Today a press release went out announcing the scheduled events for QuakeCon 2009 — set to begin on Thursday, August 13th (that’s next week!).

Those able to get to the Gaylord Texan Hotel on Thursday will have a chance to see id Software’s John Carmack deliver QuakeCon’s keynote address. Meanwhile, Bethesda Game Studios’ fans will be excited to know that on Friday, Todd Howard will talk about our process for making games like Oblivion and Fallout 3. Following the presentation, there will even be a Q&A. Also on Friday, Splash Damage’s CEO and game director, Paul Wedgwood, will deliver the first public demo of Brink. Meanwhile, folks will be able to see id Software’s Rage in action for the first time on Saturday.

For more on all the events taking place, hit the jump below…

THURSDAY, AUGUST 13:

12:00pm – 1:00pm – Exhibit Hall Event Stage
Ventrilo Ultimate Power-up Contest, Shelby GT500 Unveiling
Come see the unveiling of the 2010 Ford Shelby Mustang GT500 Coupe to be given away in the Ventrilo Ultimate Power Up Sweepstakes.  Two names will be drawn to receive the first two of only 100 prized tickets.

1:00pm – 2:00pm – Exhibit Hall Event Stage
Alienware Quick Draw
Everyone receives a raffle ticket when they register for QuakeCon.  During scheduled Alienware Quick Draw drawings throughout the show, two names will be drawn to play a QUAKE LIVE match against each other on the Exhibitor Event Stage, with the winner taking home $1,000. Players must be present at the time of drawing in order to participate.

2:30pm – 3:30pm – Exhibit Hall Event Stage
What Would You Do?
Just how far would you go to win that new video card you’ve been wanting, or maybe even one of the one hundred coveted Ultimate Power Up tickets?  Our famous, “What Would You Do?” contests challenge people to answer that very question.  This is your chance to get crazy, show your fellow attendees how dedicated you are, and win cool prizes in the process.

3:30pm – Main Stage
id Software Press Conference
id Software welcomes thousands of attendees to QuakeCon 2009 and offers exclusive insight into the studio’s latest development projects and exciting announcements.

4:00pm – Main Stage
John Carmack Keynote
John Carmack, technical director of id Software, offers his annual keynote address and audience Q&A, with topics ranging from the state of graphics hardware and the development of idTech5, to his ventures into rocket science.

6:30pm – 7:30pm – Exhibit Hall Event Stage
Alienware Quick Draw

FRIDAY, AUGUST 14

10:30am – 11:30am – Exhibit Hall Event Stage
Alienware Quick Draw

11:30am – 12:00pm – Main Stage
Fatal1ty Presentation
Supercharge your gaming experience using Sound, Memory and PSUs. Creative and OCZ will be doing a dialog skit explaining the importance of sound in gaming to create an immersive experience (ex; MKII Silencer Headset, Creative Labs) and how memory improves gaming, load speed/frame rates/fluid game play and how the right PSUs allow you to power the right components (OCZ memory cards and PSUs). In addition, a raffling for dozens of great prizes provided by partners as well as Fatal1ty t-shirts, dog tags and otherfun prizes

12:00pm – 1:00pm – Exhibit Hall Event Stage
What Would You Do?

1:00pm – 2:00pm – Main Stage
Brink^TM First Public Demonstration
Previously shown only to media and behind closed doors, Splash Damage CEO and game director, Paul Wedgwood, will offer the first public, live gameplay demonstration of the highly anticipated first-person shooter from Bethesda Softworks and Splash Damage, Brink along with a Q&A.

2:00pm – 3:00pm – Exhibit Hall Event Stage
Alienware Quick Draw

2:00pm – 5:00pm – Longhorn Hall C
Crucial Dodgeball Tournament Day 1
The wild-and-crazy crew at Crucial is attending QuakeCon to host their now-famous “Crucial Dodgeball Tournament” where teams of five will dodge, dip, duck and dive to win their share of thousands of dollars in Crucial Ballistix Tracer high-performance memory. Plus, to sweeten the deal, the first 500 signups will receive a newly released “Crucial Memory Hawg” t-shirt.

