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Role Playing (Games)

Fallout 3 Fundamentals Released via Game Informer 135

CVG is carrying details out of the newest Game Informer magazine, which has a huge feature on Fallout 3. The relatively spoiler free information gives us hints at some of the biggest elements of the game, such as combat, character creation and growth, and the possibility of multiple endings. " Fallout 3 kicks off with your birth and your mother's death in a vault hospital. This is where you get to create you character as your father (voiced by Liam Neeson) hands you over to the DNA analyser, before removing his mask to reveal similar traits to the ones you picked ... Fans will be pleased to hear that the Karma system is making a return, and there are 9-12 possible endings based on your actions. If it's even half as good as Oblivion, this should turn out to be something very special indeed."
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Fallout 3 Fundamentals Released via Game Informer

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  • but if they manage to make this V.A.T.S. system tight and intuitive, them may just have a serious case of awesome here.
    • by revlayle ( 964221 ) on Friday June 15, 2007 @12:42PM (#19521633)
      as long as VATS lest me also play without a serious case of Diablo-like button mashing and let me takes a bit of time (which the article hints to as an option), then I can deal with that if everything else ends up a good representation of the fallout world and its associated storytelling.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 15, 2007 @01:17PM (#19522159)
      Resemblant of the great cries of betrayal and censure when Retro said that Metroid Prime was going to be a (largely) first-person game instead of 2d. Despite all the outcry, it turned out to be one of the strongest GameCube titles, both in terms of critical review (http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/simplera tings.asp, 3rd highest aggregate review of all games across all platforms) and sales.

      To me, the interesting and meaningful parts of a game aren't things as prosaic as the game's camera setting. Fallout was define by its diverse freedom of choice, dark but wry humour, strong story and NPCs and fantastic setting. The camera and combat system in Fallout Tactics was precisely the same as Fallout 1/2, but it wasn't even the palest shadow of either of those titles. Clearly, the combat/camera system alone isn't what defines Fallout. As long as Bethesda brings those quintessential Fallout thematics and aesthetics to Fallout 3, I think it will carry the torch of the Fallout legacy very well.
      • by grumbel ( 592662 )
        ### Resemblant of the great cries of betrayal and censure when Retro said that Metroid Prime was going to be a (largely) first-person game instead of 2d.

        And yet I still hate MetroidPrime with passion, while I love the 2D ones. There definitively was a lot that got lost in translation, the however majority didn't seem to care.

        I however wouldn't worry much about Fallout3, if it turns out ugly, one couldn't have done anything anyway and if it turns out good, then well, we have one more great game. So lets appr
  • by ravenshrike ( 808508 ) on Friday June 15, 2007 @12:38PM (#19521567)

    If it's even half as good as Oblivion, this should turn out to be something very special indeed.
    If it's remotely anything like Oblivion, except for the fact that it's first person, it will have failed miserably as a Fallout game.
    • So true. Not only is Oblivion not what a Fallout game should aspire to be like...it's not what ANY video game should aspire to be like. Unless you like incredibly clunky battle mechanics that ruin any positive aspects the game may have had.
      • True dat. The idea of "The Elder Scrolls" series was always good though, they've just had piss poor execution. Definitely lacking in the fun factor, which was an area the original Fallout and Fallout II excelled in (Making somebodies head explode, Weee!) Totally open ended gameplay sounds like a good idea, but often falls so far short of the promise.
    • by Sciros ( 986030 )
      Well, Mario 64 wasn't much like Super Mario World but it was FRIGGIN AMAZING, and a "Mario" game at that. I'm simply saying that franchises can take new directions and remain as strong as ever. I have confidence in Bethesda on this project -- they know there is a lot of pressure on them to please old-school Fallout fans as well as expose new players to the series. If it evolves into some sort of Fallout/Elder Scrolls hybrid, that would be quite interesting. I know a lot of Slashdotters for some reason disli
      • Well, Mario 64 wasn't much like Super Mario World but it was FRIGGIN AMAZING...

        Yeah. Frigging Amazing. I was friggin amazed they released it because the camera was so bad. And then friggin amazed that they brought the same shitty camera system into Donkey Kong Country.
        • by Sciros ( 986030 )
          You had trouble controlling the camera? Maybe it's just a question of skill with the C-buttons? I never had issues with it, and my brother is able to speed-run the game like a beast so it was no issue for him. I think in general the camera system was thought of as good. It took a console generation IMO to improve it (e.g. Wind Waker)...
          DKC was for SNES by the way. You probably mean DK64.
          • 64 it is. Just referring generically to the series. Loved the SNES 2d ones.

