Fallout: New Vegas takes place in the same time-line and universe as Fallout 3. Also, the game isn’t handled in-house by Bethesda, but rather Obsidian, who also worked on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II and the forthcoming espionage RPG Alpha Protocol. It shouldn’t be a surprise, given Obsidian’s experience, that the game will retain Fallout sensibilities—role-playing; post-apocalypse with a dark sense of humor; and so on.

No word on a firm release date yet, but we know Bethesda plans to put Fallout: New Vegas on shelves this fall.

First off, Fallout 3 can be had for the wonderful price of $25, a steal for the hundreds of hours of entertainment available to you.

Secondly, and not just for this weekend, 2K have bundled together 20 of their games into the Huge Game Pack. Individually, these games would cost you $229.80. Get them all together, and you only have to spend the amazing lost price of $60. And this weekend, it’s 10% off! So only$54. The games in the pack are as follows:

• Sid Meier’s Pirates!
• Shattered Union
• Prey
• CivCity: Rome
• Sid Meier’s Railroads!
• Railroad Tycoon 3
• Railroad Tycoon II Platinum
• X-COM: Terror From the Deep
• X-COM: Apocalypse
• BioShock
• X-COM: Interceptor
• X-COM: UFO Defense
• X-COM: Enforcer
• Freedom Force
• Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich
• Sid Meier’s Civilization III Complete
• Sid Meier’s Civilization IV
• Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword
• Civilization IV Warlords
• Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Colonization

Well this is a surprise.

ZeniMax Media, parent company of Bethesda Softworks (Fallout 3 and Oblivion), has announced that it has purchased legendary developer id Software.

In an interview with Kotaku, id CEO Todd Hollenshead stated that he approached ZeniMax about the deal, and the main reason was that they wanted to be able to take advantage of all their intellectual properties. The merger with ZeniMax will allow them to expand the teams working on their future games, such as Doom 4.

Activision will still be publishing the new Wolfenstein game and EA Partners will still be publishing Rage. Doom 4 will be a ZeniMax published title.

PlayStation 3 owners waiting to get their Fallout 3 DLC on need only wait a wee bit longer, as Bethesda announced all DLC currently available exclusively on Xbox 360 will be coming to PS3 this summer.

The first add-on, Operation: Anchorage, will be available in late June, followed by The Pitt and Broken Steel. The latter two will be released roughly four to six weeks apart. But first, Sony will release a patch that will allow PS3 owners to get in on the DLC fun (no patch = no DLC).

Oh, but that’s not all, folks. There will also be two new DLC packs, available on Xbox 360, PC, and PS3. The first: Point Lookout, a new swampland area filled with new quests and additional content. Point Lookout will hit Xbox 360 and PC in late June for the price of 800 MS Points or $9.99, respectively, and will be available on PS3 once all three previous DLC packs are released.

The second new DLC pack is called Mothership Zeta, and involves an invasion of Earth by the aliens who crashed a ship on our planet, as seen in the far reaches of D.C. by the more adventurous players in Fallout 3. Mothership Zeta will cost the same as Point Lookout, and will be available in late July on Xbox 360 and PC. It will release on PS3 sometime after Point Lookout.

There will be two DLC retail discs — Fallout 3 Game Add-on Pack #1 and #2 — released this summer. #1 will include Operation: Anchorage and The Pitt and will be available on May 26, while #2 will feature Broken Steel and Point Lookout and release sometime in August. Both discs will be available only on Xbox 360 and PC.

Finally, Bethesda will release a Game of the Year edition of Fallout 3, featuring the main game and all five DLC packs, this October. This edition will run you $59.99 on Xbox 360 and PS3, and $49.99 on PC. Sounds like this is the one to buy if you’re still on Should I play Fallout 3 or not? boat.

So, the latest DLC for Fallout 3, Broken Steel, is floating out into the ether now. Xbox 360 owners are having a lovely time as I type this, no doubt. On the flip side, PC gamers eager to get their Broken Steel DLC on might have noticed this error:

“Not a cryptographic message or the cryptographic message is not formatted correctly. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8009200D)”

Seems this error is a game breaker: the game just stops, unable to load further. And if the kerfuffle on the Net is to believed, this will happen to a lot of you PC Fallout 3 peeps.

Remember who gave you the head’s up when your PC tries to kill you.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker opens the words “This is but one of the legends of which the people speak…” and presents a montage retelling the events of Ocarina of Time. A great evil steals the golden power of the land, and a Hero travels through time to defeat him and restore peace to the land. I’m sure it brought a smile to the face of those players who played Ocarina. But then the story continues. Some time after the Hero of Time completed his quest, the great evil returned and threatened the land. The Hero never returned, and the ultimate fate of that kingdom was forgotten.
The story is presented in a primitive art style that emphasizes that the story has been passed from generation to generation. A specific time frame isn’t given, but I get the feeling that several centuries, or perhaps even a millenia or two, have passed since the events told in the legend. At the beginning of the game, on the aptly named Outset Island, boys who have come of age dress in green clothing on their birthday to celebrate the legendary Hero and to hopefully inspire them to act with the same maturity and bravery that the Hero himself showed.

