Massive E3 Fallout 3 post (updated!)

A lot is coming from E3, let’s start with the Todd Howard video interview at G4, here’s a small bit, courtesy of NMA:

How faithful is it going to be to the other games?

In terms of the world, and the texture of it, the tone and the lore, it’s very very faithful. In as far as how the game is presented, it’s very very different. Those other games are ten years old, so now, with the presentation we can do now, and because it’s role-playing, we want you to feel that you are this person in the world.

—X—

Golem from NeoGAF posted his summary of a conversation with Emil Pagliarulo and Todd Howard, seems INT has nothing to do with dialog and the Enclave is back (what for?…), but there’s hope for different UIs (thanks NMA):

Thanks to Emil, Todd and Pete for the demo and answering all these questions and thanks to fellow gaffers for your input!

Demoed on 360.

Warning: Possible spoilers within.

ANSWERS:

Separate PC / Console UI?

Yes, they learned their lesson from Oblivion and are making sure that the PC GUI will be suitable for keyboard+mouse users

PC/360/PS3 simultaneous release?

Yes.

Mod support on PC or Console?

Hasn’t been decided yet.

More celebrity voice overs?

Besides Ron Perlman, they aren’t ready to make any further announcements at this stage. No Jean-Luc

Any returning characters?

Not saying at this moment.

How dialogue works?

Branching dialogue tree, different choices/chances of success based on charisma and speaking skill.
Poor INT will NOT affect your dialogue choices.

Weather system?

Yes.

Fanbois?

They understand they’re passionate about the brand and want to live up to their expectations but they are definitely making a game that they themselves want to play

How far can camera zoom out?

Pretty much full control over camera and can get into an iso/top-down view.

VATS?

Pauses game and lets you queue up actions, according to how many Action Points you have.
Action Points regenerate in real time based on Agility.
AP cost is dependent on weapon, skill.
Can queue up actions on multiple enemies.
My impression.. the combat looks like a lot of fun!

Game areas?

Game areas are not scaled such as in Oblivion although there will be some minor scaling of creatures withing a predefined range of levels to maintain a fair bit of challenge.
Because XP and Levels are used, they are able to determine PC level/power better and be able to tailor quests/direct players to zones appropriate for their levels.

Random encounters/easter eggs such as Alien ship?

Maybe.
FYI, on the Energy Weapons skill info pane, it affects these types of weapons:
Alien, Cyro[Edit:It's Cryo], Laser, Plasma and one other I think I missed.

Children?

In the game, killable (directly)? Not yet decided.

Groin/Eye shots?

They figure that a crit on the eye will gib the head anwyays so probably leaving that out. Groin shot is a maybe.

NPCs? Dogmeat?

Animal companions.. maybe. NPC followers are recruitable based on karma (good/evil/neutral) and controlled through dialogue.

Bloody mess perk?

Yes

Does the game end? Is there a level cap?

Yes to both questions.

How much it ties into the previous games?

You’ll find out!

OTHER TIDBITS:

Weapons have decay. They are repaired using the repair skill which requires weapons of the same type to get parts from. Weapons decay has many effects such as Rate of Fire, Cone, Damage

Water is an important theme in Fallout, it’s one way you can heal.

The Super Mutant Behemoth… looked like something out of GeOW, but in GeOW you don’t actually get to fight the big monsters.

The Fat Man nuke effect is really cool.

Hacking minigame… hack into the BIOS for passwords to terminals. There will be a lot of terminals.

XP mostly comes from quests.

Towns and Buildings are zoned like in Oblivion (load times between each, etc).

Other factions: one of the radio stations mentioned by in game dialogue is apparently run by The Enclave.

The faces are much better, especially the female ones.

Your in-game father (Liam Neeson) will physically reflect the choices you make on your own character’s appearance.

Overall… I want to play this game!

My preview will probably go up on http://gamedeveloper.digitalmedianet.com/
but it will be way more general than this post, probably mostly a description of the demo level/missions that have been covered on other sites.

