Ashley Cheng on Fallout 3

It has been a great year for Ashley Cheng, he’s gotten married and now he’s shipped Fallout 3.  He shared a few thoughts on the latter over at his blog:

There’s always some work to do, but I’m finally at the point where I can actually breath at work. The game is done done. Like done. For most of the team, the game has been done for a while and the final push of a project always feels like a lot of hurry up and wait, as we wrap up testing, carefully eyeballing every bug we find, trying to get as much information as possible before deciding if the risk/reward is there to make the change.

Now I get to wait along with them. I’m very fortunate to be working with an incredibly talented team, at an awesome company, for great bosses, where we work on fun and successful games.

It is as good as I hoped it would be. I can’t express how proud I am of Fallout 3. It is the best game, in my opinion, that we’ve made. And (doing my best Peter Molyneux impersonation here) it will be one of the best games you’ll play this year 😉

And as we continue on, my goal, as ever, is to make sure our next project is even better. Most people don’t know this but I am usually the last person to touch all the games we make here. So as you boot up Fallout 3 on your PC, Xbox 360 or Playstation 3, know that I was the one who sent it off to you. So you know who to blame:)

I know how lucky I am to be in this industry, to have been given the opportunity to make these great games, and to have our hard work pay off with the tremendous success we’ve had.

I think I can speak for everyone here at the blog when I say congratulations to Ashley on both counts.  I hope he, and the rest of the good people at BethSoft, enjoy this quiet time before the next project kicks into high gear.

Pete Hines: Bounty Hunter

According to Kotaku, Bethesda is searching for those responsible for the recent leak of Fallout 3 (360).  Pete Hines has made the solemn vow to hunt them where they sleep, to find those responsible and make them pay by any means necessary.  That’s not actually what he said, here’s the quote:

“We’re looking into it. Since we haven’t sent out a single disc, it greatly reduces the number of places this might have come from.”

The Kotaku reporter wasn’t sure what to do with this non-quote and started talking about sniffing his games.  I’m not that kinky so I’ll just ask that you postulate who will be rounding out Pete Hines’ vengeance posse in the comments below.  My money is on Gstaff, I heard he carries a peacemaker with him everywhere he goes.

GTTV Footage

A Planetarium in Fallout 3

As Briosa mentioned earlier, GTTV had an episode dedicated mostly to Fallout earlier this morning.  You can watch the episode over at Gametrailers.com,  There’s some new footage interspersed with lots of old footage and short Q&A sessions with various developers from the game.  There’s also some coverage on other games and an exclusive Red Alert trailer.  But hey look, a planetarium, I love planetariums!

Benchmarking Tool

For those of you still unsure as to whether or not you have machines capable of running Fallout 3.  YouGamers.com has integrated the released specs into their benchmarking tool.  It’ll install a small Java applet that will assess your system, compare it to the specs furnished by BethSoft and report back to you on whether or not your machine is up to snuff.  Give it a shot and then head on over to NewEgg to fill in the gaps where need be.

Fallout 3 v The Originals

With the release of Fallout 3 nearly upon us, Videogamer.com has decided to run a comparison on Fallout 3 and the original games of the series.  They’ve broken down the game over a variety of categories; combat, perspective, quest, and a few other categories.  The author basically states the obvious over four pages and comes to the same offers up the same attitude outsiders think old Fallout fans should have towards the game (neutral acceptance and get the fuck over it).  But hey, this is the internet and we like to share hits so here’s a snip:

If, however, you’re a fan who is open-minded about the idea of a non-Black Isle Fallout, you’ll find that Bethesda has done an admirable job of capturing the atmosphere of the wasteland you trawled through in the late 1990s. No, it’s not exactly the same – and it was never going to be – but from what we’ve played, we reckon that Fallout 3 will offer one of the most exciting and involving video game adventures of 2008. And, we reckon, it’s going to introduce a huge swathe of new players to the Fallout world – and that can only be a good thing.

Yeah, he used ‘reckon’ twice.  I think he’s trying to be folksy.  Read the whole article here.

Thanks to Kharn for pointing this beauty out.