Pagliarulo and Howard use this encounter to show off one of the more over-the-top weapons we've seen: the Fatman, which is essentially a man-portable catapult capable of slinging small thermonuclear bombs at its target (much like the small nuclear grenades carried by individual mobile infantry soldiers in "Starship Troopers"). Pagliarulo uses V.A.T.S. to lob a nuke over to the Behemoth's right leg, which results in a spectacularly gory explosion followed by a small mushroom cloud and then the Behemoth topping over. After taking it down, Pagliarulo finds himself at the base of Tenpenny Tower, where Burke waits for him to detonate the nuke. (Howard comments that Pagliarulo is essentially trading Megaton for Tenpenny as his "first quest hub.")

Before meeting up with Burke, Pagliarulo's Pip-Boy acquires a radio signal from the Galaxy Network News tower that plays some music. Howard comments that Bethesda has licensed about twenty songs from the 40s for Fallout 3, and that you can pick up these radio stations by wandering the wasteland and keeping an eye on your Pip-Boy for a signal. Additionally, the radio can also be used as the initiation of a quest chain, or, if tuned properly, as a way to eavesdrop on some raiders when they talk to each other.


It's at this point that Pagliarulo and Howard end the demo by talking with Burke and then pushing the button, which results in a spectacular thermonuclear explosion, followed by a mushroom cloud and then a fade-to-black that is accompanied by Ron Perlman delivering his famous line. "War. War never changes."

There is so much left to cover, such as the Karma system, the return of titles, the decision to have attackable children in the game, and the retuned level scaling (at least we can safely say it's not like Oblivion's, if you hated that system, Fallout 3 will be a-okay). But Fallout 3 is still over a year away, so expect plenty of updates from us as we continue to bug Bethesda to give us more info and goodies between now and fall of 2008.