No matter what platform we choose to take on Fallout 3's radioactive wasteland, we will be doing so to the musical styling of seasoned game music composer Inon Zur.

If Zur's name isn't familiar to you, it's likely you've hummed along to some of his more notable tracks heard in games like Crysis as well as each of the three expansions to Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War. And speaking of three, a trio of the songs Zur created for Bethesda's hotly anticipated RPG are available to listen to on the official Fallout 3 website, from in-game tracks "Megaton" and "Into the Wasteland," to a bass-heavy title track that has us climbing the walls in our underground shelter in the march up to the game's release this fall.

Did you know that it was scientifically possible to desire Fallout 3 more than you already do? We didn't until this morning when we saw the (unconfirmed by Bethesda) listing for the collector's edition of it at Gamestop. For $70, you'll get a Vault Boy Bobblehead doll, a hardcover book of art and a behind-the-scenes DVD. Oh, and the whole thing comes in a metal Vault-Tec lunch box. Yes. Please.

There's also a date for the game of October 7, but that could just be an estimate. As far as we're concerned (thanks in part to today's announcement) the official date for Fallout 3 is "Not even close to soon enough."

In a hotel conference room, Bethesda's Pete Hines recently demoed the latest version of the Fallout 3. He trudged through a collapsed building, firing a machine gun at ambling, radiated mutants. The gore made me wince a little, with blood gurgling from zombie limbs. Earlier, he shot the head off another enemy, and blood arced straight out of the neck, as if it was trying to reach the brain one last time.

Only minutes earlier, he'd shown me how the player's character grows up in an underground bunker, with those moments acting partly as tutorial and partly as a character creator. Your father, for example, stays hidden in the shadows after your birth until he checks out how the infant will look grown up. Players use a medical gadget to see (read: design) their appearance, then he emerges with roughly similar, paternal features.

We've covered the game a few times before, so in addition to my general impressions, I talked with Hines about some recently revealed features.

PS3 owners worried that Fallout 3 might come to their system of choice later than Microsoft's box(es) can put their fears to rest. Executive producer Todd Howard said that Fallout 3 should (unlike the company's last big release Oblivion) see a simultaneous release. "They should all be the same date," he said. "That's our plan."

It's definitely happy news, but we're going to wait until a bit closer to the game's Q3 release before we go get our SIXAXIS-shaped champagne flutes out of hock. As evidenced by a bevy of PS3 game delays, programming for the system is apparently about as predictable as raising mogwais.

It's said that bigger is not necessarily better, and it's a mantra that Oblivion dev Bethesda seems to have subscribed to for their next sprawling adventure, Fallout 3. In a massive interview with Gameplayer, Bethesda spokesperson Pete Hines said that, though no one had walked Fallout 3's post-apocolyptic D.C. from end to end, it's probably 50 to 80 percent as big as the world of Oblivion.

That said, it's not necessarily bad news. Fans of the series (or opponents of walking) might be relieved to hear that Bethesda is taking the quality over quantity route. Not to mention that 50 percent of Oblivion's land mass is still pretty darned big. Check out the rest of the interview for a vaultful of other non-geographic info.

We don't know what makes us jealous of Bethesda developer Ashley Cheng more: that he procured a copy of Mass Effect early (thanks to Kmart) or that he drinks Nuka Cola (of Fallout 3 fame). Check out the highlights for today:

Joystiquery
Metareview: Crysis (PC)
Metareview: Assassin's Creed (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
Readers pick best webcomic: The Littlest Hashshashin

News
Fall Xbox 360 dashboard update revealed: download Halo December 2
See the first trailer for Lego Batman
Brash to make game based on Jumper
Watch NiGHTS transform into a fish, rocket in new trailer
PS3 DivX support announced
South Park's Timmy, Freezepop in Rock Band
Alone in the Dark confirmed for Wii, PS2
The Office game is better than you'd think
Tim Schafer would 'love' to make an XBLA game
MS confirms downloadable Xbox games, free Carcassonne for Live anniv.
NBC's 'Life' investigates Prince of Persia
Some LEGO Batman details to whet your appetite for vengeance
Fable 2, Alan Wake not cancelled either
Wii Photo Channel gets better, worse in December
Mario more recognizable in Canada than Prime Minister
Supreme Commander confirmed for Xbox 360
Haze on track for December release
Geometry Wars: Galaxies delayed to 2008 in Europe
Gametap's 'Re\Visioned' animated series concludes first season