3:00pm – 4:00pm – Event Stage
Bethesda Game Studios’ Todd Howard
Todd Howard takes you behind the scenes and offers some insights into the game-making process at Bethesda Game Studios, creators of the 2006 Game of the Year, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion® and 2008 Game of the Year, Fallout® 3, and offers an audience Q&A.

4:00pm – 5:00pm – Exhibit Hall Event Stage
BAWLS Chugging Competition
If you think you have what it takes, be sure to join in on a QuakeCon tradition where daring attendees attempt to chug a can of Bawls as fast as possible.  It’s all about bragging rights and winning one of those coveted Ultimate Power Up tickets.

5:00pm – 6:30pm – Main Stage
NVIDIA Presentation
Join NVIDIA as we look for the Superheroes of Quakecon – the ordinary mortals who can reveal their extraordinary powers and abilities.  Relevant skills and the advanced equipment will be handsomely rewarded!

6:30pm – 7:30pm – Exhibit Hall Event Stage
Fatal1ty Challenge
Come try your luck against Jonathan Fatal1ty Wendel in a QUAKE 4 shootout challenge for fun.  Fatal1ty products and swag to be given away!

7:00pm – 7:30pm – Main Stage
Escalation Studios’ Tom Mustaine
With discussion, insight, and Q&A, Escalation Studios owner, Tom Mustaine, provides the “411? on the development of DOOM Resurrection for the iPhone.

8:00pm – 9:00pm – Exhibit Hall Event Stage
Alienware Quick Draw

9:00pm – 11:00pm – Main Stage
Master Pancake Theater
A staple at Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse, and a QuakeCon tradition for nearly 10 years, Master Pancake Theater presents their own comedic twist on a night at the movies – QuakeCon style.  Movie mockery has never been so much fun.

11:00pm – 1:00am – Exhibit Hall Event Stage
QuakeJam
QuakeCon attendees with real musical talent bring their instruments and take a turn jamming on the event stage.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 15

11:00am – 12:00pm – Exhibit Hall Event Stage
Alienware Quick Draw

12:00pm – 2:00pm – Exhibit Hall Event Stage
NASCAR’s Todd Bodine Meet & Greet
NASCAR Truck Series driver, Todd Bodine greets fans, and signs autographs and photos at this QuakeCon first. Plus, see his No. 30 Ventrilo Tundra.

12:00pm – 1:30pm – Main Stage
Hardware Workshop by PC Perspective
Hosting a revitalized hardware workshop at Quakecon 2009, PC Perspective (www.pcper.com) will take an in-depth look at the best current and future gaming hardware available.  The workshop will include overclocking demonstrations, industry panelist debates, Q&A from the audience and of course, thousands of dollars in prizes for QuakeCon attendees.

Casemod Contest: Gamers will have the opportunity to enter their custom built and modified PC into the official QuakeCon 2009 Case Mod Contest for a chance to win thousands of dollars in prizes!  Systems will be judged on technical and stylistic merit and the top three finalists will get a chance to show off their work on the main stage during the Hardware Workshop.  Register your PC during your BYOC registration.

2:00pm – 5:00pm – Longhorn Hall C
Crucial Dodgeball Tournament Day 2

2:30pm – 3:00pm – Main Stage
RAGE^TM – First Public Demo
RAGE creative director, Tim Willits, and lead designer, Matt Hooper, drop the top on id Software’s revolutionary new game RAGE, with the first ever public demonstration of live gameplay.

3:00pm – 4:00pm – Exhibit Hall Event Stage
Fatal1ty Challenge

3:30pm – 4:00pm – Main Stage
Alienware Presentation
Alienware reveals the very latest on their top-of-the-line gaming products.

4:00pm – 5:00pm – Exhibit Hall Event Stage
Bawls Chugging Semifinals

5:00pm – 6:00pm – Exhibit Hall Event Stage
Alienware Quick Draw

6:00pm – 9:00pm – Main Stage
QUAKE LIVE Tournament Finals
Watch the world’s best professional gamers go toe-to-toe in the exciting conclusion of the Intel Masters and Open Championship tournaments as well as the Capture the Flag Championships, all presented live on stage and over the Internet.  $50,000 in cash will be awarded in this professional gaming slug-fest.

