Van Buren at NMA

No Mutants Allowed has released a video showing a Tech demo from Project Van Buren, the canceled Fallout 3 game from Black Isles Studio. The reaction over the net has been very positive, as you can see in the comments taken from these links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uuDKrY7eW0
http://bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&threadid=77438
http://www.duckandcover.cx/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17319
http://gamebanshee.com/forums/gamebanshee-news-73/fallout-3-van-buren-screenshots-and-video-footage-87579.html
http://web1.o067.orange.fastwebserver.de/include.php?path=comment/comment.php&comcat=cont&subid=489
http://www.destructoid.com/van-buren-video-compilation-as-cool-as-the-other-side-of-the-pillow-31275.phtml#comments
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/05/01/todays-most-if-it-happened-video-fallout-3-footage/
http://www.ggmania.com/cf.php3?show=23630
http://www.areagames.de/pc/news/14243/R-I-P–Fallout-3-Video-von-Black-Isle.aspx
http://kotaku.com/gaming/posted-from-my-pipboy-2000/clip-fallout-3-the-cancelled-one-trailer-256834.php

I’m glad they show it now, to give some sort of closure, before we start focusing on Bethesda´s Fallout 3, and to demonstrate the fallacy behind the “Fallout fans only want a Fallout in 2d and exactly like the previous ones” mindset, so common in anti-Fallout fans trolls.

While watching it do take in mind J.E. Sawyer’s words on the tech demo, he is at Obsidian, where he was the Lead Designer for Neverwinter Nights II, but was also the Lead Technical Designer for Project Van Buren:

Thanks for making that. There’s a bunch of other stuff working in that demo, like the quest log, auto-map (you can toggle it by clicking on the text log in the corner, also viewable in the Lil’ Pip 3000) and vault interior “quests”, but most of that stuff isn’t very spectacular to look at.

A few comments:

* Floating damage numbers were meant to be an option, thought it isn’t in the options menu in the demo.

* The game was intended to be played either as turn-based or real-time. Because Jefferson was real-time, that was the first combat mode implemented for Van Buren. Even what’s there is only partially working. There’s no pause (super sucky) or called shots, but weapons did their proper damage types and values, armor resisted properly, and it actually did calculate hit location. In the combat log, it will say where the shots hit and the characters will float comments like, “GOD DAMMIT MY EYES!”

People who have played the demo may have seen a switch on the option screen for combat mode that reads “Ask Me”. This would have prompted the player before every battle and asked him or her to select between the two modes.

* The female characters in the demo are on the male skeleton (whoops), which is why they look kind of… El Greco-ish and bizarre.

* True “Fallout-style” death animations were not in the demo because we had to figure out how to do them from a technical perspective. Jefferson wasn’t going to have crazy death animations and 3D posed some new challenges for blowing out parts of creatures. It’s one of the areas where T-Ray/Brian Menze’s 2D work definitely had an edge.

* All males were on the same skeleton, which made it hard to pose the character correctly when he could be a thin character in a jumpsuit or a strong guy in power armor. That’s why everyone’s walking around “bow-armed” and only the PC’s escort in power armor (Cpl. Armstrong) looks like he’s in a proper stance. Chris Marleau was our sole animator. He worked really, really hard, but there was no way he could do full animation sets for two male skeletons for the demo deadline.

* The weapons in the demo were chosen either because they were traditional Fallout weapons or because their visual effects/sounds were appealing. The player wouldn’t have started with any of that stuff in the actual game.

* Yeah calling Multiplayer “Play With a Friend” was kind of goofy.

Also, around 20 seconds or so, you might notice Cpl. Armstrong in the upper left corner standing with his minigun floating text. He’s saying something similar to, “Move citizen, you’re standing in my line of fire!”

Of course, this is the most important element of the entire demo: companions that don’t shoot you in the back with an automatic weapon.

Now let’s move into the next Fallout game, and a special salute for all the former BISers that almost made a great Fallout game. Hats off, gentlemen and ladies.