.: Những thông tin mới về Fallout 3 :.

[mortalkombatvn]

Post Nuclear Living in Fallout 3
Posted on October 10th, 2007 at 14:34 EDT

From the creators of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion comes what may be one of the best post-apocalyptic role-playing games ever - Fallout 3. Due to hit stores next year, Fallout 3 will breathe life back into the once amazing franchise about a post nuclear world where humans must not only fight monstrous creatures but toxic infections and radiation as well.

PSU.com brings you an inside look into the world of Fallout 3 through our interview with Pete Hines. Enjoy!



PSU: Unlike Oblivion where gamers jump into a first time story, Fallout 3 is a game with a storyline that reaches back to two other games. How will the experience be for a gamer that’s never played any previous Fallout game vs. a gamer that’s played them all? Will there be any benefits or disadvantages?

Actually, Fallout and The Elder Scrolls are very similar in that respect. Both have a deep storyline and backstory that runs through the series, but each game sort of stands on its own. Our approach is always that we want you to be able to play and enjoy the game without having played the originals, but if you have played the original there are lots of references to characters, lore, and things that may have taken place in previous games that veterans of the series will recognize. This is true for both The Elder Scrolls and the Fallout series, with Fallout 3.



PSU: Bethesda has been known in the past with games such as Morrowind and Oblivion to feature a nice smooth musical score that highlights the atmosphere of the game. How is Bethesda handling that with Fallout 3?

I would say that our intent is to have Fallout 3’s soundtrack do that again with music that reflects the gameplay and surroundings, while also staying true to the type of music the rest of the series has used. In addition to the original soundtrack, we also have the licensed music we’re using, which features music from the period before the war. So lot’s of 40’s and 50’s music featuring groups like The Ink Spots, who were featured in the first two Fallout games.

PSU: The art direction in Fallout 3 definitely succeeds in capturing the visual spirit of its predecessors. How did Bethesda initially capture these visuals and place them into a next-gen 3D world? Were there any compromises made in terms of what to add or how expansive the world could be? In addition, was there anything Bethesda thinks it did differently than any previous titles in terms of the current world's visual layout?

Obviously we spent a lot of time looking at the games themselves, but also the concept art for those games. We have a lot of the original materials from the first two games so we can look at not only how they looked in the original games, but also what the developers were going for when they came up with the idea. We spent a ton of time churning out a lot of concept art and going through multiple iterations to get the look and feel of things right. That includes all of the iconic elements from the series – the PipBoy, Vault Suit, and so on – to little things like the chairs and computers that appeared in the Vault in the first game.

PSU: Apparently, Fallout 3 will definitely have much fewer NPC's than Oblivion (1,500+ ... (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) ...than Oblivion (1,500+ NPC's). Was there any sort of a sacrifice with this approach? If so, does Bethesda feel this sacrifice made the gameplay more revolutionary in terms of its complexity, or much simpler?

Well, logically it makes sense that a game set in the capital province of an empire at the height of its rule (Cyrodiil in Oblivion) is going to be much more populated than a post-nuclear wasteland (Capital Wasteland in Fallout 3). So part of it is just going with what feels right. How many people would there be in this world, where would they be located, what would they be doing? However many NPCs we need to do that right, that’s how many we’ll include. At the same time, having that many fewer NPCs does allow us to spend a lot more time on each NPC and give them a lot more depth. What they’re doing, their dialog, etc.

PSU: Players who simply want more control in battles can apparently utilize the Vault-Tech Assisted Targeting System (VATS). Now, while the general idea is simple, how will such a system work with groups of enemies if any?

Well, the idea is that VATS gives you the ability to pause time at any point during combat, regardless of whether you have action points to spend or not. Action points determine what actions you can perform in VATS as each attack will use a certain number of points based on the type of weapon you’re using. So you can hit the button when you get attacked just to get a sense of what you’re up against. Is it one enemy or five? Are they easy to handle or really tough? Is there good cover somewhere you should take advantage of? A choke point you want to force them through to get to you? VATS gives you a chance to assess your situation while the game is paused so you can make good decisions.

So if you’re fighting a group you give yourself a chance to figure that out, and then you can start fighting. You can target enemies that are closer to you to try to slow their approach, or blind or cripple one that may have a particularly dangerous weapon, or queue up an attack on several different creatures and pull it off much more quickly than you could in real-time.



PSU: How does the melee system in Fallout 3 exactly work? How will the VATS system focus its efforts with the melee system?

The goal is to balance the game so that you never have to fire a gun if that’s not the kind of character you are role-playing. So you can use different types of melee weapons in close range and use VATS to target body parts just like you can with a gun. How “exactly” it works is one of many things we are working on at the moment and it continues to get changed and refined until we feel like we have it “just right.”


PSU: We just have to ask this….what does the "corpses eaten" statistic on the Pip Boy (a statistics indicator)?

You’ll have to wait to find out. We aren’t talking about that yet.



PSU: In terms of development, we have to ask you guys an important question. There have been claims by certain developers stating that the A.I. program in general for the PlayStation 3 platform is weaker than it ...

...weaker than it is compared to the Xbox 360. Now, we all know everyone at Bethesda are the kings of NPC's and A.I. Has the PlayStation 3 helped Bethesda to program for A.I. easier than other consoles at all? In addition, does Bethesda find that the A.I. potential and A.I. in general on the PS3 has far less potential or greater potential than its competitors?

I assume that your question is more about memory allocation for certain systems, rather than an actual AI package. We use our own system for AI and whether or not it works on any platform is really up to us, not up to the console. In general I would say, for us, it’s about the same across platforms. In general, the PS3 and Xbox 360 are equivalent machines in terms of what they can do; they just go about accomplishing it in different ways in terms of threading, memory management, etc. There are certain things that one console may do “better” or “easier” than the other, but I think you only need to look at Oblivion to see that the game is equivalent on all three platforms in terms of what it can do technically. There aren’t any features that are trimmed down for one platform vs. the other. It’s the same game. That’s our goal again on Fallout 3.


PSU: How does Bethesda feel Fallout 3 truly differentiates itself compared to The Elder Scrolls IV other than in terms of storyline? Does Bethesda feel it's a step in a different direction? Or a step in a more advanced direction?

Absolutely. There are some similarities in terms of being big, open-ended RPGs. But beyond that, they’re very different. Completely different character systems, dialog system, setting, tone, etc. Having the experience of working on one very large RPG certainly helps when you’re making another.



PSU: How does the Enclave fit into the bigger storyline of Fallout 3? Can you please divulge us some juicy details?

Another area we aren’t ready to go into yet.


PSU: Around how many weapons are planned for Fallout 3 and what kind of customization will be possible?

There are different types of weapons, and each group has a variety of different weapons within that type. So there are a variety of small guns, melee weapons, etc. A number of them are back from the previous games, along with some new ones. For each type of weapon there is also one weapon you can create using parts that you find. You have to find the plans for the weapon and then all the parts in order to make the weapon.


PSU: What platform is lead for development? Are you finding one easier than the other?

We usually use the Xbox 360 as our lead platform because it has some very good tools for providing feedback we need in managing things like memory allocation, load times, framerate, etc. But we develop each platform simultaneously and ultimately the game has to run and be tweaked to run on each platform as well as possible.


PSU: How much power usage (CPU, SPU, RSX) would the dev team say Fallout 3 is currently utilizing from the PlayStation 3?

At this stage of the process we are still putting everything into the game so things like that will fluctuate as more things go in, get optimized, etc. At this stage, I don’t ...

...stage, I don’t know if we know what those numbers will be when it’s all said and done.



PSU: When will Fallout 3 ship for the PlayStation 3 platform?

It’ll be out in Fall 2008.

PSU: Last but not least, though rather premature to develop yet for you guys, are there any thoughts—even faintly---of looking ahead to develop The Elder Scrolls V?

We never stop thinking about what we want to do next, but right now our focus is on Fallout 3 and that’s all we’re talking about. We’ll let folks know when we’re ready to talk about another Elder Scrolls game.


We'd like to thank Pete once again for the interview -be sure to stay tuned to PSU.com for more coverage on Fallout 3

[mortalkombatvn]

Inside the Vault: Clara Struthers



Today’s Inside the Vault features artist, Clara Struthers. She is married to Inside the Vault veteran, Grant Struthers. Clara is a world artist, who creates cities and other large game spaces. Currently, she’s hard at work building some amazing areas in Fallout 3. Clara created Anvil, my personal favorite city in Oblivion (where my characters liked to vacation when they needed a break from looking AWE–wait for it

-SOME at Cloud Ruler Temple).

What’s your job at Bethesda?

I’m very pleased to be a world artist at Bethesda.

What other games have you worked on?

Oblivion and Shivering Isles are the only published games I’ve worked on. I did do some texture work for Dungeon Gladiator by Complex Games in college, but that game never saw the light of day. Here’s some ancient screens of it: I’ll let you take what you will from that.

In between college and Bethesda I worked for half a year at a non-profit government company called CTC as a 3D artist. We did game-type projects, but to elaborate would probably get you and I killed by the CIA. There were clearances involved.

What is the best part about being an artist? The worst part?

Best and worst: Being creative everyday. Sometimes it comes easy and sometimes it doesn’t.
Another best: Making art others will get to enjoy.

How did you get into the industry? Do you have any tips for breaking in?

If you really want get into the industry, and think there’s no chance, I’m sitting here at Bethesda telling you that you can. When I started at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh for CAM (now the Media Arts and Animation program) in 2000, I could barely draw, I had scant, if any, useful knowledge of computers (my family never owned one. In fact, I typed all my reports throughout high school on an electric typewriter that would only store 400 words at a time.), and I really didn’t have a clue what 3DS Max was or that Photoshop even existed. (Central Pa. tends to be a bit sheltered from the civilized world.)

So how did I do it? I’m still not sure. I have vague memories of a serious study of computer lit and meals comprised of Mountain Dew and rainbow Nerds. After college, I was lucky enough to get a job at the aforementioned CTC and keep up my modeling skills. I put together a website.

My friend and roommate from college mentioned that he was going to an interview at Bethesda for a World Art position. After stemming the tide of jealousy, I popped on their website and saw that they were also hiring for a position at their Hunt Valley office. Not wanting to step on toes, I applied for the Hunt Valley position, because applying for the Rockville one seemed fundamentally evil.

To shorten this a bit, I got an interview at the Hunt Valley Office, and spent most of the interview talking to the IHRA Drag Racing team about how awesome Morrowind looked. Probably not a shining moment of interview brilliance, but it got my website forwarded to Todd, and ultimately he asked me down for an interview. I was happy to find out that they were looking for two world artists, so Grant and I ended up getting hired around the same time.

I’d say the real key in all of this, talent or not, is to love what you create, and have fun doing it. That’s because, in the end, if you really love what you do, I think others will recognize that and give you a chance even if you’re not the best of the best.

Okay now on to the actually useful tip: put together a website of your work. Demo tapes are very lame. Seriously, who has a VCR anymore? Does anyone even know what that is?

What art are you most proud from Oblivion?

The city of Anvil, complete with its docks, boats, lighthouse and castle, are definitely one of my favorite things I worked on in Oblivion. In Shivering Isles, I’m proud of Crucible.

What would you say is your personal favorite game of all time?

This question is impossible to answer. There are many games I like for different reasons. If I had to pick one game that really solidified my want to pursue game art as a career, I would have to say FF7.

I’m going to have to mention some other games I love. I’m fond of Super Mario World (who am I kidding…any of the original Mario games are great), many of the old Square games (esp. FF5, 6& 7, Chrono Trigger, and Xenogears), Half-Life 2, Yoshi’s Cookie (really bad puzzle game, just make sure you always are player 1), Crash Team Racing (actually most kart games are cool), Tetris, the unbelievably additive Guitar Hero II, Battletoads, Link’s Awakening (for the first GameBoy…still have the original Brick lying about), Mario Paint (anyone remember that?!?!), pretty much any game that can be played co-op (Halo, Secret of Manna, Gears of War), Metal Gear for PS1 (Psycho Mantis is still the best villain in any MG to date), Jewel Quest (don’t laugh too loudly), Silent Hill 2, Oblivion, and soon Fallout 3 .

Okay, so I just like video games. Let me tell you a story to give you an idea of the extent. I grew up with an older brother. At Christmas, he would get the latest and greatest game or console. I would get something along the lines of an Easy Bake Oven. After about an hour of baking things with a light bulb, I would go into the living room to watch my brother play his games. One year I watched him play through FF4 (FF2 at the time for SNES) and then I started asking if I could play it too. This would drive him insane (because it was his game) and eventually a fight would break out. My mom, thank the heavens, decided the best way to stop these ongoing battles and restore peace to her abode was to teach the wonderful art of sharing. This is how my bother decided to “share” FF2 with me. I would promise to play an hour of Mario Kart for a half hour of FF2 time. My brother was very precise; contracts were written, oaths were sworn, times were recorded. Now all of you remember how long it takes to play FF2 the first time through? Let’s just say I became a master at Mario Kart.

Who or what inspires you most as an artist?

I get a lot of inspiration/torture from other games. When a game comes out that I wished I worked on because it looks so good, I spend the week eating chocolate bars, and lamenting on paths not taken. Then I remember that I actually work in the industry and can make my stuff look better then theirs if I try hard enough, and thus equilibrium is achieved.

Coffee helps too.

Any other hobbies and interests? What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

List o’ stuff: Reading, skiing, hiking, most things involving sun and air, drawing, painting, ping-pong, videogames, travel, bathing the creatures when they are bad, spending lots of time with my husband (!), and visiting family/ friends. Also I love movies, hate tv, and enjoy preparing, cooking and eating brownies. Lastly, mission work: Grant and I went on a trip with our church to help out in Gulfport, Miss. Probably the most rewarding/ best thing I did all year, though I did spend half the trip vomiting in my hotel room. Buffet food is highly suspected.

Do you own any pets?

I have two creatures: Tsunami (Nami) and Vader. They are currently in a state of not getting along. I didn’t know cats could make demon noises.

Tsunami was aptly named because my husband and I brought her home from a cat show in NJ during one of the worst thunderstorms I’ve ever driven in.

Her nicknames are as follows:
Creature
Cat
Little Sausage
Big Oaf



Big Oaf is in honor of the fact that, though she isn’t a large cat by any stretch of the imagination, next to the kitten, Vader, she does look a little bit like a big oaf.



The little kitten, Vader, was pawned unapologetically on us by our producer, the Claff [Be sure to come back next week when we feature the Claff on the next Inside the Vault]. I hold no grudge. In fact, my best friend and I are going to hold a competition to see who can be the best Cat Lady in our Golden years; I’m currently two cats ahead.

