their own amusement. Particularly in some places, they don't even care enough to sweep the skeletons out of the building. Unfortunately, this is so prevalent it stops being meaningful and comes off as just a dumb joke, but it's the best example of 'environmental storytelling everyone knows about'

I can point to two games immediately which have setpieces that give good environmental storytelling: Halo 3 ODST and, oddly, ArmA III's singleplayer components

Halo 3 ODST is built on this. The entire thing is in some form "The Rookie is using the shattered debris of the city to make a fanfic of what he thinks happened to his squad." There's at least one sequence in Buck's mission where you can find a shotgun at the end of a hallway, with a dead marine and several dead brutes. Hmm, wonder what happened there

ArmA III… -Contact DLC has some interesting environmental stuff. You can find a dead body on a road with a blood trail back to an unlucky squad, in the midst of which a meteorite landed, with one (mortally wounded) person surviving the initial impact. Additionally you can repeatedly encounter the spetsnaz team you later ally with, doing shifty things -A scenario added as part of a part-celebration and part-charity drive includes a small church. If you approach it you suddenly hear a pair of gunshots, and you can find two dead officers (which is automatically radioed in, and dismissed as two war criminals who probably saved the executioners a bullet) - and they have a written note that sheds doubt on the righteousness of your cause -The Laws of War DLC is really good for this too - it's about picking up the pieces and deciphering what exactly happened in this one town.

Anyway, going back to 76. All four of the modern fallout games - 3, NV, 4, 76 - depict the remnants of the nuclear war. 76, being set in 2102 just 25 years after the war, has the best possibilities for this, as not too much has been disturbed, not too much has changed, like the rest that are set two centuries later. They clearly recognised this too and put in great effort on it. On the nuclear side of things: vehicles in a traffic jam trying to get to vault 76; crashed vehicles. The number of APCs with open rears: they would've been shielded from the initial blasts inside of these CBRN-capable vehicles. At least one site where there's a dead soldier's body, on an overlook, situated where they could've looked out at one beautiful view one last time. For a less military focus, all of the signs in Beckley, the destruction clearly related to the violent suppression of a Union protest; the massacre of Watoga a day before the nukes flew after an attempt to subvert the robots gone wrong; the sheer devastation of the area dedicated to mining as nobody was around to tell the automated machines to 'stop', etc A sign on the side of a piece of large electronic equipment saying "this does not have a brain, use your own" because yeah, robobrains exist, the robots themselves are practically AIs, that's a kind of warning you need in an environment of mass automation

I'd say this emphasis on environment to tell story is largely because of how 76 was designed. It was initially built to not have humans, right? Only machines, if I recall correctly. So how do they compensate for the loss of human NPCs? (The answer is they couldn't and added them back in, but nonetheless) Part of it was putting in more focus on environmental storytelling. It's a little thing, and in the grand scheme of things it's not all that important. But it's a part of games' details I really like

Environmental storytelling is best described as "a story that is willing to let you miss it" but I always feel excited when I notice something.

[regarding-stories]

The Fallout Series as stories (part 1, also: not about the TV show)

"Fallout" is a series of games set in a post-apocalyptic future. The world "ended" in 2077 and the player gets to explore the aftermath and interact with the people inhabiting "the Wasteland." What "Fallout" is about, however, is defined differently by various games, as they were produced by different people and companies.

To make things a little easier to follow, let's distinguish the games a bit:

Fallout 1+2 (FO1, FO2) were isometric 2D roleplaying games released by the original designers for Interplay, they run on the same engine and their stories build on each other. The settings are California and Northern California, respectively.

"Van Buren" was a design document for a third installment on a more modern engine that was never made since the publisher had to sell the IP. Its setting covers the Mojave desert, Utah, and Colorado.

Fallout 3 (FO3) was instead made by Bethesda, the RPG behemoth responsible for the Elder Scrolls series ("Oblivion", "Skyrim") and nowadays "Starfield". It is set around Washington, DC.

Fallout: New Vegas (FO:NV) was made under a license from Bethesda, using their FO3 engine, but by many of the people originally behind Fallout. It recovers a lot of the "Van Buren" material but ends up telling a different story. The game focuses on the Mojave desert, but you can visit Utah in a DLC.

