IGN Fallout 3 Weapons Video

more about “IGN Fallout 3 Weapons Feature – Plane…“, posted with vodpod

Spotted at Planet Fallout.

Fallout 3 at IGN Week

Fallout 3 Power Fist

From Planet Fallout:

What could be better than a whole day of Fallout 3? Think a whole week of Fallout 3. And that is exactly what IGN is offering. Kick starting their week-long Fallout 3 coverage, IGN has published an in-depth look at the various weapons right here. The article touches upon VATS, the ability to get awesome weapons early in the game, the Powerfist, and more.

Fallout Three in a Row

Image Kotaku

Let’s start with Gamersglobal interviewing Pete Hines:

GamersGlobal: Pete, at E3, Fallout 3 seemed to be rather easy to play by due to the V.A.T.S. mode. By queuing up all those headshots or shots into the legs, I could win nearly all fights very easily. I was playing in normal difficulty, by the way. Is this something you’re going to tweak? Or do you want to have it so easy in the beginning?

Pete Hines: For the most part the stuff that you find in the beginning should be fairly easy for you to deal with. We certainly don’t want it to be like you come out of the vault and start fighting and keep dying. So the enemies you face in that part of the world, will not be that difficult to deal with for someone who just turned level 2. As you go out in the world, you definitely find tougher enemies, folks that are bigger and a tougher challenge.

GamersGlobal: Was the E3 version “simplified”, e.g. by making the hero’s character more powerful than he would be in the finished game at that early stage? Or was every V.A.T.S. hit in the E3 version a critical hit?

Pete Hines: It was simplified in terms of giving you the highest stats for the weapons you start off with. Every V.A.T.S. hit in the E3 version was not a critical hit. Far from it. It’s random, so some folks may see more or less of it when they play for any period of time.

GamersGlobal: Will V.A.T.S. head shots be always fatal, if they hit?

Pete Hines: No. There is an amount of damage it will do to the limb, and an amount it does to the enemy’s overall health. In the easier creatures you would have faced early on, they don’t have much health so they die easier. As you explore out and fight tougher creatures, you find that you can cripple one or more body parts before you can kill the enemy.

Now for the IGN impressions:

The raider encounter was interesting because it showed how it’s possible to stumble into an area of the game that you are simply not quite ready to tackle yet. That’s a departure from Bethesda’s fantasy RPGs; those games scaled the difficulty to your experience level, so the game always feels “just right” and you can never get into too much trouble. These raiders were armed with sniper rifles and worse, and while I managed to kill three or four, they still managed to cut me down.

This is my second or third time to play around with the turn-based VATS combat system, and I’m now really feeling comfortable with it. It also helps that they’ve done a lot to polish the system. You have an action point meter that’s usually full when you enter combat; hitting the right bumper pauses the game and kicks you into the turn-based targeting system. Since this was a demo and I was never going to see this character ever again, I dumped all my points into small guns skills, which made me especially lethal with pistols, hunting rifles, and assault rifles. This let me target the heads of my opponents with a decent chance of hitting. If you have a full meter, you can queue about four pistol shots or three rifle shots up. Then hit the execute button and watch how the combat unfolds.

I’m an old school fan of the Fallout series, and the one thing I will always remember is the over-the-top level of violence in those games. I’m glad to say that Fallout 3 made me chortle and laugh and gasp as I saw gunfire blow heads apart or even saw heads off of bodies. Blood doesn’t just squirt; it fountains out of severed arteries. It’s graphic, and gratuitous, and thoroughly awesome.

This one I saw at Kotaku, Bethesda is donating the Fallout 3 Airstream to Child’s Play:

Now you should be getting enthused about the Nuclear Airstream too. Turns out that Bethesda plans to donate the amazing piece of schwag to Child’s Play following the launch of the game. Can you imagine winning this bad boy and parking it in your front yard for late night gaming sessions. The whole thing, I’m told, even runs on electricity.

