Fallout 4 has been out for over a month now and the first set of patches has been released. We’ve already reviewed the PC version at launch, but this review will be a look at how it holds up over time as well as some of the PS4 specific features of the game.

This edition of the Fallout series focuses on the locale of Boston, and while the main story is a relatively straightforward tale of discovering what happened to your kidnapped son, the game takes advantages of its setting to sprinkle in all sorts of interesting side quests and varied places to explore, from a flooded quarry to the remains of hotels and a radioactive sea. While you’ll be dealing with the typical raider types and Brotherhood of Steel, there’s also the mysterious Institute and its synths (a reference to MIT) and the Diamond City, which you might not guess what it’s referring to until you first see its waypoint on your map. While I think New Vegas was better written overall dialogue wise and with its interplay between factions, Fallout 4 is definitely a step up over its sparse desert as well as Fallout 3’s ridiculously drab capital wasteland and its many subways.
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Episode 3 starts of right were we left the last episode with Ivor escaping and locking your group in a room. While this obviously is upsetting, getting revenge on him is not your main goal. To recap, the world is in danger from a Wither Storm and you believe a hero named Soren can help you destroy it. With this in mind, and the help of the amulet, you quickly get on the path to find this person. This trail will take you on a very perilous path, not only because of the enemies, but of the doubt brewing within the group.

The story goes on and this one is perhaps the best episode yet. No need for introductions, this one starts off quite fast and doesn’t let up for a while. The presentation and style are great, quite reminiscent of Borderlands. The episode is somewhat short but its jammed pack and feels like it’s the right mix of action and story. If you’re an experienced player, this one does tend to make you wonder if there are any consequences for missing an attack as I missed quite a bit because of my controller configuration. On the other hand, this means the game no apparent instant failure sections to mess with the flow of the story. The other issue, now that we are getting into the meat of the season, is the lack of grand, hard choices. They’re a hallmark of Telltale games and we have not had many yet and the big one here is disguised so you don’t even feel like there will be a consequence. Overall, this is a great episode and should more than satisfy fans of the story. Can’t wait to see what happens next!

Overall

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six is a franchise that has been around since 1998 and has taken a lot of different forms. The first iterations where very hardcore tactical shooters which required the player to develop and execute their own highly technical assault plans. The next major form took the franchise to a more traditional linear format with a tactical edge with Rainbow Six 3. Then they refined this concept with a really innovative third-person cover system in 2006 with Rainbow Six: Vegas. In retrospect, the largest issue that has plagued the franchise is not due to the rapid change in format but with the lackluster follow-ups. Rainbow Six 3 was fantastic, Lockdown was a step back. Rainbow Six: Vegas was another great experience, but its sequel wasn’t that special. Ubisoft Montreal plans to change that formula with Rainbow Six: Siege. It’s the next main iteration of this once-popular franchise and the studio developing it has worked on an impressive array of highly regarded franchises. Can this developer bring Rainbow Six back to its former glory?
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Bethesda Softworks, a ZeniMax Media company, announced that it will be giving away $1 million (USD)* to one lucky player of its award-winning multiplayer roleplaying game, The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited, in a sweepstakes. The sweepstakes extends the game’s popular “Million Reasons to Play” campaign, which asks the community to share their favorite elements of the game on social media.

“After kicking off our #MillionReasonsToPlay campaign in October, we’ve been overwhelmed at the response from fans,” said Matt Firor, game director of The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited. “It’s so inspiring to see fans share – with us and the community – their favorite reasons for playing. We’re excited to now share something with one of them!”
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Xenoblade Chronicles was a wonderful game on the Wii that did incredibly well in the States despite the odds stacked against it. It even managed to inspire a handheld port on the New 3DS. So you can imagine it would be a hard act to follow regarding Monolithsoft’s newest game. Xenoblade Chronicles X does much to enrich the experience of Xenoblade’s basic gameplay systems. While there are some refinements to the formula, some things weren’t fixed. But what is there is terrific enough that it still sits high among games of its type. Open world games would do well to learn from it.
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Last generation was defined and dominated by a single franchise, Call of Duty. No other franchise really came close to generating more hype and anticipation than this one. Before Call of Duty 4, the franchise was a competent shooter that met moderate success on the PC. After this, the franchise was the defining shooter on consoles. Ever since then, there has been another entry in the series every year and the series has grown to be so big that it takes several different developers to keep it going. The premiere developer in that bunch is now Treyarch. This developer has been around for nearly two decades but lately, they have been developing some of the best Call of Duty has to offer. Going against them is an ongoing franchise fatigue. Yearly releases with the same formula is driving players to grow tired of what they use to love. The ship hasn’t capsized yet, but it’s headed for some troubled waters soon if the ship cannot be righted. Last year, Advanced Warfare gave the franchise a breath of fresh air. Can Treyarch continue the fight with Black Ops III?
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If you were old enough to have watched shows like Robotech and became a fan, chances are high that you’ve always yearned for a game that captured the essence of that series in videogame form. Unfortunately for Western gamers, they have been deprived of such an experience for a ridiculously long time. Now enter 17-bit, with Galak-Z. While there have been a handful of mecha games in recent years, none of them took the experience of space combat into account. Galak-Z attempts to do this, and mostly succeeds. There are a few odd design choices that hinder it a bit though.
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Telltale Games seem much more comfortable with the language of cinematography than the language of game design. If games are to be measured by the things gamers love to rage about, Tales from the Borderlands isn’t worth its footprint on your hard drive. Boiled down to your interaction with the game, you play a walking simulator, mash some QTE buttons, and watch some unskippable cutscenes.
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Telltale Games has been on a roll lately with their adventure games. The stride started with The Walking Dead and has continued on to The Wolf Among Us, Borderlands, and Game of Thrones. Their latest addition to their franchise stable is Minecraft. Minecraft: Story Mode attempts to give the immensely popular game something it has never really had, a story. Telltale has tackled some of our favorite franchises and delivered but this is the first one not directed entirely at an adult audience, can they still strike gold?
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Today Ubisoft announced the PC specs for Rainbow Six Siege, which will be available on PC, PS4 and Xbox One on December 1. Below is a full list of the system requirements.

Minimum
Supported OS
Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 (64bit versions required)

Processor
Intel Core i3 560 @ 3.3 GHz or AMD Phenom II X4 945 @ 3.0 GHz

RAM
6GB

Video Card
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 or AMD Radeon HD 5870 (DirectX-11 compliant with 1GB of VRAM) [See list of supported video cards down below]

DVD ROM Drive
DVD-ROM Dual Layer

Sound
DirectX® 9.0c compatible sound card with latest drivers

Hard Drive
30GB

Multiplayer
Broadband connection with 256kbps upstream or faster

Recommended PC Specifications:
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