Fallout 4 (FO4) is another RPG made by Bethesda, this time set near and in the ruins of Boston.

Fallout 76 (FO76) is more of a multiplayer shooter with RPG elements than a Fallout RPG. It eventually offered things like a Battle Royal expansion. It's set in the Appalachians.

Let's look a bit at the stories of these games, and especially what kind of stories they try to tell.

Dark yet hopeful

Fallout 1, a game released 1997, was a strange groundbreaker. It was celebrated as a spiritual successor "Wasteland" (1988), probably the first, or at least the first interesting, post-apocalyptic game. This is true and then not. Whereas "Wasteland" was a game about an organization called "the Rangers" trying to restore peace to a post-apocalyptical America and the party becoming heroes saving the world, FO1 has a different, more personal, and maybe noir vibe.

First of all, humanity, at least in North America largely survived the nuclear holocaust thanks to underground bunkers called Vaults, built by a company called VaultTec. The player character in FO1 sets out from such a vault to find a chip to control the vault's failing water purification system and begins to explore the surroundings, fighting various mutated monsters and dangerous raiders on his way.

During the course of the game you will deal with various factions, including the technology-preserving Brotherhood of Steel, a group of irradiated, long-lived and sentient ghouls, a sort of do-goodie hippie community, a cult worshipping a bomb, raider gangs, etc. Ultimately the player gets to decide the fates of many groups in the Wasteland, and combats the Supermutant menace threatening them all, ultimately thwarting "the Master's" plans to create a new sort of "super-human" from the Forced Evolution Virus, another threat released into the world during the war, and ultimately the cause of all these mutations.

I remember getting FO1 on a CD-ROM as part of a compilation and being to no end surprised by it. It looked at first like a low-end title with maybe nothing much to it, but it quickly blew my mind. Its mix of atmospheric dark music, a clever combat engine taking place within the portrayed world, its multitude of choices, and its storytelling were a unique combo.

Fallout itself has no simple story, it keeps telling you many things and expanding. It tells you how the world ended, but it's fair to say the world ended before "the bombs fell." Pre-apopalypse America was a militaristic police state that had occupied Canada and was battling China for the world's resources. The world from the before the final war looks bleak, and yet may in some respects look like heaven to those who came after.

Conflict remains a central theme, but this time it's about what the world will look like going forward. Raiders only think about what to grab and whom to extort, but settlers and merchants are trying to eke out a living. The Brotherhood wants to preserve technology, but is isolationist and ultimately an outgrowth of the last vestiges of the US military, formed by survivors in a bunker. Resources are contested, and the players pokes around in a lot of pre-war stuff.

When you walk around an old nuclear power plant or delve into the lore of the world it may seem Fallout is a game about the past. But its people are all looking to the future, even if the past exerts its influence through undetonated warheads and mutation viruses, and even if this future is full of hardships.

An evolving world

Nothing proves this more than FO2. Instead of setting another game in just the same place, the designers fast-forwarded 80 years into the future, and forward they did!

When we leave FO1, the protagonist cannot return to his home. He's cast out as the ones he's saved fear what he has become, so he goes north and founds a small community. These "tribals" live a lifestyle more oriented towards the land, as harsh as its, and revere the "Vault Dweller" as their ancestor.

Other elements have also evolved from the original setting. The settlement you came across first in the original game? It became the seed for a new nation state, the New California Republic. The Brotherhood is still around. Another vault has built a (stagnant, isolationist) city in the region. Supermutants still exist, some as roaming raiders, but also at times integrated into society.

FO2 (released 1998) has a bit of a different vibe from FO1. The basic gameplay is there, but there's more humor (sometimes so absurd that people dislike it). And it keeps building the world, this time north of San Francisco. FO2 evolves the feel of the original and adds new elements. Let's leave the feel aside for a moment (discussed below) and look at what FO2 throws at us.

You can visit locations like San Francisco (essentially its Chinatown), New Reno, mining towns, etc. There are Western elements here, and vibes of the American West. There's even more to do, and it's even more personal. You can now gain titles and reputations, and you can become a "made man" (a top-notch mafia-style gangster), a boxing champion, and a pornstar - and that's just in New Reno!

