In what is quickly becoming the internet’s worst kept secret, it appears that famed developer Bethesda is gearing up to announce the highly anticipated “Fallout 4.” As one of the general public’s most beloved games of the previous generation (feels weird saying that…), the hype train for “Fallout 4” is beginning to resemble a locomotive in India, as fans across the world eagerly await any news regarding it.

While developer Bethesda is usually so generous with their game content it can feel greedy to make requests, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t a few items on every fan’s wishlist for “Fallout 4,” as well as a few generally accepted flaws in “Fallout 3” that could use a fix. Personally, I know I can think of five things, I’d really like to see in “Fallout 4.”

The Ability to Play In A World Affected By the Ending

I’d have to say my biggest disappointment with “Fallout 3” was that the game just kind of ended. There was the usual climatic final mission, but then you just got a cinema explaining the consequences of your decisions in the final moments. At that point if you wanted to keep exploring the world, you could only load up a save before the final mission and do it from there, with the finale being forever left on your to-do list.

It was a baffling decision that felt like one of the few genuine design flaws in the game. How could a game with so much to see and do just end? While the expansions and New Vegas fixed this particular problem, I expect that Bethesda will learn their lesson from “Fallout 3” and allow us to not only continue to explore the world after the credits role, but hopefully alter it in some noticeable way based upon the ending.

Incoporate Greater Grey Area Options

While “Fallout 3’s” karma system was one of the more involved of all the games that afford you character building moral choices, it’s hard to deny that if you really wanted the world to reflect your personal choices, the only real paths available were to be a paragon of virtue or the most evil bastard that ever lived.

That’s always been troublesome to me considering that morality in the “Fallout” universe is ambiguous to say the least. Forcing players to ultimately choose between comically good and evil just to get the game to react never really felt in-line with the rest of the world. It would be great if the karma system better incorporated the choice to live somewhere in the middle (neither entirely good or evil) and if the world reacted to you in this manner just as they would if you lived on either polar side of the morality scale. After all, as Bruce Campbell quipped, “Good…bad….I’m the guy with the gun.”

An Expanded, Region Specific Soundtrack

As much as I loved Three Dog and the game’s unique (and often disturbing) selection of 40’s and 50’s music, after a while I’d often turn off the radio as the DJ banter and songs didn’t take long to repeat. While this is expected in a game of this length, it was nonetheless annoying.

An expanded song selection would certainly go a long way to fixing this in “Fallout 4,” but what would really be great is if more individual regions of the map had there own radio stations. After all, it’s not hard to imagine a number of small range pirate stations would pop up here and there, and having certain songs only available in certain areas through those stations would go a long way to cutting down on the music monotony.

Longer Emphasis on Survival

When you first enter the world of the Capital Wastelands, you feel appropriately small and helpless. Nearly everything could kill you instantly and, since the game allowed you to go anywhere at any time, getting in over your head was easy. In those early moments it was vital to scrounge for any and all available resources, even if it meant near certain death to do so.

As the game went on, however, it didn’t take long before you were so stocked with equipment you would often pass up valuable items simply because you couldn’t carry them. Within only a few hours of play you go from fist pumping because you found a clean bottle of water, to better stocked than the local Wal-Mart. While this kind of character building is expected in RPG’s, it would be nice if a better balance was placed on resources availability so that the incredible survival aspects of the game don’t just disappear after the first few hours.

It’s understandable that your character will become more powerful and adapt overtime, but you should never feel as complacent in your available resources as you did in the later parts of “Fallout 3.”

More Imaginative Weapon Crafting

One of the things I liked about “New Vegas” is how developer Obsidian wasn’t afraid to take some chances with the design, since they knew the established “Fallout 3″ formula was strong enough to hold the weight of the occasional tweak and innovation. Among those tweaks was an expanded ability to better your items and weapons through the occasional pick up and crafting. It worked because it makes sense that in an apocalyptic world you would become somewhat adept at making do with what you have, and making what you have better based on what you find.

