Slashdot Log In
Gameplay Videos Released For Fallout 3
Posted by
Soulskill
on Fri Aug 29, 2008 07:55 PM
from the pretty-pictures dept.
from the pretty-pictures dept.
Today Bethesda released walkthrough videos for their upcoming action RPG, Fallout 3. Joystiq has posted the trailers, which contain gameplay footage from the starting area and the city "Megaton," as well as combat scenarios and other features. One fight showcases the targeting system, which they demonstrate by targeting and then shooting off an enemy's arm. Another shows off the ability to create and use improvised weapons. Also shown are the lock picking and computer hacking mini-games, pickpocketing (or depositing something nasty in somebody's pocket), and general nuclear mayhem. Further detail is available at Shacknews.
Related Stories
[+]
No Mod Tools for <em>Fallout 3</em> Launch 91 comments
Rock, Paper, Shotgun interviewed Bethesda's Pete Hines about the upcoming release of Fallout 3. He talks about dealing with misunderstandings about the game prior to launch, violence in modern games, and the fact that the game won't launch with mod tools. "Folk probably took for granted that every time we make a game, there's a mod tool. We explained to folk that it takes a lot of time and effort to get that tool ready for release, and it's not on our schedule right now. We need to get the game done and out. ... Right now, we can't say definitively 'there will be mod tools, and here is when they'll be out.' We discussed some Fallout 3 gameplay videos a few weeks ago. That work remains to be done." In related news, Interplay has picked up Chris Taylor, designer of the original Fallout, to help develop their Fallout MMOG.
[+]
<em>Fallout 3</em> Gets Leaked, Goes Gold 249 comments
Fallout 3 is due to be released in a few weeks, and Bethesda recently announced that all versions of the game have gone gold. They provided the systems specs for the PC release as well. Unfortunately for them, the Xbox 360 version was leaked onto torrent sites almost three weeks early. Bethesda is "looking into" how the game was distributed. In preparation for the launch, game director Todd Howard spoke at length with Gamasutra about the scope of the project, and the differences from their previous games, such as Oblivion. CrispyGamer recently ran a three-part series detailing their four hours of hands-on time with the game. We've previously looked at some gameplay videos for Fallout 3, and discussed the fact that no mod tools will ship with the game.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
nice graphics (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I'm pretty sure they've stated that you can change it to iso view instead of FP.
Re: (Score:2)
I think they have demoed (as usually) the best what game has to offer.
Consequently, whatever was left out of the demo will be half-arsed experience: strategic play, quests w/o killing and well actually playing game without killing anyone.
Greatest feature of original Fallout people are clamoring about that you could have played thru the whole game with only one single battle.
They demoed urban shooter flick with story. I have to conclude that the game has nothing else (interesting) in it.
Original
Re: (Score:2)
Not going to happen, because unlike the old days, hard core RPG gamers (the kind that used to save before level ups so they'd get max hit points, save before and after EVERY combat, etc), are a much smaller part of the market. Bethesda wants to make money, unlike the original Fallout devs who made a well regarded
Re: (Score:2)
An intelligent game is you! (Score:5, Interesting)
They mostly want to show the graphics and the combat. They are reviewing that everywhere but I don't care. I'm awaiting this game for its intelligent side. You can actually play it without having to shoot first and ask questions later. This is rare nowadays...
A game that also rewards intelligent actions? Count me in Bethesda! And I hope other games like that will follow.
Re:An intelligent game is you! (Score:4, Interesting)
A game that also rewards intelligent actions?
Well, I am currently a few hours into Fallout1 and I am still waiting for that one to reward intelligent actions. So far each and every quest (all three of them or so, quest seem to be incredible sparse in that game) has got me spawned right in front of the enemy with exactly zero choice to an intelligent approach, since the shooting starts instantly. Half the people and creatures I am supposed to fight are not even reachable via the worldmap, instead they exist in magical places that you can only reach when an NPC guides you there (aka. instantly teleports you there and when you exist you get teleported back). Reading through a few FAQs also left me rather puzzles, since most of their "tips" are based on pure try&error and abuse of the save system (save before you steal and if it doesn't work, load and try again..). And given how many times I died just because I tried to talk to the wrong person or asked a wrong question makes it clear that a save before pretty much every action is required for survival.
