The Best & Worst Fallout 3 & New Vegas DLCs

Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas continually duke it out to see which is my favourite of the two - they're so damn similar - see Between Two Wastelands - it can be hard to choose. Ultimately, I tend to plump for Fallout 3, because it seems like a bigger and overall better game, with more locations, characters, better music and better quests - but Fallout: New Vegas has many features I love too, like hardcore mode and the faction rankings.

Anyway - because these games are so similar, I decided that I could compare their DLCs easily, and compile this list - my favourite and least favourite of the Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas DLCs. There are 9 in total, with 5 from Fallout 3 and 4 from Fallout: New Vegas. I'm not including the Courier's Stash or Gun Runners Arsenal in this countdown, because as far as I'm concerned - they're just item packs and don't add any new characters, quests, locations or storylines.

Also, bear in mind - I enjoyed ALL of these DLCs in their own way - just some, I enjoyed WAY more than others. I recommend you buy them ALL - because they're worth buying, none of them should be totally avoided.

Obviously, this countdown contains SPOILERS.

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9. Operation: Anchorage 
My least favourite DLC is Fallout 3's Operation: Anchorage.If this DLC was related to any game other than Fallout, I would probably have been kinder to it. To me, this just isn't Fallout. I like the concept behind it - showing you the events surrounding the liberation of Anchorage and how it lead to the current Fallout setting - but was virtual reality the best way to do it? To me, this just doesn't feel like the same game, it feels like one of those less-than-wonderful 1st-person-shooter titles... It's also far too linear, allowing for VERY little exploration. Also, is it me, or do you think the person you play as in the virtual reality shouldn't be your character? To me, it seemed odd that all of your stats and stuff carried over - I think it would have been cooler if you got to play as a different person with a different skillset. Also, because it's virtual reality - you don't get to keep any of your lovely spoils - in fact, you can't loot corpses or pick up random clutter - you are only allowed to interact with specific objects. It's too restrictive and it's too linear - this is not Fallout.

8.  Honest Hearts
My second least favourite DLC out of all the DLCs in Fallout 3 and New Vegas is the 2nd one from New Vegas, Honest Hearts. This is another DLC, which to me doesn't feel like a Fallout game. The whole area isn't too different from the Mojave Desert - perhaps this would have been a better DLC for Fallout 3? The contrast between the urban Capital Wasteland and the Zion Canyon would have been so cool - but to me, there isn't much of a difference between the Mojave and Zion. The new tribal style weapons and crafting recipes were pretty cool - but to me, the choice system didn't feel too different - which was evident by the fact you received the same XP and prizes no matter what path you chose - the followers were quite meh and the whole area was rather small and sparse with hardly anywhere to explore. It's also the DLC that feels the shortest overall to me - and left the smallest impression - in fact, I had to replay the bloody thing to remind myself of what happens in order to write this countdown!

7. Dead Money
Next is the first DLC released for Fallout: New Vegas, Dead Money. Now, on paper, the whole poisonous cloud idea sounded pretty good - it seemed like something that would really fit in with the whole hardcore mode survival aspect - adding to that is the fact that when you first arrive, you are stripped of all of your items - making so you had to cope with what you could find - also, very cool. However - the poisonous cloud? It's a massive PAIN IN THE FUCKING ARSE. It's fucking EVERYWHERE and there's no way to bloody get rid of it. Adding to this, the questline is a bit meh, the characters are a bit meh - I'm a pacifist, I tried to keep everyone happy so I didn't have to kill anyone - screw up one dialogue check and that plan goes out of the window - it's damn near impossible to get all of the gold bars without cheating or following a painstaking route, the Sierra Madre itself seems a bit barren, not really much to do - can't return to the area once it's completed - Mehhhh.

