All right! After the tumbleweeds from yesterday finished blowing by, they revealed some stuff of import and interest. First on the docket is this link from Voodoo Extreme, which itself contains a link to an old technical demo for Fallout 3. This demo was created back before Bethesda bought the IP, before Interplay folded, and before I quit wetting the bed. It’s fun to play around with, but it is by no means fun in itself.
In related news, Bethesda will debut a trailer for their Fallout 3 roughly one month from now. I’m really curious if Bethesda’s wrters can capture any of the sardonic wit that made the Black Isle games so much fun. The Bethesda team’s track record for world-building is good, but for creating compelling narratives? Not as good.
Joystiq is a good resource for press releases. They update frequently; you just have to ignore their commentary. Unless you’re David Jaffe. The Destructoid guys have a timeline of events surrounding the developer’s frustrations toward a wretched op-ed one of the Joystiq editors posted, and the fallout (not 3) that resulted. Click ye here. Here’s my tip for reading Joystiq: don’t read anything outside of block-quotes, and click on their sourced links only.
LucasArts has announced a new property, to be developed by Day 1 studios for "next-generation consoles". The project is called Fracture and deals with a speculative future in which the US is bisected by massive earthquakes and… glaciers? Cool. I can buy that. It’s not exactly Red States vs Blue States, but it is East vs West, and we all know where the cool people reside. The good guys, as it were. Gamespot has the annoucement and a preview.
Ha! Tron and Discs of Tron are making their way to the Xbox Live Arcade this summer. Just remember Devin’s words: nostalgia is the mind-killer, and destroyer of good spending habits.
This is a topic we’re planning on covering in an upcoming Bit Players Roundtable, but here’s what Denis Dyack of Silicon Knights thinks about the lengths of games: "Legacy of Kain had about sixty hours of play, but games have changed. People don’t want that any more." He is, of course, referring to people in general, rather than people in specific. I’m a general.
More from the Evil Avatar. This news hopped around a bunch yesterday — it was the lone mesa amid the great, empty plains — but I thought I’d mention it here: the GameTap subscription service will shortly offer free, ad-supported tiers of access to its expansive classic-and-modern gaming menu. I love GameTap, personally. I use it frequently on my laptop when I’m away from my more powerful gaming machine, and it is a boon. Plus, Sam and Max before anyone else, yeah?