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Bethesda Drops Legal Bomb on Interplay over Fallout MMO

Nathan Grayson — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:23:57 -0500

Another day, another videogame-related legal battle. This time, it’s Bethesda that’s putting on its hockey mask and revving up the litigation machine while Interplay attempts to avoid paying an arm and a leg in return for what Bethesda calls “willful infringement.”

The gist of it goes like this: Current Fallout publisher Bethesda says that Interplay never acquired the proper rights to re-release earlier Fallout games digitally or in any other form. Interplay, who sold the Fallout series to Bethesda back in 2007, has been distributing Fallouts 1, 2, and Tactics for quite a while now – apparently against Bethesda’s will.

Bethesda’s also taking aim at Interplay’s still-unconfirmed Fallout MMO, supposedly codenamed “Project V13.” As part of an agreement, Interplay was supposed to have raised $30 million and entered “full-scale development” on the game by April 4, 2009. Bethesda contends that Interplay failed to reach this milestone, thereby terminating the agreement.

Interplay, however, claims that everything’s fine and dandy as far as the agreement’s concerned, and that Bethesda had no reason to terminate. Bethesda, meanwhile, also takes issue with Interplay’s unapproved Project V13 funding agreement with Masthead Studios. To this, Interplay simply replied that V13 is a different project, separate from its Fallout MMO.

And that’s only the short version of this extremely convoluted tale. If you’d like to know more and have nothing better to do for, oh, the next 4,234 years, you can read all about it here.

The Game Boy: From Space Invaders to Mothership Zeta – Why Videogame Aliens Suck

Nathan Grayson — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 14:34:24 -0500

Fallout 3: Mothership Zeta’s opening scenes were absolutely out of this world. Within a span of ten minutes, I was torn from the Wasteland, poked and prodded with 100 haystacks’ worth of needles, stripped of the near-impregnable safety blanket I call “Power Armor,” and unceremoniously tossed into a prison cell. Upon awakening, my ragged, desperate human cellmate cowered in fear as some unknown force approached our cell, only to change course at the last second and perform its unspeakable act on some other hapless sap. The poor guy emitted a blood-curdling howl as his frail flesh clunked around in what sounded like a super-powered dryer.

I was absolutely thrilled. Fear, curiosity, and vulnerability hooked me. Adrenaline reeled me in. “Who are these unseen, all-powerful beings?” I wondered. “Why are they doing this?” My interest piqued when my cellmate mentioned our captors’ penchant for tampering with people’s brains. Then I actually saw them. Tiny, green, big heads, round eyes. Beaten and beamed up by God after only two strikes from my pithy 23 unarmed skill. Thrill and intrigue, it was nice knowing you.

What followed was roughly four hours of good old fashioned alien-blasting. Fun, but nothing special. No mind-blowing ulterior motives, no unsettlingly foreign alien culture; the mean, green abducting machines were just a new skin for everyday Fallout 3 enemies. Really, there was nothing "alien" about these aliens. After such a promising opening, I felt more than a little let down.

Upon further thought, though, I realized that Mothership Zeta’s extraterrestrial approach simply mirrored that of nearly every sci-fi videogame since Space Invaders. See, when gamers whine about “ANOTHER sci-fi shooter,” they think they’re doing it because aliens, lasers, and outer-space are played-out. However, like the final frontier it so often focuses on, I think the topic of aliens in videogames could use a whole lot more exploration. We just need to approach it from a different angle, is all.

Since the dawn of the gaming industry, “you = good guy, alien = bad guy” has been the guiding line of thought. And what do we do to baddies? We blast ‘em, of course – no questions asked. Halo, Half-Life, Gears of War, Quake, Metroid – you name it. If it’s not of this world, we like keeping it that way. Sadly, it’s only once you start asking said questions that things get interesting.

Hugely influential novel (and personal favorite) “Ender’s Game” puts forth a great example of extraterrestrial ground videogames have yet to traverse. (Note: Ender’s Game spoilers follow.) The book presents a world semi-recently ravaged by a bug-like alien species, with humanity gearing up to withstand an anticipated second trouncing by these “buggers.” Interestingly, though, the reader never actually encounters a real, exoskeleton-and-blood alien until the latter half of the book. The enemy’s unseen, with only hearsay and propaganda to fill in the blanks. Thus, curiosity propels you through the story. What’s the deal with these aliens? Why did they nearly destroy earth, only to flee when victory was at hand? Where are they now? Etc. I’d love to see this kind of masterful, mystery oriented build-up attempted in a videogame setting.

