Speaking to RPS regular Jeremy Peel in a new feature about RPG design, Amazon's Fallout TV show and his time working on Pentiment and Pillars of Eternity, Obsidian's Josh Sawyer has reflected a bit on what Fallout: New Vegas owes to Black Isle and Interplay's very first Fallout from 1997. "A lot of the philosophy that I approached New Vegas with was the philosophy of Fallout 1, or how I interpreted it," Sawyer observed. "Fallout 1 was foundational for me in understanding how role-playing games should be made."
]]>Perhaps the Last Of Us TV show on HBO getting it right was the dawn of a new era of good TV based on video games, but I still approach each adaptation with trepidation. That includes Amazon's Fallout series from Westworld and Person Of Interest writer/director Jonathan Nolan, which just got its first trailer.
]]>Pete Hines, head of publishing at Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Starfield studio Bethesda, is retiring. One of the most public faces at the developer behind perhaps only Toddy H himself, Hines has played a prominent role in the release of their biggest games for close to the last quarter-of-a-century - but says that the “time is right” to move on to “an exciting new chapter of my life”.
]]>According to leaked documents, Microsoft are/were remastering Oblivion and Fallout 3. This is boring. The past decade of innumerable remasters has been boring enough, but remastering these two games is particularly boring. When even bother when all Bethesda have made since Oblivion is Oblivion remakes with added spacesuits or yelling? Boring. But while I think the torrent of remasters is a miserable sign of big publishers just giving up, if they're going to do it anyway: why not Morrowind?
]]>What does the future hold for ZeniMax and Bethesda? A sizeable helping of the same, if a 2020-dated release schedule leaked as part of today's accidental FTC Microsoft court document blowout is to be believed. The document is from a July 2020 Microsoft presentation about the acquisition of ZeniMax, during the early months of the Covid pandemic - as such, it doesn't reflect Microsoft and ZeniMax's plans today, following global lockdowns and the buyout, and several of the dates are obviously bogus. Still, it's probably a good steer as to current and future Bethesda and ZeniMax projects, which may include Dishonored 3 and remasters of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Fallout 3.
]]>Look at any image of heavy metal horror game The Axis Unseen and you’ll recognise an archetype: the stealth archer. For a certain sort of Elder Scrolls player, it’s the only way to travel through a fantasy open world - perma-crouched, bow stretched lazily across the lower third of the screen. And it’s an appeal that creator Nate Purkeypile understands perfectly, having spent the larger portion of his career working on Bethesda’s RPGs, from Fallout 3 and Skyrim all the way through to Fallout 76.
“It’s probably not the best idea for most people to do a solo open world,” he says. “But at the same time, this is like my sixth one. I’m pretty sure what goes into these.”
]]>I’m a sucker for well-hidden video game easter eggs, from Psychonauts 2’s strange mpreg cutscene to the ability to play as a baby in Mount & Blade 2, they're all great they’re great. But it’s all too easy to walk past easter eggs without knowing they were even there. I’ve probably waved off multiple fun secrets, mistaking them for lore I didn’t understand or a questline I haven’t gotten to. So, my pea-sized brain enjoyed this video of game designer Steve Lee interviewing the devs behind The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout as they reveal some dev secrets behind those games - including a cool egg.
]]>Sneaky new photos taken of the set of Amazon’s Fallout TV adaptation have been shared on Twitter that show one of the retro-futuristic series’ Red Rocket gas stations being built. While the chain’s distinctive rocket doesn’t feature in any of the snaps, all taken by J. Carson in New York state, you can clearly make out the Red Rocket branding on its sign and bright red atomic fuel pumps. The whole look is very post-apocalyptic, dilapidated with beaten up 1950s-style American cars parked around the forecourt.
]]>Horror games are great and all that, but what about games that make you the monster? Yeah. Chew on that for a second.
I'm not just talking about games that belong to the horror genre, either. In fact, spare those asymmetrical multiplayer games that are all the rage with their worryingly young audiences, there are few actual horror games that let you assume the role of the villain. But that doesn't mean there isn't a deluge of titles where you play as a creature so vile, so menacing, that the residents of their worlds undoubtly view the player as evil incarnate. Far from it. The games on this list may not all be spooky in tone, but your character is still the stuff of actual nightmares.
]]>It’s that time of week again, as the Epic Games Store rotates its free games and grants us two fresh things to play for nowt. If we don’t own them already, that is. There’s a strong chance that you might have already picked up either or both of this week’s freebies. One is Bethesda’s first instalment of their take on the retro-futuristic post-apocalypse in Fallout 3. There’s also Shiro Games’ ode to classic console RPGs, the Evoland series.
]]>New set images have leaked from the production of Amazon’s Fallout TV show, and they appear to show the inside of Vault 32. There’s also a nice bit of propaganda that reads “The outside world can never hurt you” and shows a superheroic Vault Boy deflecting nukes with a shield. How very Fallout. Read on to take a look at some of the images below.
]]>Amazon’s upcoming TV adaptation of post-apocalyptic RPG series Fallout has cast veteran sci-fi actor Kyle MacLachlan in an undisclosed role as a series regular. You may remember him from such roles as future emperor of the universe Paul Atriedes in David Lynch’s Dune, cafficionado Special Agent Dale Cooper in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, and for his turn in David Lynch's Oscar-nominated Blue Velvet. Please tell me David Lynch will at least direct the pilot.
]]>Online sci-fi RPG Fallout 76 is revisiting a not-so-beloved setting from predecessor Fallout 3 this September when the free Expeditions: The Pitt update launches from its silo. It’ll be the first time players have been able to venture beyond the borders of Fallout 76’s Appalachia region. Go downtown with the trailer below for more info.
]]>After 13 years, Fallout 3 has finally removed Microsoft's reviled (and broken) Games For Windows Live service from the Steam release. Hooray! FO3 is still busted because Bethesda haven't updated the game to run happily on modern Windows, but I'll take any opportunity to dance on GFWL's grave. However, avoid the update if you play FO3 with lots of mods.
