Game News The Fallout Game Informer article

[trais]

and i quote: odds are, something you very much like sucks. why?

Because it's Place That Shall Not Be Named?

 

[Krafter]

Ha ha ha, a console oriented Fallout equals Oblivion with guns. Colour me shocked.

I'll bet the only reason for weapon degrading is to imitate System Shock 2 and get themselves some old school street cred. I wish they'd imitate, you know, FALLOUT maybe?

VATS sounds like the worst thing this side of Oblivion's level scaling.

 

[Human Shield]

Looks like a Fallout Tactics sequel, same 90's wasteland/anime setting which just gets dull.

They mite make a gimmicky FPS but there is no point talking about here until they share any RPG gameplay examples (from the first quest that is the only unique one).

 

[sah]

You bring up a very valid point. Is Bethesda being moderated by Fidel Castro?

I think the moderator jobs were outsourced to North Korea.

(edit: wooo, literate)

 

[kingcomrade]

Speaking of supermutants and the BOS, why are they even on the east coast??

Because Bethesda thought it would be cool. Trust 'em.

50's setting? takes place in the year 2200...

fail

 

[aries202]

...says something like 'so you get the feeling you're really there'. wtf?? I have just one thing to say: STOP making [censored] friggin' SIMS-games!!!

They aren't. The "really there" feeling Bethesda are so fond of touting is of the most superficial "aren't the graphics and sound realistic!" variety. If they actually did take a leaf out of the SIMS book, they might take a stab at game world coherence/consistency. That's the first step towards creating a "really there" feeling with any depth.
Of course there's zero chance of this. Coherence isn't even on Bethesda's radar. (see Oblivion)

Yes, I understand this - sad - but true nonetheless

The SIMS reference in the above statement was referring to a citation (or qoute) from the article at NMA in which Emil P. I think (or Todd??) tells ud about the Radiant AI's features this time around using a Sheriff and his son as an example. You, the main character will hear specifik tailored dialoque made especially for the Sheriff & his son - should you ever meet them. In other words, the dialoques in the radiant AI system tries to mimick the way dialoques irl play out between people. And that is what I meant by SIMS-games, trying to make the game like a sort of simulated (second) life thingie, turning the game more into an interactive world (or movie, maybe??) instead of just a game...

The comment was also a a deep seated reaction to both Mass Effect, Fable 2 and now apparently Fallout 3 as well -- that heralds interactiveness, simulations, and the movienessque feel of the games...which I don't like - much...

 

[Section8]

Well, well, well. Funny how all the promising stuff is mentioned in passing without providing any kind of example whatsoever, and the stuff that flies in the face of Fallout fandom is glaringly obvious.

Xenophobia is a lifestyle.

...which is exactly why there's a fucking revolving door on the Vault to let people come and go as they please. If they'd put one on Vault 13, then Ed... Ed wouldn't be dead.

Now, after years of work, with the full force of their studio focused on their project, the team that brought us The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is ready to reveal their vision of the Fallout universe. "The spirit of Fallout - we've missed it."

Too easy.

With almost no technical hiccups, the demo revealed how characters are crafted, the flow of combat, the structure of morality and questing, and wide stretches of the land upon which the game is set.

Interesting, let's keep that in mind for later.

Here you are given the chance to choose your gender, body type, ethnicity, facial structure, and physique.

Surely the asiatics and negros aren't allowed into the Vaults, and certainly not the same Vault as good white Americans! The options to change physique and body type is welcome though. Oblivion's single physique was pretty retarded.

From there, the early hours of the game will check in throughout the long years of childhood in the vault

I hope this is an exaggeration on their part. I don't particularly relish the idea of spending a few hours stepping through character generation and gameplay tutorials every time I play the game. I also have to register concern that this is Fable-like cuteness taking precedence over simple and functional character creation.

Sometime before the Vault's door opens, you're offered one last chance to alter the character you've crafted throughout childhood.

The problem with the idea of "make a save game at the end of the starter dungeon for quick character generation" is that, if Oblivion is any indicator, the tutorial gameplay has a substantial effect on developing stats early in the piece.

Once outside of the Vault, the focus of the game becomes finding a way to survive in the barren wilderness of the outside world.

