Fallout 3

Fallout: The Board Game Lets you Play Monopoly After the ApocalypseThis custom version of Monopoly, crafted by PinkAxolotl, really has to be seen to be believed. It's not like it's just a regular board with a few Fallout references made here and there. It's as Fallout-themed as it could possibly hope for.


And how Fallout is that? Let's see. Every square has been renamed, of course. The board has been entirely customised ("free parking" replaced with Fallout 3's "please stand by" screen, for example). The community chest and chance cards have been replaced by perks. The pieces have been "rusted" to give them that post-apocalyptic look. There's even Nuka Cola caps that can be used as money.


About the only complaint I could make is that it appears to have all its houses, pieces and dice. It's hard enough keeping track of all that crap in these peaceful times of ours, so Lord only knows how they all survived the apocalypse!


Fallout: The Board Game Lets you Play Monopoly After the Apocalypse


Fallout Monopoly [DeviantArt, via Geeksaresexy]



You can contact Luke Plunkett, the author of this post, at plunkett@kotaku.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.
Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game

Nuka Break was a surprisingly great short film based on the Fallout universe, released earlier this year. It was so great, in fact, that the film's producers got enough cash together to go and make an entire series. And here's the first episode.


It's called Fallout: Nuka Break The Series (catchy!), and continues the adventures of a Vault survivor, his Ghoul pal Ben and a former slave across the post-apocalyptic wastelands of the nuclear-ravaged future.


New episodes will be released every second Monday. In addition to the returning cast from the short film, they've managed to rope in Guillermo Del Toro favourite Doug Jones (Abe Sapien in Hellboy, creepy eyeball guy in Pan's Labyrinth) to guest star as well.



You can contact Luke Plunkett, the author of this post, at plunkett@kotaku.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.
Kotaku

Fallout: New Vegas Lonesome Road Hits Sept. 20 Lonesome Road, the fourth add-on pack for Fallout: New Vegas, will be available for download on Xbox LIVE, PlayStation Network and Steam on September 20th. (Xbox LIVE for 800 Microsoft points, PlayStation Network and Steam for $9.99), Bethesda said today. Two additional DLC packs, Courier's Stash and Gun Runners' Arsenal, will also be available for download on September 27th.


Courier's Stash (Xbox LIVE for 160 Microsoft points, PlayStation Network and Steam for $1.99) gives players immediate access to four content bundles previously available only through pre-ordering Fallout: New Vegas. The Caravan Pack, Classic Pack, Mercenary Pack and Tribal Pack each offer unique weapons, apparel and aid advantages that will help you throughout your journey.


Gun Runners' Arsenal (Xbox LIVE for 320 Microsoft points, PlayStation Network and Steam for $3.99) increases the range of unique weapons, weapon mods, ammo types and recipes waiting to be uncovered in the vast Mojave Wasteland.


Kotaku

Fallout: New Vegas Lonesome Road Hits Sept. 20, Two New DLC InboundLonesome Road, the fourth add-on pack for Fallout: New Vegas, will be available for download on Xbox LIVE, PlayStation Network and Steam on September 20th. (Xbox LIVE for 800 Microsoft points, PlayStation Network and Steam for $9.99), Bethesda said today. Two additional DLC packs, Courier's Stash and Gun Runners' Arsenal, will also be available for download on September 27th.


Courier's Stash (Xbox LIVE for 160 Microsoft points, PlayStation Network and Steam for $1.99) gives players immediate access to four content bundles previously available only through pre-ordering Fallout: New Vegas. The Caravan Pack, Classic Pack, Mercenary Pack and Tribal Pack each offer unique weapons, apparel and aid advantages that will help you throughout your journey.


Gun Runners' Arsenal (Xbox LIVE for 320 Microsoft points, PlayStation Network and Steam for $3.99) increases the range of unique weapons, weapon mods, ammo types and recipes waiting to be uncovered in the vast Mojave Wasteland.


Fallout: New Vegas Lonesome Road Hits Sept. 20, Two New DLC Inbound
Fallout: New Vegas Lonesome Road Hits Sept. 20, Two New DLC Inbound
Fallout: New Vegas Lonesome Road Hits Sept. 20, Two New DLC Inbound
Fallout: New Vegas Lonesome Road Hits Sept. 20, Two New DLC Inbound


Kotaku

Fallout: New Vegas' Lonesome Road Delayed The Lonesome Road add on won't be hitting this month as originally planned, Bethesda says on their blog. We don't know why exactly it's being delayed, but we do know that they hope to get it out as quickly as possible.


Kotaku

Should We Just Wait for the Game of the Year Edition? In today's award-winning edition of Speak Up on Kotaku, cold-hearted commenter Monsieur.Froid wonders if other gamers are beginning to catch on to this whole Game of the Year trend.