Spotted the rest at the excelent NMA PAX coverage.

IGN Leipzig Fallout 3 Hands On

SuperMutants guarding the Police Station

From IGN, also with the PC version:

Outside the doctor’s quarters I ran into a man named Flash who was eager to brag about the amazing gun he was carrying. He also informed me that Big Town is constantly raided by Slavers and Super Mutants and that the former had just taken a few people hostage in German Town. I picked up the quest Big Trouble in Big Town when I offered to help out with the hostage crisis and had German Town added to my map.

Heading toward the waypoint I accessed my Pip Boy to get an overhead view of the terrain and see how long the walk would take. I only had to kill a few Raiders under a glowing moon before arriving at the German Town police station where I really got to put VATS to the test.

In my previous encounter I had dispatched of my enemies quickly without running out of the necessary action points required to queue up more attacks. The Super Mutants guarding the police station were a completely different story. I was able to land a few shots with my new rifle before one of the mutants barreled toward me to lay on some damaging blows. I had to change my grenade hot key to stimpacks and took to running away instead of charging forward. Unfortunately it was here that my time with the game ended, though I could’ve easily spent the rest of the afternoon entranced by Bethesda’s latest.

So far the only apparent differences between the two games, besides the controls are that the PC version is slightly superior in the graphics department. Both versions were running well and suffered from none of the hang-ups that usually bog down unfinished games. You can be sure we’ll have more on this game in coming months.

Australia and Fallout 3: The Saga Continues

This is what happens when you try to understant the rating system in Australia

From IGN:

And so, the epic saga comes to a close – Fallout 3‘s OFLC report has been made available to IGN AU; the contents outline the reasons behind the reassessment of Bethesda’s post-nuclear RPG in Australia by the classification board.

The biggest points to take away with you are that the essential nature of drug use in the game has not been altered dramatically:

“The drugs depicted are fictional; drugs are depicted as stylised icons on a menu with the drug use itself not depicted. Whilst navigating a post-apocalyptic futuristic landscape, players can invoke the use of a variety of “chems” listed by fictitious names which include “Buff”, “Rad-X”, “Psycho” and “Ultrajet”. Within the context of the game’s narrative, the player may choose to make use of these “chems” to alter the physiological characteristics of their character in the game.”

The report is vaguely worded, but it suggests the drugs are still present – though, perhaps relabelled and not shown to be imbibed by the player’s character. Is that a big deal? If the end result is the same and you still get the nudge-nudge nature of drug-use and abuse in the game, then we’d argue it’s not. Does it still undermine the artistic process? Or does the decision impact social freedoms? Well, that’s up to your point of view.

Spotted at Videogaming247, you can find the entire OFLC report here.

Fallout 3: E3 Awards and Opinions

IGN gave Fallout 3 his Best of E3 Award:

While I knew that Bethesda could deliver in terms of story and convincing world creation, the big unknown for me has always been the actual gameplay. Fortunately, I got to play through a good bit of the game at the show and I was really impressed with the overall feel of the game. I was particularly happy to see how well the turn-based VATS combat worked. I was worried that the pause and play nature of the system would interrupt the flow of the game, but it really only served to make the game feel more tactical and heighten its cinematic appeal.

– Steve Butts, Executive Editor, IGN PC Team

It’s either pause and play or TB, Steve. You can’t have it both ways. And it’s actually “a glorified aimed-shot mode”.

Fallout 3 continues to impress with an engrossing story, great visuals, and a compelling mix of gameplay styles. It is predominantly a Western role-playing game similar to Oblivion (with guns). But you could choose to play it like a run-and-gun first-person shooter, if that’s more your style. V.A.T.S., the Vault-tec Assisted Targeting System, adds turn-based strategy elements. However you slice it, Fallout 3 looks like it will deliver one of the largest adventures in gaming this year. The post-apocalyptic world Bethesda has created is an intriguing dystopia we can’t wait to explore. There were several standout games at this year’s show. But none of them seem to offer the freedom and unique vision of Fallout 3.

