By Alec Meer on July 14th, 2008 at 8:54 pm.
Words later. E3 Video now:
Immediate thought: Oh. Is that… it? But before we dismiss it as -nnng- ‘Oblivion with guns’ (I’m strongly tempted to ironic-o-edit any comment that includes that ‘orrible phrase from now on), let’s keep in mind that this is a 100 hour, open-world RPG brutally compressed into a 3-minute combat demo for an audience of gun-hungry 360 journos, eh? I presume – based on how the game’s been described previously – there’s an awful lot more to see. And the palette aside – always a problem with post-apocalyptic landscapes – some of those dystopia-vistas really do look impressive.
Extra! Beneath the cut, a full-length trailer, showing more baddies, Dogmeat, some in-Vault stuff and more 50s ad-spoofery. And an excellent into-the-sunset closing shot.
Looks a lot sparkier than the demo walkthrough, though some of that’s down to the splendid music. Still, we desperately need to see some of the questing, dialogue and non-monster towns to get a real sense of the game, I think.
14/07/2008 at 21:02 MasterBoo says:
BAH!. NMA were right all along. This looks so uninspired and so not “Fallout”. Everything looks dull, the animations and these err, characters? (are these mutants or human?) look so awkward. Everything just yells “Poorly made Oblivion mod”.
Oh yes, and VATS looks terribly stupid as expected. I thought they wanted to “progress the franchise to today’s standards” – they even don’t meet them! It looks like a generic FPS from 4 years ago.
14/07/2008 at 21:05 Tenorek says:
ah, it was on the 360, no wonder it looked like hell to play. I never played much of the other fallout games, but I can say that this doesn’t look all that great in my opinion.
14/07/2008 at 21:06 Al3xand3r says:
Walking around and checking pipboy seemed nicely polished, the environment was nice enough though the guy seemed to walk in almost a straight line not checking anything else out and there was an extreme overusage of bloom.
VATS view and usage seemed meh.
Overall combat seemed meh. Shotgun seemed nice enough, laser thing not.
Enemy types plain weird.
Mini nuke plain bleh.
Can’t judge role playing from this. Overall meh until further notice.
14/07/2008 at 21:06 Noc says:
Then again, all you saw was someone with three times as much health as they need and an arsenal of weapons shooting at several low-level enemies. How it plays is going to depend a lot on if you can just do what he did and stand there, leisurely figuring out what weapon to use, then dropping a rocket on whatever’s in front of you.
What I’m curious about is how much control you’ll have over the pause-time decisions. Is it limited to attacks? Or can you attack-move, and fire off a shot before dodging behind cover? This demo seemed to be much more of an “Engine and graphics” thing than any sort of in-depth look at the gameplay. And I’ll wait for THAT before I write it off.
Also, Fallout was pretty ugly and clumsy. What I saw looked kind of ugly and clumsy with current generation graphics. The only “Totally not Fallout” thing I can see is the fact that while Fallout was brown, this game is gray.
14/07/2008 at 21:09 CLLMM says:
My brain is broken. Thanks RPS.
14/07/2008 at 21:09 MasterBoo says:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/36202.html
Full trailer.
14/07/2008 at 21:12 Lightbulb says:
Looks… …well…
To be honest my basic assumption is this will be as bad as TESIV. If its not i will be very pleased but at least this way I can’t be disappointed…
14/07/2008 at 21:13 SwiftRanger says:
Some nice things in there, like the VTOL (would be nice if you could take it down) and that EMP blast, the rest is a bit off and doesn’t come close to the original Fallout (art) style.
The marching music really doesn’t nail it Todd, where the hell is Mark Morgan when you need him? Ah well, hopefully the presentation tomorrow is more aimed at the wits and needs of a PC audience.
EDIT: full trailer is a bit more promising, only a bit though.
14/07/2008 at 21:13 Pavel says:
I was optimistic ALL THOSE 4 YEARS, always reading NMA (almost every day) just to counteract my optimism (because, well, I kinda liked Oblivion when it came out, and would rate it 8/10), but this video sort of crushed my hopes.It looks soooo bland and uninspired..
Why the hell can’t they just show some dialogue, various ways to complete quests, etc? why another stupid combat? For those drooling console idiots? How about thinking about FALLOUT FANS?
Hopefully some better and more varied video will come out, that will restore my faith in this game..
14/07/2008 at 21:13 Maximum Fish says:
Clear Sky it is then…
14/07/2008 at 21:14 Pidesco says:
If the pip boy turns out the same in the PC version as in that video, Bethesda will just show that they don’t learn from past mistakes.
The fatman is retarded.
14/07/2008 at 21:18 John P (Katsumoto) says:
“Then again, all you saw was someone with three times as much health as they need and an arsenal of weapons shooting at several low-level enemies. How it plays is going to depend a lot on if you can just do what he did and stand there, leisurely figuring out what weapon to use, then dropping a rocket on whatever’s in front of you.”
This tbqfh! I really hope you’d never be in that situation if playing it properly, and he was just trying to show off the combat. I really want to see a more extended and typical sequence before I say anymore, but for now: MEH is the operative word.
14/07/2008 at 21:21 MetalCircus says:
Well, well, well.
Like people have said, my reaction thus far is “meh”
But as demo’s go, this is a very shit temo. Why are less popular games like BiA:HH doing ten minute long demo’s yet the Fallout 3 dev team can barely eek out 3 minutes of gameplay? Piss poor demo, so on that basis I won’t be judging the game yet. If I was though i’d say “average.”
By the way, that trailer MasterBoo just posted is pure Paul Verhosen-esque satire… good stuff.
14/07/2008 at 21:23 Rook says:
I thought it looked good. Maybe Mass Effect has dulled my senses but the combat sure looked a lot more fun than that game ever did. Sure I’d like to see some RPG bits as well, but I don’t see the massive cause for alarm this seems to have triggered.
14/07/2008 at 21:23 Nuyan says:
That music thing is very cool, happy 19th century military music in an apocalyptic world is pretty funny.
14/07/2008 at 21:27 Theory says:
Thank god for the full trailer. If not for it, I’d have thought the whole game was washed out and brown.
14/07/2008 at 21:28 changeling says:
I think it looks… OK. I think either way I’m buying, just for the outside chance that it might be superb. Hopefully this won’t conclude Bethesda’s offerings this E3.
Also, I love all the news, but I hate the hassle of having E3 on American time. All the big stuff’ll be announced at 1 am!
14/07/2008 at 21:29 PonyStickers says:
You all are [people]. This looks awesome and completely like what a 3-D Fallout should look like. Combat looks quite gory and intense. For “Gun hungry 360 journos”? Gimme a break. Like the original Fallouts were so “intellectual” and not really about tearing freaks to ribbons with automatic weapons and missile launchers. This old school Fallout fan gives the video a thumbs up, and I’m glad they didn’t show more. I don’t want to see a bit more about this game until I play it. I hate when game trailers (and movie trailers for that matter) show too much.
14/07/2008 at 21:33 martin says:
Looks like a must-check-out (must-buys died for me sometime ago, especially after gothic3, hgl, aitd).
One question is still not answeared: “Will it be as mod able as TES4 is?”
14/07/2008 at 21:37 Zyrusticae says:
Looks good to me. At least, what they’ve shown of it.
Still nothing but combat (and some really awesome ad spoofs), but what they’ve shown looks good. The game demo is pretty poorly done, all told, as there was simply no tension there, but that bit aside, it looks rather nice. Love the goriness of it all.
14/07/2008 at 21:40 18Rabbit says:
I thought it looked pretty good but I enjoyed Fallout:Tactics which most people seemed to hate. If it stays true to the setting, which it looks like it is from the media I’ve seen, I’ll be pre-ordering (which I rarely do).
14/07/2008 at 21:41 Crash says:
Not an actual atomic blast.
14/07/2008 at 21:42 Calabi says:
Doesnt look to bad althought its hard to tell at this stage. I’m betting one thing though it’ll feel more like a game, unlike the originals which felt more like you stepped into another world.
I think part of its to do with how the enemies appear to be placed. Its like you can tell how they made the decisions of where to put them. They placed enemies to be a challenge to the player instead of placing them to fit in and be plausible to the world. And I doubt much of the combat will have any context.
14/07/2008 at 21:42 John P (Katsumoto) says:
@Ponystickers – leave the personal attacks out, yeah? People are in disagreement, that’s all. I don’t think it captures the spirit of fallout at all from that trailer – i’m still convinced they’ll come good when it’s released however, and that was merely an unrepresentative slice.
p.s. – you could complete fallout 1 without firing a single shot – not sure if the same was true of 2 but I wouldn’t be surprised
14/07/2008 at 21:43 SwiftRanger says:
“Like the original Fallouts were so “intellectual” and not really about tearing freaks to ribbons with automatic weapons and missile launchers.”
So, you were always playing with Bloody Mess then? Combat is a vital part of course but if you think that’s all there’s to it then you’re an odd kind of old school fan. The press conference walkthrough clearly only had a single focus unfortunately.
14/07/2008 at 21:45 Dante says:
Combat looks nice and all Bethesda, but seriously, that’s not what people are worried about. What we want to know is if we’ll be walking around towns of populated by stiffly animated NPCs with only two voice actors again.
14/07/2008 at 21:48 Peronthious says:
Gameplay aside, what really bothered me was that The Enclave just flew in and started shooting. No conversation, no interrogation as to what the hell you’re doing there, just BOOM.
14/07/2008 at 21:49 Ross B says:
Gravatar martin says
One question is still not answeared: “Will it be as mod able as TES4 is?”
They’ve already announced that an SDK will not ship with the game and that they may not provide one.
14/07/2008 at 21:49 Bhlaab says:
Looks cool to me. The atmosphere is everything I could have wanted, but combat and the ui is a bit worrying for me. (apprently the pc version has a different ui but I’m still wary)
How exactly are action points going to fit into this?