So with Fallout 3, I discovered the advent of the gaming industry's newest conception: the 'Game of the Year' edition. Sure, it comes in other flavours, like the Ultimate Edition, Complete Collection or what have you, but the most notable seems to be the GotY (Game of the Year). All of these mean the same thing: Game + all DLC.


Here's a short list of some of the games that have used it.


Street Fighter 4, Super Street Fighter 4, Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition, Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect 2 (PS3), Oblivion, Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto IV, Borderlands, Arkham Asylum, Uncharted 2, and Marvel vs. Capcom 3.


Here's a list of some of the games that I figure will use it in the future:


Dragon Age 2, Skyrim, Fallout: New Vegas, Borderlands 2, Uncharted 3, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Arkham City.


So because of having rebought Fallout 3 (for 20 bucks) for the GotY edition, I learned my lesson to wait for the game to come out with the DLC-included version. I waited for Dragon Age: Origins, and am happily playing that now. I waited for Borderlands and GTAIV and again, have been very happy with both. Because of this I'll be waiting for Borderlands 2, I've been holding off on DA2 and New Vegas and I'll be skipping the 2nd MvC3 and will pick up the inevitable 3rd version with even more characters.


Who else is waiting to pick up these big name titles for the bound-to-be-released DLC versions of the games?


About Speak Up on Kotaku: Our readers have a lot to say, and sometimes what they have to say has nothing to do with the stories we run. That's why we have a forum on Kotaku called Speak Up. That's the place to post anecdotes, photos, game tips and hints, and anything you want to share with Kotaku at large. Every weekday we'll pull one of the best Speak Up posts we can find and highlight it here.
Team Fortress 2

Team Fortress 2 Secretly Teams Up with Fallout, Quake & Elder ScrollsThe latest update to multiplayer shooter brought with it a few secret surprises, in the form of unique items inspired by those used in games like Quake, Fallout, RAGE and Brink.


OK, so with QuakeCon this week it's a Bethesda marketing stunt (having published the last two Fallout games and owning id Software, the creators of Quake and RAGE), but these are cute enough to walk right on by that.


There are five items in total: the Sniper's Anger (based on the Resistance in Brink), the Soldier's Original (based on the rocket launcher from Quake), the Engineer's Pip-Boy (based on, well, the Pip-Boy from Fallout) and Wingstick (based on a weapon from RAGE) and the Heavy's Tamrielic Relic (based on a helmet from Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim).


No word yet on how you actually get hold of the items.


August 3, 2011 Patch [TF2 Wiki, thanks wtfisthisidonteven!]



You can contact Luke Plunkett, the author of this post, at plunkett@kotaku.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.
Portal

Why Can't All Games Be As Simple As Portal 2? Though complicated and convoluted, Portal 2 takes one solid idea and runs with it until the very end. In today's Speak Up on Kotaku, commenter Fernando Jorge wonders why more games can't follow in Portal 2's footsteps.


Portal 2 shows games could use more simplicity. Not all games, not all genres, but I'd say a lot of games could be way simpler.


In Portal 2 you can just jump and open portals and the game takes this basic mechanic as far as it can go. The end result is a game that is very tight; there are barely any loose ends.


On the other hand, take Fallout, Mass Effect, Dead Rising, Grand Theft Auto, all of them enjoyable and very good games but a lot more complex than Portal. All of those games have numerous issues, things that just don't work right, that are frustrating, that are useless.


If a game focuses on as least elements as possible while trying to get the most out of them the result will be a flawless game. I don't mean to use the word flawless as meaning best game ever; I mean it as a quality for a game. To be polished.


Take Tetris or Super Mario Bros. as an example. Very simple and nearly flawless. But what often happens with games is like... if someone developed Chess and then decided to add 4 more pieces, make the pieces have HP, customizable abilities and create multiple different boards


About Speak Up on Kotaku: Our readers have a lot to say, and sometimes what they have to say has nothing to do with the stories we run. That's why we have a forum on Kotaku called Speak Up. That's the place to post anecdotes, photos, game tips and hints, and anything you want to share with Kotaku at large. Every weekday we'll pull one of the best Speak Up posts we can find and highlight it here.
Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game

"Old World Blues," the Next New Vegas DLC, Arrives July 19Bethesda Softworks said today that "Old World Blues," the next downloadable extension of Fallout: New Vegas will arrive on all platforms on July 19. Pricing wasn't discussed but past installments have run $10. These three screenshots are from the DLC.


"Old World Blues," the Next New Vegas DLC, Arrives July 19
"Old World Blues," the Next New Vegas DLC, Arrives July 19


Quake

Bethesda announced this morning that a group of hackers have grabbed data from some of their users, including "e-mail addresses and/or passwords." If you frequent Bethesda's sites, like their forums or the Brink statistics site, change your password. [BethBlog]


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