I was out late doing last-minute Christmas shopping when I stumbled across a tiny little store I'd never seen before, nestled in an alley between a Wal-Mart and a check-cashing place. The shop was called "Curios, Rarities, Bibelots & Old Sci-Fi Magazines That Inspired Games From 2015". Strange name for a store, but I decided to stop in, if only to warm my hands for a moment. It was a chilly night filled with snow and wind and maybe, just maybe, a little magic.

The shopkeeper was odd, with a vacant stare and questionable facial animations. "Looking to shop? I'm sure I have something you'd be interested in," he said. "I guess I've got a few minutes to browse," I replied. "Take a look at what I've got," he said, showing me his entire inventory, sortable by category. Strange thing was, after I paused my browsing to reply to a text, we had the exact same conversation again when I resumed looking through his offerings.

This may sound unbelievable, but did you know that a number of the games released in 2015 were based on stories from old pulp science fiction magazines? It almost sounds like I'm making the entire thing up just to pad our website with content while we're on vacation, right? But I have proof. Just take a look at some scanned pages from an old issue of Thrilling Tales of Wonder From the Radio Planet. It was published in 1933, and it contained a story called Fallout 4. After reading it, It's hard to believe Bethesda didn't draw a lot of inspiration from the story within.

Weird, right? That definitely feels like it was used as source material for the game. A little later on, we get to see some combat and a return to Sanctuary, which the Sole Survivor had begun to turn into a bustling settlement. It's really eerie, in a way, how much the game mirrored the themes and ideas of the magazine's story, as you'll see.

In case you're wondering if Dogmeat, Fallout 4's faithful companion, is included in the story, the answer is yes! Here's a scan from the magazine that clearly shows why Bethesda felt Dogmeat was a useful and necessary inclusion in the game.

Much later in the story—which I have to say weirdly focuses a lot on the protagonist managing her inventory, running back and forth between her various settlements, and buying items from stores so she can improve her weapons—we finally reach the moment where she acquires some important information about a missing child. Don't worry, I won't spoil anything for you. And oddly, the magazine doesn't spoil anything, either.

Amazing, huh? I haven't heard officially from anyone at Bethesda, but I have a sneaking suspicion this issue of Radio Planet was a big inspiration for their game. Anyway, I picked up a couple of other magazines while I was at that little strange shop, so I'll share some more scans this week.

By the way, if you're interested in making your own covers of sci-fi magazines, there's a great online tool called The Pulp-O-Mizer! I know that if I ever wanted to create a fake sci-fi magazine cover for some reason, it's definitely what I'd use.

Remember when Todd Howard said that Fallout 4 would give players the option to take a less-violent approach to life in the wasteland? Not entirely without bloodshed, of course, but one in which you can avoid [killing] a lot? He wasn't kidding, but it turns out that he wasn't entirely correct, either. As Kyle Hinckley demonstrates over a 37-part YouTube series, it is possible to get through the entire game—on Survival mode, no less—without snuffing out a single, precious life.

That's not to say that lives aren't snuffed, but Hinckley's high charisma means he's able to convince others to do the dirty work, so his hands remain technically clean. Naturally, there are numerous reloads over the course of the adventure, as he's forced to retry ability checks in lieu of simply blowing holes in things. But given the way the game pushes players into killing, and the tendency of companions to be quick on the trigger, I'd say it's a fair compromise, and the ultimate goal here is not to avoid death, but to avoid personally inflicting it. 

Despite Howard's promise of increased player freedom, Hinckley told Kotaku that he's disappointed in the lack of diplomatic solutions to problems, which he sees as a departure from the previous games in the series. My version of pacifism isn t really diplomatic, it s more exploitative of the game mechanics to achieve a zero-kill record, he said. In other [Fallout] games, you had a lot of alternatives for bypassing the combat, whether it was with sneaking, speech checks, or a back door opened with lockpicking and hacking. In fact, in previous games (at least 3 and NV), your companion kills didn t count towards your record either.

The last minute of Hinckley's final video proves his claim that he made it from start to finish with zero kills, but of course there are some spoilers along the way, and in the Kotaku interview as well. Consider yourself warned, and then watch the whole thing here.

On this week's Mod Roundup, a Star Wars fan brings working lightsabers into Fallout 4, and Rico learns a nifty and deadly new attack in Just Cause 3. Meanwhile, Cities: Skylines gets a scientific makeover with some beautiful radio telescope dishes, and a modder gives you tons of custom camera options in The Witcher 3.

