Although Fallout 4 has enjoyed a largely glowing reception since its release, longtime series fans are not without gripes. One of the most frequent complaints has been about the simplification of the dialog system. Where previous entries in the franchise provided a list of full-text options for the player’s potential responses, Fallout 4 has reduced these to a dialogue wheel of four options, similar to in BioWare RPGs, where a few words (“yes,” “no,” “sarcastic,” etc) stand in for the general sentiment of what the player will say. Many players have found this to be reductive, and at times even misleading, not providing clear enough choices so that the player can make informed decisions. Fortunately, Bethesda learned well from the ongoing success of Skyrim and is providing robust support for fan-made mods. One of the latest and most popular of these mods for Fallout 4 addresses this issue, recreating the full-text dialogue list in lieu of the wheel.
Full dialogue was created by modders Shadwar and Cirosan, and is available for download now on NexusMods. The mod replaces the dialogue wheel with a list of the complete text for what the player will say. Options that require persuasion are still color-coded to indicate how difficult they will be. The mod works for all instances of dialogue in the game except for dismissing companions, for some reason.
As has always been the case, the mod is only available for the game on PC, but it will likely make its way onto Xbox One eventually as well, as announced by Bethesda and Microsoft during this past year’s E3 conference. This is a first for console games, and is indicative of the increasingly thin line between PC and console gaming underneath the hood. Mod support will also make its way to PlayStation 4 at some point afterwards, as game director Todd Howard told The Telegraph. There is no word on a date yet for when mods will be coming to either console.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.