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Around the web: Up close and personal with Pete

Here’s the latest news I found on Fallout 3 around the web.

Reviews for Operation: Anchorage are showing up on a number of sites — including Blast Magazine, 360 Evolved, Worth Playing, Xbox360Achievements, GameFocus, Gaming-Age, and Destructoid. Here’s an excerpt from Destructoid’s review:

“I’m pleased overall with what has been released. The changes in gameplay are refreshing and the challenge level which results from them make it a satisfying experience. It is not painfully difficult, just pleasantly so, and its running time of roughly three hours is long enough to be enjoyable without becoming monotonous. And some of the gear you acquire for having completed it is pretty damn cool too. If you enjoyed Fallout 3, this is a worthwhile investment.”

The Chinese New Year began last week, and to celebrate the Year of the Ox, Game Daily has a feature on Ten of Video Games Most Lovable Lummoxes — with Fallout 3′s Fawkes making their list. By their definition, an Ox is a “big, lovable lummoxes who can take and give out punishment with the best of them.” I’m not sure that Fawkes would want to be put in this list. Sure he’s a Super Mutant, but he does like spending his time reading and visiting the Museum of History.

Finally, if you haven’t already, be sure to check out the video interview shown above that Pete did for HipHopGamer. Pete discusses his gaming roots, DLC, the possible of a “one console future” and more.

Todd appearing at Comic Con

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If you’re planning on attending this year’s New York Comic Con (February 6-8), here’s one more reason to attend. On Friday, our very own Todd Howard will be a part of a panel featuring Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal, MTV Multiplayer’s Stephen Totilo, and Ken Levine — the lead designer for Bioshock. The hour-long panel will be held this Friday from 2:15 to 3:15 in Room 1A22.

For more details on the event, head to the New York Comic Con official site.

What we’re listening to: Podcast edition

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This week we’re discussing the podcasts we listen to keep us entertained during down time. With a 60-70 minutes commute each day, podcasts like 1Up Yours (R.I.P.), Pardon the Interruption, and now Rebel FM have become life savers for me.

Speaking of podcasts, OXM is celebrating their 150th podcast today…congrats guys! You’ll want to give this one a listen, as there’s a new interview with Todd Howard.

From the folks here at Bethesda, we hope you all have a great weekend. We leave you with our favorite podcasts to listen to…

Matt Grandstaff, Community Manager: Rebel FM, 1Up Yours (RIP), A Life Well Wasted, Full Moon Podcast, Bungie Podcast, PTI.

Jay Woodward, AI Programmer: Rebel FM, the Geekbox, the Gamers With Jobs Conference Call, the Joystiq Podcast, the Rachel Maddow Show, the Non-Prophets, the Official Lost Podcast, the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe, Real Time with Bill Maher, misc. gaming sessions from RPGMP3.com, Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me, This American Life.

Michael Lattanzia, QA: Check Your Hud.

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Top Oblivion DLC on Xbox Live, Lifetime

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Downloadable content has been a tremendous success for us and we’re excited to be offering it up for Fallout 3, beginning with Operation: Anchorage. I recently put together a presentation about downloadable content, here are the highlights.

The main thing to note is this: you guys LOVE Oblivion. To this day, 2 years later. Looking at our Xbox Live reports, every day, tens of thousands of people STILL play Oblivion and they purchase thousands and thousands of downloadable content — again, every day. Yes, even Horse Armor continues to sell daily.

So here is Oblivion’s downloadable content, ranked by Purchased Downloads on Xbox Live, since launch:

1. Wizard’s Tower

2. Thieves Den

3. Mehrunes Razor

4. Spell Tomes

5. Vile Lair

6. The Orrery

7. Knights of the Nine

8. Shivering Isles

9. Horse Armor

10. Fighter’s Stronghold*

*If we rank by pure downloads and include the free promotions we’ve had, Fighter’s Stronghold becomes #1.

Around the web: Tasty wasteland treats edition

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Here’s more Fallout news/coverage we thought you’d be interested in…

We’ll start at Planet Fallout, where they’ve started State of Modding — a new interview series where they talk to modders within the community. The first two interviews, JaySuS and DarN are up, with more on the way.

Speaking of mods, if you’re looking for new stuff to experience in the game, Hellforge has a new feature on 50 Mods You Should Be Playing For Fallout 3. Topping the list is the Enclave Commander mod by that we featured earlier this year, followed by Weapon Mod Kits, which we just featured today.

There’s a couple interesting articles elsewhere worth reading. At IGN, Rus McLaughlin has put together an  eight-page History of Fallout feature — that discusses the franchise all the way back to its Wasteland roots. Meanwhile, Clive Thompson reacts to post-apocalyptic atmosphere of Fallout 3 in a column for Wired. Here’s a snippet:

“The big difference with Fallout 3 is that it depicts — with remarkable fidelity — a city that actually exists, and that I’ve often visited. When I emerged from Tenleytown Station, I knew what it was supposed to look like: a bustling city scene of briefcase-toting wonks, trucks delivering packages, people buying coffee at corner stores. When I visited the location in Fallout 3, I saw nothing but the rusting hulk of a bombed-out blue car, with smoke billowing over the buckled asphalt and buildings as brittle as fall leaves”

On a lighter note, I suggest checking out 1Up Editor Kurtis Seid’s blog on entitled, “What I eat when I play Fallout 3.” Check out the brahmin feast above. Mmmm…..brahmin!

