Fallout posts

Interplay and Bethesda Softworks are still continuing their legal fight over the Fallout game franchise. Howeve that fight isn't stopping Interplay from promoting its long-in-development MMO game Fallout Online. On Saturday, Interplay emailed out word that the latest "Pip-Pad" edition of The Armageddon Rag is now online and available to read.

This latest update has a couple of new short stories set in the game's post-apocalypse universe along with Crazy Ivan's New and Used Gun Catalog (More Guns Than Canada) showing some of the weapons and items that players might get to use in the game. That is if the game itself ever goes live.

Customizable controls, believe it or not, are not always found even in modern PC games. But they can certainly be of great help for PC gamers with disabilities. The perfect example of this is shown in the above YouTube clip of a man named Gareth. He's playing the PC port of the post-apocalypse RPG Fallout New Vegas without the use of hands.

Gareth cannot make use of his hands but still wants to play PC games which normally requires the use of a mouse and keyboard. In the video you can see how he can play the Obsidian Entertainment-developed game with just the mouse controlled by his own head. It certainly shows that having features like customizable controls and other features can let a wide variety of people enjoy gaming.

[Via Kotaku]

There's some interesting stuff that we will be posting about early in the morning. Just a heads up.

• Steam has new automatic updates for Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch.
• From now until 1 pm Eastern time Tuesday you can get Darksiders for $9.99 over at Direct2Drive.
• You can now play Wolfenstein 3D in, well, 1D. It's as weird as it sounds.
• Check out this cool new Fallout fan film that's all about trying to find some Nuka Cola.
• Speaking of which someone has created their own Nuka Cola bottle and case design. Neat.

The rights to the Fallout RPG franchise have been part of a big legal battle between publishers Interplay and Bethesda Softworks. This week the dispute left the court room and entered into the interwebs with reps from both companies basically saying, "We own the rights."

Eurogamer chatted with Interplay's president Eric Caen who admitted, "We sold the Fallout IP to Bethesda in exchange for a certain amount of cash and the right to do the Fallout MMO." However Caen claims that the actual IP agreement gave Bethesda to make just three Fallout games. Caen claims, "So they already did Fallout 3, then Fallout: New Vegas, and they can only do one more Fallout, 5, if the sale of the IP is cancelled by the court."

Not so, says Bethesda Softworks PR head Pete Hines. Chatting with VG247.com, Hines states, "We own the rights to everything Fallout. The licence is ours. Fallout belongs to us. That's what I'll clarify." It's clear that the two parties are well out of agreement which also means a protracted legal battle.

Just one more shopping week left until The Big Day arrives. Of course we prefer digital gifts and online purchases over rushing around some huge mall with screaming kids and long register lines but that's just us.

• The latest Bethesda Podcast chats briefly with Todd Howard about they pulled off last week's reveal of The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim without the general public knowing about it.
• Blizzard has a new Raynor design for its Battle.net Authenticator.
• Steam has new automatic updates for Rush (with two new levels added), Left 4 Dead 2, and Star Ruler.
• Steam also has added Winter Voices Episode 2 to its library.
• Check out this cool fan made Fallout trailer. It's spiffy.

\It's been a while since there's been a patch update for Fallout New Vegas but today the recent post-apocalypse RPG got a major new patch. The update, delivered automatically via Steam, brings the Obsidian Entertainment-developed title up to version 1.2.

Unfortunately the patch notes for the update as supplied by publisher Bethesda Softworks are not all that detailed. It does say that issues have been addressed in a variety of the game's different features, including the Pip-Boy interface, weapons and weapons mods, perks, skills and many more but specific bug fixes are not mentioned. In addition the patch fixes issues for a long list of quests in the game.

Fallout Online is still very much in stealth mode but the team at Interplay continues to release teasers about the background to the upcoming post-apocalypse MMO. Today we received a link to yet another such teaser which comes from the Pip-Pad, a apparently prototype model for Fallout's PipBoy info device.

The Pip-Pad some rather odd stuff inside of it including a transcription of an audio message, what passes for a novel except and an odd log entry from somebody. It's all rather strange and we are not sure how this will all link into Fallout Online itself. But at least its more interesting than your normal online newsletter promotion.

Fallout New Vegas now has a new update to download via Steam as promised by publisher Bethesda Softworks last week. Unlike the first two PC patches for the recent post-apocalypse RPG there are actual patch notes for this new update to the Obsidian Entertainment-developed game.

This patch, labeled as 1.1.1, deals in part with a couple of issues for the game's companions. They now "show up as waypoints on the map" with this patch and also "will always fast travel with you, unless told to wait or sent away." There are also quite a few technical bugs that have been fixed with this patch. A more compressive update is promised for the near future.

Developer Obsidian Entertainment and publisher Bethesda Softworks quickly pushed out two PC patches for its recent RPG Fallout New Vegas. The game itself got mostly positive reviews even though many of those reviews, including our own, complained of the many bugs that were evident in the shipping version of the game.

Now the official Bethblog site has word that yet another patch update for Fallout New Vegas is due for the PC sometime next week. This patch will "fix the save corruption issues and problems with companions" in the game along with fixes for the Havok physics engine and improved performance for PC rigs with Nvidia graphics chips. In addition a more "comprehensive patch" for the game is scheduled for released in the coming weeks.

The voice talent brought in for Fallout: New Vegas is simply staggering, and the folk at Obsidian really want you to know that. This new developer diary goes through the list of the most notable characters in the game, from the man that tried to kill you to the New Vegas version of Three Dog. In short, it's incredible the people they got for the role.

Naturally, Ron Perlman makes his return as the gravelly-voiced narrator. Matthew Perry (of Friends fame) plays the man who tried to kill you, while William Sadler (of Roswell fame) plays the robot Victor. Finally, Wayne Newton himself - Mr. Las Vegas - plays as DJ Mr. New Vegas, which references both his old job and his old title. It's a cast of very well-known actors for what will no doubt be an interesting game, and this dev diary makes sure you know that!

Download HD Fallout: New Vegas Developer Diary #6 Trailer
Check out all Fallout: New Vegas downloads