            And yes, they eventually improved upon it, but I thought those first couple iterations were awful.
            • by Sciros ( 986030 )
              Hmm.. IMO Mario 64 set a standard for 3D platformers that hasn't yet been matched in terms of overall gameplay as well as play control. But not everyone feels that way. One thing for sure is that I haven't been as precisely "in control" of a character in any 3D platformer as I was in Mario 64. Banjo was good in that respect, too, but it was a straight ripoff so it gets way less credit :-)

              DKC games were amazing, at least the first two. And the music was sooo good. Maybe the next Banjo game will bring Rare ba
      • Another example: I was very wary when Price of Persia: Sands of Time was announced. I think we all had horrible memories of Prince of Persia: 3D at that time.

        But it turned out to be one of the best games of the year, if not the best. It stayed true to the original Prince of Persia 2D games while re-inventing itself with a much smarter story and nearly-flawless conversion of the same running-and-jumping gameplay to 3D.
    • You're just setting yourself up for failure with comments like that. Rhetorically, one can understand your sentiment - that you didn't like Oblivion, and that you consider the Fallout games to be drastically different than the content featured in Oblivion.

      Regardless, it's an incredibly stupid thing to say. I can come up with broad similarities in both games that I'm sure you'd want to see in Fallout 3.
      • by kv9 ( 697238 )

        Regardless, it's an incredibly stupid thing to say. I can come up with broad similarities in both games that I'm sure you'd want to see in Fallout 3.

        how about a car analogy?

    • by LightPhoenix7 ( 1070028 ) on Friday June 15, 2007 @12:53PM (#19521807)
      I completely agree.

      Part of the beauty of Fallout was the Action Point-based combat. It forced you to stop and think about what you were doing every "round." This sounds like a major step downward to me - a token AP system to appease the fans, while having a real-time system to draw the Oblivion-FPS crew.

      That said, I do understand why they need to do this. Unfortunately, computer gaming in general and especially RPGs are on a downward trend as far as sales go. You have a couple of big names - Oblivion, Neverwinter Nights - and a bunch of smaller names that just get ignored. Why would a smaller company waste time on that when they could make a console game, where RPGs still enjoy a large following?

      Bringing it around full circle, Fallout was a big brand back in the day, but by this point, I don't doubt that it will have been built up so much by people when it comes out that it will inevitably disappoint a large number of people. Better to just ignore all the hype until the game comes out.

      • by bishiraver ( 707931 ) on Friday June 15, 2007 @03:34PM (#19524257) Homepage
        Ugh. The AP system isn't what made fallout Fallout. The witty dialog, the gripping environmental immersion - broken, might I say, by the AP system - the choices to make - those are what made fallout Fallout.

        Game mechanics have to change with the times ... as do graphics engines. I don't think this AP system will be a "bones to the old crowd" type gesture. It will add breaks and pauses to the game-play just as the original AP system did. I just hope this time that the next time I walk into an area with 52 rats on screen it won't take me three hours to clear it waiting for all 52 enemies to move. The AP system was AMAZING for small encounters of 6 entities. Once it got to be more than that, it was a serious pitfall of the game - and turned a LOT of people off to it. Not only was it frustratingly long to wait through, but it interrupted the rhythm of the game, jarring you out of your sense of immersion.

        Having the kind of graphics engine they will, that jarring effect will be even more pronounced if they had gone with the classic AP system.

        You morons whining about how it won't be exactly like your precious original fallout annoy the hell out of me. "If it isn't broke, don't fix it" you say - but a lot of it WAS broken by today's standards. It's still extremely entertaining to dust off and play, but it still has gameplay flaws: just like every other game out there. It was a fantastic game, one of the best, but even the best have faults. Remember that.
        • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Game mechanics have to change with the times

          The only reason the original Fallout game mechanics have been tossed completely out the window is that the rights to the franchise were sold off. Black Isle's vision of Fallout 3 [wikipedia.org] sought to preserve the core gameplay while updating the engine.