]]>With QuakeCon 2021 set to take place in a virtual fashion next week - and already being in the headlines thanks to an errant schedule listed a 'revitalized' Quake - GOG are offering some deep discounts on some of the best-known ZeniMax franchises including Fallout, Dishonored, The Elder Scrolls, Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein.
It's a great chance to pick up some fantastic shooters and roleplaying games at bargain basement prices, from recent releases to all-time classics. Here are my personal highlights, plus a big link to the sale itself.
]]>In 2022, Fallout 76 will let players explore beyond the reaches of Appalachia for the first time. Bethesda are adding Expeditions to their post-apocalyptic MMO, which will allow former vault-dwellers to adventure in other areas of the Fallout universe. The first one might be familiar to folks who played some of Fallout 3's DLC too, because it's sending us back to The Pitt (that is: radiation-ravaged Pittsburgh).
]]>Fallout games may be grim, but even the wasteland doesn't usually let you harm children. Thank goodness for mods, right? One particular Fallout 3 mod lets players with the cannibal perk gobble down an infant in the The Pitt DLC, which one of my favorite speedrunners has endeavored to do in under 20 minutes. Why on earth would he want to speed eat a baby? It's more wholesome than you think, actually.
]]>You thought it was over. You believed the year of anguish would be a memory by now. I’m sorry, you were wrong. The carousel of disharmony will never cease, and neither will the bumper car motorcade of video games. This week, the United States of America chooses a President in a logistical process entirely in-keeping with the carnival metaphor I am here constructing. Even in video games - no strangers to ineffectual binary choice - there is a more varied selection of candidates. Here are 7 Presidents other than those offered on this week’s ballot.
]]>War never changes, but prestige TV sure can. Today, Bethesda announced that Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, creators of HBO's Westworld, are taking their cinematic lens to Fallout, working with Amazon Studios to create a post-apocalyptic telly show based on the long-running nuke 'em up RPG. Hold on, though - a darkly comic show about robot cowboys, deserts and conspiracies? Sounds quite a leap for the folks behind Westworld.
]]>Children, life’s great copy-paste. Adorable, drooling idiots with no self-control and a habit of yelling embarrassing facts to the entire supermarket. In our everyday lives, human children are a snotty emblem of hope, vulnerability, and aspiration. In videogames, they are a cursed harbinger of escort missions, narrative roadblocks, “cutesy” voice acting, and precocious dialogue. They are annoying. But hold on, that’s the point. Many of them are meant to be that way. So here is a list of the 10 most annoying children in PC games. And perhaps, the best annoying?
]]>Awesome Games Done Quick (aka AGDQ) has started yet again, and just four days in has already blessed us with some unforgettable moments and absolute must-watch PC speedruns. The clips I offer up to you today involve one speedrunner whacking out a real life model to explain a glitch, one speedrun where everything went wrong but everyone had a fabulous time anyway, and one game developer exclaiming "frick cancer in the bum."
]]>Sometimes a skeleton is just a skeleton. They're bloody everywhere in the Fallout games, so you could easily overlook just one more. Sometimes, however -- like in the Fallout 4 instance above -- it's a clever multi-layered nod to a friend. Earlier today, former Bethesda level designer Joel Burgess shared a few of his stories and favourite hidden creations via Twitter. It's some good insight, good advice for level designers, and highlights a few things you might have otherwise missed.
]]>Way back in the forgotten times of glossy paper games magazines, I remember my first exposure to what would become Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game. Early previews said Fallout was going to be a PC showcase of the GURPS pen-and-paper RPG system, but it grew into its own thing. Now, tabletop studio Modiphius have announced the Fallout: Wasteland Warfare Roleplaying Game, a freeform RPG expansion for their tabletop miniature tactics game. Curiously, there's yet another, more traditionally pen-and-paper version based on Modiphus's 2d20 RPG rule-set due next year.
]]>Having halted development in 2018 due to legal concerns, the team behind Capital Wasteland have resumed work on remaking Fallout 3 inside Fallout 4 as a mod - with a wild plan to sidestep the legal issue. Having previously intended to edit Fallout 3's sound files to work with Fallout 4, which was a no-no, they now plan to record the 45,000 lines of the game's script with new voices themselves. It's a huge undertaking to remake a game inside a marginally fancier shell but hey, puzzling personal passions are the heart of modding.
]]>Cyber Monday is, of course, a pure and honest celebration of all things cyber. We hack the planet as one, united against corporations, capitalism and the class divide. Then we all burn our 4K televisions and go off to have a massive rave-orgy in an abandoned sewer. Such is the way of the Cyber Monday Warrior.
But it's not all talking in C++ and overthrowing distant tyranny. Cyber Monday is also a time to remember the sacrifices made in the name of the hacking. None of these are quite so tragic as otherwise great games laid low by poorly-judged hacking minigames, forcibly inserted by executive pressure to pad out the running time. Today, let us honour the fallen.
]]>It began with the flickering of vacuum tubes behind the mesh of a derelict radio. A jaunty 1950s melody drifting out. A brief glance from a Brotherhood of Steel knight, and then the scene cuts to black. A decade ago, this was the introduction to Fallout 3. While the sequence bears a striking resemblance to that of 1997’s Fallout, that’s where most similarities end. Fallout 3 was divisive, alienating ardent fans but also drawing in many more with its kitschy portrayal of 1950s culture. The original Fallout weaved thoughtful deliberations about ideologies and morality throughout its plot, whereas Bethesda’s first-person shooter was more intent on building visual bombast and elaborate world-building, about constructing a universe rather than telling a coherent story. That’s where Fallout 3’s allure lay: in smaller, self-contained stories, tucked away in seedy towns and ghastly underground vaults.
]]>"War," Ron Perlman will almost certainly growl during Bethesda's E3 press conference. "War never changes," he'll likely continue. Then he'll go on about some past wars, which were bad, and tell us about fictional future wars which are also bad. Bethesda are teasing some sort of Fallout announcement, see. New or old, original or remaster... we don't know. But at some point soon we'll get to see some marketing for a new Fallout thing. E3, E3 never changes.
