Games Radar is offering the full PC Gamer US hands-on preview. It's a big one, clicking at three pages, here's some very lizardly excerpts:
Moreover, Shacknews also presents us with their hands-on preview. And it certainly sets itself up differently.<blockquote>"You so much as breathe, and I'm gonna fuckin' end ya."
The words may as well have been coming directly from Bethesda. It felt like the company was challenging me, daring me to write anything negative about their new sequel to Black Isle's classic RPG series. I was very skeptical of whether the company could match the tone and content of the original titles. As good as Bethesda is, the bar was set very high ten years ago.
But based on what I just played--and I had free reign to explore the world at whim--I came away feeling good about the game. Fallout 3 is not Fallout 2.5, and that can be a little disappointing at first, no matter how irrational of a feeling that is. But Fallout 3 is undoubtedly shaping up to be a solid game in its own right, and one that clearly takes many significant cues from the previous titles--from the opening scene, to the wonderfully realized PIPBoy menu. Oblivion: Fallout 3 this is not.
(...)
I decided to set out in one direction, exploring anything I came across. At one point I encountered a decaying school, the brilliantly textured marquee reading "Springfield Elementary." Upon entering the small school I began to scavenge for items, stopping here and there to pick up Stimpaks and Radaways. Just picking up items like Radaways felt good. Some crazed mutants soon appeared, and I was forced to kill them. On my way out I encountered a room of the school that held a giant cage, with several dead bodies hanging above it, like something out of Silent Hill. After seeing this, I quickly made my exit.
In short, this is not your father's Fallout. Some things are better, some things may not live up to expectations, and many things have stayed the same. I'll try to update this post later tonight with additional impressions of what I saw later on in my demo, including the excellent PIPBoy menu, the perk system, and other random bits of information.</blockquote>
- "Melee VATS doesn’t let you target individual body parts, but it does increase your chance of scoring a critical hit and inflicting extra damage."
- An alternative outcome to the Megaton quest: "[Sheriff] Sims immediately marched into the bar and arrested Burke, but made the rookie mistake of turning his back on the prisoner; Burke calmly drew a gun, shot the sheriff in the back (but he did not shoot the deputy), sat back down, and reminded me to finish the job. That’s not exactly how I expected things to go down, but on the bright side I did end up with a snappy new duster coat, hat, and Chinese-made assault rifle that the sheriff wouldn’t need anymore." (No one contested the ownership of an assault rifle? Maybe everyone has them.)
- After defusing the bomb: "Sims’ son presented me with the deed to a vacant Megaton home as a reward. Inside my new residence I found (among other things) a robot butler who offered to give me a haircut, so I restyled my premade character’s bland hair to a bright red color and added a massive bushy handlebar mustache."
- "Melee combat works very much as it does in Oblivion: one button strikes, another blocks."
- "[V.A.T.S. dramatically changes the pace of combat from the “Oblivion with guns” scenario to something slower and more tactical. For example, I caught the raider closest to me in the act of equipping a flamethrower, so I made him a priority target."
- "My action points, which you expend when using VATS, recharged at a rate that let me use the system pretty much as often as I wanted, although not for every shot."
- One quest involves a town beleaguered by a group called the Family who bite people in the neck and drink their blood. They are a little like vampires.
- "With the quest completed, the people of Arafu had outlived their usefulness to me... so I killed everyone in town for no other reason than that I was tired of playing Mr. Nice Guy." (Everyone in town? Think carefully now...)
- "As I looted the blasted-apart remains of the raiders in the store, I found a note from my old pal Mr. Burke - it seems he wants me dead for my actions in Megaton."
Moreover, Shacknews also presents us with their hands-on preview. And it certainly sets itself up differently.<blockquote>"You so much as breathe, and I'm gonna fuckin' end ya."
The words may as well have been coming directly from Bethesda. It felt like the company was challenging me, daring me to write anything negative about their new sequel to Black Isle's classic RPG series. I was very skeptical of whether the company could match the tone and content of the original titles. As good as Bethesda is, the bar was set very high ten years ago.
But based on what I just played--and I had free reign to explore the world at whim--I came away feeling good about the game. Fallout 3 is not Fallout 2.5, and that can be a little disappointing at first, no matter how irrational of a feeling that is. But Fallout 3 is undoubtedly shaping up to be a solid game in its own right, and one that clearly takes many significant cues from the previous titles--from the opening scene, to the wonderfully realized PIPBoy menu. Oblivion: Fallout 3 this is not.
(...)
I decided to set out in one direction, exploring anything I came across. At one point I encountered a decaying school, the brilliantly textured marquee reading "Springfield Elementary." Upon entering the small school I began to scavenge for items, stopping here and there to pick up Stimpaks and Radaways. Just picking up items like Radaways felt good. Some crazed mutants soon appeared, and I was forced to kill them. On my way out I encountered a room of the school that held a giant cage, with several dead bodies hanging above it, like something out of Silent Hill. After seeing this, I quickly made my exit.
In short, this is not your father's Fallout. Some things are better, some things may not live up to expectations, and many things have stayed the same. I'll try to update this post later tonight with additional impressions of what I saw later on in my demo, including the excellent PIPBoy menu, the perk system, and other random bits of information.</blockquote>
