Bethesda has assured Fallout 3 fans that the game has been approved for release in Australia. A neutered version of Fallout 3 will be shipping worldwide.

Australia’s highest video game rating is MA15+, so the idea of players shooting up virtual morphine didn’t sit well with its ratings board. Bethesda simply removed the problem from all versions of the game to head off any other regional protests.

According to GamePolitics, we should have seen this one coming.

Fallout 3 has been cleared for sale in the U.K. with no content edits required…

Curiously, a “consumer advice” note posted with the rating decision does not mention the drug use which got Fallout 3 banned in Australia earlier this year. The only reference to content is “Contains very strong bloody violence and gore.”

Gaming Today posted an article on videogame regulation in individual nations eventually forcing global censorship. Oh how I wish we hadn’t seen this ill omen fulfilled so soon. This could be a very disturbing trend in the making.

One of the integral parts of the Fallout series that has claimed so many fans’ total devotion was the storyline. When Bethesda took on the challenge of making a fitting sequel to the these games, they faced a monumental challenge to live up to the expectations of the Fallout community. The company has been slammed over changing the game’s perspective from the established formula. The one thing that could possibly save them from being torn apart by super mutant fans is a solid story firmly grounded in the Fallout tradition.

Writing the story for Fallout 3 required options that allow gamers to choose their own way rather than locking them into a good or evil moral ground. Fallout is all about shades of gray and moral ambiguity. When looking for the best person for the job, Bethesda looked to the writer responsible for Oblivion’s compelling Dark Brotherhood quest line, Emil Pagliarulo.

Pagliarulo reveals in great detail the process of creating the story for the darkly satiric post-apocalyptic world of Fallout in an interview with Gamasutra. Fallout fans won’t want to miss this one.

Here are some of the most memorable Oh. My. God!!! gaming moments gathered together by the Edge staff. The selections include the latest games back to videogames from the media’s infancy. Their picks include Final Fantasy VII Aeris’ death, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion The Dark Brotherhood beckons quest line, BioShock “Would you kindly” sequence and from Portal, The “Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device.”

I have to fully agree with most their choices; all ten pages of wow gaming moments. My own personal favorite is The Secret of Monkey Island training sequence when Guybrush Threepwood learns the art of Insult Sword Fighting. I have to warn gamers that some of these OMG moments are spoilers and there’s no warning as to which entries qualify.

Fallout 3 is still over a month away from release (must…contain…excitement…) but that isn’t stopping Bethesda from already thinking about some DLC for the game. So how could you possibly add extras to a game of Oblivion-sized proportions? By pretty much expanding the game much like they did with Oblivion. Bethesda VP, Pete Hines, explains:

The type is really–we want stuff that’s going to be several hours. Not just like a one-off thing, but something like where you can download it and play it for X number of hours. It’ll be similar to what we did with Knights of the Nine in Oblivion, where it’s like whole new quest lines, new stuff, that kind of thing.

We want to do stuff like that, where it’s adding hours of tangible stuff to the experience. And it plugs into your existing game, so whether you’re starting a new game, or you’re playing for 40 hours, you can go off and play this.

No word yet on when they might release this new content, but one thing’s for sure: we’re going to be hearing about Fallout 3 long after it hits store shelves.

Via ShackNews

Retailers are getting competitive to earn your pre-order for videogames this Fall. Walmart is offering a Pip-Boy T-shirt with any pre-order of Fallout 3 including the collector’s edition. Yes that is in addition to the Bobblehead, lunch box and all the other goodies that come with the Fallout 3 Collector’s Edition.

As in most special offers, supplies are limited and the offer is only good until the last T-shirt is gone. It sounds like a winner to me. As much as I’d like to get Amazon’s Fallout 3: Survival Edition, I really can’t justify the $130 price tag, even for a Pip-Boy 3000 digital clock. Thanks to Bethesda Blog for the heads up.

October 28th; almost two months from now. Mark your calendars, because that’s the day countless lives will be lost to the near endless exploration of the Wasteland to hunt mutants, visit old ruins, and fend off Raiders. That’s when Fallout 3 is coming to store shelves, and probably when hundreds, if not thousands, of gamers will sequester themselves in front of their computers or TVs to play what’s sure to be one excellent game.

“We are very excited to let gamers get their hands on Fallout 3, the latest chapter in this beloved and highly acclaimed franchise,” said Vlatko Andonov, president of Bethesda Softworks. “To meet the huge demand for this title by our fans worldwide, we are planning one of the biggest launches of any game released this year.”

