FIFE, the replacement engine for Fallout that's been in the works for as long as most of us can remember (well...september 2005), has been trodding onwards steadily but slowly. From their blog:

Our policy was to be always honest to the public about problems and the truth is that there was only small steps forward in the last months. It seems that several developers have left the team without saying a word and that is really disappointing for us
(...)
Nevertheless I'm happy that some important key developers are still around

New Dawn have staged a new website for their project, which kind of sucks, because I was *really* planning to make a newspost today for their carnivorous plants and vegetarian huts concept art today, and now I can't seem to be able to find it ;)

Oh well, we are left, Dear Valued Reader, with no option other than to see the new website by ourselves. In case you don't remember, New Dawn is a cRPG in production which combines post-apo and a fantasy-like realm in a sort of thundarrthebarbarianesque pulp-fiction ;).

Escapist Magazine has done a piece on the history of Troika and its founders, Leonard Boyarsky, Tim Cain and Jason Anderson. The entire bit is a riveting read, but here's some select choices for Fallout-fans:

Boyarsky, Cain and Anderson's creative vision first came together at Interplay. Together, the three worked on Fallout, the critically-acclaimed, post-apocalyptic RPG that has lived on in the hearts and minds of PC gamers as a sterling example of gaming done right. Cain was credited as Producer, Boyarsky as Art Director and Anderson as a Lead Artist.

Work began on a sequel, but the three "were unable to come to an agreement with Interplay as to how our next team should be structured," says Jason Anderson. The three also ran into a lot more corporate attention after Fallout's success, Leonard Boyarsky tells me in a separate interview. Between that and Interplay's growing pains - the company's expansion was turning the culture bad - Anderson, Boyarsky and Cain struck out on their own.

Boyarsky says, "Interplay had been a great place to work, and we felt that it was losing a lot of what we felt was great about it, and that they were making a lot of bad decisions that would destroy the company. We were about five or six years early on that, but we saw the writing on the wall. If Baldur's Gate hadn't hit big, Interplay might well have imploded much earlier, but we left about a year before BG was even released."

(...)

While they might not still be working together, their collective influence has carved a deep mark into gaming. Bloodlines is a perennial resident on my hard drive, and a third Fallout is in the works at Bethesda (when I asked Boyarsky what he thought about Interplay selling the rights, he said, "It felt as if our ex wife had sold our children that she had legal custody of," but he admits to being very "possessive" of the property), which was the talk of E3 2006. Additionally, Interplay has returned from the depths and recently announced a Fallout MMOG.

And now, the three have scattered in the wind. Boyarsky works in the industry, but wouldn't say where on record. Cain is also in the field, and told me (through Boyarsky): "I am staying in the industry but keeping a much lower profile than I did at Troika. Instead of talking about making games or trying to convince people to play (or publish) my games, I am doing what makes me very happy - making games." And Anderson is in Phoenix with his significant other, selling real estate, though he's "getting the itch to return" to games.

In another piece of the storm of great modding projects going on, a couple of NMA's modders are working on a graphic update patch for Fallout 2:

- Make different critters for each type of armour eg: Mark I and Mark II metal armour look different

- Update Item art to reflect the item eg: a hammer will look like a hamer on the ground and not a cardboard box

- Talking heads that dont talk. We could try and add a face to every character in the game, it doesnt have to be animated just a still face.

------Ground art------
The ground art for most items has been updated to look like the item in question rather than just the default
box or book.

------Interface art------
By request the IFACE.FRM file has been replaced witht the updated FO1 interface that the mutants rising mods was
going to use.

------Misc art------
The explosions have been replaced with some nicer looking and bigger explosions. New projectiels for grenades
have been added, these were taken from Fallout Tactics.

Fallout: Between Good & Evil released a pair of screenshots "for Christmas":

Forlorn World - the post-apocalyptic cRPG project's Mefisto explained the recent silence surrounding the title in their end-of-the-year review, officially dubbing this year a difficult one:

We decided not to continue earlier declared action. It has resulted from several factors, from weak organization mainly and individual crewmen changes. In order to escape such mishaps and cure project. We reform management and started cleaning and improving works.

Recapitulation over year of functioning has not fell out best. We have committed many errors, but we understood them and we will improve our actions.