Vader is part squirrel/part I-love-anything-and-everyone-indiscriminately. His nose drips when he purrs too much, which is often, because he is unnaturally happy all the time. In his spare time, he enjoys dismantling mountain crickets in our basement.

Posted by acheng on Thursday, October 11th, 2007 at 1:24 pm.

[mortalkombatvn]

Inside the Vault: Craig Lafferty



Today’s Inside the Vault is with Craig Lafferty, one of our senior producers. Craig is the producer responsible for all our artists. We use a matrix structure on the team - so in Craig’s case, he serves as both the producer for the art staff (he has two associate producers to help him manage our huge art dept), and as a lead producer for projects (Shivering Isles, Oblivion PS3). In fact, our PS3 fans out there will be happy to know Craig is also helping out with getting Shivering Isles working on the PS3 (Hopefully, Pete will be able to have more to say soon, but please know that we are working on it best we can.)


What’s your job at Bethesda?

I’m a Producer, which means different things depending on the project. Right now I’m the producer responsible for the art department, who are all working on Fallout 3. Before that I was lead producer on the PS3 version of Oblivion.

What other games have you worked on?

In the 90’s I worked at Epic Games as PR/Marketing manager and also had my hand in development on titles including Jazz Jackrabbit 2, Tyrian and the original Unreal.

After Epic moved to North Carolina I worked at Legend Entertainment on:
Return to Na Pali (Unreal expansion Pack)
Wheel of Time
Unreal 2: The Awakening
Unreal 2 XMP – (was a really overlooked multiplayer mode for Unreal 2)

At Bethesda I have worked on:
IHRA Professional Drag Racing 2005
IHRA Drag Racing: Sportsman Edition
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for PS3

What is the best part about bring a producer? The worst part?

The best part is probably the fact that I get to be involved in all aspects of a game’s development. I don’t have to focus on just one task but instead get to be involved in everything from initial design to final testing and getting the game out the door. Never a dull moment as I like to say.

The worst part is probably scheduling crunches and telling people either a) what you are working on is going to need to be cut or scaled way back or “so, I’m gonna need you to come in on Saturday, M’kay”.

What does a producer do?

In a nutshell, we make sure a game is completed on time, on budget, and delivers the game experience it is supposed to. What we do on a day to day basis changes as the project goes on. Initially it involves a lot of meetings and scheduling, then it becomes heavy duty tracking of assets and the current state of the game, and toward the end it’s all about making sure everything is in the game and it’s bug free (and doesn’t suck). And throughout the entire thing a producer is responsible for playing the game every day and being aware of the state of things, so to speak. And there are lots of miscellaneous tasks that come up from time to time involving giving demos and things for the press or working with the marketing, sales, and legal departments.

What is it like working there?

It’s the most fun real job I’ve ever had. Making games isn’t easy, but it’s a whole lot easier when the people you work with have a sense of humor and also share a passion for games. The people here are all the real deal; very talented people that don’t take themselves too seriously. So while there can be plenty of stress there is hardly ever a day I don’t have at least one laugh out loud conversation with someone.

How did you get into the industry? Do you have any tips for breaking in?

I was working at Marriott HQ (the hotel company) doing SAS Database programming (please, try to contain your excitement) and playing games in my spare time during evenings and weekends. I downloaded the shareware game Jazz Jackrabbit from a little company called Epic MegaGames. (I still can’t believe they dropped the MegaGames part of their name). When I realized they were a local company with their office not far from where I lived, I decided to email them about how much I liked the game and see, if by any chance, they were hiring. Mark Rein responded to my email and said in fact they were hiring, and before I knew it I was leaving the suit and tie world of corporate America and working for a game company making shareware games for the PC. After a few years of releasing successful shareware games like Epic Pinball, One Must Fall and Jazz Jackrabbit 2 we started work on a little game called Unreal and then things really got interesting.

For breaking into the industry the best tips I have are to get involved in the mod community and be active in forums. If you do good work it will speak for itself.

Another way in is through entry level positions like internships and Quality Assurance. If there are skilled people already working for a company they are much more likely to promote from within since they will already be familiar with your skills and work habits.

What would you say is your personal favorite game of all-time?

No way to pick just one, but several that come to mind as my all time favorites are Dark Forces, Halo, Doom, Diablo II, Mario 64, SSX, Half-Life 2, Bioshock and Oblivion.

What games are you looking forward to?

Wow where to start, there seem to be so many big games this holiday. Call of Duty 4, Assassin’s Creed, Rock Band, The Simpson’s Game and Virtua Fighter 5 are probably the one’s I am most looking forward to playing this year. And next year GTA IV and Starcraft 2.

Any other hobbies and interests? What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

Spare time… What’s that? Besides playing games and spending time with my family, music and movies are my other big interests. I have a huge DVD collection and being able to watch part of a favorite movie at any time is always nice. I’ve found Michael Bay movies hold up much better on repeat viewings if you just watch the action scenes and fast forward through the rest of the movie.

Oh, and pawning stray animals unapologetically on artists.

Pitch your dream game.

A first person RPG puzzle shooter. Basically Puzzle Quest with guns and lots of explosions. And Nukes. You can never have enough Nukes in games.

Posted by acheng on Thursday, October 18th, 2007 at 11:15 am.

[mortalkombatvn]

A Tale of Two Cities


Nothing is better for forming an opinion than having someone question your assumptions. That's why I was glad when I got into a talk about NMA's Fallout 3 preview with the famous RPG guru Desslock, who formerly ran Desslock's RPG News site at GameSpot and is currently the RPG columnist for PC Gamer. He's a self-proclaimed fan of both the original Fallouts and Bethesda's Oblivion. Desslock raises some very valid issues, questions and answers concerning NMA's Fallout 3 preview.

I mailed Desslock shortly after publishing the preview noting I'd be "really interested in hearing your comments/counterpoints to my impressions and opinions." He obliged, and the following conversation is the result.

- Brother None




A Tale of Two Cities
That is, the City of Lost Children versus Bartertown
Brother None and Desslock


Preview

Desslock: O.k., here's some thoughts -- obviously I thought it was a comprehensive summary of the press presentation: essentially a transcript of it, which I'm sure your readers appreciated, since it gave a complete description of the scripted (as you noted) presentation. I also thought you did a great job noting the little details, such as the outfits of the people in the vault, the fact that they were wearing pipboys, etc. You hightlighted a lot of cool details that I would have loved to have had additional space to get into in my preview coverage. Next best thing to being there.

Brother None: Cheers.

GOAT

NMA preview: The lie didn't show a chance of success percentage as later dialogue options would (see conversation with Mr Burke on page 2), so it's possible this lie always fails.

Desslock: I suspect you're right - this part of the game seems like an interactive tutorial, prior to even establishing the character stats of your character, so it's not a demonstration of the conversation system.

Brother None: Good point, that might be it. I'm not a big fan of showing percentages of failure or success in dialogue options for a number of reasons, so I didn't mind it being gone.

Liam Neeson

NMA preview: because while I knew that was Liam Neeson, I wouldn't have been able to tell it was from the somewhat bland and indistinct voice of dad

Desslock: I'm not a big fan of celebrity voice acting, and actually devoted a recent column to that topic, but I disagree with you here - Liam Neeson is close to the best choice I can think of for this role, and I loved the fact that he really seems to have thrown himself into the part and isn't condescending towards "video game acting", like so many actors are.

Brother None: Sure, he's good for the part, but that's because the part's pretty nondescript, and so is Liam.

Seriously, Desslock, if you dislike famous voice acting in general, than this is an extreme: any talented voice actor could do a great job of voicing an emotionally trusting voice like Father's. Liam Neeson is actually renowned for being a *really bad* voice actor. Seriously, if one actor doesn't act with his voice (or can't), it's Liam Neeson. The same is true for people like Ron Perlman, but the thing is Ron Perlman's fits the role uniquely, whereas a lot of people could do Liam's role. Compare it to Richard Dean Anderson in Fallout 1, a great voice for the role, but also an unnecessary voice in a role a professional voice actor could've done just as well.

And best choice or not, I couldn't actually hear it was Liam. It was just "nondescript American guy." Stick another guy in there and claim it's Liam and I wouldn't be able to tell. And I have a good ear for voices.

Desslock: I agree that an equally talented, but unknown, actor might be preferable to someone recognizable, but then I don't even like hearing recognizable actors in animated movies, because their voices pull me out of the movie.

But Liam Neeson is actually a great actor, and that fact that you couldn't tell it was Liam is certainly not a "bad thing" from my perspective (especially given his naturally strong accent, yet you felt he sounded American) - disappearing into a role indicative of quality acting. But more importantly, I just hate the way so many "celebrity actors" really treat the gaming market with disdain, and mail in wooden performances -- I think the fact that Liam Neeson was actually one of the bright lights in Phantom Menace indicates that he can elevate even terrible material, and certainly earnestly performs in any role he's given.

V.A.T.S.

NMA preview: labeled anything from innovative to the worst idea of all time, I don't really see either one as being very valid. "Unoriginal" is the name I'd use. If I had to describe V.A.T.S. at gun point, I'd call it a system of RT combat with limited pausing through fatigue (Action Points) and super-attacks (aimed shot), which to most people will sound pretty much like what BioWare started doing in the mid-90s with the Infinity Engine

Desslock: I don't agree with the preceding paragraph. The last sentence is just wrong - BioWare only produced two Infinity Engine games (Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, and the related expansions), and the first game in that series didn't come out until the late 1990s (so your dating is wrong, a minor detail, but you guys are obviously pay great attention to detail, so I thought I'd flag it).

More importantly, the reference makes no sense to me - neither Baldur's Gate game had action points or "super-attacks". The system is clearly closer to the "aimed shot" mechanic of the Fallout games - you use perception, get targeting information, and inflict damage based upon targeted shots and your weapon skills -- there's nothing like that in the Baldur's Gate games, and the only thing Fallout 3's combat has in common with the Baldur's Gate games is that it occurs in real-time, and is pausable.

Finally, as you know, I have concerns about the combat as well, and look forward to learning more about it and seeing it in action. But it's clearly unfair and misleading to call it unoriginal, when there's actually never been a similar system utilized by an RPG. It culls aspects of features from other games, but the combat system certainly seems unique. Again, that doesn't necessarily mean we'll like it or that it'll satisfy Fallout veterans, but it's certainly an original, hybrid combat system.

Brother None: Spells, to name just an example, are a form of super-attack. But sure, it wasn't implemented strongly there. It's implemented more strongly in Mass Effect, and I don't see a functional difference between ME's combat system and Fallout 3's. It's real time with pause, where the pause allows you a limited number of powered up attacks.

Desslock: I haven't followed Mass Effect's development since I don't follow the console market, so I can't comment on how similar it is, but Fallout 3's combat certainly didn't look or sound anything like the Infinity Engine games, other than the game is in real time -- I get what you're saying, that Fallout 3 uses a real-time/pausing combat system, but I think that comment is misleading to your readers, even if you generally don't like the way the combat looks.

Compare the games:

- Fallout 1/2 - turn-based combat; targeted shots an option.
- Baldur's Gate 1/2 - combat rounds that continue consecutively unless paused (which is different from a real-time combat system like Oblivion's); no targeted shots
- Fallout 3 - real-time combat which can be stopped in order to enter a special targeted shot system, or to make a "perception roll" to analyze combatants.

They each take distinct approaches to combat, but have some similarities. I also don't think it's fair to characterize Fallout 3's targeted shots as "supermoves", which sounds like there are "superjumps/lightning punches, etc" from an arcade fighting game. There are no "moves", there's just the ability to specifically target areas on an opponent's body using a limited number of action points (as in the original Fallout games).

It may seem like we're arguing over nomenclature, but I believe your description is misleading.

Brother None: It's not "the only thing" they have in common, it's exactly the same mechanic. Ignoring the fact that BioWare's system is just an example (I think you got bogged down on that), the point is that this is just another predictable, uninnovative RTwP system.

Desslock: I disagree - that's like saying Fallout 1's combat is identical to the combat in the Final Fantasy series because they both feature turn-based combat. You're culling out details that make the systems distinct, and in Fallout 3's case, original. Again, there's never been an RPG that featured combat similar to Fallout 3's, so by definition, it's innovative.

Brother None: I think we're asking the wrong question, tho'. Try to make a list of how two combat systems are identical and you'll always end up with a big wad of differences, does that mean every combat system is innovative? I think the key question is (considering the above) what exactly is so innovative about this combat system? A different angle; not what are they doing that's exactly the same, but what are they doing that's significantly different?

Desslock: The combination of features: real-time/stats-based (as opposed to twitch-based) combat which can be stopped in order to initiate targeted shots using action points. Sure, at some level you can point to aspects that you feel are derived from other games, but the overall package is not just "different", it feels original.

Anyway, I think this argument is distracting from the more substantive issues of (a) whether this combat system actually works well in practice, and I think we both agree that we have reservations/questions that need to be addressed as more details are revealed by Bethesda; and ( whether it feels like Fallout 1/2, and I think we both agree that it's definitely different, so fans hoping for something closer to the turn-based combat of the original games are likely disappointed, while gamers who thought it would be just like Oblivion's combat are probably pleased that it's something different - it's an original, hybrid combat system, which I think looks promising, although I have reservations.

Hell, Bethesda could unveil the melee combat and it'll have "super-smash; spinning lightning attacks", in which case I'll agree with your "supermoves" description, and be disappointed by Bethesda's design decision. But for now, I'm cautiously optimistic about the combat system.

Brother None: Is my description 100% accurate? Probably not, but I made a clear judgment call, and I feel it's at least as fair as calling it "innovative".

Again, there was never a game that featured exactly the same combat as its predecessors. Every combat system is different in some way, and it's odd to put down arbitrary lines at which something is "innovative" or not.

However, when I remember what I saw play out, and when I then look at this Mass Effect combat video, they're functionally the same. You can argue that the details are different, but the difference between the two is the interface and the replacement of biotic attacks with aimed shots. The biotics are stat-based, not twitch-based, and depend on the amount of energy you have for it, i.e. action points. That's functionally identical, right there.

I'll gladly accept the fact that you can differentiate Mass Effect and Fallout 3's RTwP from Infinity Engine's RTwP because the underlying mechanics are different, but that doesn't go for differentiating Mass Effect from Fallout 3.

I'm not going to accept that anything that isn't done before is innovative per definition. Innovation should be more meaningful than that (even if it is currently as useless as meaningless terms like "next-gen"), it shouldn't just be taking RTwP and including Fallout's aiming system.

Supermutants and Brotherhood of Steel

Brother None: By the way, no comments on the Brotherhood of Steel or Supermutants?

Desslock: Not really - neither really bother me right now because I don't really have a sense for how they're featured in the actual game yet (and their relation to their West Coast counterparts, etc.).

