Below you will find the 25 best stealth games ever released on PC. There are sneaking missions, grand thefts, assassinations, escapes and infiltrations. Stay low, keep quiet and we’ll make it to the end.
Alec’s already run his own review of Fallout 4 [official site], based on 50 predominantly campaign-inclined hours in post-nuclear New England, but now Bethesda’s latest is out John and Adam have been taking a more leisurely look at it too. Have they found convincing life in the wasteland? Do they agree that writing and characterisation is much improved? Or that the relentless focus on combat keeps it just short of rad status? Is the Witcher 3 still 2015’s RPG king after this? And why do they think a game which is prompting rather a lot of griping about bugs and graphics and meatheadedness has scored so many 9s and 10s from other critics? Time to set the post-world to rights…>
There are no plot spoilers below, bar a passing reference to what happens in the introductory 15 minutes.
Above: The Murderettes>
I briefly mention how much I dug Fallout 4‘s colourful, playful clothing options in my review, but given that my hard drive is full of screenshots of that stuff, it seems a waste not to give it its own post. The costumes are, as far as I’m concerned, Fallout 4 [official site] at its absolute best. Take a look below.
In this week's Mod Roundup, the Game of Thrones mod for Crusader Kings 2 gets its v1.0 release and a GTA 5 mod lets you buy additional houses and rent hotel rooms in Los Santos. You can also explore the fantastic environments of Alien: Isolation—without that damn determined alien chasing you around—and begin a new life in Skyrim as a skooma addict or traveling merchant.
Here are the most promising mods we've seen this week.
One of the best full-conversion mods of all time is even better. The Game of Thrones mod for Crusader Kings 2, which transforms Europe into George R. R. Martin's Westeros, has released version 1.0. It's been a while since I've played it, but there are lots of improvements in the latest version that make me want to dive back in. You can download it here.
Obviously, this isn't meant to be a true alternative way to play the horror game, but instead a way to explore Sevastopol and take in all the incredible details of the environment at your leisure and without fear of being horribly impaled by the dreaded Xenomorph's tail. Chances are, you missed something while you were busy creeping, hiding, and dying the first time through. Details and download here.
There's a great mod for Skyrim called Alternate Start, that lets you skip the opening sequence at Helgen and begin a new game as a homeowner, a guild member, someone living at an inn, a bandit living in the wilds, and so on. In other words, it gives you the chance to play as a simple citizen of the world instead of the fabled Dragonborn. New Beginnings expands on that, letting you start the game as a lowly skooma addict, a beggar, a traveling merchant, a prisoner in the jail of your choice, a vampire who was recently laid to rest, and others. You can find it here.
We know Michael, Franklin, and Trevor each have their own home in GTA 5, but why stop there? Let your millionaires buy a whole bunch of houses around Los Santos to serve as alternate save points and hideouts. This mod also allows you to rent rooms at hotels and create other savepoints around town. You'll find it here.
The Advertising Standards Agency publishes rulings every Wednesday on everything from psychic hotlines to videogames. I’m incredibly fond of their rulings. I think it’s mostly because of the language the companies use to defend themselves, breaking videogame concepts down and presenting them in what’s intended to be a neutral manner.
The upheld complaints are generally less entertaining for obvious reasons the concerns have been, in some sense, valid. But the *not upheld* complaints often have an air of the ridiculous about them. Through the formal structure of the rulings you get a sense of raised eyebrows or rolled eyes, of overblown sincerity. I’ve also learned some unexpected things, like how many sugar puffs are in a portion…
Here are some of my favourites from the last few years:
One day I’ll write a Desert Island Discs about the games I’d keep with me until the end of days, given a choice of ten. It’ll no doubt be a Desert Island Digital Downloads given the absence of physical media in my life. I live with the ghosts of entertainment.
Rather than compiling the list of games I’d take to the Vault with me though, today I’m aiming to put together a collection, one from each genre, that I’d use to introduce those genres to a PC gaming newcomer, or a lapsed gamer. A friend inspired this particular bundle of joy, someone who grew up with an Amiga but developed other interests and hasn’t touched a game for more than a few minutes at a time, either console or PC, for over fifteen years. A recent illness has left him unable to engage in his usual outdoor hobbies and games have filled the gap.>
This week's Mod Roundup is mostly about guns! One mod lets you shoot guns out of people's hands in GTA 5, while another lets you decorate your guns in Fallout: New Vegas. You can also acquire suppressors that don't break every five freakin' seconds in Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. Finally, in a mod that has nothing to do with guns but has something to do with grenades, you can craft magic bombs in a Skyrim mod that completely overhauls cooking and alchemy. Enjoy!
Howdy, gunslingers and sharpshooters! This GTA 5 script lets you take careful aim and shoot the gun right out of someone's hands, be they armed pedestrians or angry cops. Check out the video above, and find the script right here at 5 Mods.
Ever wonder why Snake's R&D department can give him robotic arms and warp gate technology but can't cook up a suppressor that doesn't break after a few shots? This mod makes suppressors more durable without making them completely unbreakable. You'll find it at Nexus Mods.
The elements of cooking and alchemy have been reworked in this Skyrim mod, adding new effects, renaming them based on potency (which will sort them from weakest to strongest), and even giving you the ability to cook and throw crafted grenades and bombs. There are also 100 new ingredients in the world, and 50 new insects and fish you can harvest for your concoctions. You can grab it here at Nexus Mods.
If you'd like to make your favorite Fallout gun unique, now you can. Paint it, it decorate it, and customize it using items like books and holotapes found in the Wasteland. Then grab a paint gun and visit a workbench. Your weapon will not only look nicer, it'll be easier to use, with increased damage and better chance to crit. It's here at Nexus Mods.
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>
Fallout 4 is just around the corner, but the series’ popularity is so huge that it almost servers to obscure the things which made Fallout 3 [official site] fun in the first place. It’s an easier game to pick holes in than it is to be enthusiastic about.