Brian Fargo was interviewed by Firingsquad on his current projects (see our earlier article), but this bit also cropped up:

We couldn't talk to the founder of Interplay without asking his opinion on what was currently happening to the game publisher that under his control was one of the biggest in the industry in the 1990s. Recently the current management posted up a note to the US Securities and Exchange Commission about their plans to get funding for an MMORPG based on their Fallout RPG franchise, complete with a $75 million projected budget. Fargo told us in no uncertain terms about his doubts for Interplay's plans, saying, "I don't know what they are smoking in France but it must be illegal." And what Interplay franchises would Fargo like to revive if he had the rights and resources to do so? Fargo told us he would be interested in reviving the first person shooter Kingpin and the Shiny developed RTS game Sacrifice. Fargo also expressed a fondness for Battle Chess although he added that he didn't think there would be much of an audience for it. Fargo said he was happy that Elder Scrolls developer Bethesda Softworks was working on an all new Fallout RPG but so far he has not been contacted by BethSoft for his input.

In other news, inXile Entertainment, the company of former Interplay head honcho Brian Fargo, has an update on the frontpage announcing they're currently working on a "Next gen action adventure game" as well as a Nintendo DS game.

RPGWatch speculates that this means an upcoming Wasteland is unlikely. Wasteland is, of course, Fallout's ancestor, to which Brian Fargo (who also worked on the original game) is rumoured to have acquired the rights some time ago. Some fans of Wasteland were hoping for a new game in the series from inXile, but it doesn't look to likely.

We'll keep you posted if more news follows.

Link: see also: InXile Entertainment update on Firingsquad

Tarsier Studios has announced work on a first person shooter set at a post-apocalyptic Mexican truck-stop:

Desert Diner is a First Person Shooter based on Artificial Studios and Immersion Games' upcoming game CellFactor: Revolution. With a massive number of unique rigid bodies flying in the air simultaniously, combined with an intriguing post-apocalyptic mexican truck-stop setting Desert Diner is sure to be an appreciated demo showing off the capabilities of Ageia's hardware accelerated PhysX engine.

The Fallout modding community has been as lively as ever, and we've had some trouble keeping you guys updated on all of it, as evinced by us completely missing the announcement of total conversion mod Fallout: Between good & evil.

For the modders themselves, Jochua has updated his FrameAnimator

dude101 pointed out a Russian Fallout 2 mod "Fallout Forever" which completely changes the game, adding all Fallout 1 locations "80 years after date" (for instance, Junktown has been taken over by supermutants). Judging by the screenshots, the mod is awesome and seriously needs a translation to English. It is not finished as of yet, but they've released a demo in which a guy can teleport you from location to location so you can explore.

Link: Fallout Between Good & Evil website
Link: Fallout Between Good & Evil screenshots
Link: Jochua FrameAnimator 2.7
Link: Fallout Forever website (Russian)
Link: Fallout Forever screenshots

2K games has launched the official site for Bioshock. For those who forgot why we cover this game, take a look at all the awesome 50's americana on that site alone. The site has a flashy flash version (in 5 languages), but in consideration of those of us on slower connections has also supplied a html version.

Also, Gamespot came up with another "lush" trailer. Take a look.

Link: official Bioshock website
Link: Trailer #2 on Gamespot

Spotted on RPGWatch

The Escapist magazine has done an article on the top ten story-based games ever made. Naturally, Fallout is not missing:

Fallout's story may have seemed familiar in that you start out trying to save your people, and along the way find out you have to save the world. But it was also the first game I played that allowed you to not care about the fate of humanity either. Really, would you personally care about a bunch of dirt farmers that had no impact on your life? If anything, Fallout should be remembered for helping to give rise to the anti-hero, and all of the plot twists associated with them. Speaking of plot twists, the ending really made me wish I had gunned down more people that deserved it.

The14Given has been working away at a free pocket game version of Fallout. Or rather a "Fallout-ish" game, as it is an unlicensed free product. It is currently in an early alpha stage, dubbed version 001. The game is actually unnamed, but I hereby dub it Fallout: The Pocketgame.

Link: article on Pocketgaming Deutschland (in German)
Link: download Fallout: The Pocketgame (PocketPC2002, WM2003/SE (doesn't work on WM5 (yet))

We reported a while back on the "The World's first Genocide 'em up", Defcon. As a "global thermonuclear war"-game, it was only a matter of time until someone thought up the inevitable, making a Fallout mod for Defcon, which is exactly what this guy is going to do.