Culture & Community
Study shows that parents avoid playing video games with their kids
Midnight launch for Rock Band keeps Best Buys open late
Zero Punctuation guy makes games too

In celebration of Fallout's 10th anniversary, new IP owner Bethesda Softworks have opened a contest for the aspiring Vault Dweller to design their own perk to be included in the upcoming Fallout 3. The winner will also receive a bunch of gear for either PC or Console gamers (there are separate packages for each, listed on the contest page).

You don't have to possess artistic talent to enter, opting instead to use one of Bethesda's 15 pre-made sketches. However, if you want to submit your own art work, photo or whatever, you're more than welcome to. Contest ends 11:59 p.m. ET on October 31.

Like a deadbeat dad promising to buy you a new bicycle "as soon as he gets the scratch together," Interplay is still talking about making an MMO based on the Fallout universe. They made mention of the idea last December, but, according to a new earnings statement, are perhaps a bit closer to beginning to realize it now that their debt load has been reduced from $59 million in December 2001 to less than $3 million.

Whatever they're planning, they may want to get hoppin'. Their agreement with Bethesda states that not only must Interplay pay a 12% royalty on net sales of the MMO, but it must be in development before April of 2009, must have a minimum of 10,000 subscribers and must comply with "the quality standards of Bethesda." By the way, this week's understatement champion is Interplay Chairman Herve Caen who said, "Fallout Online will play a key role in the future of Interplay." Yeah, Herve. No kidding.

[Via 1UP]

In a dark yet comfortable mini-theatre, Bethesda executive producer Todd Howard guided us through the first 45 minutes or so of Fallout 3, played on an Xbox 360. Though a lot of what was shown and discussed was already revealed at their pre-E3 presentation late last month, but we did manage to glean new details on the title and its direction.

The atmosphere of the game (and its soundtrack) is very akin to the 1950s look of the first two Fallout titles, yet as Ron Perlman explains, the nuclear destruction happens in 2077. According to Howard, we're dealing with the future as envisioned from the past ... and the future had nuclear-powered cars and apparently never changed their taste in music. (Not that we mind at all.)

Comparisons to Oblivion are inevitable, so let's get those out of the way. As previously known, it does use an improved version of the Elder Scrolls game's engine, and you can really tell (for better and worse) with the animation "You can think of Oblivion as our freshman effort on next-gen platforms," said Howard. The movement was much more fluid, thanks likely to their new in-house motion capture capabilities coupled with the Havok physics engine. As many

However, in this build, the facial animations (and, as later pointed out by Pete Hines, the gestures) are not at this point realistic, though the lip syncing is accurate. According to Hines, much of the development time between now and its Fall 2008 release date will be spent tweaking such things, and hopefully we'll get some moving eyebrows. Say no to avatar botox!

This cautionary sign, as presented by Bethesda VP of PR and marketing Pete Hines, is for the bull ride at the developer's E3 2007 party tonight. At the top is Wonder Woman. At the bottom is executive producer Todd Howard, who obviously won't be able to ride. In the middle is a goat-riding PIP Boy, which all equates to us really wanting this as a poster.

Bethesda Softworks executive producer Todd Howard, in giving the Fallout 3 presentations, had two Xbox 360's on hand. One had the flashing red ring, but Howard noted it's because there were no AV cables plugged in.

As to why he had a backup console, he quipped, "I do have a backup should one Xbox 360 fail ... evidently they do that sometimes."