This sounds promising, but knowing Bethesda, it's likely to be:

You're outside the Vault. In order to survive, you're going to need to defend yourself. There is a rifle in a mailbox near to here. Follow the green arrow on your quest compass.

You've arrived at the mailbox. Press X to open it, and get the rifle inside. Once you have the rifle, equip it and follow the green arrow to the radscorpion

Food, weaponry, and ammo are in short supply, so there's a constant need to ration and improvise new ways to confront obstacles.

Sounds good, provided I'm not constantly forced to improvise and ignore the character choices I've made.

We don't want to be rewarding twitch play

So, if a player using VATS has a 35% chance of a headshot, does the player not using VATS have the same chance to hit, because that's really going to piss people off -

THAT WAS TOTALLY A HEADSHOT! THIS GAME IS A FUCKING BULLSHIT CHEATING PIECE OF SHIT!

Once you complete all your actions in V.A.T.S. you can continue to attack in real time, but this will dramatically slow the recharge of your action points, thereby encouraging tactical targeting over constant twitch shooting.

No, it seems to me that would encourage the player to enter each combat encounter with full APs, burn them up to get a headstart, and then revert to FPS gameplay. If Max Payne 2's bullet time gauge regened over time, you'd do the same, which just introduces an artificial downtime between each combat encounter, rather than calculated tactical spending of a limited resource.

I have to say, this combat system sounds like arse, and is yet another "worst of both worlds" compromise indicative of whores who just don't have the balls to admit they're turning their back on the geeks who made them successful in the first place.

Also in keeping with the tradition of Fallout, violence can and will be disturbingly brutal.

Way to miss the point. Fallout is no more "disturbingly brutal" than Final Destination. It's a comic exaggeration of brutality. Silly, over-the-top and definitely tongue in cheek. Fallout 3 sounds more like Soldier of Fortune, which was a one-trick pony that outlived its appeal after a single level.

If your final shot is about to result in a dramatic near miss, the sickening crunch of an exploding head, or any other dramatic moment, the scene will play out in slow motion, with the camera zooming in and circling around the bullet as it whizzes through the air only to tear into a mutant's leg as it explodes in a haze of blood.

Does this also happen in FPS mode? One of the big advantages of a turn-based system is that you can do this sort of cinematic post-processing and camerawork without disrupting the gameplay. When it happens in a real-time game with direct control, it's a frustration.

And just for gags, it's less realistic and immersive to shift out of FPP arbitrarily.

you'll also have access to melee weapons like the super sledge (a sledge-hammer) and the ripper (a weaponized chainsaw). These tools of war will function under the same V.A.T.S. system

Again, for the player not using VATS, how effectively can he aim a melee weapon? This is always an issue in first person games, because a crosshair is a lousy aiming tool for a weapon that follows any path other than a direct linear one toward the crosshair. Melee weapons and their swing arc fall into this category.

Plus, it's going to be very frustrating if a player is standing toe-to-toe with a mutant in melee combat and missing because of "to-hit" rolls.

Food or soda will help improve your hit points slightly, and stimpacks (a sort of injection) can be a big help. As mentioned before, water can also give a boost. Sometimes the only way to completely fill up on health is to drink from some fixed water source repeatedly

For fuck's sake! What the fuck is wrong with these people? They're incentivising an utterly boring and repetitive task. Why not assume that the player will drink themselves to full health, or at the very least introduce a mechanic like the HEV/health recharge units in Half-Life, which don't require repeated interactions?

This shit is so simple it's unforgivable. It's like a barter system that doesn't let you sell stacks of items, so if you wanted to sell 30 rounds of ammo, you'd have to sell each one individually.

Without medicating to reduce radiation, it will continue to rise until it begins to handicap stats and eventually kill you.

I was thinking, hey this radiation thing is sounding pretty cool, but that medication bit is worrying. If the game economy is even halfway as broken as Daggerfall, Morrowind or Oblivion's was, then it's going to be a big fat "of no concern to the likes of me".

For these injuries, either beef up on your surgery skill or expect to make some long and painful treks back to the nearest town doctor.