14/07/2008 at 21:50 Lightingale says:
If I cant sell my party as slaves or use drugs and star in p0rnflicks, I aint bothering.
14/07/2008 at 21:51 dartt says:
I think it looks great.
/hides
14/07/2008 at 21:55 james b says:
i am sure i am missing something..i have never played fallout (or oblivion) but it looked like a ps2 game to me (terrible characters)…does not make me want to look further…but i will – as so many people seem to into it…
14/07/2008 at 21:58 CannedLizard says:
Have to disagree with most people here and side with the “it looks good” side. I’m tired of the “told you it’d suck” whinging that permeates the comments threads on RPS. I, personally, think it looks fantastic. I’m worried about the possibility that it’ll be linear, but it looks like a fairly free world. Sort of like a version of STALKER that’s actually good.
14/07/2008 at 22:01 John P (Katsumoto) says:
” Sort of like a version of STALKER that’s actually good.”
:o
14/07/2008 at 22:02 DraconianOne says:
“Where will you be when the atomic bombs fall?”
Hiding in a fridge.
14/07/2008 at 22:03 Meat Circus says:
Looks like the NMA mongs have been right about Fallout 3 all along.
Fallout: Love lots.
Fallout 2: Love lots more.
Fallout 3: Oh my fucking god, that looks appalling.
KILL ME NOW.
14/07/2008 at 22:05 Will Tomas says:
I suspect the demo was set up to show a variety of enemies, an enclave appearance and other straightforward things, like big guns going boom. I wouldn’t slate the game too much for what you see here. It did rather seem to be trying to go for the Halo crowd.
What’s bothering me more is actually the setting of Washington DC. I don’t know how many people here have been to DC in reality, but it’s a sprawling city with wide streets and a hell of a lot of space between any of the monuments. The Mall is barely walkable. Just the idea of walking about a ruined DC implies that it’s going to take ages to get to anywhere of interest with not all that much in between. I hope I’m wrong.
14/07/2008 at 22:08 Bozzl3y says:
Fans of Fallout are already intrigued by the game. I could be wrong, but I reckon these trailers are to try and snare the people who aren’t fans (yet).
Fanboys – you’re welcome to your opinions, but I don’t think these trailers are being made to get you commenting on blogs and forums. You’re all going to do that anyway. These trailers are probably to get non-fans talking about the game. Like I’m doing right now.
Great success, Bethesda! Looking good!
14/07/2008 at 22:08 Arsewisely says:
Have you never heard the old saying? “Don’t judge a book by its in-game video demo” Come on people, some optimism please!
14/07/2008 at 22:08 Lh'owon says:
The first video was silly but the second looked awesome (if a little uninformative).
14/07/2008 at 22:11 K says:
I know it’s a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but it seemed too…lifeless. I think it’s mostly down to the sounds, or lack thereof.
The ad was awesome.
14/07/2008 at 22:12 zomggg says:
looked pretty dire. the game had no atmosphere. everthing was static and motionless. plus some dodgy grenade throwing animations. there’s still hope i suppose but the start is not good.
time to fire up the full trailer and see if it can appease me
14/07/2008 at 22:13 Meat Circus says:
@JohnP:
Yes, both Fallout and Fallout 2 can be completed without firing a single shot.
I mean, you can TALK THE FINAL BOSS INTO BLOWING HIMSELF UP. What are the chances of this Halo-crowd-bothering drivel offering conversation as an equal partner as shootybangbang?
14/07/2008 at 22:15 Paul S says:
I watched these two the other way round, and the trailer (with the Vault Tec ad) got me far more excited about this game than I have been so far… which the demo then dashed. The combat looks good, and the VAT thing looks much better than I had anticipated – but EMP grenades? Missile launchers? HELICOPTER THING? Just feels wrong.
I don’t think Bethesda are going to get this one right. But I’ve been wrong before.
Probably.
14/07/2008 at 22:16 Walsh says:
Umm have any of you gone back recently and played Fallout 1/2? The environments are pretty sterile, most of the buildings look identical, and some areas its find the hot spot clickathon.
BUT OMG YOU CAN COMPLETE THE OLDER GAMES WITHOUT FIRING A SHOT! Who cares!? Play Nancy Drew Mysteries if you want a game without combat. The fun was doing the assault rifle dance across some dudes chest and they keeled over.
This looks pretty sweet.
14/07/2008 at 22:16 Subjective Effect says:
I think RPS viewers are a little more discerning than most and in doing so the standard required for satiation is higher is all.
This has potential, but imho the best shot was the last one – walking off as the sun sets, and I’m not even sure if that was in-game. Looked nice and desolate. There is too much going on in the rest of it. Let’s face it – the bar on this one is so fing high.
14/07/2008 at 22:18 Walsh says:
Uh, Fallout 1/2 had missile launchers. Why are people acting like thats new?
Only new thing is that grenade launcher doohickey. I hope they put in the lasers that slice people in half.
14/07/2008 at 22:20 Alex Taldren says:
Looks pretty good. I’ll still buy it and have a look. Personally, I’d opt for a fully real-time combat system over the whole freeze time thing, but at least there are options.
I think both Clear Sky and Fallout 3 will be good games.
14/07/2008 at 22:22 Walsh says:
Fallout 1/2 also had emp grenades…
14/07/2008 at 22:23 MetalCircus says:
The criticisms about the dead surroundings are doing my head in. ITS A NUCLEAR WASTELAND. [I am surprised at people's reactions].
I swear people won’t be happy unless it’s a direct copy of Fallout 2 with a different story…
I admit, what I saw in-game was different, but honestly, what did you expect? People are just pissed because the graphics have been ramped up, there is nothing drastically changed about the game that acctually ruins the fallout experience. Desolate wasteland? Check. loads of gore? Check. Old fallout skills/perks features? Check. Vaults? Check. Enclave, vault tec? CHECK. The combat HAD to be tweaked, otherwise [of different interests to myself] halo players just wouldn’t bother. And anyway, im not too devastated about the turn-based combat leaving the game. You can still blow your way through the game just like in fallout 1 2 if you want to. People are just instinctivly scared of a new slant on thier old classic.
I still think the whole thing is average at the minute but I think it’s because of the decidedly SHIT demo they’ve vomitted on to our laps. Wait for a proper playable demo or something.
14/07/2008 at 22:24 Andrew Wills says:
Mostly satisfied. Ackward 360 controls aside, as that wont be an issue for me with my mouse and keyboard… The main things that concerned me were:
- Dodgy walking animations in 3rd person (totally ruins the immersion for me when a character glides over the ground).
- Dodgy walking feeling when moving around (again, the terrain has been destroyed by a FRICKIN NUKE, you should not slide over it like that.)
I know it sounds niggly, but think about it. When you’re running around you want to feel like the terrain is challenging, deadly, and tactical. That you can use that table to hide behind, that you have to choose a direction to run in to find cover etc. Not just ski over to the nearest Bus or something. Those two things aside, I’m quite hopeful.
14/07/2008 at 22:26 Cooper says:
Ok. Erm.
I’m still on the ‘give them a chance’ side of the fence, but that was very, very uninspiring. Particular the ‘gore’ bits.
The ‘gore’ of the fallout games wasn’t so much whee-ragdoll limbs and explosions, but very detailed, very composed animation.
Those VATS shots – the deaths didn’t seem pre-animated, and, if they were, they were really, well, dull. Sure. Gore. Lots of it. Flying limbs, big booms etc.. But that in itself is just not funny. Or fun.
Also, there seemed little difference in the guns apart from their models. The firing seemed the same, combat the same. but that’s probably the guy paying it that way. I hope.
14/07/2008 at 22:27 Turin Turambar says:
The pipboy menu was terrible.
-In 1997, Fallout 1 showed all the information in a single screen, a 640×480 screen!
-In 2008, Fallout 3 seems to need 3 menus to show the same information, even if you have a 1900×1200 monitor.
14/07/2008 at 22:31 John P (Katsumoto) says:
“BUT OMG YOU CAN COMPLETE THE OLDER GAMES WITHOUT FIRING A SHOT! Who cares!? ”
A lot of fallout fans, seemingly!
14/07/2008 at 22:32 Cigol says:
Dude, it’s called progress!
14/07/2008 at 22:33 zomggg says:
the problem with moving from tactical rpg to action rpg is that you end up with the game feeling like post-apocalyptic-shooter. it becomes about how strong you are rather than your interaction with and influence on the world. they really need to release a new demo showing ‘rpg-play’ and not this pew-pew bs. hell i’d settle for some sneaking and abit of dialogue…
either that or rebrand the game as a shooter. you too mass effect
14/07/2008 at 22:33 Ichabe says:
Well, I think they’ve at least nailed the post-apocalyptic look and feel, though the combat seems a bit dodgy. I’ll miss the old turnbased system.
By the way, Fallout 2 can’t be completed as a pacifist – there’s no negotiating with Horrigan. I guess you could take over those turrets in the room, but they’re pretty weak and stretch the definition of pacifism a little bit.
14/07/2008 at 22:35 Paul S says:
Sure, Fallout originally had the grenades and missiles – they just seemed to be treated differently. I realise that this is a trailer composed to show off all the cool bits, but I hated the way he just popped out a laser gun / missile launcher / grenade seemed a touch blase. There should be a little accent there.
My problem (everyone’s problem?) is less about specifics, I think, and more a general feeling that the atmosphere is slightly wrong. The ingredients are there, but they’ve been mixed really badly.
Or not. I’m going off a total of about six minutes of footage, after all.
14/07/2008 at 22:41 Bema says:
Somewhat disapointed by that. It all just looked old and clunky (the graphics, animations etc). Plus why did the 3rd Person view look like it was stuck a little to the right hand side? Very odd to release that as a the first bit of in game footage.
