Although not strictly an RPG, Borderlands certainly has a great mix of role-playing and first person shooting. It’s definitely on the more basic end of the RPG scale, but is still something RPG fans will enjoy. Those who enjoyed Fallout 3 will most likely have a good experience with Gearbox’s game. Especially if you party up with three of your friends. Just don’t go in there expecting some epic role playing adventure on the same scale.

4. Fallout 3: Game Of The Year Edition

It might be a re-release, but that’s how sparse a year it’s been for PS3-owning RPG players. The massive world of the wastes returned in an updated package this year which included all the downloadable content released by Bethesda. If you don’t own this yet, you should!

3. Eternal Sonata

This incredibly quirky JRPG (now that’s saying something) first made it’s debut last year on the Xbox 360, but the turn of the year saw Eternal Sonata hit the PlayStation 3. It’s visual style even more breathtaking. It might have been a fairly linear experience, but it’s still one RPG fans should love. The reason this has been nominated is for it’s originality. Eternal Sonata takes place in the deathbed dreams of, Polish composer, Frederic Chopin. The great, but occasionally flawed, mechanics, fantastic score and the aforementioned art style make this one of our favorite role-playing games of 2009.

2. Demon’s Souls

Although a pretty niche title, those who chose to pick up Demon’s Souls will be delighted with what they experience. FromSoftware delivers their take on the RPG, and apparently they believe RPG’s are synonymous with hellish difficulty. You will die. You will die more times than you thought imaginable. The fact of the matter is that when you finally do accomplish what took 10 tries, you will feel more rewarded than most other titles can provide. The amount of trial and error it takes to succeed in Demon’s Souls may put some off, but those hardcore RPG fans looking for a challenge look no further. The haunting environments, entertaining gameplay, and sheer amount of content here make Demon’s Souls a complete package.

1. Dragon Age: Origins

Since Oblivion, RPG fans have been longing for another epic game in a fantasy setting. Now, they’ve got it. BioWare have made their first venture onto the PlayStation 3 with Dragon Age: Origins and what a game it is. Granted, there are a few issues with the game that can take you out of the experience, but when you think about the game as a whole you can forgive it a little bit.

The spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate, Origins is something that RPG fans must play. Even non-fantasy fans will be surprised at how much they enjoy their experience in this massive world.

Anyway, that’s besides the point. Today Zenimax Media announced that they would be publishing the game under the Bethesda Softworks brand and not EA. This comes as quite a surprise, but I can’t see Bethesda slacking on this one. The company have stepped up their publishing game since late last year with the release of WET and, the terrible, Rogue Warrior. Hopefully RAGE will be a step in the right direction for the, Fallout 3 developer’s, publishing future.

There’s not currently a confirmed release time frame for the game yet.

The main problem with Operation Anchorage is that it doesn’t offer any of the amazing role-playing that makes the game so fantastic. OA is strictly an opportunity to kick ass and chew gum, and you are indeed out of gum. Beyond the headshots and explosions, there really isn’t much here for, straight up, RPG fans. That being said, the combat is still a blast. VATS headshots never get old, and the new weapons are a great.

One of these new weapons is the Gauss Cannon. This is a one shot gun that has the potential to knock your target over as well as dish out massive damage. I won’t spoil any of the other cool gadgets you get, but I will say that there are some really useful items that you acquire after the completion of OA.

Speaking of Anchorage, what the hell are you doing in Alaska anyway? Well, you aren’t actually in Alaska. Turns out someone discovered an old training program that puts you in the middle of the battle for Anchorage against the Chinese. You go into this chamber, you do your business with the shooting and the blood, step out, grab some goodies, and leave. That’s it. It does add a little to the lore of Fallout, but honestly, I think they could have had a lot more fun with the story on this one, rather than just stick you in some virtual reality battle.

This Alaskan setting really isn’t that much of a departure from the Capital Wasteland. It’s essentially the Fallout environment you know and love, but with a pretty sheet of snow covering it. Granted, white is a great change from grey, but nothing really has drastically changed visually. The animations are still pretty terrible, but the explosions look amazing. The VATS camera sweeps are still a joy to watch, and the art design is top notch.

If you like the combat in Fallout, then OA is a godsend. But it really doesn’t capture the essence of what made this game so fantastic in the first place. Fallout fans should definitely check it out, but for those who love them some RPG elements, you might want to steer clear.

7.5 /10

Warning: This review may contain spoilers.

Lets start with the best part of all the Fallout DLC, the ability to carry on playing, exploring and earning XP. Broken Steel extends the level cap from 20 to 30 and brings with it new Perks, weapons and, the obligatory, trophies. In order to play the new quests, you have to have finished the main quest, but if you haven’t it will allow your character to go beyond the previous level 20 limit while you work towards completion.

