Screen Play previews Fallout 3

[Brother None]

Screen Play on the Australian the Age Blogs has previewed Fallout 3. It's short, but has some interesting bits on RTwP.<blockquote>Hines says Bethesda is currently balancing the VATS system so it is not too powerful.

At present, you can obviously try to cheat and run up to creatures and then use VATS to increase your chances of a successful strike, but they will do plenty of damage while you are charging towards them, which should be enough of a deterrent.

Hines believes VATS really adds to the game's dramatic tension.

"I've got enough ammo and health packs to keep myself alive, but in the game all that stuff is fairly hard to come by, so we really want to play up that idea like you're down to your last clip of ammo, you're low on health, you queue up some moves in VATS, and you're like: 'Please, God, let this guy die with this shot...'"</blockquote>The same feeling was very common in TB combat, one should note. It'd be cool if they managed to reproduce it.

Link: Fallout 3 Preview on The Age Blogs: Screen Play.

Spotted on F3:APNB.

 

[Pope Viper]

I hope that is the case.

There were many a time I was up against a supermutant, in that exact situation.

 

[Anani Masu]

Really what popped out most to me was

You can even use it to shoot grenades that are hurled at you.

Thrown weapons seem to be in.

 

[Brother None]

Really what popped out most to me was

You can even use it to shoot grenades that are hurled at you.

Thrown weapons seem to be in.

That is jumping to conclusions a bit considering:
- the weapon is being hurled at you, not by you
- "hurled" does not mean "thrown". A grenade launcher can "hurl" grenades.

 

[Briosafreak]

Grenades are in, I'm pretty sure about that.

 

[Makagulfazel]

You can even use it to shoot grenades that are hurled at you.

Hopefully they make the chances pretty slim. I guess it wouldn't be much more unrealistic than shooting someone in the eye, but grenades do usually get thrown at a pretty decent velocity. Hence, the chances should be slim.

 

[JR Jansen]

At present, you can obviously try to cheat and run up to creatures and then use VATS to increase your chances of a successful strike, but they will do plenty of damage while you are charging towards them, which should be enough of a deterrent

This seems bad somehow. It sounds good but think about it. This does mean that melee and unarmed will be very hard because 'they will do plenty of damage while you are charging'. Of course, hth may be closely tied to sneak but i'm still waiting to see how they will pull that off. It is also somewhat contradictory to what Emil said about hth.

 

[Makagulfazel]

This seems bad somehow. It sounds good but think about it. This does mean that melee and unarmed will be very hard because 'they will do plenty of damage while you are charging'. Of course, hth may be closely tied to sneak but i'm still waiting to see how they will pull that off. It is also somewhat contradictory to what Emil said about hth.

Yeah, sometimes I think he says whatever will make the interviewer feel fuzzy on the inside. VATS will likely be used more as an exploit than anything else.

For example, sometimes in Arcanum I would smash spacebar right before a melee enemy got to me to switch to TB. Cheap, yes, but it was within the game's rules.

Have difficulty settings been confirmed?

 

[Cimmerian Nights]

Hines says Bethesda is currently balancing the VATS system so it is not too powerful.

So first they had to nerf enemy attacks in VATS because the strategically challenged might find it "annoying" to get bum rushed by adjacent baddies. Now they have to nerf it the other way because it's too powerful?

Am I the only one who thinks they thought up VATS by the seat of their pants and are making it up as they go along ad hoc? Some kind of design philosophy besides pandering to the idiosyncracies of the ritalin-gorged troglodytes would be nice.

 

[Reverend-Mauser]

At present, you can obviously try to cheat and run up to creatures and then use VATS to increase your chances of a successful strike, but they will do plenty of damage while you are charging towards them, which should be enough of a deterrent

This seems bad somehow. It sounds good but think about it. This does mean that melee and unarmed will be very hard because 'they will do plenty of damage while you are charging'. Of course, hth may be closely tied to sneak but i'm still waiting to see how they will pull that off. It is also somewhat contradictory to what Emil said about hth.

WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED TO SNEAK?? if all you do is fight super mutants in real time..and hiding behind stuff and having dogmeat forage ..and get raped by random glowing ghouls that throw radiation at you??

then why am i still talking about this Retards attempt at copy and pasting the fallout series..pandering to xbox gamers and story and plotlines that dont even make sense??


where does finding your dad fit into all this?

why not get a piprifle and shoot critically into the behemoths eye and save the Fatman launcher for...Say a small child then blow the fuck outta him??

that company is so retarded for not having a demo If they screw it up ill never forgive them..HYPE HYPE HPYE HPYE

and if powered armor sucks in this game ill never play it period..

thats what made me love fallout the most...that i can wear armor and all of a sudden im a super hero!

and i look asome being in it. enclave armor not as cool..but i love any new armors the can come out with!!