– Daemon Hatfield, Associate Editor, IGN Nintendo Team

Nintendo? Anyway that Oblivion with Guns talk isn’t good news, but for Bethsoft the fact that they also won Best RPG, Best XBox Game and Best PS3 game and a few other runner up citations is good news.

Still at E3 the Bethblog brings us some other awards:

In other online coverage, Fallout 3 has pulled down a few more E3 awards. Here’s a rundown:

• GameSpy honored Fallout 3 as the Xbox 360 and PS3 Game of Show. The game was also was named the Game of Show Overall Runner-Up.
• GamePro has their awards up, where they awarded the game with a E3 2008 Silver Award.
• Planet Xbox 360 awarded the game their Best of Show honor.
• GameDaily listed the game among their Best of Xbox 360 here.
• At Gamezone, there’s a Top Ten Games of E3 list where Fallout 3 makes the list at the #2 spot.
• Scrawlfx declares Fallout 3 their Game of Show.

Also Fallout 3 is referred in this article about the problems of the event itself at Gamezone:

There was no enthusiasm, no energy that should be associated with the vibrant industry that brings imagination to life. This year’s show was dull to the point of boring. Yes, there were still good games to see, but altering the format, visiting their studios on media tours would have accomplished the same thing, only with deeper experiences with the games. The studio visits are more advantageous because instead of getting 25-30 minutes with a superb title like Fallout 3 in the Bethesda booth, a visit to the studios would likely mean more hands-on time, access to developers … in short, the kind of visit that means robust coverage, giving players and consumers not only a sense of the game itself, but also allowing for interview time with key developers.

All through E3 was happening I was at the beach relaxing. I’m still trying to catch up on things.

LiveWire Presents Fallout 3

The LiveWire Fallout 3 presentation already ended. Nothing really new, except a loading screen in the end and a successful attempt at the hacking mini-game.

Thanks Incognito.

Playing An Hour of Fallout 3

New hands on preview at IGNXBox360:

Since it’s such a big part of the Fallout universe, listed below are all the skills and perks that were present in the June preview version of the game, with this list:

Skills:
• Barter: Affects Buying and Selling
• Big Guns: Determines combat effectiveness with oversized weapons
• Energy Weapons: Determines combat effectiveness with plasma weapons
• Explosiveness: Determines power of mines/ effectiveness of grenades/ ease of disarming hostile mines
• Medicine: Determines how many HP you can heal with one stimpack
• Repair: How well weapons and apparel are maintained and increases starting condition of custom-made weapons
• Science: Affects computer hacking skills
• Small Guns: Determines combat effectiveness for smaller weapons
• Sneak: It’s easier to remain undetected, steal or pick someone’s pockets; increases critical chance when attacking undetected with this skill
• Speech: Governs how you can influence someone during dialogue and gain access to info
• Unarmed: Determines Melee Damage

• Perks:
• Daddy’s Boy: Gains an additional 5 points in science and medicine skills.
• Gun Nut: Obsessed with guns; an additional 5 points to the small guns skills and repair skills
• Intense Training: Add a single point to any of your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes
• Lady Killer: 10% damage against female opponents, plus unique dialogue with them as well
• Little Leaguer: 5 points of melee weapons and 5 points of explosives skill
• Swift Learner: 10% in total experience points
• Thief: With each rank of Thief Perk you gain an immediate 5 point bonus to sneak and lock-pick

Worth a read, a few “new” pics too. Thanks summer.

IGN Anticipates a Good E3

I’ve already talked about IGNXBox360 making Fallout 3 their most anticipated game of E3, now it’s time for IGNPC to do the same:

It’s been over a decade since the first Fallout released and any who played it have likely been keeping a close eye on Bethesda. The developer best known for its open-world Elder Scrolls RPG series made some controversial decisions with Fallout 3′s design, most notably moving it into a first-person perspective. Those concerned whether or not the “spirit” of Fallout has been retained or lost will have to wait until the game’s release date, which at this point remains nebulous. We can say so far Fallout 3 is certainly looking pretty, has some interesting ideas, and seems to retain some degree of humor in the dialogue and game world. We’ll bring you more at E3.