6. Broken Steel
Next on the list is the Broken Steel DLC from Fallout 3. While I appreciate what this DLC set out to do, for first-time players - it can prove to be a massive pain in the arse. Case in point - the fucking Super Mutant Overlords! These twats are designed to be fought at higher levels, like what you would be when you attempt this post-game DLC quest - but no, they get threw into the early areas of the game too, and can very easily overpower you, unless you use grenades or set your difficulty to Very Easy. I liked the quests that revolved around the Aqua Pura or Aqua Cura - but I didn't like the final quest with Liberty Prime and all the other Brotherhood bullshit, so I didn't really enjoy the continuation - unlike in Fallout: New Vegas, you couldn't choose who to side with, it was thrust upon you. Also, as most of the quests took place in existing areas, there weren't many new lands or areas to explore, just new Capital Wasteland ones crowbarred into existing areas. Meh.

5. The Pitt
Next is the second DLC from Fallout 3, The Pitt. This DLC really gives you a chance to be totally on whatever moral side you want to be - virtuous paragon or cold-blooded devil. You start out as a slave and are forced to compete in an arena, fighting other slaves, as well as going on scavenger hunts around a dangerous factory infested with mutants to find steel ingots - eventually allowing you climb the ranks of slaves until you can be accepted as a slaver, rather than a slave. The final quest then makes you choose which group to side with - perfect for those who prefer a good or evil character, not so great for those who like to remain neutral. I would also say that the scavenger hunt quest is a perfect opportunity to explore, but the DLC lacks player homes, massive open areas to explore and followers - the standard goodies most DLCs come with.

4. Point Lookout
Next is the Point Lookout DLC from Fallout 3. As you've probably gathered, I like to explore. Any huge open area with lots of locations to discover is bound to be a hit with me. Hence Point Lookout, which has what I believe to be the biggest new map added by a DLC - I spent a long time mooching around this great place, picking the wild Punga Fruit and fighting off the psycho hill-billy locals - not only is it great for explorers, the quests aren't half bad either - especially the quest that involves ingesting the hallucinogenic seeds of the Mother Punga - leading to a trippy sequence of smashing Nuka Cola Quantums, giant Bobbleheads and coming face-to-face with the corpse of your dead mother.

3. Lonesome Road
Next is the final DLC released for Fallout: New Vegas, Lonesome Road. Is Fallout too easy for you? Do you need a challenge in your life? Then look no further. Lonesome Road is the most challenging DLC of the Fallout games I've played - namely due to some of the most highly irradiated areas in the game, bosses and enemies with ridiculously overpowered weapons and armour, a general lack of supplies lying around and vending machines with overpriced merchandise. The title Lonesome Road is a little misleading, however - as you do get a 'new' companion, in the form of a prototype? E-DE robot - which has the added bonus of the ED-E companion in the Mojave Wasteland receiving the same upgrades, allowing him to craft weapons, ammunition and the like. The quests are relatively simple, all really given the target of getting through each area - which allows you to explore said areas to your heart's content. The side mission of detonating all of the discarded nuclear warheads is also a great scavenger hunt quest and the ridiculously overpowered secret Deathclaw boss is fucking insane. Also, the main antagonist of the DLC, Ulysses is one of the biggest knobs in gaming - who constantly talks to you, but his dialogue choices will change depending on choices you previously made in the main game, such as who you sided with.

2. Mothership Zeta
My second-favourite DLC is the Mothership Zeta DLC from Fallout 3. This DLC is great, based purley on how different it is. You're not exploring forgotten reaches of nuclear-blasted wasteland like every other DLC - you're on a fucking alien spaceship! The DLC even opens with a nice 1st-person shot of your character being violently anally probed - completed with screen blood. (Anal probes are funny :P) Also, unlike some other DLCs, the mothership remains accessible (some of it anyway) after completing the DLC, it comes with some great characters, most of which can be followers - and it can double as a player home. To go along with the alien theme, there's a shitload of new weapons and items - complete with the standard fare, under the guise that the aliens are studying Earth's technology and culture - awesome. While some of the quests can be a little linear, and as a mentioned earlier - some of the areas become blocked off after they're completed, the fun characters, interesting quests and overall different feel - Mothership Zeta is out of this world. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

