Preview
Platform:
Xbox 360Developer:
Bethesda Softworks Inc.Publisher:
Bethesda Softworks Inc.Previewed by
Justin Fassino on 2007-07-13
Bethesda Softworks has a way of upping the ante with every new release. They take what they know and refine it from game to game to create unparalleled experiences.
Oblivion was arguably unmatched in terms of size and scope, and while it did have its problems, it served as a valuable research tool for Bethesda to begin work on
Fallout 3.
The team has been working on this new
Fallout since 2004, but they finally had enough of a base to show off a live demo at E3 this year. What they've created is jaw-dropping.
Fallout 3 is running on the
Oblivion engine, but don't think for a minute that means you'll be getting
The Elder Scrolls V: Fallout. For one thing, character faces now resemble attractive humans! That's a good start, but Bethesda didn't stop there. The game is defaulted to first-person mode, but can be played in third-person as well. The development team redesigned the third-person camera system from
Oblivion to make it functional, and now the player can play the entire game outside the main character's body without a problem. Additionally, the camera can be fully controlled to allow for different viewing angles; if you want the traditional 3/4 view from the old
Fallout games, you can have that. Otherwise, the default third-person cam is situated behind the main character and slightly off to the right, allowing you to still see everything directly in front of you as well as your character.
While we're on the subject of the main character, Bethesda said they wanted to make the game first-person by default in order to immerse the gamer and suspend their disbelief. They want the gamer to see the world and events in
Fallout 3 as if they were actually a survivor of a nuclear holocaust. Like
Oblivion, the game begins with the player creating their character from scratch. You can choose the looks and stats, just like
Oblivion. One interesting element is that of the main character's father. Voiced by actor Liam Neeson, the model of Father will actually change depending on what you design your own character to look like. So it's conceivable that Father will look slightly different in each particular player's game of
Fallout 3.
The game's story should be familiar to
Fallout fans: after a golden age of nuclear-powered everything, the world is destroyed by warfare. U.S. citizens are moved to underground radiation shelters, called vaults. Once the fallout settles, humanity opens the vaults and returns to its scarred planet's surface to move on with life as best it can. Well, except for one vault. Vault 101 never opened, and the people inside Vault 101 live permanently contained inside. Until, that is, the main character's father leaves, prompting the player to go after him and solve the mystery as to why. Thus opens the surface world of
Fallout 3 to the player. Like in
Oblivion, if you can see it, you can go there (for the most part), although Bethesda says the first hour or so of the game takes place inside Vault 101.
The remainder of the demo was spent showing us how the gameplay and battle system works and taking us through some of the different environments, including a small town called Megaton that grew up around an undetonated nuclear bomb, as well as downtown Washington D.C. An improvement over
Oblivion in terms of the game world is the destruction of objects and surfaces. Bethesda showed this off by shooting into the ground; bullets carved out holes in the pavement and sent small puffs of debris into the air.
Guns will be one of the major weapons in
Fallout 3, and for the most part, the game will play much like a first-person shooter. There will also be laser rifles, melee weapons, and my favorite, a portable nuclear bomb launcher. A neat feature of the weapons is their condition: you'll find different guns, and sometime they won't be in the best shape. You can repair them, however, by finding a duplicate of that weapon and cannibalizing it for parts. This will increase your original gun's accuracy and firing rate, and provides incentive for exploring to find new equipment.
In battle, the game will play like an FPS, as I mentioned, but it can also play like a semi-turn-based shooter, using what Bethesda is calling V.A.T.S. (an acronym for the targeting system in the game). When you scan an enemy, time freezes and you can see the status of its different body parts. Each body part has its own HP bar, as well as a percentage indicating you how likely you are to hit it. You can then choose to target a specific body part and how many times to attack (each attack uses up AP, or Action Points). When you finish with the scan, the game returns to real-time, and your main character loads up his shots. You don't have to control him here, only watch; each bullet is fired according to the instructions you gave (which body part, how many times, etc.) and the camera follows the bullet from muzzle to impact across the battlefield. A successful hit, and you're treated to a
Gears of War-like explosion of gore. Targeting specific appendages has other advantages, too. If you take out the antennae of giant mutated ants, they won't be able to distinguish between friend and foe and will attack each other. It's a wonderful system that will allow you to play the game either tactically or run-and-gun style, depending on your preference (though Bethesda says the game will be awfully hard without V.A.T.S.).
Another element in battle is radiation. By blowing up objects in the environment (resulting in some really awesome-looking mushroom clouds), you'll release radiation into the surrounding area and damage all living things, enemies and friends alike. Take too much radiation, and it will alter your stats, or even kill you. This same caution must be exercised when healing, too. You can restore HP by drinking water, but not all water is clean, and most of it is irradiated, so the key to restoring health is to find the cleanest water you can (sometimes that may be out of a used toilet bowl, as Bethesda eagerly displayed).
What struck me most about the game, though, was the emotional nature conveyed through the screen. Seeing such destruction on a wide scale, even though it was virtual, was depressing. The feeling only deepened when the musical score became audible on the overworld; it was a sad, melancholy tune that reflected the lonely devastation of the world. In addition to the score,
Fallout 3 also contains 20 licensed songs from the 1940s to further propogate that mood, and those songs can be listened to on the in-game radio. Radios are located in certain areas, like the town bar, but you can also tune in to them via your Pipboy, the main character's personal computer that acts as the menu interface for equipping weapons, managing items, and viewing stats. If you want to hear a little "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" by The Ink Spots while blasting mutants through the cranium, you can do that.
Bethesda has a hit on their hands, plain and simple. They're promising a detailed main quest with multiple endings, robust character-building, and semi-fixed leveling (as opposed to
Oblivion's scaled leveling).
Fallout 3 comes out in the fall of 2008 for the PS3, 360, and PC, if you can survive going that long without playing it. It's going to be a long-but-worthwhile wait.