FO2 is also more about people than anything. Power and control are definitely among the themes, because even among the people just trying to survive there are those who'd sell them drugs just to take advantage of them. Bullies big and small. And the biggest bully of them all is the antagonist, the Enclave.

FO1 was about the world that was beginning (again) and the one that ended. In FO2 you learn many dark truths about the world that has ended and refuses to stay dead. Vault-Tec was never truly meant to save humanity, and most of what it did was conduct a large scale experiment on humanity. The Enclave is essentially the US government, and it's as dark a villain as you can expect.

This "government" hid itself on an oil rig, and is using the technology left to it (like "vertibirds", i.e. helicopters) to work towards its goal: Erase the population of the mainland and start it over in its image. (The "remaking by force (and virus)" theme of FO1 is alive and well, apparently.) Talk about persistence... Their plot unfolds 164 years after the war. Given it's the same government that launched the nukes and left humanity to die, mutate, and experiment on them, this is as villainous a blast from the past as can be.

Original Fallout, however, has a way to have villains make fools out of themselves. "The Master" ultimately was a fool, as his Supermutants turned out to be sterile - and hence have no future. They could not supersede the human race. And "the Enclave" cannot escape the effects of the FEV virus, even though they pretend they can. The irony is condensed into their main enforcer who has become a super-mutant monstrosity himself after exposure.

An aesthetic

Even though a lot of it was conveyed through videos, character closeups, and various game screens, Fallout managed to evolve a strong aesthetic and unique vibe. It's setting is futuristic and retro. The 1950s are back with their cars with fins, their ideas how a robot might look like, and their "Atomic Cafe" like vibes in reaction to the development of the hydrogen bomb.

Many design elements of Fallout have had a lasting impact on people coming in touch with them, including:

The Vault Boy, the iconic mascot of VaultTec, featured in its "educational" films and promos, but also in the various game screens. This becomes especially strong in FO2 where all these little reputation images and illustrations feature Vault Boy in various guises.

PipBoy, a (clunky) wearable device that acts as the world's biggest smart watch, including maps, a radiation detector, and various other things.

Full body power armor and massive guns, as used by the original US army, the Brotherhood of Steel, the Enclave, and ultimately the player.

Supermutants, looking like big, green, hulking brutes.

Deathclaws, a sentient giant monster.

You will find robots that have heads looking like brains in jars, robotic dogs, a "Mr Handy" utility robot with lots of tool arms, may own a fusion-cell powered car reminiscent of a Cadillac. You might even recover an oil portrait of Elvis from a crashed UFO labeled "property of Area 51."

FO1 and FO2 are a unique mix of genres, and its aesthetic of decay, rust and rot, its selective use of futuristic items define it. This combines with a dark synth soundtrack to a tight package. FO1 also has a pretty grim manual, explaining a good deal of what nuclear weapons are "nowadays" held by the various powers and how they are intended to be used at "lower yield" (150 kilo tons vs the multi-megaton monsters developed in the 1950s) to limit the phenomenon known as "fallout."

The combination of its graphics, lore, gameplay, design aesthetics - it all conveys together something that has become uniquely "Fallout". So much so that when watching "Loki" I couldn't shake the feeling of seeing something reminiscent to "Fallout", in spite of it taking its cues more from the technology and design of the 1960s.

Games about decisions

Part of the lasting impact the originals had was the fact that they left a lot to the player. Choices you made during the game would impact "the ending" - slides you were shown showing you the consequencs of your actions. Often these choices are between differing options, and not all of them can work out, even if taken. This alone added replay value as one tried to achieve the various endings.

But choice was baked in everywhere. Nothing prevents you from finishing the games killing all and everyone, or with as little violence and as much stealth and diplomacy as possible. This spiked people's ambitions, and is very different from many RPGs before and after it, often only offering slight variations of one path towards the end.

This also brings the concept of morality and consequences of your choices into focus, as your choices impact how you are received to a degree. You can also decide to play smart or dumb (which can be hilarious and limits dialogue). What you do and what you say feels like it matters. Already by that, the original games left a lasting impact on game design itself, being copied in various ways by later games.

