Fallout 3 Fundamentals Released via Game Informer

CVG is carrying details out of the newest Game Informer magazine, which has a huge feature on Fallout 3. The relatively spoiler free information gives us hints at some of the biggest elements of the game, such as combat, character creation and growth, and the possibility of multiple endings. " Fallout 3 kicks off with your birth and your mother's death in a vault hospital. This is where you get to create you character as your father (voiced by Liam Neeson) hands you over to the DNA analyser, before removing his mask to reveal similar traits to the ones you picked ... Fans will be pleased to hear that the Karma system is making a return, and there are 9-12 possible endings based on your actions. If it's even half as good as Oblivion, this should turn out to be something very special indeed."

Comments

Ahhh, GI, spouting shit like normal

[ravenshrike]

If it's even half as good as Oblivion, this should turn out to be something very special indeed. If it's remotely anything like Oblivion, except for the fact that it's first person, it will have failed miserably as a Fallout game.

Re:Ahhh, GI, spouting shit like normal

[LightPhoenix7]

I completely agree.

Part of the beauty of Fallout was the Action Point-based combat. It forced you to stop and think about what you were doing every "round." This sounds like a major step downward to me - a token AP system to appease the fans, while having a real-time system to draw the Oblivion-FPS crew.

That said, I do understand why they need to do this. Unfortunately, computer gaming in general and especially RPGs are on a downward trend as far as sales go. You have a couple of big names - Oblivion, Neverwinter Nights - and a bunch of smaller names that just get ignored. Why would a smaller company waste time on that when they could make a console game, where RPGs still enjoy a large following?

Bringing it around full circle, Fallout was a big brand back in the day, but by this point, I don't doubt that it will have been built up so much by people when it comes out that it will inevitably disappoint a large number of people. Better to just ignore all the hype until the game comes out.

Re:Ahhh, GI, spouting shit like normal

[Tetris Ling]

If it's remotely anything like Oblivion, except for the fact that it's first person, it will have failed miserably as a Fallout game.

You mean, if Fallout 3 has a wide open world where you explore a vast world mostly on your own, where you quest at your own pace, and where you can play using stealth/violence/etc at your own discretion, then it will have failed as a Fallout game?

Seriously, Fallout and Oblivion are very different games (c.f. their combat systems, for instance), but they have many, many similarities in structure and game flow. Why will being "remotely" like Oblivion ruin Fallout 3 when Fallout 1 and 2 are already "remotely" like Oblivion as it stands?

Re:Ahhh, GI, spouting shit like normal

[bishiraver]

Ugh. The AP system isn't what made fallout Fallout. The witty dialog, the gripping environmental immersion - broken, might I say, by the AP system - the choices to make - those are what made fallout Fallout.

Game mechanics have to change with the times ... as do graphics engines. I don't think this AP system will be a "bones to the old crowd" type gesture. It will add breaks and pauses to the game-play just as the original AP system did. I just hope this time that the next time I walk into an area with 52 rats on screen it won't take me three hours to clear it waiting for all 52 enemies to move. The AP system was AMAZING for small encounters of 6 entities. Once it got to be more than that, it was a serious pitfall of the game - and turned a LOT of people off to it. Not only was it frustratingly long to wait through, but it interrupted the rhythm of the game, jarring you out of your sense of immersion.

Having the kind of graphics engine they will, that jarring effect will be even more pronounced if they had gone with the classic AP system.

You morons whining about how it won't be exactly like your precious original fallout annoy the hell out of me. "If it isn't broke, don't fix it" you say - but a lot of it WAS broken by today's standards. It's still extremely entertaining to dust off and play, but it still has gameplay flaws: just like every other game out there. It was a fantastic game, one of the best, but even the best have faults. Remember that.

Re:Ahhh, GI, spouting shit like normal

[Your.Master]

Well, I liked it, and as a fan of the original games and -- and this is the big point -- as somebody who was bored by the gameplay mechanics of such popular and influential games as Oblivion, I'd really rather this one had a similar system to its predecessors.