“Dawn,” by Octavia Butler serves as further food for thought about aliens in videogames. Here, we find main character Lilith Iyapo spirited away from a devastated earth by – what else – aliens. One major problem, though: these aliens are about as far from human as one can get. Little green men these ain’t. Instead, these things are practically made of creepy crawly tentacles, swap genetic information and meld with whatever species they come by, and can be any one of three genders. They are, to put it mildly, hideous, by human standards. Their very existence is an affront to ours. The whole book, then, is about integration with a truly otherworldly culture. What I think games could take away from this isn’t necessarily a totally non-violent alien-based game, but rather, the notion of a world completely unlike our own. Too many games depict aliens and alien cultures as humans with funny skin colors and human-like sets of value to match.

In this respect, I see ACE Team’s Zeno Clash as a step in the right direction – at least, as far as creating a totally foreign, yet shockingly believable world goes. Between the curvy, organic-looking aesthetic, inhuman characters, and oddball philosophy behind it all, Zeno Clash was not a typical first-person videogame. It pulled off its shtick so convincingly, in fact, that multiple people told me that the game scared them, despite the fact that nothing explicitly “scary” ever happens in the game. Why? Because it’s different. Just as non-humanoid creatures like spiders and scorpions unsettle us, so to do utterly strange worlds.

My ideas, of course, are only the tip of a very large iceberg. So, how about you? How would you like to see aliens and other such sci-fi themes handled in modern videogames?

Four Things You Need to Know About Fallout 3: Point Lookout

Nathan Grayson — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:15:40 -0500

Last time on Fallout 3 DLC theater, the Enclave went out with a suitably climactic bang, and next time, you’re showing aliens why they abducted the wrong armed-to-the-teeth Wastelander. And right now? A swamp. Put up against Broken Steel and Mothership Zeta, Point Lookout’s subject matter seems a bit snooze-worthy, doesn’t it? Like, if you had to choose one of them to take to prom, Broken Steel would be the really hot one, Mothership Zeta would be the easy one (Taking you back to the “Mothership” on the first date? Yowza.), and Point Lookout would be the nerdy one with the frazzled hair and the taped up glasses.

What Point Lookout lacks in appearances, however, it makes up for with personality. In fact, thanks to an excellent, well-paced plot and some fairly meaty side missions, I’d say Point Lookout is Fallout 3’s best piece of standalone DLC yet. Here’s precisely why Point Lookout is so great, arbitrarily broken down into four convenient points!

1. Location, location, location – Back in my day, DLC reused asset after asset – enemies, buildings, weapons – from its respective main game, and I liked it! But Point Lookout’s approach ain’t half bad either. Most notably, the swamp and the Wasteland are distant cousins at best, with the swamp containing more green in one plot of land than the Wasteland has in its whole 16-ish mile span. On top of that, the foggy bog is littered with brand new enemies (malformed, inbred locals that spout all sorts of campy dialog), weapons and clothing (double barrel shotgun + Confederate cap = the Mickey Mouse souvenir hat of the South), and characters. It’s also all very pretty in an “I’m really glad they haven’t invented feel, taste, and smell-o-vision yet” sort of way.

2. Chair’s Edge – Point Lookout’s main story puts you in cahoots with a very angry Ghoul named Desmond Lockheart, whose mansion has a pesky tribal cult infestation. After swatting an initial batch of natives, Lockheart asks you to infiltrate the cult in order to find out why the painted-up swamp-dwellers won’t stop trying to kill him, and that’s where things get interesting. What follows is an expertly paced romp that involves brain removal, 200-year old conspiracies, and some seriously weird hallucinations. Speaking of which…

3. I am the Walrus – Fallout 3’s experimented with hallucinogenic elements in the past (go try Vault 106 if you haven’t already) but Point Lookout gives you a puff of the purple stuff you probably won’t soon forget. And while Fallout 3’s other attempts at doing as the cool kids do were a bit strange, Point Lookout’s is, without a doubt, a bad trip. Without spoiling too much, I’ll just say that the sequence zeroes in on many of the capstones of your character’s life and then bulldozes them in the most brutal of fashions. But there’s no violence whatsoever. It’s purely psychological. More of this, please.