1. Old World Blues
And my personal favourite DLC is Old World Blues, from Fallout: New Vegas. This DLC is fucking amazing. It embodies both the classic Fallout wasteland feel as well as embracing the more advanced technology with robots, laser weaponry, cyborg dogs and it also includes the utterly bizarre. The characters are all great, some of them are genuinely hilarious - especially your disembodied brain. Speaking of which, at the start of this DLC, you're stripped of not only your equipment - but your major organs - your heart, your brain and your spine - which can really mess with your current SPECIAL points and character skillset. The new items and weapons are a lot of fun, the enemies are a tough challenge - the quests are all very different and some even provide a unique challenge - such as the stealth maze. Probably the best part of this DLC is the amazing player home known as The Sink - in which all of your household objects talk - including slutty lightswitches, a germophobic basin, a psychotic toaster hell-bent on world domination, a suave fertilizer station and Muggy - your own personal mini Secruitron who is obsessed with coffee mugs. This DLC allows for maximum exploration as well as quests, sidequests and secrets and never once feels restrictive or linear. Amazing from start to finish - you MUST play it.

My Skyrim Mods List

I loves me some Skyrim. I played it first on the scrubby Xbox 360 and frankly, the ridiculous glitches, endless loading screens and broken achievements almost turned me off the game altogether. But then I heard the gentle humming coming from Amazon; it was Skyrim: Legendary Edition for the PC calling to me. 

And what is the best thing about a PC version? After console commands, quicker loading times and better graphics? MODS.

I've compiled a list of all of the mods I use - of course I've used more than what's here, but I've deleted shitty ones and ones that clashed - but these are the ones I can't recommend highly enough. Click on the RED names for a link to their download page on the Nexus (because the Steam Workshop fucking sucks), and remember to endorse!

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A Matter Of Time - This simple mod adds a clock to your Skyrim HUD, which has the option to include the day, month, year and lunar cycle - it's a very handy little tool.

Achieve That! - Achieve That! adds a whole bunch of new "achievements" to the mod menu - things like killing so many dragons, collecting so much gold or reaching a certain level without using alchemy or reaching a certain level killing under a certain number of NPCs. Completing these tasks also have an incentive - you collect 'glory' points, which can then be traded to increase health, stamina, magicka, speed, carry weight etc.

Add DLC Items - This mod gives the merchants in the Riften market items from the Dragonborn DLC - allowing you to purchase items like Ash Yams and Stalhrim in Skyrim.

Agent Of Righteous Might - This mod is a fully voice-acted and lore-friendly quest mod that allows you to join forces with a branch of the Vigilants of Stendarr, the Agents of Righteous Might in order to bring down a cult made up of remnants of the Mythic Dawn. I shan't spoil too much, but it adds hours of fun new gameplay and five new dungeons.

Atlas Map Markers - This mod adds hundreds of map markers to the Skyrim world map, as well as the island of Solthstheim, Blackreach and the Soul Cairn. It adds markers to all of the secret nooks and crannies - usually where you would find hidden skill books or unique items - like campsites, dead bodies, ruins and abandoned shacks - this is a great mod for people who like to find EVERYTHING.

Better Favour Jobs - This mod makes radiant quests more rewarding - as their rewards now scale to your speechcraft level. In addition, you can now sell firewood, ores, ignots etc. to more buyers across Skyrim, increasing friendship levels and allowing you to make money quickly, which is useful at the start of the game.

Black Books Begone - This mod places pedestals in an empty downstairs room in Severin Mansion in Raven Rock - allowing you to display the Black Books you collect throughout the Dragonborn DLC. It also allows you to store them away nicely so you're not lugging them around Skyrim forever, where you can't even activate them. There is also a plugin that creates a storage rack for the Elder Scrolls from the Dawnguard DLC too.

Book Covers Skyrim - This mod re-textures all of the books, journals and notes that are included Vanilla Skyrim with lovely new coloured binding, cover pictures and spines so you can easily locate a book on your bookshelves. Books that come in multiple volumes will also match and skill books will come marked with a little star on their spines so they can be identified easily. Journals and notes are also re-textured and come with blood stains, dirt or damage when necessary.