It was a step in the right direction, but it could go much further in a sequel. There’s tons of seemingly useless items floating around the “Fallout” universe, and it’d be great if you could find uses for them through a more involved crafting system. “Fallout 3” did have the occasional blueprint that allowed you to do this, but it felt too clean and simple. Allowing players a crafting screen to play around with that isn’t necessarily dependent on strict recipes would go a long way to expanding our involvement in the world, and our desire to explore it.

As an unabashed fan of horror in all its forms, I’ve always had a special place in my heart for horror gaming. While not as prolific a genre as certain other game types, when a horror game comes along that gets it right, it manages to be more effective and plain scarier than horror films or books could hope to be. Play horror games long enough, and you’ll see some serious shit.

Much like the world of horror films, gaming’s forays into the demonic have left it with a plethora of iconic characters. While its debatable if gaming has produced a character as iconic as say Freddy or Jason, the overall quality and effectiveness of gaming’s horror icons can go toe to toe with those from any other medium, and as Halloween approaches I think its time they got some well deserved attention.

One quick note regarding these selections. A character can be scary and iconic even if it isn’t in a pure horror game, meaning that not every character on this list is from a game that is traditionally classified as horror! With that disclaimer, I present my top 15 horror icons of gaming.

15. Creeper (Minecraft)

Now you see why I highlighted that disclaimer don’t you?

Minecraft is not a strict horror game, but it does rely heavily on its survival elements, which are also vital to good horror experiences. As such, the first night you find yourself out in the wild, or trapped in a deep cavern are among the scariest moments in gaming. That’s a feeling that’s due in large part to the presence of a creeper, whose silent approach and explosive death have been the end of just about ever “Minecraft” player at some point. The only time you fear the creeper more than when it’s directly behind you, is when you aren’t seeing it at all. That’s a pretty good indication you’re a horror icon.

14. The Yeti (Ski Free)

So, it’s the early 90’s and you’re playing “Ski Free” on your fancy new Windows computer. There you are enjoying a leisure ski adventure, marveling at the game’s technical majesty, when all of a sudden a giant friggin Yeti beelines at your skier and straight up eats them.

The brilliance of The Yeti stems from the fact you’re not expecting it. It has absolutely no business existing in a casual game like Ski Free, and not only terrifies you the first time you play it, but makes you live in dread of his coming on subsequent tries. You may escape the Yeti, but you’ll never be truly rid of him

13. Wallmasters (Legend of Zelda)

I swear I’ll get to strict horror games at some point, but until then, I’ve got to give the Wallmaster its due.

Wallmaster…**** you. Not only are you the scariest creature in “Zelda” (giant dismembered hands are always scary) but you are the most frustrating as well. Whereas most servants of Ganon are satisfied merely murdering the young adventurer Link, you find your perverse pleasure in picking him up like a broken toy, and tossing him back to the beginning of a dungeon, making you something of an in-game troll as well as a giant hand. For being the cause of more high pitched screams and broken controllers than anything else in the Zelda series, I salute you.

12. Alma (F.E.A.R.)

You know what’s funny? “F.E.A.R.” isn’t really that scary of a series overall, and the whole “creepy little girl” thing was already getting kind of played out by the time Alma reared her freaky little head.

It’s the fact Alma managed to be so memorable in spite of those limitations, that gets her on this list. Remove Alma from “F.E.A.R.” and you’re left with a mostly generic shooter that would have been forgotten much sooner than it has been. With her though, you have a game that manages to keep you constantly on your toes in anticipation for the next moment that she will come and just scare the crap out of you. It’s her presence that manages to change the entire atmosphere and dynamics of the game, meaning whenever she is on screen “F.E.A.R.” goes from a semi-competent shooter, to pretty damn good horror game.

11. The Fog (Silent Hill)

You know those directors who say something along the lines of “We may have shot in New York, but the city was more like a character than a setting.”? The fog in “Silent Hill” is just like that.

Originally implemented to compensate for the Playsation’s lack of draw distance, the fog in “Silent Hill” makes the whole game about 90% scarier than it would have been otherwise. It not only conceals your enemies making you rely on vague radio signals that only loosely indicate where the danger is, but even makes moments of supposed calm uncomfortable, like the fog is slowly seeping in and strangling you. It might not actually be a monster (that’s actually debatable considering the plot) but it’s certainly an icon of horror gaming.

