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Preview GamePlayer's 101 facts about Fallout 3

DarkUnderlord

Professional Throne Sitter
Staff Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2002
Messages
28,361
Tags: Fallout 3

GamePlayer have continued their "week of Fallout" by <a href="http://www.gameplayer.com.au/gp_documents/Facts-about-fallout-3.aspx?catid=Features&Page=1">posting an 8 page run-down of their own impressions of the game</a>. I'm not sure if that means they've actually played it themselves or whether they've just seen the same demo everyone else has and are just heaping praise on it because Bethesda have promised to buy lots of ad space... but here's a quote:
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<blockquote>From there you jump forward to key moments in your life – the ages of 1, 10, 16 and 19 to be precise – and on that journey you will be introduced to seemingly innocuous things that will ultimately define your character and teach you the ways of the HUD. You would have seen screenshots of a baby book where you learn about and select stats for Charisma. That blood splatter on your screen wasn’t a good omen though as it seems as your mum carked it, leaving you with the soothing-as-a-hammock voice of Mr. Neeson to guide you through life’s little decisions, each of which will determine the character stats your will soldier on with.
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Essentially the result is no different, but mega points go to Bethesda for putting in the time and effort to make it fun and special, and ultimately they are rewarded as it sets a playful tone that carries onwards, even after you are detonating mutant’s heads. Let us give you another example: when you first pop out of Tasmania the doctor pronounces ‘congratulations it’s a…” the game pauses, and you make your choice… “a girl!’
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You can choose which race you are – Hispanic, Asian, etc. – and there is all the character aesthetic controls of Oblivion on hand for further tinkering. Bethesda claim they have the most facial hair options ever in a game which has to be a major selling point – you can sign us up right now to the Grizzled Samurai. All these options will not only govern your appearance, but that of your fathers: a great concept that ensures you don’t look like ‘mummy little secret’ when you Hispanic eyes look over your Caucasian father.</blockquote>
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It's role-playing brought to the next level. It's also nice to know the important things are "major selling points" with their "essentially indifferent results". Personally, I'm totally playing a Hispanic with an Afro hair-do and I'll be very disappointed if my role-playing option hasn't been catered for.
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<blockquote>One of the worries with the Fallout faithful is that Bethesda’s take on the series will just become “Oblivion with guns”. While that undersells the game incredibly, it is also a decent description. Operating off a far advanced version of Bethesda’s own Oblivion engine, Fallout 3’s game design shares obvious traits with its medieval cousin. This is mostly apparent in the rather static way characters move (read ice skate) around, and the way conversation occurs. It’s not shit per se, but it isn’t exactly Mass Effect. Much like Oblivion when you engage in conversation the screen zooms in on the character’s face, dialogue options appear and you select. And the voices sound awfully familiar… same cast perhaps?</blockquote>
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I wonder if characters will swap voices three times like they did in Oblivion? <a href="http://www.gameplayer.com.au/gp_documents/Facts-about-fallout-3.aspx?catid=Features&Page=1">Be sure to read the rest as it's pretty much all down-hill from there</a>. Including the last 3 pages which is a list of facts such as:
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<ul><li>The musical selection and art design shares remarkable similarities with Bioshock. Not to mention theme: the concept of the vaults parallel’s the social experiment that is Rapture. That said, we can see the irony in saying this, given Bioshock’s original inspiration.
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<li>You cannot see your hands in 1st-person view unless you are holding a weapon: the screen is 100% dedicated to the world. It’s a bit weird when your character picks up an object (seemingly) by osmosis.
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<li>Fallout 3’s world is slighty smaller than Oblivions, but one gaze at the map (visualised in a similar fashion to the land of Tamriel) is stacked with things to do. This includes other vaults.
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<li>Dogmeat is not your only companion in the game. You can also party-up with one other human(oid) character, but the availability of that option will be subject to your Karma.
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<li>To help balance combat, you still take damage while in the slow-mo of accessing the V.A.T.S system.
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<li>You can kill someone with a teddy bear. You have to find the teddy bear, then use it as ammo, and then get real lucky. But still, we love the option…
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<li>There are mini-games to enjoy, like lock-picking, and tuning in you Pip-boy to find radio signals which may give you directions to quests and survivors.</ul>
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One whole other companion and mini-games to enjoy? Awesome!
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<br>
Spotted @ <a href="http://www.nma-fallout.com">Fallout Terrorist Camp</a>
 

