I wasnt thrilled with the graphics in the trailer, which were fine but very heavily over-contrasted and lots of fake-looking bump-maps on literally every surface. Gears of War did the same thing. The developers seem to have used lots of canned hardware effects and slopped them over everything. Hopefully that's a symptom of a beta.

For those that read French, here's a preview that doesn't just give Bethesda a hand job:

http://www.gamekult.com/articles/A0000068217/

Partial English translation at NMA:

http://nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=43550

Not looking too good... *sigh*

Whether a game is good or not is of course highly subjective in nature, and popular is not necessarily superior. What corporations are interested in is what sells.

I've played Arena, Daggerfall, MW + expansions, and Oblivion. They've all had "cookie-cutter" elements, but given the sizes of the gameworlds and I would assume a budget that has to be adhered to, one can understand why this is so. Did I enjoy them? Sure I did, but like many others, I too have both F1 & 2, and from my perspective at least, Bethesda's RPGs pale in comparison. They are ok to good, but what is so apparent are the missed opportunities that would have made them great.

I will buy F3, but I hope I don't end up hating myself for it. I'm cheering on Bethesda to do the right thing and make an epic title. Based on my prior experience with their games however, I remain skeptical that there is going to be any dramatic shift in their game design philosophy, and that's a real shame if this is so with F3. One can always hope.

I finally had a chance to look at the movie last night and I don't know what the problem was. So they showed the combat in the second half of it .... they showed blowing shit up. Big deal!! It was entirely in the context (be it very ironic black humor kind of way) with the music in the background. It's that kind of black humor that makes Fallout 3.

Do people honestly think that the it's JUST going to be combat? Next thing you know people will be complaining the dog's not the right shade of brown!

CJ Parker, your homosexual tendencies aside, have you ever played Fallout1 or 2?

What homosexual "tendencies"??? I R TEH KING OF TEH GHEYL0000RRRRRDDDZZZZ, d00d!!!11!!!one!11

To answer the question: Yes, I played FO1 and 2 and thought that they sucked overall. They had some neat aspects like the many different choices about how to approach a situation but in the end I felt that the negatives outweighed the positives. I can definitely understand how or why some people like the games but to refer to them as the ultimate in CRPG'ing is absofuckinglutely ridiculous in my not so humble opinion. They might have been pretty good games if you can deal with the stuff that sucked but best RPGs ever? Come on. Get a life or something.

CJ Parker, your homosexual tendencies aside, have you ever played Fallout1 or 2?

This comment was edited on Jul 16, 10:31.

I thought the fallout 1 & 2 versions was your enemy dying in the most gory way (the same as if a critical) even if you only just killed them.

Yes, that's what a fatal critical hit does. Bloody Mess just makes it so you get the same result even if the fatal hit wasn't a critical.

So by that statement you are saying that you will look at every peace fallout 3 info, and then find stuff to back up your complaints, then you'll pirate it to see if its worth buying even thought you will most likely right it off before then due to the 'oblivion with guns'-ness?

Unfortunately, I highly doubt they'll release any meaningful info pertaining to the actual RPG aspects of the game. Regardless of that, I wasn't going to buy the game without playing it first. If it somehow doesn't suck, I may even buy it.

Bloody Mess is supposed to simulate the effect of getting a lethal critical hit

I thought the fallout 1 & 2 versions was your enemy dying in the most gory way (the same as if a critical) even if you only just killed them.

Don't worry, once they start showing off NPC interactions, dialogue, quests, etc, the complaints will become more substantial.

So by that statement you are saying that you will look at every peace fallout 3 info, and then find stuff to back up your complaints, then you'll pirate it to see if its worth buying even thought you will most likely right it off before then due to the 'oblivion with guns'-ness?

I just saw an interview at e3 for fallout where the guy said that enemies scale. Not totally exactly like oblivion apparently less dramatically than in oblivion.

I just shake my head at that.

I'm a huge Fallout fan but couldn't give two shits about the turn based combat. For me, it was great because of the dialogue, characters, and quests. There is zero chance Bethesda matches them on those three fronts.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, I'd prefer it as a shooter if it matched the originals in those three fronts.


This comment was edited on Jul 15, 18:07.

The deeper the elitist asshole fans get fucked in the ass, the broader the smile on my face...

DrEvil, I thought many (j)RPGs on console had isometric view, including some of the Final Fantasy chapters. Some of them have turn based or semi-turn based action.

So all of them suck?


This comment was edited on Jul 15, 16:45.

This is supposed to be a wasteland with scarce resources so why is our hero running around with a small arsenal of uber weapons? Wouldn’t it be cooler to show our hero using objects in the environment to take out mutants? It seems to me the best weapon humanity could develop in this post-apocalyptic world would be a gravity gun (ala Half-Life 2 style). I mean look at the environment... it’s full of “disposable ammo”.