10. Scissorman (Clock Tower)

The “Clock Tower” series may never get the love it deserves in the world of horror gaming, but it’s high time that Scissorman was paid the proper respect.

Designed and modeled largely after the more famous creatures of film horror, Scissorman is a slasher in the pure sense of the term. He creeps, he stalks, he wields an iconic weapon, and he usually chooses the most cinematic moments to pop out and scare the living hell out of you. His design and actions make him often feel like some sort of missing character from the glory days of the 80’s slasher, and to this day seeing even a still image of him can inspire dread and a morbid curiosity regarding who he is, and where the hell he got those giant bloody scissors.

9. Necromorphs (Dead Space)

Aim for the head. If George Romero movies didn’t already get that simple message buried deep into your subconscious, the years of film and video games that preceded “Dead Space” and preached the same words probably did.

The Necromorph directly plays against that universal shooter rule, by making the limbs the weakspot. While that no doubt caused nearly every player to panic during the first few encounters, even when figuring out the trick to defeating them, their steady menacing pace and skills at playing dead never fail to cause you to shoot randomly in terror once in a while when one comes into sight. Also, unlike many horror creatures, discovering the origins and motivations of the necromorphs actually make them more terrifying. “Dead Space 1 & 2” (you heard me!) are the premiere horror games of this generation, and that’s due in large part to the terrifying contributions of the Necromorphs.

8. Deathclaw (Fallout)

Despite not technically being a horror game, “Fallout” manages to be one of the most terrifying series ever made due to the unfiltered horrific vision of the nuclear apocalypse it portrays. There are atrocities in those games without equal, and the bleak and somber tones of the world they inhabit make them all the more intimidating.

Yet none of the horrors these games can throw at you compare to the Deathclaw. While their pants wetting visual design, incredible power, and simply unfair speed certainly help their iconic status, the biggest reason they’re so memorable is due to the design of the games themselves. Because of the open nature of “Fallout” the first time you encounter a Deathclaw, you are likely in no way prepared to defeat it, and can only watch in horror as it swarms on you with blinding speed, and an almost professional level of malice. Hell, even later in the game when you’re basically a destroyer of worlds, a pack of these bad boys can still make you pause in fear.

7. Poison Head Crabs (Half-Life)

Sure headcrabs are mostly derivative of the face huggers from “Alien,” but that did absolutely to suppress the terror they inspired when making there debut in 1998’s “Half-Life,” and they’ve since arguably surpassed their terrestrial spiritual brethren in terms of notoriety.

That being said, I give the slight nod to their poisonous offshoot from “Half-Life 2.” Even though the Ravenholm section of that game was basically a detour into the horror genre, the only sections I’d really consider scary involved these little bastards, and their ability to bring the player’s health down to 1 instantly. Much like the Wallmaster, the poisonous headcrab is memorable not just because of the way it initially sends a jolt of fear through the player, but because of the way it can wreck your gaming experience.

6. Evil Otto (Berzerk)

When you’re first name is Evil, you’ve got some pretty big horror expectations to live up to.

Otto has done just that, though over a career dedicated to outmaneuvering the players of “Berzerk” and coming upon them like the specter of death itself, all while sporting a permanent grin that only goes away when its blood lust is satisfied. “Berzkerk” has claimed actual lives, and while that’s medically been attributed to heart attacks caused by the flashing lights of the game, anyone who’s ever cringed upon hearing the garbled “Intruder Alert, Intruder Alert” message that preceeds the arrival of Evil Otto know he was the more likely culprit.

5. The Cherub (Doom)

In general, when designing an effective horror character, it’s appreciated if some level of subtlety is applied either in the origins or design. With few exceptions, obvious attempts to scare are not acceptable.

