Gennext Games interview and preview

Per

Per

Vault Consort
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Dutch gaming site Gennext Games (whose traffic is a fraction of NMA's, in case you're left scratching your head) received an invitation to play Fallout 3 in Amsterdam. The result is a preview and video interview. The interview is almost ten minutes long, but the sound is pretty bad and it doesn't contain anything new that I could make out. An English translation of the preview has been posted on the BGSF by the writer, who is also offering additional comments.<blockquote>The choice of real time combat and the possiblity of 'pausing' the game to target body parts of enemies is awesome. I was afraid i was gonna hate this feature but it's actually quite awesome. I do have to say it doesn't work perfect yet...for example...this dog 'vicious dog' was very close to me, so i 'paused' the game and target his head 4 times...all times he missed. And there are times that you'll blast his head right off. it has to do with experience points though....but it's kinda weird when you are that close and you just miss it, lol.

[..]

As for the graphics, well i was standing ridiculously close to the LCD tv, so aliasing all around, but when i stepped away a bit it looked awesome, and that's how you play games..not with your nose almost into the screen, you know, lol. The draw distance is impressive, very impressive, it rarely happens that things pop up, ok...they do, but rarely. Birds flying around in the air, realistic looking water (toxic as hell though, can't survive long in water,radiation, etc.) nice textures, especially this certain city looked very nice , very atmospheric. Some areas didn't look as polished...but they have time left to fix that and really...it's nothing to [censored] about really.

[..]

But it's the little details that count in a game like this...i saw this big wasp..i think they call it 'bloatfly' , i shot it's wings and he dropped to the floor, you can also headshot these wasps, lol. During another headshot on a human opponent i actually spotted a eyeball flying around..gruesome, yeah...lovely.</blockquote>The following was offered by the previewer on the Bethboard:<blockquote>Well, i read that Eurogamer was also very negative about the game. I didn't bother to read it though cause most other sources..especially IGN was incredibly positive about the game. Plus that the game has already won several awards for best game of the show and many other things like that. That's what the developer told us today. I'm glad that all of you are happy...that was my intention...i was quite enthusiastic about the game..so i wanted to share all this with fellow Fallout 3 fans.</blockquote>I'm sure a lot of people are feeling a little less ambivalent now.

Our own alec provides a more complete English translation with fewer lols in it.

Thanks to Some Random Guy.
 
Also note I don't know if this is the Some Random Guy we're talking about or just some random guy.
 
Maybe the Dutch original doesn't contain as many "lol" and "awesome". Something seems to be up with the translation in any case: the original doesn't end with the "bloatfly" bit. BN or SuA or someone should be able to shed more light.
 
Dooud said:
This guy sounds like an idiot.
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Yes, he does. He basically only points at flaws in Bethesda's VATS system with much of his preview then proceeds to justify various other flaws. How does he make the conclusion that the game is great if he had nothing but negative things to say about it? Of course the things he did mention were pretty stupid anyway, but it's certainly a strange logic. I also find it funny that he didn't bother reading the negative previews simply because there are so many positive ones.
 
Gennext Games said:
As for the graphics, well i was standing ridiculously close to the LCD tv, so aliasing all around, but when i stepped away a bit it looked awesome, and that's how you play games..not with your nose almost into the screen, you know, lol.
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Lol indeed.
 
I like his attitude, "everyone else is positive, so I'll just ignore all the negativity. It got awards and everything!". He just goes with the flow.

Nothing new there, although the bit about third person camera is a bit more detailed than I've seen yet.

The choice of real time combat and the possiblity of 'pausing' the game to target body parts of enemies is awesome. I was afraid i was gonna hate this feature but it's actually quite awesome. I do have to say it doesn't work perfect yet...for example...this dog 'vicious dog' was very close to me, so i 'paused' the game and target his head 4 times...all times he missed. And there are times that you'll blast his head right off. it has to do with experience points though....but it's kinda weird when you are that close and you just miss it, lol.
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Did he miss the percentage numbers on the screen or something? He missed the head four times in a row with a low level character, it must be a bug in VATS :roll:

Glad to hear it's awesome, lol.
 