14/07/2008 at 22:41 kadayi says:
“Yes, both Fallout and Fallout 2 can be completed without firing a single shot.”
Certainly you can use diplomacy in a lot of situations in F1 & F2, or run away but there are times where guns/knives & grenades are pretty much de rigeur. No doubt I’m sure some daylight shirking denizen of NMA will pop up to claim they finished the game without killing a single thing, but I’d hardly say that approach is one most people would choose to undertake, or is it sensible to support it heavily in design terms (Ok brad I really think we need to put more of the games limited budget into catering for the Pacifist/scaredy cat demographic).
Anyhows I wouldn’t take too much from this footage given it was pretty much a mechanism to show off some of the combat & weapons and was relatively short. I take heart from the fact that I very much liked the 50s style Vault-tec advert which was quite hilarious and very Mad Men, and if they are prepared to go to those kind of lengths to promote the game, I don’t think it’s going to be all that bad.
14/07/2008 at 22:42 Man Raised By Puffins says:
Well the combat looks to be reasonably serviceable, to me anyway. The real test is going to be how non-combat side comes together, so I’m going to reserve judgement until the proper hands-on previews start filtering through.
14/07/2008 at 22:45 Nick says:
“EMP grenades? Missile launchers? HELICOPTER THING? Just feels wrong.”
They are all in Fallout 2.
14/07/2008 at 22:49 Rosti says:
I particularly enjoyed how the demonstration repeatedly mentioned a shiny/cunning feature for handling the immediate threat “but instead I’ll just get out my {FUTURE GUNZ} and blow it up”. At least this means their WILL be nifty things to do. Moderately hopeful.
14/07/2008 at 22:52 mooey poo says:
This is why you should get Jamie Kennedy to introduce your games.
14/07/2008 at 22:58 CannedLizard says:
I might be wrong, but I don’t often recall seeing dialogue trailers, showing off their NEXT-GEN moral-choice thingamajiggers, much like the cake, you often can’t judge those except in the eating.
But the cake was a lie…OMG, no dialogue in Fallout 3! Alert NMA!
Seriously though, there is a stat for Charisma listed in the (very shiny and, in my opinion, fantastic looking) new Pip-Boy, and they say that it will keep up the old tradition of having characters judge you based on reputation.
So…
You know…
2/10
14/07/2008 at 23:02 Plant42 says:
Yes, you could complete the previous games without firing a single shot. Yes, that was awesome – it’s a testament to just how fleshed out the role-playing and stat system was. In Fallout 2 you could max out charisma and diplomacy and carefully pick your way through dialogue – sleep with the mayor’s wife, tell him about it, get the mayor to kill his wife and then blame it all on drug abuse (jet)… sorry guys – that was pretty bad ass.
This trailer sucks. There’s nothing in there to indicate that we’ll get anything close to that freedom… or indeed that we’re in for anything but a reskinned Oblivion.
And ignoring that pesky ‘the essence of Fallout 1/2 isn’t there’ problem, we’ve also got a crappy Quake2 style walk cycle, overuse of bloom, no color pallette, the action-pausing feel contrived and hacky bullet-timeish, the robots have awkward designs that desperately need cleaning up by a professional industrial designer, pointless gore and black blood, cheesy weapons taken from Quake 1, copy and pasted rubble and buildings… ugh. So disappointed.
14/07/2008 at 23:03 the_apologist says:
How does this really help anyone here know what it will be like?
This was just a ‘look it has guns’ demo for a general 360 crowd who aren’t likely to have played previous Fallout games.
So, might be good, might be not, but, in the presence of doubt, let’s be cheery. :)
14/07/2008 at 23:03 Rook says:
>>Plus why did the 3rd Person view look like it was stuck a little to the right hand side? Very odd to release that as a the first bit of in game footage.
Tried playing any 3rd person shooters recently?
14/07/2008 at 23:04 Mark Stephenson says:
I loved 1, 2 and Tactics. I even made stuff for Tactics when the Editor came out.
I will buy this regardless but I have to admit a Fallout game is alot more than just “a shooter”
And whilst I am scared of being put in the NMA camp, these trailers seem to be missing “the heart” of Fallout. I hardly ever did any of the Fallout games as a “gun n run” and I suppose we’ll never now until it comes out.
14/07/2008 at 23:09 vash47 says:
It seems so uninspired… and boring, nothing like the good ol´Fallout.
The game lacks atmosphere, or good developers?
14/07/2008 at 23:11 Nny says:
It’s pretty, has the post-nuclear climax but gameplay wise it looks shite. Oblivion with rocket launchers and laser guns pew pew.
14/07/2008 at 23:17 cHeal says:
Looks rubbish, but I never played fallout before so what would I know.
On the graphics, they look terribly, the characters look poo and the scenery, unimaginative. meh.
14/07/2008 at 23:18 DSX says:
The vid said you could play a charismatic style character, so I think it’s reasonable to assume at least some of the diplomacy talky aspects of the first two will be present.
I wonder if Valve was releasing this, would people be so quick to condemn it already. Bethesda seems to have polarized the RPG community between haters & admirers.
14/07/2008 at 23:22 spd from Russia says:
uhmh… yeah I need to see non-combat
gotta admit its not looking fallout-y enough for me!
looks like stalker clear s has tonn more atmosphere than this :/
14/07/2008 at 23:34 tmp says:
The environments look very well done, not a surprise given their Terminator games background. Some of even the most basic animations (walk etc) are oddly stiff, you’d think if there’s one thing that should receive extra polish because it’s constantly right in the player’s face, it’s these… and these character shadows are curiously faint, keep tricking me into thinking there’s no shadows at all which doesn’t help. Beyond that, seems fun enough; as much as one can tell from such short clips, anyway.
14/07/2008 at 23:34 Freelancepolice says:
The walkthrough was a bit iffy but are the NMA were right all along people for real? Holy shit guys it was a 3 minute attempt to (badly I agree) show off the game. As someone said, it’s a 100 hour epic rpg not some xbox live arcade game. Give it a chance at least.
The second trailer was a thumbs up from me though
14/07/2008 at 23:52 matte_k says:
Bloody Hell, talk about splitting the crowd…
Overall, looks ok, combat seems a bit sluggish, but i’ll reserve judgement for when people finally get their hands on playable code, rather than a “look what we can do” kind of forced walkthrough.
Still better than most of the FPS or RPG shit out there, but it’s obviously going to have to work twice as hard to please its fans.
Edit: the TV ad is hilarious though. Especially the way Pops gets annoyed when Vault Guy is talking to his daughter about dating, and “Not an actual Nuclear Blast”
14/07/2008 at 23:53 G W B says:
NUCULAR!
14/07/2008 at 23:59 TychoCelchuuu says:
If anyone wants to go watch a video of 3 minutes worth of combat in Fallout 2 and tell me how much fun that looks, go right ahead. Here’s a hint: not much. I’m pretty hopeful after this new trailer. It looks great. Oblivion has left a bad taste in my mouth but still. Hopeful.
15/07/2008 at 00:05 Ozzie says:
I’m disappointed, too.
Not a hardcore Fallout fan here, only played the second one halfway through I think, but this gameplay video doesn’t catch the atmosphere of the older parts at all.
You know, while most modern games are just gray and brown this one seems to be just gray.
I know, it’s a nuclear wasteland, so we won’t see any pretty colours of course.
Maybe it’s more the lacking art direction, or that I don’t get a feel for the place.
In Fallout 2 it all looked and felt like a real world, one that saw better days and had a history.
This, on the other side…….ugh, it just looks so unimaginative.
But the trailer looks wonderful and gives me the right feeling.
So, I am torn over this…….have to wait…….
15/07/2008 at 00:11 shinygerbil says:
Sadly, I think ‘uninspired’ pretty much sums it up for me. Although I’ll definitely wait for further footage, and probably buy it anyway.
15/07/2008 at 00:18 darthpugwash says:
Coming from someone who has never played Fallout 1 or 2, but did quite like Oblivion, I’d say that looked very mediocre.
15/07/2008 at 00:22 Whiskeyjak says:
hahahahaha… as bad as TESIV? Good then! I LOVED Oblivion, got over 180 hours in it, and on the 360, no less. Loved the first two Fallout back in the day too, plays the second one every two years or three years, just for the heck of it.
My only disappointment is that I would’ve like more 3rd person view and less 1st person, but hey no one or nothing’s perfect.
Can’t wait for the game, which will easily win many GOTY awards and with good reasons I’d wager.
15/07/2008 at 00:28 vency says:
Graphics-wise that was better than an open-world game on 360 has any rights to be.
15/07/2008 at 00:28 Albides says:
No. Then they’d blame Bethesda for being uninspired.
Really, I’m not sure I even saw the same trailer as everyone else. The one I saw had a Washington DC that looked like it had been hit by an apocalypse, appropriately enough for a post-apocalyptic setting. (Admittedly I’ve never been to Washington DC, so I might be wrong about this.) But it looked impressively convincing.
It’s a bit shootery, but that’s to be expected, especially in a showcase of combat. The combat itself looks stilted, but in a way that recalls footage of proper turn-based games. It’s lacking the visceral urgency of your usual shooter, but I think the pedestrian pacing has to do with the necessity of making the action more easily manageable for your RPG fan. I expect when you’re playing the thing with proper health levels, it’ll be as much a blast as the combat in the Fallouts.
Arguments that “arrrgh, helicopters, lasers and emp grenades, don’t belong in…”, “oh, wait, they were in Fallout 2″ “But it’s the atmosphere, stupid” seem like sheer nitpicking to me.
I expect we’ll see different gameplay for different aspects of the game later. Dialogue, alternate choices like turrets, AI, etc, etc.