Jazper

Educated
Joined
Mar 18, 2007
Messages
75
C'mon, this game is gonna be worth it for the lulz alone.
 

WalterKinde

Scholar
Joined
Dec 27, 2006
Messages
524
Its a console rpg er excuse me FPS with rpg elements (thats how its being hyped anyway) that has a PC port version just like Oblivion.
Those minigames are more for the console kiddies who will want to pass the time between mowing down zombies with the nuclear catapult gun and shooting cars to watch them explode with mushroom cloud bloom effects, after your first few of those boredom will set in and you will need a way to pass the time in game.
 

Trash

Pointing and laughing.
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Dec 12, 2002
Messages
29,683
Location
About 8 meters beneath sea level.
Everything I hear points to this game being everything I feared it would be. I've stopped caring quite awhile ago, but one thing still amazes me. After all these years Bethesda still can't do the animations right?

This is mostly apparent in the rather static way characters move (read ice skate) around

Sigh.
 

Vaarna_Aarne

Notorious Internet Vandal
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MCA Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!!!
 

Mareus

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Atlantis
I really don't understand what did you guys expect from a game that has to be dumbed down for the console audience.
 

WhiskeyWolf

RPG Codex Polish Car Thief
Staff Member
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Messages
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Darth Roxor said:
could be the most awesome ‘boom!’ in gaming history.

I highly doubt it will be better than the asplosion at the end of F.E.A.R
Fuck F.E.A.R, Supreme Commander and World in Conflict did it better.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
You can kill someone with a teddy bear. You have to find the teddy bear, then use it as ammo, and then get real lucky. But still, we love the option…

And I thought the nuclear catapult was ridiculous. Okay, don't get me wrong, I'd *love* to take a teddy bear and beat helpless people to death with it. Preferably women with no weapons and really low strength. But... using it as ammunition? WHAT. THE. FUCK. As... ammunition? Seriously? Ammunition? Like those things called "bullets" which are filled with gunpowder and a small metal ball, and then the gunpowder explodes and throws the metal ball forward? Okay, now... how would it work if you put a teddy bear in a gun?
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
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WhiskeyWolf said:
Darth Roxor said:
could be the most awesome ‘boom!’ in gaming history.

I highly doubt it will be better than the asplosion at the end of F.E.A.R
Fuck F.E.A.R, Supreme Commander and World in Conflict did it better.

Didn't see the one from SC but the one from World in Cockflict wasn't anything spectacular.
 

Badgermaster

Educated
Joined
Apr 28, 2008
Messages
93
Laying your eyes on Rapture in Bioshock as you skim along the ocean floor in the biosphere.

I assume they meant "bathysphere"... I'm trying to figure out how one rides a biosphere around the ocean.

Don't people have editors anymore? Or do they just run spellchecks and leave it at that?

Fallout veterans will have plenty to smile about inside The Vault, with a lot of props taking their queues from those in the original. Chatting with Pete Hines after the demo he informed us that Bethesda own Fallout completely: so not just the brand name but everything, which has surely facilitated their ability to get these elements just right.

Even ignoring the awful sentence structure, this doesn't make sense. If I've deciphered it correctly, he's claiming that owning the Fallout license (the full license, not just a partial license!) makes it easier for Bethesda to model inanimate objects in the Vault?