Some additional observations:

(a) I agree with your observation that in the demo the Brotherhood of Steel guys seemed to just act like typical AI soldier-types, like the kind you'd see in a contemporary shooter -- but in fairness to Bethesda, we only saw them when the combat was demonstrated, and obviously a big part of the BoS is their backstory/philosophy and role in society, so I'm more concerned with their role as NPCs in the game's story than how they look/act in combat.

( I loved seeing the BoS armor "brought to life" on 3D characters (particularly the helmets, as you noted, of which people can get an impression of just from the trailer); and

© I have no problem with how the super-mutants look (and actually think they're a big improvement over Fallout Tactics' gigantic cartoon figures). I thought the sledgehammer looked like a placeholder warhammer from Oblivion, however, so I hope that's improved prior to release. It also seems less logical for the super-mutants to have spread from the west coast given their origins, so I'm interested in Bethesda's explanation for that migration or concurrent appearance on the East coast.

Humour and violence

NMA preview: It's not that the franchise doesn't have its humour or violence, it's just that these weren't pivotal selling or drawing points in anything other than how unique they were. From this demo, it seems these two points are treated differently than in the original and actually two of the biggest selling points Fallout 3 has, a worrying prospect we can only hope turns out false"

Desslock: I disagree on the violence, which I think is fairly consistent with the approach of the originals, but am similarly concerned with the humour evidenced in the demo. Yet having spoken at great length with Bethsda's team on this point, I know it's a real "hot button" point for guys like Todd Howard that the humour doesn't "pull you out of the game", by nodding to our reality -- there was some of that in the original Fallout ("they killed Kenny!"), but I think Fallout 2 went too far in that direction, and I actually think it's a good thing that the developers of Fallout 3 want to reign in that sort of humour.
But that all said, that wasn't evidenced in the demo, which had a lot of cheap laughs, which seemed inconsistent with the setting, as you highlighted -- I suspect that they were included solely to keep the presentation lively, but I share your concerns in this area.

Brother None: I think the visceral nature of first person means the approach to violence is different from the originals per definition. So that's not Bethesda's fault per se, but it's a consequence of their choice to go with first person. There are certain 3rd person experiences you can't duplicate in first person, especially not by trying to emulate it with a slow motion action camera (a big mistake, if you ask me).

As for humour, I don't go for that explanation. The team can promise what they will, but I've read extensive lists of promises they made on Oblivion that didn't make it into that game. I don't care to call those promises "lies" or anything, but it sets a precedent: Bethesda's promises about a game are not guaranteed to be in the final product. Of course, that's true for all gaming companies, but Bethesda surely has set a bad record for itself.

I can take their statements into account, but push come to shove I trust my eyes over my ears, so to speak. I'll trust what I saw in the demo more than what Pete Hines would tell me. If they're contradictory, then I can't really assume either is true. It's wait and see, with the footnote that what the demo showed was horrid.

Desslock: I completely agree that you should only judge what you've actually seen, not the intentions of the developers (although you can also recite those intentions if you want to provide additional information, as long as they are suitably qualified as exactly that - i.e., "the developers intend"). I think the example you gave later in your response concerning the revised RadiantAI is a prime example -- it's worth noting, I think, that the developers intend to refine/modify the AI system (I think the intention is to incorporate more scripting, rather than freeform behaviour using motivations, by the way), but those previews that just wrote "the AI is improved" are inaccurate, misleading, and lazy.

Objectivity

Desslock: Heh, I did get a chuckle out of your conclusions when (SuAside, in particular) commented on how he was trying to be "objective" - that's absurd. You're not objective - and there's not wrong with that, because you're obviously strongly influenced by your passion for the original Fallout games, and all of your observations are affected by that subjective bias. Frankly, I think that's actually an appealing trait, because rather than just describe the features, characters, graphics, background lore, etc., you saw in the demo, you constantly (in almost every paragraph!) provide a relative comparison to how those aspects were treated in the original games.

Embrace your subjectivity - it's a perspective that I suspect your readers want, and it allows you to provide insights that other previewers are incapable of, or disinterested in, providing - it seems like you stated you were trying to be objective in order to increase your credibility, which is just absurd, because that's the sort of statement that readers immediately know to be false, and probably would be less interested in reading your commentary if it were otherwise.

Brother None: I don't think that's exactly what SuA meant. We don't pretend to be objective in the musings part, but realize that we do consider ourselves more objective than those previewers who start their articles with "the future game of the year 2008" or "one of the best RPGs of all time".

I think the claim that the professional media is more objective than we are is ludicrous. Or rather, we're all very biased and have little more than subjective opinions, because the gaming media simply hasn't evolved to a point where they're professional enough not to, but what NMA's preview does separates it from the pack: it provides all info we could find, and clearly denotes the difference between what was seen, what was said and what the reviewer thinks. Especially that separation of facts and impressions into categories sets it apart in objectivity and in how informed readers come out of having read it.

Key example: when reading Fallout 3 previews, you'll find a lot of assertions that "the old RAI is out, as Bethesda vastly improved it for Fallout 3!" With such a clear assertion, I would assume the previewer saw this with his own eyes. But unless some guys saw something I didn't, I'd say "no", all events in the demo were obviously scripted, so there was no visible difference in AI. So why represent something the developers promised as if you've seen it yourself rather than just saying "they promise to..."?

Desslock: Ah, but that just means you're more informed, and/or more analytical, than those other previewers -- not that you're necessarily more objective. I think you're clearly subjectively biased, for the reasons I said in my earlier response, and again, I don't think that's a bad thing (the contrary, in fact), and I don't think it means you're not informed or analytical in your approach, so don't take that comment as a criticism.

Brother None: Sure, that sounds about right. I think this is the reason journalists have standards to begin with, to ensure objectivity no matter what the journalists' own viewpoint. Which is why I think NMA's effort to be informative and more analytical overlaps with being objective.

But it's no skin off my back to admit we're obviously biased towards the older games. That's kind of a non-issue, you have to work on the basis of comparison to something. Other previewers choose to compare it to Oblivion, which they love and are biased in favour of, we go with the Fallouts, which we love and are biased in favour of. Depending on your bias, Fallout 3 looks better/worse.

Awards - Best of Show

Desslock: One final comment - I do think the fact that you guys probably haven't seen a lot of demos relating to games this far away from release is telling when you makes statements such as "I cannot see how this 45 minute demonstration won Bethesda so many E3 awards" -- the reality is that most game demos are pretty terrible and superficial, and often just demonstrate rudimentary aspects of the technology being utilized. Take, for example, the "demo" BioWare provided at the E3 a couple of years ago for Dragon's Age, which really provided nothing of substance to evaluate or consider -- by comparison, Fallout 3's demo was extremely well polished and gave a good, broad overview of some of the design goals and technology that's going to be used, and the overall package felt unique and promising to most observers for that reason.

Brother None: So it's a "least bad" award? You're drawing the wrong conclusion here. The conclusion shouldn't be "you don't understand how these awards work, because...", the conclusion to the above paragraph should be "there really shouldn't be awards for these kind of previews".

Desslock: First off, I completely agree that there shouldn't be awards for unfinished games, at least beyond identifying which games were generating the most positive buzz, or were viewed as "most promising". I think readers do like knowing what people were most excited about after a show like the E3, but I disapprove of the practice of giving unfinished games awards like "best RPG", or "best of show". But to the extent those awards exist, I don't think it's surprising that Fallout 3 won quite a few of them based upon how it looks to date.

But I certainly wasn't saying that Fallout 3 was the "least bad" (not even sure how you extrapolated to that jump just because I said historically other demos have been less revealing). I just meant that if you've seen a lot of demos for incomplete games, you wouldn't think Fallout 3's demo was skeletal or didn't provide a lot of substance - what it provided was pretty normal, or actually fairly detailed and polished, for a game at Fallout 3's development stage. What was shown understandably impressed a lot of people, including me -- while I have some reservations, and disagree with some design decisions (as I've stated here and in my own preview coverage), but my overall impressions are that the game is looking really, really good, and I can't wait to get my hands on it. Even though you're personally less optimistic, you really shouldn't be surprised that people coming from a variety of different perspectives were impressed by this game and felt it was one of the most promising upcoming games, and that Fallout 3 therefore won a bunch of E3 accolades.

Awards - Best RPG

Desslock: I'm currently writing a piece that has some discussion on upcoming single player RPGs, and the only ones I'm really interested in aside from Fallout 3 are the Aliens RPG from Obsidian and BioWare's Dragon's Age (and, to a lesser extent, Mass Effect) -- there really aren't a lot of other RPGs in the works for 2008, and compared to the state of those other projects, and how unpromising any of the "console" RPGs are to true RPG fans, it shouldn't be at all surprising to you that Fallout 3 easily walked away with so many E3 RPG awards.

Brother None: See above. Besides, to me as a consumer, your statements above mean little more than "nothing good is coming". I'm not about to lower my standards, though, which makes your awards meaningless (as if they aren't regularly, let's be honest).

I don't need to know who the best student is in a class for the mentally handicapped, it's just not that interesting to me.

Desslock: Heh, again, that's not what I meant and certainly not what I meant to imply. I accept your point that you shouldn't necessarily give awards just because something is the best of a limited selection of games if you don't think that the game is actually deserving of a "best of" title. I remember in the mid-1990s when one of the computer gaming magazines refused to give an RPG of the Year Award because they felt the best game of the bunch (which I believe was Anvil of Dawn, or perhaps Stonekeep, that year), just wasn't good enough to deserve that accolade.

Don't call them "my awards", as I certainly didn't vote on anything and am against awards for unfinished games, as I mentioned above, since I think they just help marketers, not consumers. I was just identifying some potential competitors for promising upcoming RPGs, and giving my opinion that Fallout 3 certainly looked at least as promising as any of the games I mentioned, so I'm not surprised it won those awards (particularly since its most viable competitors weren't on display). But I misunderstood your position - I thought you were saying that you didn't see why Fallout 3 deserved those awards (instead of Game X); but you were instead saying that you just didn't feel Fallout 3, judged on its own terms and not relative to other games, looked good enough to merit its accolades. Fair enough - I like that stance, as I did when that magazine in the 1990s refused to give RPG of the Year to Anvil of Dawn - we just have a different opinion how Fallout 3 is looking, as I'm more optimistic about than you are.

I definitely would have preferred a Troika version of Fallout 3 (with Obsidian naturally being my second choice as developer), and I greatly miss isometric perspective RPGs, but I really like what I've seen of Fallout 3. I've played virtually every RPG since Temple of Apshai, and there have been very few RPGs that I've been more excited about.

That said, one of the RPGs that I was most excited about was the initial design of Ultima IX, after the debacle of Ultima VIII-Pagan, and by the time Ultima IX limped to release, it bore little resemblance to its initial design and was almost as big a disaster as Pagan (damn you, Ed Del Castillo for derailing the initial design, and EA for destroying all that was great about the Ultima games). So the bottom line is, I think it's still far too early for anyone to fairly judge how good Fallout 3 will be, and we should constantly challenge and revise our preconceptions and opinions as more information becomes available about the game.

[mortalkombatvn]

Fallout 3 Preview


Introduction

Fallout 3, the sequel to the 90's RPG classics Fallout 1 and 2, has been in pre-production since Bethesda Softworks purchased the rights to work on the title in July of 2004. The latest sequel has had a bumpy ride even before Bethesda started with its latest production after finishing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. The media reception has been nothing short of ecstatic, while discussion across the web shows that there are some doubts among consumers.



All said and done, the game surely has captivated the interest of many. There have already been many previews based on the same demo, but you can never have too much information. So I sat down, pen at the ready, as Pete Hines took control of the demo at the 2007 Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany to show us around Bethesda's imagining of Interplay's classics.

The Demo

Note that this is also the beginning of the Fallout 3 game, so slight spoilers ahead.

For their iteration, Bethesda has chosen to set the game in 2277 on the West Coast of post-apocalyptic America. The game begins with a still-slide intro much like the original games, although the black and white stills are replaced with grainy postcard-style stills as Ron Perlman, narrator of the originals, reads aloud his "war never changes…" speech.

As he finishes, the game would normally move into a one-hour tutorial/character creation session which guides the character from birth to his 19th birthday. This is somewhat shortened for the demo, as Pete Hines showed off a few specific segments: the conversations with the protagonist's father (voiced by Liam Neeson), a walk through the vault including a look at a gang of greasers bullying a girl, and the final vault door opening sequence and the escape from the vault.

The primary purpose of this sequence is character creation, as you determine the character's looks and stats in several stages from birth through puberty. It also serves as an introduction to the game's mechanics and structure, in this demo with the example of the choice offered when the protagonist sees the girl being bullied: do you help her or join the bullies? Not exactly a deep moral choice, but it's a choice.

The protagonist exits the Vault after finding out his father has disappeared and the Overseer is looking for him, suspecting that he had something to do with it. In front of the Vault Door lie a few corpses of "people they wouldn't let in" holding signs saying "let us in motherfuckers!" As he exits the tunnel, the glare from the sun temporarily blinds him before offering a nice panoramic view of the desert and ruins surrounding him.

Combat is on show afterwards, as the protagonist runs into a couple of giant ants. Pete Hines shows you can pause combat to pull up a grid-based aiming screen to target separate body parts, with a percentage to hit or miss. Shooting in the leg will slow the enemy down, shooting in the antennae in case of ants can confuse them. Also shown in this ruined town, Springvale, is how the protagonist can shoot a car and make its nuclear engine explode in a mini-mushroom, taking some ants with it.

At this point, the usage of radiation is partially shown. When blowing up the car, the protagonist is slightly radiated. In much the same way the protagonist is radiated when taking a drink of water from a nearby fire hydrant, which also heals him slightly.

The protagonist reaches the town of Megaton, the closest settlement to the Vault. It is "built in the crater of an unexploded nuclear bomb." Its style is much like Junktown in Fallout 1 or Bartertown in Mad Max 3, with ramshackle huts and pieced-together walls - a lot of it built with wreckage from a crashed airline carrier.

After being scanned by a Robby-the-Robot-esque Protectron the protagonist is allowed entrance to Megaton. Dialogue is on display next, as Pete Hines shows the structure and display in two conversations with the sheriff and later with a shady character, Mr Burke. Noticeable is that dialogue looks and feels basically the same as Oblivion, with graphically prettier talking heads. There's a wide choice of dialogue options, all showing full lines of text and some showing a percentage of success in case of lying or threatening. It's also shown how the Nprotagonists react as the protagonist insults the sheriff ("Nice hat, Calamity Jane") or tries to get some extra bottle caps for fulfilling the task from Mr Burke (successfully in this case).

