FALLOUT TV series in the works?

Bethesda has filed a trademark for an 'ongoing television program set in a post-nuclear apocalyptic world', sparking speculation that they are planning to turn their Fallout franchise into a TV series.

The Fallout series depicts a parallel history where the United States built a technologically-advanced future based on the designs and visions of the 1950s, only for this world to be destroyed in a nuclear war between the USA and China in 2077. The games are set between 100 and 205 years later and show the rise of new societies from the ruins of the old one. There are four main games (Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas) and two spin-offs (Fallout: Tactics and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel), as well as a tabletop wargame. The series was created by Interplay and Black Isle Studios, who created the first three games in the series. After Black Isle's dissolution in 2004 (whilst working on a third game in the series), other studios produced the spin-offs for Interplay. Bethesda bought the rights to the Fallout franchise in 2006 and released Fallout 3 in 2008. They then hired Obsidian Entertainment to make New Vegas, which was released in 2010.

Bethesda are currently working on Fallout 4, which will almost certainly be set in Boston (Bethesda researchers have visited the city recently, making notes on its layout and geography), and there is widespread speculation that they will start work on Fallout Online once The Elder Scrolls Online is released later this year.

Bethesda applying for this copyright does not necessarily mean that there will be a Fallout TV series - they may be simply trying to protect against another show being made using the same concepts - but it does indicate they are at least thinking about it. Reactions will likely be mixed. Whilst Bethesda are to be thanked for raising the profile of the Fallout franchise and introducing it to a huge number of new fans, it is also the case that their interpretation of the franchise in Fallout 3 was simplistic, though fun. This was particularly shown up by New Vegas, where Obsidian (consisting of many of the writers and developers of the first two games) delivered both a better game and a considerably more interesting and more nuanced view of the setting. If a Fallout TV series is to proceed, hopefully Bethesda would involve some of the Obsidian talent (particularly Chris Avellone and J.E. Sawyer) in some capacity.

Bethesda headed to Boston for FALLOUT 4 (rumour)

It's been widely speculated for a while that Bethesda would be setting Fallout 4 in Boston, Massachusetts. That speculation has gained some credence with reports that Bethesda writers and researchers have been spotted in Boston undertaking research for an upcoming game.

MIT, Boston. Expect to see a Fallout-ised version of this vista if the rumour is correct.

Fallout 3 featured multiple references to the Commonwealth, a small nation established in the ruins of New England following the apocalyptic war. Several characters were featured who hailed from 'the Institute', widely taken to mean the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (or its Fallout equivalent). With Bethesda apparently planning to steer clear of the traditional Fallout stomping-ground of the California/Nevada/Arizona area (the setting for the first two Fallout games and the more recent New Vegas), fans had been speculating that either the Commonwealth or New York would be the focus for Fallout 4 and this now seems more likely.

According to Bethesda, their next game would feature the Creation Engine used by Skyrim (an updated version of the Gamebryo Engine used on all their titles from 2002's Morrowind through 2010's Fallout: New Vegas). Some Fallout fans had been hoping that Bethesda would farm out Fallout 4 to Obsidian, the company behind the excellent New Vegas, whilst they themselves would focus on The Elder Scrolls VI. Clearly this is not the case, with Bethesda now looking like they'll be alternating franchises, perhaps letting other companies come in to handle other projects along the way.

The use of the Creation Engine suggests that Bethesda envisage Fallout 4 as a current-gen title, which is odd given that the new consoles will likely launch no later than the start of 2014 and that seems a little too soon for Fallout 4. It's possible that Bethesda will release low-spec versions of the game for the current-gen consoles and upgraded, more advanced ones for PC and the next gen machines. I doubt Fallout 4 will arrive before the middle or end of 2014 at the earliest, if not later.

FALLOUT: NEW VEGAS DLC Expansions

The phenomenon of DLC - downloadable content - is a controversial one for many gamers. On the one hand, the notion of adding additional content to your game after release, extending its lifespan, is a welcome one. On the other, there is a temptation for developers to hold back features that could have been incorporated into the game at launch to make more money from fans later on, which is not acceptable for many.

Happily, the approach to DLC for the Fallout franchise has been exemplary. Fallout 3 - itself a massive game - was followed by five expansions which added a fair bit of new content to the game. These expansions were varied in tone and structure, but packed a lot of content into modest prices. Fallout: New Vegas continues this fine tradition, with four extremely large expansions released after the main game which expand the playing experience. They are now packaged with the base game in the Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition. For maximum enjoyability, it is recommended you play the expansions in order of release (Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues and Lonesome Road), though it's not too much of a problem if you don't. However, I would recommended that New Vegas players get their character to Level 25-30 in the base game before tackling them, as they can be a lot more unforgiving than the main game. Note that installing the DLCs without playing them still raises New Vegas's level limit by a cumulative 20 levels, however, which is extremely helpful.