Book Covers Skyrim: Lost Library - Installed along with Book Covers Skyrim, this mod adds over 200 books from other Elder Scrolls Games; Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion - which can be found at merchants and scattered around the world - a must for book lovers who also liked to collect books in the older Elder Scrolls games. These books also have lovely new textures that fit in well with the other re-textured books from Book Covers Skyrim.

BorderSense - BorderSense is a simple mod that gives you a message in the corner of the screen when entering a new hold - and can also display your bounty, if you have one. It has several settings, including an immersive mode, which mentions a hold's temperature, landmarks and environment.

Corners Of Skyrim - This mod adds seven new locations to some of the sparser areas of the Skyrim map - providing you with several new places to rest, cook and craft. It also comes with a few new followers who hang out at these locations - they're all quite generic, but it's good that they're included, nonetheless - also good for those of us who have mods that increase the number of followers we can have to build our own army. :)

Cutting Room Floor - This mod adds in content that was cut from the original release - characters, quests, sidequests, locations, weapons, armour and items - and it fits in fairly seamlessly. Pictured here is the Thalmor Headquarters, which is added to the city of Solitude - damn those elves to Oblivion!

Dynamic Loot - This mod comes with tons of customisation options, allowing you to control what types of loot enemies drop - you can make mages drop more soul gems or ingredients and increase the likelihood of enemies carrying books, clutter or rare items.

Dynamic Things - This is a mod for those who love to make Skyrim as immersive as possible. This mod makes a lot of the usual static objects useful - like using training dummies and archery targets to actually raise your skills and searching hay bales and wood piles for materials.

Enhanced Blood Textures - I'm a firm believer in gameplay over graphics - but I have to admit, the blood textures in Skyrim were really lacking. This mod adds screen blood, weapon blood, persistent wound marks on enemies, yourself and your followers - and really adds to the creepy, gory effect of places like torture dungeons and bandit massacres.

Expanded Carriage Service - This mod allows you to travel to the smaller holds of Skyrim via carriage and also places a carriage driver in these towns - namely Falkreath, Morthal, Dawnstar and Winterhold. Very convenient if you're like me and don't like to fast travel.

Extended Encounters - If you're like me and try to avoid fast travelling - you must love random encounters. This mod adds over 50 new encounters with NPCs while traversing the roads of Skyrim - some are very unique and will liven up your travels.

Falskaar - Falskaar is a mod that adds a huge new land to Skyrim, around the size of 3 regular Skyrim holds and also comes with 26 new quests, tons of new items, two new spells, a new shout and comes with its own unique soundtrack. Falskaar can easily add 30 more hours of gameplay as you explore and interact with the new NPCs.

Follower Commentary Overhaul - This mod adds a ton of new dialogue to the followers, most of which was already in Vanilla Skyrim, but has been re-purposed as quips from your followers. I like my followers to waffle on behind me - very companionable.

Frostfall - Quite possibly the best mod for those who want their game to be as immersive as possible. Frostfall adds a temperature mechanic to the game - so you now have to keep an eye on your character's body temperature and keep them warm with furs, cloaks, campfires and waiting out snowstorms in tents. The mod also adds a shitload of new craftable items with temperature control in mind.

Glowing Ore Veins - This mod gives ore veins and gem deposits a bright glow, which makes them 100 times easier to see - very useful in dark mines or for those deposits of ore that just blend in with the landscape.

Guard Dialogue Overhaul - This mod changes guards' interactions with you, depending on your questing experience. At first, they will be rude and dismissive - but the more quests you complete, the more people you help out etc. they will become more respecting of you and more talkative - ensuring you hear different lines of dialogue, possibly ones that you've never heard. This mod doesn't add any new dialogue to their repertoire, but simply recycles existing dialogue in a new and interesting way.