Here are the most promising mods we've seen this week.

Teleporting Death Punch, for Just Cause 3

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Not like Rico needs more ways to cause madness and mayhem in Just Cause 3, but just in case, modder Jordan Choklad came up with a new one. It's called a teleporting death punch, and as you may have guessed, it allows Rico to essentially teleport to an enemy, and punch him. The result: death. It's a little silly, but how often will I get the chance to type "telelporting death punch" in my lifetime? Maybe twenty, thirty more times, tops. Video above.

Correction: I originally attributed the teleporting death punch mod to a different modder. My sincere apologies to Jordan Choklad!

Lightsaber Renew, for Fallout 4

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This is more than just baseball bats painted to look like lightsabers. They really extend from the hilt, and glow, and while they don't cut off limbs, they do look pretty cool in action. The above video shows they're not just for the player, too. Get your Star Wars on in Fallout 4. Thanks to Kotaku!

Telescope dish, for Cities: Skylines

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I'm not a huge fan of most of the high-level science buildings available in Cities: Skylines. They're just a little too futuristic to really fit in with the rest of your city. However, these dishes by GCVos are perfect. They're beautiful, and they're not so outlandish that they stand out like some silly sci-fi installation that's just arrived from the future. Nice work.

Absolute Camera, for The Witcher 3

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If you've been looking for some new camera options in The Witcher 3, your wild hunt is over. The Absolute Camera mod lets you define your camera for a number of different situations, like horseback riding, running, swimming, combat, sailing, interiors, and more. You can toggle between them, and even save your camera presets to share with others. The video above shows some custom camera settings, compares them to vanilla, and even adjusts them in-game.

Fallout 4 wins our 2015 award for Best Setting, and Phil, Chris, and Samuel explain what the wasteland brought to the year below. We'll be posting the rest of our awards and personal picks daily as we approach the end of the year, which we're collecting on our main GOTY page.

Phil Savage: Fallout 4 is a comfortable game to play. It's the logical next step for Bethesda's distinct brand of RPG—better in a myriad of ways, but similar enough that you can instantly get down to the business of shooting and looting. Some of the RPG elements have been dialled back, but what remains is an deft, enjoyable shooter with an amazing degree of combat customisation. Beyond that, though, Fallout 4's great achievement is The Commonwealth. I enjoyed the Capital Wasteland of Fallout 3, but, outside of Washington itself, never had a sense of it as a specific place. Boston is writ large throughout The Commonwealth—a dense urban environment that takes centre stage. It's packed with detail, and filled with standalone vignettes. On the macro level it looks stunning, even as the small-scale graphical fidelity isn't anything to get excited about. It's a world that begs to be discovered, and it's easy to lose hours doing just that.

Chris Livingston: The best stories in games aren t the ones developers tell players, it s the ones player tell themselves and each other. Bethesda RPGs have always given players ample room to ignore the official narrative and create their own characters, histories, motivations, and stories, and Fallout 4 is no exception. When you step out of Vault 111 you ll find plenty of stories waiting for your attention, but not begging for it, leaving you free to come up with your own. Be a hero, a scoundrel, a collector, a craftsman, the leader of a settlement, or just a lone wander. Conquer the wasteland in power armor, or sneakily pickpocket every person you meet, or try to get by on charisma and luck. Or, simply build a house and see if you can fill it with melons. Other games may have bigger and more beautiful words, but none are so filled with possibilities.

Settlements and crafting also give you a great opportunity to ignore the main story and come up with your own goals. The settlement system isn t exactly robust and can be pretty clunky to use, but building your own base lets you put a personal stamp on the world, and it s hard not to feel some attachment to your favorite base after a while. As ugly and shabby as it may look, it s still home, more than a rented room or a purchased dwelling ever will be. And that kid of yours you re trying to find? He can wait. Once glance at the list of weapon attachments that you can t quite afford or haven t unlocked the skills to build yet, and you ll forget about your wayward brat and spend the next several dozen hours scavenging and exploring and fighting until you ve built the weapon of your dreams. The main story is fine, by the way! But it can wait until you ve done all the things you want to do first.