Meet one of those exceptions. Is it a bit cheap from a design standpoint to just throw a deformed monster baby out there and call it a day? Perhaps. However, it’s impossible to deny that when a gang of these things come screeching at you (of course they screech) you’re first reaction is to back away towards the last known safe point while screaming your head off and firing a shotgun in every direction. For the most part, the frights in the Doom series are muted somewhat by the sheer amount of firepower available to you, but there is no weapon in the game (not even the fabled BFG) that makes you feel comfortable when surrounded by these bundles of terror.

4. The Witch (Left 4 Dead)

Ah the Witch. What else is there to say about the Witch?

The Witch is like a landmine of pure terror. Even though you’re up against an army of some of the most horrifying creatures imaginable, it’s the one that can kill you before you can put up a fight that scares you the most. Landmines might not make a noise to alert you of their presence like the Witch does, but those lamentations actually make her more frightening as the moment you hear them, you’re suddenly seized with terror and the knowledge you might soon be dead. The Witch has gotten us all at some point, and the moment you fire a shot in the wrong direction, she’ll get you again.

3. Shodan (System Shock)

Like many other horror gaming characters, Shodan borrows several characteristics from something in film (in this case “2001: A Space Odyssey’s” HAL 9000), but uses the interactive advantages of gaming to maker her own mark.

The antagonist of the “System Shock” series, Shodan’s defining moment would come in “System Shock 2” when after your character has survived an abandoned space ship full of horror, it is revealed that the lone survivor that was guiding you along is actually the evil A.I. Shodan, whose been using you for her own agenda. Long before “Bioshock” asked us “Would You Kindly,” “System Shock 2” showed us how a twist can be that much more effective when coupled with the feeling of betrayal. Only here it’s made even more effective by the presence of Shodan whose megalomaniac personality makes you feel appropriately small.

2. Nemesis (Resident Evil 3)

The argument that “Resident Evil” is the biggest franchise in horror gaming is not a hard one to make, and of all of the terrors the series has lent to our nightmares (lickers, giant spiders, those damn zombie dogs) none are more memorable than the Nemesis.

Essentially the Terminator of the franchise, the Nemesis was built for no other purpose than to hunt and kill S.T.A.R.S. members. Not bound by many of the series previously established rules (he can enter doors!), the Nemesis is like a boss character you fight the entire game, though you never know when he will appear, and as such are rarely prepared to stand up to him. With his strong aversion to dying, the only pang of regret you’ll feel when he finally goes down for good, is when you realize that the “RE” series, and horror gaming, may never see his demonic equal.

1. Pyramid Head (Silent Hill 2)

In a way it was disappointingly easy to name Pyramid Head number one.

While his iconic looks are the very embodiment of terror, and certainly make him stand out amongst the crowd, it’s not until you start learning more about the characters origins do you realize just how depraved it is. One of the more disturbing elements of the character, which is rarely seen in video games otherwise, is its underlying sexual themes, which are highly reminiscent of the terrifying cenobite demons from “Hellaraiser.” It’s an example of the many ways this character assaults your emotions on a primal level, and gets under your skin in a very real way.

I think that may just be the clearest reason Pyramid Head gets the top spot. While just about every other character on this list largely only unsettles you when you’re actually up against them in the game you’re playing, Pyramid Head is the only one that really sticks with long after, and is as terrifying when you’re merely considering him, as he is when you’re facing him in the game.

Whoa.

If the phrase “Live Action Fan Film” in the world of gaming makes you cringe, it would be hard to blame you. Often times they are poorly produced (if generally well meaning) works of minimal effort that remind us all that the world of gaming and film do not easily mesh.

Even if you are adamant in that belief though, you do yourself a tremendous disservice if you don’t take about 30 minutes of your time today and check out that fan film presented by the folks at Machinima set in the “Fallout” universe.

Beyond impressive for a fan film, it’s actually a genuinely entertaining, and surprisingly well made, piece that somehow manages to maintain the things that make the “Fallout” series so great, while just transferring them to another medium. While some production hiccups are found (the super mutant fight stands out), even the low points are enjoyable in a campy sort of way, and in no way diminish the incredible writing, pacing, direction, and yes, even acting to be found. It’s perhaps the best example ever made of the magic that can happen when you give a filmmaker with a true passion for gaming even the most modest of budgets to work with.