You heard right. Just in time to celebrate Independence Day in the good ol' US of A, we can now download the gorgeous Fallout 3 trailer on the Xbox Live Marketplace -- in 720p glory mind you -- and admire what a post-nuclear apocalypse Washington, D.C. might look like. A little too unpatriotic for the 4th of July? Then why not just download a pack of Fallout 3 gamer pics going for 100 Microsoft Points (about $1.25) featuring Vault Boy (of course) and a Brotherhood of Steel image. Want something a little bigger? Try a Fallout 3 theme for 150 points (about $1.87) featuring the gorgeous concept art we've been seeing for months. Or don't. Exercise your freedom to choose.

There were so many great tidbits revealed at Bethesda's Fallout 3 press event that we couldn't fit them all into the basic overview. For you obsessive fans, here are some more notes on what the game will, won't and might include:

• The game takes place 30 years after the events Fallout 2. The events of the much-maligned Fallout: Brotherhood and Fallout: Tactics never happened in the universe of Fallout 3.
• The game will feature a day/night cycle and changing weather.
• There will be 21 collectible bobbleheads hidden throughout the game for Easter egg lovers.
• The game will feature 20 licensed songs from the '40s that will be played through radio stations accessible via your on-arm PIP-Boy and radios peppered throughout the game world.
• There will be no drivable vehicles in the game, but you can travel between locations through subway tunnels.
  
• There are children in the game, but the team isn't sure yet if they will be killable as they were in the previous Fallout games.
  
• The game will have no multiplayer mode and no demo is currently planned.
• Downloadable content and player-created mods are being considered, but nothing has been finalized.
• The game will feature nine to 12 endings based on how you've played it.
• The game's version of Washington D.C. will include iconic landmarks and the general topography of the real city, but will not be a street-by-street recreation. The downtown area represents about one quarter of the in-game map.
  
• There will be fewer non-player characters in Fallout 3 than in Oblivion, owing to the game's post-apocalyptic setting. Almost all the NPCs will be killable.
• You'll be able to hire mercenaries to aid you as in the first Fallout game. You won't have much direct control over them.
• Among other statistics, the demo's loading screens contained a mysterious metric of "corpses eaten." "We're not talking about that stuff," Executive Producer Todd Howard said when asked about the stat.

Also see: Joystiq First Look: Fallout 3

Take a revolutionary, genre-defining series of games. Put it into legal and developmental limbo for a decade or so as the rights get juggled around like a hot potato. Then try to update it for a new generation of hardware and players as an obsessive, tight-knit group of fans watches your every move.

No pressure, right?

Since Bethesda Softworks got the rights and started work on the next Fallout game in 2004, Executive Producer Todd Howard has been well aware of the expectations bearing down on him and his team. "The myth of Fallout has grown over those years that people haven't played it," he said at a demonstration of the game at the company's Maryland offices. "I think the game is great, but each year it gets better and better and better in people's minds. I'm not saying the game isn't awesome, but it's that myth of it. ... I think the expectations for Fallout 3 came back in a big way."

So does the early build of the game live up to the lofty expectations? Continue reading to find out.

The latest issue of Game Informer has the first concrete details of Bethesda's Fallout 3. Those who were worried of Post-Apocalyptic Oblivion should find some solace in the amount of Fallout style that has been retained.

Though it does run off of a modified Oblivion -- which is no surprise, considering the in-game teaser featured a Powered Armor soldier that looked strikingly similar to an Elder Scrolls knight -- the developers have reworked the third-person view due to the "negative feedback from its last role-player," CVG reports. The health system allows you to hit enemies -- and subsequently lets enemies hit you -- in specific points on the body.

Remnants from previous Fallout titles include:

• The Karma system! Bethesda is touting 9 to 12 different endings based on your actions in the game.
• The ability to sneak and talk your way through the game. Maybe we can still talk the final boss into self-destructing.
• Turn-based combat is possible using Vault-tec Assisted Targeting System (V.A.T.S.), although once your action points are used up, you will revert to real-time combat until they charge up again.
• Radiation poisoning.
• As indicated from the trailer, Ron Perlman

Liam "I'm your daddy" Neeson will appear in the opening of the game as your are born in a vault hospital, showing traits similar to the ones you choose for your character. Fallout 3 is set for a Fall 2008 release.