First up is Dead Money. Investigating a distress call leading to an abandoned Brotherhood of Steel bunker, the Courier falls into a trap and is knocked out. He wakes up in a town near the Sierra Madre, an opulent casino built just before the nuclear apocalypse. His equipment has been taken and a bomb attached to a collar around his neck. A man named Elijah contacts the Courier and informs him that he has been recruited into helping stage an audacious raid on the Sierra Madre's treasure vault. The Courier has to find the other members of his team (a schizophrenic Super Mutant, a mute woman and a dapper ex-entertainer ghoul) scattered about the town, break into the casino and carry out the heist. Needless to say, there are numerous complications. Radios in the town and the casino interfere with the bomb collar and can cause it to detonate if the player is not quick to disable them. Extremely hard-to-kill 'ghost people' lurk in the area and can rise from the dead if not dismembered. Weaponry and ammunition are difficult to find, and the area is also patrolled by invulnerable security holograms equipped with lasers.

Dead Money is probably the weakest of the four DLCs, which is a shame as it is packed with good ideas. It is tremendously atmospheric and exploring the low town whilst dodging clouds of a killer substance and trying not to blow up your own head is effective for a while. Unfortunately, this section of the game goes on for a bit too long, and the last haul before you get into the casino itself (when you have to cross most of the town hunted by packs of ghost people with weaponry and health supplies both in low supply) can be an exercise in frustration. The casino itself presents a fun series of puzzles to overcome, and there is a powerfully-written narrative to follow (via diaries and computer terminal logs) as you uncover the secrets behind the founding and building of the casino, and the doomed romance at the heart of it. The DLC also has a flexible ending, with several options available for the player to wrap up the quest (though be aware that one of them effectively ends the game for good). Overall, it's solid stuff, likely taking 4-6 hours to complete, but the gameplay is a little lacking compared to the strong narrative.

Honest Hearts has the player recruited by the Happy Trails Trading Company, which is trying to open a new caravan route to the township of New Canaan via Zion Valley in Utah. Upon reaching Zion Valley, the Courier's employers are wiped out and he finds himself recruited by the mysterious 'Burned Man' to help end a devastating conflict between the tribes of the valley (a former nature reserve). The Courier has to visit the different factions and either forge a peaceful resolution (an evacuation of one of the tribes) or a more violent one (siding with one of the factions and wiping the other out).

Honest Hearts is an entertaining expansion, featuring some of the best vistas and views in the entire Fallout series to date (and makes one wish that the upgraded Creation Engine from Skyrim could be retrofitted onto it, to make it look even more impressive). Unlike the more restricted environment in Dead Money, this is an open world setting which you can explore at leisure. The quests are strong and the characters memorable, but the narrative is less powerful than Dead Money's, with the expansion ultimately ending with a shoot 'em up sequence no matter what choices you make. The expansion also has a very clunky opening in which it's impossible to save your travelling companions from death (which given New Vegas's normal flexibility is a bit weak) and then almost immediately depicts a confusing melee in which it's very easy to kill your potential allies, resulting in you auto-failing every quest in the DLC instantly. Once you get over that bump, the rest of the expansion is fun with some cool companion characters, good gear and a solid moral conflict at the heart of the story (and a great choice of two endings, neither of which are totally good or bad and have their own advantages and disadvantages). If you power through the game you might take 6 hours to complete it, but a thorough exploration of every cave and point of interest in the valley could take a lot longer. It's more fun than Dead Money in gameplay terms but isn't quite as atmospheric or well-written.

Old World Blues is the jewel in New Vegas's crown. The Courier is drawn to a mysterious broadcast at a drive-in theatre in the Mojave which teleports him to the Big MT, an advanced scientific research outpost located in the middle of a huge crater, isolated from the rest of the world. The scientists there lost their mortal bodies to age decades ago, but have transferred their brains into robots. They apologise to the Courier, as they removed his brain for analysis and have since misplaced it (the Courier is effectively piloting his body on remote-control for the duration of the expansion). The Courier's quest, therefore, is to retrieve his own brain! He also has to discover the secrets of the facility and uncover it's backstory.