9:00pm – 9:30pm – Main Stage
Ventrilo Ultimate Power Up Contest Final Drawing
With 100 lucky QuakeCon attendees standing on stage – ticket in hand – we draw and announce the winner of the Ventrilo Ultimate Power Up Contest and new owner of a 2010 Shelby Cobra GT500 coupe!

9:30pm – 10:30 pm- Main Stage
KID BEYOND: Singer, beatboxer, live looper, songwriter, and one-man band, KID BEYOND will blow the roof off of the finals party with this unparalleled QuakeCon finals performance. SF Weekly calls KID BEYOND “Amazing.”  Check out more at www.kidbeyond.com

Last year’s Dead Space from EA’s Visceral Games (then EA Redwood Shores) can be considered a commercial success. The title sold over a million units in 2008, not bad for a brand new IP competing with big Christmas games like Fallout 3. But as happy as studio manager Glen Schofield is with the sales, there’s still something on his mind, namely the fact that the amount of people who played Dead Space compared to the people that actually bought it is around double. Weird.

Speaking on EA’s official podcast, Schofield stated, “We looked at how many we sold. We also looked at — we didn’t have online which is one of the big features that you need to have to kind of keep it in the house a little bit longer these days. But then we also did studies on sort of how many unique users there were on the PSN network and Xbox Live. And realized, you know what, there’s over three million people that have played Dead Space. Maybe we’ve only sold 1.5 million or whatever the number is. But there’s something there because that means that, ok, there were a lot of used sales. So there’s a lot of people when I go out and talk to [them]… it seems that everybody has played it or heard about it or whatever.”

Used games sales are an increasing concern for publishers and developers, especially in the current economic climate, so it sounds like EA missed out on a lot of potential sales. Some developers have tried to counter this through online modes to keep players hooked, or promise DLC so consumers hang onto their copy. Dead Space doesn’t feature an online mode or any DLC past new weapons and armor. Of course, there’s also other things to consider like multiple Xbox and PSN accounts playing through the game on the same console.

Perhaps the developer upcoming prequel, Dead Space: Extraction will churn out better results.

Xbox 360 and PC owners are knee deep in the fourth downloadable episode of Fallout 3 called Point Lookout and PS3 owners have yet to participate in Operation: Anchorage. All of the extra content will eventually be released on Sony’s platform but we don’t know exactly when, but Pete Hines assures the gaming community that Bethesda is currently putting the finishing touches on Operation: Anchorage for PS3.

Hines cited the amount of effort it takes for the content to work on the PS3 as the reason for not having a solid release date yet. “It’s a different platform with a different way of doing things and it requires special attention and plenty of testing before it’s released,” Hines said.

Looking to add some Fallout 3 decor to your gaming room? Gamer Graffix has new skins and wall graphics to make the room more “Game Shui.”

If you’ve got an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, they’ve got Brotherhood of Steel skins for your console. If you’re looking for something to put on your wall, they’ve got a Wall Graffix collection featuring the Brotherhood of Steel, Vault Boy, and a Fallout 3 logo. If you want to go all out, they even have a massive 33 x 60 Brotherhood of Steel Wall Graffix that’s 5-feet tall (shown above)

For more details on these, head to Gamer Graffix.

J3X, maker of the popular Enclave Commander Mod, recently introduced another great mod for Fallout 3 — J3Xified Driveable Motorcycle. As the name suggests (and this video demonstrates), the mod enables your character to ride a drivable motorcycle through the Capital Wasteland. As if that wasn’t cool enough, the bike comes equipped with miniguns, flamers, gatling lasers, and missile launchers!

J3X wasn’t alone in making this project. Props to VeliV who created the Drivable Motorcycle Beta mod, as well as other folks who have contributed to the project — Backsteppo, Odin_ml, Dragontamer, Rolandb, Skykappa, and DieHard335 — who created the trailer.

We’ll continue to keep an eye on this project. In the meantime, you can download the beta at Fallout 3 Nexus and Planet Fallout.

This hasty and abrupt ending was clearly a bit of a sore sport for Bethesda, too, so with Broken Steel – the third set of premium downloadable content for Fallout 3 – the ending has been rewritten. Or, to be more precise, removed entirely: all the Project Purity related stuff at the end of the game still happens, but now you can keep playing after the main quest finishes.

