Gameplay Videos Released For Fallout 3

Today Bethesda released walkthrough videos for their upcoming action RPG, Fallout 3. Joystiq has posted the trailers, which contain gameplay footage from the starting area and the city "Megaton," as well as combat scenarios and other features. One fight showcases the targeting system, which they demonstrate by targeting and then shooting off an enemy's arm. Another shows off the ability to create and use improvised weapons. Also shown are the lock picking and computer hacking mini-games, pickpocketing (or depositing something nasty in somebody's pocket), and general nuclear mayhem. Further detail is available at Shacknews.

Comments

Re:I know this will get me modded off-topic, but..

[ShadowRangerRIT]

More seriously, Fallout was one of the truly great RPGs, particularly in the level of freedom it afforded you. I spent the better part of a summer break playing Fallout 2, over and over, in different permutations. I know I still missed maybe 5% of the missions, including an enormous conspiracy tying New Reno, NCR and Vault City together which my friend found and I only saw the edges of. I'm simultaneously excited about the release, while dreading the possibility that Bethesda screwed it up.

Re:I know this will get me modded off-topic, but..

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry I don't have an account.. so AC.

Anyhow I watched all the vids and the game looks like a nice bioshock/oblivion cross. Doesn't much look or feel much like fallout. Have to play it to see, but in fallout a fight with 3 equally armed and skilled people was hard... this looks like its just a FPS where you knock out thousands if not millions of enemies for no reason at all.

Also not sure how you can do it all without killing people when its just mini dungeons linked all together (like oblivion) that you have to kill * in etc.. just like oblivion..

In fact it looks like its a dumbed down version of oblivion.

Sigh.. hate seing the best strategy games in the world turn into FPS nightmares. Even if it mkaes for a great FPS game.. its sure as shit no turn based strategy game anymore.
(I would kill 5 children and eat 3 live skunks for one of those).

An FPS with stats is still an FPS

[Rui del-Negro]

You mean like RPG players were tricked into buying Oblivion with talk of a "living world" and "revolutionary AI", only to get a first-person combat game with auto-levelling enemies, quests designed for 8 year olds with ADD and an interface designed for the Xbox?

I hope I'm wrong, but I suspect that, with Fallout 3, the FPS gamers "tricked" into buying it will turn out to be the ones that weren't tricked at all.

The demos show a cross between Oblivion and Half Life 2 with a hint of Max Payne. Might be fun to play, and doesn't look bad (then again, there are better-looking games out now), but it's definitely not looking like an RPG (and that has nothing to do with the POV; many milestone RPGs had a 1st person perspective - Dungeon Master, Ultima Underworld, etc.).

Hopefully this time Bethesda will at least have the game properly playtested (Oblivion was only tested internally), and catch the most obvious design / gameplay bugs.

Obvious fallacy in your argument

[Rui del-Negro]

It's not technically possible to dumb down Oblivion.

Re:An intelligent game is you!

[Das Modell]

Well, I am currently a few hours into Fallout1 and I am still waiting for that one to reward intelligent actions. So far each and every quest (all three of them or so, quest seem to be incredible sparse in that game) has got me spawned right in front of the enemy with exactly zero choice to an intelligent approach, since the shooting starts instantly.

Not sure what this is about. One of the earliest quests you get is rescuing Tandi from the raiders, and it has the following solutions (taken from here):

* Kill them all and break her out
* Fight Garl in unarmed combat for her
* Buy her from Garl
* Intimidate Garl for her release
* Quietly kill the two guards in back and pick the lock on Tandi's cell.
* This one doesn't work 100% of the time, but if you enter the Raiders area wearing a Leather Jacket, have 10 ST and 10 EN and are male, the raiders will think you are Garl's father who Garl apparently killed to take control of the Khans. You can try and bluff Garl with this ruse and demand Tandi's release.

Half the people and creatures I am supposed to fight are not even reachable via the worldmap, instead they exist in magical places that you can only reach when an NPC guides you there (aka. instantly teleports you there and when you exist you get teleported back).

This isn't the norm.

Reading through a few FAQs also left me rather puzzles, since most of their "tips" are based on pure try&error and abuse of the save system (save before you steal and if it doesn't work, load and try again..).

You don't have to steal things, it's just one option. Obviously getting caught has to have some consequences, so reloading becomes an issue. However, the higher your steal skill is the more likely you are to succeed, and there are also perks that will make it easier to steal. Approaching your target from the side or the rear increases your odds, and the size of the object you're trying to steal is also a factor.

And given how many times I died just because I tried to talk to the wrong person or asked a wrong question makes it clear that a save before pretty much every action is required for survival.

So far I am not exactly impressed by Fallout1 and quite close to ditching it, since the gameplay just doesn't make a hole lot of sense and the time limit and constant threat of death even on the tiniest misstep of course makes exploration a pain.

This is what happens when a game isn't dumbed down for the lowest common denominator. You have to be careful and think about what you're doing.