Honestly, for the most part I'm not sure game mechanics have really developed at all in the sense you describe. We have come up with some entirely new ones, and mixed and matched old ones in innovative ways, but for the most part we're dealing with the same pool of game mechanics with more developed UIs, AIs, and graphics.

This one might surprise me, you never know. But I'd still like a game -- even one in a different setting, so long as the setting was also good -- that made evolutionary developments to the old turn-based action point system. Hell, Fallout Tactics was unpopular, but it had a kind of hybrid real-time and action point system that wasn't so bad. From what I've seen preliminarily here, this will likely have game mechanics that I generally do not enjoy.

Now, let me take a moment to strawman attack you :) (I mean this only as an analogy).

When you call people morons for having the opposite preference in game mechanics to you, I am reminded of the forum complainers and even "professional" reviewers who complain that the Civilization series hasn't modernized to include such developments as "real-time". You see it every now and again -- "wow, Civilization is a great game, but you know what would make it better? Making it into a StarCraft clone!" It baffles me because Civilization doesn't seem to me to be very much more related to an RTS than either is to an FPS.

In the same way, I find your claim that this is simply a development, a fixing of a broken system, to be ignorant of the fact that people may not prefer the exchange for a different broken system (you yourself admitted that all games have gameplay flaws). The argument would make sense only if the system were fundamentally the better (or the same) in every conceivable way (or very, very nearly so). Again, hypothetically we can imagine that this might be so when the game is released. I just have sincere doubts.

I liked the big battles and the way that all played out, and if I'm a moron, that's not the reason I'm a moron.

Re:Ahhh, GI, spouting shit like normal

[oddfox]

Nevermind these people seemingly find nothing of redeeming value in the Fallout universe itself, instead acting like it was purely the game mechanics that made the game what it was. Why they would care about a continuation of said universe in a true-to-it's-roots (So far so good on that) manner?

True fans will judge the game on the proper merits after having a chance to give it a twirl and see how Bethesda did. The rest will simply bitch that it's not simply a rehash of the game system they enjoyed back when it was judged the best way to experience the game world.

P.S. -- Am I the only one who played Fallout Tactics without the classic obvious turn-based system and actually found it more enjoyable to have more of a sense of urgency? Continuous Turn-Based for the freakin' win.

Re:I won't hold my breath.....

[revlayle]

as long as VATS lest me also play without a serious case of Diablo-like button mashing and let me takes a bit of time (which the article hints to as an option), then I can deal with that if everything else ends up a good representation of the fallout world and its associated storytelling.

Stop

[AstrumPreliator]

If it's even half as good as Oblivion, this should turn out to be something very special indeed.

Stop comparing it to Oblivion. A lot of people hated it and a lot of people liked it. I'm hoping Bethesda has enough sense to realize that they're making a sequel to a game that they didn't create, not a sequel to a game they did make. These should be two distinct games, not a post-apocalyptic Oblivion. It should be good compared to Fallout 1 and 2, not Oblivion.

Re:Stop

[Lightwarrior]

To quote Vice President of Public Relations and Marketing Pete Hines:

"Internally, we're a bunch of Fallout geeks. There is nobody [here] who hasn't played that game and enjoyed it. I have that game on my laptop, I take it with me and play it. But it's definitely different, because it's not really considered ours, the franchise. We didn't start it. There is a little bit of that sentiment out there that we have to prove that we're worthy to be the guys to make Fallout 3. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, because we have very high expectations for ourselves."

So, yes, they have acknowledge that it's not a series that they created, and that they have a lot to live up to.

Re:I won't hold my breath.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Resemblant of the great cries of betrayal and censure when Retro said that Metroid Prime was going to be a (largely) first-person game instead of 2d. Despite all the outcry, it turned out to be one of the strongest GameCube titles, both in terms of critical review (http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/simplera tings.asp, 3rd highest aggregate review of all games across all platforms) and sales.