]]>Democracy is on the brink of collapse. Caesar's Legion, the authoritarian slave state across the Colorado River, has launched a massive assault on the last, best chance for freedom in the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout. It's a grim certainty in Old World Blues that the New California Republic will fight Caesar's Legion: they're the wasteland's two superpowers, diametrically opposed ideologically, each expanding towards the other. I just thought I was better prepared. While Caesar was annihilating every ill-defended tribe to the west, I was rearming, inviting new states into the republic, and admittedly annexing a few tribes myself. With the game paused, I assess my options, reorganise my armies and ask, finally, does democracy die in 2279?
Old World Blues is a mod for Hearts of Iron IV which transports the World War II grand strategy game hundreds of years forward into the post-apocalyptic American west coast of the Fallout series. Players select a faction in the year 2275 and attempt to survive and thrive in the west coast wasteland. Structurally, it's similar to Hearts of Iron IV, but the content and style has been transformed. Old World Blues is tremendously fun, comparable in quality to the standard Hearts of Iron IV game, and it does a terrific job of translating Fallout to grand strategy.
]]>We've previously covered the exciting-looking Capital Wasteland mod for Fallout 4. Planned as a full remake of Fallout 3 in the later game's engine, one prerequisite for such a project would be to port over the voice audio files from the original game, a legally grey move that could potentially earn the project a cease-and-desist or other legal threat.
Wanting to preempt such issues, the Capital Wasteland team got in contact with Bethesda, seeking official blessing for such a move. Unfortunately, the studio weren't willing or able to offer such support. With little option beyond assembling a massive voice cast of their own, they're officially calling it quits on the project after a full year in development, although there may yet still be some hope for it.
]]>Last time we looked at Capital Wasteland, the Fallout 4 mod unofficially recreating Fallout 3 inside the newer game, the team behind it were showing off a montage of environments. That's nice and all, but it's a stage many remake mods for many games have reached before fizzling out. Now they're showing: no, look, we really are doing it. A new gameplay video shows a 12-minute chunk of Fallout 3's main quest with NPCs, action, dialogue, scripted events, quest progression, and other things that make the game tick. It does indeed look a lot like Fallout 3 inside Fallout 4. Observe:
]]>One of the few certainties in this ever-changing world is: right now, someone, somewhere, is remaking an old Bethesda open-world RPG inside a newer game from that series. Fans are working on bringing several Elder Scrolls games to several newer Elder Scrolls games, while others are trying to put Fallout 3 and Obsidian's Fallout: New Vegas inside Fallout 4. The teams behind the Fallout 3 and New Vegas mods have both recently shown more of their work so coo go on, let's have a look.
]]>The game trailer is a sly creature. It wants to entertain you, to excite you, to embolden you with curiousity. But it also wants to sell you a bunch of code wrapped up in some 3D shapes. Some trailers turn out to be more artful than the game they’re hawking, others plant sneaky emotions in your head with music. However, some are better than others. Here are the best conflagrations of light and noise in PC gaming.
]]>The world ended on September, 30 1997. Or, rather, that was the day we were first shown what would become gaming's enduring definition of the end of the world. Interplay's Fallout, a very different game from Bethesda's Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 (not that this seems to bother anyone; no sirree, not a soul), was and is a landmark roleplaying game. It disrupted ideas that RPGs meant elves and kobolds; it disrupted ideas that RPGs were a straight march to the finish line; it disrupted ideas that RPG heroes should be heroic.
War never changes, but Fallout changed most everything else.
]]>I forget which game it was, exactly. If I had to pick one, I'd say probably the text adventure Humbug. It doesn't really matter, as it's not really the game's fault, but I still remember the sadness of being told to go into the inventory and realising that while I was thinking of a big room full of bubbling liquids in interesting flasks and other cool science stuff, the game was actually saying 'look in your pockets'. Especially as if it was Humbug, it's a game about wandering around and exploring your crazy inventor grandfather's house. I must have searched for whole minutes, back in 1990.
There's never been a game that really harnessed that desire, but still, it explains a lot about one of my favourite things in RPGs - particularly those of the early 90s - that the inventory often was a place to experiment rather than simply pluck the correct item at the correct time. Even if then, as now, it's often been more accident than design.
]]>Video games always come with an expectation that the player will suspend disbelief to some extent. Genetically engineered super-soldier clones don’t exist, radiation has never and will never work like that, and overweight Italian plumbers could never make that jump. In most cases, if we are unwilling or unable to suspend our disbelief, we may well struggle to enjoy the game and our questioning of the basics of its ‘reality’ would probably make us insufferable to be around.
There are some games however, where the realities of our world are key to enjoying the game. These are the builders like City Skylines, simulators and sports games like Prison Architect and FIFA, and even crime games like Grand Theft Auto. One genre has a particular problem when it comes to maintaining a foot in the real world yet still creating a setting where one can have fun without becoming mired in morally questionable events and choices: historically based games. And among historical games, few subjects are as complex to represent as slavery. Many have tried, from Europa Universalis IV and Victoria II to Civilization and Assassin's Creed: Freedom Cry, and in this article I'll investigate the portrayal and use of slavery in these games and more to explore what they get right, what they get wrong, and how games could do better in future.
]]>DOOM, Skyrim and Fallout have been recreated as Pinball FX2 [official site] tables. Because nobody else at RPS has the flippin' guts to take on such a massive task, I've spent a couple of hours with each, and have now judged them. Short version, I like them about as much as I like the games they're based on, which means one is great, and the other two are a bit of a ballache. To find out precisely what I mean by that, join me below.
]]>So I'm wandering through Fallout 4 [official site], and I come across this old diner, sitting there, neon still lit, almost jaunty in a destroyed land. There's a guy outside called Wolfgang, a leathered drug dealer, who explains that a mother and son have set up a shop in this diner, and that he wants paying for goods he's sold to the son.
