Fallout: New Vegas Coming This Fall, Trailer Released

Bethesda announced today that Fallout: New Vegas is scheduled for release sometime this fall, and they released a trailer as well. Details are scant yet on the official site, but they had this to say: "Experience all the sights and sounds of fabulous New Vegas, brought to you by Vault-Tec, America's First Choice in Post Nuclear Simulation. Explore the treacherous wastes of the Great Southwest from the safety and comfort of your very own vault: Meet new people, confront terrifying creatures, and arm yourself with the latest high-tech weaponry as you make a name for yourself on a thrilling new journey across the Mojave wasteland. A word of warning, however — while Vault-Tec engineers have prepared for every contingency,* in Vegas, fortunes can change in an instant. Enjoy your stay. (* Should not be construed as a legally-binding claim.)"

Re:That is fast!

[djsmiley]

Stand alone...

What worries me now is the word "simulation" in the middle of that statement. I loved fallout 3; played through 3 times (twice for both karma routes + once for all dlc). The only DLC I didn't really enjoy was anchoridge simply because it was a "simulation" and a game for me is a simulation, so you get one inside the other, which then only limits more of what you can do/what is acceptable.

In anchoridge I didn't really care about the person I was controlling as it wasn't "now". Sounds stupid I know as its still a game but I didn't have the connect with the chara. I'd built up over 30 or so hours...

Re:That is fast!

[RogueyWon]

Noted and agreed. However, I don't think we need to worry too much.

Looking at the Fallout 3 manual, you can see that it's also written in Vault-Tec style, but also refers to Fallout 3 as "simulation" in places. I think the implication is supposed to be that Vault-Tec is real world coroporation, and the game we have bought is the simulation.

Oh, and for the record, I thought Operation: Anchorage was basically... well... ok. Adequate, I guess. If there was a real stinker among the DLCs, it was surely Mothership Zeta (which was pure monotony). I also didn't care that much for the new areas or missions added by Broken Steel, though I did like having the level cap raised to 30.

Re:Recommendation

[Denihil]

Honestly, from my experience, nothing will be the same as the original experience, even if it was back to isometric tiles again. Though honestly i don't think that's the producers fault, but more along the lines of growing up a bit, changing individual values (i.e. nowadays we expect something different in a game we buy subconsciously) and other factors which everything said make us just not like a franchise as much as we used to.
I mean, this is all personal experience, don't get me wrong, but i'm 25 now. I was 17'ish when i got into fallout 1 and 2, and i absolutely loved it. Hell, i still play it from time to time. But as far as loading up a game from the beginning, and testing out situations as they occur, simply wandering a map, awestruck in the multitude of options available? Not so much anymore. Maybe i'm old now. Maybe games in general don't mean as much. But trying to find that aqua vitae of gameplay experiences is a red herring, and needs to be approached differently.
Apologies for the rant, btw. Plus, it was really lame not being able to shoot the kids in FO3. Thanks for helping ruin the game, government.

Re:Recommendation

[DoctorFuji]

Just finished playing Fallout and Fallout 2, after playing Fallout 3 (twice). I think there is continuity in the story line and the "world" of Fallout is maintained in Fallout 3. The biggest difference is playing from a different perspective since FO3 is first person. The biggest improvement IMO is that travel in FO3 is better. I had a few random encounters in FO and FO2 where I got wiped out, whereas in FO3 you can better manage when to run away. Just started FO Tactics with much improved graphics, but not much of a storyline. If only they would go back and upgrade the graphics to the first two....

Re:Recommendation

[Beefmancer]

Personally, my answer in "no". Fallout 3 doesn't showcase the intelligent writing of the first games, or immerse the player in the same way. It feels uninspired to me (the old "Oblivion with guns" critique sounds right) and suffers from some poor design choices, despite a ton of great work going into the visual environment. So as you guessed, it's not the same. Fortunately I can see it as a work from different people, so it doesn't ruin anything for me!

Re:Recommendation

[Ranma-sensei]

Yeah, the humor issue bugged me, too. The originals were more... british, if I might say so.

Most of the rest... Well, I have like 30 Mods running to fine-tune the look and feel - ever died of radiation poisoning trying to disarm the nuke? Or how about shooting a Death Claw with a dart gun and then killing it with BBs while dancing around it? No problem with correctly calculated crippling effects.

Additionaly, I definitely use the original FO music files.

However, they did get one thing right:
In FO1, 2 and Tactics, you'd have to be suicidal to rely on close combat. I think BethSoft handled that really nicely (OTOH it's no wonder, since their engine seems to usually prefer melee types).

Oh, but one more thing: Could I have my soul back? I lost it killing Harold with a flamer.

Re:Recommendation

[nine-times]

My main complaint is that it's a little too violent. I don't mean in the "I don't want my kids to play violent games" sense, nor do I mean, "Ewwww... blood and guts, I don't want to see that!" What I mean is, my recollection of the previous fallout games was that you could go from town to town without really fighting anyone. When you did run across some kind of adversary, you could usually find some way around actually fighting them. Often enough, if your character's communication skills were good enough, you could just persuade them to do what you wanted.

I haven't finished Fallout 3 yet, but I feel like there were a bunch of situations where I didn't have much of an option except to fight. It's a minor complaint, I guess, but it added to a vague sense that I had of Fallout 3 somehow not having the depth of the previous games. What you were complaining about with the humor probably also added to that feeling.