Fuck yes! That is, as long as those long and painful treks aren't something you have to "roleplay" as you click the fast travel button on your gamepad.

While the simplest path to an objective is often through violence, Bethesda is committed to offering options that will fit <s>anyone's</s> three different play styles, whether that means sneaking past dangerous foes or talking your way through to a solution.

Fixed.

the quests you'll encounter in Fallout 3 will offer complicated choices that take you down one path or another. If you make one choice, it may close off an entire branch of missions from ever becoming available. However, because of that one decision, an entirely new series of missions will emerge that the other option would never have revealed.

So the moral choice boils down to choosing sides? While that's better than Oblivion's "jack of all trades, master of all" model, it still sounds very artificial when spoken of in terms of "mission branches." Chalk that one up as cautiously optimistic.

Also, what happened to the demo "revealing [...] the structure of morality and questing"? "Pagliarulo informs us" and "Howard explains" sound like unrealised promises to me.

The environmental backdrop through which you'll be making all of these choices is a detailed reinvention

Oops. Kinda shits on the "look how faithful they're being!" comments with regard to the "teaser" which actually turns out to be the opening cinematic.

Characters who know each other won't just engage in generic small talk - they may address each other by name, and talk about things that matter to them as individuals.

While that's certainly a step up from Oblivion, it's still a very limited system. How many "things that matter" can a character realistically say before they begin to repeat themselves? I envision Lucas Simms saying "I'm going to beat you like a red-headed stepchild" to his red-headed stepchild every 30 seconds or so.

It's about choices and consequences

Prove it, motherfuckers. Right now, you're just paying lip service to people you hate because you want their money.

As for the images and such:

The mutant is an abomination. It could be at home in anything from high-fantasy to sci-fi, and is more reminiscent of the goofy orc-like Super Mutants in tactics, right down to the armour and fantasy weaponry. And for the haters, that's not a Daedric mace, because the single most defining element of Daedric equipment is "SPIKY!" I see an ebony mace and a silver warhammer.

And speaking of Fallout Tactics rehashes - the warhead worship silliness reeks of it.

Inside Moriarty's Bar, static-laced, ancient pre-war music blares from a transistor radio.

What the hell is a transistor?

Rolling out onto the main platform, its tin can voice intones: "Tickets, please." As the mutants outside laugh and threaten to tear its puny metal arms off, the bot decides they must not have tickets, and opens fire with its laser cannon.

And something from the KOTOR school of game design. If you can't fight it, there's always a robot to hack into. This seems a bit daft to me. There's a gaping difference between cheerfully executing an enemy POW and lethal force on public transport.

Emerging from the Metro into the ruins of the old capital city of a dead nation, it only takes moments to realize you're in over your head. A swarm of mutants crawl across the old marble stonework, and your scavenged rifle just isn't going to cut it. Squeezing off a few shots, you know you're in deep trouble

So is there the option to not engage in stupid behaviour? You're in over your head, your scavenged rifle isn't going to cut it, so at what point does the obvious choice of action become "shoot them lol".

Their powered armor gleaming, a squad of knight-like soldiers begins to drop your would-be killers.

Gleaming? Are we talking about the same crusty, cobbled together power-armour we've seen in all the pics? Must be the bloom...

And all in all, I have to say that this "quest" to destroy an entire township sounds like something straight out of a script-tacular FPS like Half-Life or its offspring, and doesn't exactly exude an air of differing approaches to resolution.

And then there's the "portable nuclear catapult" and "exploding car" which though retarded within the Fallout setting, sound interesting in the same way deployal of nuclear weapons in the real world is fascinating. Could well be an interesting gameplay choice where the uber-weapons have major drawbacks, but I'm not holding my breath.

--

So all in all, it doesn't exactly inspire hope, and this is a single persons take on a developer led gameplay demo, so I'm not willing to accept any of it as actual fact, but rather an interpretation.

 

[Fat Dragon]

The combat system doesn't sound to good. How is melee and unarmed combat going to work with the VATS system? It seems as if it was built mainly for big gun battles.

And how the hell did they come with the idea of making toilet water a healing resource? Sounds like a damn good way to catch a deadly disease to me. I don't know about you guys, but if I found myself in a situation where I either die or gulp down filthy toilet water, I'd choose death. If somebody is ever put in that sort of position then they are truly fucked, and possibly doomed.