          Saying that every game must be a real-time FPS hybrid for the sake of modernity is strange considering the FPS predates the isometric turn-based CRPG. The true, primary reason behind the switch is that command-heavy, isometric

        • by Your.Master ( 1088569 ) on Friday June 15, 2007 @04:56PM (#19525441)
          Well, I liked it, and as a fan of the original games and -- and this is the big point -- as somebody who was bored by the gameplay mechanics of such popular and influential games as Oblivion, I'd really rather this one had a similar system to its predecessors.

          Honestly, for the most part I'm not sure game mechanics have really developed at all in the sense you describe. We have come up with some entirely new ones, and mixed and matched old ones in innovative ways, but for the most part we're dealing with the same pool of game mechanics with more developed UIs, AIs, and graphics.

          This one might surprise me, you never know. But I'd still like a game -- even one in a different setting, so long as the setting was also good -- that made evolutionary developments to the old turn-based action point system. Hell, Fallout Tactics was unpopular, but it had a kind of hybrid real-time and action point system that wasn't so bad. From what I've seen preliminarily here, this will likely have game mechanics that I generally do not enjoy.

          Now, let me take a moment to strawman attack you :) (I mean this only as an analogy).

          When you call people morons for having the opposite preference in game mechanics to you, I am reminded of the forum complainers and even "professional" reviewers who complain that the Civilization series hasn't modernized to include such developments as "real-time". You see it every now and again -- "wow, Civilization is a great game, but you know what would make it better? Making it into a StarCraft clone!" It baffles me because Civilization doesn't seem to me to be very much more related to an RTS than either is to an FPS.

          In the same way, I find your claim that this is simply a development, a fixing of a broken system, to be ignorant of the fact that people may not prefer the exchange for a different broken system (you yourself admitted that all games have gameplay flaws). The argument would make sense only if the system were fundamentally the better (or the same) in every conceivable way (or very, very nearly so). Again, hypothetically we can imagine that this might be so when the game is released. I just have sincere doubts.

          I liked the big battles and the way that all played out, and if I'm a moron, that's not the reason I'm a moron.
          • A real-time version of Civilization would take a really long time to play.
          • Nah, I wasn't calling people morons for liking a different system. I was calling people morons because they're whining about how it isn't their vision of what fallout 3 should play like. Most of the people like this, from what I've observed (and it could be completely the opposite..) are not involved in the designing of play mechanics for eye-level shelf title. Art, music, even programming or writing - none of them are really all that involved in the fundamental game design (what it takes to turn the game i
        • The AP system isn't what made fallout Fallout. The witty dialog, the gripping environmental immersion [...]

          Hmmm, I am not so sure about that. The same combination of an AP-based combat and superb storytelling (art and all) was seen in another kick-ass game: the original UFO. If you think about it, the combat systems are nearly identical. What they are doing is certainly a big loss, if not for the Fallout, then for me personally. I never liked real-time tactics; Gears Of War is the only exception so far,

    • by GeckoX ( 259575 )
      While I haven't the faintest why they threw Oblivion in there, they did NOT say 'If it's even half _like_ Oblivion'...they said 'If it's even half _as_good_as_ Oblivion'...big difference.

      But you know that already I'm sure, just chose to ignore it so you could bitch about something ;)

      Hint: When tearing down stupid statements, stick to the stupid parts...there's no need to invent your own :)
      • Apart from shininess and a general appeal to the LCD of the gaming population, Oblivion had very little to recommend it. It had great potential, to be certain, but as released it was a shit game. Of all my friends who play computer games regularly, not one of us found Oblivion particularly engaging. Obviously this is just a personal anecdote, but it still remains true.
    • by Tetris Ling ( 836450 ) on Friday June 15, 2007 @12:56PM (#19521855)

      If it's remotely anything like Oblivion, except for the fact that it's first person, it will have failed miserably as a Fallout game.

      You mean, if Fallout 3 has a wide open world where you explore a vast world mostly on your own, where you quest at your own pace, and where you can play using stealth/violence/etc at your own discretion, then it will have failed as a Fallout game?

      Seriously, Fallout and Oblivion are very different games (c.f. their combat systems, for instance), but they have many, many similarities in structure and game flow. Why will being "remotely" like Oblivion ruin Fallout 3 when Fallout 1 and 2 are already "remotely" like Oblivion as it stands?