Old World Blues is flat-out bonkers. Inspired by 1950s American B-movies, there is a silly - maybe even camp - tone to events. As the expansion was created in early 2011 and released late in the year, I suspect an influence from Portal 2, particularly the Cave Johnson-like voice announcements from a long-dead scientist that accompanies one particular journey. It's the funniest slice of Fallout to date and in places threatens to become inconsistent with the rest of the setting (particularly the teleporting technology, which is an order of magnitude more advanced than what even the occasionally-glimpsed aliens in the series appear to be capable of), though they just about dodge this. It's very funny, but as the Courier completes the quests and uncovers the secrets of the facility it also takes a turn for the tragic, as elements of the backstory come into sharper focus. Completing the main quest in Old World Blues will likely take 8-10 hours (longer than many full games) but exploring the full map and the various facilities will take a lot longer. The reward for completing the DLC is impressive as well: a technologically-advanced house inhabited by various AI assistants (including a homicidal toaster, possibly a tribute to British SF show Red Dwarf), a medical suite and a buy/sell terminal. A cool place to hang out once in a while.

One common thread links the first three DLCs: the Courier keeps finding evidence of a man called Ulysses - codenamed 'Courier Six' - who has taken an interest in the Courier's activities. In Lonesome Road the Courier receives a message from this individual, who has taken up residence in the Divide, a once-prosperous community (visited by the Courier himself many years ago) that was destroyed when some nuclear warheads kept in a nearby silo were accidentally detonated. The Courier is challenged to traverse the length of the radioactive Divide and meet with Ulysses personally. As they move towards a showdown, it becomes clearer that Ulysses and the Courier have an important shared history...even if the Courier cannot remember the significance of it.

Lonesome Road is the most divisive of the four DLCs, mainly because it's very linear. Whilst there is some scope to go off the road and investigate passing areas, most of the time you simply have to press forwards. This linearity seems to go against the ethos of New Vegas and its immense flexibility in allowing players to do what they want in the game, but in this case it may have been a worthwhile sacrifice, as it allows Obsidian to do something very interesting with the narrative. Essentially, the expansion asks the question about what would happen if you were just a randomly-passing NPC in someone else's epic story? Ulysses was the main character of his own Fallout narrative and the Courier a passer-by, but one whose actions had an immense impact on Ulysses, sending him on a huge journey across the Mojave, the Sierra Madre, Zion Valley and the Big MT. The Courier himself barely remembers the incident and is bemused by the whole situation, but must play a crucial role in resolving Ulysses's story, one way or another.

For all its linearity and brevity (at around 4 hours it's the shortest of the expansions, but is still a fair bit longer than the shortest Fallout 3 DLCs, Operation Anchorage and Mothership Zeta), Lonesome Road is still a lot of fun. Combat is entertaining and varied, with a number of side-missions which can be challenging in themselves. The series' most iconic enemies, the deathclaws, are back in force after being low-key in the other New Vegas games, resulting in some tense battles. There's also some interesting narrative developments later on which open up areas further back along the map, allowing for some additional exploration. However, everything is building up to a powerful showdown between the Courier and his apparent nemesis, which is gripping stuff.

Ultimately, the four expansions to Fallout New Vegas are all worthwhile. Even the weakest, Dead Money, is well worth playing and the best, Old World Blues, should be required playing for every Fallout fan. All four are enjoyable and between them they add a significant number of new perks and weapons to the game (cazadores need never worry you again after completing the relevant sub-quest in Old World Blues). But most impressive is the way that each expansion contributes to a genuinely innovative and interesting storyline, which is flexible enough to be played in any order (though it makes slightly more sense to play the expansions in order of release), light enough not to restrict your choices too much but weighty enough to have a real impact. It's no surprise that the writing team behind Planescape: Torment (the greatest western RPG of all time) were behind this offbeat storyline.

Dead Money (***½)
Honest Hearts (****½)
Old World Blues (*****)
Lonesome Road (****½)

Fallout: New Vegas

Two centuries after a nuclear war destroyed the United States and much of the world, civilisation is slowly reasserting itself in the American West. Two powerful blocs have formed. The New California Republic follows the ideals and goals of pre-war America, believing in a land of freedom and opportunity. Caesar's Legion is an army of fascist thugs who believe in rule by strength and superiority. Between these two forces lies the Mojave Wasteland and the city of New Vegas, a fiercely independent state ruled by the enigmatic Mr. House and his army of security robots.

A courier, bearing an important parcel for delivery to New Vegas, is shot in the head by an unknown assailant and left for dead. Nursed back to health by a local doctor, the courier sets out to complete his mission, find the assailant and recover his commission. But as the courier delves deeper into the Mojave Wasteland, he (or she) discovers a land poised on the brink of a great change, and that she (or he) may ultimately hold the balance of power.

