Fallout Sensibilities and Mannerisms At PCZone

PCZone Will Porter

There are still Fallout 3 at E3 previews showing up, you can find a new list at NMA, instead I’ll just point out to this article at CVG/PCZone, that I’ve talked about before, now you can read it in full:

Is Fallout 3 Oblivion with guns? No, not really. While it’s true that when you enter houses and watch people go about their business it instantly smacks of the last rendition of The Elder Scrolls, it seems that the old Fallout sensibilities and mannerisms are here as foundation not lip gloss.

Character S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats (luck, perception, etc) return as the base numbers for your character, for example. These can be boosted and drained by the full host of addictive stimulants present in the first games, such as strength-harbouring Buffout, the more traditional narcotic of Jet (the factory for which was technically destroyed in the earlier games, if I’m pedantic), intelligence-boosting Mentats and rage-infusing Psycho.

On top of these lie your skills (the numbers you can raise each time you level up, making you better at bartering, small guns, medicine, repair and the like), three of which you can specialise in and gain double the advance when it’s gratz-time.

While we’re on levelling, it’s important to underline that Fallout does address one of Oblivion’s biggest foibles: the fact that as you levelled up, the entire world levelled up with you.

In the wasteland, as in the original Fallout games, the further you stray the more dangerous things get – as I discovered during my lonesome trudge into the glorious north-east and was increasingly battered by the mole rats, bloatflies and Raider bases I came across.

However, enemies that lie along the plotline will be levelled to match you so that the difficulty curve is kept to Bethesda’s heel.

Whereas Oblivion hid away many of its stats, or at least let you batter away in mindless ignorance, in Fallout Bethesda have pulled the link between player experience and player statistics closer to Black Isle’s model.

As in the original games, your skill specialisations not only give you options in conversation (my medical bent would later lead a doctor to confide a patient’s medical history to me, for example), or show themselves concretely in percentage strike-probabilities during V.A.T.S. combat, but are integral to your performance – such as when I disarmed the century-old nuclear device threatening the town of Megaton, having guzzled Mentats to make me extra brainy.

Having played the game for only five hours, and with many of the hang-ups people had with Oblivion only becoming apparent after 50, I can’t be definitive about this – but in terms of building a modern game on the systems of one that’s now 10 years old, it’s hard to think of how Fallout 3 could have been tied closer to what has gone before.

A must read.

E3 Is Almost Over

In the meantime a few more Fallout 3 impressions, by Crave, by Gaming Target, and a large one by WorthPlaying:

Fallout vets will be glad to hear that Items are back and in as substantial numbers as they were in the previous games. During my forays into the various houses, I was able to find everything from pre-war snack cakes to random books scattered throughout the areas; so far, they seemed to serve little purpose other than to take up inventory space. There was also a fair amount of actually useful stuff, such as new weapons, ammunition and even the password to a computer belonging to the town information monger, which provided useful quest information.

All this scavenging comes at a price. When exploring, you’ll find certain items or doors marked in red, and if you take those items or pick those locks, your Karma will drop, and you’ll end up ticking off a lot of people. One unfortunate foray into the Children of the Atom’s stronghold left me faced with an entire group of angry people who were out for my blood. To make matters worse, every item I took or door I opened dropped my Karma, and once the Children of the Atom got angry at me, fighting back also dropped my Karma further. It’s entirely possible to play Fallout 3 as some sort of homicidal maniac, but don’t expect to do so without anyone calling you on it.

For those of us of the less violent persuasion, Fallout 3 includes plenty of people to talk to. Conversations take place in a fairly simple menu-driven system, where you pick your choice and the character responds. The twist is that not all of your choices are available at all times, and certain conversation choices are only available to certain characters. Your skills will also influence the success rate of conversations; a character with high Charisma and Speech skills may be able to charm information out of a normally uptight individual, and those with a high intelligence may notice something that less clever characters don’t. If you’re discussing explosives, having a high Explosive skill will make it more likely that folks will believe you. Even certain perks influence your choices. The Lady Killer perk, for example, gives you a bonus for talking to female characters and also provides a couple of conversation choices that wouldn’t normally be available. If you’re the kind of gamer who just wants to get back to the shooting, you can ignore most of these conversation trees and focus on the smashing, but it might come back to haunt you later.