      • Agreed. There aren't a lot of open-ended RPGs coming out any more, and Oblivion is definitely the standout. If anything, GP should be grateful that Fallout was picked up by someone who's at least dealt with some of Fallout's key elements.
        • by Shihar ( 153932 )
          Oblivion was 'open ended' in that you picked your quests and did them at your own pace. Beyond that, the game was on rails. In Fallout, you could solve almost every single quest many different ways. In Oblivion, most quests had one only one final 'answer'. Personally, I fear for this part of Fallout more then anything else. The combat, SPECIAL, all these things to me are easy to sacrifice for new and improved versions. What I fear is crappy Oblivion style dialog and narrow oblivion style quests.
    • Ahhh, GI, spouting shit like normal
      That's right! If someone says something you don't agree with, it can't be that they have a different opinion to you... so they must be lying!

      You teach those opinionated bastards a lesson!

      (In other words, try to learn what subjectivity is and you might just make another comment on /. without looking like an idiot.)
      • Fanboys are easy to spot nowadays. It's eithers "ZOMG, opinion, opinion, everything is an opinion; look how reasonable I am!" or "ZOMG, shut the hell up and be positive!".

        ravenshrike is right; comparing F3 to Oblivion, and pretending the latter was perfect is a lame and blatantly obvious attempt to benefit from all the hype. It adds nothing to the actual content of the news entry. Besides, any competent journalist should know that such comparison will piss off many Fallout fans.
        • How is saying "I felt this game was good quality and well done: hopefully such quality will be brought to this title as well" an attempt to 'piss off' Fallout fans?

          And what exactly am I fanboy of? Please explain, because the last time I checked I thought Oblivion was good but not great, and I have never played Fallout in my life. Please, please extrapolate on how my attempt to bring some moderation to the conversation was fanboyism.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      The problem with Morrowind and Oblivion is that they are of that rare breed, the western RPG... or are they?

      Morrowind and Oblivion allow the player to travel anywhere anytime BUT are at the same time on rails.

      This is an odd mix of western and japanese style RPG.

      A typical Bioware western RPG restricts where you can move at certain time BUT typically gives you a certain amount of freedom to choose your alignment.

      A typical japanese RPG gives you a named character to play with a pre-defined background and you f

      • by GeckoX ( 259575 )
        Good points, and I do have to admit that vanilla oblivion has some serious drawbacks in the areas you mentioned.

        However, as Obscuro's Oblivion Overhaul shows, the game could have been made open ended without being 'weird' about it. I admit that when I'm thinking of Oblivion, I'm always thinking of the game with OOO installed...which isn't fair as at this point, the bulk of people that have played Oblivion have no idea what this is as it isn't available on consoles, only on PC. Vanilla Oblivion while good, i
      • by Rational ( 1990 )
        The choice between 'light' and 'dark' in the Bioware games (much as I actually enjoy them) is so crude I'd sooner not have it, to tell you the truth. Same goes for something like Fable. Hopefully, some day they will evolve into something a bit more nuanced, but until then, I prefer the non-judgemental approach of something like TES, where actions aren't defined as good or evil, only punishable or not.
      • by mink ( 266117 )
        I think you need to play more JRPG games then.

        Many do in fact have more then one ending. The games that do that typically have several branch points where your action top that point, or a choice you make at that point determines the path you go down.

        Sure the whole thing is still completely on rails but more then one differeing ending is not unheard of.
    • Ahhh, GI, spouting shit like normal

      You don't agree with what they say, therefore they're "spouting shit?" Please.

      If it's remotely anything like Oblivion, except for the fact that it's first person, it will have failed miserably as a Fallout game.

      They didn't say "like" Oblivion, they said "as good as" Oblivion.

      Take this following sentence for example: "If it's even half as good as Unreal Tournament, this should turn out to be something special." Does that imply that Fallout will have a disembodied announcer
    • by _KiTA_ ( 241027 )
      If it's remotely anything like Oblivion, except for the fact that it's first person, it will have failed miserably as a Fallout game.

      Oh no, it'll have failed as a small name computer RPG that's ten YEARS old this year.

      My god, what will Bethesda do?!?

      I guess they'll just have to, you know, make a really kickass modern CRPG, of which Oblivion is considered one of the best examples of. The guys at NMA-Fallout blubbering nonwithstanding.