4. It’s smaller Fallout (Smallout?) – Of all the Fallout 3 DLC so far, Point Lookout feels the most like, well, Fallout 3. You’ve got an open area full of explorable nooks and crannies, and sidequests that wrestle with topics ranging from politics to the occult, but – and I can’t stress this enough – it’s all green! Really, I suppose if you’ve had your fill of Fallout 3 (because seriously, after a 100 hour game and three DLC packs, Fallout burnout isn’t exactly a rare malady), all these things could be considered negatives. But then, why are you even considering Point Lookout if you’ve already had a falling out with Fallout?

Recommendation: Buy it – Four pieces of DLC in, Bethesda just keeps topping itself. In terms of both quality and overall bang for your buck, Fallout 3’s steady stream of new content keeps getting better and better. But enough gushing from me; go grab Point Lookout and don’t look back.

Five Things You Need to Know about Fallout 3: Broken Steel

Nathan Grayson — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:15:37 -0500

In honor of the fact that yesterday was Memorial Day and next week is E3, I decided to hold off on… Aw, screw it. This article’s a bit late, and I apologize. However, if you think there might be a DLC-shaped hole in your Wasteland-wandering experience but need to be absolutely sure that your $10 is going to a better place, here’s a rundown of why Broken Steel is the best piece of Fallout 3 DLC yet.

1. It’s not broken – Fallout 3 has had a bit of a tumultuous history with DLC launches, and – unfortunately – Broken Steel fits that mold perfectly. In fact, on day one, it decided to pull a Groundhog Day and peek its head out just long enough to get everyone riled up, only to let them all down. Upon attempting to download the DLC, users were met with a head-scratcher of an error (cryptographic what now?), and Bethesda had to remove the malfunctioning content from Games For Windows Live altogether. Now, though, it’s back with nary a glitch in sight. Good thing you waited to buy, huh? See -- patience really is a virtue.

This is the Tesla Cannon.

2. The End? – If you were able to resist the allure of, you know, the good portion of Fallout 3 long enough to complete its main quest, you were likely met with an upsetting surprise. Due to a certain plot twist, continuing from your victorious save file was impossible, and if you lacked save files before the game’s final showdown, you were plain out of luck. Broken Steel fixes that. Regardless of the choice you made at the end of Fallout 3, Broken Steel picks up two weeks after that. This time around, the story focuses on a young man (your character from last time around) and his giant robot. When the robot is killed in an unexpected missle accident, the young man seeks revenge on the Enclave, because everyone hates them anyway. On top of that, the Wasteland is once again open for business, with a few new quests to boot. As to why Bethesda didn’t free your character from the shackles of his/her endgame prison with its first DLC pack, we’re not exactly sure -- but it’s still better late than never.

This is what it does.

3. Bigger, better, more badass – Many considered Fallout 3’s original ending to be a bit of a letdown. Fair enough, I’d say. Well, consider Broken Steel the real final page that you missed because it was stuck to another page, and you needed to slip a $10 bill in there to sort of wedge it free. To give you an example of how wildly epic Broken Steel can get, consider the following anecdote:

Pinned down by the laser fire of about 12 Enclave goons, I darted for a nearby manhole. Once inside my odorous escape route, a Deathclaw’s presence quickly became apparent by way of him attempting to eat my face. So I ran. Down the hallway: another Deathclaw. Turn left: another Deathclaw. Sprint through that door: another Deathclaw. Eventually, cornered by about six Deathclaws and a just a wee bit panicked, I pulled out my Fat Man mini-nuke launcher, turned, entered VATS, and fired. The shot killed all of them in a glorious shower of radioactive body parts, and left me with only one health block to spare.

The only possible downside to all this? Broken Steel ranks a couple notches higher than the rest of Fallout 3 on the difficulty scale. Needless to say, you might want to invest in some medkits and a high medicine skill before cracking open Broken Steel.

4. I am heavy weapons guy – David vs. Goliath and the Noisy Cricket from Men in Black aside, I’ve always figured that bigger means better when it comes to weaponry. However, Fallout 3 and I appear to have a difference of opinion, which resulted in a severe lack of big guns in the main game. As an apology for that omission, Broken Steel packs all kinds of heavy metal, including a Tesla Cannon, multiple varieties of flamethrower, precision laser gatling guns, and more. And believe me – with hundreds of enemies piling on top of each other for the chance to bring you down, the Tesla Cannon’s ability to shock multiple baddies at once will quickly become more than just a novelty.

This could be you!