You can find a few more previews at NMA.

More gameplay footage with Todd At GameSpot

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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.

PSM3 Fallout 3 Special

Huge article with new pics at PSM3, some ideas collected by NMA:

So, the first hands-on preview of Fallout 3 is generally available, and is big. Quite a bit of it is repeating info from previous demos and explaining what the Fallout franchise is, but there’s more than just that. Some bits:

– The previewer played Fallout 3 for 3 hours and could do whatever he wanted, rather than being set on a linear demo
– Springvale appears deserted, but “the school holds an intriguing secret in its basement”
– “If you cause a ruckus near an Enclave-controlled area, these Vertibirds in and drop off reinforcements”
– “Bethesda have stated Fallout 3 has no vehicles. But evidence leads us to think there’ll be a robot horse. Madness? Well, when the game loads, retro ’50s-style adverts cycle past for things in the game. ‘Giddyup buttercup’, a robot pony for little girls. “He neighs, he trots, he loves you a lot!” says the ad. Such a huge game without any transport? Really?”
– “This one is called Galaxy News, presented by a DJ called Three Dawg and broadcast from a secure bunker in the heart of DC. Dawg reports on current events between records.”
– “You’ll also come across the Enclave; the remains of the US government who have access to incredible technology and broadcast patriotic marching band music. Their President is voiced by Malcolm “A Clockwork Orange” McDowell. He’s a major villain.”
– They list a few skills: barter, big guns, energy weapons, explosives, lockpick, medicine (determines how much stimpaks and other healing items actually heals) melee combat, repair (description only lists its usage for repairing guns), science, small guns, sneak, unarmed.
– “We left Megaton, chose a random direction (west) and walked. And it didn’t take long to find paying work. Bigtown used to be a sprawl of suburban housing, but now it’s a makeshift fortress. Walls made of debris, car shells and a single, pathetic guard watches over the entrance with a rusting hunting rifle. Inside we learn that the Supermutants – giant, violent monsters spawned from the fallout of the nuclear war – have kidnapped some of their people, including a vital medic. We agree to rescue them, but only in exchange for bottle caps, Fallout’s bizarre currency. The Supermutants, we learn, have set up a camp in a place called Germantown.”
– “Say you have five Action Points, you could fire at their head five times, or disable them by shooting at their legs. You can even aim for their gun and disarm them. When you’ve cued up your attacks, press X and the game unpauses and switches to third-person view for a better view of the action. (…)
We take the mutants down with our shotgun – a few point-blank blasts to the chest did the job – and continue onwards, fighting our way through the enemy’s defences until we reach the police station. Inside, it’s Fallout’s version of an RPG ‘dungeon’ – loot to hoard, keys to find and enemies to kill. We snuck through the station using stealth (crouch to hide yourself in shadows) and used VATS with melee weapons (police baton, sledgehammer) behind enemies to quickly and quietly dispose of them.”
– “In fact, at times it feels exactly like Oblivion in terms of mission structure and the way you navigate the world. We loved Oblivion so we aren’t complaining, but if you found Cyrodiil’s vast openness daunting or the RPG mechanics too complicated, Fallout 3 might not be the game for you. Especially since the game is ten times as customisable. You can create new weapons from scratch by scavenging for parts. For example, find an old leaf blower, combine it with a lawnmower blade and another few items and you create your own portable rocket launcher that’s able to fire any object you see in the world at high speeds; almost like a retro-fit Half-Life gravity gun.”
– “We find an elementary school crawling with raiders who’ve been trying to tunnel into Vault 101, but have failed after disturbing a nest of giant radioactive ants. We find an old sentry bot lying in a junk pile and manage to activate it, after which it becomes our personal body guard…until a Deatclaw – a monster mutated from a grizzle bear – tears it to pieces, then kills us. Later, in a moment of madness, we wander into the heart of DC, despite warnings from the developers, and get vaporized by a remote sentry gun and a gang on Enclave soldiers.”
– [Todd Howard loads up a game 70 hours in] “He was in the heart of DC and fought a group of Enclave troopers with a portable nuclear missile launcher called the Fat Man – the game’s most powerful weapon.”