Gamespot, Next Gen and Slashdot picked up on the Interplay Fallout MMO story we covered earlier (for the guys reporting this "news" to us; we didn't miss it, we just beat the other guys by two weeks).

The later news sites did notice something amusing we missed, namely the "CONFIDENTIAL" stamp on the public filings. Odd, that.

More importantly, there was also this:

Starting on December 1, 2006 and through December 15, 2006, Interplay Entertainment Corp. will give a slide show presentation during meetings with various European qualified investors.

A little bird pointed out to us that during the fairly interesting though overly long developer presentation of Bioshock, there's a funny little gem in the 10th minute:

THQ.de released a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. movie that concludes with a narrowing down of the game's release date from Q1 2007 to March 2007.

There's also a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. history on IGN.

Spotted on Blue's News

A few days ago the Afterfall team made an investor presentation available to the wide public, complete with an announcement:

A new presentation and new recruitment Hello, from this day on our fans can enjoy the new presentation. The Intoxicate Interactive Team prepared it especially for its investors and after its acceptance it became the basis for further negotiations. You can download the presentation HERE or watch it under THIS or THIS link.

What you can see now is the -1 level of an underground military base, which the players are going to explore while playing Afterfall: Prelude. The final shots in the movie come from the -3 level.

We would also like to inform you that we are again open for recruitment. Right now we are looking for 2d and 3d artists and programmers. Applicants should write to our Production Manager, Andrzej Koloska at: koloska@svx.pl

RPGWatch has done an article on Fallout entitled "Falling For Fallout: A (Post-Nuclear RPG) Retrospective", a highly sentimental and nostalgic piece that nonetheless highlights things that modern gamers often forget:

Some have speculated that Fallout came about as a social commentary in relation to real world terrorism and growing fears of the end of days with the fast approaching new millennium. An intriguing notion, but seriously folks, it’s a game, not CNN. Anyway, it’s certainly no coincidence that Fallout was released during the 10th anniversary of Wasteland.
(...)
Wasteland’s obvious influence on Fallout’s uniquely eclectic style is just a drop in the bucket compared to that of other forms of pop culture media. Subtle and not so subtle references to 1950’s and 1960’s television, movies, comics and literature all made their way into Fallout in one form or another. Inspired by heroic multi-media icons of the era such as Batman, Superman and Flash Gordon, we clearly see brightly colored jumpsuits, vacuum tube computers and, of course, gitchy, oversized toy-like ray guns. Even Fallout’s overall story and artwork are heavily inspired by the “duck and cover” nuclear scare era of a frightened 1950’s America.

Fallout’s overwhelming achievement spawned Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel (for the Xbox and PlayStation 2) and Fallout: Warfare (a board game based on the Fallout: Tactics storyline). What the future holds for the Fallout franchise remains to be seen, but there exists the possibility of a Fallout MMO under the banner of Interplay which, if done right, would stand a very good chance of hanging tough with the big boys like World of Warcraft and EverQuest. Speaking of “if done right”, Fallout 3 is currently in pre-production, but being developed by Bethesda Softworks, this incarnation of a beloved series has raised a great deal of controversy and concern among fans, myself included. Only time will tell if Bethesda lives up to the quality and complexity Fallout 1 and 2 are known for, or sells out to the lowest common denominator for a quick buck.

RPGVault has published the first part of their sneak peek at upcoming the independant post-apocalyptic cRPG Age of Decadence, focusing on side quests:

Believe it or not, designing side quests turned out to be one of the biggest challenges. We knew what we didn't want to see - no pointless "save my kitty" quests, no boring and usually uneventful "FedEx" quests, no heroic "kill some rats in some basement" quests, and no feeling that the entire towns have been waiting for you to show up and solve all their problems. What we didn't know is what we wanted to see, so we tried a lot of different things, and in the end, we decided to go with something like this:
1. The big picture: side quests should help us paint a picture of the setting.
2. Conflicts: each successfully completed side quest must piss some people off.
3. Choices: since there are conflicts and consequences, it's only fair to give players an opportunity to choose a side.
4. Text adventure: text = immersion

A number of our members pointed out recently that the old domain name of the post-apocalyptic game project Abaddon, igerard.com, no longer worked. Turns out the project is still around, but the domain was squatted in Gerard's absence, so he moved the site over to igerard.co.uk. So for anyone looking for Abaddon, that's where you'll have to go from now.