So far I am not exactly impressed by Fallout1 and quite close to ditching it, since the gameplay just doesn't make a hole lot of sense and the time limit and constant threat of death even on the tiniest misstep of course makes exploration a pain.
Parent
Re:An intelligent game is you! (Score:4, Interesting)
Last RPG I played was Planescape so maybe I was just spoiled by that.
There also doesn't seem that much to the game questwise; I think I'm almost done and I haven't really been playing that long.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Fallout and Fallout 2 are fairly buggy games. You may have heard of something via a trigger that didn't actually show the dialogue; I know that happens in FO1.
Re: (Score:2)
Some of it's probably nostalgia, sure. Keep in mind that there was nothing like Fallout before, nothing with the same level of panache and style in everything it did. The neo-50's art theme, the very stylized over-the-top violence, all of that created a game that remains indelible upon those who played it when they were young.
Re: (Score:2)
Hmmm, maybe, but I'm not sure. Fallout was kind of after my time, mind you, I grew up playing CRPGs in the late 80's early 90's, and I can still load up Wasteland and have fun with
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Ergh. Everyone always says "but Wasteland!" I've played Wasteland. Wasteland is a favorite of mine. And Fallout, sir, is not Wasteland. (Okay, I completely butchered that quote.) Seriously, though--Fallout is a spiritual successor to Wasteland (though far superior in most respects, including the most important one--usability); the developers have said as much. Complaining that they co-opt the background (not the story, the setting) is kind of silly.
I played Wasteland for the first time in 1993 or so. I thin
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The dialogue trees are generally better in FO2, and the free-form play is on better display there as well.
If you do pick up FO2, make sure to get the unofficial Fallout 2 patch [nma-fallout.com] (on top of the 1.02 patch if you didn't buy version 1.02) as it fixes most of the quirks in the second game.
Re:An intelligent game is you! (Score:5, Interesting)
Not sure what this is about. One of the earliest quests you get is rescuing Tandi from the raiders, and it has the following solutions (taken from here [wikia.com]):
* Kill them all and break her out
* Fight Garl in unarmed combat for her
* Buy her from Garl
* Intimidate Garl for her release
* Quietly kill the two guards in back and pick the lock on Tandi's cell.
* This one doesn't work 100% of the time, but if you enter the Raiders area wearing a Leather Jacket, have 10 ST and 10 EN and are male, the raiders will think you are Garl's father who Garl apparently killed to take control of the Khans. You can try and bluff Garl with this ruse and demand Tandi's release.
This isn't the norm.
You don't have to steal things, it's just one option. Obviously getting caught has to have some consequences, so reloading becomes an issue. However, the higher your steal skill is the more likely you are to succeed, and there are also perks that will make it easier to steal. Approaching your target from the side or the rear increases your odds, and the size of the object you're trying to steal is also a factor.
This is what happens when a game isn't dumbed down for the lowest common denominator. You have to be careful and think about what you're doing.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
* Kill them all and break her out
* Fight Garl in unarmed combat for her
* Intimidate Garl for her release
* Quietly kill the two guards in back and pick the lock on Tandi's cell.
* This one doesn't work 100% of the time, but if you enter the Raiders area wearing a Leather Jacket, have 10 ST and 10 EN and are male, the raiders will think you are Garl's father who Garl apparently killed to take control of the Khans. You can try and bluff Garl with this ruse and demand Tandi's release.
The problem is that none of that will work if my character doesn't have the right stats and there isn't even a way to find out how good my character needs to be to even have the slimmest chance of success for any of that. So after getting killed trying the first, I got killed trying the second and I think the third one got me killed too, so I bought her ought which seems to be the only think that actually worked with my character, didn't feel very intelligent doing that, was just try&error finding somet
Re: (Score:2)
Your character is not supposed to be able to do everything (at least not well). You can create balanced characters that can do most things, but there will always be something you won't be able to do or aren't good at.
Re: (Score:2)
Your character is not supposed to be able to do everything (at least not well).
Thats all fine, but how do I find out what I can do other by trial&error? Take the hand to hand combat choice for example, how am I supposed to figure out that I won't stand a chance in that one? Is there anyway to query the enemy stats that I am missing?
Re: (Score:2)
How good are you at H2H? How much strength and endurance do you have? If your character is a limp-wristed intellectual then you should already know that trading punches with the leader of a raider group is going to end in tears. Much like in real life.
