Fallout London, like all the great total conversion mods that came before it, is a very mixed bag. It blows anything Bethesda ever made out of the water in terms of writing, storytelling and dialogue, but in many other aspects it feels like a downgrade. The story is amazing, the quests and factions are all well done, the dialogue and dialogue system is very New Vegas-esque, with plenty of skill checks and roleplaying opportunities. It really is better than any Bethesda Fallout in that regard. However, like many of the great total conversion mods that came before it, London falls behind in one key aspect that Bethesda is still king at: world design. Londons world design is dull and uninspired. There is very little in the way of environmental storytelling, random events and quests to stumble upon. It's also very big and empty, with points of interest spread so far apart with very little in them. The details and references to real life London are spot on, but obviously if you don't live in London all that will fly over your head. The game is still very unstable, with random unavoidable crashes, long load times and bugs being present, and updates that do arrive come very very slowly. Lots of key features are still bugged with no fix in sight. Compared to the generally stable state of other big conversions like Enderal, it's a big dissappointment Additionally, the attitude of some of the FOLON devs towards Bethesda really sours my opinion of the whole thing. Lots of needless antagonism and entitlement. Overall, London is still worth playing as it's completely free and loaded with content, but be sure to manage your expectations. At the end of the day it's still a mod made by amateur volunteers, and it's very good as that. But it still falls short of many of the mainline Fallout games.
You've probably heard about the localization by now. Fans discovered that the localization was done by a company that practices DEI (similar to Sweet Baby Inc). Personally, I don't care about "woke" dialogue, but in this case the practices of the localizers have completely changed parts of the script to the point where it is almost completely different compared to the original Japanese script. It's disrespectful. The terrible dub doesn't help matters either. There's a part where they literally question the gender identity of a boss they just defeated. Want to take a guess if that was part of the original script? Beyond that, the bigger issues are the sheer amount of bugs the game launched with. The biggest being the encounter rate bug. The encounter rate is tied to your MONITORS REFRESH RATE, so if you're on a standard 144hz monitor or higher like most PC gamers, you will get almost no random encounters. There is a bug preventing recruitment of a certain character which can lock you out of the true ending. There are many more, but these are just the standouts. There are over 200 more bugs on the discord servers bug tracker. There is so much this game does right and it really does feel like a true successor to Suikoden, but it was NOT ready to launch in this state. The fact that the encounter rate bug has been known since the backer beta and hasn't been fixed is just insane. PC users shouldn't be forced to hard cap their monitors refresh rate just to get the game to work right. What was the point of the backer beta if they just weren't going to fix all the issues that were discovered with it? I'd still likely recommend this even with the terrible localization, but the game just isn't ready to play right now. Too many bugs, some of them potentially game breaking, and no ETA on when the most severe of these bugs are supposed to be fixed.
A flawed series, but one worth playing Telltales Walking Dead (Season 1) is one of the most legendary games of all time. It was probably the best reviewed game of 2012. Top tier voice acting, writing and story, presentation that was groundbreaking and unique for it's time, and an episodic release structure that thankfully didn't catch on for any other studios, with Seasons 2 and 4 being just as good (Season 3 isn't great). Unfortunately, these games are essentially just glorified VNs, where you're essentially just watching things play out and the choices you get mean almost nothing aside from a select few. Nothing you do will affect the course of the story, or change the outcomes for most of the characters you meet. Everything will happen the same way, every time, regardless of your choices. That said, it doesn't really matter. Like a good VN, the lack of choice or interaction doesn't really matter when you're too busy being enthralled by the story. And while Season 3 is definitely lacking, Telltales Walking Dead as a whole has some of the best stories and characters in video game history. Worth playing at least once. Just know what you're getting into.
NWN2 is a weird game. It's pretty much identical to NWN1, aside from better graphics and better gameplay systems. However, it never really caught on as much as NWN1 did. There aren't as many modules that were made for it, and nowhere near as many PWs. Eventually it was abandoned, and because the game never got an "Enhanced Edition" upgrade like NWN1 did, it's incredibly buggy in it's current state. However, if you can get it on sale, then it's worth playing for a nice little gem known as "Mask of the Betrayer". It's an expansion of NWN2's base campaign, and it's without a doubt the best official module in the entire NWN series, and arguably one of Obsidian's best works. It's brutally difficult, borderline unfair, and riddled with bugs caused by NWN2's ancient engine, but at it's core is an incredible story and an amazing adventure. Aside from MotB, there isn't really much here. There are a few decent user made modules, but at the end of the day you'll get more mileage out of buying NWN1 instead.
Chained Echoes is the first game in a long time to really surprise me. Made by one person, Chained Echoes is a love letter to the JRPG genre, specifically the SNES era. It takes all the tropes, story beats and gameplay that we know and love, but cuts out all the fat that makes the genre unappealing to some. If I had to describe it, it's essentially a mix of Chrono Trigger, Suikoden 2, Xenogears and FF6 but with it's own unique aspects to keep things fresh. Pros: -Fantastic pacing. The story never got boring, and there was little to no filler. Things just kept going and never stopped until the game was over. -Good crafting system and character building. -Amazing QoL. Health + Mana restores after every fight, guaranteed escapes, many difficulty options, waymarks for most quests + a quest log. -Good story and lore, with potential for a sequel. -Unique combat system that makes you be careful about the skills you use, and when you use them. -Fair bit of side content and post game content Cons: -Mech Battles. The mech system in this game is boring, and you're constantly forced to fight bosses with them. The standard combat system is great but the mechs are dull and weak with little customization. -Poor english translation. I don't know if it was machine translated but the english dialogue really isn't great and does bring down the story a bit. -Weird balancing. The standard enemies in the game are tougher than the bosses, and the bosses are really easy. -The ending. The rest of the story was fine but the ending is genuinely horrendous. It's poorly set up, makes no logical sense and it left a really bad taste in my mouth by the time the credits were finished. Overall, Chained Echoes is a game worth playing if you love the JRPG genre. While it has it's flaws (if the ending was better I might have given it 5 stars), it's still well worth the price. Main story + most of the side quests took me ~ 27 hours.
Skyrim is the most successful single player RPG of all time. You've played it, I've played it, everybody has played it. Everyone already knows it's a good game so reviews are useless. Having it on GOG is nice, since now every singleplayer TES game is available DRM free. If you haven't played this in a while, or you're one of the few that's just never given it a try, then go read up on a mod guide and have full tinkering with the game for hours and hours. Or, install a premade wabbajack modpack. While vanilla Skyrim might have it's issues, a fully modded Skyrim game is an unmatched experience that very few RPGs can even hope to compete with.
