Fallout 3 Hands-On #6

[horse]

all fine with me

IF they make it possible to remove such retardizations. i liked it that you could play operation flashpoint as the generic tactical shooter (in easy mode) OR beef up your gaming experience by making it very difficult.

 

[Forhekset]

Fuck me, controllers have shoulders now?
You'll have to pardon my "faded memory", I'm an "aged" 33, my Intellivision controllers didn't have no fancy shoulders on them. shoot.

C'mon dude, even the SNES controller had shoulder buttons.

I'm just as disappointed by "bad stuff" being marked in red as the rest of you guys. I didn't play much of Oblivion, which apparently this concept is a holdover from, but this reminds me of Mass Effect's dialogue trees. The nicest dialogue choices are marked in bright blue and the most evil choices are marked in bright red. Just in case you couldn't tell from the context of the conversation, ya know.

Are we sure there isn't a giant WIN button somewhere in this game? I'm used to being led around by the nose in a JRPG, but I never thought I'd see things this dumbed-down in a Fallout title.

If the game 'runs' on common sense, and you can find this out by playing, then you don't need a damn red marker magically telling you that what you're about to do is wrong.

That's the problem, Fallout 3 isn't being made for people with common sense. It's being targeted towards 13 year olds who play Halo and call each other racial and sexual slurs on Xbox Live.

 

[Phil the Nuka-Cola Dude]

Unfortunately, being a thief and sneaking/stealing all the time made your character weak as enemies level-scaled with you (at least that was my experience for the very short time I played that awful game). I believe the rage was to be in the Assassin's Guild to make your character ungodly unbalanced and powerful.

It doesn't have as much to do with being a thief as it does with how your damage caps off. After you've got 100 sword skill, snagged dusk/dawnfang or one of the other legendaries, and have expert armorer to repair your gear to 125%; your damage isn't going to get higher than that. So you've got enemies that are constantly scaling in hp/armor/damage; while you aren't.

Don't even get me started on how it can take ~60 hits to kill an enemy with an unenchanted weapon.

I didn't play much of Oblivion, which apparently this concept is a holdover from, but this reminds me of Mass Effect's dialogue trees. The nicest dialogue choices are marked in bright blue and the most evil choices are marked in bright red. Just in case you couldn't tell from the context of the conversation, ya know.

No. The 'Charm' dialog option (which required a skill) or the 'Intimidate' option (which also required a skill) were the only ones that were color coded... and they were few and far between. With it being commonplace in Mass Effect to have the actual spoken dialog not even vaguely resembling the sentence you chose in the dialog tree, this was necessary.

 

[Jesuit]

No. The 'Charm' dialog option (which required a skill) or the 'Intimidate' option (which also required a skill) were the only ones that were color coded... and they were few and far between. With it being commonplace in Mass Effect to have the actual spoken dialog not even vaguely resembling the sentence you chose in the dialog tree, this was necessary.

Well yeah, but of course, if you read the game's 'dialog' tutorial you'd know that on the magical conversation wheel the options up top are 'nice' and the options below are 'not nice' and the options in the middle are 'neutral' unsurprisingly, none of this really mattered because the result was pretty much ALWAYS the same, even with charm and intimidation options.

At the end of the game if you leaned heavily enough toward one side you get an extra side quest but that's about it.

Aside from that I thought 'Mass Effect' was a really enjoyable movie.

 

[Westbend]

This red marker system is genius! I how I hope it is ingame!
Now I dont have to guess by tedious dialouge anymore if the NPC I am talking to is EVIL or GOOD. All I have to do is look around if he has any possessions lying around!
EVIL character = No red tag and vice versa! Yay!!! I am barely able to tie my shoelaces in the morning as it is!

sigh...

Now they might make it that even stealing from "bad guys" is redmarked, but it wouldnt suprise me if they didnt.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

Partly I can understand the red-marker thing.

In most RPG's it's pretty nice to get rich, and if stealing is allowed, it's usually the preferred way to do so too, simply because its usually fast. So, the automatic impulse at first is to get your grubby hands on whatever you can get, take a look at the consequences and then save/load after you've seen what the consequence is. So, having the red icon removes this hassle. But....

I remember how in Baldur's Gate this was what I first tried. I quickly found out that people generally don't like me stealing from them so I basically switched over to another approach. I quit stealing.

What this basically means is that, for me, not having an indicator, was an actual deterrent from committing to crime, just like it should be. If the game 'runs' on common sense, and you can find this out by playing, then you don't need a damn red marker magically telling you that what you're about to do is wrong. It should be common sense that going into someone's house and picking up stuff is not what people generally like you to do.

With a marker in, you know what will happen, so there is no ambivalence as to the consequence, no grey area, even not an imaginary one. Unless you're actually roleplaying, you'll probably steal everything that isn't checked and leave everything that is checked.

Well said. I personally like a minimal level of tedium (not a big fan of dice rolls for stealing and picking locks in CRPGs) but stuff like this is entirely damaging to the experience. It not only encourages metagaming but forces it which, for a RPG, is major problem. Unsurprisingly it's yet another thing that flys in the face of their claimed total immersion.

I also found the comment about the Fallout games being from the early 90's immensely amusing, guess that's another site to tick off on my list of useless for information about Fallout 3.

 

[Per]

psycho for a stronger attack

Confirmation that they changed Psycho?

and my personal favorite, Nerd Rage, grants you a stat bonus when your hit points fall below a certain point.

Let's see if they can make something of Adrenaline Rush.

You also have the option of using brute force to open the door, but if that fails, the door is forever closed to you unless you can find a key.

As an abstraction, I presume.

I emerged beneath a rather pretty starry sky into the dark wasteland.

Night sky? Interesting.