The level 3 perk Awareness will tell you how much hitpoints a target has and what weapon they have, but you can't know what stats or skills someone has.
Re: (Score:2)
How good are you at H2H? How much strength and endurance do you have?
None of that tells me how strong I am in relation to the enemy. Are five points enough? Six? What about having seven? How am I supposed to know how strong is strong enough to fight a random person in the game? Since its all just points it is impossible to tell which means exactly what, unless you have some prior knowledge from already playing the game or doing the load/save trick. This simply isn't a Lost Vikings or whatever where each character has well defined properties that make it easy to tell who can
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, it is ten years old. Games age quickly and you'll never feel the magic we did when it was fresh and new and we'd never played anything quite like it before.
I got addicted to XCom:UFO pretty quickly and that is even older, same with RAMA, Gabriel Knight and quite few other older games that I played recently. I mean, sure, it might never feel like back in the day, but I don't care as long as it still plays well. Graphically I actually like Fallout quite a bit, sure 256 colors make it look a little grainy, but other then that it looks perfectly fine, sound is fine too. Its the gameplay part that gets annoying, since it seems to be based much more around just tryi
Re: (Score:2)
Anal RPG geeks who had to have MAX stat boosts at every level up, saved before and after every combat, and re-rolled their characters until ALL their stats were perfect are NOT the kind of people who should be catered too in game design. BAD designers, bad bad! What was worse was when they began designing the games with the expectation that the players would do that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why just because as someone raised his entire life in a fallout shelter, as were generations before him, a safe place to shelter from the horrors of nuclear war and the wasteland it wrought, you don't think his immediate reaction to a nuclear weapon would be "sweet, let's set it off!"?
Uh, yeah, me neither. The storyline sounds pretty bad. It's doesn't seem like it's going to be a good installment of the Fallout serices. Ah well, at least the graphics are pretty.
Re: (Score:2)
In original Fallout you could have solved quests without ever shooting at anybody. Fallout 3 is plain shooter in that aspect, quests do not really matter: shoot first, ask questions later. And you have to shoot because you get shoot at first too.
Cedega, or a VLA key, here I come. (Score:2)
Very few games themselves have ever triggered me to do much hardware purchasing. Sure, after playing through _all_ of Doom 3, I got a new video card. But this, this is just amazing. If it runs under Cedega, I'm all over that. If not, fuck.. It'll be the first time.. First time this century.. that I'll slap Windows on my personal home system.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Only the PS3 version got the shaft in the additional content department it has only Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine.
But I must say that I am not overly fond of the existence of the mod community. Why? Because it gives professional developers the justification to slack off! Think about it, if there weren't any amateur modders and patchers the pro's would have more incentive to get it right and bug free the first time, just like they do on consoles. And they'd also have more incentive to release n
Re: (Score:2)
Ha-ha-ha! If I had mod points, I would have modded you up "Funny"!
True: what kind of idiot would trade true gaming - PC gaming - for a gimmicky controller and games which generally belong to genre "button mashing TV show. sit tight and watch." Ha-ha!!!
[/sarcasm]
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Did I miss a memo, I thought that Sony was more evil on slashdot this week instead of microsoft? I can never keep up anymore now that Apple and Google have joined the evil fray.
FPS players (Score:3, Interesting)
I think a lot of FPS players are going to be tricked into buying this ("Wow! Look at those graphics/setting/review score/whatever"), and be very distraught once they learn that it is not an FPS. Sure, there will be those who will like the fact that your shooting skills/power are based upon your stats, but I can see those who are used to guns doing a set amount of damage with a set amount of accuracy being very turned off by this game.
Regardless, I think it looks fantastic, and moves a classic series in the right direction (the isometric viewpoint no longer feels right for this series, IMO). Hopefully it can shake off the "Oblivion with guns" moniker - and properly execute the setting. The new viewpoint/gameplay coupled with the classic Fallout setting/themes (very dark, lots of black humor) looks really promising. There's a lot of ways to mess this one up (especially with regards to the setting!), but it looks like Bethesda did their homework. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
An FPS with stats is still an FPS (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean like RPG players were tricked into buying Oblivion with talk of a "living world" and "revolutionary AI", only to get a first-person combat game with auto-levelling enemies, quests designed for 8 year olds with ADD and an interface designed for the Xbox?
I hope I'm wrong, but I suspect that, with Fallout 3, the FPS gamers "tricked" into buying it will turn out to be the ones that weren't tricked at all.
