This week in video games: November 12, 2015

by Blaine Kyllo on November 12th, 2015 at 9:13 AM

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Hope you don’t have anything to do for the next few weeks. This week, more games compete for your attention.

Rise of the Tomb Raider released Tuesday

Lara Croft is back in the second game since Crystal Dynamics’ reboot from 2013. It’s available only on the Xbox One and Xbox 360 until next year, when PS4 and Windows versions will be released.

Rise iterates on a lot of what made its predecessor so good. The vast environments and the sense of exploration are key to becoming Lara, and in this one you’ll range from desert to winter settings.

And I love that you can improve Lara’s language abilities by looking at murals and doing research.

Fallout 4 will have people starting vacations early

Also released on Tuesday (November 10) is the next game in the Fallout series from Bethesda Game Studios. Todd Howard has yet to make a bad game, and Fallout 4 is a massive achievement.

Available for PS4, Windows, an Xbox One, the game itself is huge, and can easily take 100 hours to play if you spend any time at all developing a character. Hell, I spent two hours just creating my character.

Set in the Boston area, Fallout 4 is notable for having a fully voiced protagonist for the first time. And the thousands of lines of dialogue have been recorded by both male and female voices, because this series is one in which you can choose the gender of your protagonist.

The game is accompanied by a smartphone app that lets you access your character even when you’re not playing. It’s available for Android.

And everyone who bought the Pip-Boy Edition of the game can snap their smartphone into the wristband, and have their very own Fallout artifact.