—X—

Action Trip also has a E3 Fallout 3 coverage going (thanks Lithal):

While the third person view is functional and often useful (over the shoulder look mostly), the main way to play the game would definitely be in the first person. Beth’s executive producer, Todd Howard, calls this the most immersive way to experience an RPG title.Now, personally, I may object somewhat to this statement, but the fact of the matter is this is how the game’s gameplay is executed and this is what Fallout fans should expect. Is this a good thing? A matter of personal preference really.[...]

As you exit the Vault, you are faced with a world of moral ambiguity and a rather uncompromising style of humor; again trademarks of the Fallout series. In that sense, the designers are staying true to the core concept of characterization and storytelling, something that a lot of fans will regard as music to their ears. Expect a lot of “fucks” as well as crass humor, but wrapped in an intelligent and ironic take on life.[...]

Another important thing to note about the game is the combat system. While looking rather like your classic shooter combat, with a crosshair and all, Fallout 3 is actually very different in that sense. As you know, the old Fallout series was turn-based, and Fallout 3 sort of continues that spirit. Though you can execute combat in real-time, there is an option to stop time and use action points to perform powerful shots in the head, torso, or extremities. This will, in turn, allow you to deal with multiple enemies more effectively. The gore of the game seemed quite excessive, but this all fits into the unapologetic nature of this surely M-rated title. At any rate, this is what people expect from Fallout.

Near the end of the presentation, Beth treated us to a level of post-apocalyptic Washington DC, which was very impressive in the amount of damage done to the city.

Final scenes included combat with multiple soldiers and mutants with you right smack in the middle of it all. Granted, this is something that has been the big wow factor of Oblivion, but the gameplay was sort of diluted as you progressed through the campaign.

I am very much hoping Fallout 3 won’t have that detached feeling to it. It didn’t in the presentation, but then neither did Oblivion under similar circumstances.

—X—

Here we have the Bethesda E3 party gallery at Joystick,just a few examples of the pics:

—X—

But wait, more previews (spotted at the Bethesda Blog), first from RPGFan (who?…):

Risk versus Reward seems to be the theme in Fallout 3, not only inside the game, but Bethesda Softworks’ view of the game. While they remain true to Black Isle’s vision of a post-apocalyptic world, they are making their own, brand new game. It may not be the hex-based combat that the ultra-hardcore are looking for, but Fallout 3 is on track to be one of the most fantastic games of 2008. Good Work, Bethesda. Good Work.

And now from GamersInfo, this one is very juicy:

So, we walked around. For the demo, we tried to lie to our father, but with only a 29 percent chance of succeeding, it was a failure, and he ordered us to go take the G.O.A.T. As we walked to the classroom, people would say hello or go about their business – we got to see some Vault greasers (stereotypical 1950s gang members) harassing a young woman, and we could’ve gotten involved with that if we wanted, interacting with the Radiant artificial intelligence. Instead, acting like we were 19 – when you leave the Vault – we headed out of the Vault.

Before leaving the Vault, we ran into a handyman-type robot who complimented the look of the overalls we wore – then insulted us after we left. It was quite funny.[...]

Remember those greasers I mentioned? If you’re not familiar with Fallout, let me get you up to speed. Fallout 3 takes place approximately 200 years after a worldwide thermonuclear war wiped out civilization in 2077. The United States of 2077 bears more of a resemblance to a futuristic version of 1950s society than today’s. World War 2-esque recruiting posters and 1950s-esque advertising still dominate the landscape. The cars are all large and nuclear-powered.

Even looking at your Pip-Boy – the computer on your wrist that tells you your attributes, health, radiation count, equipment, basically all of the “game” information – has a ’50s feel to it. And speaking of the Pip-Boy – the developers like to point out that there are more pixel shaders on the Pip-Boy than they used in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. They wanted it to look perfect.