I go inside, aiming to resolve the problem between the dealer and the son, and get into conversation with the mother. But, looking down, I notice that, despite trading from this place, she hasn't thought to remove a skeleton from one of the booths. Because why would you remove a skeleton from your shop? Or any of the filth that’s accumulated on the floor?
It’s just one of the weird little things about the world of Fallout 4 that I find confusing and alienating. Little things that nudge me out out my suspension of disbelief that this is a place. Instead of enveloping myself in all its detail, it just gets me wondering, absently, is this how it would be?
]]>Oh boy, am I conflicted. Fallout 4’s main plotline requires that I do this thing and as far as things go, it’s a pretty major thing and a major thing that you’d expect someone with the maternal instinct of my character Halle to crack on with straight away. The trouble is, rather than doing this major thing, for at least an hour now, she, and when I say ‘she’, I mean ‘I’, have been poking around Sanctuary, scrapping anything that glows yellow so I can salvage enough materials to build a house big enough for me and my Minutemen companions. I had largely avoided Bethesda’s drip-feed of Fallout 4 pre-publicity but when I somehow found out that the game had settlement building, I think I might have involuntarily passed a little wind in joyous anticipation.
That's because I’ve felt a similar rosy inner glow while hanging around other hubs and houses in many other games I’ve played. I think it’s easy to underestimate the value of having a ‘home’ base option, especially in open world games where there is a free-roaming element, but it's a part of why I love certain games.
]]>There's something oddly comforting about radio. Comforting because it's so familiar, so natural. Odd because it's a comfort that most of us don't really use all that much these days, at least not in the ways that games just casually assume. It's a little like the whole audio diaries thing - it makes a vague sense that everyone in a city like Rapture might record their daily crimes and schemes onto audio tapes, even though in reality that whole idea became obsolete when Facebook/Twitter added status updates.
But I do love in-game radio. It's an amazing narrative tool, a great way of filling in the gaps the screen can't show, a constant companion in the loneliest of situations, and not a bad way of making music diegetic - a term that translates to 'let's see who now sneakily Googles diegetic'. Forget Spotify. Never mind video. In RPGs, nothing can kill the radio star, unless of course you walk up to them and shoot 'em in the face. Then, sometimes. Though usually nature still finds a way of keeping them on the air.
]]>Above: The Murderettes
I briefly mention how much I dug Fallout 4's colourful, playful clothing options in my review, but given that my hard drive is full of screenshots of that stuff, it seems a waste not to give it its own post. The costumes are, as far as I'm concerned, Fallout 4 [official site] at its absolute best. Take a look below.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
Fallout 4 is just around the corner, but the series' popularity is so huge that it almost servers to obscure the things which made Fallout 3 [official site] fun in the first place. It's an easier game to pick holes in than it is to be enthusiastic about.
]]>Desert-dwellers rejoice, Fallout: Autumn Leaves [official site] heralds a return to the post-apocalyptic Mojave in a mod similar in size to an official DLC expansion.
Inspired by previous Fallout installments, Planetscape: Torment and Arcanum, Fallout: Autumn Leaves dumps The Courier into Hypatia, a never before seen town just east of Novac. From here, he must once again scour the barren Desert Wasteland in a journey which, according to the mod's page, will last seven to ten hours all told. Check the trailer below.
]]>The other day I grumped a little at the idea of our dutifully posting all seven of the Fallout 4 [official site] S.P.E.C.I.A.L. videos over the coming weeks, but you lot rightfully called me out on my cynicism. These cute animated shorts are doing a handy job of summarising Fallout's systems and general attitude.
So here's the fourth one then, this time looking at that most alien of concepts to me, Charisma. I particularly liked its depiction of Ye Archetypal Roleplaying Inn.
]]>You shouldn't really eye up the dessert menu before your main course has arrived, but sometimes the need to know that profiteroles are definitely available gets the better of one. And so it is that ears are already pricking about Fallout 4 [official site]'s post-launch stuff things, including word of downloadable content and a vague window for its mod support.
]]>It's hardly a Bethesda RPG if you can't replace some part of it with the chugging terror of Thomas the Tank Engine, but Fallout 4's mod tools won't be ready at the game's launch on November 10th. Speaking to IGN, Bethesda's VP of Marketing Pete Hines said that, their "entire focus is on finishing the game."
]]>Bethesda are taking advantage of the encroaching release of Fallout 4 [official site] with plans to release a hefty collection of Fallout games. They're calling it, quite naturally, Fallout Anthology.
Put a circle around October 2nd in your calendars; the Anthology includes all five games in the Fallout series from the original through New Vegas, and all the relevant DLC in between. There's also space in its fake mini-nuke box reserved for Fallout 4, which is due out around a month later on November 10th.
]]>Bethesda have a spectacular talent for making moth-eaten ideas feel like revolutionary concepts: Fallout 4 [official site] will let you play a property baron who constructs not just houses but connected settlements from bits of duct tape and broken globe. I was beside myself with excitement at this news – giddy, even – but not because of any particular flair on display in the five-minute crafting reveal at E3. As my New Vegas mod list and cack-handed fumbling with the Creation Kit will attest, I’m a sucker for anything that lets me inhabit the Wasteland. The idea of reshaping it by my own hand (benevolent, naturally) is intoxicating, even if the mechanics are crap.
And crafting mechanics are almost always crap.
]]>This isn't a guide, because it's designed to be an open discussion about which other fan-made doohickeys are best bolted onto Fallout: New Vegas while we wait for the more vibrant Fallout 4 [official site] as much as it is my own recommendations. I want you, the veteran connoisseur of a game I skipped over at the time, to tell me and other readers what the must-have FNV mods are. But I'm also going to share a few I'm using, which have dramatically reduced the severity of the post-apocalyptic RPG's savage ugly-stick beating. They've added some of the fidelity and most of all colour that we cooed at in Fallout 4 footage - a game which suggested an altogether more appealing wasteland.