This is the legacy of the original two games, and here my coverage of it takes a short break and is continued in other articles taking advantage of this groundwork. To be continued here.

[digitalstickzac]

Personal thoughts on: Fallout New Vegas DLC 1/4 - Dead Money

I have started a new FNV playthrough and am going to 100% everything, which included replaying the DLC. Now that I've finished it, I can take my time on a repeat playthrough and thoroughly explore the new areas. I will add onto these reviews after playing through them. Now for Part 1 - Dead Money. (Spoilers below the cut)

QUICK SYNOPSIS

Courier 6 receives a radio broadcast inviting them to the Sierra Madre's grand opening - a paradise away from the clutches of the old world and safe from Nuclear Warfare, a place to let go and begin again. Rather than get a paradise the Courier will be in a fight for their lives as they are forced to survive the horrors that await them.

OVERALL PRESENTATION

DM has my second favorite design out of all the DLCs. The Art Deco is a beautiful contrast to the Futurism Design of the Mojave, combined with heavy red colour pallet. Despite being abandoned and left to the elements the Sierra still looks amazing.

GAMEPLAY

I do like how the game forces you into a fight-for-your life for the entirety of the DLC's runtime. No fast travel, no waiting or resting, you need to move fast and react faster. I enjoy having to scavenge and look around for supplies as every bit helps and going into the DLC with a Level 30 Courier opposed to Level 25 and putting skills into MELEE and SURVIVAL made my run more enjoyable this time. The Exploding Collar and Ghost People were a nice addition at first but quickly got annoying, especially when you have to manage both at the same time.

STORY

DM tells a beautifully tragic tale of the inhabitants - past and present - that reside in the Sierra Madre. Sinclair wanting to build a safe sanctuary for the love of his life Vera Keyes but instead created a tomb that would be his and hers demise. Near the end where you hear Vera plead to escape from the Sierra and beg for forgiveness, Sinclair's message to Domino and the ending you can get if you read the message hits hard and well.

Father Elijah is a well written villain and at times can be chilling with how spiteful and angry his tone, wording and delivery can be. The Courier is expendable and is treated as such, we are not the first and could potentially not be the last victim that came to this death trap.

Christine having gone through a constant nightmare of getting his vocal cords torn out and replaced over and over and still having the courage to want to finish the job and kill the man who had destroyed her life. Getting her voice back and working together to open the Vault is beautiful.

Dean Domino... I'll be honest I don't care much for him. He is well written and has a few good lines but I am indifferent.

God / Dog's journey from two enemies who hate each other to coming to a middle ground and becoming one is a feels great journey that I still enjoy doing.

FINAL NOTES

I initially dreaded replaying this DLC because of the weapons / equipment removal, the Collar and the toxic cloud but after getting over that initial hump I still love coming back to the Sierra and reexpericing it all over again. Also I killed Elijah with the Holorifle he gives you at the start of the DLC, giving him another example of a bad choice he has made.

[softtidesworld]

—OC’s as Tragic Love Archetypes.

i’m back yo

got tagged by the amazing @simplegenius042 ty very much

tagging @strafethesesinners @euryalex @echthr0s @inafieldofdaisies @vampireninjabunnies-blog and others if u wanna join as well

edit: i forgot the link goddamnit.

Deborah Seed / Far Cry 5

. MAUDLIN MAGDALENE

An embrace with the shivering figure of a ghost. You cut your hair at 3 a.m. to change it all but it is no use. Love is a war to endure to you. You comfort and hold, kiss pressed to temple and cheek while feeling the numbness filling your nights to brim. What used to feel honorable has now become chore of breathing to sustain another. What else is love, but your disembodied lap to lay another's head into? Your fingers turn blue in the announcing dawn, the cold figure of what you used to know of yourself remains asleep next to them. Another version of you has crept out of your old body, has ripped and eaten itself out of a cast that was fused into the position of nurturing comfort. Remove yourself from your lovers before they become part of you, conjoined with your arms to anothers wailing head you have no life apart of maudlin magdalene. You have given endlessly, but this isn't all there is to you. Acknowledge the good that has been done and let yourself be free. You deserve to feel held as well, you are more than what you can give of yourself before breaking down.

