Fallout 3 Preview PALGN360 Style

It’s time for the PalGN360 Fallout 3 preview:

Interacting with your environment is very important as well. Often you’ll search for water, though it will be contaminated by radiation. So you need to make a choice whether or not to heal yourself and take radiation damage, or go at it until you find another source of healing. At one stage, a radio signal was picked up about a man sheltering his family and asking for assistance. Upon discovery of their location, it was actually found that they’ve been dead for a long time, but left a lot of items for you to collect. It’s this part of Fallout 3, the numerous choices behind what you’ll be able to do that drive the game.

A point of contention in Fallout 3 is change in perspective. The game is now played from either first or third person. From the above mentioned gameplay features, the perspective fits in very well, though the one issue that remains relates to combat. Relying on playing like a first person shooter isn’t bad, though just like Bioshock, the combat doesn’t excel as much as the other aspects in the game. However, there are some great additions. In particular, the fact that you’ll have to be on the ball as weapons wear-and-tear, you’ll get to build custom weapons and pick-up and play with whatever you find.[...]

With the development team behind Fallout 3, it’s hard to envisage the game being anything other then great. The question then becomes, just how great? Fans of the original may still have their knickers in a knot over some aspects, but from what we’ve seen, the developers are doing their utmost to make the game faithful. A few minor issues concern us, but in the midst of all the exploration and depth that will likely be on offer, we’re quite happy to let some of them slide. And though a massive amount of content is promised, we’re informed that you’ll only need to dedicate around 25 hours to the actual story, so you’ve got the best of both options.

Thanks anonymous at Meebo.

Fallout 3 Perks, Aussie Style

Kotaku.au brings us some Fallout 3 perks:

Seeing as Bethesda’s remained tight-lipped about what perks will be in Fallout 3, I was surprised to see a couple of extensive descriptions of various perks in these text sections. Photography was not allowed during the presentation, but I did jot down what I saw:

Old perks
Bloody mess: Pete himself comfirmed that this perk was in. In addition to increased gore, this perk will provide a small damage bonus, making it better than the original.

Swift Learner: This perk functions the same as it did in previous games. For each rank of Swift Learner you take, the player will receive 5% extra experience.

New perk (yes, just the one):
Lead Belly: This perk, which can be taken multiple times, reduces the amount of damage you take from radiation when you drink water from a contaminated source (such as a toilet in an abandoned subway) by 5% per rank.

I wish there had been more, but three is better than none!

And a follow up, with perks and even a cheat code:

Going through my notes, I realised I missed one! Called Strong Back, it allows you to carry an extra 100 pounds of equipment. Again, it’s an oldie from the previous games, altered to suit the mechanics of the new title.

I should mention that Bloody Mess was originally a trait. It seems it’s been changed to a perk for Bethesda’s instalment.

Now… about this cheat. Is it god mode? Unlimited ammo? A second Dogmeat? You’ll find out after the jump.

Towards the end of his presentation, Hines gave us a quick look at the world map. Like Oblivion, nothing is revealed to start with, but once you’ve visited a location you’re free to “fast travel” to it at any time. In order to show us the markers on the map, Pete’s assistant had to enter a cheat code via a drop-down console. Here’s what was typed:

tmm 1Considering Oblivion also had a console in which the player could enter cheats, I’d say it’s a good bet this little command will make it into the final build.

Good work Logan, spotted at N4G.

Fallout 3 and Diablo 3 Invictus Style

Fansite BlizzardGuru, a place created by my friend Sol Invictus, jumped to the DiabloIII vs. Fallout 3 discussion with some pretty controversial stuff:

I used to like Bethesda, it being the developer of Morrowind and all. Over the past few years however, Bethesda progress upwards as a “pretty good” game company came to a grinding halt, and its progress is now somewhere between stagnant and half past dead. Still, there’s a growing sense that someone at that company forgot to take Ritalin the morning they announced that isometric games are dead and that PC gaming is dying.

