Fallout 3

[Gallifrey]

That's awesome

Reminds me of when Thief 2 came out, they put that ragdoll physics engine in it, I had so much fun knocking out guards and tossing them down staircases, just to see them slide down, their heads bouncing off each step and them collapsing in some bizarre pose at the bottom.

[Gothmog]

Hehehe....so much for the politically correct Thief!!

Like the Engine from HL2......you can do incredible things with the bodies...

[Fleisch]

2) After you kill someone (ahem, in self defense only) see what kind of macabre things you can do with their body. The most disturbing: try to stuff the body in the fireplace. It's actually a hard challenge because they tend to not fold so easily, and when you finally get the job done it looks very horrific as their twisted corpse roasts in the fire.

There are lots of videos on You Tube with Oblivion tricks and glitches -- smashing bodies into doors, crushing them with portcullises, dead bodies on the ground twitching as they ride dead horses, etc.

[Metatron]

I happened upon a review of Fallout 3 at IGN today. It does give me some hope for the game. SPECIAL is defiantly in the game, as screenshots attest. I am also intrigued by this VATS system, as it preserves (partly) the AP use and targeting of body parts from the original Fallout, although I am somewhat skeptical of how it actually works in practice. If anything, I would play the game to see how it is implemented. According to the writers, the game has far fewer NPCs than in the TES games, and Bethesda is supposedly making these NPCs very detailed.

Apparently, the choices you make have some more weight to them than in TES as well, as a separate article at gamespot mentions that there is a part of the game where the character may choose to destroy or save a town, with the catch being that only by destroying the town can you access a different town.

The game is designed for first person in mind, like TES, but there are also 3rd person and "isometric" viewpoints according to the articles. I am curious to know their definition of isometric, and whether these camera angles are actually useful in the game, but it does give some hope. Obviously, the graphics are stunning. I would probably have enough fun just getting immersed in the scenery.

Its interesting that the setting seems to be on the east coast of the US, rather than the west coast like in FO1 and FO2.

As for the mini-nuke launchers...they may be a rather ridiculous idea, but I'm sure they are pretty fun to use in the game

[Saxon1974]

Im on the fence on how I think this game will turn out.

Im dont like games with real time combat, so I am curious how the VATS system will work. If its not a FPS clickfest it might be decent.

Things like being able to blow up a town and the nuclear slingshot or whatever might be dumb enough for me to skip this one.

I wish I would have skipped Oblivion.

I do agree that less NPC's with more detail sounds like its on a the right track.

[Gallifrey]

My optimism for FO3 has been dropping with the recent previews. I've read things about some sort of nuclear-blast protective shield or compartment the character has, more details about nuclear-powered cars that explode and such-like. It's been reading more like a Fallout parody than a Fallout game.

[Saxon1974]

My optimism for FO3 has been dropping with the recent previews. I've read things about some sort of nuclear-blast protective shield or compartment the character has, more details about nuclear-powered cars that explode and such-like. It's been reading more like a Fallout parody than a Fallout game.

Yea I agree, im hoping some of this stuff is not in the game. I also heard them say that Radiation will dissapate over time....? I believe at Chernobyl it will be something like 900 years before some of the land is habitable again.

[Metatron]

My optimism for FO3 has been dropping with the recent previews. I've read things about some sort of nuclear-blast protective shield or compartment the character has, more details about nuclear-powered cars that explode and such-like. It's been reading more like a Fallout parody than a Fallout game.

Hmmm... the sheer prevalence of nuclear weaponry *is* a bit disturbing. In the original Fallout games I had the feeling that nuclear weaponry was taboo and given an air of mysteriousness and foreboding (as would be appropriate in a post nuclear wasteland), but it seems that it will be commonplace in FO3. I also was disturbed by the comments made by the writers that seemed to indicate that they think that Fallout was based on violence, and that Bethesda wants to stay as true to this as possible. While Fallout is no doubt a graphically violent game, there is much more to it than that. I will be very sad if the game turns out to be a constant senseless bloodbath with a souped up "bloody mess" trait.

I get the feeling from the screens of big nasty supermutants that many of the enemies may just end up being FO3's version of Daedric monsters. In the earlier games you could occasionaly converse and reason with supermutants and ghouls and even deathclaws-they did have some humanity in them. It will be disappointing if they are turned into mindless baddies in FO3.