Harvest Overhaul - This mod fixes some of the really unbalanced aspects of looting in Skyrim - like removing gold from animal corpses. Why would a deer be carrying 20 Septims? It also includes a lite mode which reduces the amount of flowers you can pick - good for alchemists who need a challenge - and makes hanging animals contain more realistic loot, such as roe in salmon.

Haven Bag  - Haven Bag is a portable player home/ storage area that you can access at any time by using the included item the "Haven Bag" - inside the bag you'll find a bed, a smelter, an alchemy table, an enchanting table, an anvil, a workbench, a grindstone and an absolute shit-ton of storage chests - great for hoarders like me who want an easy place to access all of their crap.

Helgen Reborn - Often voted as the best quest mod for Skyrim, Helgen Reborn follows a group of mercenaries working to rebuild Helgen, and most of the legwork falls to you - like recruiting guards and taking them out on training missions, deciding whether Helgen should be an independent town or to side with the Imperials or Stormcloaks and rebuild the burned-out towers and buildings.

Hidden Hideouts of Skyrim - This mod adds some new secret caves, camps and hidey-holes to the world of Skyrim - very useful for people who play with extra immersion mods and may be in need of more places to rest, cook and craft items. There are 21 in total, and you can toggle on how immersive you want them to be - to be marked on your map or not, or whether they come with basic camping equipment already inside or are infested with wildlife or bandit gangs.

Hunterborn - Hunterborn is a mod that allows you to skin and butcher wildlife in a manner similar to Red Dead Redemption - and comes complete with new pelts, ingredients and meats. The more animals you skin and clean, the better you get - managing to skin pelts of greater value or butcher more prime cuts of meat.

Immersive Armours - Are you bored of finding the same old Vanilla Skyrim armour sets over and over? This mod adds hundreds of new armour sets and shields, which will be added to merchants, bandits and your Smithing crafting menu. As a bonus, many of these new armours can be smelted down into ingots, leather, firewood and ore so they can be reused.

Immersive Patrols - This mod places regular patrols of various groups and factions wandering along the paths of Skyrim - such as groups of Thalmor, Dawnguard, Stormcloak soldiers etc. Rival factions will also attack each other if their paths cross - which is fun to watch, or join in. This mod also injects life into the empty world map, which is invaluable if you're like me and don't like to fast travel.

Immersive Speechcraft - This mod offers more options when talking with NPCs - such as begging for food or money, asking for help in a fight, asking to become a follower, offering to barter and when approaching with your weapon drawn, attempting to mug them. The success of these interactions is based on your Speechcraft skill, which can be increased when your attempts at these interactions succeed.

Immersive Weapons - Immersive Weapons, obviously, goes along with Immersive Armours - adding tons of new craftable, buyable and lootable weapons to the game, which like the armours, can be smelted down into raw materials to be reused.

Inconsequential NPCs - Inconsequential NPCs adds tons of new NPCs to the towns and villages of Skyrim - practically all of which don't really give a shit about you. People like farmers, labourers, bar patrons, vagrants and servants to the wealthier families of Skyrim. All in all, this mod really injects the towns with more life, adding to immersion. Oh, and you can totally pickpocket everybody. #KhajiitThugLife

Increased Follower Limit - With this mod, you can have a whole army of followers with you - personally I tried to collect all of the Khajiit followers I could find, both modded in and Vanilla - outfitted them all with matching Stalhrim armour and fur cloaks. It works well with the other mods I've got that include followers, like Inigo and Interesting NPCs.

Ingredients Of Tamriel - This mod adds hundreds of ingredients from previous Elder Scrolls games to the inventories of apothecaries across Skyrim - it makes alchemy way more interesting. A slight downside is that some of the potions/poisons you can make can end up WAY overpowered - I once made a poison that was worth 20K gold...

Inigo - I could spend the rest of the year telling you about this amazing follower mod - Inigo is a purple Khajiit follower with hundreds of lines of recorded dialogue - he'll comment on your status, what you're carrying, spells you use, armour and weapons you use - and when prompted, he can ramble off all of your quest exploits and skills mastery. He's skilled in stealth and archery - a typical Khajiit build, and was a welcome addition to my Khajiit army of followers.