The Bethesda people truly are stupid bastards.

 

[Texas Red]

I didnt want to read through that dumb hyping and gushing, but was the Radiant "Retarded" AI mentioned? I wonder if Bethesda will start a whole new campaign for it like they did with Oblivion. But more importantly I wonder if the bribed reviewers will be so bold as to not mentioned how stupid the AI was in Oblivion and will actually remind the complete opposite, relying on the imfamous Bookshop scene. Will they forget how Bethesda utterly lied about their AI and just start having orgasms over the new empty promises?"

 

[Fat Dragon]

I didnt want to read through that dumb hyping and gushing, but was the Radiant "Retarded" AI mentioned?"

According to Bethesda, Radiant AI has been "revamped." I highly doubt it's much better than it was in Oblivion.

 

[Ratty]

Well, this ruined my day.

This is the best of both of those franchises, without any compromises, and with enough amazing new details to excite even the most jaded or skeptical RPG enthusiast.

I love filet mignon. I love chocolate mousse. Hence, I love filet mignon with chocolate mousse.

As you flip through its pages, which is cleverly titled "You're Special!"...

Considering the types of people who will be playing this game, the title is very fitting.

A brief stop as a toddler teaches you to walk, familiarizing you with movement controls.

Bethesda is indeed a company that understands its target audience.

From the beginning, Fallout 3 can be played in either a first-person camera view, or panned back to an over-the-shoulder third person angle not unlike the one offered in Resident Evil 4.

I think I'm going to be sick.

This is an evolved version of the engine that ran the graphics of Oblivion, but everything from the animation of monsters to the dramatic lighting of different environments has been designed from the ground up for the ruined landscapes of the Fallout universe.

So are the animations still as shitty as in Oblivion?

The Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System (V.A.T.S.) is what assures that this first-person game so chock full of guns doesn't become an FPS. "We don't want to be rewarding twitch play," Howard says. "It's not an action game. It's a role-playing game." While you'll certainly be able to tackle enemies in real time first-person shooting, V.A.T.S. lets players pause time and select a target at their leisure. Once targeted, a zoomed-in view of that enemy will show all the places you could aim to hit the creature, and the percentage chance you'll succeed. This percentage is based on distance, enemy defense, his cover, as well as your ability with the weapon at hand, among other factors. Just like in the original Fallout, you'll have a set number of action points, largely based on your agility score. Every combat move you make will deplete this supply, at which point those AP will begin to regenerate in real time at a rate that also corresponds with your agility. Once you complete all your actions in V.A.T.S. you can continue to attack in real time, but this will dramatically slow the recharge of your action points, thereby encouraging tactical targeting over constant twitch shooting.

...

This is a joke of some kind. It has to be. It sounds abominable even on paper. Seriously, it has the makings of the worst combat system ever created. It possesses the absolute worst traits of turn-based and first person real-time combat. It combines the slow, dull pace of TB with RT's total absence of tactical depth. It... it...

...fuck, it might just be worse than NWN2.

zonal damage... injuries...

It's nice that they didn't do away with stuff Fallout had ten years ago.

"We've revamped the entire AI system from Oblivion to give us better gameplay with guns," lead producer Gavin Carter tells us. "We've altered the whole pathfinding system so the NPCs are much more knowledgeable about their surroundings. They can take cover, catch you in flanking maneuvers, and mainly react more realistically with their environments."

I'll believe it when I see it. I won't care, though.

Sometimes the only way to completely fill up on health is to drink from some fixed water source repeatedly, like a toilet bowl in a forgotten subway station. However, when you go to drink, you'll be able to see both its health benefits and radiation level. Without medicating to reduce radiation, it will continue to rise until it begins to handicap stats and eventually kill you.

That's kinda cool. Except the part where you can drink from the toilet bowl. I mean, seriously, what were they thinking? It won't be long before hundreds of idiotic ESF-ers start discussing the best way to roleplay a dog.

For these injuries, either beef up on your surgery skill or expect to make some long and painful treks back to the nearest town doctor.

