PC Games

By now, Fallout 3 (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC) fans are no doubt familiar with the classification troubles that Bethesda encountered in Australia. Now, if you Australian gamers out there are thinking that you'll be getting a different version from everybody else, well, that's not the case.

Pete Hines, Bethesda's VP of PR and marketing, has revealed that the changes that had to be made in order for Fallout 3 to be released in Australia will be present in all of the game's versions. According to Hines, the Australian release will be "identical to both the UK and North American versions in every way, on every platform."

The changes we've heard about have been purely cosmetic so far. The drug mechanic's still there but Bethesda had to remove any real-world drug references from Fallout 3, replacing them with fictional names. Some drug usage animations have also reportedly been cut.

---

Related articles:

• Fallout 3 heading to stores in October
• Fallout 3 gets cleared for Australian release
• Retail reports say Fallout 3 modified for Australian release

Buy: [Fallout 3 Survival Edition (PlayStation 3)]
Buy: [Fallout 3 Survival Edition (Windows)]
Buy: [Fallout 3 Survival Edition (Xbox 360)]

It's official. Monolith Productions' Project Origin will no longer be a "spiritual successful" to their own hit shooter F.E.A.R. Instead, it's now a full-blown sequel.

F.E.A.R. fans out there will probably remember that Sierra retained ownership of the F.E.A.R. name while Monolith was left with the rights to the whole F.E.A.R. universe after the latter was acquired by Warner Bros.

This whole situation resulted in the announcement of two F.E.A.R. follow-ups: a "spiritual successor" from Monolith and an "official" sequel Sierra was supposed to make with another developer. For their project, Monolith held a naming contest, where "Project Origin" won out.

Flash forward to 2008. After Sierra's parent company Vivendi merged with Activision, Sierra had to face the cancellation of most of its upcoming games. Warner Bros. and Monolith weren't about to let the opportunity pass by, and so they took the chance to re-acquire the F.E.A.R. brand.

So, what does this leave us with? F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin. Here's Peter Wyse, Warner Bros. Games' Director of Production, talking about the whole thing:

The game's also finally been given a release date: February 10, 2009. F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin will be available on PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3.

---

Related articles:

• Project Origin: E3 trailer
• F.E.A.R. has a new name: Project Origin

When Jeff Gerstmann was fired from GameSpot for giving a less than raving review (to put it lightly) of Eidos Interactive's Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, PC), the gaming industry went abuzz. A lot of speculation came out that he was fired because his review basically antagonized a major advertiser of the site (who conveniently was Eidos, advertising the very game he butchered in the review).

Opinions were thrown left and right, and the effects have been far-reaching. Gerstmann's superior was fired, a domino effect happened with other reviewers of the site resigning, and Gerstmann - well, he was pretty much considered to be the gaming journalist's hero for not buckling down from the intense political pressure of those in the suits just to rate the game a good score.

However, that's only one example (and probably the most highlighted) of the things that game reviewers go through. And truth is, that's only one side of the coin. Today we found a very interesting article that allows us a peek at the other side of the fence when it comes to game reviews - particularly why publishers put pressure on game journalists, and more intriguingly, why they are entitled to do so.

Sore Thumbs Blog posted the article coming from a certain "Anonymous Guy from Big Publisher". According to the site, Anonymous Guy wrote to them to show the PR and marketing perspectives on the whole business of elbowing their way to get a good review.

But some of the points Anonymous Guy raised was how the developers "kill themselves" to finish a game, and how that game is treated rather unfairly by so-called reviewers who only play two hours out of a 30-hour game. Then there's also the issue on specialized coverage. Sometimes a reviewer who's actually an FPS gamer would be given a sim racing game to review, and so the appreciation and treatment of the review is not as holistic and objective as it could have been had the reviewer been given an FPS title.

The most interesting bit, however, is how Anonymous Guy observes that there is no "real" journalism in the gaming industry for a long time now. He says:

The industry has been crying out for real journalism for a long time now. What this means to me is not harsher reviews, but thoughtful analysis about games, real knowledge of game development, and a deep history of playing games. And ultimately, gauging who the game would be fun for, and scoring it accordingly. I think today it requires a specialty if you are a hardcore RTS players, look at only those kinds of games. If you are an editor-in-chief, find the right journalists and manage them properly. But no one expects this to happen any times soon there is no journalism school for videogames, and the Internet will breed more and more amateurs. So the battles will rage on!

And we do fully expect the battle to be fired up once more with this post. How about you guys? What do you think? Is there ever an excuse for PR and marketing folks to pressure game journalists into giving what they would deem "fair and reasonable" reviews (in other words, good scores for them)? Share your thoughts below.

If you want to check out the whole post (and we're sure you do) just follow the source link below.

---

Related Articles:

• GameSpot editorial director fired for Kane & Lynch review?
• GameSpot-Gerstmann controversy updates: the domino effect
• Jeff Gerstmann's superior fired from CNET
• GameSpot talks Gerstmann, says Eidos did not cause termination
  

Earlier today, we picked up a report from Destructoid saying that Electronic Arts' Dead Space (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) has been banned in three countries in Europe, namely Germany, Japan and China. However, the publisher would beg to differ.

According to Eurogamer.de, Electronic Arts has clarified to them that the report on the bannination in Germany is not true at all. Rather, it is still awaiting classification from the USK. That is by no means equivalent to being banned.

As for the two other countries, Japan and China, EA did not say anything about them so we could more or less hold that bit of the report true -- for now.

---

Related Dead Space Articles:

• Oh the horror: Dead Space banned in three countries
• Dead Space release dates moved up again
• Dead Space rated 18 by the BBFC
• Dead Space devs talk about story's importance