A list of the skills displayed:

Small guns
Big guns
Energy weapons
Melee combat
Unarmed
Medicine
Sneak
Lockpick
Explosives
Science
Repair
Barter

There’s more in there, for instance if you can hit someone without being detected using the Sneak skill you’ll have an automatic Critical hit; the “special services” from the loose morals ladies will give you a small boost to your health; the Vertibird that is displayed in the mag is perfect, exactly like the old ones; there’s a great retro futuristic vehicle, that unfortunately is only used for the nuclear explosions; the robot pony is just an advert, everything else seems to be speculation from the guy that wrote the thing.

And a lot more, recomended reading.

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.

More From Australia

A small preview of Fallout 3 at The Age Blogs:

Unlike most role playing games which feature your character as the star of the screen, Fallout 3 is played from a first-person perspective like a shooter.

Bethesda’s Pete Hines says the first-person viewpoint was chosen because “we felt this was the best way to really immerse the player in this world. You can get up close to all these iconic elements from the original game.”

You can play in third-person as well, but it will be very difficult. “We have this new over-the-should third-person camera,” enthuses Hines, “and it is kinda cool seeing yourself walking around in the vault jumpsuit.”[…]

Hines believes VATS really adds to the game’s dramatic tension.

“I’ve got enough ammo and health packs to keep myself alive, but in the game all that stuff is fairly hard to come by, so we really want to play up that idea like you’re down to your last clip of ammo, you’re low on health, you queue up some moves in VATS, and you’re like: ‘Please, God, let this guy die with this shot…'”

During focus testing sessions, most Fallout 3 players have used a combination of both real-time and VATS combat, keeping VATS for encounters with more difficult enemies.

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.

NZ GamePlanet Fallout 3 Feature

From New Zealand comes the Gameplanet Fallout 3 preview, with nothing really new, but a with an effort into detailing more thoroughly what they saw, so it’s worth a look:

Initially, this preview event had been organised to bring a large number of Australian and New Zealand media representatives in on the game, and to show some footage that had previously been provided to games distributors a few months back. Imagine our surprise when we discovered there would be an additional half an hour or so of previously unseen gameplay included! As there was no filming or picture taking permitted behind closed doors, I’ll do my best to describe what we were shown.[…]

Just an aside – your father at one point shows you a bible passage set in a picture frame that your mother claimed as her favourite. It’s from revelations, and it’s worth repeating here: “And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is a thirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.” Prophetic indeed, and a glimpse at Bethesda’s attempt to link casual first-time gamers with the lore of the Fallout series.

Once you’ve completed “Baby Steps”, you are again pushed forward in time to your tenth birthday party – an event significant not only for the first shown interaction with other NPC’s within the vault, but also the acquisition of your “Pip Boy 3000”, which is provided to you by the vault overseer. You also meet the vault bully, who is discussing with other children the possibility of forming a gang called the Tunnel Snakes, and you need to make a decision as to whether you should allow him to take some confectionery provided to you by Old Lady Palmer as a birthday present.[…]

A point about the statistics here – although you may be able to choose a certain dialogue option or end result, thus shaping your character, the outcome is also driven by your attributes and skill level. For example, conversing with someone may prompt three possible dialogue options. Next to these may appear a percentage chance to succeed, so perhaps you’d like to convince someone to give you an object – your level of persuasion might only grant you a 25% chance of success, so you may find it better to choose a different option with a higher percentage. This allows your progression to be shaped on the fly through chance as well as choice.[…]

We’ve seen terminal hacking as a mini game in BioShock, and just like that title, hacking in Fallout 3 seemed a little basic. Essentially if you’ve played the old classic Mastermind you’ll understand – you are presented with a table of words interspersed with random characters, and you need to type in whichever word on the list you think the password is. You have five attempts, and each failed attempt will tell you how many of the letters are in the right place. After the fifth failed attempt, you are locked out of the console and can only bypass it with a key, which must be found somewhere within the vault. This forms the basis of another mission, but it is necessary as without the ability to leave Vault 101 it’d be a short game.[…]

The next saved game consists of a battle waged in the central Washington D.C. area between the Mutants and the Brotherhood of Steel. It’s here we were introduced to the perception ability – on your HUD compass you will see a flashing red icon whenever enemies are around you. The higher your perception, the sooner this will occur. During an action scene we managed to kill several mutants, and due to this we were permitted to tag along with the Brotherhood faction to clean out some more. We picked up a weapon to replace our ageing Chinese Military Rifle from a fallen comrade – the Laser Gun – and spent some time blowing limbs from hapless zombies that strayed too close to our position.

