Hello! I was curious as to the gay content of Fallout 3. I always remember fondly my days of playing Fallout and Fallout 2, and usually took a morbid curiosity in the finer aspects of the Adult Film Industry in the second installment. Also, I seem to remember a same-sex marriage story line in one of them. (It's been a while) I assume that Bethesda would keep up the "make your own choices" attitude that they have done so well with in their other games but you know what they say about assuming things.... you generally shouldn't... assume... them...*cough*

-Nils

I could regale you with stories of the post-apocalyptic love affair of two male scientists, but instead I'll give you the lowdown on what we know. Thanks to a post on Joystiq, we know that we can expect some gay content, but perhaps not to the level we'll see in Fable II. Lead Designer Emil Pagliarulo said:

There are characters you can infer are gay. "We don't make a big deal out of it," he said. "To us, they're people."

I sort of love that quote. Making an issue a non-issue is in my opinion the best way to deal with any sort of mildly controversial content. For those of you hoping for some Mass Effect style blurry partial nudity filled loving, you'll be disappointed:

"We haven't pushed the limits with sex, we found that the whole adult content thing, we knew we'd have crazy over-the-top violence and have kids in the game, and dealing with attacking them." Pagliarulo cited Mass Effect as a game where it was important to the story. In Fallout 3, he said, he didn't want to make sex "a joke and cheesy," much like excessive profanity (a lot was cut out, apparently). "The closest you come to any of that is renting a room and [a woman] sleeps next to you. It's implication." That happens for either gender.

Does this mean either gender can be in bed with a woman? I'm not jumping to any conclusions here but if that's the case I 'm crying foul. I'll hold my tongue until then.

Which Video Game character would you go straight for?

-Danyel

First off, I'll offer my personal choice for the woman who could take me to Heterotown. Aya Brea, heroine of the Parasite Eve series. Something about a strong woman who is also sexy, attends the opera, and can shoot a gun as well as she can manipulate mitochondria really gets me heart going...or it would if my heart was into that sort of thing. As for my brothers at GayGamer. Here's the women who could tame their man-loving hearts:

Fruit Brute: Ivy from Soul Calibur. She looks like she could kick some serious ass, including mine. Maybe it's because she's kind of mannish? I don't know...

Tiny Dancer: Not gonna happen! But Bayonetta is such a great tranny... I pick her

Mikey: Bridget...oh wait she's a guy.

Dawdle: I'm pretty high on the Kinsey Scale, but I find Jade (Beyond Good and Evil) and Alyx Vance (Half Life 2) both stunning, and I just told my friend this weekend that the new Resident Evil 5 character Sheva might be the most gorgeous woman I've seen in a video game (even if she has the bad habit of walking into the middle of gunfire). My female Commander Shepard from Mass Effect was pretty awesome too, but that could have just been due to the great work of Jennifer Hale. But really, I'd probably rather go shopping with any of them than do anything yucky.

NaviFairy: Jade from Beyond Good and Evil. She's a fully fleshed out character outside of just being a woman, so there's still a lot for a gay boy to love.

Wootini: I've always said that Angelina Jolie could make me experiment with heterosexuality, so maybe I'd go straight for pay for Lara Croft? Although the game character doesn't look anything like Angelina Jolie. Actually, I think my female guitarist in my Rock Band 2 band is kind of hot with her fiery red hair and black Emma Peel leather jumpsuit...

PixelPoet Ummm, don't really think any of the ladies in video games could make me straight (large chested ladies don't do it for me); however, I'm sure that Tingle could scare me straight.

Sgt. Sausagepants: Umm... I honestly can't think of one.

I'm really interested to see the character that would cause you to switch teams, so leave it in the comments section at the end.

Dear Doc,

-Stef

PC gaming as we know it is coming to an end and that is a good thing. Woah now, before you start sending the hate mail hear me out. The relationship between PC game developers and gamers has gone beyond tense. The war on piracy has created DRM, which has destroyed the loyalty once afforded by to publishers by the consumer. Even PC games journalism has taken a hit because PC gamers aren't venturing out to purchase print publications. Here's my theory on why all this is happening: PC gamers are moving forward and everyone else is trying to play catch-up.