Samuel Roberts: There s a tension to exploring Fallout 4 s environment that is entirely unique to Bethesda s 3D interpretation of this series—it s the fear and excitement of the unknown, of picking through the wastes and seeing what remains of a land once dominated by mankind. And while I was actually a bit disappointed by the downtown part of Boston in Fallout 4 and its fairly blank streets, the outskirts of the city, containing miniature settlements, curious structures in the distance and unsettling remnants of a natural landscape, is where the 7-year leap over Fallout 3 is mostly keenly felt. I love how messed up the creature designs are now, too—walking through an abandoned supermarket is suddenly as jumpy and enjoyable as playing Left 4 Dead.

The lightsaber may be an elegant weapon from a more civilized age, but it will cut through raiders just as well in the uncivilised wastes of Fallout 4. Modder Invalidfate has modded the Jedi weapon of choice in four fetching shades: red, green, blue and pink. they go "ktshhhh" when you activate them, and "vroom" when you swing them, and they even cast a little light on your surroundings. You can download the mod from the Fallout Nexus.

Invalidfate uses a bathrobe and a Darth Vader mask to complete the look, which does rather make it look like Vader's been caught on the toilet. Great work nonetheless.

For more great Fallout 4 mods, check out our round up of the best. Give yourself more Jedi skills such as super speed, super jumping, and super size (Jedi can do that, right?) with these Fallout 4 console commands.

Ta, VG247.

Games have long been described as addictive by reviewers, as shorthand for describing how pleasurable feedback loops can lead to marathon play sessions.  But according to one Russian gamer, in the case of Fallout 4 the addictiveness is very much real. According to an RT report, the (it should be noted, unnamed) man is filing a lawsuit against Bethesda Softworks and localization firm Softklab for failing to warn him that playing it would be dangerous to his health and well-being. The article says the man claims his life fell apart after he installed the game and couldn't tear himself away from it for three whole weeks.

The plaintiff, a 28-year-old from the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, ended up losing his job because he was skipping work to play Fallout. He also stopped hanging out with his friends, and neglected his wife to the point that she left him. Naturally, his health went downhill too, since he wasn't sleeping or eating.

"If I knew that this game could have become so addictive, I would have become a lot more wary of it," he said in a statement. "I would not have bought it, or I would have left it until I was on holiday or until the New Year holidays."

Konstantin Bobrov, the director of the "Single Center for Protection" legal service (bear in mind that's Google translated, so the wording might be a bit off) said that his agency helped the man make the initial claim, and is willing to represent him in court.

"Russia does not like the judicial practice of resolving disputes between ordinary consumers and foreign companies for compensation for moral damage," he told . "However, we do not have to question the legal qualification of our company, and we are ready to see how far we can go in this business. "

Of course, the whole thing is patently ridiculous. I mean, three weeks? I'll probably spend half that much time on the character creation screen. And honestly, if your marriage falls apart after three weeks of a videogame, the videogame isn't your problem. I should also probably point out that this is a hard one to verify, as the only English-language source I've run across is RT, and as we all know, unexpected things can sometimes happen in a Google translation.

The suit seeks 500,000 roubles in compensation; luckily for Bethesda, that works out to about $7000, which means Todd Howard could probably pay this one out with what he finds behind his couch cushions. I've reached out to Bethesda for confirmation that this is a legitimate lawsuit (legitimately filed, anyway), and I'll update in and when I receive a reply. In the meantime, remember:

This week on the Mod Roundup, build deadly robots like Securitrons and Protectrons to defend your Fallout 4 settlements, and make the paramedics in Grand Theft Auto 5 provide medical assistance instead of just staring helplessly at your victims. Also, a custom map for Cities: Skylines challenges you to build near a beautiful coral reef, and a new combat overhaul makes a remarkably well-timed appearance for Star Wars: Jedi Academy.

Here are the most promising mods we've seen this week.

Robot Home Defence, for Fallout 4

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Considering your ability to whip up sentry guns, water purifiers, and power generators, it seems logical that you'd also be able to build robots in Fallout 4, right? This mod, along with the Robotics Expert perk, makes that dream a reality. Now you can craft bots like Protectrons, Assaultrons, and Sentry Bots to protect your homestead. Best of all, they don't count against your settlement population cap, so build as many as you like.

