Welcome to The Reticule where we return with another edition of Our Week in Games. Content on the site remains slow at the start of this year, but bear with us and things should pick up in time. For now, relax on this Sunday with our weekly tales from the world of games.

Chris

I talked a little bit about my journey in Madden NFL 15 in last Sunday’s Our Week in Games, and today is a chance for me to bring you up to date on my progress. I started off my career as a balanced but receiving focused tight end with the Tennessee Titans, a team from AFC South who haven’t appeared in the post-season since 2008. In my rookie season, I was rarely let loose on the field, and when I was, I was only able to make a handful of receptions for the season. In my second season, I had worked my way up to the second string tight end and was able to make a nice number of plays, but without setting the world alight.

Leading into my third season, I made sure to take in every training session I could to earn XP which went straight into building up my stats. It was a long progress, but come pre-season I was able to start to make my mark, as seen with my touchdown that I shared last week. Thanks to my good form, I was able to claim a stake as starting tight end and was able to go on a good streak in the early part of the season, until in week six I was demoted to second string once more. In the week six match, on any occasion I was able to select the plays, I ensured the Titans played in a two tight end formation. I showed my true colours in that game my scoring two touch downs. I was back as the starter for the next week, and continued in this way for a good run of games where the Titans were able to establish a nice lead at the top of the AFC South table. Towards the end of the season, I was again demoted to second string for no obvious reason, but by week 15, I was starter once more.

As I write this, there is one game left to play in the regular season, and it will be interesting to see whether I can help the Titans secure homefield advantage in the play-offs. There would be nothing better than to lead the team to glory at the Super Bowl having already secured a solid return of over 40 catches in the regular season. I might not be setting any all-time records alight, but I will be trying my hardest to do so as the seasons roll on.

While not investing in my NFL career, I’ve been working my way through some of my Wii U games. I’ve been revisiting Rayman Legends this past week, and have realised that I’ve barely scratched the surface of the game. Until this week, I hadn’t even started the second world! I’d quite forgotten how much fun (and how frustrating) this game can be, while I have to say that it makes for a great game to play solely using the GamePad. It is great to see that people are still taking part in the daily and weekly challenges as well, good to see that people are still playing such a great game on the much derided Wii U.

Nick

This week I’ve been trying to get to grips with the GECK – Bethesda’s editing tool for Fallout: New Vegas. I’ve dabbled in the past with both Skyrim and Oblivion, but only to the extent of changing stats and abilities on certain items. This time however I’m digging deeper into NPCs and quest-building.

It’s harder than I initially expected. Even building NPC conversations is unintuitive and overly complicated – to be honest I’m astonished Bethesda were ever able to build entire worlds from the tech. On the plus side, there are no end of Youtube tutorials available for those like me without any discernible talent, so I am making progress.

Slow progress, but progress nonetheless.

I’ll probably never achieve anything monumental here. I don’t expect to release an essential and world famous mod, nor do I expect to churn out a total conversion of Fallout in a week. But every day, in tiny little ways, I’m going from playing Fallout: New Vegas to playing my Fallout: New Vegas.