Weapons Modification mod impresses developers

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In about a two minute span, I received emails from five developers about how awesome Antistar’s Weapon Mod Kits is, saying, “Whoa…you have to put this up on Bethblog!”

As the title suggests, Weapon Mod Kits allows you to trick out guns found in the wastleland with silencers, extended magazines, auto-fire mechanisms, laser sights and scopes.

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Update on The Elder Scrolls Fan Union

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Back in June, we posted about The Elder Scrolls Fan Union, who were working on a Morrowind mod project to bring community members into the game as NPCs. I recently checked in with members from the site about their progress and received the following email (thanks Ibis), written by BGS forum member redsrock.

If you’re interested in joining the project, head here.

Take it away, Redsrock…

The TESFU Town Mod Project is going rather well. Somewhat naturally slow due to us not having a whole lot of modders on the job, but as they say…slow and steady wins the race. And for what we lack in numbers we more than make up with quality. Ibis at the helm is doing a tremendous job of keeping everything organized, as well as keeping tabs on everyone else’s duties. She is truly a wonderful Director/modder, and the mod definitely wouldn’t be alive without her.

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Operation: Anchorage lands on Xbox LIVE, GFW LIVE

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Fallout 3′s first DLC, Operation: Anchorage, is now available for download for Games for Windows LIVE and Xbox LIVE users. To celebrate the occasion, we’ve released a new trailer for the content.

On both GFW LIVE and Xbox LIVE, Operation: Anchorage costs 800 points. If you’re looking to purchase the content on PC, make sure you have a GFW LIVE account. For more information on this, head here. Those playing on Xbox 360 can purchase the game via Xbox LIVE, or visit the online marketplace. If you purchase from the latter, your content will be available to download the next time you boot up your Xbox 360.

Once your content has downloaded, you should be able to access Operation: Anchorage from any current save file for Fallout 3 (note: if this is your first time using Games for Windows LIVE, please refer to this blog post). Once you’ve loaded a game save, you should receive a Pip-Boy message stating:

Alert!: A new radio broadcast has been heard across the Capital Wasteland. It sounds like a distress call, but seems meant for certain ears only.

Following this, you’ll get a quest notification for “Aiding the Outcasts.” If you make this your active quest in your Pip-Boy 3000, your World Map will point you to where you need to go.

Around the web: Obama saves the wasteland edition

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Inauguration here in DC has come and gone, and now our new President is hard at work on making change — both in the real world and in the Capital Wasteland. I had a few community members send me messages about the painting made by Dan Lacy. Speaking for everyone here, we’re speechless.

Moving on, two interesting op/eds you might want to read. First, at NPR, writer Glenn McDonald revisits the often brought up argument of whether games can be considered art. In his piece, he argues in favor of games being art and uses Fallout 3 as apart of his argument. Here’s a snippet:

“The images of the decimated DC skyline are genuinely haunting, and console graphics have now evolved to the point where you’re having a very-near-cinematic experience. The game is scored musically, just as a film would be, and the various cut scenes and combat reenactments follow the tropes of action cinema in a knowing “wink-wink” kind of way.”

The other piece I found interesting is Duncan Fyfe’s column at GameSetWatch comparing Fallout 3 to James Joyce’s collection of short stories — called the Dubliners. Previously unfamilar with the stories, I’ll be checking them out soon.

Operation: Anchorage deploying next Tuesday on Xbox LIVE and Games for Windows LIVE, you can now find details of the achievements added to the game.

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Fallout 3 mods to check out

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It’s been a while since we featured some Fallout 3 PC mods. Visiting Planet Fallout, Fallout 3 Nexus, and our own modding boards, I’ve come across some pretty cool stuff.

I’ll begin with our forums, where pirate_phil has released his Vault Dwellers Survival Perk Pack. The mod features 10 new perks, complete with new Vault Boy imagery (like Old Father Time Perk shown above). To download it, head over to Fallout 3 Nexus.

Also worth checking out at Nexus is Martigen’s Mutant Mod that makes creatures and NPCs more unique throughout the wasteland. Check out some of the features below:

  • Every creature and NPC is unique with its own stats, size, confidence, health, damage and even skin (texture)
  • Creatures and NPCs suffer improved wounding effects such as visible bleedng and statistic penalties
  • Creatures and NPCs can loot the corpses of fallen enemies, after which you can find this loot if you kill them
  • Creatures and NPCs have improved behavioural AI based on class — in any given group some may be aggressive towards you, some may be ambivalent, and others may avoid you outright.
  • Configurable increased spawns allow you tailor how many creatures and NPCs spawn in the game at any given spawn point
  • Improved faction system to better reflect inter-faction relations and ensure the player isn’t the center of the universe
  • New creatures and NPCs to add variety to the wasteland — all hand-crafted with their own stats, abilities, loot, weapons, textures and in some cases scripted AI behaviour.

Martigen’s Mutant Mod is currently in beta and can be discussed here in our forums. While you’re at it, you might also want to check out his Increased Spawns mod to add a little more challenge to your game.

For more mods, hit the jump below…

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