15/07/2008 at 00:39 skalpadda says:
I’ll agree the demonstration didn’t feel interesting, but I really don’t get what people have against the art and graphics. Fallout 1 and 2 are both ugly games, I don’t think that art style would be appreciated much today. I guess it might disappoint the fanatics by not being 2D in 640×480, and disappoint others by not looking like Crysis, but personally I don’t care as long as it can deliver a nice atmosphere.
Tycho’s comment about combat above feels like words of wisdom to me. It’s been a very long time since I played Fallout 2, but the fighting isn’t something that’s stayed in memory as amazing fun, and I won’t form an opinion based on a short video showing off a couple of guns.
The questing and story will probably be the thing that makes or breaks this for me. We’ll see.
15/07/2008 at 00:40 MisterBritish says:
I dunno what you lot watched, it looks good to me.
Thanks to NMA for breaking it down, now I can link to the bits which looked extra interesting:
Pretty apocalypse, no?
Swarms! What realtime is made for!
New Mr Handy, I like it.
Definately less ugly than Oblivion.
Interesting, stylish, cool. Fallouty? Yes.
Vertical ramshackle, lovely
15/07/2008 at 00:50 tmp says:
Goggle some Fallout screenshots to jog your memory. With few exceptions it’s been as much of barren wasteland and just shades of brown and grey throughout as this new rendition.
15/07/2008 at 00:51 Hobo says:
Eh, I think the combat stuff is kinda cool, aside from the mininuke being a bit stupid, but that was the worst way to demo an rpg ever.
Hey, watch me shoot stuff! Oh yeah, I COULD hack this… but I’LL SHOOT IT!
15/07/2008 at 00:53 Requiem says:
“If anyone wants to go watch a video of 3 minutes worth of combat in Fallout 2 …” Yeah let’s compare ten year old tb iso combat with modern fast paced shooterisms. How about go watch the Clear Skies trailer, it blows this out of the water.
Outside of combat it doesn’t look too bad, doesn’t look too good either, one thing that would entice me to play a fps spin-off of Fallout would be the chance to see my favourite bits from the rpgs up close and personal. Only there’s no doing that here as they’ve reinvented everything.
This looks like something a mod team might put out, not the output of a professional development company. Where did they get the dismemberment animations from a Yahtzee review?
15/07/2008 at 01:03 Mulayim says:
Can you honestly compare fallout and fallout 2′s character screen to this? Also, some people mentioned that originals games are ugly. PLEASE compare fallout 3′s graphics with other recent games. Please.
P.S: Fat guy is fucking retarded.
15/07/2008 at 01:08 skalpadda says:
They are ugly, and I was talking about art style as well (in the actual game), not engine tech. What you appreciate in art design is of course entirely subjective.
15/07/2008 at 01:08 Blindpsychic says:
Ok I don’t know why everyone is saying the combat looked good, that was awful. I don’t mind the bullet time things, but the real time combat was terrible, enemies just run towards you taking bullets without reacting. Look when he shoots the knife guy, he just runs at the PC, swings his knife acting like its oblivion, the PC shoots him back, and he just stands there and strafes around a little and takes another bullet and falls apart. its just fucking terrible too that they can’t make the AI think at all 3 guys against the PC with a gun one guy with a gun, 2 have melee. What do they do? charge headlong across open field to attack the pc. This isn’t fucking quake, they should be able to make the AI smart enough to have the shooty guy hide and shoot and the other guys try to flank the PC. Also, the way the PC is holding that gun is terribly awkward, its basically identical to a PPSH, he should be holding it on the drum so it looks a little less awkward.
Plus side, environments are kinda nice, sputnik radio droid, and I did like that one guy dropped their gun when they were shot.
Also, was anyone else expecting those bad guys to yell things like YOU SWIT! N’WAH!
15/07/2008 at 01:31 Mulayim says:
It captures the “soul” of the game. The vault boy and pipboy characters are also very well done. That’s what I appreciate. Also, you are evaluating a ten year old game in 2008 terms.
15/07/2008 at 01:33 Shon says:
I am so disappointed that the game was not made according to my own personal vision that I will wait two hours before buying it on release day.
15/07/2008 at 01:38 Blindpsychic says:
re: my rant: I haven’t played Fallout 1 or 2, just a lot of FPS’s.
15/07/2008 at 01:40 Vollgassen says:
I’m pretty hypercritical when it comes to this game, but I think the environment art is one of the strongest parts of this game. The engine may lack some of the bells and whistles of a lot of current generation games, but the environments look incredibly detailed and atmospheric.
And imagining them as fully explorable environments gets me kind of giddy.
I was so desperately hoping that Bethesda would have improved their animation staff or switched to mo-cap for this project. I really think convincing, clean, detailed animation could have really made this game.
I’m kind of astonished that they didn’t. What were they thinking? Animation in videogames has such a stigma around it, but I thought we were breaking out of that.
15/07/2008 at 01:51 Razerious says:
The Fat Man looks pretty ridiculous. Why the hell would I want to set off a nuclear explosion 15m away from me? :p
Not impressed by the animations, and the combat looks like it’s sorta caught somewhere between turnbased and realtime, without really excelling at either.
I’m hoping it was just a bad demo. When is the release?
15/07/2008 at 02:09 Tony says:
Oblivion with guns. I think that’s what everyone was hoping it wouldn’t be.
Alas.
15/07/2008 at 02:39 Tom says:
Any game that gets ‘tongue in cheek’ that spot on has got to be good – looks freaking awesome to me!
Why is it gamers are the most critical of all?!
The amount of wank films I’d bet you all like…
15/07/2008 at 02:59 Dante says:
Anyone saying ‘looks like No Mutants Allowed were right’ should consider that their first question upon Bethesda getting the license was ‘will it be isometric’. Which they did remarkably well to not answer with “no of course not you fucking idiot”.
Anyway, I have no idea how you can say ‘it looks appalling’ based on that. All you’ve seen is the combat, that doesn’t mean the game is nothing but combat. Just that that’s what they’re showing off. If all you saw off the first two fallouts was a selection of people being shot you’d think much the same thing.
15/07/2008 at 03:08 runningwthszzors says:
I’m pretty sure I’ve missed the bulk of this conversation, but I actually saw the trailer first – excellent btw – and then the demo. What happened to the color? Why does the combat in real time look worse than every other shooter?
Honestly, I hope it’s not representative of the final product. For one, the best parts of Fallout involved the constant idea of resource management, which the demo just threw out the window. But even if I only had a BB gun equipped, I still wouldn’t want to play through the demo. It looks like something they just threw together.
15/07/2008 at 03:11 Derek K. says:
For your first tech demo, you’re not going to show screens of dialogue.
The combat isn’t FPSy – I didn’t expect it to be. The VAT was freakin’ awesome. It’s *very* fallout-y to me. I preferred Fallout 1 to Fallout 2. And they were *very* combat focused if you wanted to be. Count the perks that deal with killing things vs the ones that deal with not. I think you’ll find it’s slanted to the “killing things” side.
15/07/2008 at 03:19 Evan says:
Oblivion with guns sounds pretty cool to me.
15/07/2008 at 03:20 sigma83 says:
That they chose to show combat is fine. That the combat looks so…. bleh….. is something else.
15/07/2008 at 03:25 tmp says:
http://www.gamesradar.com/pc/fallout-3/preview/fallout-3-hands-on/a-20080714133932662026/g-20070327151320531089
More in-depth hands-on PCG preview, with some mild spoilers for early quests/side plots.
15/07/2008 at 03:36 BJ Blazkowicz says:
The dog from Fable 2 is in this too?
15/07/2008 at 03:37 john says:
I’m from DC, a few scenes looked like noticeably like DC, but a lot of them looked like kind of generic city shots and didn’t feel much like DC. Which is strange because Bethesda is local. I think I’m spoiled from GTA IV. If you’re going to do a real city, you better make it look like the city.
15/07/2008 at 03:42 internisus says:
I was so much more excited about this game before I watched the gameplay video.
The VAT is awesome, but the changes in perspective to get those cinematic shots everytime are awful. So are the effects of the violence (I miss pixels), and especially so are the absurdly devastating weapons the player character is carrying around all at once while wearing little more than a jumpsuit. I sorely hope that they just turned all this crap way up to make a dumb shooty demo thing.
Having radios or whatever he mentioned with you potentially awesome, though. And Yankee Doodle Dandy was kind of amazing.
It’s just that the whole video was combat, and the combat was horribly stupid-looking and ugly.
It also gives me a bad feeling that the player favored first-person view. Like, what would the character model have looked like during the part where he jumped down a couple of platforms?
15/07/2008 at 03:47 tmp says:
I’d guess that the whole thing being based in fictional branch of history starting in the ’50s, with the city and rest of the country nuked into the ground and then lying there as rubble for ~100 years … might make that complaint tad bit over the top.
15/07/2008 at 04:06 Bhlaab says:
Okay, now try doing it without shooting or punching.
Face it, fallout has always been heavily reliant on combat. Probably moreso than elder scrolls ever was, even!
15/07/2008 at 04:09 Blindpsychic says:
Also, re: GTA4 real city things: As a New Yorker, I have to say, the main island of Algonquin didn’t really feel like Manhattan like me, way too clean, and they basically edited out the areas I know best. (Ie, everything between 34th and Chinatown).
15/07/2008 at 04:14 Groglvr says:
must not watch. must save myself from all things fallout3 related until game is in hand. must… not…. watch…
15/07/2008 at 04:21 SanguineLobster says:
I just hope you can change your outfit pretty early on, that thing is tacky as hell.
From what I understand hell is quite tacky.
15/07/2008 at 04:25 Lh'owon says:
http://e3.g4tv.com/e32008/videos/26939/Hands_On_Fallout_3.html
Lots more gameplay here, though nearly all combat naturally. Doesn’t look bad at all to my eye.
15/07/2008 at 04:46 Lukasz says:
@Bhlaab. not at all. It was never combat based game although it could be a big part of your game. depends on style.
like
you could slaughter enclave bases, raiders. or you could sneak/talked your way through.