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http://www.gamemusicjukebox.com/
Game p/reviewer for http://www.gameindustry.com/

the money is in the consoles, a turn based isometric RPG on a console would suck, hence fps. simple business decision

I'm going to make a point that many of you seem to be missing:

Games evolve.

Games devolve is more like it. Games change my ass: they're becoming more and more alike. The games industry has run out of ideas. This notion that changing a turn-based isometric traditional RPG into a console first person somehow constitutes innovation is boneheaded in the extreme. How the hell is taking a unique experience and making it generic moving game design forward?

"It was my understanding that Interplay already screwed it up with Tactics and Brotherhood of Steel."

Can't argue that at all. As soon as the Herve what's-his-fuck took over Interplay, it all went to shit. That doesn't excuse, however, beth's complete raping of Fallout. Even the art direction is off. Where the horrific, yet humorous super mutants and ghouls? Oh yeah, beth decided to take the "survival horror" route and make them "chilling." All the charm of the Fallout series is gone in F3.

All you people criticizing me for criticizing Fallout 3 seem to be missing the point. Most of my criticisms were based on the game itself, not on any comparisons to FO1 or 2. Even if I had never played the first two games, killing somebody with a teddy bear would still be retarded. And the Raiders would still look like over-tanned hobos (just because you don't buy a house doesn't mean you don't have a home). Also, bloody mess doesn't mean your arms should explode when you get shot in the head. It means your head should explode. Bloody Mess is supposed to simulate the effect of getting a lethal critical hit. A lethal non-critical hit should just kill the enemy, no exploding anything. A lethal critical should explode whatever part of the body that gets hit. And again, the apparent redundancy of VATS has nothing to do with FO1 or 2. It is just inherently useless since your real-time accuracy isn't affected by weapon skill.

You can call these criticisms "light" or "minor," but that's only because Bethesda refuses to show anything other than combat. Don't worry, once they start showing off NPC interactions, dialogue, quests, etc, the complaints will become more substantial.

I realize what was shown is not enough to make a completely fully informed decisions. I have played fallout 1 and fallout 2. I have not completely finished them (this was during days where all my friends were playing mutliplayer fps games, so I could not play a slow paced rpg by myself.) But I read a lot about the game, the world, it's development, so I tend to be knowledgeable about the fallout world.

1) Given morrowind and oblivion, bethesda games tend to have huge areas of gameplay but the gameplay inside those areas tends to be shallow and repetitive. I hope this is not the case with fallout 3.

2) Oblivion especially had a cookie cutter design to npc's and dungeons. Everything looked alike. There is no way to be sure based on the demo if that is indeed the case.

3) The brotherhood of steal is not in league with the enclave. Whoever game journalist said that did not check his facts and should not be reporting things he does not know about. That's got to be an enclave transport that is setting down.

4) The nuke catapult is pretty lame. The weapon that you can use teddy bears as ammo is equally lame. They remind me of the ridiculous weapons of Postal 1 and 2.

5) Why use vats? Why not just treat it like a run an gun fps? The only advantage it offers is it allows you to pause the game why would you not just keep shooting in real time?

6) One of the things that made fallout series great is that you could replay the game and have a different gameplay experience. If you specialized in repair for example, you could complete the quests in a completely different matter. If your character was great at conversation, you could avoid all combat all together. I hope fallout 3 is the same way. If you want to be a jack of all trades, you cannot come close to doing everything a specialized character can. This would add replay value tremendously.

7) I see mutants, maybe they are supermutants. They should be real terrors. They should not be pushovers and in the video (maybe the guy is cheating or he's got the most powerful weapons to show them off) they seem like canon fodder.

8) The ign preview and gamespy preview stops just short of calling fallout 3 oblivion with guns, and that does not bode well for the game oblivion is not the classic crpg in the depth department.

9) From the small bits of dialogue in screenshots, I did not see more than 2 or 3 choices for the dialogue. There should be a whole lot more.
This comment was edited on Jul 15, 15:07.

Thanks for screwing up an epic brilliant franchise.

It was my understanding that Interplay already screwed it up with Tactics and Brotherhood of Steel.

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http://theslip.nin.com/
"The Bellic boys! Talking over your town, assholes!"

That's not Fallout by any stretch of the imagination.

"Isometric won''t work in this day and age." Yeah Todd? Tell Blizzzard that for Diablo 3. "Won't be Oblivion with guns." Yeah Todd? What the hell was that you're showing, Mad Max 2008 Extreme?

Thanks for screwing up an epic brilliant franchise.