After reproducing 3 articles that were originally printed in 360 magazine a few months back for their "week of Fallout" (<strike>no explanation forthcoming why they reproduced articles from a magazine and presented them as brand new</strike>*), Gameplayer bucks the trend by presenting their own impressions of Fallout 3, quite expansively I might add.<blockquote>Fallout veterans will have plenty to smile about inside The Vault, with a lot of props taking their queues from those in the original. Chatting with Pete Hines after the demo he informed us that Bethesda own Fallout completely: so not just the brand name but everything, which has surely facilitated their ability to get these elements just right.
This includes the design of Pip-boy. Its hazy green colour scheme – reminiscent of those old NEC computers from classrooms of the eighties – is spot on perfect, although you can change its colour scheme if you’re an idiot. The Pip-boy is stacked with information, to the point of almost being overwhelming when you first turn it on, but that is what you get with a deep RPG and we’re sure fans of the genre will greedily feast on its innards.
Various characters roam the halls of the Vault, each with their own agendas and distinct character quirks. One of the first things we saw as a 19yr old (which is where the game starts proper) was a gang of thugs loitering in the halls. We had previously been bullied by them as a 10yr old and they, like us, had now grown up. Little more was seen of the Vault, other than the ability to get a host of primary and secondary quests and the solving of puzzles which involved flicking leavers and hacking computers.
(...)
Oblivion with guns
One of the worries with the Fallout faithful is that Bethesda’s take on the series will just become “Oblivion with guns”. While that undersells the game incredibly, it is also a decent description. Operating off a far advanced version of Bethesda’s own Oblivion engine, Fallout 3’s game design shares obvious traits with its medieval cousin. This is mostly apparent in the rather static way characters move (read ice skate) around, and the way conversation occurs. It’s not shit per se, but it isn’t exactly Mass Effect. Much like Oblivion when you engage in conversation the screen zooms in on the character’s face, dialogue options appear and you select. And the voices sound awfully familiar… same cast perhaps?
That all said, judgements on these elements are wafty at best this far out from release and you should not take the above as religion. Visuals and SFX improve dramatically in the final few builds. But expect character interaction and thus plot progression to follow a very similar method to Oblivion.</blockquote>There's an enormous factlist in pages 6-8 which contains some new facts, including the fact that the map "(visualised in a similar fashion to the land of Tamriel)", is "stacked with things to do" and includes "other vaults". Also, you can kill someone with a teddy bear.
Link: (At least) 101 facts about Fallout 3 on Gameplayer Australia.
* EDIT: so here's the explanation from Chris Stead (thanks Vasara).<blockquote>We have an agreement with a few magazines to get access to content (and vice versa) when either of us do something special/cool. While some of the Fallout stuff over the course of this week is based on the 3hr Fallout presentation we had on Monday, we have also used some of the content we already had access to in order to ensure we covered every corner of the game completely.</blockquote>
This includes the design of Pip-boy. Its hazy green colour scheme – reminiscent of those old NEC computers from classrooms of the eighties – is spot on perfect, although you can change its colour scheme if you’re an idiot. The Pip-boy is stacked with information, to the point of almost being overwhelming when you first turn it on, but that is what you get with a deep RPG and we’re sure fans of the genre will greedily feast on its innards.
Various characters roam the halls of the Vault, each with their own agendas and distinct character quirks. One of the first things we saw as a 19yr old (which is where the game starts proper) was a gang of thugs loitering in the halls. We had previously been bullied by them as a 10yr old and they, like us, had now grown up. Little more was seen of the Vault, other than the ability to get a host of primary and secondary quests and the solving of puzzles which involved flicking leavers and hacking computers.
(...)
Oblivion with guns
One of the worries with the Fallout faithful is that Bethesda’s take on the series will just become “Oblivion with guns”. While that undersells the game incredibly, it is also a decent description. Operating off a far advanced version of Bethesda’s own Oblivion engine, Fallout 3’s game design shares obvious traits with its medieval cousin. This is mostly apparent in the rather static way characters move (read ice skate) around, and the way conversation occurs. It’s not shit per se, but it isn’t exactly Mass Effect. Much like Oblivion when you engage in conversation the screen zooms in on the character’s face, dialogue options appear and you select. And the voices sound awfully familiar… same cast perhaps?
That all said, judgements on these elements are wafty at best this far out from release and you should not take the above as religion. Visuals and SFX improve dramatically in the final few builds. But expect character interaction and thus plot progression to follow a very similar method to Oblivion.</blockquote>There's an enormous factlist in pages 6-8 which contains some new facts, including the fact that the map "(visualised in a similar fashion to the land of Tamriel)", is "stacked with things to do" and includes "other vaults". Also, you can kill someone with a teddy bear.
Link: (At least) 101 facts about Fallout 3 on Gameplayer Australia.
* EDIT: so here's the explanation from Chris Stead (thanks Vasara).<blockquote>We have an agreement with a few magazines to get access to content (and vice versa) when either of us do something special/cool. While some of the Fallout stuff over the course of this week is based on the 3hr Fallout presentation we had on Monday, we have also used some of the content we already had access to in order to ensure we covered every corner of the game completely.</blockquote>