Fallout: New Vegas was released in late 2010 and is a stand-alone successor to the first three Fallout games. It was developed by Obsidian Entertainment, the successors to Black Isle, that company that created the franchise and the first two games in the sequence. Bethesda, who bought the licence for the franchise and made Fallout 3, contracted Obsidian to make a new game in the series. This move was popular with fans (particularly those doubtful over Bethesda's handling of the series), since it allowed quite a few team-members who worked on the first two games to produce a new Fallout title. There were even able to incorporate some elements of the cancelled 'original' Fallout 3 that Black Isle were working on when they were shut down.

Anyone who's played one of Bethesda's Gamebryo/Creation engine games (Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Skyrim) will be at home here. The game is played from a first-person perspective, although a third-person viewpoint is available as well. You create your character, deciding his or her name and gender and deciding their appearance. There are no classes, with instead you pumping skill points into the areas you want to develop (guns, speech and science are highly recommended). Every two levels you also get perks, special bonuses to certain skills or abilities. You're then set loose in the game world with an initial mission - find the guy who shot you - but also the freedom to wander off, explore, speak to people, pick up initial jobs and so on. It's also up to you whether to play as a heroic wanderer, a practical money-hunter or a psychopathic maniac.

The opening town in the game, Goodsprings, has a number of missions you can do for money and experience (some of which also act as tutorials for the game's combat system). Due to the geography of the Mojave (as depicted in the game), your pursuit of your nemesis leads up a valley through several other settlements, where side-missions are never far away. In this fashion the game encourages you to build up your character before confronting your enemy in New Vegas itself, without restricting your freedom (you can simply ignore everything and go straight to the city if you really want to).

However, there is one massive difference between New Vegas and the Bethesda games: Obsidian have some of the best writers in gaming working for them. Bethesda, to be charitable...don't. In particular, they have little truck with either violence being the only solution to problems or in moral absolutes of black and white. You often find that missions can be accomplished through dialogue or bargaining rather than violence alone. Your skills impact on your dialogue choices in a way that didn't happen in Fallout 3, immediately opening up a vaster number of options. If you have a high medical skill, for example, you can simply tell a medic how to make the best use of his resources rather than going on a long and dangerous mission halfway across the map to find the same info in a textbook. In addition there are situations where there are two options and each option has both positive and negative consequences and neither is obviously the 'right' choice to make. You have to make the choice which makes the most sense for your character, given their allegiances.

There is also a faction system at work in the game. On the larger scale, the armies of the New California Republic and Caesar's Legion are clashing for control of the Mojave, and in particular the tactically important location of Hoover's Dam, which provides power for most of the region. You can ally with either side and perform missions for them, but this will ultimately destroy your reputation with the other side and close down your ability to do missions for them as well. New Vegas doesn't allow you to have your cake and eat it. It forces you to make decisions and stick to them. There is also a second layer of factions at work in New Vegas itself, with Mr. House determined to maintain the city's independence whilst the local representatives of the New California Republic tries to convince him to join them. There's also another faction in New Vegas which seeks to eliminate Mr. House and seize control themselves. Once again, you can choose which side to join.

However, and this is where New Vegas really impresses, the game also gives you a very important option: to be yourself. Can't choose between the NCR and the Legion? Ignore both of them. Or wage war on both of them whenever you find them. Don't like Mr. House or his enemies? Eliminate both of them, seize control of Mr. House's immense army of robot sentries and rule New Vegas yourself. No character in the game has plot-armour. You can be in a high-level strategic conference with the NCR's senior-most general, but you can, if you wish, shoot her in the head. There are consequences (the NCR will turn on you and try to hunt you down wherever you are, and further missions from them will not be available), but you can do it if you wish. The game doesn't force you to do anything you don't want to, and gives the player an impressive amount of freedom.

Where the game also scores big over Fallout 3 and Skyrim is its treatment of companion characters. In those games, companions are basically extra weapons platforms and a mobile bonus inventory. They don't really talk to you and after a while there is no point interacting with them other than what they can do for you on a practical level. In New Vegas, each potential follower has a quest associated with them and their own allegiances and preferences. Bringing ex-NCR sniper Boone into a Legion camp will result in Boone going on a killing spree. Come into conflict with NCR troopers and Boone may leave or even turn on you. This applies to all of the companions, who also seem a bit chattier than in Bethesda's own games. In short, in New Vegas companion characters bring a lot more to the table than their Bethesda counterparts.