      THE HORROR! The next thing you'll know, Nintendo will start making THREE
  • Stop (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AstrumPreliator ( 708436 ) on Friday June 15, 2007 @01:03PM (#19521943)
    If it's even half as good as Oblivion, this should turn out to be something very special indeed.

    Stop comparing it to Oblivion. A lot of people hated it and a lot of people liked it. I'm hoping Bethesda has enough sense to realize that they're making a sequel to a game that they didn't create, not a sequel to a game they did make. These should be two distinct games, not a post-apocalyptic Oblivion. It should be good compared to Fallout 1 and 2, not Oblivion.
    • Of course people are going to compare it to Oblivion since The Elder Scrolls is the highest-profile achievement of Bethesda. The best predictor of future performance is past performance, so comparisons are inevitable and smart when you're speculating.

      These should be two distinct games, not a post-apocalyptic Oblivion.
      Good comparison. Hypocritical at all?
    • Re:Stop (Score:5, Informative)

      by Lightwarrior ( 73124 ) on Friday June 15, 2007 @01:39PM (#19522525) Journal
      To quote Vice President of Public Relations and Marketing Pete Hines:

      "Internally, we're a bunch of Fallout geeks. There is nobody [here] who hasn't played that game and enjoyed it. I have that game on my laptop, I take it with me and play it. But it's definitely different, because it's not really considered ours, the franchise. We didn't start it. There is a little bit of that sentiment out there that we have to prove that we're worthy to be the guys to make Fallout 3. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, because we have very high expectations for ourselves."

      So, yes, they have acknowledge that it's not a series that they created, and that they have a lot to live up to.
      • It doesn't even matter. What this breaks down to is, Real-time vs Turn-based. The Turn-based people are completely sure that it can't be fallout if they can't take an hour to decide their move, or that it'll be a buttonfest or any of a number of other knee jerk reactions.

        I'll be frank: I never liked the mechanics in fallout. It pretty much made a few builds unbeatable, and that was all there is to it. If you decided to go any way other than pure ranged combat, you had to be an expert in running like hell, b
        • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward
          What it really boils down to is the eternal conflict between roll-players (a derogatory term which I'm reclaiming) and roleplayers. (Fallout is -- was -- loosely based on GURPS, and is of course a CRPG.)

          You don't play real pen-and-paper RPGs in real-time, and the original D&D was based on a tabletop wargame. So yeah, there are going to be a lot of fans of turn-based game mechanics attracted to RPGs. Lashing out against those attracted to CRPGs because of the tactical combat aspect is a bit backwards.

          And
          • by Haeleth ( 414428 )

            single-player CRPGs, according to Gary Gygax at least, don't even allow for roleplaying... as playing a role requires an audience (any other definition, as he's commented, makes every game a roleplaying game and the definition becomes meaningless)

            He's totally wrong, of course. A good single-player role-playing game like Morrowind (not to be confused with roll-playing games, like e.g. Neverwinter Nights becomes in single-player mode) does permit roleplaying of a genuine sort, if admittedly limited in scope.

        • by Rayonic ( 462789 )

          If you decided to go any way other than pure ranged combat, you had to be an expert in running like hell, because you'd be cut down in every random encounter

          Bullshit. I played through and had a very good time with a purely melee character in both Fallout games. Lots of AP + a Super Sledgehammer is surprisingly effective.
        • by Jackmn ( 895532 )

          If you decided to go any way other than pure ranged combat
          Both melee and hand to hand were perfectly viable builds all the way through the game. 10 luck jinxed hand to hand characters were particularly hilarious to play.
      • Yeah. About that.

        Quote: Pete Hines: "Internally, not really. Internally, we're a bunch of Fallout geeks. There is nobody [here] who hasn't played that game and enjoyed it. I have that game on my laptop, I take it with me and play it. But it's definitely different, because it's not really considered ours, the franchise. We didn't start it. There is a little bit of that sentiment out there that we have to prove that we're worthy to be the guys to make Fallout 3. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, because we have very high expectations for ourselves. The standard that we hold ourselves to, the kind of games we expect to make in terms of quality, we have a very high level of expectation. There's really nothing like the people from the outside expecting more than we expect ourselves."

        The notion that all Bethesda devs have played and loved Fallout is highly questionable, considering that in 2004, one Bethesda developer registered as HayT on the Something Awful forums stated:

        Quote: I also need to find time to play through Fallout 2 now, which is a game I never got to. Don't know when the hell that's going to happen, as I'm a little behind on work as it is.[43]

        You're trusting their marketing geek? He's in fucking marketing. And public relations. You should automatically take what he says and assume it's at least 75% bullshit.