5. Ding! – Think Fallout 3’s level cap is too low? Hit level 20 before your character was even out of diapers? Well, it’s time for another run on the level treadmill and – with any luck – this one won’t be quite so brisk. Broken Steel adds ten more levels to the game, and a bunch of new perks to go with them. One of these perks lets you literally explode on your unsuspecting foes, while others allow you to tamper with your karma levels and gain an infinite supply of puppies. Why other games haven’t implemented all of these features is beyond me.

Recommendation: Buy it – You saw this coming. Broken Steel is basically Fallout 3’s real ending. To be honest, though, in that respect, it’d actually be somewhat disappointing (spoiler: Broken Steel’s ending doesn’t do much in the way of closure), if not for the fact that two more pieces of Fallout 3 DLC are on the way. At this point, though, if you can only grab one of Fallout 3’s mini-expansions, Broken Steel’s a no-brainer.

The Game Boy: Your Goodie Two-Shoes Jedi is Kind of a Jerk

Nathan Grayson — Wed, 13 May 2009 13:30:53 -0500

When they strap me to the chair, I won’t fight it.

The man was frail and frightened. All he could do was drop to the floor and beg for a quick death from his much more physically imposing enemy. And I gladly obliged. His name, when highlighted by my cursor, was red, after all. He was one of the bad guys, right? Right?

The above scenario occurred while I was playing through Fallout 3’s Broken Steel DLC, and would’ve been just another day in the Wasteland if not for a few key factors. First up, according to my Pip Boy, I’m Wasteland Jesus, doer of all things selfless and just, hands sparkly clean and free of innocent blood. Second, my enemy – a scientist – wasn’t the violent type. He ran without giving me any sort of trouble, yet I gave chase. I was the schoolyard bully, and he the undeserving nerd. Sure, his red name tag told me that perforating his fancy future lab coat wouldn’t yield any karmatic consequences, but I had no way of knowing if he was actually evil. But I still killed him and, to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t the least bit sorry.

Really, what does such a scenario even say about the habits videogames foster in us? Sensationalists would, of course, say that this is just another example of the big, mean gaming industry’s trivialization of death, regarded by many as the de facto Serious Topic. To which I respectfully reply: You’re dumb.

If you take a few moments to sift through gaming’s ever-expanding walk of fame, you’ll quickly notice that many of our hobby’s biggest, most memorable stars and starlets are, well, dead. SPOILERS. Aeris (or Aerith, or whatever Square’s calling her these days) from Final Fantasy VII. The dog from Fable II. The baby metroid from Super Metroid. And my personal, though lesser known favorite: the random helicopter pilot from Resident Evil 4. In the cases of many of these deaths, players mourned for these characters, and even tried to – for the most part, unsuccessfully – bring them back to life. Gamers still experience death like everyone else. Game designers know that, and use it to make their games more emotionally affecting.

So why, then, are we still capable of callously capping “enemies” that can’t or won’t fight back? My guess? It’s that darn good vs. evil meter doodad so many new-fangled games present us with these days.

In today’s games, morality systems work like this: you do something that the game considers “good” or “evil,” and then the game tells you exactly how good or evil your action was. Whether you’re following in the footsteps of Gandhi or Steve Jobs, the game will give you an update every step of the way. As a result, the action you’re performing is deemphasized, while pleasing the whims of the almighty meter becomes your main goal. And really, that’s just disappointing, because games could be pulling this off so much better.

That’s not to say, however, that doing away with the meter would fix everything. The crux of most good vs. evil systems – that is, the risks and rewards inherent to them – is still fundamentally flawed, but also easily repairable. See, as of now, most good/evil dilemmas present you with a situation in which you could a) perform an evil action and receive some (usually) monetary reward or b) perform a good action and miss out on a reward or even lose a valuable item. Seems sound enough – until you realize that a good action still grants a pretty hefty reward in the form of a different kind of currency. In this case, a tangible influx of goodness “points” is, really, about on par with whatever reward an evil player might have received. Suddenly, that noble sacrifice your galaxy-saving Jedi just made doesn’t seem so selfless with a few more light side points jingling around in your morality purse. Again, just like your dark side counterpart, you’re still building toward a solely self-motivated goal.