Graphically, the game looks a little lacking compared to Skyrim with its high-res textures installed, but otherwise looks credibly impressive. There are some great environment and sound effects that convincingly sell the illusion of being in the desert. There is some clunkiness; rock faces and mountains are sometimes surrounded by invisible walls to prevent you climbing over them, which is odd. But otherwise the graphics and sound effects are strong. The interface is unchanged from Fallout 3 and is mostly fine, but there is no way of instantly accessing your quest log, inventory or skill sheet with a single button. Instead you must activate your PIP-BOY (a wrist-mounted mini-computer) and cycle through the pages, which is a cumbersome process, even though the game freezes whilst using it. You can assign weapons, healing packs and other items to hotkeys, however, which does help.

For combat, you can either engage in direct combat FPS-style (now enhanced by the addition of iron sights) or use VATS. In this mode combat is paused and you can target an enemy's limbs before resuming the battle. This was generally nice but not essential in Fallout 3, but is more important in New Vegas. Throughout the game you will face a relentless type of flying insect called a 'cazadore', which is exceptionally deadly. Blowing their wings off, ridding them of their devastating speed, in VATS is a good way of dealing with them. Combat is thus a bit more involved and satisfying than in Fallout 3, with a larger and more interesting array of weapons. There's also more focus on melee combat, which is useful in close-quarters battles where stopping to reload a firearm could be fatal.

Like the other Fallout games, New Vegas is set in a radioactive environment where the very soil and water is hazardous. Unlike the other games, the New Vegas area did not take a direct nuclear hit during the war so these hazards are much less prevalent than in Fallout 3. Coupled with a lack of famous landmarks (aside from Hoover Dam), New Vegas sells the idea of being in a post-apocalyptic world less effectively than Fallout 3. However, it does do a better job of selling the illusion of a post-post-apocalyptic world, where the apocalypse was a long time ago (now more than two centuries) and civilisation is starting to reassert itself. For those who do feel the environment is less threatening than previous games, you can activate a hardcore mode which forces you to sleep, eat and drink on a regular basis, as well as giving your ammo weight (preventing you from lugging tons of it all over the place). A further optional mod by the game's project lead also makes the game more challenging still (by halving the amount of experience you get).

New Vegas has a formidable array of memorable characters to talk to and deal with. Your companions are fully fleshed-out individuals with complex motivations and backstory. Boone, a devastatingly competent sniper and soldier, is working through the pain of the loss of his family to raiders. A Super Mutant who allies with you is suffering mental problems (the result of exposure to a dangerous technology) but is also tormented by memories of her grandchildren, who died decades earlier. Mr. House believes he can restore peace to the world and presents you with rationales as to why this is so, but is also an egotistical narcissist with no real idea of his true nature (as a hilariously over-the-top obituary - penned by himself in the event of his death - proves). Caesar himself is a deluded sociopath who justifies the mass-slaughter of innocents through dubious rhetoric (which you can attempt to argue him out of, or can choose to remove his head instead). Even minor characters, like the explosive-obsessed 'Boomers' who've taken over an old military base or the doctor who patches you up at the start of the game, have their own stories and characteristic tics. The voice acting is also superb, with a special shout-out to Michael Hogan (Saul Tigh from the new Battlestar Galactica) whose voice is the first thing you hear in the game (after Ron Perlman's traditional opening narration, of course).

The combination of these factors is that Fallout: New Vegas is the best game released by Bethesda to date (although it was not developed by them). Obsidian have crafted an open-world storyline based on choice and freedom of action to go with the open-world setting. There are complex moral choices to make, memorable and three-dimensional characters to interact with and the ability to solve problems without always resorting to guns and violence (you can even defeat the end-of-game enemy through dialogue, rather than weaponry). The faction system gives rise to a large number of different possible endings as well. With New Vegas Obsidian have finally added a freeform, flexible and complex story worthy of the freeform, complex and open nature of the game engine that Bethesda have created.

Unfortunately, the game is let down by some minor technical issues. The game is now in a much better state than at launch, where it was a bit of a mess. Most of the bugs have now been fixed, and I actually had less crashes than I did with Fallout 3. However, an ongoing bug prevented me from loading saved games from the start menu, which was a bit silly. I had to start a new game each time and then load from within the game world. Fortunately, loading is so fast that this was not a problem (adding maybe 5 seconds to the load process). Still, the fact this known issue was not fixed (and, with support for the game now ended, never will be) at some point is irritating.

Fallout: New Vegas (****½) is a long, impressive roleplaying game set against a complex, morally ambiguous backdrop which gives the player real freedom in the narrative sphere as well as the simplistic exploration-and-shoot-things area. Despite some minor technical issues, it is a brilliant game and the best thing released by Bethesda since Morrowind, and the best game produced by Obsidian to date. It is available now, packaged with its excellent expansions (which I will cover separately), in the UK (PC, X-Box 360 and PlayStation 3) and USA (PC, X-Box 360 and PlayStation 3).