        • Except, I don't give a shit if it's their marketing geek or lead developer. I provided that quote as a means of stating what the grandparent was asking: has Bethesda acknowledged that it's not their series, and it's not TES. The answer's yes.

          Whether or not Fallout 3 is what NMA wants it to be - or bears any real resemblance to the previous titles in the series - is irrelevant to me. I want Fallout 3 to be enjoyable to me, not the rabid 0.01% of the community who think they know *EXACTLY* what Fallout 3 m
  • Personally (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pojut ( 1027544 ) on Friday June 15, 2007 @01:19PM (#19522195) Homepage
    I am glad they are making it first person.

    Does it stick with the "classic isometric view" of the other Fallout's? No, it doesn't. Is the gaming world the same as it was back then? Far from it.

    If they pull this off right, think of how insane it could be. Imagine having gone through fallout in first person. Imagine going through New Reno in first person. Imagine experiencing the crazy and insane things you went through in fallout, but through the eyes of the protagonist.

    Personally, I feel there is MASSIVE potential here for drawing you into the gameworld. I think there is a great opportunity to make you feel like you are surviving in a destroyed and shattered world, instead of "just playing a game"

    Fallout 1 & 2 are classics that can never be duplicated. I say let Bethesda try to modernize it.

    So long as they don't re-invent it and they just "modernize" it, I forsee this potentially being a game worthy of the "classic" status. Don't be so quick to judge, approach it with an open mind.

    I can't wait to come face-to-face with a mutant with today's graphic and animation technology.
    • I think only the shooting is first person.

      From TFA:
      The long-awaited sequel runs on an evolved version of the Oblivion engine, although Bethesda says it's reworked the third-person view because of negative feedback from its last role-player.

      I'm hoping it's 3rd person. If it weren't the elder scrolls team making the game, I'd be more in favor of it. 3rd person is part of what gives Fallout its flavor. Having gone back and played the Fallout 2, I'm amazed at how little time I spend walk around compared to a
      • I LOVE the Fallout series. Having said that, I'm not heart broken that it will not be in isometric. However, I say that they give the gamers the choice between third person, over the shoulder and first person. They do in most modern racing games, so would it really be that much work?
    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      >So long as they don't re-invent it and they just
      >"modernize" it,

      Going from isometric to first person is NOT 'modernize'. It's a change, that's all.
      First person is certainly not a necessity for many games. That annoys me when games use it when it doesn't bring that much to a game.

      Plus, there is another problem: I don't play FPS because they make me sea-sick (except FarCry because it mostly takes place outdoors), and I've heard many people complain about the same pb. Making the game 1st person will pre
    • "Personally, I feel there is MASSIVE potential here for drawing you into the gameworld. I think there is a great opportunity to make you feel like you are surviving in a destroyed and shattered world, instead of "just playing a game"" I think there is great potential here too. However I still have some twinge of doubt regarding Fallout 3 being first person instead of the classic isometric view. In the past fifteen years I have played and completed many crpgs, and consider myself a big fan. For some reas
    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "Which is EXACTLY why I'm glad Bethesda isn't making "just another isometric Fallout". I think as the gaming industry has matured, the games should mature along with it."

      It has nothing to do with the maturation of the games industry. I think Fallout works BEACUSE of the isometric view. Blizzard, for example, is smart and they're keeping Starcraft 2 isometric view because they know it is what made that game so good. Konami has tried to make the Castlevania series in 3D and has failed horribly. Castlevani
      • by Pojut ( 1027544 )
        ....starcraft is isometric because it is a RTS....

        I can't even name a major RTS title made in the last ten years that was anything else...I mean, you have those crazy RTS-action hybrid games, but those again are not plain ol' RTS...

        Apples to oranges...
        • Really? Most modern Real-time Strategy games use a 3D, movable camera. You want me to name some? Homeworld, Ground Control II, Warhammer: Mark of Chaos, Rome: Total War, I can go on.