The task, given by the somewhat one-dimensionally evil Mr Burke, is to clear out Megaton by detonating the nuclear bomb in the middle of the town. Why he wants you to do this isn't really made clear, but he does and he's offering money, so Pete Hines decides to take the quest, arming the bomb and running off to travel through the subways to meet Mr Burke at Tenpenny Towers.



The subway tunnels are expansive, ruined and filled with supermutants, so basically the prototypical fantasy dungeons. This portion of the demo is used to show off combat again, as well as taking a further look at the management of guns as you can use parts from one gun to repair another, upgrading its accuracy and rate of fire (adding up to an increased Damage per Second). Pete Hines uses a combination of wild shooting and aimed shots to pass through the tunnels battling of supermutants (which would normally be harder to do, but the protagonist's stats are pumped up).

The protagonist sneaks past the next batch of supermutants, takes a drink of water from a nearby toilet to heal a bit and then hacks into a nearby computer to reactive a Protectron ticket-bot. "Hacking" is done via word-guessing game, where you have to guess which word is the password. With each guess the mini-game will tell you how many letters you got right. The hacked Protectron lumbers out of the room and asks the nearby supermutants for their tickets. They're unable to present them and threaten to tear off his arms, causing the Protectron to turn the laser gun in his arm on them, quickly dispatching them.

Exiting the subway, the protagonist gets involved in a gun fight between a group of power armored clad soldiers, identified as Brotherhood of Steel members, and a bunch of menacing supermutants. He talks to the Brotherhood of Steel lieutenant and is invited to tag along, which he does, picking up a laser rifle from a dying BoS member along the way. A lot of time is spent in the following gunfight, the most noteworthy things to say about this struggle being that the protagonist's lack of skill can make him miss the supermutants even when the player aims correctly and that the combat AI didn't seem to be very advanced.

The fight moves on to a square near the Tenpenny Towers building. And just as you think it's over, an endboss tune is heard and two busses are seen exploding in the distance, as a huge supermutant identified as the Behemoth lumbers out. Armed with a car door and a fire hydrant, he wears a shopping cart on his back that stores corpses.

The Brother of Steel members shooting him with their laser rifles doesn't seem to do much, but luckily the protagonist can pick up a "portable mini nuclear bomb catapult" from a nearby corpse. The Behemoth is killed with two well-placed (including one aimed) nukes, causing it to fall down dramatically as a mushroom cloud erupts. Stat-wise, Pete notes that the Behemoth has a ridiculous amount of hit points and does a massive amount of damage (with his fire hydrant), while the Fat Man nuclear catapult does more than 80 times as much damage as a Chinese assault rifle (the weapon of preference for supermutants).

The protagonist climbs up and meets Mr Burke atop the tower. He is handed the detonator, and after pushing the button a huge and beautifully crafted nuclear explosion is seen in the distance, the shockwave of which hits the protagonist a bit later.


The Good

Setting-wise, Fallout 3 keeps quite a bit of the originals intact. The Vault Boy icon, identified by the original developers as one of the original's key elements, is fully utilized. The world crafting is also well-done at points, like the Vault which is an accurate 3D recreation of the originals. The atmosphere outside is pretty bleak, with well-made deserts and ruined towns setting the tone.



Also graphic-wise, not only is the atmosphere quite well-done, but they're simply a notch up overall from Oblivion. The addition of real water refraction and parallax mapping to create more realistic ruins and bullet-holes are some details, but what the average player will immediately notice is that the Nprotagonist faces look a lot better than the somewhat ugly faces of Oblivion. Dialogue also looks a bit improved by providing the player with full lines as choices rather than wiki-style dialogue.

Of special note should be the amount of attention paid to some key moments, like the well-executed temporary blindness the protagonist experiences as he leaves his Vault, or the beautifully crafted nuclear explosions.

That's it for what you can see. Beyond that, Bethesda promises a lot of improvements from Oblivion, but it should be noted here that these promises often contradicted what one could see in the demo. Bethesda, like many other developers, doesn't have a perfect track record for what they say will be in the game and what's in the final product, so I leave it up to your judgement how much of this to take at face value.

First is the humour and feel. Bethesda notes it is inspired most by Fallout 1, and less by the "silly" humour of Fallout 2. This means no forced jokes or annoying pop culture references, but more dark ironic humour. This is good news, though no examples are known or visible in the demo.

Fallout 3's real-time with pause (RTwP) combat system, denoted as V.A.T.S., is probably an improvement over enforced real-team running and gunning from the viewpoint of discouraging twitch play. Visually, it looks to play pretty much the same as what BioWare is doing with Mass Effect's combat. No one has had it in their hands yet, so I can't really comment on how it plays out, but it feels like it'll end up pretty close to the concurrent RTwP systems BioWare is known for.

Dialogue and quests are promised to be deep, with big (moral) consequences, hazy choices, gray areas to explore and expansive branching dialogues available. Understandably, the demo is too short to have any of that, though it should be noted that the do-or-don't Megaton quests is more of an example of dichotomic good-or-evil style than of the moral gray areas that are promised.

The Bad

There're some issues in consistency of vision apparent from the demo. "True classics" often drive on having a strong and consistent vision of what you want to do and where you want to go in a setting, expressing one strong idea visually. A good recent example is BioShock, which can be criticized for a lot but not for a lack of attention to detail or clear vision in the way Rapture is crafted to represent the vision and will of Andrew Ryan juxtaposed with the fallibility of man.

Fallout 3, on the other hand, is working with a pre-made setting, created by Interplay over 10 years ago. This setting, crafted on dark irony in juxtaposing the harsh reality of post-apocalyptic life with the idyllic world-vision of 50's America, is seen in spots in Bethesda's Fallout 3. But there doesn't seem to be much drive in this vision, so it ends up very spotty and inconsistent, not providing a steady "feel" but ripping you right out of it with silly jokes or ill-placed modern elements (the soldier cliché language of the BoS soldiers).

This lack of vision is also seen in how eye-roll-inducingly cliché some of the game's elements are. For instance, the supermutants look quite a lot like standard evil mutant enemies, and act the same too. Sure, on the other hand we have the Protectron, a great unique-looking robot that truly smells of 50s science fiction. But these kind of great elements aren't consistently there.


There's a slight obsession in the demo itself with juvenile behaviour. From chuckling about a mutant's head exploding to having a snicker at a Mr. Handy robot referring to the protagonist as a "stupid git", the demo is a rollercoaster ride of cheap laughs. One can only hope this is only for demo purposes and luckily Bethesda affirms that this is so. I reallyl don't see this type of humor working for an entire game.



There are some questions to be asked about the main plot, which involves you chasing down your father for no other reason that an assumed deep emotional tie and fighting supermutants, with it being unclear what kind of backstory or depth we can expect. How well this plot can offer the kind of freedom and choices the originals did is an open question.

The Ugly

There're few things as ugly as the reaction this game has garnered from the traditionalist Fallout fans. And considering that most of their worst fears came true, it's not so much a question of whether or not Bethesda's Fallout 3 so far lives up their standards of a sequel, but more what one can really ask from a sequel like Fallout 3.

Is it really fair to directly compare a sequel to its 10-year old predecessor? That's not really a question I can answer here except in saying that in calling it Fallout 3, Bethesda is calling forth these expectations themselves. Like SeanMike of GamersInfo.net says:

On the other hand, Fallout 3 is being called a sequel to Fallouts 1 and 2, and I think that's a disservice to the games. While, technically, it is a sequel to the Fallout RPGs, it's not a direct sequel. It's set in a different area, with different characters, a different time, a different engine and a different style of RPG gameplay.

One could argue as Sean does that Bethesda is creating expectations by calling it a direct sequel. They are creating an atmosphere in which the fans of the originals fell they can expect this game to be approached much like the originals were, an approach that is pretty well-documented, most noticeably in the "A history of Fallout" article on NMA.

But if you feel you must judge the game by these standards (and it really is an open discussion if you should), Bethesda's Fallout 3 struggles. To name a few examples; it uses a RTwP combat system while the original TB combat system was chosen to "exactly represent" pen and paper roleplaying, its supermutants look more realistic than the original hulkish supermutants, the BoS soldiers are represented as "saviours of the wasteland" as opposed to the monastery-like xenophobic BoS organization, the 50s feel often seems sprinkled on rather than inherent of the setting. There are more details that they got wrong", but in a nutshell I can't help but agree with SeanMike that this is not close enough to warrant the moniker direct sequel, as it falls a bit more on the side of a spin-off.

There are two kinds of people in the world...

The game is still the game no matter what you call it, but how you approach it might have an effect on how much it fits your expectations more than the average game. A lot depends on whether or not you care if this game is a spin-off or a direct sequel. The debates surrounding this game are sure pitting groups of people against each other. If I have to give my idea of whom this game is being made for, well then...

Did you like Oblivion? Well, Fallout 3 is promised to be a much-improved version of that game, and with no significantly different design approach is almost guaranteed to be at least enjoyable by fans of the previous Bethesda game.

Are you a big fan of the recent evolution of RPGs? Well, the sand-box action-filled Fallout 3 might be right up your alley, though this will depend on how well the combat system plays out and how much Bethesda is able to fix its own vision of the game.

Are you a big fan of Fallout and did you expect a sequel to hold close to the originals design in both setting and gameplay? Set it and forget it.

[mortalkombatvn]

No Demo Allowed



So what Matt “Gstaff” Grandstaff has to say about game demos, particularly on the Fallout 3 context:

One thing to consider about demos though. For certain kinds of games, I’d say its not as easy to just break off a piece, and say, here’s the demo. Sure you can take a game of Madden, let someone choose between two teams, and then make it one quarter. Or as of yesterday, just release a few songs for Guitar Hero III.

For a game like Fallout (or Oblivion), there’s a lot of details that have to go into it since the game plays as a sandbox…where do you cut the user off. You might bring up that we have a playable demo that we’ve shown at events, but from the previews you read, you’ll notice that the G.O.A.T exam is never taken, we never decided to save Megaton instead of blowing it up, and so on. Part of the reason for this is that for the purpose of showing the game, they didn’t need to flesh out those details.
If we were doing a demo, there’d be a lot of time spent on deciding where a user could go, what quests to include, etc. For Fallout 3, we’d rather commit the time that can be used for delivering a demo into spending more time working on the final product.
Of course, it’s always nice when you can get a demo. I enjoyed the Bioshock one, and I played Guitar Hero III’s last night, but as a gamer myself, I don’t always expect one.

Well no playable demo for us, that seems clear by now. You can always enjoy the original Fallout demo though, if you are able to run it, that is.

[mortalkombatvn]

Design and Development of the Pip-Boy Model 3000
Istvan Pely
Lead Artist

For Fallout 3 we sought to create an interface system that was functional, unique and entertaining. The core of this is the Pip-Boy, a classic element of the series that exists as both an important object in-game as well as the player’s primary method of interacting with his character. This diary entry will provide some insight into the process that a team of artists, designers and programmers undertook to create and implement the Pip-Boy 3000.




Conceptual Design
The basic parameters for the industrial design of this piece of hardware were simple. It was decided early on that the device would be worn on the player character’s arm and feature a display of some sort. Along with the design of the Vault Suit, the Pip-Boy was one of the first things that our resident conceptual artist and creative genius, Adam Adamowicz, began to sketch. We went through pages and pages of drawings, iterating every little detail, in order to lock onto something that looked interesting and also seemed plausible from a realism point-of-view.

Inspiration came from both commercial product design and military industrial design of the 1950’s to early 1960’s. Elements from items such as old portable television sets and army field radios were studied and incorporated in some fashion along the way. As with all of Fallout 3’s industrial design, a careful balance of realism, future-retro-style and practicality was sought in the final product. In terms of realism, it’s not an essential factor, but a sense of believability within the rules as defined in the Fallout universe is important.

Technology in the world of Fallout 3 is somewhat paradoxical in that it’s incredibly advanced in some ways, and downright primitive in others. Certain technological advancements that we take for granted in our own history either did not occur, or developed along a very different path. Miniaturization is one example; yes, the fact that a device with the capabilities of the Pip-Boy could be made at all is amazing, but it’s still a rather bulky and heavy lump of hardware. It uses a monochrome cathode ray tube, there are no flat LCD/Plasma/OLED screens. Its housing is cast out of a metal alloy, not plastic. And it’s an ergonomic nightmare. But all these qualities give it character, and this was an important aspect of the design, as the Pip-Boy is almost a character itself.

After much iteration the design was eventually narrowed down to a basic look. Once Adam’s drawings all start looking too similar we know we’ve honed in on the most likely design. The device clamps on the user’s arm, fastened via bolts (which implies that it doesn’t come off very often.) It prominently features the aforementioned CRT display, hooded to prevent glare from the hot wasteland sun. There are various buttons and knobs, slightly oversized to facilitate handling with a gloved hand. The grill indicates that the circuitry within can get pretty hot, and proper ventilation is required. Also note the gloved hand with a control-box mounted on the back, it has a large knob and coiled wire connecting with the main unit. That knob is the primary controller for the user to manipulate the on-screen cursor. The overall design isn’t too over-styled, as this is meant as tough piece of field equipment.

At this stage we moved on to mesh-building. Often times we draft more detailed, blueprint-like drawings before passing a design to a production artist, but sometimes its left rough so that there’s some flexibility to experiment in 3D.




Creation of the Model
Now that we had a pretty good idea of what the Pip-Boy looked like, it was time to build the model that would eventually appear in-game. As with most hardware-based game assets, the artist starts with the high-poly version of the mesh. This is usually the most fun, since he doesn’t have to pay any attention to poly-count. The goal is to refine the design in 3D, with every single detail fleshed out. This is our virtual maquette, something the creative staff can study to make comments on and the artist can tweak until just right. The result is spiritually close to the concept drawings, but has been tweaked to read better in 3D, given factors such as camera FOV, screen real estate issues, etc.

The lower-poly, game mesh is then built. Without getting into too much detail of the art development pipeline, we use the initial high-poly model to generate a series of normal maps which provide all the detail of the original with the efficient mesh construction of the final, in-game model.

The texture of the device was critical. It certainly isn’t brand new when the player acquires it, and new models haven’t been built for many years. Instead, a limited amount of prewar examples have been patched and maintained over time. So the finish is pretty worn down, paint-chipped and scratched. It took several tries to develop a color-scheme that felt right, but eventually we ended up with something not too far a field from the abstracted Pip-Boy interfaces from earlier games in the series, yellow lettering and all.

The final touch was to add a layer of grime and finger-print smudges to the screen.




