Chris Avellone loves being interviewed, and when Chris talks, I listen and take notes. He recently participated in two podcasts, which I've helpfully summarized for you.

The first is a 70 minute interview for a series called The Grey Area Podcast. It's an eclectic interview that touches on various aspects of MCA's career, with a particular emphasis on the Fallout series. It's mostly familiar stuff, but in the last twenty minutes, the interviewer tries to get him to talk about Pillars of Eternity, and since he's not allowed to do that, he goes off on some interesting tangents instead - about Obsidian's relationships with various publishers, about companion design, and even about how he would have finished Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.

Some of our readers will be glad to hear that Chris admits that he went overboard with the in-jokes in Fallout 2. As it happens, the second podcast is dedicated entirely to that game. It's a 45 minute interview for the podcasting site Duckfeed.tv, which is actually the second in a two-part series of podcasts about that game. Here too, Chris spares no criticism from Fallout 2. He admits that the game's areas were often tonally inconsistent, and also that some of its companions (in particular, Myron) weren't useful enough. He still thinks the game was loads of fun simply because of all the things it allowed you to do.

Chris also provides some in-depth information about the development of Vault City, and talks a bit about Obsidian's development of the Fallout lore in New Vegas, particularly in the Old World Blues DLC. Near the end, he also drops some tidbits about the nature the companion he's designing for Torment: Tides of Numenera. All in all, it's good stuff...although I'm not sure I'd recommend 115 consecutive minutes of it, phew.