Interesting NPCs - Interesting NPCs is the logical opposite to Inconsequential NPCs - this mod adds tons of new characters, who are all packed WITH character. The voice acting for many of them is great, and lots of them can be recruited as followers and come complete  with their own unique sidequests.

Khajiit Speak - This is a must have mod if you play as a Khajiit character - it changes dialogue options to a more Khajiit-sounding speech pattern  - like referring to oneself by name or in the third person or calling the Nine Divines by their Ta'agra names.

Khajiit Child Maishia - I love Khajiits, and was very disappointed when I found in Vanilla Skyrim you can neither marry a Khajiit or adopt Khajiit children. Mods are the solution to all of life's problems. Maishia is a cute female Khajiit child who can be found in an abandoned shack in Skyrim and adopted. She has the default child voice, but other than that - is exactly what I wanted.

Left Hand Rings - With this mod, you and your followers can now wear a ring on each hand - allowing for lots more enchantments. These "left" rings can be crafted at a forge and use the same materials as the standard right hand rings.

Localised Thieves Guild Jobs - With this mod, you can choose WHERE your Thieves Guild jobs will take place - which makes it easier to access the special jobs and makes it so Delvin can't send you to bloody Raven Rock every two minutes for a bedlam job.

Lore-Based Loading Screens - Despite loading screens being virtually non-existent on the PC version, the more mods you use, the more likely the game is to need a loading screen. Anyway, this mod shows you information and lore about the world of Tamriel, including passages from books, information about weapons, items and enemies and the history of Daedric Princes and the Nine Divines.

Moon And Star - Another quest mod, Moon and Star focuses on tracking down a powerful criminal from Morrowind. Added by the mod is an island community called Little Vivec, which comes packed with new NPCs who provide you with sidequests. 

Moonpath To Elsweyr - This is a quest mod that finally explores the land of the Khajiit, Elsweyr. The world is beautifully designed, with new flora and fauna - complete with lootable items - new quests and fully voice-acted characters. The downsides are that the quests are VERY linear - something a lot of people don't enjoy, the text has a lot of typos and some of the dialogue is very hit-and-miss - but the well-designed world and final recognition of the Khajiit makes up for it.

More Follower Voices - More Follower Voices adds dialogue to certain races and archetypes that previously didn't have voices - which makes mods that add new followers work much better. Existing characters are also given new lines of dialogue, making their incessant rambling less repetitive.

My Little Kitty Ma'Rakha - Another mod that adds a Khajiit child to Skyrim - Ma'Rakha is a male Khajiit child you can find at the Honorhall Orphanage and adopt him. He's cute - but unfortunately also has the Vanilla voice.

New Gnisis Cornerclub - This mod is an overhaul of the Dunmer tavern in Windhelm, the Gnisis Cornerclub. As well as adding in the various types of alcohol from Raven Rock, the club gets a good cleaning, new shelving, tables and wall décor.

Organised Bandits In Skyrim - Are you bored of the same old bandits spawning over and over again? The useless fools in fur armour with iron war axes? OBIS has hundreds of pre-made bandits, all from various factions with their own unique armour, weapons and combat style - which can be programmed to spawn either in the open or in dungeons. BE WARNED - set the spawn rate too high and you can be literally fighting 20 bandits at once, all equipped with high-end enchanted weapons and armour - crazy. 

Provincial Courier Service - Ever wondered where the courier goes when he's not delivering your letters? To his home in Whiterun hold, of course. This mod adds a little home for the courier, nearby to the Honningbrew Meadery.

Quick Start - This mod is invaluable for those who restart Skyrim a lot or need to fool around at the start of the game to get your massive amounts of mods to sync together properly. This mod skips the opening sequence at Helgen - starting you at the exit of the cave - and whoever you sided with is chosen with a simple pop-up window.

