But What if I Don't Like Fallout 4?

If you've been paying attention to almost any mainstream culture over the past few weeks, you probably would have noticed a certain buzz in some quarters about an enormous new post apocalyptic role playing game. Fallout 4 arrived this month with an appropriately nuclear sized bang and seems to have taken over the world. No doubt you have seen the adverts, both on the internet and in the real world. The internet is awash with talk of it, your friends and their kids are talking about it, and collectively its players have already spent hundreds of years of playtime exploring its post-nuclear wasteland.

And all that is wonderful for those that are into it. But what if you're like me, bitten by the post apocalyptic bug whilst having absolutely no interest in playing the game. Well, I'm here to help. Here are a few post-nuclear literary worlds you can immerse yourself in whilst your friends have disappeared because they're spending days at a time on their PlayStation.

Mortal Engines:

Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines quartet is set several thousand years and two or three world orders after the end of a cataclysmic event known as the Thirty Minute War. As a solution to the problem of the world's dwindling natural resources, many of the remaining inhabitants of the world have returned to a nomadic lifestyle and put their cities on wheels. Vast tracked cities roam the remains of Europe and a now empty North Sea gobbling up natural resources and hunting other cities in a system known as Municipal Darwinism.

If this all sounds a bit grim, rest assured, it isn't. Mortal Engines is a rip-snorting action-adventure on a massive scale, following two outcasts from London that has almost everything. There are the aforementioned cities on wheels. There are airships, gunfights, and humorous misunderstandings of the technology we left behind. There is a terrifying and unstoppable, yet sympathetic antagonist, and best of all, there is Hester Shaw. One of the strongest, angriest female leads I have ever laid my eyes upon. I really can't say enough good things about Mortal Engines, and if you enjoy a great adventure story, you need to put this on your list.

There is also a quartet of prequels, starting with Fever Crumb, set at the dawn of the traction age. Sadly, we may never see the fourth book, but the three that we have wrap up quite nicely on their own and are well worth your time. Just be sure to read Mortal Engines first.

The Metrozone:

Put simply, Simon Morden's Metrozone trilogy is Die Hard transplanted into London, with a post-nuclear twist.

Metrozone's world is one that has survived a wave of nuclear terrorism perpetrated by a group of Christian fundamentalists known as the Armageddonists. It is here that we meet the lovably unlovable scientist, Russian refugee, and possible sociopath, Samuil Petrovich. A chance decision to intervene in a kidnapping sets off a chain of events involving the Neo-Yakuza, an all powerful computer virus called the New Machine Jihad, some car chases, some crashes, many explosions, a few giant robots, several heart attacks, and a warrior nun. And that's just the first book.

Just like Die Hard, the story tears along at breakneck pace and Morden takes great delight in beating the stuffing out of his leading man. You'll read these books in a single sitting. They're that good.

Metro 2033:

And now for something a little different. Metro 2033, by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky is an altogether more plausible study of what we might become in the aftermath of the unthinkable. Set twenty years after a nuclear strike on Moscow, what might be humanity's last remains make the best of what they have living in the world's largest bomb shelter, the Moscow Metro. Unremittingly bleak from beginning to end, the inhabitants are beset by terrors from all sides. The surface is devastated by war and given to the mutants. Radiation seeps through the cracks and makes everyone sick. People lose their minds in the darkness of the tunnels or to the Dark Ones who periodically venture down from the surface. And of course there are the other people, who can be much worse than all of that. 

So yes, Metro 2033 is dark, but it's also an excellent study of how we band together to cope with the most extreme situations and a compelling journey to take alongside Artyom, the story's leading man. Read it and feel the terror at how close we once were to this book becoming reality.

Wool:

Continuing the bleak, we move onto Hugh Howey's Wool. In Wool, we find ourselves with Juliet, living in a silo with no contact with the outside world except for what's shown on the screens in the main communal area. Those screens show a completely dead vista of lifeless foothills and hints of towers in the distance. As a power struggle and rumblings of an uprising begin to brew, Juliet finds herself caught in the middle, and that's when the real trouble starts for her.

Whilst Wool is less unremittingly grim than Metro 2033, it still has a very downbeat and dystopian tone. The society in the silo is very much two tiered, and very controlled. The elites of the upper floors tend to look down upon the people of the lower floors, who as usual are the people who actually keep the civilisation running. Particularly cruel is the twist inflicted upon anybody unlucky enough to be sent to the surface. Like Metro 2033, Wool is scary because it's so plausible, and it's very much worth your time for that reason.

Shades of Grey:

Let's finish on something light, shall we? When you open the covers of Jasper Fforde's Shades of Grey, you find yourself in Chromatacia; Britain several hundred years after The Something That Happened. A Britain where your place in society is determined by the colours you can and can't see. In fact, almost everything in this society, likened by Fforde as an English grammar school as run by Pol Pot, is determined by colour. From the names of towns and places to a person's job, to whom you can and can't associate with, even your name. Amusingly, certain shades of green have narcotic effects and stronger shades, such as lincoln, are strictly controlled.

