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Bethesda Breaks Radio Silence, Gives Fallout: New Vegas “Fall 2010” Release Date

Nathan Grayson — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 02:09:12 -0600

As you may have noticed, we developed something of a healthy, foaming-at-the-mouth appreciation for Bethesda’s modernized take on the Fallout universe. But that doesn’t mean we’re not equally stoked for Obsidian’s turn in the driver’s seat – especially considering that they’ve essentially reunited the original Fallout team for another shot at post-apocalyptic perfection.

But enough intro-based dilly-dallying. It’s time for you to wait on something else, instead. That thing being Fallout: New Vegas itself, which is now officially scheduled for a “fall 2010” release. It’s the fall of Fallout, or something. Hopefully, it’ll rock, or else it’ll kick-off the winter of our discontent.

…Yeah, okay, that was awful. Moving on. Bethesda and Obsidian have passed along a teaser trailer to whet our appetites for more irradiated fun in the dry, unpleasant sun. Check it out here. Then tell us what you thought after the break. Or don’t! It’s not like we’re lonely or anything.

Rumor: Bethesda Looking to Buy Valve?

Nathan Grayson — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:11:29 -0500

If you just dropped a massive chunk of change on Doom creator id Software, what would you do next? Huh? Did you just say “Buy Valve”? No? No takers? Yeah, we’re not exactly waving our hands about and shouting “called it” on this one either. But, according to the latest stink-raising piece of scuttlebutt over at Eurogamer, Bethesda could very well be in the market for the house that Gordon Freeman built.

“However, it's also worth watching closely what happens to Steam in the coming months. Unconfirmed industry scuttlebutt suggests that Zenimax - the parent company of Bethesda, which made headlines back in June when it acquired legendary PC studio id Software - is still on the acquisition trail, and has been making eyes at Half-Life creators Valve across the bar,” reads the article.

We’ve contacted both Valve and Bethesda for comment, but so far, our questions remain unanswered. We’ll be sure to let you know if we hear more.

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.

Bethesda: Don’t Expect Elder Scrolls V in the “Near Future”

Nathan Grayson — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:13:12 -0500

The cement’s settled, the paint’s dry, and the bomb has dropped and blown it all to pieces – Fallout 3’s finished. So, what’s next for Bethesda? Well, based on a comment made last year, we were kind of hoping for a new Elder Scrolls game. However, during a panel at QuakeCon, Bethesda’s Todd Howard revealed that Bethesda has other plans.

“Don't look for a new Elder Scrolls game in the near future,” Howard said when asked about Elder Scrolls V. "We are working on our next big game but we are not talking about it."

In a blog post clarifying Howard’s comments, Bethesda boss Pete Hines noted that ZeniMax Online (a branch of Bethesda’s parent company) is working on an MMO, as that’s its area of expertise. Thus, if the oft-rumored Elder Scrolls MMO is more than just wishful thinking, ZeniMax Online’s the one working the forge – not Bethesda.

So, what’s taking up so much of Bethesda’s time that the Elder Scrolls have been shelved until God-knows-when? Beats us. Do you have any guesses?

The Game Boy: Single-Player and Multiplayer -- Two Tastes That Go Great Together?

Nathan Grayson — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:30:45 -0500

Every gamer has a story. A story assembled from countless in-game experiences, a collage of victory, defeat, heroics, and villainy. There is, however, a schism in the way these stories play out. Ask someone who’s lived out their gaming days in solitude and they’ll tell you of superhuman feats, epic dramas, and non-player characters who may not have been real boys, but were certainly close enough that Geppetto would’ve been hard-pressed to tell the difference. Pose the same question to multiplayer-centric gamers, though, and you’ll get an earful of teamwork, commitment, practice, and good old fashioned competition.

Neither side, of course, is wrong to enjoy games for their respective reasons. It’s merely a case of different strokes for different folks. However, what happens when single-player and multiplayer modes get married and pop out a child? Well, if you ask developers like BioWare and Splash Damage (who are working on fusing multiplayer and single-player with Star Wars: The Old Republic and Brink, respectively), they’ll tell you such all-encompassing modes are just The Next Big Thing. And they may very well be right about that.

Forgive me, then, for objecting to this holy matrimony.

Now, I’m not saying that Brink and Star Wars: TOR are going to be bad games, nor am I claiming that they won’t knock our collective socks off. However, I’m not so sure aspects of both single-player and multiplayer games can dance together without stepping on one another’s toes. Why? Well, let’s break it down.

Central to my fears are the goals that single-player and multiplayer modes seek to achieve. Single-player games – at least, as they are today – strive to guide players through an experience. BioWare games, especially, focus on story and well-developed non-player characters. Meanwhile, multiplayer games revel in competition, chaos, and adversity. Fail in a multiplayer environment and the developer’s certainly not going to kiss your bruised ego and make it feel better. That’d only get in the way of other players’ good times. Suddenly, you’re no longer some big damn hero; you’re just an unskilled rookie. This fact alone makes many multiplayer tropes inhospitable to the types of experiences many single-player games try to carry you through.

The biggest problem, I think, is that single-player games attempt to empower only one player, while their multiplayer counterparts try to treat everyone fairly. Thus, single-player modes lend themselves well to a story in which everything is yours. You’re the main character. You’re the star. The fate of the world rests on your shoulders. Generally, then, people fly solo in order to immerse themselves in an escapist fantasy – to escape from the suffocating realities of our mundane, unfair, unpredictable world and be something more than an average-Joe human being.