The story starts with you coming around from an unconscious state. You are greeted by Elder Lyons, who informs you that, after turning on the Purifier, Sarah Lyons and yourself were knocked out by an unknown energy spike and that you are now recovering in the Citadel, whilst  Sarah remains in a coma. After a conversation with Elder Lyons, you are tasked with helping The Brotherhood of Steel root out the remaining Enclave soldiers, destroying them once and for all. Without giving too much away this is done over three main quests which takes around 5 hours to complete, maybe less, if you still have some peeps in your party. I still had Fawkes with me and he really helped out with his Gatling Laser. As per usual, there are also some side quests to complete along the way, unfortunately I missed a couple by not exploring thoroughly enough. So there’s a tip for you.

The main quest line takes you to some familiar wasteland locations and also to some new ones. The highlight being Adams Air Force Base, an area only accessible via the Presidential Metro Subway. After navigating these tunnels you will come across the base to find, what I like to describe as, a Metal Gear-esque platform belonging to the Enclave.

Whilst playing through I did suffer some slowdown at times but this didn’t spoil what I think is the best of the Fallout 3 DLC packs. I love the fact I can now continue exploring and finish off those uncompleted side quests, like I had with Oblivion. As a big Fallout fan I welcomed the opportunity to return the wasteland and really enjoyed playing through (most of) what Broken Steel had to offer.

8.9/10

Broken Steel will be the first of the packs released on PSN and is set to be released on Thursday (September 24th). This will be followed by Operation Anchorage and The Pitt on October 1t and, finally, Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta will hit a week later.

Bethesda also confirmed that the Game Of The Year Edition of Fallout 3 will release on October 13th. Good stuff Bethesda. It might have taken a while, but at least we’ll have it. Our new guy, Sam Saunders, will be reviewing the original stuff. They’ll be up shortly after release.

Bethesda have announced that PS3 owners will have to wait until ” the end of September” for the, eagerly anticipated, ports of the Fallout 3 downloadable content. However, the cloud does have a silver lining.

Bethesda also announced that the first piece of DLC would be the, game extending, Broken Steel pack. The other, less well recieved, packs would then follow, possibly simultaneously. The other two packs – Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta will be released on PS3 when they’re ready.

I guess there is a little bit of goodness in there. The fact that Broken Steel will be released first is certainly a good thing for, PS3-owning, Fallout 3 fans. It also gives me a little more time to actually play that game. I can never seem to ‘get into it’ fully. A shame really.

WET has finally found an unlikely publisher in, Fallout 3 developer/publisher, Bethesda Softworks.

It was rumored that Bethesda would be releasing the game and no these rumors have been confirmed. Bethesda seem like an unlikely publisher considering their recent releases, but I certainly think that this could be beneficial to both the devs and Bethesda themselves.

Having the “creators of Fallout 3″ slapped on the box would certainly help WET reach some of the gamers who have only played Fallout or their other titles. Plus, it could be beneficial for Bethesda considering that this game is a straight first person shooter, I’ve got a feeling Bethesda could ‘borrow’ these mechanics and implement them into their next game.

Back on the subject, WET will be released this ‘fall’ on PS3 and Xbox 360, which adds something else to the ever growing list of autumn/winter games. In other, related, news ex-Buffy star and current Dollhouse star Eliza Dushku will be providing the vocals for WET’s lead character Rubi Malone.

Bethesda held a press event in London a few days back and something rather interesting came out of it.

Pete Hines announced that a new Fallout game would be coming in 2010. Fallout: New Vegas will be available next year on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC thanks to, Alpha Protocol devs, Obsidian.

Pete hines has confirmed that the game is “definitely an RPG”. The Obsidian team are made up of some of the team who created the original Fallout game way back when and “jumped at the chance” to be involved with a new one, according to Mr. Hines that is.

It sounds good. I’ve still not really got around to experiencing Fallout 3 fully yet so I guess i’ve got a bit of a deadline now then.

I told you that Bethesda don’t wait around once there’s info out there. The latest update, which includes trophies and a number of game fixing changes. The game no longer stalls when you recieve notifications, which is great and means I can get to playing the game, albeit from the beginning, again.

The patch is only available in Europe at the time of writing, but i’m sure it’ll make it’s way across the atlantic soon enough.

[By Anthony]

Bethesda’s Pete Hines has told Eurogamer that the PS3 version of Fallout 3 will be getting trophy support. It was said before the game launched that it was possible that Bethesda would patch in trophies but nothing more was said. Personally, I see this as a peace offering to PS3 players after the ammount of bugs the PS3 version of Fallout has. Hopefully they’ll be fixed in the patch too. If that is the case, I can’t see it being too far away.