To confirm their position on the manner, Bethesda has:

* Completely reimagined Fallout to look like a Post-Nuclear version of Oblivion, much to every gamer’s chagrin
* Pissed off the majority of their fan base with ignorance, arrogance and misunderstanding of the Fallout franchise
* Signed shoddy deals with game journalists (what journalists?) to limit the flow of information with regards to Fallout 3
* Compounded their mistakes with lies towards the fan base about how the game isn’t anything close to being “Oblivion with guns”, despite the fact that several of those “journalists” confirmed that the game does indeed feel that way.
* Had a guy who has no idea what he’s talking about represent the company

And there’s more, now about Ashley Cheng’s views on Diablo III:

It’s certainly a nice attempt to backpedal on his negative comments about the game by citing World of Warcraft’s addictive nature, but one can only surmise that his reference to the Diablo 3’s so-called “conservative” design is due to its lack of a first person perspective, as is often touted as a ‘feature’ of the upcoming Fallout 3; a ‘feature’ that nobody even asked for.

Bethesda calls Fallout’s design outdated, while converting Fallout 3 to the same basic design they’ve been using since Arena in 1994.

Update: In case you had any doubts about Ashley’s meaning, these are some thoughts on his Twitter account posted last year, when Starcraft 2 was announced:

starcraft 2 looks great, wish blizzard deviated more, try ground control/battlezone first person gameplay. more thoughts on blog later.

That’s right. Ashley Cheng wants Starcraft 2 to have a first person perspective.

Spotted at NMA.

Fallout 3 Australian Style

There’s a large and detailed Fallout 3 preview at Gameplayer, here is a small snip:

You can switch between first and third person at any time.

The objects you can select in V.A.T.S differ per enemy. For example, when we were attacked by giant ants, we could aim to shoot for their Antenna. Without these the things lost perspective and went berko, often attacking other ants.

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.

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…

You can build your own weapons from scrap you find lying around: all you need is the components, the schematics and a workbench. We heard of one involving a leaf-blower and a vacuum. Weapon, or sex toy… time will tell.

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.

The Bloody Mess perk is in the game, as are a host of others. Pete Hines claimed that you will receive a perk every time you level up. Then later said you level up 19 times to a maximum of 20. Which means around 19 perks by out maths.

There’s a lot more where this came from, and I really mean a lot! Spotted at NMA.

Fallout 3 Greek Style

No Mutants Allowed is reporting that there’s a Fallout 3 preview at Greek magazine PCMaster, and Flamescreen provided us with a translation:

Q: Can you estimate total playing time including sub-quests?
Hines: At this point to fully complete the game you’d need to spend over 100 hours.

Q: Do you intend to create a Fallout 3 that will be…mod-friendly? In other words provide people with the toolset to experiment on?
Hines: We have not yet decided on this. Right now, we have not announced any plans for the tools issue. It takes time to perfect a toolset in order for it to be usable by players and so far we didn’t have time, working on the game itself.

Q: There is a sensitive issue attracting the attention of many; the presence(or absence)of children as NPC’s. The impact on game’s rating is a given(especially if the player will be able to chop kiddies in half through critical hits). How are you handling that?
Hines: There are, in fact, children in the game. How we’ll handle them on game is a matter we haven’t concluded on yet.

Q: Can you name the various guilds and factions of the game? Will they work like the ones in Oblivion?
Hines: There are many groups and factions that you shall meet in your way…Super Mutants, Slavers, Brotherhood of Steel, enclave and others. These are groups you shall meet and will have to make choices on how you will interact with – but htey’re not factions that you can join and increase your rank.

Q: We’re curious regarding how stats work during a first person battle. For instance if the player is, say, half a meter away of the target and shoots, will it be possible to miss for some mysterious reason, just for having low stats?
Hines: Your stats and weapon you use, will definitely affect your efficiency during battles.
How often you hit your target, damage done, all that stuff has to be affected up to a point by the character you made.The factor of that influence is something we’re very concerned about at this phase. We’re playing the game ourselves and watch what seems to have the best, most “normal” feeling.

In a possible scenario you’re referring to, well, you’d hit the target most times, but you wouldn’t damage them so much. The goal is the numbers to have a meaning in a way that seems logical to the player.

This is only from the interview with pete Hines, there’s more at NMA.