By adding multiple human beings into the mix, however, the opposite affect is achieved. Odds are, if you’re throwing down with real people, you’re bound to encounter someone better than you. Or, if you’re part of a team, you have to worry about having teammates’ backs, not letting others down, and – if you’re in a guild or clan – keeping in people’s good graces, or even committing to participate in events at scheduled times. That stuff? It’s work. Plain and simple. Fun sometimes, sure, but tedious at others. Moreover, many of the aforementioned multiplayer game elements unintentionally remind you that you are just a normal, everyday person – mostly because they mirror the mundane things you likely do on a day-to-day basis, except now you’re doing them while wearing midriff-revealing armor and doing the same canned dance animation all the time.

The stories that come from multiplayer-centric games, then, aren’t developer-driven; they’re based on your interactions with the game world and other people. Sure, they tend to skew a bit more toward the ordinary instead of the extraordinary, but in a way, they’re much more personal than single-player stories, even though you’re not the muscle-bound, infallible hero of each tale. As such, an orchestrated, single-player-style story only serves to constrict the environment in which such micro-stories can occur.

Honestly, though, I don’t believe multiplayer to be inferior to single-player. I merely think they’re diametrically opposed experiences – both enjoyable for wholly different reasons. And therein lies the reason I’d rather not see single and multiplayer joined together: In hacking the two apart and then sewing them together into some kind of Frankenstein monster, we risk deemphasizing the things that make each mode of play great.

Perhaps, for once, we should keep chocolate and peanut better separate – lest we soon discover that they’re actually water and oil.

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.

E3 Impressions: Single-Player + Multiplayer + Awesome Ideas = Bethesda’s Brink

Nathan Grayson — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:55:56 -0500

Let’s set the stage here: It was the last hour of the last day of E3. My feet were cramping, my back felt like Batman’s after a run-in with Bane, and the concept of sleep was itself a very dream-like, unrealistic thing to me. I wanted to be done. “One appointment left,” I grunted. “Let’s get this over with.” That appointment was for Bethesda and Splash Damage’s new shooter, Brink.

Presentation starts. “Hi, welcome to our demo of Brink blah blah blah.” Ugh, why’d I come to this? “So we’re on a boat.” Tee-hee, T Pain. “We’ve combined single-player and multiplayer using an ever-evolving mission system that breaks your main objective down into smaller objectives. Accomplish them however you see fit, alone or with friends. Also, there’s an overarching, Mirror’s Edge-ish plotline running throughout the whole thing.”

Ok, now I’m listening.

So, here’s how Brink works: You’re part of a team – either resistance or security forces – and each level presents you with an objective. In order to make your big mission less impossible, each level’s objective is broken down into smaller pieces, which dynamically change depending on countless factors in battle. Some of these pieces must be tackled by certain character classes, which you can morph into at will using computer terminals scattered throughout the game world. For instance, an engineer might be needed for a bit of his trademark tinkering, so the game will immediately notify everyone of this gaping hole in their team structure. Thus, completing the mission is as simple as transforming and rolling out. No extra hassle.

Switching between missions is also nice and stress free, so as to ensure that you won’t take one for the team while trying to decide how to best aid it. Just bring up your mission wheel, flick over to an objective – which can range from planting bombs to interrogating people to providing cover fire for a friend – and go show your enemies why they should or shouldn’t have done that thing they did or didn’t do. In theory, this setup will evade the monotony of other singularly focused, objective-based games like Left 4 Dead by constantly changing up your mission’s structure. Same mission again? Who cares? You’ve never tried X set of objectives with X class. Or at least, that’s the hope.

Objectives of all shapes and sizes probably mean tons of walking, though, right? Well, Splash Damage has taken care of that point-A-to-point-B nonsense as well. In what may be Brink’s most interesting innovation, you’re able to traverse an entire room at the push of a button. Just lay your eyes on whatever Promised Land you’re trying to reach, press the “SMART Button” and watch as the game’s A.I. effortlessly brings you out of the desert. Boxes, low railings, ledges, Mirror’s Edge-like acrobatics, whatever – SMART’s A.I. handles all of it while you sit back and take in the scenery.

Coolest of all, these things I’ve been describing? They’re all aspects of the campaign mode. Or the multiplayer mode. Or the co-op mode. You can play with or against real people or CPUs all throughout the game’s cautionary tale about the potential ravages of global warming. It’s all one big mode.

Oh, about the global warming thing. The game’s story centers on what’s become basically the center of human civilization in 2035: a floating city called “The Ark,” where humans have fled because the earth’s waters have rapidly risen and super-soaked the rest of the planet. Bethesda has yet to reveal exactly why resistance and security forces are bickering over this final slice of land, but the story seems to be taking aesthetic and tonal cues mostly from Mirror’s Edge and Team Fortress 2 (crazy, right?), so I’m hoping for something special.

From what I saw, Brink has all the right tools to make other team-based shooters feel utterly inadequate. However, none of that matters if Splash Damage can’t bake everything together into a functional, well-balanced whole, so that’s the elephant in the room for now. Granted, the game was only revealed a couple weeks ago, and it’s already looking spectacular. On top of that, there’s still plenty of time to baste it in even more secret recipe awesome sauce, as the game isn’t coming until the first half of 2010. Fingers crossed, people. Fingers crossed.

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.