You could beat the games without fighting at all although it was difficult
in elders scroll it is not possible.
anyhow
it was purely action trailer. and the guy was saying that there is much more than that. so I am not worried. A bit sad that it is not turn based but it was inevitable.
15/07/2008 at 05:00 Jacob says:
I ma have just seen the saving grace of this game. Watching G4 out of boredom, I just saw the guy doing the demo whip out a gun built from spare parts that fired random trash you pick up. He then killed a man by firing a teddy bear into his chest using VATS.
I want a teddy bear cannon.
15/07/2008 at 05:03 Ozzie says:
Hm, this G4 video looks much more promising indeed.
My hopes are up again. :)
15/07/2008 at 05:13 Stromko says:
Oblivion was good, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was good, just because you’re sick and tired of them by now doesn’t mean they actually, objectively, suck.
The color scheme is very samey, the graphics look a bit rough all around, but I’d play what they just showed. It’s not revolutionary but the many hours of freeform exploration and gameplay should make up for that in spades. So long as it’s not another Redguard or Dawnspire (whatever it was called) and they actually put some effort into this it’ll be worth playing.
15/07/2008 at 05:48 sinister agent says:
Another chip in the “meh until further notice” pool from me. It wasn’t a very good demo, it must be said. The near-opening line of “I’ve just left the vault, where nobody ever enters, and nobody ever leaves!” bit was cringeworthy, as a nitpick.
The greyness really isn’t necessary, dystopian or not – this is a decaying city, yeah, but what do people think causes decay in abandoned cities? Dust? Where are all the plants? There’s no reason not to have tough little weeds and flowering vines breaking the buildings and streets apart, if nothing else. If the radiation’s mild enough to allow humans to live, there should be plants, and that means at least a little green.
It’s supposed to be decades after the nukes fell, right? Well, have a look present day Nagasaki or Hiroshima. Are they monochrome dustlands? Are they, arse.
Still, at least he didn’t leave the vault and start hitting rats with a stick.
15/07/2008 at 06:26 internisus says:
Sinister agent, I think it’s supposed to have been two centuries since the nukes. I agree that plants and green and more creatively dilapidated ruins would be nice. A good opportunity for mutant plants like giant venus flytraps, as well!
Alright, well, G4 is absolutely retarded as always, but at least we got to see more diverse gameplay features this time. Though it’s kind of lame that this guy goes through the same routine everytime he showcases the game. You can tell that it’s a rehearsed, pre-tuned, and rushed playdemo.
On the other hand, this preview definitely gets me excited again. It sounds like questing and emergent narratives have come a long, long way all of the sudden!
15/07/2008 at 07:06 The Pope says:
Looks like TES IV with firearms to me.
15/07/2008 at 07:40 Jewce says:
I seem to be saying this alot in threads about up and comming new Pc titles, but honestly that footage looked fine to me – BESIDES its not all about looks. The gameplay looked fun and interesting. The fanboys that play this game are going to be worse than the Metal Gear Solid fanboys that played Part 4 and hated it. If you can do better, program it yourself and if not don’t buy it. I know i will be.
15/07/2008 at 08:51 Mulayim says:
That’s [a different] argument Jewce.
15/07/2008 at 10:40 Biscuitry says:
Guys, at least wait until it’s out before you pass judgement. There’s more to a game than what shows up in the trailers.
15/07/2008 at 10:48 grumpy says:
Someone please tell Bethesda about the difference between “A game that takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting”, and “a game where nukes are fired at every street corner and in response to every action”.
Until now, Fallout wasn’t a nuclear-war game. It took place *after* a nuclear war, but people didn’t run around with hand-gun nukes. Why would they? They’re trying to survive in a nuclear wasteland. They’ve got plenty to do dealing with the consequences of the last nukes.
Thank you Bethesda, for not even bothering to understand Fallout’s theme.
15/07/2008 at 11:31 AbyssUK says:
@internisus
That gamesradar preview makes the game sound fantastic! Am currently playing through fallout 1/2 for the first time and loving it.. they both work perfectly in wine too as an added bonus.
15/07/2008 at 14:15 El Stevo says:
I thought it looked good.
15/07/2008 at 14:32 fiftharm says:
Just have to reserve judgment until we can get our mitts on it, I guess. Hard to say if VATS will sate my thirst for the strategic element of aimed shots with the way the presenter glazed over it. It will not be our beloved Fallout from yesteryear, and accepting that could allow for an enjoyable experience.
However, one thing that has irked me since it was announced that Bethesda was taking the reins 4 years ago is that Bloody Mess IS NOT A PERK. It’s a trait–chosen at character creation form among 10 or so options, of which you are limited to 2. All have pros and cons *except* for Bloody Mess, which is just for gory flavor. From what was shown on the pipboy, this dimension has been done away with/absorbed into perks. (sigh)
15/07/2008 at 14:39 Ian says:
I assume as this was a “show them what we’ve got” sort of a demo that ammo for the Fat Man will be scarce enough you won’t just be using it for normal encounters with soldiers.
Or I’d hope so…
15/07/2008 at 14:40 ape says:
Now this is impressive…
He actualy left a vault that no one ever leaves. I have a new hero.
15/07/2008 at 14:44 Danfishblue says:
Whole thing looks meh, the VATS thing just looks forced: it seems easier just to shoot the guys in FPS mode.
Also, I don’t think it’s possible to shoot down the VTOL because considering the guy had a MINI NUKE LAUNCHER I think he would’ve been able to take it. He just waited for it drop off the troops.
15/07/2008 at 14:58 Ian says:
I also didn’t like the way it always seemed to go into a little movie after a VATS attack, I thought it broke things up. I’d have preferred if it just zoomed on the enemies you’re attacking or slightly slowed things down so you could see the effects or something. Draw attention to what’s happening without yanking the player out of perspective.
15/07/2008 at 15:22 Plant42 says:
I have to add – that black and white retro 50s style trailer is off too. The thing about 50s public service announcement footage is that it ends up a little creepy because they’re trying to be sincere. The narrator KNOWS that the dialogue is awkward and tries to sprinkle in a few jokes, with site-gags in the background of cartoon people living in the vault while other cartoon people kill each other outside… suddenly the whole thing is self-aware, and falls apart.
Rrrrgh… I know it’s a nitpick to talk about the subtleties of dark humor, but it really was the essence of Fallout, and Bethesda is handling it all ham-fisted. They’ve missed that subtle something and instead are dumping all their effort into monochromatic rubble, normal-mapped orc-mutants and Havok-based uber-gore.
So much of this is just repainted Oblivion. The monsters still run at the character instead of taking cover, falling back, attacking in a group or showing a shred of AI. Remember backpedaling while shooting arrows or casting spells in Oblivion? Prepare to do it all over again.
15/07/2008 at 16:19 KindredPhantom says:
I shall be getting this.
15/07/2008 at 16:37 tmp says:
Sounds perfectly like the melee NPCs from first two Fallout games. (the gun-equipped mobs in the movies shown so far do have common sense to shoot from distance) Why is it “like in Oblivion” and not “like in Fallout”?
15/07/2008 at 17:24 Gooking says:
talk about [people of different opinions to me], the game looks cool nuff said
15/07/2008 at 17:53 Ozzie says:
@tmp: Because Fallout 3 is from the makers of Oblivion, obviously!!
I think even NMA would be okay with it if Bethesda improved the enemy behaviour.
Not that I care about NMA, though…
15/07/2008 at 18:06 Cigol says:
@Tmp; that’s very true (and funnily so) but it’s also a bit of a cheat because unless I’m mistaken you’re supposed to improve upon 10~ year old games, not make the same ‘mistakes’ again. It was also passable in a turn based environment like Fallout’s, doesn’t translate well into an FPS shooter ;)
15/07/2008 at 18:41 Mr. President says:
This… works for me, I guess.
If the actual game (story, missions, dialogue) is any good, I can live with this VATS thingy.
15/07/2008 at 18:52 Leeks! says:
I take back anything I’ve ever said about RPS threads being one of the last, noble vestiges of non-fanboyism.
15/07/2008 at 19:26 Gooking says:
freedom of speech no longer lives =(
15/07/2008 at 20:05 Hmm-hmm. says:
Hmm. I liked some parts, disliked others. If it’s really going to be mainly shooting with no alternatives, I’ll be really disappointed.
..I’ll probably end up buying it anyway, though.
15/07/2008 at 20:06 Larington says:
This isn’t enough for me to make a reasonable judgement of it, I’d need a proper overview and certainly not something thats clearly been tailored to all the OMG Guns over-excitable american almost-but-not-quite journalists who want the comperatively easy to do big bangs rather than demonstrating the harder to do deep things like well built imaginative missions, good characterisation of NPCs, character of environment and so on.
And people saying its just going to be oblivion style backpedalling are forgetting that most combatants in oblivion were close quarters fighters – IE no guns or ranged spells. It’s likely that mutant wolves will generally be hell to run away from, you kill or die because they’ve probably got super legs. If bethesda are smart, other close quarters creatures will have ways of incapacitating or slowing you – A mutant super scorpion that can throw a stinging barb at you which causes partial paralysis or immobility where it hits (Lower body for example).
As a brain check, I’m telling myself over and over this is pre-release demonstration material and probably isn’t representative of how the game will be at release.
Hopefully we’ll see more imaginative behaviour from AI characters when the game gets released – It amazes me to this day that basic combat principles such as using cover (or using indirect fire weapons from behind said cover) that were demonstrated in Half-Life, are not showing up in demonstration material for upcoming games that are supposed to have an emphasis on intelligent characters, so I hope that has been addressed by the time the games released, when I’ll be able to make more reliable judgements.
15/07/2008 at 20:40 As I predicted says:
I was sceptic but whoah, this actually got me actually convinced.