There’s also an interview with Pete Hines in there. Thanks anonymous through Meebo.

Bethesda Butchered Fallout 3-Again

And another follow up, this time on the sOrethumbs article made by Puff, they got back to the controversy surrounding the article with this blogpost by Trick:

I tried to take into account everyone’s comments. (Yes, all of them, from the ones that had absolutely no reason or logic (‘Same Gameplay at heart’) to even the one’s from those living in a magical idealogical dream world: ‘And I’m glade(?) they’re improving things for the times, and doing things we could only dream about at the time of the other titles.‘ -um, sir, Elder Scroll’s is the fourth of the series of first-person RPGs and hardly the first of the genre, many have dabbled, Ultima Underworld is one my favorite classic games, what they are doing with Fallout 3 has been done to death, so please…)

In efforts to clarify and in hopes to end this debate; Puff simply was trying to say that Fallout 3 is downright misleading. How so? Spin Offs have occured: see Fallout Tactics, (see Fallout Brotherhood of Steel, *barf). If any of those games were called Fallout 3, god help me, we would not have to have this debate. This game is no different. Besides mythology there is no similiarity. My envisioning of Fallout 3 is that it should have the same isometric view, but take advantage of all that fancy smancy technology of now – I am talking about blood stains that stay forever, the car that we’ve always wanted -physics like GTA IV with car dents that remain forever, a horizon that never dissapears, a weather system, your player ages, the spirit of Fallout was in DETAIL, and with today’s technology we should be thinking PHYSICS not just Halo style formulas; the Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 isometric view and turn-based system is lost. ‘Turn-based combat is possible using Vault-tec Assisted Targeting System (V.A.T.S.), although once your action points are used up, you will revert to real-time combat until they charge up again.‘ – Revert to real time combat? Then what is the point of action points then? Hmmm…

In the end, Bethesda’s Fallout 3 should be called Fallout: The Last Vault or Fallout: The Brotherhood of Steel War. Don’t fault me if you do not like my made up names, you are missing the point and that is why I don’t work for that particular department. Take the mythology from Fallout, but do not mislead me and my love for Fallout 1 and 2’s isometric rpg turn based strategy.

You can read the rest here.

TGR Fallout 3 Preview

Wrapping up their extensive coverage of Fallout 3 TGR presents us with a quite informative Fallout 3 preview:

The demo started off at the beginning of the game, before the player chooses what their character will look like and what skills they want. The amount of freedom you have while customizing is reminiscent of Oblivion. In Fallout, players can choose what race they wish to play as and customize facial features such as, eyes, mouth, ears, and chin.[…]

We picked a preset character to go through the demo. Once our character was sorted, we were given a little baby board book called ‘You Are Special.’ Players flip through the pages of this book to assign points to skills they want to be good at. It’s wise to pick skills based on how one plans on playing Fallout. For example, if one put more points towards medical skills, they will gain more health from the likes of the stim packs. If one put more points towards strength, then they will be able to carry more items in their inventory. Like Oblivion, Bethesda has been kind by allowing changes to be made to the skills and special skills before completing this section, so before closing this baby board book, one can make some final adjustments to their skills and specials set.[…]

When we went up to a female scientist, dialog options appeared on screen as to what we could say. We were told as you progress through the game and gain more skills to put towards charisma and speech, more dialog options will open; there are in fact up to 500,000 lines of dialog in the game. An example of speech skills mixing with other skill sets is the ability to talk with scientists. If you have more skill points in science and speech, one is able to speak to the scientist more, as more dialog options appear because one knows more about science. When speaking to characters, the game does show the difference in the effects of the dialog options. This will all go towards how the character is seen later on [his] life.