Selená Rojas / Far Cry 5 + Far Cry 6

. CUPID'S BROTHER

You have been love adjacent all your life. The faint spill of another story that softly grazed your shoulders when stood too close. Whether by design or not, you have yet to build a clear image of what love means to you. The interlocked weaving of a picture locket bound to strand of hair when hugged to tight, the sunpatch that meets your soles in glaring sun dried fields when running with a friend. You are not far from love, but moving between line of collision and avoidance at all times. A faint glimmer on sea lake surface of what could be. There is time to find what you want, find whether it's enough as is. Love is in you, breathing in another day. Continue as you are, realizing the love that is slowly blossoming in your life as it sharpens and clears in brushstrokes.

Bleuette Nguyen / Fallout 3

. MOTHER'S DAUGHTER

Being her child was akin to a whispered apology, another wailing hug, another day you repent for complaining about the fact that she hasn't said anything nice to you. You bring her flowers and are met with the inconvenience of a vase that has to be found instead. You bake for her and feel the warmth of fresh cut bread fill the kitchen; but the dirty dishes remain. Even if you were to bring in the mail and lay down the knife next to your plate, she'll cradle another. Love is an endless apology to you. Averting eyes to desperate tears and sunken teeth in lower lip at the dinner table. Do not repent for who you are, as it is enough. Gather your courage to love again and reveal the honeydewed structure of a swelling heart once you feel safe to do so instead. Love isn't a confession booth of all you are not, settle down and unclasp your hands. You're all anyone could want already.

Altsoba Deschene / Fallout: New Vegas

. FATHER'S SON

Breathe down your own neck, it's the sound of smashing fist against furniture in another room again. The wringing hem of cloth and pattern of an escalating heart. Love is tumultous to you. There is grief and disguised forgiveness to damp down the yearning. A permanent fear of tender flesh spilling out, still- you must refrain of growing attached to the fear you had installed into you. Let go of the notion that love is still to be cherished with a hole in the head. Scrub crimson ancestry off wooden floors and try again tomorrow when your hands don't shake cold from the blood loss. Love isn't a fist to escape. Fill the hole in your head with cotton and know you are to be adored. You are deserving of an embrace without flinching.

[strangecloud]

I am going to do a top 10 favorite video games list for no particular reason

Hello, hey. So these are games that I've greatly enjoyed past and present and appeal to my particular interests and tastes. I like games to tell stories. I don't mean a written narrative with a beginning, middle and end. What I like is what some would call "emergent storytelling", which is a pretentious name but explains adequately how I enjoy my games to be played. I want to come out of a session of a game with a memorable story to tell, or even just remember to myself.

Anyway, here's the list.

10. Minecraft

Minecraft is a modern classic and the reason it's low on the list is because I enjoy it in theory way more than I do in practice. It's probably the platonic ideal of a sandbox game, full of interactible objects that can be refined into new items and materials for crafting, building, and generally just doing whatever you feel like.

And that freedom is what I enjoy about it. In the wacky block-world of Minecraft, you're able to do whatever you want. Build structures, focus solely on crafting the biggest sharpest sword ever, or just get a fishing rod and chill.

What I don't like so much is that singleplayer and the vast majority of public multiplayer servers are really bad at using this freedom to its fullest potential. There's so many possible interactions between entities and players and yet the pubs I've visited focus solely on adding artficial structure to the game, which I find uninteresting. If anyone can recommend a good Minecraft server free of unpleasant externalities, drop it on the comments or reblogs please.

9. Dwarf Fortress

Dwarf Fortress is Minecraft's unhinged grandpa. I believe it has been directly cited as an inspiration for Minecraft way back in the day. It has gained some popularity over the years but I'd wager as lot of people would dismiss it as some nerd game for gatekeeping losers, but there's a genuinely cool core inside it that is the reason everyone likes it so much.

The beating heart of Dwarf Fortress is its world generation. As a traditional roguelike (as in, a game like Rogue), Dwarf Fortress will generate a whole world to your desired specifications not unlike Minecraft. Very unlike Minecraft, however, it will populate the world with factions of historical figures, beasts and other entities and then simulate the history of this realm for as long as you'd like.

