Our old friend Will Porter's preview of Fallout 3 is finally online:<blockquote>I'm talking about the little things. Within the Vault 101 itself even ventilation shafts, previously a smattering of pixels high that said 'rattle rattle rattle' when you fiddled them, give an almost uncanny sensation of déjà vu.
The same is true top-side as you enter the town of Megaton and a wary local sheriff warns you not to misbehave (as they always would back in the day before you did misbehave); or stand outside the Washington DC HQ of Galaxy News and see the globe that previously spun in intro scenes of previous Fallouts rendered as a glorious 3D statue. Much time has passed, but the whole damn thing just reeks of Fallout. Whoever thought there could be quite so many shades of brown?
(...)
"That is one big gun!" half-shouts the idiot German journalist who's been sitting next to me as he desperately tries to impress our hosts. I shake my head. He'll never get a medal for being special, not like me.
"That is NOT a gun," affirms Todd Howard from his control platform, as I cross my legs, purse my lips and sashay my lower back and shoulders in the fool's direction. It's actually a gigantic metal key, hanging from the rafters - as any fule kno. It's just waiting for you to hack into the computer system to see it plunge into that beautiful cog door and let in some fresh air to the accompanied screams of Vault dwellers: "He's opening the door! Someone call the Overseer!"
Then it's a brief clamber over long-dropped placards reading, 'Let us in you fuckers!', and a brief ascent into daylight. Now, if we were playing the original games at this point there'd be a half-hour battle with 25 angry rats - so even the most fervent of interweb FO3 naysayers will have to admit that an element of progress has been made...
(...)
Any caveats so far? Well, I'm a huge Fallout fan. You don't really get much bigger. (Well, you do but I guess I'm the smiling face of an unhappy bunch - one far less susceptible to throwing furniture at the walls or squatting atop my swivel chair, holding my knees, hopping up and down and hooting balefully at the internet.) I was just slightly concerned by the emphasis on spectacle and high-intensity action on show at my sneak-peek's climax - namely picking up a Fatboy missile launcher and firing miniature nukes at a goliath super-mutant behemoth.
Now, I'm just as aroused at the thought of running through a wrecked Washington DC with the famed Brotherhood of Steel as the next man - but for me, Fallout should be more subtle, almost like a cinematic Western in its approach. Games developers often throw in as much eye candy as humanly possible into their early presentations because they assume games journalists are stupid and only respond to the loudest and most blatant stimuli. And I honestly hope that this is the case here and that, as it was in the earlier games, the absolutely stupid big guns only come out in the end-game.</blockquote>Link: PC Zone Fallout 3 preview.
Spotted on RPGWatch.
The same is true top-side as you enter the town of Megaton and a wary local sheriff warns you not to misbehave (as they always would back in the day before you did misbehave); or stand outside the Washington DC HQ of Galaxy News and see the globe that previously spun in intro scenes of previous Fallouts rendered as a glorious 3D statue. Much time has passed, but the whole damn thing just reeks of Fallout. Whoever thought there could be quite so many shades of brown?
(...)
"That is one big gun!" half-shouts the idiot German journalist who's been sitting next to me as he desperately tries to impress our hosts. I shake my head. He'll never get a medal for being special, not like me.
"That is NOT a gun," affirms Todd Howard from his control platform, as I cross my legs, purse my lips and sashay my lower back and shoulders in the fool's direction. It's actually a gigantic metal key, hanging from the rafters - as any fule kno. It's just waiting for you to hack into the computer system to see it plunge into that beautiful cog door and let in some fresh air to the accompanied screams of Vault dwellers: "He's opening the door! Someone call the Overseer!"
Then it's a brief clamber over long-dropped placards reading, 'Let us in you fuckers!', and a brief ascent into daylight. Now, if we were playing the original games at this point there'd be a half-hour battle with 25 angry rats - so even the most fervent of interweb FO3 naysayers will have to admit that an element of progress has been made...
(...)
Any caveats so far? Well, I'm a huge Fallout fan. You don't really get much bigger. (Well, you do but I guess I'm the smiling face of an unhappy bunch - one far less susceptible to throwing furniture at the walls or squatting atop my swivel chair, holding my knees, hopping up and down and hooting balefully at the internet.) I was just slightly concerned by the emphasis on spectacle and high-intensity action on show at my sneak-peek's climax - namely picking up a Fatboy missile launcher and firing miniature nukes at a goliath super-mutant behemoth.
Now, I'm just as aroused at the thought of running through a wrecked Washington DC with the famed Brotherhood of Steel as the next man - but for me, Fallout should be more subtle, almost like a cinematic Western in its approach. Games developers often throw in as much eye candy as humanly possible into their early presentations because they assume games journalists are stupid and only respond to the loudest and most blatant stimuli. And I honestly hope that this is the case here and that, as it was in the earlier games, the absolutely stupid big guns only come out in the end-game.</blockquote>Link: PC Zone Fallout 3 preview.
Spotted on RPGWatch.
Having a beer for you guys whatever you may be doing.Salud