Modding is a big part of gaming right now, mostly on PC although a few games on the consoles are getting the same treatment now. However, it’s worth remembering that these mods are fan-made and so sometimes… don’t work quite as intended.

The Fallout 4 Unofficial Patch was released to fix a batch of smaller bugs that Bethesda overlooked, much in the same vein as their previous Bethesda game patches. Only this time, something’s begun to mess it all up and that thing is Settlements – the very thing that Fallout 4 pushes as a central game mechanic.

Detailed extensively on this forum post here, the issue is that modded scripts seem to be making the game reload NPCs regularly. This includes your settlers and anything that the game isn’t told to remember is randomised each time they’re reloaded. Unfortunately this includes such things as the settler’s held gear, appearance, gender and even the species of the settler. Also, the reloading can happen even if the settler is just out of line of sight. So turning your back on your settler’s designated guard could have them turn into someone completely different when you turn back to them and their specially modded weapon could be replaced by something basic as hell. Oh, and it also stops new settlers from being recruited at all. As I said earlier the settlement mechanic is central to the game so if you enjoy that aspect of it, this isn’t good news.

They think it has something to do with the scripts that edit specific files relating to the workshop, but a Bethesda employee spoke up on the topic to say that they don’t agree. SmkViper has denied that it is the fault of the scripts mentioned, as well as saying the mod makers’ misconceptions about how the coding works could have them barking up the wrong tree. Regardless of this though Bethesda seems to be working to replicate the bug to see how they can help resolve this. For now, a temporary fix is in place with the mod team having removed part of an AI routine. Unfortunately those settlers who changed during the bug will not be able to change back.

Nowadays paid disclosure on Youtube, while still a big talking point, is at least better managed and done than it used to be in days gone by (with some exceptions still). Of course, it wasn’t always just the Youtubers at fault and to get to this point shady things and suspicions of such had to happen, and now one of those events seems to be coming back to bite Warner Bros in the backside.

Back in 2014, the company released Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. However they also got into some trouble when leaked e-mails suggested that they had been paying big name Youtubers, those with many subscribers in their subboxes, for positive coverage of the game. At the same time they were holding back the review copies that were for the press.

Now the Federal Trade Commission have published their findings on the whole issue, with Warner Bros having come under fire for their marketing campaign. It was alleged at the time that Warner had reached out to the big-name Youtubers paying them for positive coverage of their games and had even encouraged them to be less than clear about the deal being a paid one, ensuring that the disclosures for sponsored content were placed “below the fold” – which means placing text so that it can’t be read unless someone expanded the video’s description. Some of the Youtubers also only disclosed that they had received early access, but not that Warner was paying them to make the video.

Warner are now accused of not having ensured that the paid influencers would disclose the paid content “clearly and conspicuously”. While they are avoiding a fine this time around, Warner Bros have been warned that in future online marketing of this nature needs a satisfactory effort made to ensure Youtubers are properly disclosing their paid videos as well as encouraging it to happen.

“Consumers have the right to know if reviewers are providing their own opinions or paid sales pitches,” said Jessica Rich, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “Companies like Warner Brothers need to be straight with consumers in their online ad campaigns.”

System Shock was a genre-defining game for Ken Levine, long before Bioshock was on the scene. However, like many older games it will no longer run on newer hardware without some serious faffing around. However, like its sequel Nightdive Studios wants to have an updated version made that will, and it seems that their efforts will ultimately be successful – two weeks before the end of the crowdfunding campaign for said-project they’ve already hit their target.

Nightdive was founded back in 2012 for the purposes of acquiring the digital rights to System Shock 2 to get a working version made for those who hadn’t managed to play it when it was first released. They’re now hoping to get the same treatment for the original game which was released back in 1994, updating the game with the Unity engine. Stretch goals for the game now include a full orchestral score at $1.5m, more locations and narrative at £1.3m and extra mechanics and updates to the core design of the game including vending machines, crafting and upgrading for just $1.4m. There are even more above $2m, but as of yet the details about those have not been revealed to the public. If funding keeps going strongly though, they’ll be revealed sooner rather than later most likely.

Older games are very much something popular with gamers now, especially for the young adult and adult generations who were a part of the gaming scenes of the 80s and 90s during their childhoods and teens. As we’ve seen before with Yooka-Laylee and other crowd funding campaigns, nostalgia is a very strong draw.

In a statement celebrating the success of his Kickstarter for System Shock, the CEO of Nightdive Stephen Kick wrote: “The journey started with System Shock 2 and the reception/support I received allowed me to seek out other like minded individuals who would help locate and revive more lost classics. There’s no possible way I could convey how grateful the Nightdive team is to the 14,000+ backers who put their trust in us – we’re having a lot of fun remaking System Shock and we owe it all to you!”

Summer Games Done Quick has come to an end now, having shown off some great speedrunning from some of the best in the speedrunning community. Now we wait another six months for the Winter event, but until then it’s worth talking about the event and its tally.

It’s likely that you didn’t manage to catch all of the event but all of the speedruns have been backed up onto the event’s Youtube channel so you’ll be able to catch up on the games that interest you at your own leisure. Of course, one part that everyone seems to have watched is when Bl00d_Thunder’s Bioshock run seemed to be taken over by an inopportune Windows 10 update; really a fairly clever little prank that allowed the livestream to not suffer consequences from the game’s cutscenes later causing copyright issues when uploaded onto Youtube.

The main point of any Games Done Quick event though is that these speedrunners are gaming quickly for the sake of charity and fundraising and this event saw them raising for Doctors Without Borders, and their current amount as of time of writing is almost $1.3 million – $1,298,479.44 if you want to be precise about it. The average donation was about $42.10 with the single largest donation being more than $59.5k.

As always it’s great to see people gaming for charity and giving something to those organisations that deserve the help and support.

In celebration of its publisher’s 30th anniversary, Ubisoft have announced that they will be giving away the original Splinter Cell game for free from Wednesday, July 13th for a short period of time – 30 days. Download it and its yours to keep.

The game released back in 2002 and was a hit, featuring elements taken from the stealth game genre it was a part of but making good use of shadow and light as its mechanic. A hit it spawned sequels, including many that made us of co-operative play. I distinctly remember one such sequel resulting in my watching a friend drop onto the head of a patrolling guard when he meant to move stealthily across the ceiling. It was an effective if hilarious tactic. Of course, over the years the formula has changed so for fans of the series it will be nice to have a chance to revisit where it all began.

The game will be available through UbisoftClub from the 13th, replacing the current free game which is Prince of Persia, if the offer is tempting to you.