Also, there is a critical shortage of spoons.

So yes, Shades of Grey is a very strange book, and it drops you in at the deep end, with leading man Eddie Russet about to be digested by a carnivorous tree. There's a lot to take in, but thankfully, Shades of Grey has an ace up it's sleeve. It is very funny, which helps lubricate the gears of your mind as you try to catch up with the strange place you've found yourself in. Once you're up to speed however, things quickly get sinister, stranger and amazingly, funnier. The plot barrels along through a conspiracy that will shake the characters' worldview to its core and on to an ending that will definitely play on your mind. 

I love this book, and have recommended it to pretty much everyone who's ever asked me what they should be reading. If I have one gripe with it, it's that the next book isn't coming soon enough.

Join the DriveClub

I got the DriveClub platinum, and frankly it's a bit of a surprise, because I hated DriveClub for a long time. I hear you ask, why did you buy it if you hated it, and how did you end up with a platinum trophy for it?

The honest answer is that I ended up with DriveClub because it was that or Destiny when some cheap PS4 bundles came up earlier in the year. I figured that despite the middling reviews, I'd probably enjoy it more than a multiplayer focussed FPS that I had zero interest in. That was the idea anyway. I played the first leg of the tour mode, and wasn't impressed. Driveclub felt bland. To my eye, it looked constantly washed out and flat, barely any better than WRC 4 on the PS2 (still Evolution Studios' high point). I adjusted my TV's settings to no avail. Of course, I'm not one to dismiss a game on it's looks, but it played pretty badly too. The drift model was utterly terrible for a start, but as I played, I encountered overly aggressive AI and random difficulty spikes. I put the game down, and downloaded Oddworld: New n Tasty, Hotline Miami, and Hohokum so that I could play something fun on my expensive new console.

Something kept pulling me back to DriveClub though. It was a game that I really wanted to enjoy, but I'd end up quitting after an hour and staying away for a few weeks. It was like the game was actively trying to make me hate it. Let's put it this way, I was glad that it was a pack-in and that I hadn't paid for it.

If ever there was an advert against releasing an unfinished game, DriveClub is it. Conversely, if ever there was an advert for constant patching and expansion of a game, DriveClub, weirdly, is also it.

Every time a new patch came down, I'd try the game again. Surprisingly, DriveClub got better with every one. It was barely noticeable at first, but the turning point for me came when the drift model was tweaked. Suddenly I was able to carve long, graceful, tire-smoking arcs through the Drift events that had given me so much trouble in the early days. DriveClub was beginning to become enjoyable. Then came the changes to the amount of friction the off track areas had, meaning that a slight mistake no longer meant an instant spin and a restart. I played a little further through the tour until I stopped enjoying it again. The game really got it's claws into me after the release of the patch coinciding with the Unite in Speed DLC pack. Somehow most of my grievances about the game had been polished away, and I devoured the remainder of the on-disc content, getting all of the tour stars in the process. The game still looked pretty boring though.

Once the tour was finished, I was happy with what DriveClub had become and the time I had spent with it. I thought I was done. Then I looked at the trophy list. I was six trophies away from the platinum.

Bugger.

I used my Fiance's profile to get the challenge trophies, but there was no way I was getting the progression trophies without spending more hours playing the game, which was something I was unwilling to do.

Then something amazing (or terrible) happened. The price of the season pass dropped to a tenner. Now, I've always been against DLC for the most part. Especially if it's announced before the release of the game. If you're announcing DLC before its parent game is out, there's no reason why it can't be in the game on release. But that's a rant for another time. With my judgement clouded by the desire for the platinum trophy, I counted up the events in the DLC tours and realised that there was more content in the DLC than in the actual game. I was effectively getting a whole extra game for a tenner. And I hadn't technically paid for the main game. I hit the buy button.

Playing the DLC, there was no doubt in my mind that a lot of it should have been in the game on release. Particularly the dynamic weather. And if Evolution had another 12 months to finish making the game, it probably would have been. But the expanded content bought DriveClub to life. The loose themes of each tour pack gave the game the personality it so desperately needed and the weather turned a bland looking world into one that is simply gorgeous.

Run a race at dawn in the rain. Watch the world turn gold as the sun comes up. Watch the light stream through the trees and reflect off the puddles. Look at the rainbow over the castle. You won't find anything in gaming much prettier than that at the moment. I'm painting with broad strokes there. The little details really sell it. Headlights from the following cars reflect in rear view mirrors. Water streams across your windscreen as you change direction. Brake lights refract through the water on the lens of the chase cam. Every light you can think of reflects off the road. Spray kicks up as you hit standing water. The world turns momentarily blue when night-time lightning strikes. Light snow touches the bodywork of your car and melts.