Ah ah I’m joking, this looks beyond bad. The graphics looks shitty, the palette is fucking horrible. What the, URGH. I mean come on they didn’t even got the graphics right.
That gayass music in the gameplay trailer was gayass. Damn. The action looks stupid and horrible, the battle system or whatever looks absolutely ass and – I don’t remeber the word, it was something meaning complex without reason, so I will just say “shitty”.
What a hell of a shitty game
15/07/2008 at 21:11 KingMob says:
The trailer was not funny.
Otherwise, too soon to tell.
15/07/2008 at 21:25 No Problem says:
STILL no full lighting? Really? It still looks like Oblivion, shit makes me want to vomit when I compare it in my head to STALKER. It’s 2008 for god’s sake, no shadows is inexcusable.
16/07/2008 at 03:35 Jonathan says:
I really don’t understand all the meh comments. The Vacs system is purely optional and looks like an excellent and daring hybrid turn based system. Also the kabooms are beautiful.
Aside: The marching band music might just possibly have something to do with all those Brotherhood propoganda robots he mentions.
Reply to No Problem
You think S.T.A.L.K.E.R looks better than this? Yes but it’s either small area with high detail or sprawl with a few cut backs. Remember Crysis at all? Imagine those System Specs tripled. Oblivion was a bit of a system killer at the time and this looks to be the same.
Also it’s got a humour. The first funny RPG since Anachranox, which is my favourite RPG. I see this as a good thing. In an RPG.
16/07/2008 at 03:56 Jonathan says:
Reply to Leeks
Fanboys is too weak a term for the people complaining about a game in pre alpha without going anywhere near it but it is the strongest description the RPS thought police would let me get away with.
16/07/2008 at 04:34 No Problem says:
Jonathan:
Three words: Far Cry Two. It has full lighting, on the consoles even, with a totally open world with NO loading times.
Bethesda just simply suck at making graphics engines – period. There’s no excuse for not having shadows in a game now that it’s not 2002.
Fallout 3 looks like dogshit by console standards and looks closer to Call of Duty 1 than S.T.A.L.E.R., Far Cry 2 or Crysis, or even moderately graphically advanced games like Call of Duty 4 or something.
And it’s not just the lighting either, the texture resolution is also inexcusably low, looking like a smeared gray lifeless ugly shitty mess.
FYI I watched this demo live on G4 on a big screen so maybe I saw things you guys aren’t seeing in the low res trailer. I’m not overstating it when I say Fallout 3 is UGLY.
I’m not a graphics goon but the importance of immersion, especially in a game like Fallout 3, can’t just be dismissed, and graphics are key to immersion a long with music, which actually looks like it will just be radio stations on your PIP boy.
Anyways, I’m not a Fallout fanboy, I never played either of the originals, and I’m fine with the look of Fallout 3′s gameplay.
16/07/2008 at 18:58 terry says:
Oblivion with bullet time. I shouldn’t be surprised, but I’m surely not encouraged.
16/07/2008 at 19:40 Razerious says:
Fanboy? Oh, I see, so that’s the way it works. If you like it you’re a regular guy, but if you dislike it you’re automatically a fanboy? Thanks for clearing that up, guess I’ll have to register for a forum account over at NMA now.
I’ve been pretty positive about Fallout 3 up until now, but as I said in an earlier comment, this demo left me unimpressed. Being a sucker for post apocalyptic games I’ll probably purchase it when it’s released anyway…
16/07/2008 at 20:01 Erik says:
What the fuck, he gets shot in the head and his body falls apart? Once again, what the fuck.
Also, how did they manage to fuck up the look of supermuties and the pipboy?
16/07/2008 at 20:04 Ian says:
I only hope the over-gibbing was due to some uber-cheat they had on.
16/07/2008 at 20:13 Kieron Gillen says:
It’s because of a perk or skill called Bloody Mess. Was in the original Fallout games. Buy it, and people explode hilariously.
KG
16/07/2008 at 20:23 Erik says:
Only difference was that it dident look retarded back then. Some of the death animations in the orginal fallouts where sortof over the top, but very stylistic, it looked like some heavy shit ripping through flesh and bone, that guy just looked like some generic ragdoll whoms limbs just suddenly stopped being attached to his body.
16/07/2008 at 20:53 EyeMessiah says:
I hate you todd.
16/07/2008 at 21:07 harrumph says:
I absolutely loved the original Fallout, liked Fallout 2 quite a bit as well (despite thinking it was a step down in quality), and even enjoyed Tactics enough to play it through to the end. Does this make me a fanboy? I associate the term with slavish devotion to a product absolutely regardless of that product’s quality, usually accompanied by vicious denigration of that product’s competition. By those standards, I don’t consider myself anything like a fanboy, not of Fallout and not of any other IP.
But anyway . . .
I was looking forward to Fallout 3 — I didn’t really think Bethesda were the best guys for the job, but I’ve liked their work (I adored Morrowind) and I was cautiously optimistic. The screenshots had been a mixed bag, but the concept art seemed good and they talked the talk well enough. I just need to see the game in action, in motion.
I’m . . . “appalled” is too strong a word to apply to a video game, but I’m extremely disappointed. A lot of my reactions have already been echoed a dozen times in this thread, so I’ll spare you. I do have one thing to say that nobody’s brought up, though: I grew up in DC. Fallout 3 doesn’t look anything like it. The design is a generic gray clutter of urban ruins with a few landmarks sprinkled around. It doesn’t look like Washington, and it doesn’t look like Fallout. Even the famously brown Fallout games, set in the arid Southwest, had their share of vegetation. DC was built in a damn swamp; it’s one of the most forested cities in the United States (right behind Portland, I believe). It’s been a hundred years since the bombs dropped — give me a bit of crabgrass and some scraggly bushes at the very least.
Even though I worry, I’m not going to slam the game for having bad animations, weak sound/music, and gameplay that looks very Oblivion-like (wandering around an open space, offing monsters sprinkled about at random, who have no purpose other than to wait for death at the player’s hands): all of these things could change. The fact that they’ve missed the mark on the atmosphere and setting, that they clearly haven’t captured the essential feel of Fallout, and that the devs (or at least their PR department) revel in the stupidest aspects of what they’ve created — I’ll never be able to abide the Fat Man or the slow-motion aimed shot replays — these things won’t change, and have put me off the game for good.
16/07/2008 at 21:13 MetalCircus says:
Well I grew up in London and after a nuclear holocaust had torn my city to smithereens i’d expect it to look EXACTLY THE SAME AS BEFORE!
16/07/2008 at 21:32 harrumph says:
Do they not teach basic reading comprehension in London?
16/07/2008 at 21:40 Alec Meer says:
Stop that.
16/07/2008 at 21:46 sinister agent says:
Nuclear blasts don’t alter the geographical layout of an area, man. A building that’s on one street before the blast, if it still stands, will still be on that same street after it. If landmarks have survived, the area will still be familiar and will still have roughly the same layout. It’s not difficult.
London’s a good example – the Thames will still be there, right? So if you’re stood where tower bridge used to be, you’ll still recognise the area. Assuming there are ruins, they’ll be the ruins of familiar buildings, in familiar places. If enough of the area survived to identify the city, you’d still recognise where you were within it.
16/07/2008 at 22:07 harrumph says:
Sorry, I don’t mean any disrespect to the English school system, I’m just miffed about being deliberately misunderstood.
After a nuclear holocaust had torn my city to smithereens — a century later, mind you — I’d expect it to look like my city, fallen to ruins and overgrown. Not Stalingrad with the Capitol and the Pentagon dumped on top.
16/07/2008 at 22:24 turban_man says:
PRESS BUTTON TO COMPLETE GAME
16/07/2008 at 23:16 Edward Diego says:
I would except the so called “fallout-fans” to take a good look at the mirror and hopefully see a person good deal older than a teenager and then ask the question, “why in the name of hell are we at this age still flooding every forum, every gaming site, every nook and corner of the internet with the same crap every fan-boy and every brand-lover all around the world are saying about their product continuities.”
To me at least it seems like people are just joining the party-wagon to get some self-esteem points. Why not just sit back and enjoy the ride? I would except more enthusiasm instead of constant sarcasm at the prospect of playing a game that might as well be good, in it’s own right.
Brands live because people want more, if you do not want more, then stop caring and do not buy, vote with your wallet.
Sorry for the rant, no disrespect meant to any of the people I so vaguely describe. Just tired of seeing the constant stream of fud.
17/07/2008 at 00:06 Requiem says:
And I’m tired of the constant stream of ‘oh another Bethesda game whoopie, who cares that it’s devoid of decent original idea and has nothing to do with the first two games it’s by Bethesda it’ll be great’.
Since when has fandom had anything to do with age?
I voted with my wallet with Oblivion, didn’t work, so I’ll rage, rage on.
17/07/2008 at 00:06 Noc says:
So thanks to Mr. British for the links; the screengrab with the TV’s now my desktop.
While I was over at NMA, though, I took a look through to see what their take on it was. And I noticed some things, some good, some bad.
- There’s another trailer, here. It’s basically the same thing, but the player takes a couple of the other approaches, and demo’s lockpicking and hacking. And answers some questions. It’s a little more informative.
- During the trailer one of the audience mentions the AI, and the fellow doing the demo says something along the lines of “Yeah, it’s pretty advanced. We’re using the Radiant AI system, same as we used in Oblivion, but with more stuff.” Except that Radiant AI, in the form that was hyped and talked about BEFORE Oblivion came out, never actually made it into the game. Instead of being ground-breakingly intelligent, NPCs just followed pre-scripted schedules.
- The rocket launcher is something you build. And you launch inventory items out of it. I can’t see this NOT being used for problem solving in some way.
- It’s not the one that shoots actual rockets, unfortunately.
- It’s confirmed that the character was toughened up quite a bit for the demo. So you can’t really sit there and leisurely take bullets.