Something tells me he’s not nearly as excited as the numerous fans who have been waiting for a new Fallout game for the last decade. I really need to start clearing my schedule for that day.

Via Press Release

What do you get when you combine a special event from Bethesda with a few people who don’t mind ignoring their NDAs? A whole lot of unofficial screenshots for Fallout 3. Recently, Bethesda held a press event in Taiwan where people were able to get some hands-on time with the beginning of the game. And some of those people took pictures; a lot of pictures. There are 145 different screenshots available at the link below, which show almost everything from the dialogue to the combat to the title screen. Naturally, I should warn you that the screenshots are full of spoilers, particularly since it walks you through the first portion of the game. Still, if you don’t mind that, you can get a very close look at the gameplay from them.

Via UnderOne [via No Mutants Allowed]

All the votes are tallied for the Game Critics Awards: Best of E3 2008. Fallout 3 took two wins out of the three nominations it received including Best of Show. LittleBigPlanet was the only other game to win two categories and took Best Console Game. Here’s the official Game Critics Awards Winner’s Circle for 2008:

Best of Show
Fallout 3
(Bethesda Softworks for PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)

Best Original Game
Mirror’s Edge
(DICE/Electronic Arts for PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 36)

Best Console Game
LittleBigPlanet
(Media Molecule/Sony Computer Entertainment for PlayStation 3)

Best PC Game
Spore
(Maxis/EA)

Best Handheld Game
Resistance: Retribution
(Bend Studio/Sony Computer Entertainment for PSP)

Best Hardware/Peripheral
Rock Band 2 Ion “Drum Rocker” Set
(ION Audio/MTV Games for Xbox 360)

Best Action Game
Gears of War 2
(Epic Games/Microsoft Game Studios for Xbox 360)

Best Action/Adventure Game
Dead Space
(EA Redwood Shores/EA for PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)

Best Role Playing Game
Fallout 3
(Bethesda Softworks for PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)

Best Racing Game
Pure
(Black Rock/Disney Interactive Studios for PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)

Best Sports Game
Madden NFL 09
(Tiburon/EA for All Systems)

Best Fighting Game
Street Fighter IV
(Capcom for Arcade)

Best Strategy Game
Tom Clancy’s EndWar
(Ubisoft Shanghai/Ubisoft for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)

Best Social/Casual/Puzzle
LittleBigPlanet
(Media Molecule/Sony Computer Entertainment for PlayStation 3)

Best Online Multiplayer
Left 4 Dead
(Valve/EAP for PC, Xbox 360)

Interestingly enough only one of the winning games, Madden NFL 09 will make it to the Nintendo Wii or the DS. Far be it from me to suggest that it could have anything to do with Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata’s declaration that E3 is no longer the appropriate venue for core games.

The Vault Wikia is a vast repository of knowledge for all things Fallout. You can find information on Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel as well as the latest on Fallout 3.

According to the Bethesda Blog, the wiki has recently topped 3,350 articles on the Fallout series and counting. Gamers wanting a crash course on the Fallout timeline, the Vaults or the Brotherhood of Steel can find all the information they need to prep for the release of Fallout 3.

I am an avid Fallout fan. Not as dedicated as the Non Mutants Allowed fan base but I was pretty confident of my store of Fallout trivia. I’m humbled and pleased to learn what I’ve missed. I’ll have lots to keep me occupied while I await the October 7 release of Fallout 3.

Pete Hines, the vice president of Bethesda, was recently speaking with Videogamer in London recently and happened to mention that he personally felt that Fallout 3 was better than Bethesda best-seller and gamer darling The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

When asked if he felt the review scores for Fallout 3 would surpass the wonderful reviews of Oblivion, Hines seemed pretty confident with the company’s first foray into the world of Fallout:

“I don’t have any doubts that on the whole, and I think this is a belief universally shared on the team that Fallout is a better game, but we’re also not oblivious to the fact that we have a lot of extra baggage that we’re carrying, being the guys picking up this franchise, that are re-imagining this series from 10 years ago, and there’s something that comes along with that. We’re very well aware of what we’re up against.

have no doubts in my mind that, at its core and for everything that it provides that Fallout [3]is a better game than Oblivion was- for sure.”

That is saying a lot considering the fact that Oblivion was given the illustrious title of Game of the Year, and is always referenced as one of the best RPG titles to have come out in ages for the PC and Xbox 360. As a matter of fact, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion were the main reasons I purchased the original Xbox and an Xbox 360 to begin with.

Fallout 3 is scheduled for release on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 this autumn.