The demos show a cross between Oblivion and Half Life 2 with a hint of Max Payne. Might be fun to play, and doesn't look bad (then again, there are better-looking games out now), but it's definitely not looking like an RPG (and that has nothing to do with the POV; many milestone RPGs had a 1st person perspective - Dungeon Master, Ultima Underworld, etc.).
Hopefully this time Bethesda will at least have the game properly playtested (Oblivion was only tested internally), and catch the most obvious design / gameplay bugs.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Could you explain that reasoning?
When it comes to UI, simpler is better. Why have one button for character stats, another button for quest log, another button for inventory when you can have ONE button and use a tabbed interface. That also lets the developer port it to other platforms, more platforms more sales. I'm playing the PS3 version myself, which is a "Greatest Hit" now, it's a fine game. Reminds me a bit of the PS2 Drakan
Re:An FPS with stats is still an FPS (Score:4, Insightful)
Could you explain that reasoning?
Let's see, maybe it's the fact that, through 99% of the quests, you have a great big arrow pointing at your next objective, and can basically complete it without even looking at the game world (except to kill monsters).
Maybe it's the fact that even when a quest consists of something like "You must find the secret code to open the door... which is two plus two.", some character standing by the door will tell you "Hi there. The code is four.".
Maybe it's the fact that, each time you complete an intermediate objective, a dialog box pops up with your thoughts ("I have found the door that leads to the secret base." - How the hell do "I" know that? The door looks like any other door! Shouldn't I have to actually explore to see if the secret base is there or not?).
The game doesn't just "hold your hand". It picks you up, carries you around and keeps yelling at you, telling you what's happening in case you suffer from short-term amnesia.
Why have one button for character stats, another button for quest log, another button for inventory when you can have ONE button and use a tabbed interface.
Because I already have a "103-tab interface" sitting in front of me (called a keyboard), I have more than one finger, and would like to be able to get to the screen I want without having to move the cursor, look at several virtually identical icons, and click 4 or 5 times each time I want to change a spell or look at the map.
Hell, the game won't even let you add a description to your saved games or add comments to the map (even Ultima Underworld let you do that, and UU came out in 1992), that's how "anti-keyboard" it is.
I'm playing the PS3 version myself, which is a "Greatest Hit" now, it's a fine game.
Oh, if it's a "greatest hit" it must be good. Glad you're enjoying it. And thanks to the auto-levelling enemies and loot, you can be sure that the experience you're having now will be exactly the same experience you'll have through the next 400 identical quests of the game. Never too easy, never too hard. Why feel vastly superior to an enemy or why feel afraid of a big monster when they can all feel exactly the same? There's nothing quite like improving your magical abilities by 10% and knowing that all the enemies just had their magic resistance increased by 10%, too. The fact they used the same 5 voices for all NPCs also helps give the game a sense of comfortable "unity".
Speaking of which, I've just noticed some of the exact same voices in the Fallout 3 demo, so the transition should be easy.
Don't get me wrong; I think Oblivion looks very nice and is a pretty decent "medieval combat" game. Just as I'm convinced that Fallout 3 will be a decent shooter. But Oblivion is not even close to the believable, consistent, "living" RPG that Bethesda spent years promising, and - I'm convinced - neither will Fallout 3 be.
Oblivion is a 3D Diablo clone with some serious balancing issues and Fallout 3 will be a nice-looking first-person shooter with "stats", (repetitive) dialogues and a bigger world than Half-Life 2, but inferior to HL in every other aspect (because Bethesda simply don't have visionary designers like Origin had, and don't spend three years playtesting and refining like Valve does).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Complex 3D worlds, especially those with lots of scenery, are easy to get turned around/lost in. It was either have a compass with objectives and fast travel or have players constantly complaining about getting lost trying to find tiny little dungeon entrances. I'm glad the feature is there
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I think a lot of FPS players are going to be tricked into buying this ("Wow! Look at those graphics/setting/review score/whatever"), and be very distraught once they learn that it is not an FPS. Sure, there will be those who will like the fact that your shooting skills/power are based upon your stats, but I can see those who are used to guns doing a set amount of damage with a set amount of accuracy being very turned off by this game.