And IGNPS3 also puts the game in their most anticipated list:

Why it’s hot: Take the massive world, tons of characters, near-endless quests and character creation of Oblivion and then drop a nuke on the whole mess. The result, if done right, leaves an irradiated wasteland full of mutants, ghouls, fallout shelters and the kind of good vs. evil vs. survival that Bethesda is known for, but in a setting all too familiar to PC gamers.

We’ve seen Fallout 3 a couple of times now, and every time we do, we want to see more, which is always a good sign. Improvements over Oblivion are numerous, though, from an updated engine to more traditional leveling up to characters that don’t look like space aliens. Well, not unless they’ve seen a bit too much radiation.

Spotted at the BethBlog.

Learning From The Past At IGN

A quite extensive interview with Pete Hines at IGN-XBox360:

IGN AU: What did you learn from making Oblivion? What didn’t work?

Pete Hines: There’s no giant ‘we can’t ever do that again’ stuff. It’s more how do we design quests, what kind of choices do we let the player make, how do we account for things we think the player might try and do and anticipate those? So that they’re like ‘Oh, I wonder what happens when I do this?’ And then there’s actually something in the game that acknowledges it and takes it into account. And they go ‘that’s really cool that I got to finish this quest in a really unique way and the game recognised that and gave me a satisfying response.’

In Oblivion the most extreme example is the bandits, who’s armour keeps going up and up as you’re playing through the game. Suddenly they’ve got glass armour and amazing weapons. It was an obvious thing that didn’t feel right. So we’ve spent a lot of time on making sure that the player has the ability to go where they want and do what they want, but to also provide them with situations where they’re getting in over their head – so they’ve got to leave and come back. Or they’re getting into situations where they’re further through the game and their character is really tough and they get in there and they kick ass and feel like a bad ass for a while because they’ve spent a lot of time buffing up their character.

We’ve certainly tried to put more stuff on the screen in front of the player to make the world more believable. The dialogue is much more specific to those characters, as opposed to generic lists of things they can talk about. A lot of it is just tweaking and refining stuff that the player won’t even notice. Stuff that we’re doing behind the scenes to improve the way the game performs. A lot of it is taking those lessons and learning how to apply them better.

You know, Fallout is a very different game [to Oblivion]. You’ve gone from swords and melee weapons and one ranged weapon to now where you’ve got lots and lots of ranged weapons. It almost flips the gameplay balance stuff.[...]

IGN AU: Was it tough balancing the RPG and FPS elements so that both felt right?

Pete Hines: We certainly spent a lot of time on that because we felt that the shooter element, what you’re doing minute-to-minute, has to look good and feel fun. If that’s all you do for ten minutes it has to feel good. There is all this other stuff you can do behind the scenes. It’s not just a shooter. It’s not that limited. But the shooting has to be good. Because 99 per cent of people at some point are going to pick up a gun and start shooting stuff and if it doesn’t feel right and doesn’t look right then we have a big problem. We did spend a lot of time on that because we felt it was important to get it right.

I think from our internal play-testing, and from some folks who’ve been able to play it recently, the feedback is that it feels pretty good. It’s clearly not just a shooter but it holds up well when you’re just running around shooting stuff.[...]

IGN AU: I was intrigued by the custom weapons. The example you gave of the Rock-it Launcher (combination vacuum and a rocket launcher that can suck up and use any object as ammo). Is it possible to use a rock as ammo in the slow-motion VATS shooting mode and watch it cause different animated damage compared to say a bullet?