Textual User Interface
Designing the content for the on-screen display in the Pip-Boy 3000 was a challenge. There were a host of restrictions placed on the UI because of the unique nature of the hardware as imagined. We looked at old computers from the 70’s to early 80’s, when operating systems were text-based, interfaces were not-so-graphical, displays were low-rez, and color was a luxury many systems did not have. The Apple // was a primary influence, with its green phosphorus CRT raster scan monitor, and a 1mhz processor that couldn’t quite keep up with its own frame buffer. The UI would have to be simple. No overlapping windows, few icons, and only basic animation capabilities.

Given these parameters, a UI design evolved that was primarily text-based. The only iconographic element would be the 1-bit representations of the various Vault Boys. These icons show up throughout the menus, providing humorous and descriptive imagery that accompany all of the stats as well as every item in the game. Natalia Smirnova illustrates each icon, a monumental task given the shear number of variations that exist. Part of the fun is just scrolling through the menus to find every Vault Boy example.

Other than Vault Boy, the interface is primarily text and numbers, with brackets to visually segment the many sections of the layout. Despite the sheer amount of information that needs to display within limited screen real estate, the minimal UI and smallish font present a clean and functional appearance, with zero ornamentation to get in the way of the data the player needs.

The biggest creative battle fought was to keep the Pip-Boy’s screen monochrome, as adding a dash of color was often an easy solution to a usability problem. But color in UI design is often a crutch and not to be relied upon, plus it would have disrupted the purity of the concept. So we found ways around it, often forcing us to improve the layouts in the end.

Implementation
A design doesn’t become an interface until a skilled team of programmers enters the picture. That team consists of Erik Deitrick, Ricky Gonzalez and Dan Teitel, a group whose forte is translating a host of conceptual UI mockups into functional menus. It’s a complex task given the fact that no interface makes it from concept to reality without a substantial bit of tweaking and refinement. A good interface must evolve as it’s used and tested, and the best idea on paper can often just plain “not work” until it’s gone through this process. Luckily, the interdisciplinary dynamic between art, design and tech is tight and functions well. This is particularly invaluable when the artist is asking the programmer to move a button “3 pixels up, 2 to the left” until everything lines up just right. Or when a screen is completely scrapped if a better idea comes along.

We knew from the very beginning that we wanted the Pip-Boy to exist as an in-game object, on the player character’s arm, and not fake the transition to the actual menus. On hitting the menu button the player character’s arm raises into view, filling the screen with a close-up of the device. It never switches to an alternate model or mode, the effect is seamless and stunning. However, in order to really sell the illusion, the Pip-Boy’s screen needed to be convincing as an old glass tube. Orin Tresnjak was instrumental in devising a method to project the menu displays on the curved geometry of the screen, instead of simply overlaying UI graphics above 3D geometry. In addition, he created a series of imagespace filters and effects that transform the UI into a wonderfully authentic reproduction of that early Apple // monitor we were inspired by. Raster lines, a slight flicker, loss of vertical-hold when switching modes, these are examples of the sort of attention-to-detail that was lavished on the Pip-Boy 3000, to transform it from a simple object to a virtual prop that looks and feels as tactile and real as an actual physical prop.

The Pip-Boy 3000 isn’t done yet. It’s a work-in-progress that continues to evolve as we improve it, adding features and refining existing ones. The hopeful end result is that when the player activates the Pip-Boy, immersion isn’t disrupted. He hasn’t stopped playing the game in order to check something in a menu. But rather, his character has simply paused and looked down to fidget with his personal analog assistant for a moment, still in the wasteland.

Miscellaneous
If the player’s in a dark room, only the green glow from the screen illuminates the Pip-Boy. The model is lit realistically within the current environment. In fact, the Pip-Boy can serve as a source of light when none is available. Its screen can be switched to a special over-bright mode, illuminating the immediate surroundings in a greenish glow. This can be quite handy at times.
Late in the design we added a physical radiation meter to the top left of the Pip-Boy’s faceplate. The needle vibrates upwards as the player character absorbs rads. Given the reality that radiation is a major factor in survival in the wasteland, we wanted to make sure the rad-level was always visible at-a-glance, regardless which screen the player’s in.
Once the Pip-Boy was working in-game, there was something missing. The animation of it coming into view was dynamic, the screen effects were great, but the whole thing felt too static, as if time had frozen. Indeed, time does freeze, but that’s for practical gameplay issues, it’s not desirable visually. The solution was to add a very slight constant idle motion to the Pip-Boy, the sense that the player character is breathing, his arm not perfectly steady. Josh Jones, our animation lead, spent a good deal of time tweaking the motion so that it was subtle and apparent, but not annoying in the least. We didn’t want the player chasing buttons around with their cursor.
Sick of all that green? The player can choose to change the color of the Pip-Boy 3000’s display. Perhaps amber, like an old Dynalogic Hyperion PC. But then it wouldn’t be Fallout, would it?

[mortalkombatvn]

ZeniMax Media Receives $300 Million Investment from Providence Equity Partners

Rockville, MD, October 25, 2007 – ZeniMax Media Inc. today announced the closing of a $300 million investment by Providence Equity Partners Inc. for convertible preferred stock of the Company. The proceeds of the investment will be used to fund future growth, increase game development and publishing, facilitate acquisitions, and finance massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs).

ZeniMax Media was founded in 1999 by Robert A. Altman, its Chairman and CEO, and through wholly owned subsidiaries creates and publishes original interactive entertainment content for gaming consoles (including the Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system, and the Nintendo DS and Wii), the PC, handheld/wireless devices, and online gaming. Last year its wholly owned subsidiary, Bethesda Softworks, released The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion® which was voted Best Game of 2006. Bethesda’s upcoming title, Fallout® 3, has already been featured on the cover of more than 20 magazines worldwide and has won accolades as one of most anticipated games for 2008.

"We believe that Providence will be an ideal partner for us as we build our businesses worldwide in the years ahead. Providence shares our strategic vision for the Company and is excited by the opportunity to help us move into a position of leadership in this industry,” said Mr. Altman.

“We are pleased to partner with one of the best managed companies in the videogame industry,” said Michael Dominguez, a Managing Director of Providence. “ZeniMax Media has an outstanding series of proven interactive entertainment content and a burgeoning position in the rapidly growing global video game market. We look forward to working with Robert to build value at ZeniMax Media over the long-term.”

Mr. Dominguez will join the Company’s Board of Directors, which is currently led by Mr. Altman and includes ZeniMax Media President Ernest Del, Leslie Moonves (President and CEO of CBS), Harry E. Sloan (Chairman and CEO of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.), Robert S. Trump (President of Trump Management), noted film and television producer Jerry Bruckheimer, and Hall of Famer Cal Ripken, Jr.

Banc of America Securities, LLC acted as exclusive placement agent for ZeniMax Media Inc. The Company was advised by DLA Piper.

Goldman Sachs and Weil Gotshal Manges advised Providence Equity Partners.

About ZeniMax Media Inc.
ZeniMax Media is a unique media organization which has brought together a team of world-class game developers, artists and designers, programmers, producers, and leading executives and talent from traditional media. ZeniMax Media creates and publishes original interactive entertainment content for consoles, the PC, and handheld/wireless devices. ZeniMax Media divisions include Bethesda Softworks, Vir2l Studios, ZeniMax Europe Ltd., and ZeniMax Online Studios. For more information on ZeniMax Media, visit www.zenimax.com.

About Providence Equity Partners
Providence is the leading global private equity firm specializing in equity investments in media, entertainment, communications and information companies around the world. The principals of Providence manage funds with approximately $21 billion in equity commitments and have invested in more than 100 companies operating in over 20 countries since the firm’s inception in 1989. Providence is headquartered in Providence, RI (USA) and has offices in New York, London, Hong Kong and New Delhi. Please visit www.provequity.com for more information.

[mortalkombatvn]

Fallout 3 on Game Scoop! Podcast

IGN dude: one thing we didn't see [in the demo] was the overworld map, how you actually get around in the world. In Fallout people told you about a city and you could travel there in an overworld map, but then you could encounter random enemies on the way. Whereas in Oblivion you would just fasttravel there.

Pete Hines: In Fallout they used this method of traveling across the world that was dissociated with actually having to walk across it. You were a little x moving across the map and you could actually explore unexplored parts of the world. In Oblivion, the difference was that you could never fasttravel until you have been there, so even when you know where a place is you can't actually fasttravel to it or back from it until you've discovered it. I imagine that whatever we end up doing in Fallout 3 will be similar to that. We don't want you to skip the step of going out into the world and finding new things to do and to just be able to jump in. We like the fact that you have to get there first and have made your way to it, and then, if you're going back and forth between two places you've already discovered, there's no reason you can't just jump back and forth. But how exactly fasttravel will work in Fallout is still TBD.
After this, he explains that creatures sometimes respawn (ant lair), sometimes don't (super-mutants), picking whichever makes sense. He notes that they're far enough that they can show the game and have it so that the demo is actually pretty representative of the finished game, bar some polish.

Pete also explains that Megaton is probably the most simplistic branching-quest, having just two basic options (blow up or don't). And as known before, it is repeated that skills influence dialogue. Furthermore, reactions to actions like murdering some guy in his house can be delayed because people will only discover it later, or potentially not discover it at all if you murder the dude in a hidden spot:
If you take somebody out in a location where nobody else is aware of it, then your actions should be unknown to everybody else and therefor not affective in terms of how you deal with other people
And karma reactiveness should make sense. And:
We want each karma type to be specific unto itself. The example Todd named is that if you have evil karma, at some point in the game the good guys will actually send guys out to get you. If you have good karma the evil guys will send people out to get you. But if you're neutral, they both basically ignore you, neither side really cares about you one way or the other. (...) we want there to be three really distinct types in terms of your roleplaying character.
They discuss weapons (100% repaired = maximum DPS for that weapon, duh) and the fact that the world is a struggle to survive so you'll likely have to drink water to heal. Pete Hines explains only a small chunk of the gameworld will be recognizably D.C. IGN asks what the 300 million cash injection to ZeniMax is for, and Pete answers that it's basically for expansion (for instance, expanding Bethesda's publishing role).

And on the end they tag on the standard "how's the fanbase been?"-question, which Pete Hines answers with "their role is to provide criticism, and we absorb that and figure out how to factor it in", but "you can't make someone else's game."

(Gee, maybe you shouldn't have bought someone else's game, then?)

The examples Pete Hines names of the fanbase interaction is the community question (from Bethesda's blog and forum) and perk contest (from Bethesda's official site).

[mortalkombatvn]

Fallout 3 - First Look Preview


Gwynne Dixon

29/10/2007
A decade on from the original Fallout games and Bethesda are due to breath life back into the series late next year...

The original Fallout games consumed many a gamer with their isometric view and RPG style gameplay. Of course, much has changed in the world of videogames since the 90s and Bethesda has obviously had to ditch the isometric camera for their trademark first person RPG view. Bethesda certainly haven't forgotten where the series came from though as Pete Hines, Vice President of Public Relations and Marketing at Bethesda, told TVG:

"The original Fallout games are primarily what we're trying to replicate as much as we can, and we're trying to bring as much of that as possible into Fallout 3 to make it a true Fallout game. The kinds of things we've focused on are the tone, theme, settings, characters, story, dialogue and the kind of humour they had; things like that.

"There're lots of little things like homages to the sort of furniture they had, or the vents on the walls. We did everything we could to try and make the game as realistic and as true to Fallout as possible."

The game certainly starts out on familiar territory. You play a character that was born in one of the survival vaults after the nuclear war of 2077. Vault 101 is where Fallout 3 starts out. It's a vault that nobody ever enters and nobody ever leaves (can you see where this is going?). You start off by choosing your genetic make-up (which has an effect on your character traits etc.), then you're treated to a montage of your early life and, at the age of 16, you have to take the G.O.A.T aptitude test. The results of this tell you which skills you should focus on as a player.

You're also introduced to your trusty Pip-boy, which is used throughout the game to hold information such as your objectives, inventory and skills. The Pip-boy is a nice little reference back to the original Fallout games, but also shows how Bethesda are working-in their trademark style to Fallout's legacy. The Pip-boy basically operates in a similar manner to the journal in Oblivion. Indeed, the first few sections of the game bear a similar tutorial style to the beginning of Oblivion, and it's a tutorial style that we like here at TVG. It's not patronising and there's enough early progression in it to ensure that you don't feel like you're treading water for the first hour of play. Oblivion fans can also expect a similar experience points system for Fallout 3, with points coming from completed quests and doing away with ravenous enemies.

Anyway, sooner or later the plot has to take an inevitable twist and it comes in the form of your father (voiced by Liam Neesen) escaping from Vault 101 to the outside world. Your character then has to follow him and that's where the game moves into action.

We were shown one quest that revolves around the settlement of Megaton, which is a thoroughly atmospheric post-apocalypse community with an unexploded nuke at its centre. It would seem Megaton's loopy inhabitants think the bomb has some sort of religious significance; hence it lies at the heart of the settlement. I, personally, would make like a tree and leave (leaf, leave - see?) but whatever. Either way, the demonstration of this particular quest showed some of the branching storylines of Fallout 3 in action.

The quest basically climaxes with the decision as to whether or not you should blow up megaton. You have to collect some intel. from certain sources such as a particular radio frequency (that can then be stored on your Pip-boy). Anyway, you're given the option of either blowing up the city from a safe distance (via a detonator) or a variety of more "peaceful" and "constructive" options. Naturally, our demo guy was more interested in starting a thermonuclear reaction. The quest culminates with you going to the top of the Galaxy News Radio building (another nice reference to the original games), meeting the mysterious guy who wants you to blow up the city (Mr. Burke) and watching the mushroom cloud fill the sky - nice.

This is one of a number of critical choices you will be forced to make throughout the game, and it doesn't come without its fair share of comeuppance. As Pete pointed out to us, "It's really a game where if you want to see and do everything then you have to play through multiple times to see it all. If you blow up Megaton, for example, all of those quests are gone forever. You can't go back there and do any of the quests; it's just a big gaping hole in the ground. So, there's a lot more emphasis on player choice and how we deal with the choices that you make."

We've also been promised a wide variety of possible endings to Fallout 3 and a quest system that focuses more on player choice, rather than sheer volume. "The quest system is actually very different. Rather than having lots and lots of quests where you can do any of them that you want without being locked out, Fallout has a much smaller number of quests and how you do one may lock you out of doing other stuff," Pete told us.

"There are between nine and twelve different endings - we still haven't nailed down a number yet," Pete continued, "so there are lots of different endings depending on the choices that you make through the game. There are lots of different variations and it probably takes about 20 hours or so to finish the main quests. Then there's another 20 hours of side quests that you can or can't do, as well as lots of freeform exploration stuff and miscellaneous quest stuff that you can do as well."

