It’s now mid-November, which means I have been writing this blog on a weekly basis for two solid years now. There have been a few times I have missed the blog over the past couple of years, but maybe only three or four times a year this has happened.

That’s a lot of the same old, same old.

I have tried to introduce a little variety into my weekly blog, but when it comes down to it, I tend to follow the same old formula with each.

Now I’ll start this week with Fallout 4. I got my copy on Monday night, but did not get a chance to start playing it until Tuesday. I’ve already put about 20 hours into the game and I have barely begun to explore it.

It is still very similar to Fallout 3 and New Vegas, but there are some serious changes to the game. First and this is a nice loss, weapons and armor no longer break down as you use them, with one exception! Your powered armor components can be damaged and break down during combat. Never fear, you can easily repair them.

Secondly, there is no level cap. So if you were like me in the first two games, you hit the max level about halfway through. Now you can level to your hearts content.

Gone are the skill points. They are now all covered by perks.

And you can modify the shit out of everything! Weapons, armor, powered armor, etc. And to get the supplies to do these mods, you now can use all those empty bottles, cameras, dishes, wonderglue and so forth you always found lying around. Absolutely everything can be salvaged and turned into useful components.

Also missing is your home, but don’t fret – now you can have an entire community! You have to build everything, and put up defenses, so the options of what you can do are unlimited.

Love the game!

In honor of the game, I have already converted two new mutant monsters for your pleasure. The Bloodbug, and the Radstag. I’ve got more that will be written up as I get the time and discover them.

When it comes to monsters, yes I posted two last week, one of which is incredibly vile and disgusting, based on a picture I saw of a ‘click bait’ image on Facebook. This is the horrible Lotus Blossom. Vile beyond belief and thank god the actual image is fake, because it is difficult to look at!

The other creature is a giant turtle, the Gamma Turtle. And as is the case, two more will be going up tomorrow.

I would also like to send special thanks out to the Gamma World Online FB page as well as the Loose Bolts game page for inspiration. Next week at least one of the new creatures I am creating will be from an image they posted.

This week’s D-infinity live was all about robots, and it’s a pity that I couldn’t be there for it. Still, as always, it’s worth checking out!

I’ve posted Chapter 43 of Buck Who? This week and although I keep saying it will be 2 weeks until it’s finished, I’m still writing. I just finished chapter 46 on Friday and hope to end it next week with Chapter 47, and then the Epilogue.

Way things went I could have continued to write for 52 weeks!

This weekend saw my wife and I watch a DVD called ‘The Hybrid’ about a group of mercenaries who are sent to infiltrate a Russian research facility hidden in a war-torn contested zone. There they are to retrieve a scientist as well as a special package, a chimera of a sort.

It was not the greatest movie I have seen and the story was not well executed. I would not really recommend it to anyone, unless there is nothing else worth watching. I will end up making a conversion of the Hybrid in the near future however.

And as for books, I finished a WW3 style novel called ‘Ghost Fleet’ by P. W. Singer and August Cole. As war novels went, this had very little action, which was in my opinion a bit of a let-down. It had plenty of characterization and some really neat ideas when it came to how cyber-warfare will be used in a major future war, but honestly I found it a bit dull.

Maybe I’m getting old but hey, don’t worry about what I have to say, check it out yourself, you might enjoy it more than I did. I am tempted to purchase his books on Mercenaries and Future Warfare, just for reference material!

And that’s it for this week. Please give my Personal Author Facebook page a like!

Stay warm, and stay happy! Don’t let the media scare the hell out of you like they’re trying so damn hard to do!