Real Paramedics, for GTA 5

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Ever hurt or kill an NPC in GTA 5 but wish you could take it back? Maybe once in a while? This mod makes the paramedics actually do their job and actually provide live-restoring medical services to your victims instead of just staring at your handiwork before leaving. In the video above, you'll see Trevor whomp two guys with a bat, then politely call for an ambulance. Sure, the medics only help one of the two victims, but Trevor makes sure they won't make the same mistake twice.

Paradise Reef, for Cities: Skylines

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This is a map for Cities: Skylines, but it does require a number custom assets so I figure, hey, close enough. Mainly, it's just really beautiful. There are colorful reefs, improved waterfalls, and sandy beaches, which create an additional challenge: how the heck do you build a thriving city, with all the paved roads, belching smokestacks, and garbage-generating citizens that come along with it without ruining the natural beauty?

Evolution of Combat, for Star Wars: Jedi Academy

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This total conversion mod for Star Wars: Jedi Academy adds a new class system to the game (based on the movies), adds widescreen resolutions, better bots, improved lightsaber duels, and a host of new animations and effects. It looks like it takes a bit of work to install, so be sure to read the instructions carefully.

We learned a couple of weeks ago about an intrepid underwater explorer who had discovered some interesting stuff beneath the radioactive waves of Fallout 4. Could there be more, we wondered? As Reddit user Lavonicus discovered, the answer is yes—quite a lot more, in fact.

Lavonicus spent more than 30 hours over the past three weekends exploring the Fallout 4 seabed, an adventure he documented in a collection of more than 100 images that he posted to Imgur. Most of them are conventional screen shots, but there are a few maps as well, documenting the location of particularly important finds, like an unoccupied suit of power armor, or the "Meow Boat."

The bulk of the shots are blurry, as underwater scenery tends to be, because Lavonicus plays Fallout 4 on a PS4 and thus can't use "noclip" to dispel the effect. And unfortunately, he didn't stumble across any great secrets, although an interesting mystery did come up in the form of a "one of a kind sphere" with some writing on it, half-buried in the muck. It appears to say "New!" but new what? (There's a video showing exactly how to get to the sphere on YouTube, if you want to check it out yourself.)

Lavonicus said his travels cover close to 100 percent of Fallout 4's underwater realm, but promised to resume his deep-diving in DLC follow-ups, which he predicted will contain proper aquatic locations. "In the past for Fallout 4 you have shown concept art of underwater content and through mods we have found out there is a Harpoon gun that was supposed to be in the game," he wrote. "It may not be in the game currently, but I know we'll have underwater content eventually in DLC. When that time comes, I'll spend my time combing through the water content of the DLC until I find it."

Well done, Lavon. You are truly the Steve Zissou of the post-nuclear world.

Thanks, GamesRadar.

This week on the Mod Roundup, the combat in The Witcher 3 is completely replaced with games of Gwent, and Grand Theft Auto turns into Grand Theft Mario. We've also got a mod that adds immersive and impressive weather events in Fallout 4, and another modder has edited thousands of textures to give Torchlight 2 a pleasing hand-drawn look.

Here are the most promising mods we've seen this week.

True Storms, for Fallout 4

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Modder fadingsignal, who previously created a True Storms mod for Skyrim, has brought his weather-modding talents into Fallout 4. The mod introduces heavier downpours, deadlier radiation storms, dust storms, better fog, and more immersive weather events, along with new particle effects and sounds. Check out the video above for some comparisons, then grab an umbrella.

Hearts of Card, for The Witcher 3

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There's a lot of love among The Witcher 3 players for Gwent, and modder DickDangerJustice seems to enjoy the in-game CCG more than anyone. He's gone and made a mod that replaces combat—all combat—with games of Gwent. Winning still nets you the same XP and loot, it's just that instead of swinging swords and casting spells, you're playing cards.

Mario Kart , for GTA 5

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I think my favorite mods are when one game is smooshed into another. Modder MrVicho13 has converted maps from Mario Kart 8 and delivered them into Grand Theft Auto 5. In the video above, by mod fan DayL, you can see Michael speeding through Yoshi Valley. This would be the perfect mod for multiplayer, but, you know, oh well.  Thanks to Mike Fahey at Kotaku!

Ink'd, for Torchlight 2

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There are two versions of Ink'd, which transforms the look of Torchlight 2 (through the painstaking editing of thousands of textures), giving it a nice but subtle hand-drawn, storybook feel. There's the version if you use the Synergies mod, and one for vanilla.