Interplay recently sacked the entire Black Isle Studios development team. These are the guys who worked on Fallout, Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate 2, Icewind Dale, Icewind Dale 2, various expansions. To make matters worse, Interplay did this as BIS was finishing up its work on Fallout 3, a game I (and others) have been desperately anticipating for years. The reasoning behind this? It seems to have been nothing more than a short-sighted cost-cutting maneuver for withering Interplay. The publisher has apparently decided to change its focus to console games... even though its current crop of games seem to struggling. Both Galleon and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel have slipped their original release dates. Its only other game on the horizon is Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, a sequel to a game that hasn't even released! In the end, I believe Interplay has seriously shot themselves in the foot. If the publisher is still around in two years, I'll be surprised.

Some people hold the belief that a bad Fallout 3 is better than no Fallout 3 at all. I can sympathize, I really can. Unfortunately, such a sentiment is thinking with your heart and not your mind. I can never forget the horror that was Dungeon Master 2. Guess who brutally mangled that franchise? That's right, it was Interplay. The fact is, a bad sequel is worse than no sequel at all. With a bad sequel, any reminiscing about the glories of the original is tainted by creeping thoughts of unmitigated disaster that followed. Don't believe me? Try asking Highlander fans about Highlander 2. Watch them wince in almost physical pain. And then try the same with Alien 3. "Alien 3? Never heard of it. Now Alien Resurrection wasn't too bad, up until the end that is..." RoboCop 3 anyone? Five minutes of that abomination and I was trying to gouge my eyes out with a particularly pointy corner of my remote. (My wife suggested the remote would be more useful changing the channel. Ha, silly woman.)

I say, better to allow the Fallout series die than to let it suffer the ignominious fate of a loathsome sequel farmed out by Interplay to some half-assed development group that just doesn't care. And I say it with a (radioactive) tear in my eye.

Something I didn't expect to read on CNN, but was pleasantly surprised: Cowboy sport combines history, gunsmoke

Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne: It's like they designed the game to piss me off. Look, I'm an RTS player from ages back. Since Dune 2. I've played RTS games you've probably never heard of. And frankly, I haven't any idea what people see in Warcraft III. As a game, I don't care for it. Sure, the full-motion video cut scenes are exceptionally well done. But the game? Annoys the hell out of me. The game requires an extensive amount of micromanagement, and at the same time, is designed to split your attention between two or more groups simultaneously. And this is in both the single- and multi-player aspect! How kind! Thank you, Blizzard!

Some game talk:

Call of Duty has overtaken Medal of Honor as the premiere WW2 infantry game. While Battlefield 1942 is a great game for vehicle combat, I've always found its infantry aspect rather unimpressive. There seems to be a lack of polish and the animation and fighting just never felt all that smooth. The former two games, however, have always focused on the infantry experience. Call of Duty makes use of a "use the weapon sights" system, so anyone who's played Night's Edge should have no problem picking it up.

Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour introduces a few new units and the Generals challenge is interesting, but overall I found it a little disappointing. Especially the way the computer cheats. That always turns me off. The cut scenes stuttered incessantly on my system, making them unbearable. The docs suggested this was due to my old ISA soundcard, which I removed. Problem remained.

Tried Black & White for the first time a few weeks back. Thanks to online strategy guides, I managed to get further than most of my friends said I would. It was a very interesting game, often fun. It just doesn't seem like they got anyone to playtest the damn thing. Or, if they did, simply disregarded all input that wasn't bug reports. There are far too many "WTF?" moments in the game, stuff that simply isn't explained, forcing the player to try and figure out just what is going on. I had gotten pretty far in the game when my animal was inexplicably and irreversibly frozen. There was nothing else I could do, because I couldn't progress on that level without him, and there was absolutely no explanation as to why he couldn't move. Too many levels ended up with me stripping the map bare of vegetation. Apparently my followers can breed generation after generation but the damn trees don't grow back! Maybe B&W 2 will address some of these basic design flaws. Or maybe they won't.