This is the part that the brothers Adams, the game's creators, focus the most on, and is the reason the game has earned a spot in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

As a player, you get to influence this world by either controlling a colony of Dwarves, playing as a custom Adventurer and questing about the land, or just reading the Legends entries to find out what has happened in the vast history you created.

The gripes I have with it are that Adventure mode, my favorite part of the game, isn't very deep or fleshed out currently. The game also suffers from a hellish type of maximalism that makes it almost impenetrable without some sort of guidance and in some cases, external software. Still, it is a crowning achievement in game design and development and is one of the best games of all time, no doubt.

8. Fallout New Vegas

This is a cult classic game developed by Obsidian software under contract for Bethesda. As I understand it, Obsidian included some of the original staff of Black Isle and Interplay who worked on the OG Fallout games, which were isometric turn-based RPGs.

This is the most accessible and faithful Fallout game one can play in current year. The essence of Fallout, for me, has always been a laser focus on the player character. You never get to control your party members, though you can indirectly suggest commands that they will try their best to follow, often unsuccessfully. The game is about the dude or gal you make and play as: you get to customize how they look, what their physical and mental attributes are, and you have minute control over them down to the very words they speak, to the detriment of pretty much everything else.

Complementing that is the setting. West Coast Fallout is the most enthralling setting I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing in any medium, and it's a great playground to put your character designs to the test. You really have to commit to your character and see things from their perspective, and the world is reactive enough to reward you for doing so. OG Fallout and New Vegas are some of the smartest written games in the market and anyone who loves stories should give them a try.

7. PAYDAY 2

As much as I like stories and emergent gameplay, sometimes I'm in the mood to unwind by listening to some bopping music and clicking on bad men with guns. PAYDAY 2 is a co-op shooter in the vein of Left 4 Dead, only instead of shooting crazed zombies you get to shoot crazed cops.

Despite being co-op, most of my hours on it have been spent solo and I wouldn't have it any other way. The game is full of customization options and progression systems to make the arguably repetitive gameplay loop very addicting, and the shooting and movement mechanics put a lot of games to shame to this very day.

There's no shame in enjoying a good old heist and shootout every now and then. I'm not above that.

6. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Anomaly

Anomaly for me is the perfect STALKER game. In case you are not aware, STALKER is a series revolving around the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, or simply "Zone" for short, in some kind of alternate reality where the incident at Chernobyl was either caused by or resulted in supernatural happenings, known as Anomalies.

As far as I remember, the mainline STALKER games never captured my imagination too much because of their linear progression. STALKER Anomaly remedies this by opening up the world of both Shadow of Chernobyl and Clear Skies and levying the complete potential of the A-Life system.

It reminds me a lot of Dwarf Fortress, in that it is a sandbox game with a deep simulation layer and emergent actors going about their day dynamically in a scale as large as could be reasonably expected of video game software. It doesn't fall into the trap that so many survival games do where the survival challenge takes place in an empty lifeless world that is very, very boring. The world of STALKER Anomaly is full of life, conflict, humor and terror.

5. XCOM 2

I have a complicated relationship with XCOM 2. It's easily my favorite XCOM game due to the sheer level of character customization, from picking how your dudes look to giving them names and bios and then getting to watch them die horribly on the hands of some alien monster. This contrast is very deliberate: the game wants you to get attached to your soldiers to raise the stakes and generate tension.

The strategy is great, with deep combat that is rewarding to learn and a less deep but serviceable micromanaging minigame aboard your base of operations. The thing I don't like about this game is that the high difficulty and the punishing nature of failure make it a very stressful game to play.

When things are going your way, it provides the highest highs. When your squad gets wiped and takes your precious soldiers with it, you're dragged to the lowest lows. It's an intense experience but by no means a boring one.

4. Wildermyth

Wildermyth is the most slept-on game I've ever seen on the market. The best way I can describe it is it's a fantasy-themed strategy RPG with a choose-your-own-adventure storytelling format, but that description doesn't really do it justice.

Wildermyth greatly rewards imagination and creativity. The main feature of the game is being able to import your custom heroes from previous campaigns into later ones as supporting party members or even main characters. And this isn't some token feature made for you to look at your dudes and say "Yeah that's them". The procedural nature of the storytelling means that your characters can interact. They can cause trouble and build relationships, get wounded and even die, all with explicit acknowledgement from the game.