Little more was seen of the Vault, other than the ability to get a host of primary and secondary quests and the solving of puzzles which involved flicking leavers and hacking computers.

Leavers?

This includes the design of Pip-boy. Its hazy green colour scheme – reminiscent of those old NEC computers from classrooms of the eighties – is spot on perfect, although you can change its colour scheme if you’re an idiot.

Why would changing the color scheme make you an idiot?

The Pip-boy is stacked with information, to the point of almost being overwhelming when you first turn it on, but that is what you get with a deep RPG and we’re sure fans of the genre will greedily feast on its innards.

So... the mark of a deep RPG is carrying an exposition box?

We love a good ‘wow!’ moment in a video game. A truly astounding instant, choreographed to perfection, that makes you truly sit back and go ‘Fuck Me!’

It sounds like that was his reaction to meeting Pete.

Seriously, is even the facade of professionalism passe amongst reviewers these days?

your dad, who has broken the golden rule and become the first person in 200 years to leave the underground society to the wasteland above.

He left the underground society to the wasteland? What, in his last will and testament?

The broken grammar and spelling errors alone in this article are making my brain bleed.

The biggest (and best) was a decision to nuke the city of Megaton off the planet. Having met a sly looking character in the city’s bar we were propositioned to trigger the dormant atomic bomb sitting at the Mad Max-like town’s centre. There is no directive to take this quest or not. But doing it not only blew a chunk out of the Earth, but washed a host of characters out of the game… forever.

Why, exactly, would you, fresh out of the vault, choose to help someone nuke a town? Just for kicks? Why would someone want to nuke the town to begin with, and why would they try to enlist a complete stranger to help them do it?

Why would a nuke only blow up a small town, and not raze DC all over again?

...standing a few miles away at the time of detonation...

Uh huh.

Running low on health? Send Dogmeat off to find something that can remedy the situation.

"Quick, boy! Fetch me some toilet water and slobber it into my wounds!"

If you read our controversial Too Human preview, you’ll be aware that we are a little wary of the convergence of action games and RPGs*

*If your company doesn't have much in the way of ad money.

Or V.A.T.S – a remarkable blend of turn-based and real-time combat.

What does a slow-motion hit location system have to do with turn-based combat?

Some feat, and we haven’t even gone into the brain-melting selection of weapons which range from old Fallout faithfuls to new devastators like the Fatman, a device that throws nuclear bombs… complete with shock blast and mushroom cloud.

...

That's "brain-melting" alright.

Be careful though; allegiances are frail and if you’re safety behind, say, a friendly platoon of the Brotherhood, the good will could turn on a dime if one of your stray grenades takes out one of their mates.

If I'm safety behind a platoon?

And apparently your factional reputation is based heavily on whether or not the AI decides to jump into the path of your weapons during combat... much like your allies in Oblivion did, constantly.

In one instant...

...instance...

... we came across an epic battle between the Brotherhood and some Mutants. We were content to stand back and watch until a Giant Super Mutant, easily quadruple the size of the smaller types, knocked down a wall and entered the encounter. Then it was every man for himself as the bullets went flying. Great fun!

"We saw a fight in which events occurred. One guy was big. It was awesome."

One of the worries with the Fallout faithful is that Bethesda’s take on the series will just become “Oblivion with guns”. While that undersells the game incredibly, it is also a decent description.

Either it undersells the game, or it's accurate. Not both.

I always felt Oblivion seemed post-apocalyptic anyway. You were in the capitol region of a continent-spanning nation, and it was populated by only a handful of people in scattered settlements, all of whom looked like hideous mutants.

That all said, judgements on these elements are wafty at best this far out from release...

The game comes out in a few months, doesn't it?

This is mostly apparent in the rather static way characters move (read ice skate) around, and the way conversation occurs. It’s not shit per se, but it isn’t exactly Mass Effect.

And Mass Effect isn't exactly Half-Life 2...

But expect character interaction and thus plot progression to follow a very similar method to Oblivion.

