Faults That Need To Be Rectified In Fallout 3

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Gameplayer examines “the faults in Oblivion that Bethesda must rectify for Fallout 3″:

The fact that this almost sacred series is about to receive a next-gen sequel in the form of Fallout 3 is, dear readers, a big deal. In a market where sequels seem to be nothing but reworked versions of their predecessors, with little or no innovation when it comes to story telling and/or immersion, we think that it is reasonable for Fallout fans to be a little worried.

To understand why this next step in the series is so important to a lot of people we must look to the past – at the previous Fallout games and at the developer who has been given the rather momentous job of bringing Fallout to a new generation of gamers, none other than Bethesda ‘we made Oblivion’ Softworks.[...]

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was released two years ago to pretty much universal acclaim (its average ratio on gamerankings.com is 94%). It’s a great game, there’s no denying that. However, it wasn’t until we got over the initial ‘wow’ moment of playing this incredibly deep and immersive RPG that we started to pick out some rather glaring flaws. Hey, we still love Oblivion, but a blind man could see some of the shocking faux pas that become apparent after spending some time exploring Cyrodiil.

Seeing as Bethesda are using a modified version of the Oblivion engine to develop Fallout 3, we’ve got all our fingers and toes crossed that they’ve learnt some lessons from their last (some would say bloated) RPG effort. While none of these things in themselves are game breaking, they were certainly irksome and Fallout’s fanatic fan base won’t have a bar of it[...]

There you have it – our take on what Bethesda needs to focus on in its development of Fallout 3 and what lessons it should learn from Oblivion. We think we’ve covered just about everything that most perspicacious gamers would pick up. This feature should certainly not be taken as an attack on either game; we are actually very much looking forward to Fallout 3, and we still think that Oblivion is one of the best RPGs ever made.

But it’s when you study the things that you love that your desire to mould it, even just a little bit, arises.

It’s a rather large article, spreading through six parts. Spotted at N4G.

Down Under Collector’s Edition

Kotaku.au is reporting that Australia has guaranteed the release of the Fallout 3 Collector’s edition:

Distributor Red Ant has confirmed that Australia will be receiving the collector’s edition of Fallout 3, the details of which we saw not so long ago. The pack is very similar to the kits given to press during last year’s preview at Bethesda’s HQ, minus the Vault 101 T-shirt and Nuke-a-Cola (I still haven’t opened mine). A release schedule from Red Ant places the game’s arrival in October 2008.[...]

EBGames has the PC CE going for $119.95, while the Xbox 360 and PS3 boxes are $10 more. [Thanks tsengan]