We also had a chance to see the unique VATS combat system Bethesda are employing for Fallout 3, which is sure to add oodles of depth to the combat systems we've seen from Bethesda in the past. Initiating the VATS system moves you into a snapshot of the enemy where each one of its body segments is ascribed two statistics: how damaged it is and your chances of hitting that body part from that angle and with the selected weapon. If you get a successful shot then you're treated to a satisfying bullet-time death, which is pretty cool.

The weapons throughout Fallout 3 are rated with certain attributes: how much damage per second (that's a new one on us to!) they can inflict and what condition they're in. You can then salvage weapon parts throughout the game world to fix an ailing sidearm. Health, on the other hand, can be replenished by consuming clean water which, as you might expect in a post-nuclear war environment, isn't as straightforward as it might seem. All water sources have a RAD (radiation) level and the cleaner the water is, the more likely it is to replenish your health.

In the demo we saw, we also caught a glimpse of the Brotherhood of Steel who, for those who haven't played the originals, are the AT-AT pilot looking soldier guys. They'll help kill off those pesky mutants and are generally your mates, plus they look really cool. On what I promise will be our last nostalgic point, Bethesda also told us that they have secured the voice of Ron 'Hellboy' Perlman as the narrator, which is particularly cool as he did the narration for the original Fallout games.

[mortalkombatvn]

Beta test: Fallout 3



War... War never changes... Na widok tego napisu serca chyba wszystkich fanów serii Fallout zaczynają bić szybciej. Nasze również! Do tak wielkiego hitu zwykła zapowiedź to za mało. Nadeszła pora, aby podzielić się z Wami naszymi wrażeniami z samej gry.

Michał "sir Mik" Grabacki

Na wstępie chciałbym zaznaczyć że tekst nie tyczy się wersji beta Fallout 3, ale bardziej wersji typu pre-pre-alpha

Mało jest firm tak skrytych i tak pilnujących swych tajemnic jak Bethesda. Nawet, gdy nasz nieustraszony śmiałek został dopuszczony do komputera z nowym Fallout, to o robieniu jakichkolwiek filmików, czy ściąganiu screenów, nie mogło być mowy. A szkoda, bo to, co prezentuje swoją grafiką Fallout 3, jest wprost nie do opisania.

Na początek muszę także nieco uspokoić wszystkich fanów. Mimo, iż produkcją zajmuje się zupełnie nowa firma, kojarzona przede wszystkim z Oblivion, to nasz ukochany Fallout 3 będzie jednak całkiem nową grą a nie swoistym modem do TES IV, czego się niektórzy słusznie obawiali. Trochę podobieństw w obydwu produkcjach jednak znajdziemy. Tu i tu obserwujemy akcję z perspektywy oczu bohatera, względnie - z widoku zza jego pleców.

Trzeba także zauważyć, iż nowa część najsłynniejszego, postnuklearnego cRPG nie jest tworzona z myślą o samych ortodoksyjnych fanach serii. Nie ma więc co liczyć na kontynuację wątków z poprzednich części. Gra jest tak zbudowana, aby mogli w nią zagrać wszyscy; nie tylko sami starzy wyjadacze, ale także ludzie, którzy dotychczas nie mieli styczności z tym cyklem. Dla tych pierwszych przygotowano jednak masę specjalnych smaczków oraz subtelnych nawiązań do "jedynki" i "dwójki". Zdradzimy tylko, iż w grze pojawi się na przykład pewien dobrze nam znany supermutant :>


Jak dorosnę to zostanę...

Cała zabawa zaczyna się dosyć nietypowo, bowiem od sceny narodzin naszego bohatera. Aby było ciekawiej, wszystko obserwujemy z perspektywy jego...oczu! Całość została podkreślona przez specjalne filtry graficzne - obraz jest zamazany, czerwony, co chwilę drga. Okazuje się, że poród był tak ciężki, iż matka go nie przeżyła, a my wędrujemy do rąk ojca, który od razu pobiera próbkę naszego kodu genetycznego.

I tutaj pierwsze zaskoczenie. Cały proces kreacji postaci jest w zasadzie interaktywnym filmem, którego początkiem są właśnie nasze narodziny. W momencie, kiedy specjalna maszyna zaczyna analizować nasze DNA, wybieramy płeć przyszłego bohatera i jego rasę (możemy zagrać nawet azjatą). Następnie dowolnie modyfikujemy wygląd twarzy, swobodnie operując kilkoma suwakami (na podglądzie można obejrzeć, jak będziemy wyglądać za kilkanaście lat). Kłania się tutaj sprawdzone już wcześniej rozwiązanie z Oblivion... Twórcy poszli jednak o krok dalej i pozwolili nam również na pewną modyfikację reszty ciała. Jeżeli zawsze marzyliście, aby wyglądać jak Pudzian, to nic prostszego - dodajemy sobie trochę masy mięśniowej. Podążacie drogą Emo? To możecie przerobić bohatera na wychudzonego kościotrupa. Po prostu, co kto lubi! Rozwiązanie świetne, ale czasami nie współgra za dobrze z tym, co widzimy w karcie postaci. Przyznacie sami, że trochę dziwnie wygląda chudzielec, który ze statystyk przypomina Schwarzenegger'a. :-)

Jak już mówiłem, cały początek gry i kreacja postaci to w zasadzie dorastanie naszego bohatera. Gdy malec uczy się stawiać pierwsze kroki, my ćwiczymy w samouczku wszystkie tajniki sterowania. W następnej scenie jesteśmy już dziesięcioletnim podrostkiem, który dostaje swój własny, przenośny komputerek Pip-Boy 3000 oraz pistolet na kulki. Bawiąc się tymi prezentami, szybko nauczymy się podstaw walki i interface gry... Wróćmy jednak do kreacji postaci. Zastanawia Was pewnie, jak w takim układzie wygląda wybór umiejętności? Bardzo prosto - w pewnym momencie stajemy przed Testem Predyspozycji Mieszkańca Krypty (ang. G.O.A.T.); odpowiadając na poszczególne pytania, wybieramy kolejne statystyki, skille (14 do wyboru, część starych znikła) czy traitsy (tych jest znów trochę więcej). Jeżeli nie spodoba się nam końcowy wynik, to możemy go zawsze sami zmodyfikować. Oj, znów widzimy rozwiązanie przypominające Morrowind lub Oblivion... Sam system, na jakim oparto zabawę, to stary, poczciwy S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Wszystko wygląda tutaj jak w dawnej, dobrej "dwójce"; Nawet styl przycisków i menusów pozostał ten sam!
Dopiero, gdy zakończymy tutorial, rozpoczyna się właściwa gra. Wcześniej jednak okazuje się, że nasz ojciec (który był wiodącym naukowcem w Krypcie) nagle znika...


Witamy w Vault 101

Vault 101 to jeden z największych schronów na Wschodnim Wybrzeżu. Nasza Krypta (w przeciwieństwie do pozostałych schronów) nadal jest zapieczętowana, a jej mieszkańcy są wyjątkowo nieufni wobec reszty świata. Głównym celem gry jest odnalezienie zaginionego ojca, który w tajemniczych okolicznościach opuścił schron. Niestety Fallout 3 nie wszedł jeszcze nawet w fazę testów alpha; gotowych jest zaledwie kilka poziomów (lokacji) i trudno na podstawie tego powiedzieć coś bardziej konkretnego na temat całej linii fabularnej. W każdym bądź razie udało się nam ustalić, iż ojciec naszego bohatera dowiedział się, że wojnę przetrwało nie tylko Vault 101, ale także kilka sąsiednich schronów, i że wbrew temu co twierdzi Overseer, świat na powierzchni nadaje się już do życia. Niestety, Nadzorca (Overseer) nie godzi się na otwarcie schronu. Nie pomagają nawet ostrzeżenia o ogromnym niebezpieczeństwie, jakie grozi Krypcie 101. Zdesperowany ojciec decyduje się na ucieczkę w poszukiwaniu jakiejkolwiek pomocy. W trakcie gry będziemy powoli odkrywać kolejne części tej układanki, aż dowiemy się, o jakie niebezpieczeństwo tu chodzi i będziemy musieli oczywiście je zażegnać...

Na razie jednak możemy spokojnie pospacerować po swojej rodzinnej Krypcie. Tutaj czeka nas pewne rozczarowanie. Wbrew zapowiedziom, to co widzimy, nie przypomina za bardzo widoków znanych ze starych Fallout'ów. Zmieniono zupełnie styl graficzny Krypty. Teraz wygląda ona nowocześniej; jest pełna wszelakiego rodzaju rur, kabli, przeróżnego sprzętu i rupieci. Tylko w niektórych drobnych detalach (drzwi, windy, terminale...) można odnaleźć styl znany z poprzednich części gry. Nie jest jednak źle, tylko po prostu inaczej. Wygląd schronu został przedstawiony w sposób bardzo szczegółowy; wszystko sprawia wrażenie naprawdę starego, pełno tutaj rdzy, brudu, kurzu, popękanych ścian... To nie są już te czyściutkie i sterylne schrony z poprzednich części serii. Mieszkańcy chodzą po korytarzach, rozmawiają ze sobą, coś jedzą lub po prostu pracują...

Na samym początku można wykonać kilka zadań, które dobrze ilustrują, czym jest nowy Fallout i jak ogromne możliwości stawia przed graczem. Questów jest naprawdę dużo, ale nie wszystkie możemy wykonać, do wielu potrzebne są bowiem specjalne umiejętności. Jeżeli chcemy na przykład pomóc komuś w zreperowaniu jakiejś maszyny, trzeba posiadać odpowiednio wysoką umiejętność "naprawiania" (repair). Jeśli natomiast nie wybraliśmy na początku "zdolności naukowych" (science), to raczej nie skorzystamy z większości komputerów. Używanie wielu skillów zostało połączone z mini gierkami.

Co ciekawsze - każde zadanie można próbować wykonać na różne sposoby. Na przykład zepsutą pompę trzeba naprawić, albo poprosić o to kogoś innego, używając zdolności perswazji! Ciekawie wygląda także zadanie z bandą miejscowych osiłków, z którymi problem ma "bliska" przyjaciółka gracza. Można ich po prostu pobić, przekupić, ale także namówić, aby dali sobie spokój. Jeżeli ktoś chce, to nic nie stoi na przeszkodzie, aby donieść na nich do samego Nadzorcy. I tak dzieje się tutaj z każdym prawie zadaniem.
Jednak pełnię swoich możliwości gra pokazuje dopiero przy misji polegającej na wyjściu z Krypty. Jeżeli posiadamy wysokie zdolności przekonywania i prawie maksymalną charyzmę, to możemy spróbować namówić samego Nadzorcę, aby pozwolił nam udać się na powierzchnię (prawie niemożliwe, ale...). Inny sposób to przekonanie strażnika, by otworzył bramę. Miłośnicy skradania na pewno spróbują przemknąć się cichcem do wyjścia. Można także zhackować sieć komputerową Krypty albo użyć rozwiązania siłowego. Mało? Ha! Jest także jeszcze ukryte, tajne wyjście. Tutaj nowy Fallout przewyższa nawet stare części cyklu. Możliwości rozwiązania każdego problemu okazuje się być zawsze co najmniej kilka. Co więcej - czasami to, w jaki sposób wykonamy dany quest, zostanie nam przypomniane po kilku godzinach, gdy jakaś postać odwdzięczy się nam na przykład za pomoc.

Niestety, na tej grze odcisnęło się piętno The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Większość rozmów wygląda tutaj praktycznie tak samo, a dziewięćdziesiąt procent napotkanych ludzi to statyści. Można z nimi wprawdzie rozmawiać i pytać o różne rzeczy, ale zawsze usłyszymy to samo. Łącznie w grze głos ma podkładać wprawdzie 30-40 różnych aktorów (czyli znacznie więcej niż w The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion). Trzeba jednak pamiętać, iż to bardzo wczesna wersja - na tę chwilę większość dialogów jest jeszcze niegotowa i zamiast poszczególnych fraz mamy.... rzędy kropek ;-). Pozostaje więc nadzieja, że w finalnym produkcie będzie już lepiej!


Wastelands i nie tylko

W końcu jednak wychodzimy z bezpiecznego schronu na powierzchnię. Niestety, w zasadzie grywalny na razie jest tutaj tylko jeden poziom - ulice zniszczonego miasta. Reszta to tylko migawki i kilka oderwanych od siebie scen. Akcja gry rozgrywa się w ponad trzydzieści lat po wydarzeniach z "dwójki", w zupełnie innej części USA. Tym razem trafiamy na Wschodnie Wybrzeże. Większą część mapy zajmują ruiny wielkiego miasta (Washington DC). Do tego dochodzą pustynne okolice tej metropolii i malutki fragment wybrzeża. Twórcy zrezygnowali z mapy głównej, więc świat jest tutaj jedną spójną całością (podobnie jak w The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion czy Gothic). Między wszystkimi lokacjami przemieszczamy się na piechotę (istnieją także swoiste "teleportery" czyli tunele metra). Po wielu naciskach udało się nam jednak wydobyć z twórców niejasną wzmiankę, iż "być może" w grze pojawią się jakieś pojazdy (!)

Świat gry jest mimo wszystko niezbyt duży. Co więcej - jest wyraźnie mniejszy od map z obu poprzednich części czy nawet Morrowind'a. Okazuje się być za to znacznie bardziej napakowany ciekawymi lokacjami pełnymi różnorodnych postaci. Bardzo rzadko zdarzają się jakieś naprawdę puste i "nudne" obszary.

Nawet po tym, co oglądaliśmy już w tak wczesnej wersji, można łatwo przewidzieć, że niektóre lokacje na długo zapadną w pamięć wszystkich graczy. Mamy na przykład zrujnowane, wymarłe miasto pełne wraków samochodów i zasypane gruzem ulice. Tylko niektóre budynki ocalały i górują samotnie się nad tym posępnym krajobrazem. W trakcie zabawy odwiedzimy też takie miejsca, jak stare centrum handlowe zamienione w małe miasto pełne "tubylców", klimatyczne bary, wyschnięte parki, opuszczone hale, zrujnowane tunele metra, rozpadające się wieżowce czy wreszcie.... wyrzucony na brzeg morza ogromny lotniskowiec, pełen niezbyt przyjemnych ludzi! Wprawdzie większość tych miejsc można było obejrzeć tylko na krótkich migawkach, ale nawet z tego czuje się, że gra naprawdę trzyma klimat. Powiem nawet więcej - świat Fallout 3 wygląda na jeszcze bardziej zniszczony, ponury i "brudny" niż ten znamy nam z "jedynki" i "dwójki". Nie ma tutaj wprawdzie wrażenia wszechobecnego niepokoju i zagrożenia, jak chociażby w S.T.A.L.K.E.R, ale za czujemy niepowtarzalny klimat POSTNUKLEARNEGO świata!