Per said:
Maybe the Dutch original doesn't contain as many "lol" and "awesome". Something seems to be up with the translation in any case: the original doesn't end with the "bloatfly" bit. BN or SuA or someone should be able to shed more light.
Click to expand...

To be perefectly frank and honest with you: the original Dutch text sucks donkey balls. In each and every way.

Here's a quick and pretty crappy translation of that completely crappy Dutch review:

The event took place [today] at the Plaza Victoria Hotel in Amsterdam. Three people from Bethesda Softworks were there to present their upcoming game, Fallout 3, to the press. Unfortunately we were not allowed to shoot footage of the game, probably because the demo contained locations that weren’t shown during E3.

This week we will put a video-interview online in which we ask one of the developers some questions. We tried to ask questions about things that weren’t yet revealed about the game, and fortunately most of those questions got answered.

Before we could delve into the game, one of the designers held a short presentation. While he played the game on an Xbox 360, he explained some of the features of the game. The best part of the presentation was at the end, when he selected a portable nuke launcher and started blowing up some enemies from a distance, resulting in a very impressive explosion.

Afterwards he aimed his gun upwards and launched a nuke into the sky. The nuke came back down, rendering the player character almost lifeless. He launched another nuke and the result was a very gruesome death animation: the corpse of the player character sky-rocketed and his limbs just flew around.

That’s when we got a chance to try the game out for ourselves. We started in a Vault where you grow up and learn all sorts of things. I tried scouting the area, but unfortunately my path was blocked by a door that required a high level of lockpicking skills to be opened. Of course I did not have the necessary skills.

The only thing I was able to do was open the main Vault door by turning a lever and thus discover the outside world for the very first time.
The loading times were reasonable, they were clearly shorter than was the case [when you went outside for the first time] in Oblivion. The minute I set foot in the outside world, my sight became very hazy/blurred and everything was very bright. Because this was the first time my character left the Vault, he had to get used to the bright sunlight and everything else. This [effect] was well designed. Nice touch, Bethesda!

What immediately struck me were the similarities with Oblivion when it came to the controls. Gamers who played lots of Oblivion will have no problem with these controls whatsoever and that’s a good sign. And just like in Oblivion you can choose between third and first person view. Third person view still isn’t perfect, but it’s way better than was the case in Oblivion. You can also zoom in and out when playing in third person if you feel like your character is standing too close or too far away.

Another thing that works really well is the choice between realtime combat or pausing the game before actually attacking [VATS]. I wouldn’t call it perfect though, ‘cause at a certain moment I was attacked by a vicious dog and I targetted its head three times in a row, yet all three bullets missed their goal. This probably has to do with experience points, but it does seem a little unrealistic when you are standing so close to your target.

When the bullets do hit their target, you’re in for quite some fun, though. In some sort of slowmotion and from a different camera angle, you’ll see the head getting blown off and [the corpse] rolling off a mountain, which is gruesome and hilarious at the same time. Shooting in real time still went a little clumsy, so let’s hope they will work on this some more.

Graphic-wise the game looks really good, even though I was standing too close to the LCD screen. From a distance you could see how the game really looked. A very impressive draw distance. During the scouting of the gameworld, you seldom see pop-ups appear. It does happen, but rarely.
Birds fly through the sky, the water looks realistic, but don’t be fooled: this water is poisonous and you won't survive long if you’ll swim in it or just go stand in it.
At a certain moment I entered some sort of town and everything looked very atmospheric, a lot ‘cosier’ than the rest of the outside world. At the same time this town was like a very pleasant junkyard. That says a lot about the outside world, it’s one big mess.

What I did notice was that if I decided to forget about the main quest for a while and chose to explore the rest of the game world, I encountered very little. I was hoping for some npc’s with, for instance, a sidequest, but what I found was more of an endless road. I asked the developer about this and he told me that there are less sidequests in Fallout 3 than there were in Oblivion. The sidequests will, however, have more variation and depth. Npc’s will, for instance, ask you to help repair their houses or ask you to help them with their work/labour and so on.