So, here’s what I’m proposing: Remove the good vs. evil meter, and stop making good and evil options so transparent. How could this be done in a way that benefits a player’s experience? Well, to more forcefully sway my feelings, anyway, it’d just be a matter of attaching good and/or evil actions to other characters instead of tangible rewards for my character. Say, for instance, that I just tripped a small child because he wouldn’t stop screaming in the grocery store. Here, one of my companions – perhaps even a potential romantic interest – might pipe up, expressing his/her vehement disapproval.

Or, on the flipside, say that I have the opportunity to save thousands of lives – even better, off-screen people’s lives – in exchange for one familiar face. In both of these situations, there’s no monetary or tangible reward. Just well-constructed characters dealing with the consequences of your actions. Granted, in a very forward-thinking move, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II flirted with a system like this, but kept the meter. Still though, it certainly made players think about their actions a lot more than other morality based games.

As for transparency, that’d be as simple as applying your invisible good vs. evil system to every action conceivable, from “liberating” necessary vehicles and verbally abusing people to things like the scientist-killing scenario I mentioned at the start of this whole thing. In all likelihood, then, it’d be impossible to become fully good or evil, just as it is in real life, though a mostly good or bad reputation would still be obtainable, again measured by characters’ reactions to you. But really, that’d just be icing on the cake, with the point of it all being reflection upon your individual choices – as opposed to hoarding arbitrary points as one might in a meter-based system.

So, what’s your opinion on morality systems in games? Do you think they could use an overhaul, or are they a-okay just as they are? Or should we just do away with them altogether, and instead allow moral relativism to reign?

The Game Boy is the soapbox Nathan Grayson stands atop to pass down proclamations about the world of gaming. Installments are posted at least once per week. Also, Nathan promises he’ll start playing and discussing something that isn’t Fallout 3 soon. Well, soon-ish, anyway.

The Game Boy: The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Boring Exploration

Nathan Grayson — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 04:12:18 -0500

Ignoring the absolutely, hilariously awful second movie, the universe of Vin Diesel vehicle Richard B. Riddick is undeniably fascinating. Each of its good entries dishes out only as much juicy info as Riddick and a small cast of supporting characters see fit, creating a potentially infinite playground for Diesel’s be-goggled antihero to bully around. And, as with any well-constructed sci-fi setting, no trip to Riddick’s take on the final frontier is complete without a liberal helping of the four W’s. What’s the deal with this planet? Why is Riddick performing fistic genocide on half of its population? Who made these totally rad mechs? And where can I get one?

The answer to all of these questions is simple in Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena -- explore.

Or at least, that’s the logical solution, and in a universe where even a quick moment of hesitation is liable to end with someone on the receiving end of a knife to the eye socket, it’s probably best to avoid asking too many questions. So, during my still in-progress playthrough, I’ve been plumbing the grimy depths of Alcatraz’s out-of-this-world cousin, Butcher Bay. Unfortunately, as of now, the only reward I’ve received for all my exploration is a pack of smokes. And by “a pack,” I mean somewhere in the upper double digits. Suffice it to say, it’s a good thing Riddick doesn’t use the same cigarette storage methods as Solid Snake.

But for me, this literal smoke stack still presents a problem. Sure, I’m being rewarded for my constant exploration, and yeah, the Special Surprises inside each carton – ranging from concept art to behind-the-scenes tech demos – are pretty neat, but after a while, everything just becomes so predictable. Under those crates? A cigarette carton. On that ledge? A cigarette carton. Behind your ear? Well, you get the idea. And really, isn’t the main appeal of exploration – and, to an extent, gaming in general – discovery and subsequent mastery of the unknown? Why take a hike off the beaten path when I already know what lies just around the corner – especially when, in all likelihood, said main path will provide me with far more varied rewards for my trouble?

What I’m proposing, then, isn’t that we rub secret areas and things of the like off the map, but that we simply transform them into a slightly more appealing proposition. The potential benefits, as you’ll soon see, are enormous, as demonstrated by the following example.

When I was a youngster who still believed that videogames ran on magic and some sort of graphical lynchpin located in the middle of level three, I absolutely adored The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. To me, the game’s world wasn’t a set adventure, but rather, some kind of fantastical platform for discovery, fueled by the monstrously creative mind of Shigeru Miyamoto, as inspired by some trees in his backyard. But, like Riddick, exploration was an all-too-limited prospect, with life-granting pieces of heart, in this case, forming a strangely relevant counter-commentary to Riddick’s cigarettes. My sense of wonderment upon booting up a videogame was, after spending many hours with Ocarina of Time, never the same.