To me, the interesting and meaningful parts of a game aren't things as prosaic as the game's camera setting. Fallout was define by its diverse freedom of choice, dark but wry humour, strong story and NPCs and fantastic setting. The camera and combat system in Fallout Tactics was precisely the same as Fallout 1/2, but it wasn't even the palest shadow of either of those titles. Clearly, the combat/camera system alone isn't what defines Fallout. As long as Bethesda brings those quintessential Fallout thematics and aesthetics to Fallout 3, I think it will carry the torch of the Fallout legacy very well.

Personally

[Pojut]

I am glad they are making it first person.

Does it stick with the "classic isometric view" of the other Fallout's? No, it doesn't. Is the gaming world the same as it was back then? Far from it.

If they pull this off right, think of how insane it could be. Imagine having gone through fallout in first person. Imagine going through New Reno in first person. Imagine experiencing the crazy and insane things you went through in fallout, but through the eyes of the protagonist.

Personally, I feel there is MASSIVE potential here for drawing you into the gameworld. I think there is a great opportunity to make you feel like you are surviving in a destroyed and shattered world, instead of "just playing a game"

Fallout 1 & 2 are classics that can never be duplicated. I say let Bethesda try to modernize it.

So long as they don't re-invent it and they just "modernize" it, I forsee this potentially being a game worthy of the "classic" status. Don't be so quick to judge, approach it with an open mind.

I can't wait to come face-to-face with a mutant with today's graphic and animation technology.

Re:Personally

[Allison Geode]

in a way, i *did* go through fallout in first person: its a highly representative, turn-based rpg. i played it as if i were playing pen and paper: using the graphics to give me a general idea of what was going on, while using my imagination to picture everything in my head. thats the true triumph of games with horrible, out-dated graphics, and something that we're seriously losing with the full 3d perspectives available in everything now. i'll still play F3, and probably love it regardless, but it won't be the same.

Re:Oblivion was terrible

[Silentknyght]

I'm unsure about whether or not a first-person perspective would be better than an isometric perspective. Let's take what's likely to be the biggest (but not only) concern: the atmosphere of the fallout world. I'd argue that via the first-person perspective is MORE immersive than an isometric perspective, because there is the feel that you are seeing the world through the your (the character's) eyes. With the isometric perspective, there's a feeling as if you're controlling a character in some world, and (imo) it's innately less immersive.

For reference, look at what they did with Half-Life 2. The atmosphere in that game is incredibly well designed and defined, and in those first few minutes of play, it's very easy to believe that City 17 exists...

Re:I won't hold my breath.....

[revlayle]

No one ever said Real-Time with pausing is the same thing as turn-based. We knew it wasn't going to be turn-based, no one is really surprised. That being said, if done right, it can still be FUN. The same? Of course not... I don't care if it is the same, as long as I feel like I am playing a Fallout game, I'm cool with whatever the mechanism to play that game is. Damn... I feel like I am back on NMA :)

HOWEVER, agreed that the game should not use Oblivion (or any of TES games) as a benchmark for what Fallout 3 should be. From what I have gathered, beyond using the same object/map-building/graphics rendering engine, the ruleset underneath may be rather different than the other games. Is that good? I don't know... the proof will be in the good. However, from little bit I have read, we don't get everything we want, but it certainly doesn't sound nearly as bad as I had maybe thought 4-5 months ago.

When all you have is a hammer ...

[Dan667]

... everything becomes a nail. Wish they would not bastardize my favorite game, because all they have is a FPS engine. Sad...

Correction

[ShakaUVM]

>>If it's even half as good as Oblivion, this should turn out to be something very special indeed.

^special^crappy^

Oblivion was a very pretty game, with very bad game design.

The entire world would scale to match the level of your character. So as a 1st level character, you can go into the Arena and kill the reigning champion with the same amount of difficulty as you would at 20th level. Maybe even easier... if you leveled your character in non-optimal ways (especially if you didn't go through the mind-numbing process of repeating actions for 10 minutes to maximize your stat gains) your character would be less powerful at 20th than at 1st.

