Fallout 3 Facts That Could Save Your Life 75
This past weekend Bethesda released a few new tidbits of information about Fallout 3. Game journalists were invited to an event with the production team, and came away with a much better sense of what the title is like. "Fortunately, you never had to experience the horrors of a nuclear holocaust. Unfortunately, your mother died during childbirth, and you were raised by your father (in a very scientific fashion). Your early, developmental years play an important part of the character creation process and double as a basic game play tutorial. The G.O.A.T. (Generalized Occupational Aptitude TEST) determines what some of your starting skills and skills will be. Physical, artistic attributes can be customized as well. Much like the first level of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, you can manually alter your starting stats and skills before you venture forth." For an epic amount of coverage on the game, Bethesda's new blog has two posts with copious links to previews and hands-on pieces.
Re:Just what all us fans wanted (Score:3, Interesting)
Hope Destroyed (Score:3, Interesting)
A: You gain points in your skills (not specified if they're automatic or assigned?) and on even levels you gain perks. The maximum level in the game is 20, mainly because the game has a definitive ending which is triggered by the main plot. They mentioned anywhere between 9 and 12 possible endings to the game, possibly depending on side quests and choices made during the main quest lines.
Q: Explain more about the style of Dialogue / Storylines?
A: Again they stressed the fixed ending, with multiple possibilities, and that your actions throughout the game would determine how the main plot resolved. Also that your choices of dialogue can open up more quests, more options for places to go and things to do in the game. Emil really seemed to stress a high level of detail written into the game as far as Dialogue and Quest interaction.
A: There are a few events which cause extreme levels that will never go away, but most radiation from things like blown up cars (nuclear engines) and the mini-nuke weapon will dissipate given a little time.
Q: What is the main quest? (this person may have been sleeping through the demo...)
A: The main quest centers around your dad mysteriously disappearing from the Vault one day, and your quest to find him and find out why he left and where he is/has gone.
Q: Will there be unkillable NPC's?
A: There will be some, but they expressed sadness at this, and said they are putting as few unkillables as they possibly can.
And the new Fallout 3 world keeps all the humor and flavor of the original series. You will find broken down nuclear cars (that will still explode if shot up), crazy robots like Mr. Handy, and a host of sometimes quirky wasteland dwellers. At one point we set one of the exploding nuclear cars on fire and then hopped into a portable nuclear shelter (which costs a quarter to use and looks like a phone booth) to avoid the blast.
http://www.gameindustry.com/review/item.asp?id=85
Re:Just what all us fans wanted (Score:3, Interesting)
This might not be so bad, except that the leveling system was obviously designed to work in a "natural" way so that the player can mostly ignore it (indeed, it's almost the same as Morrowind's, which was required no attention whatsoever from the player, though one COULD pay more attention to it and get more out of each level if one wanted to) and consequently one must work to avoid increasing certain skills at all, while carefully leveling other skills (they're leveled by using them, did I mention that? It's not like you just choose to level individual skills) to a certain level and then stopping, to keep from triggering a new level prematurely.
So, unless you're OCD and willing to put up with a system that is not terribly friendly to level-watching fiends, the only options are to throw the game difficulty slider down to nearly the bottom (which makes the early game WAY too easy, so you really have to keep adjusting it as you go, which feels cheap and makes the whole experience less satisfying, and makes leveling seem even less worthwhile than it already does in this game) or to download a huge 3rd-party overhaul of the system.
I chose the latter, after playing most of my first run through the game with an eye always on the difficulty slider, and man, the second time with the mod was much better. Definitely the way to go.
(/rant off)
Re:Just what all us fans wanted (Score:1, Interesting)
Let's just wait and see what the game's actually like before we engage in mindless Bethesda-bashing, please? You can hate Bethesda all you like if Fallout 3 does turn out to be just like Oblivion, but all indications are that they are at least trying to please existing fans as well as make a game that more than a few hundred people will want to play, so how about we give them a chance and save the hating till it's clear it's deserved?