That is, until Fallout 3 came along. And while Zelda and Fallout may make a bit of an odd couple, their exploration aspect, at least on a basic level, differs in only one fundamental way: Zelda consistently tosses me the same heart-shaped letdown as a reward, while Fallout 3 mixes things up a little. In measured servings, Bethesda’s recent opus rewarded my exploration with special weapons, kooky characters, special quests, and enthralling fragments of the Wasteland’s past. Granted, when boiled down to that level, even Fallout 3 didn’t actually provide an inimitable amount of variety in its reward system. They key here, then, is that even a little exploration-based reward variety – even in the background of a game that essentially has you performing variations on the same few actions time and time again – is potentially enough to keep players chomping at the bit 50 hours into the experience. Or at least, that’s how things were for me.

Better still, single-player action games need not be the only reapers of a tweak to their reward systems. MMOs, especially, could use a few dashes of color on their largely black-and-white priority lists; after all, loot and experience points aren’t going to cut it forever. Granted, recent WoW expansions have been making some strides in this field, but there’s still room for improvement. And that’s just one possible example. So, what games or genres do you think could benefit from more varied exploration and rewards?

The Game Boy is the soapbox Nathan Grayson stands atop to pass down proclamations about the world of gaming. Installments are posted at least once per week. In the event that expectation isn’t met, it’ll be safest to assume that Nathan became a victim of the ensuing Porkpocalypse. That, or he’s too busy playing the game he’s supposed to be writing about.

Five Things You Need to Know about Fallout 3: The Pitt

Nathan Grayson — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 00:38:52 -0500

If Fallout 3’s Operation Anchorage DLC was its electro-sword-swinging, happily ending “A New Hope,” The Pitt is its “Empire Strikes Back.” Full of depressing realities and potential backstabs, The Pitt isn’t exactly the best place for a vacation if Fallout 3’s gray skies and grayer morals were getting you down. The DLC’s plot sees you dropping your mechanical trousers, donning slave rags, and infiltrating Pittsburgh’s disease-riddled remains, with the hope of freeing its enslaved citizens. Or cracking the whip even harder, if you’re playing a heartless ne’er-do-well. But is it really worth your time to save Pittsburgh when you could be saving $10? Well, here’s our verdict in five easy points. (Granted, we could’ve given you a simple yes or no, but what fun would that be?)

1. Now with made with 100% real Fallout! – Despite its first-person trappings, Fallout 3 isn’t an FPS. Unfortunately, developer Bethesda seemed to have forgotten that when it released Fallout 3’s first run-‘n’-gun-heavy piece of DLC, Operation Anchorage. With The Pitt, though, the game has kicked its identity crisis to the curb. No more snow, no more identical Chinese soldiers, no more strangely out-of-place cyborg ninjas – Metal Gear Solid this ain’t. Instead, The Pitt sends you on a veritable Wasteland safari, full of open areas, colorful characters, and optional side quests. And for the most part, another few hours of the same things Fallout fanatics have been doing for the past 50 make for an enjoyable – if somewhat familiar – experience.

He, uh, fell down the stairs. Yep.

Be warned, though: if you intend to truly plumb The Pitt’s depths, be prepared to spend a few hours collecting an entire steelyard’s worth of steel ingots. Sure, plucking more than ten of the prohibitively well-hidden hunks of junk from their natural habitat is completely optional, but without doing so, the DLC is pretty short. Also, you’ll nab some free stuff from a guy who sounds like Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and really, when you’re (disguised as) a slave, it’s the little joys in life that keep you going.

2. Get these mothaf***in’ Trogs out of my mothaf***in’ city – I hate Trogs. For the uninitiated, Trogs are The Pitt’s creepy-crawly new mutant type, and as you might’ve surmised, I hate them. They’re The Pitt’s Flood equivalent – mindless, willing to die if it inconveniences you in the slightest, and prone to traveling in (ugh) large groups. Problem is, so far as I can tell, the repulsive little jerks were actually meant to be scary, but they appear so frequently that you might as well just be stepping in gum repeatedly; the effect – both in terms of inconvenience and annoyance – would be the same. Also, Trogs can’t be decapitated, which we’re sure will leave a number of indigenous head-shrinking tribes absolutely heartbroken.

I'd rather not, Ms. - um - Arena?