Cała grafika została utrzymana w stylu lat 40 i 50 ubiegłego wieku. Patrząc na zardzewiałe wraki samochodów, resztki plakatów, rozwalające się budynki, czy widząc nawet zwykłe przedmioty (meble, naczynia, stare lampowe radia, telewizory...) naprawdę czuje się ducha tamtych lat. Wszystko to spotęgowane zostało jeszcze przez świetną muzykę. Pip-Boy może zostać użyty bowiem także jako radio; w ruinach znajdziemy kilka działających "stacji radiowych"(sic!). Tutaj twórcy się naprawdę postarali i kupili prawa do kilkudziesięciu utworów z tamtych lat, i to naprawdę dużych hitów. Jeden z nich słyszeliście zresztą na pewno w opublikowanym filmie do gry. Radio ma także jeszcze pewną zaletę - dzięki niemu możemy usłyszeć o najnowszych wydarzeniach, nie tylko z najbliższej okolicy. Czasami można wysłuchać informacji z np. NCR! - aż łezka w oku się kręci! Z radia dowiemy się często też o różnych ciekawych zadaniach. Jeżeli nieco się postaramy i dostroimy radyjko, to możemy nawet podsłuchiwać rozmowy oddziałów Bractwa Stali. Naprawdę kapitalne rozwiązanie!

No właśnie Bractwo... Jak już wspomniałem, akcja dzieje się w okolicach stolicy USA. Teren ten został naprawdę dobrze odwzorowany. Twórcy chwalą się, że miasto wygląda dokładnie tak, jakby wyglądało po wojnie atomowej ;-). Zachowany został nawet rzeczywisty układ wielu ulic! W czasie gry zobaczymy kilka znanych budynków, łącznie z ruinami Kapitolu. Wiadomo też, że jednym z celów gry jest dostanie się do resztek zabudowań Pentagonu, a dokładniej do ogromnego schronu znajdującego się pod nimi. Większość miasta kontrolowana jest przez członków Bractwa Stali (w wersji, którą widzieliśmy, można było porozmawiać z jednym z nich -Strażnikiem Lyon'em). Bractwo jest jednak napierane coraz mocniej przez siły supermutantów i z trudnością broni centrum miasta. To jednak nie wszystkie frakcje. Spotkamy także dobrze znanych Ghuli, łowców niewolników, bandytów lub wreszcie zwykłych ludzi, którzy po prostu starają się przeżyć. Fallout 3 bardziej przypomina tutaj "dwójkę", niż "jedynkę". Cywilizacja istniejąca na gruzach starego świata ma się tutaj całkiem nieźle! Co ciekawsze - świat gry dynamicznie się zmienia. Na początku nic nie wskazuje na inwazję supermutantów, wszyscy żyją we względnym spokoju, dopiero wraz z rozwojem akcji ta nabiera tempa.

Fallout 3 jest tworzony na zmodyfikowanym silniku, znanym z Oblivion. Twórcy gry nie zdecydowali się na przebudowanie swojego engine, tak, aby wykorzystywał on wszystkie możliwości Dx10. Całość jest nadal tworzona w oparciu o Dx9. To dobra wiadomość - nie będziemy musieli posiadać najnowszych kart graficznych, aby zagrać w tę gierkę. Wymagania mają być też tylko nieznacznie większe od tych z TES IV. Nie wiem, czy jednak można tutaj za bardzo wierzyć producentowi.
Mimo, że nie zobaczymy w grze najnowszych efektów graficznych, to całość wygląda naprawdę dobrze. Wszystko jest jeszcze bardziej szczegółowe i ładniejsze niż to, co widzieliśmy nowym TES. Każda z lokacji ma swój własny, niepowtarzalny styl, a postacie nareszcie wyglądają realniej. Niestety, szwankuje nieco ich animacja; w ich ruchach czuje się sporą sztywność. Gdy gramy w trybie TPP, ruchy naszego bohatera wyglądają gorzej aniżeli w nowym Gothic! Cała reszta grafiki budzi jednak podziw swoją jakością. Także fizyka została utrzymana na świetnym poziomie. Można dowolnie niszczyć otoczenie, a w jednym z questów nawet wysadzić w powietrze spory kawałek mapy. Dobrym przykładem są tutaj też wraki starych, przedwojennych samochodów. Niektóre z nich po ostrzelaniu wybuchają, tworząc gustowny atomowy grzybek. I kto powie, że ogniwa termojądrowe są bezpieczne? ^^ Podobny efekt można uzyskać, strzelając ze specjalnego "atomowego" granatnika. Jeżeli trafimy w jakiś budynek, to naprawdę dużo z niego nie zostanie.
Gwoli ścisłości trzeba jednak przyznać, iż grafika - mimo, że jest świetna - nie dotrzymuje kroku najnowszym przebojom typu Crysis. Za rok może okazać się już nieco przestarzała...


Let's rock !

Większość fanów nie wyobraża sobie, jak można przerobić turowego Fallout na grę typu FPS. Powiem wprost - nie do końca jest to możliwe. Walka w F3 na pierwszy rzut oka jest bardziej zbliżona do tradycyjnych FPS, niż typowego cRPG. Starcia są tu niezwykle dynamiczne, zaś wrogowie mają nawet całkiem dobrą AI. Broń zachowuje się naprawdę realistycznie i rzeczywiście czujemy, że strzelamy ze starej, rozlatującej się strzelby albo ultranowoczesnego karabinu laserowego. Zrezygnowano także ze znanego z Oblivion skalowania siły wrogów do poziomu naszej postaci (btw: 20 to tutaj max).

Jak jednak do samej walki mają się zdolności bohatera? Im większa percepcja czy skill w używaniu danego typu broni, tym strzelamy celniej. Jeżeli weźmiemy w łapy karabin plazmowy, a mamy słabo rozwinięty skill w energy weapons, to nawet z odległości paru kroków w nikogo nie trafimy. Tutaj nie trzeba w zasadzie celować, odbywa się to niejako automatycznie, w zależności od naszych umiejętności. Także sama zręczność wpływa mocno na walkę; jeżeli mamy ja na niskim poziomie, to będziemy się poruszać naprawdę wolno, nie mówiąc już o szybkości strzelania. Taki system walki sprawdza się wprost wyśmienicie! Przypomina zresztą rozwiązanie ze starego Deus Ex, tylko tutaj umiejętności odgrywają jeszcze większe znaczenie. Nawet, jeżeli mamy zdolności manualne godne mistrza świata w CS, to na niewiele się nam one przydadzą. Niestety, takie rozwiązanie jest mocno zagrożone. Jak zapewne wiecie, gra pojawi się również na Xboxa i PS3, rozważana jest więc możliwość zastosowania normalnego systemu walki, takiego jak w większości znanych nam FPS.

Bardziej hardcorowi gracze mogą włączyć także tryb quasi turowy, czyli w zasadzie aktywną pauzę. Po jego uruchomieniu każdy ruch, nawet zwykłe obrócenie się, kosztuje nas kilka punktów akcji. Jeżeli celujemy we wroga, to specjalny system V.A.T.S zatrzymuje akcję, pozwalając nam dokładnie wycelować w wybraną część ciała wroga. Jednak zabawa w tym trybie mija się z celem - gra traci sporo na dynamice i walki z użyciem aktywnej pauzy są nudne. Widać, że jest to raczej ukłon w stronę fanów, a gra została zoptymalizowana pod kątem walki w czasie rzeczywistym. Najwygodniej jest bawić się bez włączania pauzy i ograniczyć się tylko do używania rewelacyjnego V.A.T.S.

Same walki - podobnie zresztą jak w poprzednich częściach - są bardzo brutalne. Jeżeli trafimy wroga bezpośrednio w głowę, to ta widowiskowo rozpryśnie się w fontannie krwi. Tradycyjnie już też "ciekawie" wyglądają efekty trafień krytycznych. Chyba ostatnio takie rzeczy widzieliśmy w Soldier of Fortune. Trzeba przyznać, że to jak zachowują się trafieni wrogowie, wygląda bardzo realistycznie i niczym dziwnym jest tutaj widok latających wszędzie oderwanych kończyn. W grze wszechobecna jest przemoc, brutalność, narkotyki czy nawet sex (gołe baby ) Napotkane postacie nie żałują języka i sypią równo przekleństwami. Ciekawe, jak poradzi sobie z tym polski dystrybutor.
Nic więc dziwnego, iż twórcy już teraz zapowiadają, że ich dzieło otrzyma znaczek Mature (dla dorosłych) w oznaczeniach wiekowych na pudełku.


Idzie nowe?

Pozostaje tylko pytanie: czym jest "nowy" Fallout i czy rzeczywiście zasługuje on na miano "sequela", "kontynuacji", "części trzeciej"? Wprawdzie cały system i mechanika gry zostały żywcem ściągnięte z poprzednich części, wprawdzie nadal mamy słynne komiksowe obrazki, i wprawdzie dalej jest to ten sam świat, ale... Fallout 3 to jednak zupełnie inna gra. Inna, nie znaczy bynajmniej gorsza! Klimat pozostał tutaj nadal cudowny, ale jest zupełnie odmienny i bardziej mroczny od tego znanego nam z poprzednich części. Walka wciąga, lecz nie przypomina rozwiązań z "dwójki" czy "jedynki". Tak wyliczać można by bardzo długo...
W grze brakuje tego nieokreślonego "czegoś", szczypty magii, którą miały wszystkie poprzednie gry z tej serii. Może to wina przeniesienia gry w 3D? Może ta magia tkwiła właśnie w prostym, zgrzebnym,dwuwymiarowym silniku?
Wydaje się jednak, że Bethesda podchodzi do swojej gry zbyt poważnie i chce maksymalnie urealistycznić jej świat. A przecież Fallout zawsze był grą z przysłowiowym "jajem". Wystarczy wspomnieć różne zabawne postacie (Marcus, Harold..), śmieszne ukryte lokacje (podziemia pod wychodkiem^^) czy wreszcie dialogi. Nawet "technika" w grze była tworzona niekoniecznie na poważnie. Pamiętacie zwykły Power Armour z wielkim "zaworem" na plecach ;-), roboty z gry lub różne dziwne przedmioty? Tutaj tego nie ma - gra jest kreowana na jak najbardziej realistyczną, już bez tego, charakterystycznego dla serii, przymrużenia oka. Pozostały tylko klasyczne menusy i zabawne obrazki...

Fallout 3 wyjdzie dopiero za rok, na przyszłą jesień. Wiele jest jeszcze do zrobienia - w miarę możliwości będziemy Was informować na bieżąco. Miejmy tylko nadzieję, iż mimo tego, że gra wychodzi także na konsole, nie zostanie zbytnio uproszczona.
Trzymamy kciuki za twórców i dziękujemy, iż pozwolili się nam zapoznać z ich najnowszym dzieckiem.

Na koniec jeszcze jedna uwaga - nie oceniajcie tej gry jako >>następcy<< serii Fallout. Jeżeli tak zrobicie, będziecie na pewno rozczarowani. Jeśli jednak potraktujecie ją jako >>nowego<< postnuklearnego RPG i zapomnicie na chwilę o tym, co było kiedyś, wtedy uznacie F3 za grę niemalże genialną. Można to powiedzieć śmiało nawet już teraz, gdy do premiery został ponad rok.

[mortalkombatvn]

Inside the Vault: Robert Wisnewski



After a week hiatus, Inside the Vault is back. Today, our Q&A features Robert Wisnewski, one of our senior artists. His main focus is on our dungeons - he created the beautiful fort ruins in Oblivion.


What’s your job at Bethesda?

Environmental/Dungeon Artist

What other games have you worked on?

Deathgate 1994
Shannara 1995
Mission Critical 1995
Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon 1997
The Wheel of Time 1999
Unreal II: The Awakening 2003
Unreal II: XMP Multiplayer 2003
Oblivion: 2006
Shivering Isles: 2007
Fallout 3…

What is the best part about being an artist? The worst part?

Making things in 3D is what’s most attractive to me. I love creating things in 3D - both made up objects and working from reference material. Just having the ability to create art and look at it from all different angles is truly incredible. The technology for modeling has become so accessible and user friendly today that I think a lot of people forget just how amazing it is to be able to create 3D objects on the computer.

The other best part of the job is the kind of assets I get to make. Since I do mostly architectural work, specifically ‘dungeon kits’, I basically get to create the places that the game’s characters live in. In other words, I get to build castles and dungeons and ruins [both fantasy and futuristic]. What could be better than that?

The worst part is that I make architectural set assets that get used lots of times. That may not sound like a bad thing, but when you see anything repeatedly in a game, it loses some of the impact that single location art has. This also somewhat limits what you can do with the models - a unique piece [say a wall section with lots of damage] is great when it’s used sparingly, but the wall sections that you see more often are the less unique ones since they’re used repeatedly - many times right next to each other. Trying to make kits where the pieces look good together and provide a lot of possible layouts yet don’t look very repetitive, can be hard. I’m always working on ways to make the ‘dungeon kits’ I create look less repetitive yet more ruined. And, adding damage to geometry is always time consuming.

How did you get into the industry? Do you have any tips for breaking in?

Purely by chance. Although I always loved drawing and painting, and was always heading towards a career in art, I never did any fantasy art. I graduated from RISD in 1986, majoring in Illustration, and then spent about 7 years freelancing. I did a ton of magazine work - covers and inside illustrations, and assorted books and advertising work. I was doing oil paintings for these jobs… I had no computer experience other than having played a bunch of Atari and arcade games as a kid.

When I was in my late 20’s, one of the art directors I had worked with on some freelance jobs called me to say he was now working with a computer game company [Legend Entertainment]. They were looking for artists and he thought I might be good for the job. I got in contact with the designer and after painting one background, got hired to do more background work for this game called Deathgate. At that time, I had just moved into my first house with my wife in Natick, MA, and I was FedEx-ing the paintings to the game company in Virginia. They in turn were FedEx-ing them back to an art studio in Natick, about a mile away from my house, to be scanned and palletized. Shortly after, I happened to get a call from a friend who was teaching at Mass. Art. She told me that the woman who ran the art studio in Natick had given a lecture at the college, and that the studio was looking for artists. I called the studio and asked for an interview. At first the woman I spoke to didn’t believe that I was who I said I was, but after showing up for the interview with some of the illustrations they had already scanned, I got a job with them… still doing oil paintings.



It took a while for them to switch me over to working on the computer. I started working with Dpaint and eventually Animator Pro, doing all hand drawn art and animations in 256 color palettes. A couple of years later, the company got one copy of this modeling program called 3D studio. Modeling objects looked amazing, so I stayed after work to learn the program on my own time. I worked hard to learn all that I could and eventually was given the chance to do some simple in-game models for the game The Wheel of Time. I’ve been modeling and texturing ever since.