And by "long and painful treks" they mean "ten-minute walks".

Choices and consequences! Ethical dilemmas!

Knowing Bethesda, this is probably a lie.

XBox achievement points

And this is just retarded. However, it speaks volumes of what FO3 will truly be - a dumbed-down console sandbox FPS.

The location of the game world is in some ways a familiar setting for studio members at the Maryland-based studio. Washington, D.C. and its environs offer a dramatic backdrop to the post-nuclear adventure of Fallout 3. in the alternate history of the Fallout universe, many things were different in the years after World War II - a terrifying series of events lead to the the war in 2077 that wiped out most of civilization. In 2277, as you emerge from Vault 101, the world has had a hard time recovering, and few places are able to communicate the fall from decadence like a trip through the crumpled remnants of the Jefferson memorial, or spying the chipped and battered rock that remains of the Washington monument. A large central hub called Rivet City is based in and around the remains of a crashed aircraft carrier, while outlying settlements like the town of Megaton serve as other remote bastions of life. The sprawling remains of the underground Metro line and sewer ways interconnect much of the game world. The map as a whole is only slightly smaller in size than the land area you were able to explore in Oblivion. While the land mass is still huge, and seemingly endless quests abound, the harsh conditions in this post-apocalyptic land mean there are actually fewer individual characters to interact with.

First it was entire south-western US, and now it's ruins of a single city? So much for Bethesda's ability to grasp what Fallout is about.

With the mention of Simms' son, the question of the presence of children in a game this violent must be addressed. In answer, Bethesda confidently assures us that kids will be found throughout Fallout 3 - but how they live and (more controversially) die within the game world is yet to be revealed.

Translation: children will be invulnerable.

At its core, the Fallout universe appealed to mature gamers for its juxtaposition of the realities of war and death against a dark humor that delights in the ironies of a once perfect civilization ravaged by their own destructive tendencies.

At least they got that part right.

Fallout 3 is a role-playing game in the truest interpretation of the genre

Please die.

The Behemoth

Looks like something out of Quake 2. More funny than disturbing or scary.

Megaton

Why would anyone erect a town around an undetonated nuke?

Mister Burke

Why would anyone detonate an undetonated nuke?

Brotherhood of Steel

You have got to be fucking kidding me. Presence of the Brotherhood on the East Coast is quite possibly the second most idiotic fact in the article (nothing can quite match the sheer stupidity of V.A.T.S.). It says a lot about utter incompetence and unoriginality of Bethesda's writers. If the setting of FO3 is this hackneyed and derivative, then I don't even dare to imagine what fucking subpar job they are doing on the narrative. I suspect it will make even Oblivion look like it was written by Orhan Pamuk in comparison.

Mister Burke again

How the fuck did he get there so quickly? If there is a faster *and* safer route to the meeting spot, then why the hell didn't the player take it instead of crawling through mutant-infested tunnels?

handheld nuclear catapult

Finally, Bethesda's only contribution to the Fallout setting that doesn't suck. Sounds like a (retro-)futuristic version of Davy Crockett. You can never have too many of these over-the-top retro sci-fi weapons.

In conclusion, I'd like to state that this article is predictably depressing and a confirmation of my worst fears regarding FO3. It confirms what most of us already knew - that Fallout 3 will be little more than a survival-horroresque first-person shooter - and reveals little new facts about the game. What it does reveal only further reinforces the impression that, in their relentless quest to create a post-apocalyptic combination of Oblivion and Gears of War, Bethesda are completely disregarding common sense, Fallout canon, design philosophy of previous games and principles of good CRPG design. While I have no doubt that Fallout 3 in its present form will be an entertaining sandbox action game and a massive success with its target audience, as a Fallout game it will be an utter failure, because not only does it exhibit only faint traces of the creative vision behind FO1, but also has all the distinct indicators of inferior, unambitious craftsmanship that characterized Oblivion, the kind of craftsmanship that focuses on superficial appearance over quality and coherence of content. Anyone who doubts my assessment should only consider the ramifications of RTWP combat system and inexplicable presence of BOS on the US East Coast.