]]>There was a trailer for a new videogame today. The internet seemed quite taken with it. We don't actually know much about Fallout 4 at this stage, but I went through the trailer scene by scene to see what confirmations and implications I could glean from it. 40-odd screengrabs below, with annotation wibble for each. Click on any one of them for a 1080p version and gallery thinger (though bear in mind they're grabs from a trailer so aren't exactly After Eight-crisp.)
]]>It's a great time for RPGs at the moment, with just about every name, flavour and celebrity from the old days finding a new lease of life through Kickstarter and a freshly hungry audience. Most series and creators though have had at least one game fall prey to development hell - sometimes with their ideas resurfacing in later titles, sometimes with everything simply lost to time. Their levels of completion vary dramatically, but here are some of the games we never got to play...
]]>While at a procedural generation shindig for ProcJam, roguelike developer Darren Grey answered a question about games which have characters who interact with one another and not the player. A member of the audience suggested Din's Curse and Depths of Peril.
"I don't know how interesting that is - having things interacting with each other - especially if they're out of your sight. What does it matter? A game should be player-centred in my opinion. I'm not interested in what goes on behind – simulate it. make it up, it doesn't matter. As long as the player feels like they're getting an interesting experience."
]]>I can remember covering the first wave of big Kickstarter games in all their crowd-sourced hype, and feeling conflicted with every post. It was so exciting that all this could happen, traditional barriers between games and their players so suddenly eroded, but at the same time it all seemed like so many promises, talk of a new golden age that was so still so impossibly far away. A couple of years later though, and here we are - these games are steadily becoming a reality, from the so far excellent (Elite 4) to the inescapably ugly (Godus). Where will post-apocalyptic RPG Wasteland 2, one of the first big names to be crowdfunded, wind up? We find out very, very soon.
In the meantime, we get to see how it's spent some of its less essential groats, with a live-action intro intended to set the scorched earth scene. It tries very hard to avoid saying "war never changes."
]]>Could it be? Is it even remotely possible? Has a major videogame publisher truly decided to make a sequel to one of its best-selling games? O brave new world, that has such speculation in't.
Bethesda alternating between Elderses and Falloutses seemed pretty much a given to me, so when talk arose around a URL apparently bought by Bethesda and entitled 'Survivor 2299', a return to the post-apocalypse was far from a surprise. Whether the website really is anything to do with Bethesda remains open to interpretation, but even if it isn't you should feel free to smack me around the chops with a rainbow trout and call me Charlie McArse if we don't start hearing official talk of Fallout 4 within the next year.
]]>Sundays are for boarding up the windows, counting the canned goods and panic buying videogames. Also, for doing things for the first time.
- Every year the Interactive Fiction competition attracts inventive entries in the words-you-play genre. Every year, Emily Short writes smart-words-you-read about the entries she likes, and it's worth spending a day diving through the round-up of her favourites, before playing the games for yourself.
When you speak with someone in Las Vegas, the topic of conversation naturally shifts to Vegas-themed things. In the case of Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart, that meant Star Wars, of course. Oh, and I guess Fallout: New Vegas. During a DICE chat that lasted innumerable moons, months, seasons, and centuries, Urquhart and I briefly touched on his studio's return to its old techno-magically irradiated Black Isle haunt. “Oh, we'd love to do Fallout: New Vegas 2," he enthused. "It would be awesome." But how would that work? And is Bethesda on board with the idea? Here's what Urquhart had to say.
]]>Talented RPS writer chum Patricia Hernandez asked us if she could write about the influence of RPG-classic Fallout 2 on her life. We agreed, and what she came back with was a stark personal tale of how videogame fantasy can inspire interest, provoke thought, and ultimately change how we see the world.
]]>Interplay founder Brian Fargo and his studio inXile Entertainment hope to be responsible for the next big Kickstarter-funded game, having recently announced plans for a sequel to Fargo's 1988 roleplaying game Wasteland - perhaps best known as the predecessor to Fallout. Wasteland 2 will be a turn-based, party-based roleplaying game in a post-apocalyptic setting - in other words, in theory what veteran Fallout fans have been crying out for. The same might be said of anyone who feels that today's RPGs have abandoned their roots in favour of big, glossy action. A few days ago, I chatted to the effusive Mr Fargo about how the project is going, why now, how far along the design is, who he's making it for, why old-school RPGs seemed to die out, how long the Kickstarter bubble can last and the importance or lack thereof of audio and cinematics to a game that's all about cause and effect.
]]>You may not know Adam Adamowicz's name, but if you've played either Fallout 3 or Skyrim, you'll have seen masses of his work. His job was to produce the vast and imaginative collections of concept art that made their worlds so exciting to explore, from characters to weapons, to the jaunty hats your hero could opt to wear while slaughtering deathclaws and daedra alike. Very sadly, Adam passed away on February 8.
]]>It's the Duke Nukem Forever of gaming-based legal scuffles, and apparently it's over at last. We don't yet know the details - i.e. who's won, who's paying who what and most of all who, if anyone, will be releasing a Fallout MMO - but we do know that, after an awful lot of back and forth and he said no he said but he started it but yeah but no a settlement has finally been reached in the long-running Bethesda and Interplay battle.
]]>The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the sequel to Oblivion, launches tomorrow. I've been playing the PC version of it during every waking hour of the last three and a half days, and most of the non-waking hours too. I'm still not really ready to tell you what I think. I will anyway.
]]>Here's the story so far. Interplay are developing a Fallout MMO title and Bethesda are attempting to block further development through application of The Law. When their previous injunction failed, Bethesda took things all the way to the United States District Court of Appeals, claiming that the previous court had "misapplied the law". If it was indeed a misapplication, the very same slip up has occurred once more. Stop misapplying Law, courts, you're getting it all over the drapes.