3. Morals Schmorals – No matter how you choose to roll around in The Pitt, afterward, you’ll just feel dirty. Whether your poison of choice is backstabbing, kidnapping, or some combination of the two, you’ll likely re-enter Fallout 3’s main map wondering, “Did I really do the right thing?” I know I did. Granted, it falls into BioShock’s fair, but far less impactful trap of offering you roughly the same rewards regardless of the path you take, but that’s a small complaint for such a thought-provoking tale.

4. Are you not entertained?! – Every game genre has its own inexplicable little trope that manages to continually defy Father Time, and for the Western RPG, it’s the arena. Whether you look in Fable 2, Jade Empire, or Elder Scrolls: Oblivion (or Elder Scrolls Arena, for that matter), it seems that many game designers secretly aspire to be Russell Crowe, and I’m pretty okay with that. So of course, I welcomed The Pitt’s long-overdue arena with arms just wide open enough to retain my manly aloofness – that is, until I found out it was kind of lame. I mean, sure, it’s a self-contained area where murder is, in fact, encouraged, but the whole shebang’s only three matches long. I’ve seen Food Network shows with more action. Which ties into my next point…

Urge to photoshop a guitar... rising.

5. Potential well wasted – The Pitt is not a bad piece of DLC. In fact, excluding Oblivion’s much maligned equine chic, I think Bethesda – over time – has really helped set the standard for high value, respectably priced DLC. But in this case, that’s a large chunk of the problem. See, The Pitt’s pretty cool for a post-apocalyptic playground, but it doesn’t quite clear the ever-growing hurdle that is expectation. Exhibit one: the steelyard. Yeah, it’s nice and all, but it is, fittingly enough, a one-trick pony. Ingot, ingot, Trog, ingot. Rinse, repeat. And that’s a shame, because the place is huge, mysterious, and just begging for some intrepid adventurer to uncover its secrets. But in the end, it’s all sound and fury, signifying nothing. Exhibit two: every other sentence in this write-up with some form of the phrases “seemed,” “awesome”, and “but actually” in it. The Pitt was delayed earlier this year, and while I’m sure it benefitted from an extra month in development, I feel like another month or two could’ve baked it into something rich and whole, rather than something nice-looking but ultimately shallow.

Recommendation: Buy it – unless your ten dollars are, like, going toward ~~a Maximum PC subscription~~ orphans or food or something. Sure, The Pitt is a bit on the short side, and yeah, it could be a much more impressive product, but it’s still definitely a nice romp. It may not match Operation Anchorage minute-for-minute, but it is – in my opinion – much more enjoyable as a whole. And hey, time flies when you’re having fun.

Game Theory: Buy a Whisker

Thomas McDonald — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:45:40 -0600

There are a lot of things we could say about Fallout 3. Sure, it’s Elder Scrolls: The Mutant Years, but damn, it’s still a brilliant piece of role-playing design: a wide-open world with amazing sights and challenges at every turn.

Rather than descanting at length upon stats and perks, I want to talk about the single most mind-blowing part of the entire character creation system: facial hair. Fallout 3 opens a new era in beard and mustache design. You have never, ever seen such an assortment of whiskers in any game, ranging from the pathetic wisps of a teenager’s first attempt to huge Burnside sprouts and styles not seen outside of movies like Gettysburg or Tombstone. And these aren’t just the paste-ons from Oblivion: These are complete, textured moving models.

It is conceivable that, at some point in my life, I may find myself fighting for life in the postnuclear wasteland of the greater DC metro area (and after some time on the Beltway, I’d actually embrace the experience), but the likelihood that I’d ever be able to create Paul Teutul, Sr.’s wicked ’stache or General Longstreet’s massive face shrubbery with my scraggly whiskers is nil.

The mad genius behind this manly excess is a woman: Bethesda character artist Hiu Lai Chong. As lead artist Istvan Pely told me, “We decided to do facial hair as a way to add some additional variety and individualized character for Fallout’s NPCs. It also seemed appropriate that in such a severe postapocalyptic setting that people wouldn’t have the time to shave every day if they’re constantly preoccupied with the basics of survival.

“However, once Hiu Lai made the first few basic beard examples, and we noticed just how cool they looked, she got really into it and developed a modular facial hair system that allowed us to have a lot of variety with minimal impact in terms of texture memory and development time.”

I went for the lavish muttonstache, based on the awesome face fungus of Civil War General Ambrose Burnside. He may have blown it at Antietam, but anyone who can grow something like that is a man among men.

Thomas L. McDonald has been covering games for 17 years. He is an editor at large for Games magazine.