Pittsburgh has showed its face in a number of movies and has been on TV a lot recently with the Super Bowl and all.
But TechMan didn't know of any major computer games set in Pittsburgh.
Until now.
In March, Bethesda Game Studios, the maker of the popular computer game "Fallout 3," will make available a scenario for the Xbox 360 and PC that sets the action in post-apocalyptic Pittsburgh.
One of the problems storyline computer games have is that once you play them to the end, they're pretty much useless. In order to bridge the gap until the next game is produced -- which takes a while because of increasing complexity -- game makers have come up with downloadable content packs (DLCs). By downloading these over the Internet for a fee, a game player can use the same characters and even continue the same storyline.
"Fallout 3's" next DLC will be called "The Pitt."
Here's the storyline as gleaned from the Internet (with TechMan's comments in parentheses): The game player will journey to an industrial raider town, called The Pitt, from the location of the original game, which was post nuclear-war Washington, D.C. (The Wash?)
The journey takes place by railroad (but the journey is difficult because Amtrak service to Pittsburgh has been cut back so severely.)
Although Pittsburgh has not been hit directly by a nuclear bomb (we always seem to be behind other cities), the surrounding Three Rivers have become irradiated (just wait until they figure out there is a fourth radioactive "river" underground making the fountain at the Point look very impressive at night.)
The radiation from the rivers has changed the populace, making them into Super Mutants (NFL linemen) or turning them feral (ferals do things like gather regularly at a place where violent sports are played and cook large hunks of meat over open fires. Oh, wait, that's Steelers fans.)
The Lone Wanderer (the player) will go there disguised as a slave to usurp a band of raiders who have taken over the steel yards (does the steel industry make a comeback?)
But first a little background.
Owyn Lyons and his gang, called the "Brotherhood of Steel" (later changed to the Steelers?), decided to clean up The Pitt. To do this, he led his gang in an attack over "Mt. Wash" (I hope not at rush hour because getting on the Fort Pitt Bridge is bad enough without a lot of invaders involved).
They "rid the area of the 'scum' in 'surrounding regions' " (I assume this means West Virginia, although it could also mean Baltimore or Cleveland.)
This attack became known as The Scourge (or The Immaculate Scourge or Renaissance III.)
Although they were outnumbered, the Brotherhood razed the place to the ground (thanks a lot.)
They also picked up every nonmutated child they could find, of which there were 20 (10 for offense and 10 for defense.) One of these children grew up to become Paladin Kodiak (who apparently is some kind of hero in the game, but as a kid was a bear.)
Even after The Scourge, The Pitt is still a center of raider and slaver activity. A holotape found in the city of Rockopolis (Fred Flintstone's hometown) shows that the entire populace of that town was taken to the The Pitt to be sold as slaves (which might explain why so many guys in Pittsburgh are named Dino.)
It is in this post-Scourge city that the game takes place (I think, although I may have the timeline entirely wrong.)
Now, although TechMan does not promote specific products, let me just say that if "The Pitt" does well, there could be a new entertainment niche for the city.
Why couldn't the main game take place in Pittsburgh? It could be called "Fallaht 3."