Around Calais

Two interesting previews, first from RockPaperShotgun:

Talking about my hands-on experience of Fallout 3 actually feels a little dicey, because when I sat down to play I was given a long list of things I wasn’t supposed to talk about, which I promptly forgot. I know I wasn’t supposed to talk about anything the loading screens say (they feature background details on the world) which is a shame, as my reaction to one of them forms an at least mildly interesting anecdote. But let’s press on.[...]

Anyway, after a few short battles, a bit of exploring and some interface fiddling (the Pip Boy 3000 is perfectly usable) my time was over. Before leaving I picked up one of the promotional bottles of “Nuka Cola” which was literally flat cola (and kind of nice for that, somehow) and asked Todd if they were going to include modding tools with the game for PC. His answer? That they haven’t announced anything, and they’re very focused on making a great game first and genuinely don’t know if they’ll include one or not.

It’d be a real shame if they didn’t as the modding community around Oblivion is pretty great, but it seems like at least the lessons they’ve learned from Oblivion might mean this is a game that doesn’t need patching by fans to make it actually playable.

I know, I know – I’m speaking too soon. I can’t help it – that V.A.T.S thing was awesome!

Also from Clubic/JeuxVideo.fr comes another preview that shows in Europe Bethsoft has a tougher sale in their hands, here in a translation from NMA:

The game immediately feels like Oblivion and goes away rather clearly from the previous episodes. It is not really a surprise, but it will probably disappoint some of the nostalgic fans. The dialog system works exactly like Oblivion’s, so does the integration of secondary quests offered by the different NPCs and one soon has the impression of playing a post-apocalyptic remake of that same Oblivion. It is not necessarily a bad thing but the aforementioned nostalgics probably won’t take it too kindly. On the other hand, Elder Scrolls fans will probably be delighted by this changing of universe, especially since the Mad Max atmosphere we were talking of is rather well rendered.

Chicks Don’t Dig Tom

Tom Chick from Crispy Gamer wrote on his Quarter to Three forum a post attacking violently Wired’s Ernest Cavalli for his take on Fallout 3:

Man, that’s really disappointing to read that stuff on Wired. I had my thirty minutes with the game today and it was over like *that*. I barely had time to meet a few characters, dig the combat against a couple of molerats and dogs, and do a little perking up, all the while tuned into a crackly broadcast playing some Billie Holiday. Based on these preliminary bits of awesomeness, I couldn’t even begin to comment on the quality of the writing. Because pretty much all I’ve seen are a few dialog choices.

It’s a mystery to me how Earnest Cav. can make pronouncements like he’s made based on the thirty minutes of time we get at E3. That’s a pretty sad smear job.

As for likable characters, heck, I really liked two of the people I met. The black guy in the cowboy hat who you saw in one of the early screenshots is the sheriff of Megaton, a town built around a crater with an unexploded nuclear bomb — Fat Man style — at the bottom. He was your standard-issue small frontier town sheriff, but plenty likeable, even when you’re trying to sass him. I also liked Gob, the irradiated ghoul bartender, who’s obviously supposed to be a sympathetic character.

Anyway, nice work, Wired. I guess they’re hiring from NMA, or RPG Codex, or wherever these goofballs spawn from.

Seems these days everyone that has a different view about the Fallout 3 E3 demo must be a communist/terrorist/nma’er/rpgcodex’er. Weird times.

Spotted at NMA.