Looks like it will be coming out December 20, 2011 in NA and December 22 in Europe.

Just a couple quick points;

Funny how it came the day after Blizzard's announcement that Diablo III was delayed until 2012. They could have released it any time in December, so judging by the late release date it was probably just a coincidence.

That release date is way too close to Christmas. The logistics for this are going to be brutal, and I'm willing to bet that they're not fully prepared. I'm not concerned about the number of users playing the game, Christmas is actually a pretty slow period considering all of the other activities taking place. I do have a slight concern about the technical side (stability during stressful load), but where I'm most worried is their own Customer Service department. It's going to be a nightmare managing the employees, making sure they have enough, and planning ahead for the 50% of staff that won't be showing up during the Christmas break (even though they're scheduled.) It will be even worse even if their Customer Service team has been outsourced.

I'll try to remember to monitor forums around the time of release (I'll be busy myself), and see how their Customer Service fairs. I think it's going to turn out very bad though, you should never release a game close to a major holiday, and it will be a good learning experience for them and other companies.

I haven't decided yet if I'm going to buy the game or not.. it's very tempting, but I'm trying to give up subscription based MMOs.

Ah, cool.. more news about the continued battle between Interplay and Bethesda.

It seems like Bethesda is getting pretty desperate now. Unfortunately, their lawyers waited way too long (7 months knowing full well it was being developed) to file their restraining order, which is what undid them in the end.

I think they're getting really desperate because they want to start working on Fallout 5 soon. It's a highly successful IP after all, and they don't have much else planned. In the original Fallout IP sales contract, as soon as Fallout 5 is developed by Bethesda, the IP is reverted back to it's original owner: Interplay.

They have Fallout 3, which has 5 DLC packages. And Fallout 4: New Vegas (which I suspect they didn't call FO4 in the hopes that it might help them in court when the time comes) now has 6 DLC packages. The DLC is being used to buy them some more time, but they can only keep shoveling out crap so far.

Now, I suppose they could create a "new type" of "expansion pack" that completely rebuilds the graphics and gaming engine. Fallout 5 could in fact just be an "expansion pack" to Fallout 4 for example. :) But then there would probably be more legal fights about what exactly constitutes a PC game and an expansion pack.

I think Interplay is just playing the long game. They might not have any money, but they're thinking ahead and they just need to hold out longer then Take Two Interactive can in facing their investors Zenimax can in facing their private investors.

There's probably no real development happening, and Interplay has no serious plans to produce a Fallout MMO, so they're just waiting for Bethesda to fold and finally purchase the Fallout IP unconditionally with an outrageous price tag. This recent legal game is just demonstrating how desperate and unplanned Bethesda is in dealing with the situation. I think, in the end, Bethesda will completely own the Fallout IP but they'll pay an arm and a leg for it. Would be funny though if Interplay got the IP back, and sold it to their competitors.

* Correction: Take-Two published some of the Elder Scrolls, but not Fallout. Fallout was self-published by their Bethesda Softworks division. Although, Namco Bandai published FO4 New Vegas in EU, AU & NZ.

Community, Parks and Rec, and The Office all returned last night.. the episodes sort of felt like they never really left though. Even though they were pretty good, I think I was expecting something more out of them. I'm just glad the Community musical number was kept really short, however.

I had forgotten all about The Mentalist, but it made a return as well. And apparently, it came as a big surprise to many that Red John was still alive. I was a little disappointed by the episode, and it looks like the writers just wanted to rush through it so that they could get back to the "usual formula".

They should have left Jane in jail for a couple episodes or so, it could have given the writers something fun to work with. But instead, the writers just came up with a non-clever (and heavily contrived) idea to get him out of his predicament.

And they've also totally closed the investigations into J.J. LaRoche/Gupta and Fake RJ.. the writers found a brilliant way to justify it too: "They found nothing in their investigation!" Amazing!

"Person of Interest" was "meh", but I didn't actually expect much. Surprisingly, it had "received the highest test ratings of any pilot in 15 years", and the first episode drew in 13.2 million viewers. [Source]

I found it a lot like Human Target (which opened with 10 million viewers), and I won't be surprised if it's popularity and cancellation ends up being identical. It seems that everyone is really hurting for fresh ideas and decent shows.

I hate that backseat car cliche so much though.. Det. Fusco (the corrupt cop) walks right towards his car in daylight, can clearly see into his backseat, and yet doesn't notice John Reese (the hero) sitting in his backseat with a gun. This does not happen in real life. Similarly, he taps her cell phone and listens in to all of her conversations (ie, using it as a microphone), and yet it doesn't cause a terrible drain on her battery and she never needs to recharge it. She cellphones are tapped in real life, even dumb criminals know that dead batteries are a dead giveaway.

And to top the day off, I found out that Dexter 06x01 was leaked online. I was genuinely pleased with the episode and I hope it's a sign of a really good season. Seasons 1 and 2 were awesome, but I wasn't much of a fan as it progressed from Seasons 3 to 5 (they had no real direction or character development). I'm glad that they finally killed off Rita, but I wish that they had gotten rid of LaGuerta instead of Doakes (who was my favorite character). Maybe there's still time for her. :) Anyways, I hope they don't go too overboard with the new religious direction otherwise it could become a slobbering mess.

My speculation, at this time, is that Professor Gellar (Edward James Olmos) and his young protege Travis (Colin Hanks) are probably trying to kickstart armageddon or The Second Coming. Gellar might try to "maintain innocence" throughout the season, and he just gets his pupil to do all the dirty work. I'm hoping they take a different approach, and let the bad guy escape in the end (e.g. he moves to different town and finds another easily influenced pupil after the death of Travis.) Travis himself probably isn't helping the Professor purely because of his charisma either, but maybe because something bad happened in his life. For example, the death of his wife and children, and he wants to be with them again (suicide is a sin, so that's out) or punish the world (believing he can end it by starting the end of days).

You can be certain, though, that the writers are going to randomly pull passages from the Bible and make it fit into the story. Rather than re-enacting Revelations in order (they started with Revelations 13 by the way), they'll just jump around to different verses that they have the budget for and can reproduce.

It also appears that the Lieutenants promotion that was intended for Angel Batista (he shouldn't have sprung for the champagne until it was confirmed) will be going to Deb Morgan instead for her heroics in that restaurant shoot out. She'll probably become an internet sensation in the next episode, which is what prompts that specific PR move.