- Funny little quote from the thread following: “Also, did anyone else laugh when Todd said, at 18:01, that cars in Fallout 1/2 are nuclear powered? Waaaaaay wrong; they had fusion fuel cells. FUSION. Nuclear power is fission-based. Yeesh.” Brave fellow there, contradicting the dictionary and all. Not the man I’d want in charge of overseeing MY countries nuclear nonproliferation. Or maybe EXACTLY the right man. Though he’s also the one saying that rail spikes would be uselessly corroded.
Also some whining about how absurd the dismemberment is which apparently forgets that they’re demoing with Bloody Mess, and that the POINT of it is absurd and cartoonish violence. But all in all, I think I’m feeling more optimistic now.
I’ll end with another quote from the thread:
“They don’t assume people have played Fallout. We’ve heard it 100 times, but damnit, I love hearing about a game not made for it’s fans. “
17/07/2008 at 00:50 Requiem says:
“Yeesh.” Brave fellow there, contradicting the dictionary and all. Not the man I’d want in charge of overseeing MY countries nuclear nonproliferation. Or maybe EXACTLY the right man. Though he’s also the one saying that rail spikes would be uselessly corroded.”
The point he was probably trying to make about the fusion/fission is that in the original games fusion cells powered most things including the power armour but didn’t blow up when shot at. And the rail spikes, mostly being exposed to the elements all those years would be corroded away, unlike guns which would more likely to have been cared for and maintained.
The bloody mess trait originally just played the maximum gore death, usually only gotten with a critical hit, it didn’t make people’s limbs fall off like some marionette with their strings cut. And considering the rpgs used prerendered character art and had limited space on the cds the death animations were fairly varied and fun, what’s Bethesda’s excuse?
It’s funny how when Fallout fans make criticisms about the game, people feel the need to point out any silly things also said by fallout fans, and then start to feel more optimistic again.
17/07/2008 at 02:32 Jonathan says:
Reply to Harrumph
You’re basing your assumption on a few minutes of video. Also look at how much trouble was caused when Resistance featured Manchester Cathedral. Imagine that in an American city filled with landmarks in a post 9/11 world, quite frankly I’d prefer a whole new city than put up with the monthes of (hot) coffeeage (coverage, that joke).
Reply to Requiem
You didn’t notice the turn based moments, the changing radio stations and the buildable weapons?
Fanboy. Because you’re immediately dismissing the game rather than seeing if it will stand on it’s own.
In high quality 3D engines it takes monthes to produce any single animation and having the same death sequence for every enemy/weapon combo would be hella jarring. Therefore they’d need at least 3 or 4 hundred animations and you’d be looking at 15 year development cycle. How’s that for an excuse?
17/07/2008 at 03:17 Noc says:
Well here’s the thing.
There’s an argument, and it goes like this: “Exploding cars is a little silly. I mean, would fuel cells even still retain their integrity after all this time? And if they sat through a nuclear blast, wouldn’t THAT have set it off in the first place? It seems like it’s really just an excuse to have more things explode, rather than a reasonable extrapolation of the science involved.”
Then there’s the argument that goes “That guy is stupid, he said they’re nuclear when they’re fusion, which is a completely different thing, and he CLEARLY doesn’t know anything about Fallout at all so the game is stupid.”
One is a reasonable critique of a design choice the team made, and one is silly and inaccurate. Also, on the rail spikes: there’s a lot of metal in the world. There’s a lot of metal in the OLD Fallout games. Especially in an arid post-nuclear wasteland, there isn’t a lot of moisture so rusting isn’t as much of an issue. The idea that “This gun is stupid because there wouldn’t be SPIKES after an apocalypse” is the same sort of silliness as with the fusion thing.
And you can’t pretend that there’s nothing silly and slapstick about enemies gibbing from being punched and shot with a pistol. Bethesda’s “excuse” is that the perk is a matter of slapstick, so the realism isn’t an issue. Realistic wounds and such can come when the perk ISN’T in effect.
It was the extended video, and hearing the fellow demonstrate some things and talk about others, that made me feel more optimistic. The silliness in the comments thread has nothing to do with it. What it DOES have to do with is the fact that it casts the game’s detractors as a whole in a juvenile light that illuminates a tremendously immature sense of entitlement. Does this mean that none of the concerns about the game are valid? Of course not. But it DOES mean that a lot of the game’s detractors seem to be out LOOKING for reasons to dislike it.
And, for the record, I could go on for hours about how disappointing Oblivion was. There’s no Bethesda fanboyism here. Actually, there’s not very much fanboyism at all . . . I kind of got over that kind of cliquishness once I got out of high school. So apparently age DID have something to do with it, look at that.
17/07/2008 at 04:13 Cibbuano says:
I felt a little unimpressed with the first video, but I suspect that’s due to the dull presentation by the guy with the bland voice, and the fact that the gameplay didn’t touch on much.
Watch the second video! – that feels more like Fallout! The few fragments of the Vault Dweller walking among NPCs and environments, that’s all gravy..
… and using perks to grenade a big Mutant’s leg off? Perfectly aimed rockets at Bros of Steel mech armour? That felt like a good moment. A great moment.
17/07/2008 at 07:05 Fumarole says:
The second video does fit rather well into Fallout’s pants. The first one? Not so much. That nuke launcher really needs to go, too.
17/07/2008 at 08:53 Requiem says:
@Jonathan Turnbased moments what turnbased moments? Turnbased is my turn, your turn, my turn… you know like Chess. Not enter targeting mode line up several shots, return to game and watch the computer take the shots for you. VATS is an extension of Fallout’s targeting screen, which by it’s self does not mean turnbased. VATS seems far closer to Stranglehold’s precision aiming mode right down to the slow mo follow through on the deaths. And what do radio stations and buildable weapons have to do with Fallout? Oh wait you aren’t trying to claim they are original ideas now are you?
As for animations, I think you’re getting confusing producing animations for prerendered vs 3d games.
@Noc DC former swamp remember not an arid desert environment. His post might of been… confused but that doesn’t detract from from your need to highlight his comments on a totally different site where the game is also being dismissed. And there’s a big difference between over the top gibbing and limbs simply dropping off.
18/07/2008 at 19:11 Tims says:
What’s with all these comments? This looks fab.
I notice he said we’ll be able to play as any kind of character we want, but then he said a stealthy guy etc etc. I haven’t been following the press for this much, does that exclude female characters?
18/07/2008 at 22:25 jackflash says:
STALKER is the new Fallout.
18/07/2008 at 22:38 MetalCircus says:
Over the last few days i have warmed to fallout 3. Before i was just “okay” with it.
I think a lot of Fallout fans are just scared of seeing something new, even if it ends up being a good thing or *gasp* benefitting the game! What do you want? Fallout 3 with the same graphics engine and the same combat system, characters, dialogue etc…?
:edit: watch the latest 1up show… they had the same guy come in and do a demo of fallout 3 and he talks quite deeply about what’s in the game.
19/07/2008 at 00:58 Requiem says:
“I think a lot of Fallout fans are just scared of seeing something new,” Bullshit! What do you think we never play any other games? What do we want? Not the same graphics engine, no there’s no way I’m going to pay for ten year old graphics in a modern game. But I do want graphics that follow the same design as the originals. In the cutscenes and talking heads of Fallout we got to see how things look close up in 3d yet Bethesda decided to redesign everything, how would that go over in a Star Wars or Star Trek game? Same combat system? Yes! Yes! Yes! Or preferably an enhanced improved version of the original combat system that’s clearly a natural progression of turn based combat. Turn based combat goes to the heart of the pen and paper mechanics that Fallout is built on. Ripping that out and replacing it with generic fps mechanics isn’t progress, isn’t something new. Fallout could of gone that route originally, ten years ago we had our Quakes, our Tomb Raiders even an TES game. Turning Fallout into Oblivion is going against all the design descisions the original devs made, it’s actually regressing gaming not moving it foward.
Same characters no, why would we expect that, Fallout 2 might of had a couple of cameos from the first game but didn’t set a precedent for a direct continuation of narrative, though it’s funny that despite the location change and advancement in years Bethesda are using the same organisations and can’t come up with a more original name for their dog companion. Same dialogue, same quality of writing certainly, same dark humor and level of irony, same ability for your stats to affect what dialogue choices you have and most definately the same level of consequences to what you say and do.
What we wanted basically is a new game with decent graphics and interesting storyline that’s a continuation of the series in both terms of gameplay and canon. Not a generic sandbox shooter with rpg elements, that picks bits and pieces from the previous games (including Tactics which they’d declared non canon) and jumbles them all up together.
19/07/2008 at 15:57 sinister agent says:
Turn based combat goes to the heart of the pen and paper mechanics that Fallout is built on.
Oh, please. “Pen and paper mechanics” can lick a socket. Turn-based combat is fun because you have to plan your moves and think tactically, not because it’s just like being a tedious spod throwing dice around.
Same dialogue, same quality of writing certainly, same dark humor and level of irony, same ability for your stats to affect what dialogue choices you have and most definately the same level of consequences to what you say and do.
How do you know none of these are in there? The demos have focused almost exclusively on shooting. Yes, that is a worrying sign, but it doesn’t mean that there’s nothing else to the game. Apart from anything else, they’re probably saving the dialogue fine-tuning until later on, when the world’s been properly put together and all the possibilities programmed in. You’re talking as though it’s already been released. Express reservations, by all means, but damning the whole game before it’s even finished, let alone without playing it is just silly.
And get your arguments together, man – you say you (well you say “we” actually, which is pretty presumptuous by the way) want “decent graphics” but also complain that they’ve redesigned things and that you want the talking heads from the first one back. Which is it? How are they supposed to give you new graphics without redesigning anything, particularly given that it’s set in a different town with different people?
Fighting the urge to bludgeon anyone using the word ‘canon’ outside of a cathedral…. arghnnkk!
