There's footage of the tech demo of the coulda-been Fallout 3 as Black Isle would have done it. Black Isle, of course, was the Interplay RPG division responsible for Fallout, and Fallout 2, which were both brilliant games. It was also responsible for Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, which was... not a brilliant game.

But then Interplay lost their way, and the next game in the Fallout franchise was one of those crappy "RPG-lite" console games, that pretty much missed the whole point of turn-based tactics and well-written cynical humor. And then Interplay/Black Isle pretty much self destructed. And we all figured that was that.

BUT WAIT! We come to find out that Bethesda Softworks, who was responsible for the equally -- if differently -- brilliant Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion have acquired the Fallout license. Which has caused a great wailing and gnashing of teeth among the "Fallout faithful," about how THIS WILL RUIN EVERYTHING. But for the Fallout fanboys out there, especially those posting about how watching this video brought a "tear to their eyes," let's be clear: this video demonstrated that Black Isle's vision for Fallout 3 was to do EXACTLY THE SAME THING OVER AGAIN, but this time with crappy 3D models instead of 2D models.

Ahem. Sorry about the caps, there. Talking about fanboys brings out the mouthbreather in me, too. But this video clearly demonstrated to me that there was nothing we were missing from yet another Black Isle run at this. In fact, having played Neverwinter Nights 2 from Obsidian, the guys who -- if they'd kept their jobs at Interplay -- would have been doing Fallout 3, makes it abundantly clear that the turn-based CRPG is currently in the hands of a fascistic and dogmatic Cromwellian regime who are so tearfully holding on to the past that they have no vision for the future. So thank all the powers that be, I say, that Fallout 3 is not going to sully the memory of a great game, and that Bethsoft will have the guts to take the franchise somewhere different, even if that somewhere different sucks.