So, you wander the landscape. At a Red Rocket – a refueling station for those nuclear-powered cars – a few shots set an old car (a Chryslus Highwayman, if I remember the name correctly – each car will be identified to you when you look at it) on fire and blew it up in a mushroom cloud. Developers showed us how the system used to show all the destruction also allows the change in the scenery if you, for instance, shoot the scenery.

Then there were a few skirmishes with giant spiders.

Combat is something that a lot of people had questions about. In the original Fallout, it was turn-based using a system called “VATS.”[Briosafreak:What????] Now, you have a choice.

For instance, you have a targeting reticule. With your trusty .22 rifle in hand, you can take potshots at the spiders, with a chance of hitting a body part (such as a leg, to slow it down, or an antenna to try to make it go berserk and attack his friends). But if you’re not good at shooting like that, you can still use VATS.

Using VATS will cause time to pause, and you select what actions you want to take based on how many AP you have – action points, which regenerate at a rate determined by your agility – as well as the chance to hit certain parts of the creature. You can even set up multiple targets in VATS to switch back and forth.

A later battle against a super mutant showed us that. First, a couple of shots went into the leg of a mutant who was charging us with a super sledge. The next shots then went toward the head of a mutant with a Chinese assault rifle, blasting at us from a platform, and the last APs were used to reload.

Why use VATS if you’re good at shooting?

Well, for one, Bethesda doesn’t want this to be a shooter – they want it to be a role-playing game. They’re still ironing out the combat system, but your chances of doing something good – a critical hit, a hit to a body part – will be better using VATS. Also, even in “twitch” mode, your skill still affects your accuracy and damage with a weapon.

Plus, when using VATS, you get cinematic! Instead of being completely focused in the first person’s must shoot it out with mutant, you get a brief dramatic movie of your actions as you fight it out!

There’s much more where this came from, have a look.

Joystick E3 Fallout 3 impressions

You can see the article here:

Some details for the true Fallout fanatics:

• The two-headed Brahmins make a return, and Pete Hines told us after the demo that Rad Scorpions are also coming back.
• The toughest weapon in the game will likely be the Fat Man, a portable launcher that lobs nuclear grenades.
• We’ve seen Super Mutants; as to the existence of the more folky mutants from previous games, Hines would not comment.
• Random encounters are making a return, but Bethesda isn’t ready to say how.
• Action points, used for the turn-based combat mode V.A.T.S., are being designed to regenerate fast enough so that gamers can use it almost exclusively for fighting.
• Speech options and convincing utilizing the Speech are still there, noted by the [ Speech 29% ] tag besides a talking option.
• Computer security will be done via a game best described as akin to Mastermind, where you have a list of words (embedded amongst gibberish “code”) and you will be told how many letters you have right.
• “We spent what I refer to as an obscene amount of time on [the PIP boy menu screen].” said Howard. More pixel shaders used on it than all of Oblivion, apparently.
• You can zoom the third-person view out to give it the camera view akin to the previous Fallout title.

IGN E3 Fallout 3 preview

You can find the article here, an excerpt:

We had the chance to revisit some of the content in the Vault and discover some of the new story elements there that we hadn’t heard about the first time. To begin with, we learned a bit more about the Tunnel Snakes, the gang of bullies who inhabit the Vault, and the object of their attention, the young girl with whom you’ve had a lifelong friendship. We won’t spoil the details of the story, but the connections definitely add some weight to the story.

Journeying on to Megaton and the DC Metro, we found things very much the way we left them on our last visit. This time around however, Todd flubbed his hacking attempts to get the Protectron up and running so he had to search out the key code to gain access again. Fortunately, whoever made the demo happened to place it conveniently on the desk in front of him.

The final chapters of the demo, as the character joins up with Sentinel Lyons’ platoon and meets Mr. Burke atop the Galaxy News Building played out exactly as they had during our previous viewing but they were no less dramatic or thrilling even though we knew what to expect.