I love Fallout: London. Its map and worldbuilding run laps around Fallout 4. There is an amazing amount of content in this game and it's very well executed. The way the world is written is great, it's very distinct from the Fallout games in the United States but it still feels like it takes place in the same universe. They were careful to only carry over the elements that made lore sense, there is a wealth of original British and European lore that makes up the bulk of the game. Fallout London's companions are a highlight of the game. They're layered, nuanced and interesting while having obvious, appreciable differences in how they affect gameplay. Their voice acting is some of the best in the game. My favorite is Mad Jack, the way you unlock him is awesome and without spoiling anything I think his backstory and how it's unveiled is the best of the companions I played with. The map is large and fairly diverse and the factions that populate it are pretty good, lots of region-specific minor factions based on the real-world culture of their part of the city. My favorite area is Westminster. It's full of snooty aristocrats who are too good for the wasteland. The district is walled off and inside it looks like the war never happened. They have a taxi service and a functioning subway train. There are a lot of side quests. Some of these were very buggy, probably the buggiest part of the game, but most are very good. Fallout London easily has as much content as I would expect from a retail Fallout game. In particular I've REALLY enjoyed the companion quests. Bear in mind my five-star review is taking into account the $0 price tag. It's janky, unstable and in some places unpolished enough that I'd be annoyed if it were a paid product, but as a free labor of love it's incredible. You hear about ambitious mod projects all the time that quietly fall apart after a while, but this one made it to the finish line. It's an incredible achievement. For a free game it's almost unbelievably good. I am eagerly awaiting the free DLC's Team FOLON announced a while back.
This remake looks fantastic and plays great but I ran into many, many bugs in my time playing -- some that required me to restart missions, but mostly visual/non-critical bugs. More than once objects and NPC's required to finish a mission would get stuck/lost in level geometry and once I couldn't finish a mission because a ground enemy was hovering in the air higher than I could reach. The game only crashed once but it was in the middle of a mission. The good news: the checkpoint system is fantastic. You'll rarely lose much progress even if the game crashes, since you will load right into the part of the mission you were at. My biggest complaint by far is one that carries over from the DAH 1 remake: no FOV slider. The game plays great on PC with solid keyboard and mouse controls but it is not fun playing with an FOV meant for players using a TV from across the room. It's especially annoying because the game looks great and I can't take it in properly with the camera zoomed way in. In conclusion: if you're patient & willing to restart missions, you might enjoy the game right now. If not, I'd wait for some patches. Either there wasn't a day one patch or it was included in the first GOG build but I'd wager in the next few weeks some updates are coming.
Having finished Cult of the Lamb, it strikes me that the super cute art style serves a purpose beyond just looking great. It gives the game license to lean harder into the sinister details of operating a cult than might have been palatable to a general audience if the game were more grounded. You can get married to as many of your followers as you want, poison them all, sacrifice (or outright murder) followers you don't like, engage in cannibalism, drug up your followers and demand money from them while they're too dazed to question you; if you can picture a real cult doing it, you can probably do it in Cult of the Lamb. Thematically this game is very dark. The story is short and straightforward but I thought it was pretty well written. The game has a good cast of colorful side-characters as well, which helps to liven up the experience. Despite the bleakness, it has charm and a sense of humor that shines through. Visually the game speaks for itself. It's just as adorable and well done as the store page would lead you to believe. I love the way the game looks, and it's just as cute and expressive in motion. COTL plays as both a simple management / town builder that's fun but easy, and a top-down roguelite fighter that I struggled with until I'd built my cult up enough to strengthen my character. Both parts of the game are fun and worth your time. I paid the full $25 and I had a great time, certainly enough enjoyment to justify the price tag. It took me about ten hours to finish on the medium difficulty, and I never felt that it was dragging on. With some good DLC or content updates I'll happily come back and play more.
BioShock didn't need a direct sequel like BS2, but having just replayed the entire trilogy I can say BS2 earns its place. Before I get into that: I played the remastered version start to finish, all DLC's included. It didn't crash at all, but your mileage may vary. I suspect many of these reviews were written before patches came out. There may be other changes people disliked about the remaster, but you get the original version with your purchase so it doesn't really matter. BS2 meaningfully expands on the combat system of the first game, manages to tell a worthwhile story (though not as impactful as BS1), and it makes good use of its second trip through Rapture to show not just wealthy districts that have deteriorated, but also poor areas that were suffering long before stuff hit the fan, helping illustrate why the city was never going to last. Generally, BS2 feels like it rounds out the world that BS1 introduced while taking the opportunity to optimize the player's ability to experiment with different plasmids and ammo types. It's fun, it presents yet more of the excellent setting BS1 introduced while telling its own story, and it's frequently on sale. Play BS1 first, and if you like it, definitely give BS2 a shot.