It's a story generator that doesn't skip on telling the story. The little event popups are well written, with lots of attention to detail and variations depending on the relationships and personalities of the characters involved. It's a game I'd easily recommend to anyone who enjoys creating characters and stories or even just strategy games in general, although admittedly the depth of the combat is a bit on the lighter side.

3. Devil May Cry 3

DMC3 is the perfect action game. DMC5 comes close but 3 for me clutches it because it's a lot more focused. Over the years the series has added increasing complexity which raised the skill ceiling far above what most people could possibly ever reach. There is exactly one person on Youtube I'm aware of who can be said to have completely mastered these games and watching them play is a sight to behold. Look up donguri if you'd like to see what that looks like.

As for me, I prefer the simplicity of the third game. It doesn't give you so many options that not using them just feels like playing the game wrong, it wants you to get good on your own terms and greatly rewards your investment in mastering its combat. There's nothing quite like playing a game and just feeling how well you're doing, how easily you can breeze through previously hard challenges.

Few games have motivated me to try and completely master them, but DMC3 manages it and does so in a way that's entertaining and fun throughout.

2. Titanfall 2

Titanfall 2 is the DMC3 of multiplayer shooters. A lot of people dismissed Titanfall back when it first came out and those people are fools. These games are sick.

I know the selling point is piloting big robots but I can't stress enough that for me, that's secondary. It's all about the Pilot gameplay outside of the robot. The movement tech in this game is insane and the difference between how a seasoned player moves around is night and day compared to a new or inexperienced player.

I've seen a lot of people say that the purest skill based multiplayer shooter is Quake. Maybe that's true, but Quake is also a very static experience. Titanfall 2 proves that you can have highly skilled competition without skipping out on customization and self expression.

The satisfaction of mastering a game goes double when you're up against people who have the potential to be just as skilled as you are. It's the whole reason multiplayer games endure despite being sometimes more repetitive than their singleplayer counterparts. Competition is fun and motivates people to get even better and practice their game harder. It's a great feedback loop of deep enjoyment.

1. The Sims 4

So why would I put what is considered by many the worst Sims game at the top of this list? It's going against some pretty heavyweight games here. Well, hear me out.

I believe this is the pinnacle of life-sim "cozy" games. I never got into Animal Crossing because to me, the characters feel lifeless. The complaining about New Horizons' NPCs always rung a little hollow to me because in my opinion they feel exactly as boring as all the villagers in any other game.

Sims has always been more interesting to me in no small part due to customization of your characters, but also because they interact in ways that are fundamentally more interesting. They can fight, become friends with each other, engage in romances and these relationship stages can seamlessly progress from one to another.

It's like having your own little TV show that you can watch daily. And on top of that, Sims 4 in specific is the most stable version of the game by far.

Going back to Sims 2, it has eccentricities I don't really like. Aging is so fast, and time works in a bizarre way that takes me out of the experience, with only the playable household being able to age. Sims 3 doesn't run well no matter what I do to it, and it's not very friendly to rotational play, which is something I enjoy doing.

Sims 4 is arguably shallower than its counterparts but the fact that it's so frictionless is enough to put it head and shoulders above the rest. The graphics looking very nice doesn't hurt either. I've played it for over 1000 hours and I probably will continue to do so.

It's a very relaxing game that makes me feel at ease, as a very anxious person. I love it and I can't thanks Maxis enough for what they have created.

[evieveevee]

i think one of the most frustrating bits of Baldur's Gate on a revisit is how the game fails to have very much naturalistic storytelling. there's a layer of artifice over the whole experience because the way you find most quests is by like, pressing tab and seeing if there are named NPCs or by walking into each and every random building with no actual narrative or other justification for doing so.

I think back to the design of Fallout New Vegas as a more recent example and look at how that game's got multiple quests associated with core locations like Vault 22, or the varied casinos on the strip for example, meaning you're likely to encounter these stories as part of doing other stories. If you're doing the main quest of BG1, that's just about all you'll run into, and it's really frustrating.