"Vault 101," the Fallout 3 ballad by nerd rockers Kirby Krackle, is now available on the Rock Band Store. The download is $1 or 80 Microsoft Points. You can see it performed in-game on the jump.

Fallout 3 Tribute Track Rocks Rock Band

For over a year now, two companies have slugged it out in the courts, battling over the past - and in some cases future - of the Fallout franchise. This month, that battle took a slightly ridiculous turn.

Bethesda — who published both Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas, and who also own the rights to the franchise — claims that Interplay, the former owners of the brand, are violating all kinds of agreements with their development of a Fallout massively-multiplayer game.

Specifically, Bethesda believes that when Interplay was allowed to begin development of the Fallout MMO all the way back in 2007, all it was allowed to use was the name "Fallout" itself. That's it. No character art, no characters, nothing already established as an element of the Fallout universe, because Bethesda owns all that stuff.

A Fallout MMO in name only wouldn't be much of a Fallout MMO at all, would it?

More VaultLeaks: Bethesda claims IPLY could only use the Fallout name [Fallout Wiki]

A quest for an NPC you'd just rather shoot than talk to, for a payoff that's probably disappointing, if not a lie? That's classic Fallout. Except in Dead Money, Fallout New Vegas' first DLC extension, you don't have a choice.

Dead Money arrives Dec. 21 and costs 800 Microsoft Points. It's an Xbox 360 exclusive.

Yeah, we've seen amazing gaming tattoos before, but this guy's full-sleeve piece - covering a wide array of platforms, genres and characters - must surely rank up there as one of the best.

In the one piece, spanning his arm and parts of his shoulder, PerfectCr has included art from Super Mario Galaxy, Metal Gear Solid, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, Portal, Duck Hunt, Fallout and even Ms. Pac-Man.

The whole sleeve tattoo took seven months to complete, and is made even more impressive by the fact he's got a similar piece all over his right leg as well.

The best part is, these shots only show part of the thing. To see the tattoos in full detail, head to PerfectCr's site at the link below.

Gaming Tattoos [PerfectCr, via GameFreaks]

After over a month of various technical woes, particularly on the PC version of the game, it seems as though Fallout: New Vegas may actually be fixed soon. Maybe.

Publishers Bethesda have hit the game's support page to let gamers know that a cross-platform patch for all three versions of the game - believed to be the "comprehensive update" developers Obsidian have been working on since the game's release - has been submitted for approval, meaning it should be with us soon.

Let's hope so! A lot of people will be getting the ambitious post-apocalyptic role-playing game for Christmas, and I'd hate to see a smile turn upside down on December 25 should a game hit some weird bug that brings everything to a halt.

[Bethesda]

In Bethesda's latest newsletter, a designer on Fallout: New Vegas spills details on the upcoming "Dead Money," the Xbox 360-exclusive DLC extension to Fallout: New Vegas due on Dec. 21.

It's essentially a treasure hunt for a mysterious city, in this case the Sierra Madre, "an opulent and extravagant resort that was supposed to be the greatest casino in the west," but whose opening date, sadly, came after the bombs started falling. Its surrounding city, out in the Mojave Wasteland, is inhabited by the Ghost People, a people who are trapped inside hazmat suits thanks to pollution in the area.

You'll be spotting it the usual way - faint radio broadcast, in this case advertising the grand opening of the casino that never came. New foes and NPCs may be expected, including the Ghost People and the casino's "substantial defense systems."

Dead Money gets here on Dec. 21 and will cost 800 Microsoft Points.

In The 'Works Issue No. 5 [Bethesda Softworks via VG247]

A welcome mat suitable for any New Vegas saloon. Made by commenter WT Crafts (Etsy page). Side effects don't include kidney damage, nausea, loss of visual acuity, dizziness, nosebleeds, joint inflammation, tooth decay, sore throat, organ rupture and halitosis.

Fallout: New Vegas is pretty fun when it's not breaking down on you. Problem is, that happens a lot. Hopefully a "comprehensive" patch due for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 in the "coming weeks" will fix that.

While there's sadly no firmer timeframe on when to expect what for many will be a game-saving remedy, we do know the 360 version's save game issue should be fixed, "along with a number of other issues being reported".

In the meantime, PC users on NVIDIA hardware like myself suffering from crummy performance in many areas will be getting a separate patch in the next day or two that fixes not just that problem but more save game issues and companion AI problems as well.

It's a shame when you have to get excited over patches, but with this game's engine - which marries the deep technical lows with giddying exploratory highs - it's par for the course.

More news on New Vegas updates [Bethesda]

Something Awful, on target as always, skewers side mission premises in Fallout: New Vegas. Eight more ads are at the link. Seen on Something Awful.

Fallout: New Vegas released 18 days ago. That's 432 hours. Since then, more than 475,000 hours have been spent reading and editing the Fallout: New Vegas wiki. That's 58 years.

Over on Wikia, where numerous games' wikis are tended by legions of fans, Fallout added more than 1,200 new pages since the game's release, and its traffic shot up sevenfold at one point - 2.5 million visitors in one week.

They weren't just lurking. "Over 475K man hours were spent reading and creating content about Fallout: New Vegas – the equivalent of 58 years!" wrote one editor in a note to the community. The traffic surge also shattered all previous Wikia records. World of Warcraft's Wiki was the previous title holder, with 5 million daily page views. Over the past two weeks, Fallout's has beaten that mark, topping out at 8.8 million on Oct. 24.

As the wiki is named The Vault, might some be taking "We are born in the Vault and we will die in the Vault," a bit too seriously?

New Vegas Players Spend 58 Years At The Vault [Fallout.Wikia, thanks Pawel]