Rant over...hehehe

 

[Per]

Try lacing your rants with some coherence next time.

 

[Dracon M'Alkir]

Really what popped out most to me was

You can even use it to shoot grenades that are hurled at you.

Thrown weapons seem to be in.

That is jumping to conclusions a bit considering:
- the weapon is being hurled at you, not by you
- "hurled" does not mean "thrown". A grenade launcher can "hurl" grenades.

No.
A grenade launcher "lobs", "hammers", or "launches" grenades. The only thing that can "hurl" a grenade, is a human being.
Also, grenade launchers were never in Fallout, and given the quality of the 'original' Bethesda weapons: Fatman, Flamesword, etc; I doubt there's a grenade launcher in FO3.

So yes, I believe that he implied 'thrown' grenade.

 

[Ausir]

There were grenade launchers in Tactics.

 

[Dracon M'Alkir]

There were grenade launchers in Tactics.

They've never mentioned Tactics in any interviews. Hines and Howard always said "We're staying true to the first two games"; so I think they don't even know about the existence of Tactics. (Thank goodness)..

Still, most first person shooter have thrown hand grenades. Why is this so hard to believe? It could be ONLY the grenades that are thrown and nothing else.

 

[kyle]

I think they don't even know about the existence of Tactics. (Thank goodness)..

that would be a bad thing,
if they saw tactics they would know that it is possible to have both RT and TB combat, they would also see that RT combat can be really idiotic if not made properly (yay for melee in tactics ...)

 

[Polynikes]

Random encounters with super muties wielding miniguns and flamers were often times when I kept thinking "Please God gimme a freakin' critical hit!"

Usually they never came and I died a very bloody or crispy death. Poor Dogmeat never stood a chance.

 

[Seymour the spore plant]

Still, most first person shooter have thrown hand grenades. Why is this so hard to believe?

Because of the Oblivion engine, and the whole "throwing weapons" debate that game saw pre-release. The only thing to come out of the whole ordeal was an NPC mocking the fans' concerns, which ironically strikes me just as petty and childish as the credits in FOoS.

 

[ZiggyMeister]

I would be pleased if I could do all the fighting using only the V.A.T.S. system. But for what I read that won't be the case, and I will have to use Real Time to recover the AP to use on V.A.T.S.
Because I really like the Turn-Based system used in Fallout and Fallout 2. And that was one of the first things that got me hooked to Fallout, because I was a fan of UFO: Enemy Unknown (X-COM: UFO Defense), where the action was played using a turn-based system.


Also, if I'm not mistaken I will have to watch all my planned moves in V.A.T.S. in some sort of cinematic "slow motion replay" and after a while that can get annoying and old... Maybe if this cinematic thing only shows up when you kill some enemy with a critical hit, and you would watch a "special" death sequence like in the previous Fallouts, I guess that could be OK!

 

[Dracon M'Alkir]

Still, most first person shooter have thrown hand grenades. Why is this so hard to believe?

Because of the Oblivion engine, and the whole "throwing weapons" debate that game saw pre-release. The only thing to come out of the whole ordeal was an NPC mocking the fans' concerns, which ironically strikes me just as petty and childish as the credits in FOoS.

I've seen the Gamebyro engine do some pretty impressive things (outside of Bethesda's hands), but who's to say that they didn't include grenades? I mean, you could drop stuff in Oblivion, they have the PhysX engine in place, so surely it would arc properly, and you always (especially accidentally) sent shit flying from tabletops in the game..

I don't see why they are 'too incompetent' to put a grenade in the game. I mean, if they fail to put grenades in the game, then they fail at making FPS games, as well.

 

[Taskeen]

and if powered armor sucks in this game ill never play it period..

thats what made me love fallout the most...that i can wear armor and all of a sudden im a super hero!

and i look asome being in it. enclave armor not as cool..but i love any new armors the can come out with!!

Ah, I remember the first time getting the Power Armor extremely early in the game. I could waltz into any situation at that point in the game, tell my buddies, "Hang on, I'll take care of this," and come out without a scratch. Now that was fun!