You know, I've heard crap like this before and I'm tired of it. FPS players play games from other genres too. We're not all obnoxious 13 year olds who think Counterstrike is the end all, be all. Most of us have longer attention spans than you give us credit for. We can read where it says 'RPG' on the fucking game box and comprehend that it isn't going to be like CS or Quake. Stop looking down at FPS players like we're retards just because we like twitch games. Very few FPS players are going to be "tri
Re: (Score:2)
We can read where it says 'RPG' on the fucking game box and comprehend that it isn't going to be like CS or Quake.
*You* may not be retarded, but I heard a hell of a lot of whining about Mass Effect having "too much dialogue." Along with the complaints like "Why can't I hit what I'm aiming at?" maybe you should consider that not everyone reads the label, and just thinks "ooh, FPS" when they see a screenshot like the ones we've seen to date.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why not? Fallout has always been isometric, and the Fallout 3 that was under development by Black Isle was also isometric.
Blah, blah, blah. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Oh, no, it's an FPS, it's not Fallout!"
"Durr, it's a tactical shooter now!"
"This game sucks because it looks pretty!"
"Additional generic fanboy 'they castrated it' comment"
Whatever. First of all, the game hasn't even been released yet. All we have is a gameplay video (which actually shows that you can go third-person, as well), teasers and screenshots to work with. To immediately discount the game because it's first-person (or third-person) instead of isometric is simply moronic, and completely disregards any semblance of intelligence that many people believe the game lacks simply because of its first person perspective. Even more silly is the concept that the graphics look good, and therefore the gameplay must be shit. What the hell? Does it have to be isometric sprite-based 256 colour graphics for it to be a good game? For it to be Fallout?
Stupidity. Wait for the game to be released and make your decisions then - Don't knock it based on a couple-minute long video that shows the very beginning of the game (wherein you have no interaction with anything but a vending machine and whatever you decide to randomly shoot). From what I've seen so far, the level system and the perks system looks more or less identical to the old Fallout games, and the general motif definitely seems in tune. I see nothing that immediately jumps out at me as "non-Fallout", and so until I've seen the game in action, I won't say it is or isn't. But, it certainly does look like Fallout.
Re:I know this will get me modded off-topic, but.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:I know this will get me modded off-topic, but.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry I don't have an account.. so AC.
Anyhow I watched all the vids and the game looks like a nice bioshock/oblivion cross. Doesn't much look or feel much like fallout. Have to play it to see, but in fallout a fight with 3 equally armed and skilled people was hard... this looks like its just a FPS where you knock out thousands if not millions of enemies for no reason at all.
Also not sure how you can do it all without killing people when its just mini dungeons linked all together (like oblivion) that you have to kill * in etc.. just like oblivion..
In fact it looks like its a dumbed down version of oblivion.
Sigh.. hate seing the best strategy games in the world turn into FPS nightmares. Even if it mkaes for a great FPS game.. its sure as shit no turn based strategy game anymore.
(I would kill 5 children and eat 3 live skunks for one of those).
Parent
Obvious fallacy in your argument (Score:5, Funny)
It's not technically possible to dumb down Oblivion.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
That wouldn't make it dumber, it would only make it shorter (which might in fact count as an improvement, because it saves you all the anxiety of thinking "surely, the game must get better at some point?" as you follow an arrow and click through pointless repetitve dialogue, hour after hour after hour...).
Re: (Score:2)
See, Bethesda wants to actually "make lots of money". Turn based games are niche games and don't "make lots of money" It's 2008, do you really want it to be exactly like 1997's Fallout 1 which didn't really sell well?
Re: (Score:2)
+10.
I watched videos and second: this is not Fallout. There is ZERO ZILCH NADA of what made Fallout such great, long lasting experience.
Re: (Score:2)
But it probably has lots of what made Oblivion such a great long-lasting experience.
Re: (Score:2)
Your thinking is limited, instead of thinking that Fallout must equal 2D isometric 1990's style RPG, think of Fallout as a "universe" that supports many different styles of gameplay. Like Square-Enix's Ivalice (FF Tactics, FFXI), or TSR's Forgotten Realms, or SOE's Tunaria.
Re:I know this will get me modded off-topic, but.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering that Bethesda already had a homerun with Oblivion, wasn't it smart they based Fallout 3 on it. You have to remember, that although the original Fallout was well regarded, it didn't actually sell all that well. Which is why that are no games like that anymore.
Parent
Obviously the mods didn't play the first two... (Score:2)