Not all is as bleak as it seems, however. Believe it or not, my dear Codexers, this article has value beyond being used to wipe one's mouth after drinking sewage water from a toilet bowl. What value is that, you wonder? I'll let Todd Howard speak for me:

"We don't want to be rewarding twitch play," Howard says. "It's not an action game. It's a role-playing game."

Need more? Fine:

Where your battle mage in Oblivion might have simultaneously been the heroic Champion of Cyrodil and the sadistic leader of the Dark Brotherhood, the quests you'll encounter in Fallout 3 will offer complicated choices that take you down one path or another.

Here goes another one:

Unlike Oblivion, Fallout 3 does not scale your encounters to fit your current level.

In case the quotes don't make it obvious, this article is Bethesda's veiled admission that Oblivion was a failure. By contrasting features of FO3 with their inferior (and often fundamentally opposed) counterparts in Oblivion, Bethesda openly disparage Oblivion, implying that it is not only a poor roleplaying game (in your face, ESF-ers), but in many regards a poor game period. In other words, Bethesda are now not only reiterating everything we, as their critics, had been saying for well over a year now (while their developers and PR monkeys denied it with fervency of the Iraqi Information Minister), but they have actually incorporated criticism of Oblivion into their marketing strategy for Fallout 3! How's that for irony?

 

[Volourn]

Ahh.. People ar estillwhining. The Codex is more predictable than the Bethesda making a game they want, or Troika blaming their publisher for a agme sucking.


HAHAHA!

 

[Kingston]

Volourn doesn't actually laugh.

 

[elander_]

He joined in Mar 2003 and is still whining about the codex. R00fles

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

ITS THE POWER OF LOVE.

 

[mister lamat]

the 'inner pain' and 'worst fears' belongs on facebook emo shit is pretty recent. this takin' turns on the cross circle jerk is an entirely post-rex phenomenon as far as i can tell. great standard to live up to ladies.

 

[Volourn]

"He joined in Mar 2003 and is still whining about the codex. R00fles"

I like the Codex; but it's not perfect. Deal with that revelation, SUCKA.


Anyways, on topic, sure there are things in the article that one can shake their head over; bot the Codex's ability to twist positive things into negatives is pathetic. There's good stuff in thata rticle too.

The bottom line is if anyone though that Betehsda was going to make a Troika FO3; theya re stupid.

It';s funny poeople is that foolish Codexers still come across as dissapointed little kiddies depsite whining about this for months.

Go figure.


L0L0L0L0LLIPOP


P.S. That's the end of that. I'll let you have your pity party now without my 25 cents. I'll just read with amusment.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Volly

 

[Nicolai]

Let loose your inner infant and wreak havoc on the world

 

[denizsi]

Anyways, on topic, sure there are things in the article that one can shake their head over; bot the Codex's ability to twist positive things into negatives is pathetic. There's good stuff in thata rticle too.

I agree to a degree, but when it's Beth, the good stuff most always remains only in articles.

 

[Rohit_N]

The spirit of Fallout - we've missed it.

Why are people reading this quote incorrectly? The next sentence after this

We've wanted to see it in games again,

means that Todd longed to see that spirit again, not ignore it.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

The spirit of Fallout - we've missed it.

Why are people reading this quote incorrectly? The next sentence after this

We've wanted to see it in games again,

means that Todd longed to see that spirit again, not ignore it.

Yes you are right, were sorry for this mistake

 

[thesheeep]

It';s funny poeople is that foolish Codexers still come across as dissapointed little kiddies depsite whining about this for months.

Look at NMAs .. even worse there. Whole bunch of sissies

Most still think Iso + TB would be of any matter for a good Fallout... gee, really annoying.

And that's basically all what they rant about there (and here.. and at Beth's forums). I really hope they will shut up with THAT stuff in a while... it's pointless in 2 ways:

1. Bethsaoft already decided the other way
2. TB+Iso are NOT essential for Fallout...

 

[Surgey]

Fanboy bullshit

Anyways, on topic, sure there are things in the article that one can shake their head over; bot the Codex's ability to twist positive things into negatives is pathetic. There's good stuff in thata rticle too.

Hear hear!

 

[Azael]

He joined in Mar 2003 and is still whining about the codex. R00fles

Why do you lie?