Wonderful. Will I get to joke with, flatter, brag to, and threaten every person I meet, in an attempt to shatter their minds into looking agreeably upon me?

The musical selection and art design shares remarkable similarities with Bioshock.

I find this difficult to believe. I wouldn't exactly say that art direction was Oblivion's high point.

Not to mention theme: the concept of the vaults parallel’s the social experiment that is Rapture.

One's a nuclear shelter, and the other's an objectivist utopia created as a place for geniuses to escape the oppressive taxation and regulation of the world's governments.

Yeah, pretty much the same thing.

Fallout 3 features the best explosions ever. Period.

Still trying to figure out how ridiculous statements like this belong in any kind of review. Do these sites really want their editorial voice to be "Our reviews are by, and for, 13 year olds!"

Towards the end of the game huge power-suits and massive chain guns can really weigh you down.

Why would powered armor weigh me down?

Fallout 3 is a massive real-time world, which allows you to see things miles away and walk all the way up to them.

So, in a non-real-time world, you can't see things from a distance or walk to them?

What does this even mean?

It’s very short, but still a bit annoying after the seamless merging of the two states in GTA IV.

Yeah... GTA IV was the first to do that. Right.

Your reputation will follow you around Washington DC: characters will react to you and talk to you in different ways depending on where you moral barometer (or Karma) is sitting at the time.

Oh good, everyone comes equipped with the "sense alignment" spell.

If an enemy spots a better weapon on the ground, they will drop what they have got and make an effort to get it.

I realize it's getting old calling this guy on all his grammatical errors, but come on.

To help balance combat, you still take damage while in the slow-mo of accessing the V.A.T.S system.

So, V.A.T.S. doesn't really pause the game, just slows it down.

You can pick-pocket from characters around the world. In a nice twist you can also drop a live grenade into someone’s pocket if you are good enough. Funny shit.

How, precisely, does that work? Grenades aren't exactly small.

Weapons will gradually degrade and when weakened will be more likely to jam. But you can pillage other versions of the same weapon for parts to ensure you always have one at full strength.

Once again, we see an attempt at "realism" in video games from people who have no idea how firearms function.

You can kill someone with a teddy bear. You have to find the teddy bear, then use it as ammo, and then get real lucky. But still, we love the option…

Please, make the pain stop...

Then later said you level up 19 times to a maximum of 20. Which means around 19 perks by out maths.

And on that note...
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
Staff Member
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Badgermaster said:
Fallout 3 is a massive real-time world, which allows you to see things miles away and walk all the way up to them.

So, in a non-real-time world, you can't see things from a distance or walk to them?

What does this even mean?

I guess it means that you can go and touch everything you see, every tree/mountain/house etc, but then again, I think the last game that was showing off with such a feature was Far Cry, 'cause it's become kind of common nowadays.

You can pick-pocket from characters around the world. In a nice twist you can also drop a live grenade into someone’s pocket if you are good enough. Funny shit.

How, precisely, does that work? Grenades aren't exactly small.

You could do the same in the previous Fallouts, hell you could even push a bundle of TNT into someone's pocket and get away with it, so I don't get your point.
 

Texas Red

Whiner
Joined
Sep 9, 2006
Messages
7,044
Wait a minute. The games comes out in 3 months and we don't anything besides the dumb Megaton quest? Where are the screenshots of dialogs, of populated towns, of characters etc. All of the previews and interviews have given us no more info than we have had since the first showing.
 

WhiskeyWolf

RPG Codex Polish Car Thief
Staff Member
Joined
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Messages
14,805
How bad can this game be that they don't want to show it?
 

Gnidrologist

CONDUCTOR
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Messages
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is cold
Badgermaster said:
[humongously huge monsterpost of ample size and enourmous proportions nothing short of jumbo-sized mammoth of whopping overwhelmingness]
You are my hero.
 

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