Realistic Needs & Diseases - After Frostfall, this is a must-have mod for immersion players. Like the Hardcore mode in Fallout: New Vegas, this mod makes it so your character has to regularly, eat, drink and sleep - as well as keep an eye out for diseases - which you can contact through eating rotten food, drinking river water or sleeping in a dirty bedroll. With this mod, diseases are more debilitating, as is letting your character go hungry, get dehydrated or deprive them of sleep.

Run For Your Lives - Are you sick of the NPCs in Skyrim vastly overestimating their chances against a dragon? Trying to stab it in the eye with a fucking IRON DAGGER? This mod makes all of the NPCs run away and hide, essentially - into the buildings. The guards will remain outside and fight the dragon, but the guards are husks with no personalities, and they respawn, so I don't care if they die.

SkyComplete - SkyComplete is a simple mod, but very useful to die-hard completionists. Added to the mod menu, SkyComplete has a full list of quests, sidequests, books, spells, enchantments, locations and more - most of which will be automatically ticked off once you have completed them. Radiant quests have to be marked off manually, however. There are also additional plugins for the Dragonborn and Dawnguard DLCs.

Skyrim Child Overhaul - This mod re-textures all of the Vanilla children in Skyrim, as well as adding some new children into the areas that are lacking in them, like Orc Strongholds and Raven Rock. The re-textures makes the children look way more unique by giving them different clothing, hairstyles and facial features. For example, the Jarl's children in Whiterun all have fancy clothes and hair, while beggar children are dirty and have worn-out clothing.

SkyUI - SkyUI is a no-brainer. Most mods require SkyUI to even work - but it's a great little plugin on its own. It completely overhauls the inventory, menu and magic screens - adding colourful icons to differentiate different types of items and can even arrange your items by name, weight, value, type of potion, type of weapon, armour rating etc. And for the book whores, a book is given a lovely little open-eye mark when you have read it.

Sometimes Pick Up Books - This is a simple mod that allows you to pick up books without reading them - which saves a lot of time if you're like me and pick up EVERYTHING - but can also allow you to save skill books to read at a later date.

Static Mesh Improvement Mod - This mod re-textures the 'static' world objects such as barrels, tables and the misc. clutter items you can pick up. I usually don't care for graphics mods, but when you spend your whole time picking up all of the random crap you can find and then displaying it in your player homes - this mod shines.

Stones of Barezniah Quest Markers - This is exactly what it says on the tin - each Stone of Barezniah now has a lovely map marker - making locating them all a breeze.

The Gray Cowl Of Nocturnal - This is another great quest mod, this time geared towards the Thief play style. Providing you with around 10 hours of stealthy, sneaky, stealy gameplay in a new area modelled on Hammerfell.

The Paarthumax Dilemma - This simple mod gives you the option to *SPOILERS, BY THE WAY*, tell the Blades to fuck off and let Paarthumax live. Paarthumax is awesome.

Trade & Barter - This mod drastically changes bartering with shopkeepers in Skyrim - for example, a shopkeeper will increase their prices if you approach them with a weapon drawn, market traders will carry less money, whereas large shops in Solitude will carry more. Discounts can also be given to you if you are a thane or member of a guild.

Undeath - Undeath is a mini quest mod that revolves around necromancers and comes with a very unique final reward at the end - I shan't reveal what, because of *spoilers* :)

Unique Border Gates - This mod creates some nice border gates at the points where Skyrim joins into the other realms of Tamriel - many complete with guards, banners and huge imposing castle gates - it really improves on the invisible walls that are there in Vanilla Skyrim.

Unique Uniques - This mod re-textures some of the more boring unique weapons and pieces of armour, making them look more unique - great for those who like to display their collection of ill-gotten gains in their houses.

Unlimited Bookshelves - This mod is a must-have for anybody who likes to collect and display books. In Vanilla Skyrim, the bookshelves were limited to 18 per shelf - which was based on the larger books. 18 smaller books wouldn't fit properly and would flop over. This mod allows you to nicely fill out the bookshelves to their maximum storage potential. You can also use them to store any and all manner of other items, like ingots, weapons, potions, Dragon Claws - whatever you can think of.