]]>The great and terrible Final Battle between Bethesda and Interplay regarding the latter's right to create an MMO based on the Fallout licence they part-sold to the former some years ago is still yet to be fought, but the litigation-lovin' folk at Bethesda have seen a potentially major setback in their efforts to take full control of wasteland adventuring. For a while, the two parties have been locked in snarling battle about whether Interplay are still allowed to make a Fallout MMO, with Bethesda claiming they failed to meet time and budgetary criteria outlined in the original license-selling deal. Interplay have claimed they've stuck the agreement, and thus continued with working on said MMO (actually contracting developing Masthead Studios to do it for them). Bethesda tried to stop 'em, but a US judge has now stopped Bethesda from stopping them. Got that?
]]>It's the weirdest Fallout: New Vegas DLC yet. I went back to the Mojave to pit my brains against the worst that 1950s B-Movie science has to offer. Is Old World Blues an enjoyable trip?
]]>I have been to the Zion National Park in Utah, but I don't remember there being any murderous men with bandaged-wrapped faces, desert renegades being killed in slow-motion or weird naked masked dudes. It's possible I just went to the wrong bit, though - I'm not very observant. Fortunately, the second spot of Fallout: New Vegas DLC means to address my errant tourism. It's called Honest Hearts, it's out May 17 (same day as the Witcher 2 and Fable 3 - the gods of roleplaying can be so very cruel), and it goes a little something like this...
]]>Times were an awful lot easier for Interplay back in 1998. A string of hit franchises, apparent sovereignty of the new RPG kingdom and, it appears, big, brassy enough cajones to start up a film division. While nothing much ever came of this, we now know that a Fallout movie was in the works, based on the first game. Whatever would it have been like? Let's find out.
]]>Beyond Black Mesa turned up to a mixed reception last week, and due to taking a few... liberties led to internet troubadours suggesting what they felt were superior fan-films. Here's one of them, set in the Fallout 3 universe. As well as being built on a whole lot of love, attention to detail and - gasp! - decent acting, it starts with a heartfelt plea that Bethesda doesn't sue them, which I think we can all get behind. Recreated weapons, costumes, crumbled bridges and 50s ad reels await...
]]>Eurogamer.dk (via VG247) which suggests that the new game is not only in development, but is a direct sequel to Oblivion. An Elder Scrolls game had previously been touted for a reveal at this year's E3, but did not show. Of course that doesn't mean it's not already a long way into development. Bethesda boss Todd Howard has already mentioned that two new games are in the works and we're going to speculate that one of those has to be an Elder Scrolls game. The big question for many people has been whether the technology would move away from the Gamebryo engine - the recent id acquisition probably wouldn't have provided time enough to base the game on id tech 5, but we can still dream - and a quote in this interview suggests that it is that familiar engine: “That's our starting point - the Fallout 3 tech,” said Howard. “The new stuff is an even bigger jump from that." Perhaps we'll get something concrete about the release in the new year.
]]>Emil Pagliarulo started his career this side of the fence, writing for the venerable Adrenaline Vault. Since kicking his way into development, he worked in the twilight years of Looking Glass - where he was designer on the eternal Life Of The Party - before moving to work on Bethesda, where he was Designer on Oblivion (Think "Dark Brotherhood") before becoming Lead Designer on Fallout 3. He's optimistic about the future, will surprise you by how big an influence Deus Ex was on Fallout 3 and has enormous sympathy for Eidos Montreal...
]]>I think Alec is writing a preview for one of the other denizens of the game-o-sphere about this game right at this moment. I am sure he'll link to it later. But anyway, the new bit of Fallout 3, which is being developed by the lovely Obsidian for release towards the end of this year, is called New Vegas, and it's looking like it might please a few apocalypse-lovers. Bethesda sent over their latest images, and I've posted 'em up below. Click for full size!
]]>The trailer. The trailer never changes. Yes, the first teaser for Obisidian's upcoming Fallout 3.5, New Vegas, has arrived. As has a release date, ish - this Autumn. I.e. yer traditional pre-Christmas silly-season, then. Find the video and some words about it above. I mean below. Gosh, you'd have thought I'd have learned that by now, wouldn't you?
]]>Thanks to Jun Shen Chia for sending in a link to this first episode of what proposes to be an ongoing series made in Fallout 3, which I've posted below. Further episodes can be found here. I have to admit it's been a while since I've paid any attention to the machinima scene, so do feel free to send in other efforts that are out there on the web. This particular piece is by Drakortha Productions, a chap who has done a whole bunch of game movies before now.
]]>While on the surface this is act of love... it's rather peculiar. It's a Fallout 3 mod created for a single purpose, and a single person: to ask a Fallout 3 player player to marry the girl who - with the help of the Fallout 3 modding community - made it. The full story begins here on the Bethesda forums, and continues here. To cut a very long story short: a video of the marriage proposal mod being played is below. And he said yes.
]]>We don't waffle much about Fallout 3 here, as it wasn't a game that especially grabbed any of us. Which hardly matters a jot inna final analysis: the rapturous reception from other critics and gamers alike has meant Bethesda have cheerfully been DLCing up it to the eyeballs since release (with, I gather, wildly varying degrees of success). The upcoming Mothership Zeta caught my eye more than the others (aside from the 'yeah, we did mess up Fallout 3's ending' admission that was Broken Steel), simply because it takes us out of that desaturated post-apocalyptic wasteland and onto a fully armed and operational alien battlestation, via the fun plot-twist of having you suffer alien abduction. Are there colours in space? Find out after the break...
]]>The notion of open game worlds has always appealed to me, ever since Elite. When there's even the faintest whiff on a free roaming environment, or virtuality that I can go off an explore, I'm interested. It's an impulse that leads me to spend endless hours in Stalker, or to expend an entire day driving around Fuel. But whatever game I play, I end up feeling somewhat dissatisfied. It's kind of dissatisfaction that does not seem to be so common with linear or arena games. I think it's to do with a specific tension that open world games create: between what the game is about, and what the environment - and its openness - implies.