Thievery was even worse. If you tried breaking into people's houses (a common activity for the thief archetype), don't try to do it at low levels. All the houses in the game (even nobles' houses) are filled with nothing valuable. Because you're not high level. It's totally backwards. The way it should be designed is this: a nobles' house should be protected by high level guards. If I can defeat them, then it should have jewels and stuff in it, not apples. Because I'm 3rd level.

There are mods out there (like Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul) that fix the problem somewhat, but nothing but a total revamp of the game dyamics would make it a good RPG. A core feature that makes RPGs fun is that your character gets better over time. "Treading water", Oblivion's paradigm, is by contrast not fun.

Re:Correction

[Moraelin]

The entire world would scale to match the level of your character. So as a 1st level character, you can go into the Arena and kill the reigning champion with the same amount of difficulty as you would at 20th level. Maybe even easier... if you leveled your character in non-optimal ways (especially if you didn't go through the mind-numbing process of repeating actions for 10 minutes to maximize your stat gains) your character would be less powerful at 20th than at 1st.

Often this will be the case even if you did level up optimally.

(Some spoilers may be contained past this point.)

E.g., remember the quest to save the painter from his own painting? The one with the painted trolls and the turpentine? Well, the turpentine does _massive_ damage to the trolls at level 1, compared to their HP, but a whole lot less at level 30.

The end fight? If you somehow managed to get that fight at level 1, he's a lot easier than when you're high level. Basically the more side-quests you do, the more you'll be at a disadvantage at the end.

The same applies to most quests where you have some helpers or must keep someone alive. While their stats _are_ levelled, their equipment is often the same at all levels. (E.g., while monster equipment is levelled, the city guards often have a fixed equipment at all levels.) At higher levels, the enemies wipe out the city guards, for example.

Thievery, hmm, actually having played a thief, I'd say thievery is just fucked up. There just isn't any good loot in houses at all levels. An engraved silver challice sells for... what? 2 coins at the fence? And that's pretty much _all_ that will be the difference between a great noble's house and a commoner's house: the commoner will have tin knives and ceramics glasses (worth 0g each), while the noble will have some silverware too.

And most of the "scenery" loot is the same at all levels, anyway. Chances are those nobles will still have a ceramic bowl (worth 0 coins) with some apples in it even when you're level 30+. Now if they have a weapon or such, that might (or might not) get scaled, but the stuff on their tables and shelves will still be worth crap.

Stuff in chests and drawers is scaled, but even there, it often scales the same for commoners too.

Often the thing that's actually worth anything in a house are the grain and bread and stuff, because they can be turned into potions. And with high alchemy skill, those sell for a fair bit of coin. But the thing is, it's easier and risk-free to go in the woods and get some reagents instead of burgling homes for it. And commoner homes often have more of that stuff anyway, if you absolutely must steal your reagents.

Re:Yeah, sorta like...

[hansamurai]

You sure seem qualified to determine whether a game will suck or not even though you've never played a Fallout game in your life. But I would guess you read a lot of Slashdot comments, especially the +5 Insightful "Fallout 3 will suck no matter what" comments.

Re:Party like it was 1997

[matthewcraig]

Are you kidding? I'm throwing down like it was 1986.

Mixed feelings

[anduz]

I want to be able to take my time and pick out my morbid strategy before I proceed to blow someone innocent childs ribs out, and I'm not sure if that is truely plausible with this new combat system. But it's been a long time and I guess we have to accept some changes and the combat system is minor changes in my eyes. At least it's minor changes if the new system owns up to what combat is supposed to be in a Fallout game, because while combat is very important it's as a tool you apply (like dialog) as you proceed through the game. This is probably much easier achived with turn based combat though, and if this new combat system turns combat from tool into gameplay feature then it probably won't deserve the Fallout label - and then again if they do it right maybe it will. VTM Bloodlines had real time combat, and that never turned into anything like the monotome AI bashing most elderscroll games have been.

Also, if the game is half as good as Oblivion it'll be one of the worst games ever because Oblivion was upright horrible.