As was the case in Oblivion, your character will have to behave. If not, there will be consequences.
When I entered the town I spoke about earlier, the sherrif immediately walked towards me. I talked to him and decided to act like a prick. My character yelled: “Out of my way, there’s a new sherrif in town, arsehole!” The sherrif did not appreciate this at all and immediately started attacking me. So, it was time to pause the game and target four different bodyparts: his leg, arm, head and belly. You do this with the right trigger on the Xbox 360 controller, then you press [the] A [button] and you can watch the animation. The sherrif didn’t die immediately. It took some extra shots in realtime before he went down. But then the whole population [of said town] came after me and this I did not survive.

It’s also in the small details of this game. Whilst on the road I encounterd a giant wasp called a ‘Bloatfly’, and when I shot its wings, it immediately went down. During a shootout with a human opponent we even saw an eyeball fly around after a headshot – in slowmotion. Macabre? You betcha. But also damned awesome. All these things left positive impressions on us, but there were aspects of the game that were considerbly less and I’ll mention these as well.

During our session, we also encountered enough bugs and glitches. For instance, I attacked an NPC who didn’t react to this at all. He just stood there like a headless chicken and I was also able to run straight through him [clipping problems? - alec]. During another shootout I repeatedly hit an enemy in the head, yet he refused to die. The developer told us he was aware of these problems and told us they would not occur in the final release of the game.

Fallout 3 will hit the shelves in the fall of this year. When I asked the developer if it was possible that the release would be delayed (because this happens a lot nowadays), the developer assured me this was not going to be the case.
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Sorry for the poor quality of this translation, but if you could read Dutch, you'd probably understand. A waste of time, really. So don't ask me to make a transcription of what is being said in the vid. I really can't be bothered with this amateuristic interview crap.

Also: I don't have a clue what he means with those "pop-ups". Anyone care to enlighten me?
 
I can add onto the pile of comments and concur that the original text isn't much better, except without lols.

But what will we do without the lols?
 
Interesting logic... IGN (Fucking IGN, man! Who could you trust if not IGN?) was incredibly positive about the game so there's really no point in reading previews that may have something negative to say.
 
I think, he did it for the lolz.

There are many lols in.


Like alec, I also don't know, what he means with this "pop-ups". Anyone has an idea?
 
I think he means distant things suddenly appearing into view as you walk around in 3d... things that were previously invisible (or in the fog.. fog is immersive, btw) to improve performance. You know, like in the old racing games or like in the new NFS games.

So, if this guy mentioned these they probably are horrible in Fallout 3.
 
Have you guys also noticed that what he left out in his rough translation on the Bethesda forums are simply the last two small fragments in which he sums up some of the flaws of the game (glitches and bugs).

What a sucker. Is he afraid they'll ban him for having just the slightest hint of a personal opinion?

Also: after rereading the text, I do believe that FeelTheRads is right concerning those "pop ups". Follow the author's own English translation there, 'cause it's way clearer than in his original Dutch text (which is a very confusing piece of crap sometimes).
 
Gennext said:
Well, i read that Eurogamer was also very negative about the game. I didn't bother to read it though cause most other sources..especially IGN was incredibly positive about the game. Plus that the game has already won several awards for best game of the show and many other things like that. That's what the developer told us today. I'm glad that all of you are happy...that was my intention...i was quite enthusiastic about the game..so i wanted to share all this with fellow Fallout 3 fans.
Click to expand...

:facepalm:

Good going holding up a veneer of impartiality there.

Maybe this guy just likes it himself regardless of outside factors, but this seems to indicate he caved to peer pressure and refuses to recognize negativity because:
a) IGN likes it
b) Bethesda told him it got awards

Oh boy.
 
Saw another Dutch game magazine with a Fallout 3 article in the super market while I was picking up some cans of Cherry Coke.

I didn't buy it but the article brought up how PC gaming was dying, resulting in popular franchises being transferred to the consoles.

That us old school PC fallout fans were really negative while Bethesda was getting it right, but that we basically had accepted that Fallout 3 would be First Person from now on.

I put it back in the racks after reading that, realizing that this was a Bethesda promo piece.
 
PC games dying, lol.
The industry that's still selling the most units of software despite the ease of piracy dying, lol.

Utter morons, lol.

Haven't people been saying PC gaming was dying since the 1990's, lol.

Hell even earlier, lol.
 
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