Made by the same people responsible for the also entertaining, if less dramatic, “Fallout” series “Nuka Break,” “Red Star” is apparently the first in a series of fan made live action adaptations planned by Machinima, with games like “League of Legends,” “Half-Life,” and even “Minecraft” all getting the celluloid treatment.

While the quality of those additional adaptations remains to be seen, this was an excellent way to present the idea, as “Red Star” is the greatest  live action video game film I’ve ever seen. Give it a shot, and start dreaming again of the day when a network like AMC, FX, or even HBO realizes the creative potential inherit in a “Fallout” TV series.

With the pope announcing his surprising retirement, the Catholic church and its followers are abuzz not just about the incident, but about who will take the position next.

With a wealth of candidates available though, there shouldn’t be much problem finding a suitable replacement, which is more than can be said about the spiritual world in video games where paragons of holy virtue and guidance are few and far between. In fact it’s quite the opposite as some of gaming’s greatest villains derive from the world of religion.

To show you how bad the problem is, here are a few of gaming’s most despicable religious leaders.

Important Note: This is in no way shape or form a commentary on any real religion or religious figures including, but not limited to, the pope or the Catholic church. This is just for fun.

Oh and spoilers. Spoilers are ahead.

Allegro Rasputin of the First Church of LeChuck – “Escape From Monkey Island”

The exact doctrines, words, and many basic day to day functions of the First Church of LeChuck are a mystery to many. It’s origins, however, are very clear as priest Allegro Rasputin was murdered by the ghost pirate LeChuck, and even made to view his still beating pancreas prior to death, while out at sea. Initially upset, the priest came to respect LeChuck for his capabilities and founded a church in his honor.

And what a church it is. Built into a volcano, and resembling a skull castle, the church has a river of lava flowing through it used in weddings so couples can become ghosts, and live together eternally, at the end of the journey. The rest of the church is a none too subtle tribute to LeChuck himself, and Rasputin’s primary goal is stopping the enemy of his deity, Guybrush Threepwood.

While not gaming’s deepest religion, for sheer tenacity, dedication, and even style, the Church of LeChuck is one of gaming’s most memorable religious institutions, and Rasputin’s devoutness to stopping our hero is equal to his faith

The Prophet of Truth of the Covenant Religion – “Halo”

It was “Halo 2” where gamers discovered that the hard fighting and no-nonsense alien enemies known as the Covenant were actually a deeply religious society with a strong sense of organization and hierarchy.

Atop that hierarchy are a series of prophets, and amongst those prophets is the clear leader, the Prophet of Truth. His mission is to lead his people in seeking out and activating the halo installations of the ancient, yet far advanced, people known as the forerunners. They believe that once the rings are activated, they will achieve a form of ascension and become eternal. They are actually aware, that while they have a slim chance of elevation, that completing this mission will more or less result in the complete destruction of every known thing.

Being a real fanatic is both the reason behind the rise to power, and the fall of the Prophet of Truth. While many villains have promised the end of the world or universe, few did it with the smug sense of satisfaction, and feeling of purpose as the Prophet of Truth.

Craig Markoff of Unitology –“Dead Space”

While the Church of Unitology’s primary figure is Michael Altman, one of the true spearheads of the movement is military man Craig Markoff.

A cleverly veiled allusion to Scientology in many ways, the Church of Unitology plays an integral role in the “Dead Space” series, and revolves around the fabled markers, which are artifacts of mysterious power. Formed in a time of dwindling religious beliefs, the church promoted a message of harmony and peace which caught on quickly and turned them into a real power. One of their principle ideas is not burying the dead, and instead keeping their bodies on spaceships waiting to be re-born. In reality, they are aware of the limited power of the marker to grant new and eternal life, though it often results in creating unspeakable atrocities. These incidents were written off as anomalies with manageable spiritual factors contributing to them.