What I'm trying to say is that DriveClub has become a joy to look at as well as a joy to play. I spent weeks playing through all the new stuff, and at the end of it all I was only a short grind away from the platinum. This is exactly the kind of trophy hunting I like. Trophies gained by playing through everything the game has to offer, rather than arbitrary tasks that you'd never do in the course of normal gameplay.

With the short grind done (only an hour), and my platinum in the collection, I was done. Over the course of the year, and thanks to many patches, DriveClub has metamorphosed from a game that was at best mediocre into an excellent one that I would recommend to any racing game fan. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's the sequel to Project Gotham 4 that we never got. It's that good. So try it. Pick it up on the cheap, get the season pass and you have hours of fun on twenty-five quid, and a fairly straightforward platinum to boot.

The only problem for me now is that Evolution went and added motorbikes just days after I thought I was finished with DriveClub. There's some seriously exotic metal in there that really scratches my biker itch. There's a fresh platinum too.

Here we go again.

What I'd like to see in Zelda WiiU

I've been playing Zelda an awful lot of late, and I've been thinking about what I'd like to see in Zelda when it finally appears on the WiiU. So without further ado, here's a list of the things I'd like to see in ZeldaU.

A ripping yarn

Nintendo made a big step with storytelling in Skyward Sword. Yes it still hinged on the usual kidnap cliche, but in Skyward Sword Link and Zelda had a proper relationship, which meant he had an actual reason to go after her. Let's hope they make another step up in the quality of their stories and give us something epic and properly affecting.

A massive world

A forgone really, since the trailer specifically focussed on an open world. I'd like to see Nintendo go further than that and not just give us Hyrule, but open up some of the rest of the world as well. I'd love the quest to extend to Termina and Kohlint Island. At the same time, the world needs to be filled with life and look like it can support the people living in it.

Towns that feel lived in

I'd love for the places I visit in the next Zelda to feel like functioning communities. In the past, there have been technical limits to how populated a town could be. Hyrule Castle Town in Ocarina of Time for instance felt more like a diorama or a stage set than somewhere where people actually lived. Fable II, despite its faults has this feeling nailed. Bowerstone feels like a thriving community. There was a pub on the Town Square, a blacksmith, food stands, residential areas and shops hidden in back streets. People mingled and complained about their rent. It felt like life went on whether you were there or not. I want to see fields full of grain to feed the population. I want so see trains of cattle from LonLon Ranch being driven to the big city. I want to see people travelling. I want to see people living. Zelda towns exist in a kind of stasis, with people repeating the same lines and motions until the next story beat. For Hyrule to feel like a living world it needs touches like these.

Technology

Hyrule has been pre-industrial for pretty much every game. I'd like to think that the steampunkish monster in the trailer hints at some kind of advance in technology for the world of Hyrule. It would be very cool to see a Hyrule just on the cusp of an industrial revolution. Perhaps one fuelled by the rediscovery and reverse engineering of the ancient technology hinted at in Skyward Sword. A new world where cobbled together old tech sits uncomfortably next to new inventions could be compelling.

Horseback battling

One of my favorite parts of Twilight Princess was charging the Moblin King on the bridge. The horseback battles were some of the coolest and most cinematic moments of the game. I'd like to see them make a return on the WiiU.

Lose the musical instruments

They're annoying and they've become a cliche. Can we have a game without them please?

A day/night cycle

I love being out on Hyrule field and watching the sun set. If the new world of Zelda WiiU is going to feel like a place that could really exist. A day and night cycle is essential.

Motion control

I never thought I'd say this, but motion controls in Skyward Sword made it a better game. It would be a shame to lose them in favour of the gamepad in the new Zelda. Yes, the controls could be improved upon, so let's hope Nintendo do that. It could be amazing.

A separate, playable Zelda  story

Did you ever wonder what Zelda got up to when she was out journeying in Skyward Sword? What about how she became Sheik? Wouldn't it be cool if the next game had playable scenes where Zelda's story got told?

The ability to choose Link’s gender

Lets face it, in most Zelda games it doesn't matter if Link is a boy or not. Think about it. What would change in any game if Link was a girl in any of the Zelda games. Okay, it might lend Skyward Sword a couple of sapphic undertones, but it still wouldn't make any difference to the story at all. There were a lot of positive noises when the trailer for ZeldaU was first revealed and the internet thought that Link was a girl. Let us choose Link's gender. It'd be cool.

Voice work

Come on Nintendo, it's 2015. Let's have some voice acting in your games already. Just not in the vein of, "excuuuse me princess!"

Robin Williams.

Because it would be a fitting tribute to a man who gave so much laughter to the world and loved Zelda enough to name his daughter after her. Credit to http://oscarjoyo.tumblr.com/ for the image