    • Re:Personally (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Allison Geode ( 598914 ) on Friday June 15, 2007 @05:22PM (#19525805)
      in a way, i *did* go through fallout in first person: its a highly representative, turn-based rpg. i played it as if i were playing pen and paper: using the graphics to give me a general idea of what was going on, while using my imagination to picture everything in my head. thats the true triumph of games with horrible, out-dated graphics, and something that we're seriously losing with the full 3d perspectives available in everything now. i'll still play F3, and probably love it regardless, but it won't be the same.
  • by Dan667 ( 564390 ) on Friday June 15, 2007 @02:01PM (#19522855)
    ... everything becomes a nail. Wish they would not bastardize my favorite game, because all they have is a FPS engine. Sad...
    • by duffel ( 779835 )
      There's one thing to be said for the FPS engine - it doesn't distance you from the character.
      It's the difference between "Oh crap - my guy is being shot at!" and "Oh crap - I'm being shot at!"

      I too liked the old game, but I think what made it great had more to do with the ambience, the mood of it, the feel of the environment, the people, than with the engine. Most of all, it had a very strong theme of contrast and conflict - death and survival, destruction and rebuilding, gloom and hope - that started from
  • Correction (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ShakaUVM ( 157947 ) on Friday June 15, 2007 @02:07PM (#19522949) Homepage Journal
    >>If it's even half as good as Oblivion, this should turn out to be something very special indeed.

    ^special^crappy^

    Oblivion was a very pretty game, with very bad game design.

    The entire world would scale to match the level of your character. So as a 1st level character, you can go into the Arena and kill the reigning champion with the same amount of difficulty as you would at 20th level. Maybe even easier... if you leveled your character in non-optimal ways (especially if you didn't go through the mind-numbing process of repeating actions for 10 minutes to maximize your stat gains) your character would be less powerful at 20th than at 1st.

    Thievery was even worse. If you tried breaking into people's houses (a common activity for the thief archetype), don't try to do it at low levels. All the houses in the game (even nobles' houses) are filled with nothing valuable. Because you're not high level. It's totally backwards. The way it should be designed is this: a nobles' house should be protected by high level guards. If I can defeat them, then it should have jewels and stuff in it, not apples. Because I'm 3rd level.

    There are mods out there (like Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul) that fix the problem somewhat, but nothing but a total revamp of the game dyamics would make it a good RPG. A core feature that makes RPGs fun is that your character gets better over time. "Treading water", Oblivion's paradigm, is by contrast not fun.
    • by Tuidjy ( 321055 )

      Unfortunately, I completely agree. The auto-level 'feature' ruined a lot of Oblivion for me. The ridiculous grind for stats also bothered me. When I play games, I want my character to be as good as he can possibly be. When a game forces me to jump in place three hundred times in order to maximize the character potential, I start wondering why I play it. When the game also does not let me feel that my character is significantly more powerful as he grows, I stop playing it. With Oblivion, I got disguste

    • Nicely put. The leveled loot from thieving always particularly bothered me. If Fallout 3 has anything like the same system (well, except maybe in some very rare cases), it will be a complete disaster.

      There are mods out there (like Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul) that fix the problem somewhat, but nothing but a total revamp of the game dyamics would make it a good RPG.

      OOO is a decent start, but as you say, it still needs a massive amount of work to turn Oblivion into something genuinely good. In particular, it

    • Re:Correction (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Moraelin ( 679338 ) on Friday June 15, 2007 @04:41PM (#19525159) Journal

      The entire world would scale to match the level of your character. So as a 1st level character, you can go into the Arena and kill the reigning champion with the same amount of difficulty as you would at 20th level. Maybe even easier... if you leveled your character in non-optimal ways (especially if you didn't go through the mind-numbing process of repeating actions for 10 minutes to maximize your stat gains) your character would be less powerful at 20th than at 1st.


      Often this will be the case even if you did level up optimally.

      (Some spoilers may be contained past this point.)

      E.g., remember the quest to save the painter from his own painting? The one with the painted trolls and the turpentine? Well, the turpentine does _massive_ damage to the trolls at level 1, compared to their HP, but a whole lot less at level 30.

      The end fight? If you somehow managed to get that fight at level 1, he's a lot easier than when you're high level. Basically the more side-quests you do, the more you'll be at a disadvantage at the end.

      The same applies to most quests where you have some helpers or must keep someone alive. While their stats _are_ levelled, their equipment is often the same at all levels. (E.g., while monster equipment is levelled, the city guards often have a fixed equipment at all levels.) At higher levels, the enemies wipe out the city guards, for example.

