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Shotgun Surgeon

Required Character Level: 6
Required Attributes/Skills: Guns 45
Your precision with a scattergun is something to behold. When using shotguns, regardless of ammunition used, you ignore an additional 10 points of a target's damage threshold.

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Over the past 13 years, the "Fallout" franchise has proved to the gaming community that you don't need wizards, castles and dragons to make a proper role-playing game. The retrofuturistic style coupled with the incredible depth of gameplay made this post-apocalyptic adventure a downright thrilling experience. As time passed, the isometric-viewed, point-and-click interface and grainy graphics became obsolete, forcing an evolution of epic proportion. Enter "Fallout 3." This journey into the next generation blended the creative style of the originals while advancing the gameplay, graphics and depth. Now, after spending two years at the top of the console RPG charts, Bethesda Game Studios is looking to re-create the magic with the latest in its atomic franchise, "Fallout: New Vegas."

Life in Vegas is hard. Life in the ultraviolent wasteland that is New Vegas is near impossible. But with the right mindset and skills, you just might just survive. As you make your way across the Mojave and what's left of the Vegas Strip, you'll encounter creatures, characters and crooks that want nothing more than to see you dead. The only way to prevent your demise is to think fast, watch your back and carry plenty of really big guns. If you know how to play your cards right, you might even do a little better than merely surviving. You could be the next King of New Vegas.

At first glance, "Fallout: New Vegas" may seem like a first-person shooter. Don't be fooled, because under the hood, this game is pure RPG. Your character is fully customizable, right down to his skills, attributes and equipment, each of which has an impact on the overall gameplay. Sure, you can blast away at bad guys with your pistol, but without the proper skill with a firearm, you'll be hitting air more than vitals.

Bethesda has added several upgrades to the old "Fallout 3" system, which make controls and gameplay much more streamlined. Companions can now be controlled much more easily using the newly added Companion Wheel, and the updated reputation system has created a virtual world where your choices affect everything and everyone around you.

With "Fallout 3," Bethesda managed to do the impossible by evolving a beloved game franchise, while still staying true to the originals. "Fallout: New Vegas" manages to re-create the same magic found in the 2008 blockbuster while removing and fixing some minor flaws that hindered its predecessor.

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