Vigilant of Stendarr Quests - This mod fleshes out the group the Vigilants of Stendarr, making them a joinable faction as well as adding seven new quests.

When Vampires Attack - This mod essentially does what the Run For Your Lives mod does, but works with the wandering vampires and their thralls. When vampires enter a city or settlement, the NPCs will run and hide in their houses.

Windcaller's Pass - Windcaller's Pass is a fan-made dungeon that creates an easy cut-through of the mountain where High Hrothgar is located. Not to spoil too much - but it comes with some unique reward items for defeating the double-boss fight and can easily add around 40 minutes of gameplay.

Wrymstooth - Wrymstooth is another great quest mod that adds a large new island to explore as well as 17 new quests, new fully voice-acted NPCs, new harvestable ingredients and a really unique gameplay mechanic: placeable bear traps!

100x Your Carry Weight - This is the only "cheaty" mod I use - namely because I pick up EVERYTHING. I'm a massive hoarder, I love carrying around all of my crafting equipment, various weapons and a shitload of potions. Put simply, you'll never be overencumbered again with this mod.

Glitchfest: Borderlands 2 - Glowing Green Trash Bin

Like most gamers; I've come across a lot of weird glitches during my gaming lifetime. In the past few months however, especially playing HUGE games like Fallout 3, Oblivion, Borderlands etc., I'm finding A LOT of odd things happening. Most involve textures or bizarre behaviour of characters and objects - so I keep my phone camera nearby to snap photos of console game glitches, and push F9 to capture screenshots of PC games with Fraps. 

I found this odd texture glitch a few weeks ago while playing through the 3rd DLC for Borderlands 2: Sir Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt. 

I could interact with this weird mess of glowing neon green and I could pick up the loot from inside, but the texture didn't repair itself, even after I left the area and came back. The only way to get rid of this problem was to reset the game entirely. Not a terrible game-breaking bug like some others I've encountered before, but it amused me nonetheless. :)

1990s Nostalgia: Spyro The Dragon Cereal Box Prize

Another forgotten relic of years gone by is when in the morning (usually before school), you'd open up a fresh box of Kellogg's cereal and inside there would be wonderful prizes. (In the UK we never really called them 'cereal box prizes' per se, but the influx of American TV shows sort of introduced us to the phrase) You'd find stationery (like pencil sharpeners), little toys, action figures, books and sometimes CDs or CD-Roms. Because I'm from the 90s (and the UK), I missed the trend of decoder rings and stuff - but I did manage to find this:

That is a little plastic toy of Spyro The Dragon. So I'm assuming Kellogg's ran this deal around the time Spyro The Dragon was at his peak of popularity during the Playstation 1 era, somewhere around 1998. Remember when Spyro used to be good? Before the influx of all this fucking Skylanders bullshit? Yes, everyone with any decent taste in games knows that the last good Spyro game was Spyro 3: The Year Of The Dragon, and the series went downhill from there - very similar to the fate of Crash Bandicoot - as soon as they hit the PS2, they got shittier and shittier. At least Crash Bandicoot never lent his visage to a series of games that cost upwards of £500 to access every area of the fucking game! 

FIVE FUCKING GRAND. Are you SERIOUS? And in order to maintain their mint condition, you'd NEVER be able to remove them from the packets! Oh, and bear in mind, these are just the figures - NO game is included! I mean for fuck's sake, I'm all for DLC - and the idea of DLC you can physically hold in your hand is awesome - but Skylanders as a gaming property is just utter SHITE. I mean really, compare this:

To this:

What the fuck really. What the bloody hell did they do to Spyro? The original 1998 Spyro in his pseudo-64-bit graphics looks a million times better than the new Spyro. He looks like he's got some sort of learning disability, with his fat face and squished nose. The 90s Spyro was cute, as well as being quite cocky. How I miss the 1990s. :(