Pete Hines: I don’t want to spoil everything. But we take lots of things into account. We spent a ton of time on VATS and making sure that it’s fun and unique. There are still a few things for VATS that we’ve not talked about yet that add more layers of fun and coolness to that mode.

IGN AU: You mentioned that your canine side-kick Dogmeat can be killed off. Are there main characters in Fallout 3 you’ve chosen to make invulnerable, as you did in Oblivion, for scripting purposes?

Pete Hines: In very few cases we may have folks who either permanently or momentarily can’t be killed. In Oblivion there were a lot of guys who got flagged because we didn’t want you breaking quests but in Fallout we try and account a lot more for quests being able to continue on without characters being alive. So here’s this quest going on. ‘Now what happens if the players kills this person?’ ‘Oh well, then this happens.’ ‘Well, then, what happens if they kill this person and that person?’ ‘Well, then this happens.’

We do want to make sure you can continue along the main quest and not fundamentally break your game, but we’re able to do that without flagging most folks as essential. This time there’s a much larger number of people who can be killed while you still keep playing your game.

This one is worth a read, it goes into some detail. Spotted at VoodooExtreme.

IGN And Fallout 3 At E3

IGN chose their most anticipated games of E3, with Fallout 3 in the top spot:

It’s been over a decade since the first Fallout released and any who played it have likely been keeping a close eye on Bethesda. The developer best known for its open-world Elder Scrolls RPG series made some controversial decisions with Fallout 3′s design, most notably moving it into a first-person perspective. Those concerned whether or not the “spirit” of Fallout has been retained or lost will have to wait until the game’s release date, which at this point remains nebulous. We can say so far Fallout 3 is certainly looking pretty, has some interesting ideas, and seems to retain some degree of humor in the dialogue and game world. We’ll bring you more at E3.

Thanks anonymous through Meebo.

Fallout 3:Pete Hines At IGN

From IGN:

After an extended stint in the vault, Bethesda’s highly anticipated Fallout 3 has finally begun to emerge into the public eye, and early impressions suggest it’s set to be one of the year’s best titles. We recently caught up with the developer’s Vice President of Public Relations Pete Hines to talk Dogmeat, morality and those 500 endings.

IGN: Has it been a challenge developing across three different formats and working towards a simultaneous release?

Pete Hines: It’s never easy, as any developer will tell you, and you’d always prefer to just make it for one, so you’re aiming for one thing, but this is our second time around on all these platforms, so we’ve learnt a lot already from doing one big sandbox game on 360, PS3 and PC, and we’re able to use a lot of those learnings and that tech for the next generation of stuff we want to do. It’s gone pretty well, and we’re pretty confident we’re going to have three versions that are all on parity in terms of performance, and certainly from a content standpoint and gameplay standpoint it’ll be exactly the same.

IGN: Fallout’s got a massive following and quite a vocal community. Have you at any point consulted the fan-base to see what they want from a Fallout game?

Pete Hines: Back when we first announced we were doing it in 2004, there was tons of feedback with people saying here’s what we want and here’s what we don’t want. We’re not really into consulting, in that we’ve got 75 people who spend all day every day working on this game, so we look for information and feedback for the kinds of things the fans are looking for, and feedback from the last game that we made. Even though it’s an Elder Scroll game, we’ve looked at the things they liked or didn’t like from that, and we have our own opinions about what we liked and didn’t like, and look at what things may be applicable to Fallout. Whether its how fast travel works, or for example how we’ve changed the way leveling works, so it’s very different from Oblivion.

IGN: You’ve said previously that Fallout 3 will have 500 different endings.

Pete Hines: Somewhere around that.

IGN: How’s that going to work? Is it going to be permutations of different elements?

Pete Hines: It’ll be like in the original games, where the ending that you got was a compilation of different things that you would have done along the way, main quest related or not main quest related, you piece it all together so it’s custom tailored to what you did. We want player choice to be meaningful, so anything that you get will be based upon what you chose to do – did you save this town, did you blow it up – and taking what you did and retelling it back to you so that it’s meaningful to you as opposed to having one generic ending.