As a console gamer, I've just now become accustomed to patches, updates to bugs that were in the initial game release. Before this generation, if a game had problems, you had to deal with them. PC gamers on the other hand have been used to patching games, updates to content, the works. I know this is just one example, but stop to think about it. High end PC's have always been far more powerful than any console available at the same time. The community itself is arguably tighter than console communities, mainly because PC gamers have a unified platform where they can argue over games themselves without trying to sell the merits of one PC over another. Granted I'm sure there are arguments over graphics cards and whatnot but you get the idea right?

PC gaming has entered into a new stage of its life cycle, a stage that we're unfamiliar with. Console gamers are discussing the growing market of digitally distributed content while PC gamers have Steam among other downloadable services offering full games. The independent games market that console gamers we're seeing with games like Braid is old hat in the PC community. Where will PC gaming head next? We don't know because nobody has ever gone down that path before. So while many view PC gaming as in trouble, in fact it is about to experience a dramatic shift in the next couple of years. One prediction is that the PC gaming community will become far more connected, taking social aspects of MMO's and content sharing in Spore and creating an online community we have never seen before. So fear not PC gamers, the best is yet to come.

I thought the other GayGamer writers would like to have a few words about PC gaming so I asked them for their opinions:

Fruit Brute: I'm not really a PC gamer myself so I may not be the best person to answer this question. But in a professional sense, I do see a lot of games going to PC. I also think people using PC's are more widespread than people who own consoles. There are plenty of games that show up on Steam and other such download sites. So dead, I would say no. Dying? I would day that remains to be seen.

Mikey: Not at all.

Tiny Dancer: No! PCs are in almost every home, every dormroom, and every office in the known universe. PC gaming as a monolithic icon that represents the entirety of the gaming world - that is most certainly dead, if it was ever true. Consoles are on the rise (and becoming more and more like PCs, which I think will eventually obscure this question), but if one thing is certain, it's that a lot of folks spend a large amount of time at or near a computer. Factor in how much of that time is spent bored, procrastinating, or both, and you'll be hard-pressed to imagine a world without PC games. Any gaming platform that doesn't *absolutely* require you to spend hundreds of dollars on specialty hardware is going to survive.

That said, enough of this cheap-ass "Ford Racing" crap. I've seen more useless, waste-of-effort bargain bin PC games than I think is healthy. The PC definitely wins the award for the platform on which industry folks are willing to waste the most effort and money.

Dawdle: I don't think PC gaming is dead, but I do think that except for one or two blockbuster titles a year, it has turned into the domain of either the hardcore gamer, who doesn't mind upgrading parts and swapping out the computer's innards on a whim, or the completely casual one, who only plays a game if it fits into a web browser's window. We'll see if the upcoming Blizzard titles can turn it around, but I think that even those have a good chance of a near-simultaneous console release, now that Activision is at the helm.

NaviFairy: PC gaming is very much alive, it's just different. People seem to think that because mainstream first-person shooters are coming to consoles that there isn't anything left for PCs, which means that PC gaming must be on the way out. But first-person shooters aren't the only games that are made, especially not for PCs. When I think of great PC games, I think first of strategy games. Starcraft, Warcraft, Star Control, Civilization, Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War, Galactic Civilizations II, Sins of the Solar Empire. Those types of games remain a PC mainstay. Then let's also not forget the entire indie development culture, which consoles are starting to tap into, but still doesn't have the same freedom and bedth of titles that it does on PC.

Wootini: I wouldn't know anything about PC gaming because I have a Mac. And I don't really think Mac gaming was ever alive enough to be able to be called dead at any point. Stillborn?

PixelPoet: This is a tricky question. While video gaming on the PC system is probably said to be 'dying' (and so they've been saying for the past 5+ years), I'd only relegate that trend to 'hardcore' games. Casual and online gaming is actually very much a booming business right now, and I'm sure Popcap and similar sites have the revenue to prove that. On the other hand, PC systems are always the high bench mark of what the industry can do with today's technology, gaming systems just make what was top of the line in PCs a few years ago more available (and cheaper) to the masses while also making a more simple platform for developers to work with. PC gaming is basically the pioneer of the gaming world... watch out for that dissentary .

Sgt. Sausagepants: Oh hell no. See what people are saying about PC gaming dying when Starcraft 2 comes out.

We're at the end already?! We're going to need more questions to fill this column. I will continue to beg until I get a steady stream of mail. So please please please please....