20/07/2008 at 09:38 Requiem says:
Who said anything about tedious spods, pen and paper mechanics are the heart of the game because it all boils down to the skills of the character not the player.
“How do you know none of these are in there?” Metal Circus asked what was wanted, how is answering that bashing the game? Though we do know that there’s no dumb dialogue for low intelligence characters because they’ve said there won’t be, and the examples they’ve given of the game’s dark humor just aren’t of the same style as the Fallout cRPGs. As the fine tuning excuse, the game is due for release in a few months, the voice acting would of been recorded a long time ago. Hmm perhaps that’s why none of the dialogue choices in Mass Effect matched with what your character actually said, they fine tuned the dialogue at the last minute.
Why do new graphics need a redesign? Aren’t their artists capable of recreating the same style but in glorious next gen 3d? Why does power armour have to go from smooth retro 50ish styling to clunky medieval knight with pistons, or why does the pulp sci-fi like skintight vault suits become a baggy ill fitting suit? Or why do the super mutants need to go from early marvel hulk like creatures to generic monsters?
21/07/2008 at 01:07 Jonathan says:
Reply to Requim
What makes you say the straight turnbased combat and the isometric perspectives were intentional. This was 1998 and Baldurs was arguably among the first true real time rpgs. As for why it was isometric, do you really think it could have been made in the Quake engine? If this is true then why did the makers go on to create Vampire Bloodlines as a real time, third or first person game. A game based on a pen and paper rpg.
I’m not saying you have to kiss the game and marry it but sheesh at least wait for a review before you dismiss the writing and dialogue you haven’t even heard yet.
See fanboy. I liked the originals too, though they just fell short of the Black Isle games due to combat, but I’m still going to judge this game on it’s own merits.
21/07/2008 at 01:37 sinister agent says:
Who said anything about tedious spods, pen and paper mechanics are the heart of the game because it all boils down to the skills of the character not the player.
And that has nothing at all to do with turn-based combat. You could easily have a first-person, real-time shooter where your character was only as fast or strong or accurate as you made them. Off the top of my head, Deus Ex, Oblivion, and even Rainbow Six Vegas to a slight extent (character with more armour = slower, but tougher) all managed this just fine.
There’s no reason at all why the new Fallout would have to be any different just because it’s played from a different perspective. Even if it weren’t for the VATS thing, it’d be very easy to, for example, make your gunfire less accurate if your character had lower gun skills. Have a look at Mount and Blade, for instance – all about action and fighting, but if your character was crap with a bow, you’d be crap with a bow. Simple. Given that it’s based on the same engine as Oblivion, this is if anything MORE likely than its being a mindless twitch shooter where any character with a rifle is as good as any NPC with a rifle.
Besides which, there’s nothing ‘pen and paper’ about your abilities being restricted to those of your character. Just look at any football game or even ancient side-scrolling shooters where you choose between a fast, weak ship and a slow, strong ship. Do you suppose those are all “going to the heart of pen and paper” whatever?
Look at the X-Com games, too – yeah, your soldiers have stats and such, but even if they’re hawk-eyed supermen, they’ll be cut to ribbons if you’re tactically inept.
Even when you’re totally in control of what, if any stats your character has, success at the game – any game – should still rely on player skill. Turn-based combat just generally requires different skills – foresight and resourcefulness rather than speed and accuracy.
Otherwise, what’s the point? If the game’s totally dependent on character skills and nothing else, you can just grind up an invincible player and cruise to the end without even thinking about it.
As for the graphics, what you’re actually complaining about, then, is that they’ve changed the style. You earlier claimed that you wanted ‘decent graphics’ and would be happy with that, but despite the fact that they’ve given you decent graphics (although I maintain that what I’ve seen so far is far too grey for my liking), you’re now complaining because they’ve changed the style.
I’ve no problem with your not liking the art direction, but, y’know, pick a bloody reason and stick with it, please.
21/07/2008 at 21:46 Requiem says:
@Jonathan “What makes you say the straight turnbased combat and the isometric perspectives were intentional.” Oh I don’t know, how about all the interviews over the years with the original developers for a start? Or that it was originally going to be part of a licensed GURPS series with each instalment using a different setting. Or even that first person games and real time games have been around since computer gaming started, and real time with pause predates Fallout by at least six years.
“I liked the originals too, though they just fell short of the Black Isle games due to combat” So Fallout fell short of Fallout 2 due to the combat? Yeah maybe I suppose since in 2 you could change what armour and weapons your npc followers used and tell them to keep their distance or move up close. Though really it didn’t make that much of a difference.
And what has VTMB got to do with Fallout’s design? So some of the same devs made that also, it doesn’t mean that’s the type of game they wanted to make all along but couldn’t because of the technology limitations. They did go onto make Temple of Elemental Evil afterwards, which I haven’t played to my regret, as it’s regarded by many to be the best example of turnbased combat going.
“but I’m still going to judge this game on it’s own merits.” Well forgive me if I judge the game compared to the two games it’s meant to be a sequel for. I shall, and so probably will many others, just as likely judge Half Life 2 Ep 3 against the early games in that series, the same with Half Life 3 if Valve ever make one. Likewise Baldur’s Gate 3, KotOR 3, Jagged Alliance 3 etc if they ever get made, that’s what people tend to do when a game is touted as part of a series. If the game is just going to be judged on it’s own merits there wasn’t much point in them making it Fallout 3 in the first place.
@sinister agent, Deus Ex I can play that without putting skill points into the weapon skills, thanks in part to the weapon mods. Likewise with Mass Effect the only weapon you need training in is the sniper rifle, since the game won’t let you use the scope without it. All the other weapons can be used untrained (if you don’t care about the power attacks) allowing you to put your points in the non combat skills. That makes action rpgs unbalanced depending on how good the player is. Low character skills only hinder those who can’t compensate for them. In pen and paper games reactions don’t come into it, it’s purely down to rolling the dice and the formulas based off your stats and skills and no decent GM will allow a player to role play their character beyond the character’s abilities.
If you make a dumb decision in an action rpg and run straight into a trap then how many character points you have won’t really get you out of trouble, if you have slow reactions your character will probably end up dead. In the same scenario in turnbased then if you send your highly skilled character into the same trap then it comes down to their skills and the roll of the dice as to whether they survive.
You make the decisions but the outcomes are purely down to the numbers that is the heart of pen and paper mechanics.
As for the graphics, I haven’t been changing my reasons, though somebody is certainly changing their arguments, but my comment about decent graphics was to Metal Circus who said what do fans want Fallout 3 with the same graphics engine? Did I really need to say I want decent graphics on an updated engine that follow the same design style as the originals (when I had already mentioned that earlier in the same post)?
22/07/2008 at 01:58 sinister agent says:
You make the decisions but the outcomes are purely down to the numbers that is the heart of pen and paper mechanics.
Sorry, but that’s utter bollocks. If it’s purely down to the numbers, you may as well just literally roll dice and declare yourself the winner if you get a six. See, I love strategy and tactical combat games, but this “even if I’m a total cretin, my super-hard mega-soldiers should magically survive any of my stupid decisions anyway!” approach sounds hideously dull and pointless.
no decent GM will allow a player to role play their character beyond the character’s abilities.
Sorry, what? We’re not supposed to be “allowed” to play a game the way we want now? X-COM Apocalypse had a lot of people whinging because it included a real-time mode. But you know what those whingers could have done instead of crying out for it to be removed? They could, y’know, just play it the way they wanted to, and let the other people play it in real time. Why cry for something to be removed if you can just choose not to use it instead? All that does is ruins it for everyone else.
There’s nothing stopping people from roleplaying and forcing themselves to abide by their own restrictions – just look at the guy who’s playing Oblivion as an NPC – and that a game can allow you to do that is great. But what you’re proposing is effectively forcing everyone who plays to play to your own personal rule set. If you don’t like it in real-time, don’t play it in real-time – your reflexes can’t be so bad that you can’t even press (say) the space bar to activate VATS when you suspect an enemy is nearby. That, in fact, is precisely what the first two games did, and there are plenty of cases where your reflexes and timing in initiating combat are of paramount importance – sniping and sneaking, for a start.
It’s true that the demos focused mostly on the real-time combat, but hey, it’s E3. They were playing to that crowd on that day. I very much doubt there’s any reason you couldn’t just activate VATS anytime an enemy approached (and I’d imagine there’ll be an option in a menu somewhere to have it pause automatically a lá X-COM Apocalypse. Another game, incidentally, in which player skills and character skills were blended superbly in real-time mode), and that’s what happened in Fallout anyway. real time wandering with automatic pauses for combat.
Besides which, you were complaining about turn-based mode a minute ago – now you’re banging on about stats. What evidence is there, exactly, that character stats aren’t every bit as important as they were in Fallout? The bloke playing the demo clearly had souped-up skills to make the demo easier and more instantly obvious, but I’m sure that won’t be the case, and there’s nothing stopping Bethesda from copying Mount and Blade for combat skills – you might aim your crosshair directly at the other guy’s temple, but if youre character shoots like a plant, you’ll still miss.
Sure, queueing moves isn’t literally the same as taking turns, but it effectively plays in the same way because the ‘queue’ is basically a series of turns.
Okay, fine, I get it, you wanted shiny graphics in the same style. I was just pointing out that earlier you said you just wanted decent graphics, when what you actually want is decent graphics in a specific style. Fine if that’s what you’d like, but is it really that big a deal? It’s an aesthetic quibble. Was the 50s-esque style of the tat you could pick up really something you even noticed after the first couple of hours of Fallout? It’s a loss, perhaps, but hardly a dealbreaker. I’d be content if they just gave the place a bit of colour and life – given current fashions, their using more than three colours in the entire game would be a bold gesture.
30/07/2008 at 13:06 nm says:
This little demo looks pretty sweet.