There’s a lot more to read.

Fallout 3: Previews Galore

Starting with Gamespot:

Our updated tour of the game started with the very beginning–how you create your character by being born to your mother, Katherine, and your scientist father, James (voiced by actor Liam Neeson). Through a hazy first-person cinematic sequence from the perspective of the operating table, you can choose your character’s gender and name, as well as preview your character’s adult appearance by way of the vault’s computer system…then become dimly aware that something has gone terribly wrong with your mother during the childbirth.

You then jump forward a year later to the age of a toddler, where you use a basic movement tutorial to crawl out of your playpen and access the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. book–a book that lets you choose your character’s abilities by way of the classic attribute system from the Fallout games (strength, perception, endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility, and luck). You then jump ahead nine years to your 10th birthday, at which point you gain the ability to speak with other characters (such as the other children at your birthday party) and use the PipBoy 3000 portable wrist computer, which is given to you by the vault’s “overseer,” or head administrator. The PipBoy acts as a journal, status indicator, and quest log that will help you keep track of any tasks you need to perform. You’ll even get to take on a few rudimentary quests at your party or just watch the many-armed robot of the future, Mr. Handy, mangle your birthday cake with one of its buzz saw-arm extensions. Later, you’ll be whisked away to additional tutorial areas, such as a target range, where you can practice the game’s real-time first-person shooter combat.[...]

We then jumped ahead to a different sequence where we were explored a ruined tenement infested by feral ghouls. Those familiar with Fallout lore will remember that “ghoul” is just a term used to describe any human that has been exposed to such severe amounts of radiation as to become severely deformed physically, but feral ghouls have actually lost their minds and have become aggressive animals. Their deadlier brethren, “glowing feral ghouls,” have an unhealthy fluorescent green glow that sets off your PipBoy’s Geiger counter and eventually make your character extremely ill if you let them zap you with their radiation-based attacks.[...]

In fact, the Xbox 360 version of the game (and the PC version of the game, which is being planned to include Games for Windows Live Functionality) will have achievement points that will require you to play through more than once. Like in the previous games, you’ll have a karma statistic that goes up when you perform good deeds and goes down when you perform evil ones. Achievements will be given for completing the game with both a high karma and a low karma.

And now for GameShark:

Morality plays an important role in the game, influencing the missions that become available to you in your journeys across the wastelands. Whether you aspire to benevolence, remain neutral, or descend into deviance, unique avenues open up specific to your behavior. A roving gang leader may not talk to you if your karma classifies you as a goodie-two-shoes; acquire a bad reputation as a murderer and thief, however, and perhaps that ruffian may hit you up for a shady mission or two. What quests you complete and the decisions you make come together to determine the game’s ending, of which Bethesda claims there are hundreds.

Finally IGN XBox 360:

It’s during your toddler phase where dad also introduces you to a quote that will apparently play an important role in the game (We won’t print it here for spoiler reasons, but if you’re curious and don’t mind a spoiler, it’s taken from the Book of Revelation in the Bible. Look for Chapter 21, Verse 6). And, keeping up with the fun, jamming the A button when you’re a toddler makes you utter the word “Daddah.”

Once this is done, you’ll jump ahead in time again, to your 10th birthday party. This is a coming of age of sorts in Vault 101, as the administrator himself gives you your Pip-Boy 3000, a wrist computer that handles everything from inventory system to quest log to character management and more. You’ll finally get a chance to talk to people instead of making gurgling noises, and this is your introduction to the conversation system. You’ll also get a BB gun for your birthday, which is your first encounter with the combat system in the game, but we’ll cover that a bit later.

That was our taste of the character development system, and we didn’t get to see what happens when you get older and take the GOAT (Generalized Occupational Aptitude Test), basically an SAT for post-nuclear war survivors. But next up was something that all Fallout fans can get giddy about: Dogmeat.

More to come.