We'd be lying if we said we saw this one coming. In an attempt to market Fallout: New Vegas to a skeptical Japanese public, Bethesda decided to give Fallout 3 the time travel treatment, resulting in a project that – somewhat ironically – looks older than its target audience. As explained by Bethesda:

“What would Fallout look like if it had been made in 1987 by a Japanese development studio? Our scientists have answered that question, taking over the Japanese Fallout website with an 8-bit version of the Capital Wasteland.”

It's worth noting, however, that the demake's only available in Japanese, so you'll have to wing your way through the Wasteland for now. Or, if this really is just like old times, you could always wait for a horribly translated and borderline racist localization to come along three years from now.

Obsidian's taking Fallout to the wild, untamed (or “tamed but then subsequently re-untamed thanks to a nuclear holocaust,” if we're being technical about it) west, so we're doing the same with our preview. Well, kind of. In the spirit of classic Sergio Leone spaghetti western  “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly,” we're breaking down Fallout: New Vegas' opening hour – which we had the privilege of taking for a test run during QuakeCon – into thematically appropriate, self-explanatory categories.

Before we dive into the meat of things, though, let's set the scene. You're... a person. We can say that with a fair deal of certainty. You come to in a doctor's office, which – thanks to wasteland sanitation standards – is about as sterile as your average convenience store toilet, but you've got bigger things to worry about. Apparently, you  nearly bit the big one at the hands of some pretty shady customers, but you don't know why. The doc, thankfully, patched up that pesky organ leak that tends to come as the result of bullet wounds, but unfortunately, he can't fill the gaping hole in your memory. He does know this, however: the bastards who did their darnedest to turn you into Swiss cheese were headed toward New Vegas. Well, there are certainly worse places to go for a vengeance-fueled vacation, eh?

Read the rest after the break!

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.

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.

You've come this far! Why quit now? Read the rest after the break.