To mark the end of the 2010s, we're celebrating 30 games that defined the last 10 years. You can find all the articles as they're published in the Games of the Decade archive, and read about the thinking behind it in an editor's blog.

There's something mournful about roaming the wilds of the Mojave, but maybe that's to be expected from a game that starts with you getting shot in the head. Like an irritated poltergeist, you're unleashed onto the wasteland to claim vengeance on those who wronged you. Or not, if you're like me - and make it your sole mission to find and save your would-be murderer Benny.

This is what Obsidian got so right about Fallout New Vegas. Somehow, the game's able to anticipate exactly the sort of decisions a player wants to make, often before they even know it themselves. I was constantly surprised at the options presented to me, which frequently veered into the ludicrous and naughty. Do I want to take Fisto for a spin before delivery? Yes, of course I do.

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I visited Obsidian Entertainment a couple of weeks ago for the reveal of the studio's first game for new owner Microsoft. If you remember, The Outer Worlds was published by Private Division, Take-Two's label for partnering with independent studios (Obsidian was independent when the deal was made). This was, then, a significant moment.

The game itself was a bit of an anti-climax - Grounded, a small-team survival game with a Honey I Shrunk the Kids hook - but I still got an opportunity to nose around the studio and see what changed post-acquisition and since I visited in August 2017.

The answer, in a nutshell, is "not a lot", which is encouraging. Obsidian still resides in the same office block in the eerily perfect city of Irvine, California, and still occupies the same amount of office space. It's still a bit tatty, which I like, and the only real sign there's now Microsoft money behind the studio is a pile of boxes with computers and monitors in them.

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After hours trekking across the wasteland, swatting away bloatflies and squashing hordes of ghouls, the end is in sight. Or at least Hoover Dam is. It's the intimidating final stage
of Fallout New Vegas, and no matter your path until this point, you'll have to pick a side and fight an explosive battle to irrevocably change the fate of the Mojave.

A fate that is reported, rather than told, through a series of end slides - before you're taken to a save from before the battle. Ah.

It's a slightly frustrating ending, particularly when post-game content is so often used in RPGs to display the impact of a player's decisions. Even in Red Dead Redemption 2 (not an RPG), you can still find special encounters in the epilogue depending on whether you helped certain people in the past. It's possible to leave a tangible mark on the world, and it shows your decisions went beyond the moment to have long-term repercussions.

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Sex. Speedrunning. Not two things you expect to hear in the same sentence - and yet here I am, writing an article about it.

Speedrunner tomatoanus, who you may remember from his world record Fallout anthology speedrun (and his rather colourful username), has returned with yet another wacky video. Not content with whizzing through Fallout 1, 2, 3, New Vegas and 4 in under 90 minutes, tomatoanus' latest speedrun is all about sex. Specifically, getting it as fast as possible. Like a night out in Magaluf.

Similar to his other world record speedruns, tomatoanus played through the games considered by the community to be the "main" titles in the Fallout series, with the goal being to have sex in each game as quickly as possible. This apparently has its own unofficial category, called a "sex%" run, and has already been attempted by a number of speedrunners in Fallout 4 (check out these ones by Jinjenia and Duchys).

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