]]>News just in from Gamasutra. Bethesda's Pete Hines, speaking in London, revealed that KOTOR2/NWN2 veterans Obsidian are working on a new Fallout game going under the name "Fallout: New Vegas". The only facts we have are that it's not Fallout Tactics, Brotherhood of Steel and doesn't impact what the actual main Bethesda Fallout team are doing. Which does make the puzzle be exactly what it could be. My gut response guess would be something using the Fallout 3 engine, in a locale well away from where Bethesda are operating - perhaps, I dare say, in Vegas - and probably set in a different period. But that's just nonsense I've just made up, obv. It could be a Fallout Slot Machine Game for all I know. The comments thread is your place for speculation.
]]>I'd have enjoyed Fallout 3 a whole lot more if it had more than three colours in it. Fortunately, an enterprising modder felt the same way, and has taken it upon himself to restore the chlorophyll to the wasteland's washed-out world. On paper, making the trees and grass clinging to life in a post-nuclear landscape a healthy shade of green sounds absolutely ridiculous, but in practice it makes an incredible amount of difference to a game that often coasts on limited artistic imagination. It doesn't end up looking like Oblivion 1.5 - rather, it still looks very much like the devastated wasteland it's supposed to. It's just that, now, plantlife's doing okay for itself even if humankind isn't. And it makes me want to explore so much more.
]]>Fallout 3 has released its first batch of downloadable newness. The DLC, called Operation Anchorage, is apparently available now. You're trying to gain access to a shelter, which requires you complete a military simulation of the liberation of Anchorage, Alaska, set between 2076 and 2077. Once it's installed, it's announced on the radio, and you can hot-leap to its location. There's a smattering of new content, including a new perk: Covert Ops. What follows is my attempt to get it.
Hip-hip-hooray. Fallout 3's official mod tool is out, and I'm celebrating by badly quoting Tina Turner songs. I'm far too stupid to use the construction kit myself, but I'm dead excited to see what Fallout 3's community (both those who love and those who want to see Bethesda strung up by the nipples for it) comes up with. Oblivion was massively enhanced by its mods, but Fallout 3's wilder, weirder world means there's room for all manner of madness.
]]>My affection for Fallout 3 just increased tenfold:
]]>They said it would never might happen. And now it has. Fallout 3, controversially released without official modding tools, will be blessed with the GECK come December. That's the Garden of Eden Creation Kit in the Fallout universe, but in our rather less post-apocalyptic universe it's the F3 equivalent of The Elder Scrolls games' powerful Construction kit. Oblivion's a game that quickly became mpre than the sum of its officially-made parts thanks to the unending glut of enthusiastic and often enormous mods. So, toys to bend'n'shape Fallout 3's delightfully ravaged world can only be good news.
There sure is a lot of stuff in Fallout 3. Granted, most of it involves messily shooting things in the face or enduring woeful characterisation, but not all of it. There's a ton of fun quests and epic scenery awaiting the casual adventurer. If, however, you're finding it tough to stray off the beaten path or have fallen into aimless mutant-bothering, the goodly readers of Planet Fallout are busy constructing an interactive, ever-swelling Google map of Washington DC's ravaged environs. Should help you fillet through the game's oodles of quests'n'secrets to find the more interesting bits. Good work, those fanboys.
]]>So, most of the season's biggest games have landed on our hard drives by now, which means two things will follow in their wake:
1) A torrent of finely-detailed complaints about this, that and the other feature. With maybe the occasional compliment thrown in for good measure. 2) Patches!
There tends to be this weird two-sided coin for PC versions of big games - on the hand they often don't receive quite as much spit'n'polish as the console versions, which is at least partly because there's no Microsoft or Sony certification hoops to jump through. On the other, that lack of certification means fixing up minor holes can happen a lot more quickly. Case in point - in the last couple of days, two very recent biggies have already seen their first patches: Fallout 3 and Far Cry 2.
]]>As three-quarters of RPS quietly recover from the Thinkosium, this brought a smile to our collective faces as we tried to work out how to remove cheese from the floor our of my oven. In a move which I have to assume will be rejected as another half-baked notion by AIMs, Eidos Montreal send Bethesda a cake to congratulate them on shipping Fallout 3. Bless.
]]>Today is embargo-lifting day, which means a whole mess of write-ups on Bethesda's latest RPG have spilled onto the web. The scores, unsurprisingly, are extraordinarily high.
Which probably means I'm going to get my arse kicked for not loving it quite as much as everyone else.
]]>It'd be fair to say that Fallout 3 is my... *counts on fingers*... fifth most anticipated game of the year, and I've actually largely been avoiding the coverage so that I can hit it fresh. Anyway, I couldn't help but to have a look at this most recent trailer. I didn't want to be disappointed: I know it's the world and the RPGishness that will make it for me, but I am rather disappointed by the gunplay shown here. It's the way the enemies do an "oh I've run out of hit-points" and fall over dead, that kills it for me. They need to be getting visibly battered by a torrent of lead, I need physics! Anyway, the environments look suitably derelict, and that missile-launcher is spectacular. Hopefully there will be enough awesome for this game to still be pleasing when we could to do that obligatory "games of 2008" round-up in December.
]]>I know this probably sounds like paranoia, but sometimes I wonder if there's some people predisposed to dislike the forthcoming Fallout 3. Yes, I realise what you're thinking: But this is from Bethesda, who make those incredibly popular Elder Scrolls games, and the Fallout series is excellent and deserves a new game from a stand-out development team. But despite all this, my gut just tells me that there's a dissenting voice, quiet as it might be, out there. While I'm here, another prediction: I think DRM will soon become a hot-button issue amongst PC gamers. Time will prove this. I laugh to think what would happen if you combined the two topics, were my instincts to prove correct.
Wait, what's this?
]]>Well, on other stuff too, but that's the most headline-worthy. After getting hands on with Fallout 3 last month I had ten minutes or so to chat with Bethesda's VP of PR and marketing Pete Hines which I've finally transcribed. In it, I ask why they're not initially supporting mods and mention the conspiracy theory that they're sidestepping them to increase demand for downloadable content. Plus stuff on violence, misapprehensions and 100-post+ comment threads.