Something we noticed early on was the simplicity of the HUD. The on-screen interface is really pretty minimalistic and simplistic. The only things you will see on your screen are health points, action points, your compass, and some info on the weapon equipped.[…]

As the attackers did drop weapons, Dog Meat will pick it up and bring it back to you. The dog actually brings back a pipe that the attackers used to kill its owner. Pete explained that he can ask him to go find him food, tell him to stay put, or send him to the Vault 101 entrance and say, “Go wait for me there until I come and get you.” Basically, Bethesda has designed the dog to be your faithful companion, no matter how good or evil your character becomes.[…]

“Each gun has a different rate of fire,” he explained, “so for a laser rifle, which is a single shot, you can get off more shots, where these are little controlled bursts on your submachine gun. You know the Fat Man, one shot would take out pretty much all of your action points. The idea is if you go in a VATS mode, and then you come back out and you just run around like shooting, then your action points will not come back as quickly, so you cannot jump right into VATS. We keep you from like running around and pulling the trigger constantly, and always being able to go right into VATS running around. You sort of have to balance it. How much do you want to do in real time, how much do you want to do in VATS?”[…]

A nice little feature we learned was the fact that you can assign stim packs to designated limbs. You are able to cripple enemies by shooting their legs and arms, but the same can in turn be done to you. You will know when a limb is in danger by way of a flashing red icon at the top right hand of the screen.

What’s great about Fallout 3 is that you don’t always have to fight. Pete loaded up yet another save and this time, we saw a group of humans that are part of Talon Company, which is a group of mercenaries fighting against the super mutants. We were told we would see this a lot in the game, where you will come across groups of characters or creatures that are fighting amongst themselves. You have the choice to join in, just watch and see what the outcome is, or completely ignore it altogether. The choice is entirely up to the player.

Also TGR has a contest for the more curious of you guys and girls:

TheGameReviews.com is giving our members the chance to ask a question regarding Fallout 3 directly to Bethesda Software. All you have to do is leave your questions in the TGR Forums, and we will take them to Bethesda and get your questions answered!

Thanks John Laster from TGR.

Nuclear Oblivion

PCGzine Magazine has a special feature on Fallout 3.

Nothing really new there, but you can have it for free, so why not download it?

GI To Harass Todd Howard

Todd Howard

Game Informer is now more available for those that live in the States, it has an interview with Todd Howard:

In honor of Fallout 3’s recently announced fall release[Briosafreak: What?!], we felt it was time to dig up new details on the game. The best way to do that is to harass Bethesda’s Todd Howard with a No Mutants Allowed-like fury[Briosafreak: What?!!].

Previously you told us the game would feature licensed music from the 1940s and ’50s. Any chance you could give us a few track examples?

We have a few from the InkSpots, “I Don’t Want To Set The World on Fire” being one of them. Some tracks from Bob Crosby I love including “Way back home”. Probably my favorite is a song called “Butcher Pete” by Roy Brown, a great song about a serial killer who “chops up all the women’s meat”, but is actually about him having sex with everyone’s wife in the neighborhood. It’s Americana-meets-ridiculous-violence at it’s best.[…]

It’s been almost a year since we saw the game for the first time. What is the biggest thing that has changed in the design since then?

The game’s gotten bigger. We removed some elements we had been working on that fortunately we never announced, but we also added a lot of space and elements for the player to interact with out in the wasteland. We struggled for a while with the “fun” that occurs in a desolate wasteland, but we’re finally beyond that, and the game has the right mix of scavenging and survival, while constantly showing something new.

Seems we won’t have downloadable Dogmeat armor too. I’m sure Killzig is cursing the universe for that.

Spotted this at DuckAndCover.

Fallout 3 Revisited

PCZone Will Porter goes back to Fallout 3:

Sitting in Bethesda’s temporary European HQ in the heart of London’s trendy Soho, just near the excellent Red Lion pub and some brothels, Bethesda’s resident do-everything man Pete Hines is extolling the virtues of the free-roamer RPG.

“I could tell you what you’d be doing every single minute of Call of Duty 4,”
he begins. “Don’t get me wrong – that game is fucking amazing, but I could tell you what happens in every minute of every single mission within very small parameters. What weapon you were using… everything.

