Desslock has finally returned to his "5 points Fallout 3 has to get right" that he originally stated in late 2006. The grades, plus snips, with the big disclaimer that he grades whether or not they appear in the game, not how well done they are (because he doesn't know yet):<blockquote>1) Get the combat system right.
(...)
I still have reservations about the combat system. Bethesda wasn't ready to demonstrate melee combat, an important part of a game stocked with sledgehammer-toting super-mutants: hopefully, combat that doesn't use VATS won't just feel like Oblivion's sword battles. You can lob mini-tactical nukes at enemies, which could generate a lot of destructive fun, but hopefully, they'll be sufficiently rare and only used at long range, or battles will devolve into absurd parodies. Still, I'm cautiously optimistic.
Grade: B-
2) Don't use Oblivion's difficulty scaling
(...)
Grade: A-
3) Keep it dark and violent
There's a Blood Mess perk and plenty o' graphic violence, along with slavers and suggestions of other adult-themed content, but there won't be any killable children or the ability to demote your wife into whoredom. Given current legal attitudes toward games, I think we're getting as much as we could reasonably expect here, but I still feel the world will come across as less grim and more sanitized than I'd like in a Fallout game.
Violence grade: A+; Dark/Adult content: C-
4) Ensure we can create unique characters
(...)
Grade: B
5) Create your own vision
(...)
Grade: B+</blockquote>He adds in an image subscript:<blockquote>Smacking rats in the groin may have been a somewhat nonsensical quirk in the original Fallout games, but it was a fun nonsensical quirk. Screw realism - it was one of the distinctive features of Fallout that I'll miss.</blockquote>Thanks Stag.
(...)
I still have reservations about the combat system. Bethesda wasn't ready to demonstrate melee combat, an important part of a game stocked with sledgehammer-toting super-mutants: hopefully, combat that doesn't use VATS won't just feel like Oblivion's sword battles. You can lob mini-tactical nukes at enemies, which could generate a lot of destructive fun, but hopefully, they'll be sufficiently rare and only used at long range, or battles will devolve into absurd parodies. Still, I'm cautiously optimistic.
Grade: B-
2) Don't use Oblivion's difficulty scaling
(...)
Grade: A-
3) Keep it dark and violent
There's a Blood Mess perk and plenty o' graphic violence, along with slavers and suggestions of other adult-themed content, but there won't be any killable children or the ability to demote your wife into whoredom. Given current legal attitudes toward games, I think we're getting as much as we could reasonably expect here, but I still feel the world will come across as less grim and more sanitized than I'd like in a Fallout game.
Violence grade: A+; Dark/Adult content: C-
4) Ensure we can create unique characters
(...)
Grade: B
5) Create your own vision
(...)
Grade: B+</blockquote>He adds in an image subscript:<blockquote>Smacking rats in the groin may have been a somewhat nonsensical quirk in the original Fallout games, but it was a fun nonsensical quirk. Screw realism - it was one of the distinctive features of Fallout that I'll miss.</blockquote>Thanks Stag.