A true and horrible evil in every way, Markoff is one of gaming’s great villains. He cleverly used  Altman as a figurehead of virtue shielding him from the many, many atrocities he would commit, and his tenacity in refusing to waiver from his claims, is nearly unprecedented.

Morpheus of the Children of the Cathedral – “Fallout”

“Fallout” is full of religions, and while the nuclear bomb worshiping Children of the Atom get all of the attention, it is the leader of the Children of the Cathedral that gets my nod.

A servant of The Master (a downright terrifying mutant, human, computer hybrid), Morpheus is an old styled southern preacher who is clever, extremely charismatic, and downright volatile. Morpheus doesn’t believe The Master to be a god as others in the church do, but he has no qualms with using the influence of the church for his own means, and is a loyal servant of him all the same.

Much like Markoff, Morpheus is a pure evil as it gets, as his short temper and selfish ambitions only further his insatiable ego. It’s one thing to take advantage of people’s spiritual beliefs to further your own causes, but to do so at the end of world when all other hope has gone? Damn.

Sergius XVII of the Ormus Religion – “Xenosaga”

One of gaming’s greatest and most complex universes is that of the “Xenosaga” games. Fittingly, it also contains one of the deepest and most complex religions in all of gaming, the Ormus religion.

It would be impossible to sum up the religion entirely here, but it is spearheaded by the patriarch Sergius XVII and is actually an evolutionary offshoot of modern day Christianity. Their main objective is to recover the mysterious Zohar artifact, and use it to defeat the equally mysterious, and troublesome, Gnosis. Sergius XVII, also has personal ambitions to use this event to further the Ormus’s reach and influence, which is already considerable as the religion has power in nearly every meaningful aspect of society.

A victim of absolute power, it’s easy to write off Sergius XVII as simply “evil”, but his motives and intentions are instead a mix of the blindingly noble and the sadistically misguided. Because of this, he stands as one of the deepest, most influential, and in many ways the most realistically flawed of all of gaming’s evil religious figures, making him more memorable than the usual snarling types.

It’s not uncommon for good ideas to not translate into good video games. However, even in instances where creative games bomb spectacularly, they can still lead to very memorable experiences.

Even though we don’t have much to go off of regarding it at this time, it still seems like recently revealed indie RPG project “Citizens of Earth” is guaranteed to at least be a memorable experience as it has not one, but several very interesting ideas forming its basic blueprint.

It comes to us from developer Eden Industries who crafted one of those aforementioned brilliant, but flawed, games with their first title, “Waveform”, and has players taking the role of the Vice President of the World in his quest to rid his small home town of various weirdos and presumed evil doers. Now being a politician, and not wishing to get his hands dirty, the VP takes on a “team leader” approach and recruits denizens of the town to fight his battles for him. The character types range from body builders, to baristas, to homeless guys, and each not only brings unique attributes to combat, but when left out of your party, can provide certain abilities based on their character type with services like discounted items in their shops, town expansions, and exploration rewards.

Few specifics are known about the game, but it is confirmed that it will be much in the style of a classic JRPG, only with no random encounters (enemies will be viewable on the game world) and a combat system that will allow for battle restarts for party member swaps. Other than that, the games creator’s are sooner to talk about the broadstrokes and style of “Citizens of Earth”, and it’s easy to see why, as the game uses concepts from some of the greatest games of all time. It’s party leader influencing combat mechanic is straight from “Pokemon”, the expanded party, and their unique abilities, are reminiscent of the “Suikoden” series, it’s got a hyper Americana sense of character and environment design that reminds me of the artwork from “Fallout”, and best of all the entire game, from the humor, to the enemies, to the  basic design, borrows heavily from my favorite game of all time, “Earthbound”.

No a great idea doesn’t always mean a great game, but when you are taking your cues from games that are both some of the greatest of all time, and in some cases the most criminally underappreciated, and using them to enhance what is already a unique story concept, you come away with something that stands on its own, and looks to be an always welcome breath of fresh air for the medium. In any case fans of classic RPGs, and bold games in general, should set aside time to keep an eye on “Citizens of Earth” as it progresses, and aims to start a Kickstarter campaign later this year.