]]>A new video feature with the Bethesda guys shows off a range of the weapons available to the player in the jolly-but-grim future of Fallout 3. The bolt action rifle looks like my kind of shooter, and the rail spike launcher looks... completely ludicrous? Can ludicrous be a kind of superlative? I think so.
I'm getting kind of anxious to play this, in the way I do when games are still an unknown quantity to me. Having not had any hands-on opportunity with it, well, I really want to know.
]]>Some of the Fallout chatter on here reminded me of the canceled "Van Buren" project, which would have been Fallout 3 had Interplay not closed down the Black Isle project in 2003. Most of you will have seen this last year, but I thought it worth mentioning that the tech demo was leaked in 2007 and is now freely available over on StrategyInformer. There's not a great deal to it, but the very existence of an alternate Fallout 3 makes for an interesting compare and contrast.
]]>Fallout 3 has removed all references to real-world drugs, in order to appease the Australian classification boards, and in turn, the rest of the world's. Edge Online reports that Bethesda, needing to get around the decision to refuse to even rate FO3 down under, has agreed to remove names of drugs like morphine from the game.
The Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification (there's a clue in the name) had announced that they would be refusing FO3 a rating due to its content, which in turn would have meant it wouldn't be stocked and sold in Oz. The office explained, "material promoting or encouraging proscribed drug use" is refused classification. Not material in film and literature, obviously - that would be crazy! But in games it's simply too much.
]]>The Penny Arcade Expo is, of course, a silly little fan-festival attended only by four people who like reading internet cartoon strips about swearing. It's definitely not a major gaming event at which a ton of important games are on show, and potentially a serious rival to the likes of E3 and Leipzig. There's no way stuff like Fallout 3 will reveal exciting new footage there. That would be ridiculous.
So, five lengthy videos straight outta PAX beneath the cut, showing Fallout being RPGy, and not simply FPSy, as was the case with the underwhelming E3 footage. I've posted my as-I-watched notes below each. Apologies for their brevity and wobbly grammar, but I figured my off-the-cuff reactions could work as well as ponderous analysis. We'll have plenty of ponderous analysis once the game's out, I don't doubt.
]]>I honestly can't remember if we already knew a release date for Fallout 3. I had September in my head, but I think I might have been making presumptions. We definitely know now, anyway: it's October 28th in America, and October 31st in Europe YOU BASTARDS. If an entire continent's worth of people manages to pirate the game during those three days, it's your own damn-fool fault, Bethesda.
]]>If you're a regular reader of the finest PC gaming site on Earth, you'll be aware that Old Man Murray hasn't updated in years and you're probably wondering why you keep on clicking there. But people who read us regularly will remember that the tenacious terrier of games journalism, Mat Kumar, had a quick go at Fallout 3 while at E3. Last Friday, I was left alone with the game for about an hour.
And this is what I made of it.
]]>I headline “Bethesda Softworks” to keep the format I’ve been using, but really I should just have put “Fallout 3” because that’s all they were showing and that’s all anyone cares about. I had a little bit of problem with this scheduled appointment – The time I was set to see it got confused by either PR or myself (we couldn’t decide) – so I didn’t perhaps get quite as much hands-on time as I would have liked (is there ever enough hands-on time at these kind of shows for hundred-hour RPGs?) But I got to stand and chat to executive producer Todd Howard while I waited, so it worked out for the best, really.
]]>Dear RPS Readers,
As not one of the quintessential quartet that makes up the Rock Paper Shotgun team were able to make it out to Los Angeles, they sent me instead. Well, they say they “weren’t able to make it out” – they probably all remembered that going to E3 as a journalist lumps you in with a large group of hobbyist “journalists” who whoop and pump their fist in the air when executives come out on stage during press conferences.
]]>Words later. E3 Video now:
Immediate thought: Oh. Is that... it? But before we dismiss it as -nnng- 'Oblivion with guns' (I'm strongly tempted to ironic-o-edit any comment that includes that 'orrible phrase from now on), let's keep in mind that this is a 100 hour, open-world RPG brutally compressed into a 3-minute combat demo for an audience of gun-hungry 360 journos, eh? I presume - based on how the game's been described previously - there's an awful lot more to see. And the palette aside - always a problem with post-apocalyptic landscapes - some of those dystopia-vistas really do look impressive.
Extra! Beneath the cut, a full-length trailer, showing more baddies, Dogmeat, some in-Vault stuff and more 50s ad-spoofery. And an excellent into-the-sunset closing shot.
]]>Beneath the jump: another cinematic-only trailer that may further anger poor Jim. Bizarrely, it's the same concept as the original Fallout 3 trailer, to the point where it's almost a shot for shot remake. Consciously so, no doubt, but similarly it gives no sense of how the game will play. Lengthy in-game footage is way-past due please, Bethesda. But it looks good, and it sounds even better. I can't wait to see how the vintage soundtrack is implemented in-game. Oh, there's also a couple of recentish screengrabs below the cut - click to gigantorise 'em.
]]>Nevada is laid to waste. The desert is a blackened, smoking ruin. Vegas has been razed. Countless thousands are dead.
This is the apocalyptic scene terrorists hope to create if they ever get their hands on a nuclear bomb. The computer generated image below was posted on an Islamic extremists' Bebo page yesterday.
]]>Hello significant American proportion of our readership. It turns out, if you pre-order Fallout 3 from "Gamestop", whatever that is, you'll get a soundtrack CD thrown in. (And a poster. For people who are students. Or not planning to get married).
]]>First of all Briosafreak, how dare you accuse me of an "unfortunate piece" when I incredibly deliberately post month old news. Secondly, thanks for the tip off to the brand new Fallout 3 artwork.
There's 11 new pieces to oogle, along with intricate commentary from concept artist, Adam Adamowicz, if you'll only click here. It's much more interesting than the usual concept art dump, with stories explaining each piece, entertainingly writte. Such as:
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