I also read that the first town the player comes to will worship an unexploded nuclear bomb, which would seem to be ripped right out of a similar situation in Fallout 1... it was a good reference the first time but stuff like that becomes cliché pretty fast.

At least they did away with Oblivion's level based difficulty adjustment, apparently they realized it was an incredibly stupid idea.

[Gallifrey]

Yeah... I don't know. The recent previews seem to indicate that Bethesda has no idea what "post apocalyptic" actually means and implies. They seem to think it means nuclear doo-dads and silly gadgets everywhere. Reading things about super-mutants needing mini-nukes repeatedly applied to them to die, toaster-shooters, a rip-off of the Half Life 2 grav-gun and so on and so forth just has me pretty cold.
It looks like Bethesda understand that there's a comic element to Fallout, but they just do not have the same sense of humour that the original teams on FO1 and FO2 had. That was black comedy, Bethesda seem to like comedy that appeals to 14 year olds.
I suspect STALKER is probably a better Fallout successor than FO3 is going to be.

[Saxon1974]

Yeah... I don't know. The recent previews seem to indicate that Bethesda has no idea what "post apocalyptic" actually means and implies. They seem to think it means nuclear doo-dads and silly gadgets everywhere. Reading things about super-mutants needing mini-nukes repeatedly applied to them to die, toaster-shooters, a rip-off of the Half Life 2 grav-gun and so on and so forth just has me pretty cold.
It looks like Bethesda understand that there's a comic element to Fallout, but they just do not have the same sense of humour that the original teams on FO1 and FO2 had. That was black comedy, Bethesda seem to like comedy that appeals to 14 year olds.
I suspect STALKER is probably a better Fallout successor than FO3 is going to be.

I really hope your wrong Gallifrey, but I have been having similar feelings. I read something where they said the wasteland will be full of all kinds of Baddies to go out and blow up.....not that this is definitely bad, but really strikes of FPS shooter type gameplay.

Its so hard to tell with big games anymore what you are really going to get, its all PR spin and not much real substance.

I didnt think Oblivion was anywhere near what I was expecting from the PR and previews they put out.

[Gallifrey]

Its so hard to tell with big games anymore what you are really going to get, its all PR spin and not much real substance.

All too true. I haven't bought a new game for quite a while, either because the demo was terrible for one reason or another, or there was no demo and I refuse to buy into the hype and purchase the game based soley on what the publicity declares. That, and I'd need to upgrade my system, but still, nothing has encouraged me to do so.

Game hype is obscene these days. And Bethesda are amongst the absolute worst for it.

[Gothmog]

Like i said. You can trust the guys at Bethesda in making good games for kids!

[Saxon1974]

Its so hard to tell with big games anymore what you are really going to get, its all PR spin and not much real substance.

All too true. I haven't bought a new game for quite a while, either because the demo was terrible for one reason or another, or there was no demo and I refuse to buy into the hype and purchase the game based soley on what the publicity declares. That, and I'd need to upgrade my system, but still, nothing has encouraged me to do so.

Game hype is obscene these days. And Bethesda are amongst the absolute worst for it.

I actually decided to upgrade my graphics card for Oblivion, I was going to soon anyway but figured that was a good time....sigh.......

Anyway, yea i think at this point my pc is decent and can be used for quite a few more years if I stop buying new games. I don't really see any on the horizon that looks like they will justify me doing anymore upgrades.

[Saxon1974]

Like i said. You can trust the guys at Bethesda in making good games for kids!

Yes sadly the legions of brain dead kidz clicking away on their 360's outnumbers those of us that like the old school RPG experience. I liked it better in the mid 80's when it was a niche market and games were designed just for us and people called us geeks.

I dont care if kiddos wanna bash away a 360 controller, but it makes me angry they are attaching the title "RPG" to games like Oblivion!

[Saxon1974]

Like i said. You can trust the guys at Bethesda in making good games for kids!

Yes sadly the legions of brain dead kidz clicking away on their 360's outnumbers those of us that like the old school RPG experience. I liked it better in the mid 80's when it was a niche market and games were designed just for us and people called us geeks.

I dont care if kiddos wanna bash away a 360 controller, but it makes me angry they are attaching the title "RPG" to games like Oblivion!