While the legend speaks of a land of mountains and green hills, the world as it stands now is nothing but several islands scattered across a vast sea. There doesn’t seem to be any government or group to unify the people. The people of each island take care of their own affairs and only sporadically trade with the other islands. A race of birdmen take to the skies to deliver mail to the islands, and are probably a more reliable means of communication than shipping letters on boats. Strangely, even though the world is dominated by the sea, few people seem to have the knowledge or skills to take to the ocean themselves. On the commercial hub of the world, Windfall Island, sailors and civilians tend to avoid each other, and more unsavory types gather in the pub at night. Perhaps the lack of a more pervasive seafaring culture is explained by the dangerous creatures, cyclones, and whirlpools that can spell doom for the careless sailor. It also seems that pirates roam the seas, including a band led by a girl who may be around the same age as the pirates gunned down by US Navy SEAL snipers recently.

The world seems to have experienced its great cataclysm, and moved on. So much time has passed that the broken, isolated groups of people now see their lives as normal. In Fallout 3 only two centuries have passed since nuclear Armageddon and evidence of the old way of life still litters the landscape. Anyone can look around and see what kind of life they could have had if only things had turned out differently. In The Wind Waker, the world is perhaps just as dangerous as the Capital Wasteland, but the tragedy of what’s befallen the people isn’t nearly as evident. It’s presented in the isolation of the people, in the glimpses of strange lands that dot the ocean, and in the remnants of powerful magic that anyone who played Ocarina of Time will recognize. How sad is it to see the great Deku tree tormented by mere Chu Chu’s? The world is a pale but beautiful shadow of its former self, and the great evil seems to have won, though where he went off to remains a mystery. It’s a world that the player wants to save so that the former glory might be restored.

Broken Steel, the third DLC release for Bethesda’s Fallout 3, will arrive on PC and Xbox 360 on Tuesday, May 5. The new expansion — easily the most significant yet — will add several hours of gameplay, increase the level cap to 30, remove the ending (more on that in a moment), and even new perks.

Leveling from 20 (the previous level cap) to 30 won’t be quick or easy, according to Bethesda VP Pete Hines. Players will start to see new enemies at level 18, and will notice a dramtic increase in difficulty during battles. Considering how easy the game gets once players hit 20 (with the right perks, that is), this is a welcome addition.

The ending is different, but not dramatically so. Instead of the player taking part in a specific action at the main story’s conclusion, another character will now take part in said action, while the player character moves on. The end event still occurs though — no word yet on how that is addressed in the expansion.

The only known new perk is called “Puppies!” It will allow Dogmeat to resurrect as a puppy if he is killed in combat. I didn’t have much use for Dogmeat, so this does nothing for me, but maybe some of you softies will like it. Personally, I’m more excited for the Tesla Cannon, a new weapon (and the focus of the expansion’s story) which utilizes Tesla coils to fry enemies quite crispy. Sounds fun, eh?

Broken Steel will cost you 800 MS Points when it hits May 5, so get your wallets ready Fallout fans!

Hot off the heels of “Operation Anchorage”, Bethesda has released some information and a few screen shots on the second expansion coming to Fallout 3 entitled “The Pitt”. The new content promises new areas, new weapons, new perks and new achievements. The release date is floating around sometime in March and will probably be released for 800 Microsoft points. More details and a description of the content after the jump.

From The Official Fallout 3 Website -

“The Pitt allows you to travel to the post-apocalyptic remains of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and become embroiled in a conflict between slaves and their Raider masters.  Explore a sprawling settlement ravaged by time, neglect, nuclear radiation, and moral degradation. The Pitt is filled with morally grey choices, shady NPCs, new enemies, new weapons, and much more.

The Pitt opens with a desperate radio message, and a meeting with its sender, an escaped slave named Wernher. Wernher claims that the leader of “The Pitt” has created a cure for mutations… and he needs you to go in and retrieve it. From there, the player can proceed in a number of ways, in true Fallout 3 style. Do you fight your way in, or disguise yourself as a slave? Ally with the slaves, or join their Raider overlords?  The Pitt is very morally ambiguous – there’s no real right or wrong, just choices to be made, sides to be chosen, and a mystery that could send shockwaves throughout the entire Wasteland.

• Explore an entire new area – the post-apocalyptic ruins of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, known as The Pitt!
• Find and use new weaponry, such as the AutoAxe, a new melee weapon with a powerful, serrated rotary blade hungry for flesh.
• Discover new side quests and subtle plot elements and determine your path in this place where nothing is “right” or “wrong.”
• Exclusive new perks and achievements! “

Regardless of how many times its software is contending for Game of the Year accolades, Bethesda isn’t immune to criticism and Fallout 3 is no exception. Speaking with MTV Multiplayer blog, Bethesda Softworks executive producer, Todd Howard, discussed three major complaints fans and haters alike have about the recently released Fallout 3.

First criticism out of the gate is that Fallout 3 is only mediocre when judged as a shooter to which Todd Howard quickly agreed. Secondly, each ending of Fallout 3 has been blasted for its quick and dirty wrap up. Howard argues that many people are more upset about the game actually ending than the ending itself and promises the upcoming Broken Steel DLC will combat that by allowing players to continue their adventure. Lastly, critics say that VATS can be rather boring once players are able to almost always get a head shot. Howard says that everyone has a different concept of entertainment and watching a head explode in Fallout 3 never gets old for him, but he admits, “the ‘to hit chance’ for head shots is probably too high.” Three complaints down. So, are you satisfied with Howard’s responses to these Fallout 3 criticisms?