Thanks Briosafreak.

Glutton Creeper Games has released some more images to go with the recently released final covers, "interior images" this time. They are the drawings of the characters, a radscorpion, an accurate highwayman and a deathclaw that fortunately is neither furry nor appears to be talking, but the inspiration is definitely from Tactics, as it looks nothing like the original deathclaw model.

Youtube is carrying a pretty impressive presentation, meant for investors, of one level of the upcoming post-apocalyptic game Afterfall, featuring lots and lots of boxes. This leaves investors with the painful choice between investing in this game or FOOL.

Link: Afterfall presentation on Youtube (Afterfall noted a bigger .avi version will be made available on their site soon)

Thanks Velasquez_Adam.

Glutton Creeper Games act almost as if they've been trying:

Well, it's that time of year again - the time when killap a.k.a. The Bear Dude updates his patch for us to enjoy long autumn evenings with Fallout 2 even more.

Well, new release is finally here everyone. What started out small turned into a release that packs a punch. 40+ fixes are included in this release. Some are minor typo fixes and others address deeper issues. Hopefully I fixed all the errors I left in the last release, so do post if you come across anything still broken or if you find anything new.

A little bird told us Interplay's pitch to foreign investors for Fallout Online, intended to pry loose a total of $75 million, has been filed with SEC for public viewing. And it makes for a riveting read.

THE FALLOUT BRAND IS ONE OF THE MOST RECOGNIZED GAMING BRAND BY CONSUMERS.

THERE ARE SEVERAL DEDICATED FAN SITES AROUND THE WORLD EVIDENCING A LOYAL FAN BASE ESTIMATED TO BE OVER 350,000 PEOPLE (www.nma-fallout.com, www.duckandcover.cx, fanmadefallout.com, www.teamx.ru, www.nwsgames.net, nukacola.com, www.nuclearcleansing.com).

DUE TO THE SUBJECT MATTER OF A POST NUCLEAR APOCALYPTIC WORLD RESULTING FROM THE COLD WAR (1945-1990), ALL CONSUMERS 20 AND OLDER WILL HAVE SOME TIES TO FALLOUT AND WILL BE INTRIGUED TO FIND OUT IN THIS VIRTUAL WORLD: "AND WHAT IF THE NUCLEAR WAR REALLY HAD HAPPENED?"

The Fallout MMOG will be developed in the highly recognized Fallout post Nuclear Apocalyptic world giving consumers an ongoing virtual experience of today's life as if the cold war, which lasted for the best part of the second half of last century, had led to a nuclear disaster.

o Interplay will effectively be the first MMOG pure play western public company

o Interplay's management was involved in the World of Warcraft project at Vivendi

- LAUNCH OF FALLOUT MMO Q3 2010

- REACH 1 MILLION SUBSCRIBERS DURING THE FIRST YEAR

- PROFITABLE YEAR 2

- REVENUE OF 160M$ PER YEAR AFTER FIRST

- NET INCOME OF OVER 50M$ PER YEAR STARTING YEAR 3

The old logo of the United States Civil Defense has been retired after 67 years. Well-known to Americans old enough to remember the Cold War and nuclear arms race, this symbol still appears in old fallout shelters and in the title image of a certain post-apocalyptic fan site.

The symbol was designed in 1939 by Charles T. Coiner of the N.W. Ayer advertising agency. It was proclaimed outdated in 1972 and promptly replaced (and by "promptly" we mean 34 years later) with something that looks like the logo of a bus company.

Pender recently linked us to a blog with a great post on a Fallout shelter handbook from 1962, with scans. While it isn't from the '50's, strictly speaking, it's filled with that wonderful Fifties attitude we know and love:

The illustrated cover was what initially caught my eye but then I glanced at the large bold lettering at the top and I immediately put it in my "to buy" pile. The cover is classic: your average white American family enjoying life as best as they can after an atomic attack. What I love the most about it is that Mom is in her day dress, apron and all, preparing dinner, and Dad is relaxing in his jacket, smoking a pipe, having just finished reading the liner notes to something by the Ray Coniff Singers, probably.