Not only that, but the level cap has been increased to 30, complete with a bevy of new perks to keep everything feeling fresh. Hardly a bad idea by any means, but surely one that would have been served its purpose more efficiently in an earlier piece of DLC. Any character that’s progressed through Operation: Anchorage and The Pitt has just thrown away a bountiful supply of experience, after all. Starting at level 20, you can expect to reach around level 24-25 by the end of Broken Steel. Unless you’ve left plenty of stones unturned, you’d have to wade around the wasteland taking out Raiders for a long time to see level 30.

On The Road Again

Returning to the quest itself, and without wanting to spoil the finale for anyone yet to see it, Fallout’s narrative corrects itself by having you wake up in the Brotherhood of Steel’s Citadel, having spent a fortnight unconscious, to the news that the nefarious Enclave have been reduced to a rather pesky militia. Before long you’re out of bed and roaming around the map searching out the pockets of Enclave resistance, quickly running into a serious snag that forces you back to the Citadel and into devising a new plan of attack. One that won’t go a bit pear-shaped, with any luck.

This initial burst of excitement – certainly up there with some of Fallout 3’s greatest moments – is sadly short-lived. It’s not long before you’re forced to traverse some new underground metro stations which, unsurprisingly, look and play exactly like the old underground metro stations. Roaming around these tunnels feels like a design shortcut, Bethesda opting to take the easy route to pad out their new content.

It’s also a bit insulting to the player, who has seen more than enough of the metro system on their first trek through the storyline. To top it all off, a new monster – the Feral Ghoul Reaver – leads to many tedious altercations due to its ridiculously high amounts of health. They’re rock hard, doused in radiation and handy at lobbing dangerously explosive globs of themselves at you. Even level 20 characters will have a moderately difficult time dealing with the little sods. I found the trick was to lob explosives at them.

Which, in a way, is kind of refreshing. Not since the first encounter with a Deathclaw has the game been so curse-spewingingly difficult. But whereas the immediate response to seeing that first Deathclaw was to turn around and run like the dickens, the game forces you into confrontation with the Reavers, demanding you engage in a handful of long and drawn-out battles against some very difficult odds. Make sure you’re well stocked up on Stimpacks before even attempting it. Or you can just turn the difficultly slider down, but where’s the fun in that?

It’s All So Refreshing

Eventually, after the brief diversion through the Presidential Metro and an encounter with a diligent security robot, you wave goodbye to the subway and move onto the Adams Air Force Base, where the Enclave are residing en masse. It’s here that you’re subject to a bit more visual panache, epic sprawling architecture from the outside and the odd but pleasing juxtaposition of yellows and blues when you get indoors. It helps craft a sense of identity that the repetitive green and grays of the previous sections fail to make up for, but never quite lives up to The Pitt’s distinctive use of red. There are some nice design touches, though, with one of the more memorable sections putting you in a house that’s toppled over, leaving everything at a distressingly jaunty angle.

It’s also here that you stumble upon the new Enclave weaponry, the Heavy Incinerator, and the Brotherhood’s new form of completely overpowered destruction in the shape of a Tesla Cannon. They’re very powerful, as you might imagine.

Bigger and Better?

But, fun though the new big guns are, combat has always been the weakest link in the otherwise splendid chain for Fallout, and it’s a bit of a shame to see that Bethesda have, once again, opted to take an aggressive route for their DLC. There’s very little opportunity to be sneaky or to talk your way out of confrontation. You just blast your way from point to point and ultimately pick from the poorly designed ‘good’ or ‘bad’ options at the end of the experience. Broken Steel lacks The Pitt’s, and much of the main Fallout 3 campaign’s, endearing subtlety in moralistic decisions. It boils down to this: do you cripple the good guys, or the bad guys?

It’s not bad by any means, but in some respects it feels like Broken Steel is playing it a bit too safe, regurgitating past ideas into an enjoyable, if unremarkable, whole. It’s not entirely certain what it wants to be. Advancing the main questline and upping the level cap means it integrates itself well into the regular game, but at the same time it doesn’t really do much to make itself stand out. And whilst reaching level 30 is definitely a time-consuming challenge, the rest of the new content spreads itself out a bit thin. I preferred The Pitt, to be honest, but Broken Steel is definitely worth a look if you’ve got a batch of Microsoft Points burning a hole in your pocket.