“With Fallout 3, you could be 10 hours in and I couldn’t even guess 20-30 per cent of what you’ll have done. We made our reputation by doing big and crazy – things people hadn’t tried before. We feel that we’ve gotten good at it now.”[…]

This ‘less is more’ ethic extends to NPCs as well, having a more limited number of wordier tykes milling around, rather than the hundreds of three-line conversation ‘tell me rumours!’ variety that inhabited Oblivion.

In the new scenes on show in Pete Hines’ presentation, the improvement was marked – when bickering with a childhood bully there are at least six or seven different retorts to your foe, for example.

We’re also promised that there are at least 60 voice actors and that the more recognisable ones from Oblivion (‘You have my ear, citizen!’) haven’t made the cut. Hines reckons they’ve nixed the old chestnut of conversation between NPCs being stilted and dull to boot.[…]

The last thing I was shown was an all-action piece set in a ruined Washington, starting at a battered Washington Monument (that you can climb to the top of) and ending with a Fatboy nuclear explosion battle in front of the Capitol building.

Between these, beautifully imagined, tourist spots was a network of trenches where the Brotherhood of Steel and Super Mutant factions have warred for decades – now riven by trenches, tripmines and bomb scars.

Bedecked in Power Armour (robbing you of perception and agility, but maxing out your bullet-soaking abilities) you’ll fight your way through the area, but it did get me worrying how Fallout 3 will work as a shooter.

Spotted at NMA.

Voices and Butch on Next Gen

I already talked about the piece on Fallout 3 published in the last issue of Edge, now you can read it online on the Next Gen site:

“War never changes,” grumbles ubiquitous voiceover favorite Ron Perlman in Fallout 3’s opening cinematic. Of course, the one major bugbear among diehard fans of previous turn-based Fallout games is that war has actually changed rather substantially with the coming sequel. Thankfully, as we see more and more of the game, it seems like these detractors are misguided.[…]

“This is the Vault bully, Butch, and his little cronies,” says Hines pointing at a table of youths. “They’ll start talking about how they’re forming a gang and what they want to call their gang. He wants the sweet roll that Mrs Palmer gave me, and there are a variety of different options here. I can wuss out and give it to him, I can ask him if we can share, I can spit on it and give it to him, I can tell him to go suck his head, I can insult his mom – so we give the player a lot of choices and how Butch will react depends upon these different choices, so if I choose one of these last two options he basically gets up to fight me.”

Hines instead opts to spit on the sweet roll and offer it to Butch. “I don’t want your nerd cooties,” replies Butch. “You’re going to be sorry you did that.” The choice here, says Hines, then affects how other characters view you.[…]

As for the quality of the dialogue’s delivery, Hines emphasized that all the voice-acting, apart from Liam Neeson’s turn as your father, was temporary – a point well illustrated by the distinctly gruff tones of your mother. But if there was any area in which Bethesda risks falling down it is this – The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion wasn’t a sterling demonstration of voice direction, failing to squeeze anything other than wood from Patrick Stewart or Sean Bean. Liam Neeson’s efforts here also felt a little staid. However wry or smart a script Bethesda produces, it could be jeopardized if the voice-acting doesn’t match its written standard.

That Mother’s voice is the voice of Emil Pagliarulo. You can read the rest here.

Fallout 3 June G.I.

On the June issue of Game Informer there’s a one page interview with Todd Howard about Fallout 3, here’s a small transcript from NMA:

Has it been difficult to find a balance between open aiming and the tactical V.A.T.S. system? Will it be possible to play the game without tapping into V.A.T.S.?

We’ve been tweaking it, but it’s been going pretty smoothly. You can play the game without ever using V.A.T.S., but you’ll miss some of the more fun moments. We have people who play the game here and some use V.A.T.S. exclusively and some never use it. My hope is that the average player will use it about 50 percent of the time. The two modes are meant to complement each other.

Outside of Megaton, what’s an example of how the game might be different upon replay

Without spoiling anything, I can say that the game changes pretty dramatically based on two main things: whether you are good or evil, and the skills you choose. It makes for very different experiences.

More info on NeoGaf.