      Thievery, hmm, actually having played a thief, I'd say thievery is just fucked up. There just isn't any good loot in houses at all levels. An engraved silver challice sells for... what? 2 coins at the fence? And that's pretty much _all_ that will be the difference between a great noble's house and a commoner's house: the commoner will have tin knives and ceramics glasses (worth 0g each), while the noble will have some silverware too.

      And most of the "scenery" loot is the same at all levels, anyway. Chances are those nobles will still have a ceramic bowl (worth 0 coins) with some apples in it even when you're level 30+. Now if they have a weapon or such, that might (or might not) get scaled, but the stuff on their tables and shelves will still be worth crap.

      Stuff in chests and drawers is scaled, but even there, it often scales the same for commoners too.

      Often the thing that's actually worth anything in a house are the grain and bread and stuff, because they can be turned into potions. And with high alchemy skill, those sell for a fair bit of coin. But the thing is, it's easier and risk-free to go in the woods and get some reagents instead of burgling homes for it. And commoner homes often have more of that stuff anyway, if you absolutely must steal your reagents.
    • by _KiTA_ ( 241027 )

      The entire world would scale to match the level of your character. So as a 1st level character, you can go into the Arena and kill the reigning champion with the same amount of difficulty as you would at 20th level. Maybe even easier... if you leveled your character in non-optimal ways (especially if you didn't go through the mind-numbing process of repeating actions for 10 minutes to maximize your stat gains) your character would be less powerful at 20th than at 1st.


      Except that the article (have it here in
  • ..an ill-fated drinking game. Every time Liam Neeson plays a protege, we drink! No one makes it out alive...

    Nothing agains Liam Neeson, however. He's one of my favorite actors.

  • TFA wrote:

    This works using action points, which when used up will leave you with only real-time fighting until they charge back up again. If you're not in to all-out killing, Bethesda says you'll also be able to play through the game by being stealthy, or even talking your way out of trouble.

    That sounds horrible. The combat systems sounds like Max Payne meets KotOR, not Fallout. Also, the ability to be stealthy or charismatic shouldn't be bonus ways of doing things, they should be considered there by defaul

  • Negative three possible endings. Boy that sucks. Heck, even Halo 2 had only negative one.
  • Turn based or real time, I don't care. As long as the NPCs still try and frag the leader every time we get in a fight, it'll be a Fallout game...
  • Wasn't the consensus of most true (ie: non-console) gamers that Oblivion sort of sucked?

    Morrowind had giant mushrooms, insect mines, floating jellyfish, plant-castles, mongolian yurts,
    hindu derived gods, cities built under giant crabs, underwater ruins, giant flea vehicles,
    flying spells, etc...

    Oblivion had deer, butterflies and tudor villages. No flying, nothing underwater, and a bland
    European theme that was about as imaginative as the local renaissance fair.

    The interface, gameworld and game play of Oblivi
    • I'm offended, sir. I'm one of those console gamers for whom Oblivion was supposedly dumbed down, and I saw right away that it wasn't any good. So please hold off on the anti-console high horse.
    • by Jackmn ( 895532 )

      No flying
      The lack of flying was due to the larger cities being so complex that they had to be divided into separate cells for performance reasons. This required that they be surrounded with walls, and that the player be prevented from seeing over them (so flying was right out).
    • by Synic ( 14430 )
      So you're some kind of gaming elitist? By the way, they make comparisons to Oblivion because 1) it sold a shitload, both on PC and 360, and 2) more people know Oblivion because of 1) so they will get the reference better than say Morrowind or some other game.
  • Mixed feelings (Score:2, Interesting)

    by anduz ( 1027854 )
    I want to be able to take my time and pick out my morbid strategy before I proceed to blow someone innocent childs ribs out, and I'm not sure if that is truely plausible with this new combat system. But it's been a long time and I guess we have to accept some changes and the combat system is minor changes in my eyes. At least it's minor changes if the new system owns up to what combat is supposed to be in a Fallout game, because while combat is very important it's as a tool you apply (like dialog) as you pr
  • Congrats on being magazine pirates. Let me know when you guys publish something so I can rip it off and give it to millions of people for free, ok? I mean, those people who paid for the exclusive details and work for a living at a magazine company don't need to get paid for their efforts, right? Right?

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