Rating: strong-caution

Drug Use: Your character can use and become addicted to both medication and illegal drugs.

Extreme Violence: Heads and limbs frequently explode in slow-motion, briefly showing a graphic display of bloody and organs spilling from the wound.

Mild Sexual Content: A few minor characters are prostitutes, one of whom can be hired by the player. (Nothing is shown aside from the two characters sleeping in the same bed, fully clothed.)

Strong Language: Most characters make frequent use of R-rated profanities.

Which is why, after forking over 800 Microsoft Points, one escaped slave recruits you, the dashing, intrepid adventurer of D.C’s Capital Wasteland, to infiltrate The Pitt: so that he and his enslaved brethren can wreck a bit of havoc on Ashur, the despotic warlord running the show. The game justifies it in two ways, first as the chance to do the right thing for good character or just end up with a fat reward and some tasty loot if you’re playing someone more morally dubious. But, really, you’re just playing it to soak up a bit more Fallout. Which is no bad thing.

Bethesda’s immaculate designing of landscape is, once again, wholly apparent. The Pitt’s crimson red skies and billowing smoke stacks give the quest a unique, and fantastic, visual identity. Recycled assets are intermittently employed, but the tactful crafting of the factories and slums make it look stylistically distinctive. As you traverse the mine-encrusted bridge to enter the city, the stark iconography ensures that anticipation for disassembling the new content is immense.

It’s a bit of a shame, then, that the first thing you’re asked to do is run around and collect steel ingots. You only need ten to progress in the quest, but there’s a hundred scattered around. Returning them in multiples of ten nets you some tasty armour and weapon rewards, as well as a 20 point achievement for bagging them all. Tedium aside, it’s worth doing as you’re forced to surrender your entire inventory to get inside the tattered industrial complex to begin with.

By doing this, The Pitt marks a return of Fallout’s scavenging tactics that most high-level players won’t have encountered for months. It also ensures The Pitt has a very different feel to the tepid run-and-gun style of Operation: Anchorage.

The all-important ingots, then. Getting them all guarantees you’ll be in for a long, drawn-out procedure: I managed to find 94 in roughly three hours, and am convinced the final six lie behind a door that requires a lock pick skill of 50 to open. I ran through the whole expansion as a level 8 stealth character with few difficulties, but I’m now back to scouring The Wastes looking for a few more issues of Tumblers Today to get past the meddlesome final door.

When you’re finally done with item gathering, The Pitt quickly throws another staple Western RPG trope in your direction: the arena battle. It’s over briefly, and Bethesda adds a slight twist to the proceedings as you’re mucking it out with your enemies in an area littered with hugely radioactive barrels. If you’ve been getting a good amount of ingots, the arena is a doddle thanks to the powerful weapons given to you as a reward.

The loot is all pretty good. There are a few sets of nifty new power armour, but at this stage in the game there’s now more sets of unique power armour than there are days of the week. The Pitt throws you a functional new laser and assault rifles, but the star of the inventory show is the AutoAxe, which operates like a chainsaw made out of old car parts. Its visceral whir and rickety charm ensure it’s a lot of fun to use, sawing Trogs and humans alike, effortlessly into piecemeal whilst degrading rapidly. It’s odd, though, to see a weapon so bold and distinctive end up as one of the best options for performing sneak melee attacks.

With all that, the quest comes to its denouement, forcing you – as is always the way with Fallout – to make a morally dubious choice. The Pitt’s final twist is especially well handled, with the realizations coming to you slowly and awkwardly, instead of getting slapped down and reported as fact. It’s certainly a distinctive end to a unique quest, helping numb any potential frustrations towards the previous three or four hours of unspectacular genericity.

Bethesda haven’t quite managed to find the sweet spot for their DLC campaigns, although it’s worth pointing out that The Pitt is much more comparable to extraordinary quality of the main game than its predecessor, Operation: Anchorage, ever was. It’s the visual finery of decaying industrial city that emerges as the most compelling part of the DLC. The detail, the landscape and the introduction now stand as some of the most intricate spectacles in Fallout 3, but the gameplay still isn’t as entertaining as it needs to be to make The Pitt something spectacular.