As the blurring effect subsided and his eyes began to adjust to the toxic outside world, I could see the partially destroyed U.S. Capitol Building in the far distance--so far that I didn't make it to exploring the Statue of Freedom up close within the half-hour allotment. That's how great the draw distance is.

Does the engine take into account the curvature of the Earth, though, or is the world flat?

Apparently my warning shot meant war and is one of countless choices players can make that determine the nearly 10,000 versions of the game's final outcome.

It stops at 10,000, huh?

About mid-way through the town, I barged into one house and was confronted by a woman who mistook me for a drug dealer's thug.

19-year-olds can't sleep with a prostitute, but can establish themselves as the local enforcers.

Another thought: no previewer that I know of has mentioned being able to zoom out and get a near-isometric view in third person. Is the shouldercam as good as it gets?

The WorthPlaying thing was good and game me a good feeling about several things (but not about others).

 

[Ausir]

Confirmation that they changed Psycho?

Yes. In one of the gameplay videos you can see the effects of Psycho listed as only "+25% Damage".

 

[golfmade]

I'm interested to see what they come up with for the Chinese story.

I'd like to know as well.

And actually, as a student of Mandarin Chinese I'd like to hear the radio station. While I'm not fluent in the language, have studied it for 4 years and have lived in Taiwan for the last 2 years. Now when my wife asks me why I'm playing more PC games I can say "But it's got Chinese in it, more practice!"

 

[Brother None]

You think it'll be in Mandarin? I expect English with heavily coated Chinese accents.

no previewer that I know of has mentioned being able to zoom out and get a near-isometric view in third person.

Probably because it's practically useless for gameplay purposes.

 

[Ausir]

Yeah, I expect silly Engrish as well.

 

[golfmade]

You think it'll be in Mandarin? I expect English with heavily coated Chinese accents.

Was thinking this but didn't type it.

I have a few guesses:
1) By blowing their load of cash for voice actors for the other parts, they get one of their employees who knows some Chinese to voice the lines.
2) Same as 1 but they get Chinese World of Warcraft farmers to voice the lines.
3) They see this post and realize that their current Chinese voicing in the game sucks ass and want to pay me to do it (I refuse to do the Beijing accent though).

When the game comes out though and upon hearing the Chinese, I'll let you guys know if it's any good (only if you're interested of course).

Yeah, I expect silly Engrish as well.

This is meant as no offense to you Ausir but having lived in Taiwan for several years, the people here that I've met that speak English have little to no probems with their L and R sounds. The Japanese and Koreans I've met here on the other hand...

 

[Ausir]

But do you think the devs care? They already have a Chinese Spec Ops Manual in the game, which can be read and used to increase your skills, even though it's not really plausible for your character to be able to read Chinese.

 

[golfmade]

But do you think the devs care? They already have a Chinese Spec Ops Manual in the game, which can be read and used to increase your skills, even though it's not really plausible for your character to be able to read Chinese.

Haven't been able to keep up with the deluge of information so I didn't know that, thanks for the info.

So the PC can read Chinese?

I guess it's possible if you're stuck in the vault and your 'elders' think the mainlanders have invaded so they'd teach you Chinese.

On the other hand, you'd have to study Chinese for quite a while to be able to read, comprehend and remember something as specific and difficult as Spec Ops material. Hell, I have difficulty reading kids books in Chinese.

Damn, getting more interested in this, and it's only a small aspect of the game, but one, for me at least, is quite interesting to see how Beth handles it.

 

[Ausir]

And it's hard to imagine an American Vault Dweller with, say, 1 INT, who is fluent in Chinese.

 

[golfmade]

And it's hard to imagine an American Vault Dweller with, say, 1 INT, who is fluent in Chinese.

Hah, good luck with that. For speaking and listening you MIGHT get away with a smattering of understanding but reading? Hell no.

 

[Jesuit]

And it's hard to imagine an American Vault Dweller with, say, 1 INT, who is fluent in Chinese.

How could anyone manage to read those crazy glyphs?

oh holy shit, most field manuals tend to be heavily illustrated!

 

[TTTimo]

So the PC can read Chinese?

Yeah, well, I'm guessing Bethesda meant the books to be like the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. picture books the PC grows up with, all fully illustrated as is should be to show you the art of... kung fu or something

It will be interesting for the Chinese stations to be in actual Mandarin. I prefer that in fact, since I am a Mandarin speaking bloke of Chinese descent. Very glad I still know my 'mother tongue', unlike the 'bananas' I know (yellow on outside, white on inside: only speak English). No hard feelings, my fellow Chinese brothers & sisters, yeah?

As for the accents, it depends on which countries they are from. Mainland Chinese are alright with the Rs and Ls, but they heavily emphasize the Ts. Malaysian and Singaporean Chinese always add 'lah' at the end of every sentence... (just shoot the supermutant lah). The 'Engrish' we hear so often is mostly Hong Kong style, when Cantonese is mixed with the English language. I'm guessing the Cantonese are some of the first to learn English to trade (the Cantonese are everywhere). This is a crude generalization, and some do speak in proper pronunciation. It's just so, in general.

Anyway, it might make sense for the PC to understand Chinese if, say, he comes across one of the Chinese invaders and learns from him/her and gains a perk in the process (Master Shi Fu, teach me Chinese! btw, Shi Fu means master...). In fact, it would make more sense if you can only learn the Chinese manuals after getting the relevant perk or skill. Or, the station can play while subtitles show up on screen. That's immersion for me

 

[Brother None]

For serious guys, why the hell would the Chinese be broadcasting propaganda aimed at Americans in Mandarin. That would make zero sense.

 

[generalissimofurioso]

The Yellow Claw of the Orient laughs at the thing you call "sense"!