post-apocalyptic posts

Sometimes you just need to sit down, slide a floppy into your A: drive, and enjoy gaming retro style. We know this all too well! That's why we have a list of the best and brightest from days long gone. These are some of our favorite games of all time, and we're sure that you'll love them as much as we do, if not more. Welcome to Boot Disk, and enjoy the retro ride!

The Fallout series is a highly esteemed one in the annals of role-playing game history, and for good reason. They presented one of the first cohesive non-fantasy worlds to explore and manipulate, and were extremely open-ended. Fallout is still considered one of the best CRPGs of all time, alongside other classics such as Baldur's Gate 2. It's sequel may not be as fondly remembered, but it's still a great game, and exemplifies all of the things that Black Isle did right with the Fallout series. Fallout 2 is now available through a number of channels, and is a must play for any fan of role-playing games.

Hollow Ground Special Edition is a game by Blackwight, an indie games developer. The sequel to the original Hollow Ground by Aescapia, HGSE is a clear revamp of the classic arcade game Gauntlet. Really, there's not much more to this title that you'll need to know. If you enjoy the play style of Gauntlet, but with a post-apocalyptic setting rather than a fantasy milieu, then chances are you'll enjoy HGSE. However, there are some issues with the game that you'll want to check out yourself before plunking down $19. Read on for enlightenment.

Gearbox Software's hotly anticipated Borderlands will be among the games presented by publisher 2K Games at this year's E3 conference. The game, which was first revealed late last year in Game Informer magazine, is an (apparently) open-world first-person-shooter with cooperative multiplayer, randomly generated levels ala Diablo, and some RPG elements. It's set in a Mad Max-esque post-apocalyptic wasteland. Gearbox and 2K have high expectations for the game; they hope it will birth a franchise. It's scheduled to release sometime in 2009.

2K will also be showing Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization at the show. If you haven't been keeping up, just know that it's a remake of Sid Meier's original Colonization, which was released back in 1994. It uses the same basic technology as Civilization IV, but it's a stand-alone game with decidedly different gameplay. Oh, and it's a PC exclusive, so hurray for that! For more on that one, check out our hands-on impressions.

[Via videogaming247]

The post-apocalyptic world of the Fallout franchise has always been rife with humor and innovative imagery. While we all think we know what the aesthetic should resemble, it's up to the actual artists to try to find new ways to spin that aesthetic in novel ways, to keep the look fresh and appealing. Leading the charge is Bethesda's Adam Adamowicz, Concept Artist on Fallout 3.

In his latest Diary, Adam details the sometimes rigorous brainstorming sessions and countless revisions it takes to arrive at a truly immersive look and feel for the game, and presents several concept art sketches for our enjoyment. Included in this overview are the clothing, machines, architecture, robots, and assorted mutants and bad guys that populate the ravaged world of Fallout. If the finished product is anything even remotely like these sketches, we're all in for quite a treat. Enjoy!

Ubisoft deployed a German press release announcing that it will be the distributor of Bethesda's ultra-anticipated RPG Fallout 3 in several European countries. Those countries include: France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland.

Fallout is one of gaming's most prestigious intellectual properties, and this iteration is under development by the people behind the wildly successful The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Ubisoft has probably struck gold with this deal. With a new studio, new internal IPs, old stand-bys, and massive deployment over Steam, this is shaping up to be an exciting stretch for Ubisoft.

[Via No Mutants Allowed]

GameSpot shared some initial impressions of Fallout 3 with the world at large, and noted that XBox 360 owners aren't the only folks who will get to senselessly grind -- err, heroically work -- towards Achievements. PC users will be able to earn Achievement points via Games for Windows Live.

Note that you can acquire Achievement points with a free Silver membership; you don't need to pay $50 for a Gold one. In fact, since Fallout 3 has no multi-player, there's no need to invest in a Gold membership at all, unless you've got the money to blow for no reason. If that's the case, more power to ya!

The article also goes into detail about Fallout 3's immersive character creation process, combat, user interface, and the different ways you can use your canine companion Dogmeat (a throwback to the first Fallout) for various tasks. Apart from the Achievements bit, though, most of the content is old news. Then again, a fresh perspective is always nice if you just can't get enough Fallout.