As for tips for breaking in… make sure you don’t have bad breath during an interview? Seriously, I believe that your portfolio should do your talking, so make sure you have only the best examples of your work. Also, make sure you present your work as professionally and well organized as possible. People who do interviews really want to remember you for your work, so anything that detracts them from doing so is a bad thing. Making your renders all the same proportions, labeling things sequentially and understandably, and grouping things in cohesive ways will let people remember the art itself, and not the presentation [or lack of].

What would you say is your personal favorite game of all time?

Robotron.

What games are you looking forward to?

Fallout 3
Assasin’s Creed
Crysis
Empire Earth III
Left For Dead
Lego Indiana Jones
Serious Sam 3
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

That’s just a random few - there are lots I’m looking forward to seeing, but I definitely won’t get the chance to play them all.

Any other hobbies and interests? What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

I grew up playing sports all the time, so I’d say that’s something that’s still very important to me. I still play soccer twice a week after work. The mix of people mirrors my job - lots of younger people, and then there’s me. I also love photography, and recently got a new DSLR camera, so I spend a lot of time taking pictures. I recently figured out that I’ve taken over 28,000 digital pictures, so organizing them has been an ongoing job.

I’m married, have 2 kids, a dog and a house, so spare time is pretty non-existent. Work eats up the weekdays and on weekends, my son and daughter’s sports take care of at least one of the two days. Playing with my kids… nothing beats that as far as fun and entertainment goes.

Every weekend my Golden Retriever and I spend a couple of hours exploring the historic Battlefields and forests that surround where I live in Virginia. I love to read, watch movies, go fishing and hiking. I love to travel and ski, but haven’t done so in years. Someday though, I’d like to get back to Grand Cayman Island, Germany and France. There are a lot of places I’d love to see and photograph, and my kids are getting to the age where vacation trips to such places are possible, so hopefully that will happen in the near future.

Pitch your dream game.

Anything involving Alchemy Actually, I’d be very interested in seeing the “Mind Game” in the book Ender’s Game [and subsequent books in the series] made into reality. “A self-altering game that responds to the needs and desires of the player” and eventually becomes…. well, I won’t spoil it for anyone who hasn’t read the series, but if you haven’t, I’d highly recommend it.

Posted by acheng on Thursday, November 1st, 2007 at 12:53 pm.

[mortalkombatvn]

Atomic Ninjas talk Fallout 3: The Sequel



In late August I reported that No Mutants Allowed got inside the Fallout 3 demo presentations and got a few Q&A sessions with Pete Hines. They went to the Bethesda Games Fallout 3 forum and replied to questions about their viewing of the Fallout 3 demo. This is the fifth of a series of blogposts with an edited version of those sessions. You can find part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here, part 5 is here, and part 6 is here.

Thank you for all of you that made the questions, and the intrepid atomic ninjas for providing so many interesting answers.

—X—

Will ap become useless if you never use the V.A.T.S. system?

It does not appear to have any function outside of VATS

I hope npc reactions are improved allot more in the final game. Like when you pick up the laser rifle from the soldier the BoS soldiers should force you to give it to them and give you one of their Chinese assault rifles instead.

Considering their excessively possessive nature in FO1/2 when it came to technology… well. Pretty unlikely they’d even let you near the laser rifle.

The lack of helmets is also unsettling I would rather have BoS soldiers wearing patched up helmets and marking their armor to show rank or identification. If the only reason they don’t wear helmets is so you can identify them. Then just have them remove their helmets to talk to the PC when no combat is going on.

Not to mention (grandfather) Maxson was killed, hit in the head during a raid because he wasn’t wearing his helmet. I’m pretty sure the BoS learnt their lesson after that…

But of course, a helmet doesn’t let you show much facial expression during dialog. I could understand the leader being helmetless for that purpose, but nearly the entire squad? un-bloody-likely.
Will ap become useless if you never use the V.A.T.S. system?

From what we saw, probably, yes.

heh, so much attention paid to the crater… did it look like maybe they tunneled around it? It’s been a couple of hundred years. You figure a lot of this stuff would be covered/built upon/destroyed…

Can’t tell, but Megaton is basically a ramshackle Junktown-esque place built on the walls of the crater/hole/whatever
I’m more concerned about the disparity in rad counts between the too-ubiquitous mushroom clouds and the “tap” water… sure, one is ingested and that explains the rad count to an extent but… come on?

Probably just a demo thing, tho’

Relaxing? Or maybe tired of all the (endless) fighting? Like in war-weary and disenchanted by the whole mess? You know, like in the anti-war movies.

No, it’s definitely just bad/unfinished AI scripting, just like the soldier shouldering his gun the moment the bomb hits. They need to do some work there.

Which I think is the value here:

Remember how all those previewers were ecstatic about the improved RAI? Well, guess what, you don’t actually *see* improved RAI anywhere in the demo, all those previewers have to go on is the promise that RAI will be better. All the RAI I saw in the demo was *exactly* like it was in Oblivion (with the possible exception of combat AI).



Does this mean that mutants are only out to kill you or what?

Basically, Pete Hines was talking about dialogue as a valid options and then just threw out “obviously, that doesn’t go for supermutants.” Might’ve been a joke, might’ve been inaccurate, it didn’t sound very definitive to me.

But supermutants are “the enemy”, that much is clear. Whether or not you can talk to them and how much backstory they have I don’t know

Weren’t ALL the mutants using heavy or melee weapons in both F1 and F2 precisely because they could not use small arms?

Yes, but with the note that this was partially because the Fallout devs simply didn’t have the time to waste on making supermutant animations with small guns, but they would’ve if it didn’t make sense that mutants can’t use small guns.
Wasn’t FEV supposed to trigger an uncontrollable growth of muscle mass? I think that was one of the reasons the original design showed them deformed and Hulk like. And the mutants we’ve seen so far in the few screenshots don’t look any smaller.

Smaller, no. Less deformed, yes. They’re just 7-8′ human beings, it’s possible their hands are small enough to use assault rifles. It didn’t look “wrong” in the demo, it looked like the size of the gun in relation to the mutant was fine.

As an added question: Were the mutants shooting weapons Rambo style ? Just staying in the middle of the road, spray and pray, or was there any attempt to seek cover/flank ?

Couldn’t tell. The combat AI wasn’t stunningly impressive, and there was a lot of stand shoot, spray and pray. From everyone, not just supermutants.

In the earlier Fallouts, only the military had most of the access to robots and the only real AI was rare. But how now in Washington DC there is a Protectron and the “Stupid Git” robot in the demo? Was any of this explained? or is my (usually bad) memory of Fallout off?

No, not explained. Nor could I really tell from the demo if the robot density will be higher, but I don’t think it’d be a huge problem if it were. Sure, Fallout didn’t have many, but the one big city in Fallout had been hit pretty bad by the war and rioting, it might simply be different on the other coast. The pre-war world had plenty of robots, so it could make sense for a lot to survive

I don’t think the “stupid git” remark by the robot makes any sense because the only machines in the fallout universe that had any “personality” were A.I. like ZAX which was a huge computer.

It makes even less sense when you consider it’s a posh, thick, kinda fake British accent.

It’s really, really bad. I pray they remove it

So the slow-mo in VATS would get pretty tiresome after a while. Do you think it would make more sense to keep VATS without the slowmo.

Sure, it’s a RTwP system with aiming, the mechanics are what’s important, the slow motion is just for cool points and doesn’t actually relate to the mechanics

I’m interested if Brother None or SuAside can recall exactly or as close to exactly what Mr Burke says to the player. Other previews have mentioned things from building a residential suburb on the sight to building a shopping mall on the site to just wanting to blow it up because it is a “blight”. Can one of you guys remember the exact reason why?

He does go on for quite a while, but I don’t think he mentions his own, personal motives. It’s quite possible there’re dialogue lines in which he’ll name more reasons to convince the player, but Pete chose to accept the quest immediately (for the pace of the demo, I guess).

He mentions that it’s a blight, I don’t remember him elucidating that further, and the real estate remarks are just jokes.



From what Ausir has told me BethSoft does use the wiki quite a bit.

Yip. And it shows, I have yet to see them get any lore wrong, even though we still have to wait for the explanation for the supermutants and BoS

If we were all optimists around here, we’d all say that the reason they didn’t explain it is that it was too long and complicated to explain in 30 minutes…

The reason they give for not explaining is it that they want people to see it in the game. That sounds fairly reasonable to me, though they could be handling it better.

I kinda of a have a pre-exception mode to this because I think no matter how well you explain it you’re always inspiring the feeling of “why move it cross-continent just to rehash the same factions/monsters.” I’m fine with supermutants, especially if they were bred locally, though not with their look. The BoS, different from the originals in look, behavior, goals and location, I honestly just don’t get

Ever since the first reviews of the preview demo came out I was struck by how many of the reviewers talked about the glare when the PC first emerges from the vault and sees the sun “for the first time in his life” or lines to that effect. Someone commenting on it was one thing, but I became curious and cynical when I read the exact same response in a second and more reviews.

The glare/blur is impossible to miss and has a cool effect, so it doesn’t surprise me a lot would talk about it. “For the first time in his life” might just be a sign of having played the original Fallout, where that is heavily emphasized.

So, my question is, “Was that mentioned during the demo, or is that moment really that effective?”

No. But note that while a lot is similar (”is that his eye” joke, “destruction is our new trees” remark), Pete doesn’t usually do the presentation, Todd does. So maybe Todd mentioned it, while Pete doesn’t.

heh, so much attention paid to the crater… did it look like maybe they tunneled around it? It’s been a couple of hundred years. You figure a lot of this stuff would be covered/built upon/destroyed…

Sua: Bigass crater really… and nearly totally intact bomb. i’d almost wager it was dropped by parachute (for delay and airburst purposes).

Anyway, the thing that struck me as odd the most in the whole thing (next to the crater from an undetonated bomb) is the fact that INSIDE the crater, there was a perfectly intact sewer/metro grate used by Pete to enter the subway station part.

The soldier sitting down after the fight.
Relaxing? Or maybe tired of all the (endless) fighting? Like in war-weary and disenchanted by the whole mess? You know, like in the anti-war movies.

Nah, he just shouldered his weapon (after the behemoth had been hit, but before the behemoth had fallen, he must have magical powers to tell the hit would be fatal, looking through the huge explosion before it cleared.) and then sat down, staring blankly.
You could say it’s shellshock.

Both if you guys said some of the mutants were using Chinese ARs (in 5,56 ? weird but possible since Norico sells hundred of thousands of M16 copies each year ….anyway…). Weren’t ALL the mutants using heavy or melee weapons in both F1 and F2 precisely because they could not use small arms? Wasn’t FEV supposed to trigger an uncontrollable growth of muscle mass? I think that was one of the reasons the original design showed them deformed and Hulk like. And the mutants we’ve seen so far in the few screenshots don’t look any smaller. How could a creature with such huge limbs manipulate an assault rifle (magazine release and trigger guard should be really large or in the case of the latter omitted all together)? Now I can see a mutant using a heavy machine gun that uses an ammo belt (50 cal have such proportions that even a mutant would have room to operate) but an assault rifle? If they’ve tied this decision to the “cannibalizing” part of the design why not give mutants machine guns that are part of a weapon family ? Like the PK and AK and AKSU share almost 90% of the parts? Or the HK 21 share with the G3 AR in the western world. Not to mention that the newest Chinese Type 95 series has light MG, AR and Sniper sharing a lot of parts.

You’ll note that some assault rifles (especially those in nordic countries) have very large triggerguards to allow for very thick gloves in -40°c environments. a good example would be the AK5 (a modified FNC assault rifle). so if thick gloves fit, i guess mutant fingers might too? comfortable is another matter ofc…
As for the magazine release etc, it looked like a modified AK style rifle (with hints of Galil), so the magazine release is very big and bulky. no problem for mutant fingers (though this is speculation, i didnt get to see the chinese ARs trigger guards or magazine release. i should have seen it during the reload cycle, but i was furiously taking notes about other stuff).

As an added question: Were the mutants shooting weapons Rambo style ? Just staying in the middle of the road, spray and pray, or was there any attempt to seek cover/flank ?

Only one mutant really went off to flank, but i’m guessing that was more to illustrate aiming at partially covered targets than it was for AI combat…

The thing about behemoth and corpses on the back… that was actually said by Pete? I know you wouldnt invent such a thing but just to make it clear…

He pointed it out, that the behemoth had it on his back (though ofc empty at the time).

In other previews, journalists talked about about the improved RAI, people talking to each other by name, logical conversations.
In the demo, at least in mine, you don’t actually see that. The combat AI is different, but the RAI behaviour of NPCs all throughout the demo is exactly like RAI NPC behaviour in Oblivion. Pete says it’s improved, but I couldn’t actually tell, in the demo, apart from some events which just seem too obviously scripted. The conversation about the radio might’ve been RAI, and that’d be good, but it strikes me more as scripted, since it’s the point in the demo where Pete talks about the PipBoy radio.

So will it be improved? They promise, but nobody can tell at this point, and some statements made by journalists on the topic are a bit weird, considering they also probably did not see RAI in action.

Okay BN, assuming that the game won’t change and it will be pretty much like in the preview- ya think ya’ll buy it?

I operate by the assumption that I will get a press review copy.

But seriously, if it were a lengthened version of the demo, no. But it’s a linear demo with much violence and little talk, who knows how representative it is.

The demo simply doesn’t provide enough information on certain points (dialogue, quests, storyline) to make an educated “buy or don’t buy” decision. So can’t tell yet.

Is this a Fallout sequel?
Or is this a sequel to Oblivion, done in a Fallout universe?

Neither. Though more the latter than the former.

As I recall, Fallout 3 is not supposed to be a linear game. Perhaps that was just for the demo, ya?

Of course. You can’t have a 45-minute press demo that’s free-roaming, you’d have to spend 30 of the 45 minutes looking for stuff to do, it wouldn’t work

Could you give more details about the enclave radio?

No. I don’t know anything else. Pete doesn’t tune in to them, he doesn’t explain it, you just see them on the list, and the man and woman discuss the station coming in well.

Behemoth was taken down with only one shot from the nukular catapult?

Two, one direct hit, one aimed shot. It took more in other demos. I remind you the Fatman does 90 times as much damage as the Chinese assault rifle.

There was only one instance when a boS soldier was caught in the blast of it?

Once in the blast of the Fatman, once in the blast of a car. No reaction either times.
But, to avoid such complications maybe you can damage only hostiles? Or the friendlies always remain friendly?

I just assumed they were immortal for purposes of the demo.

In general terms how would you compare Van buren demo and this one? Which one felt more complete in gameplay mechanics presented.

They’re incomparable. This one is more polished, but I could play the Van Buren demo where I could only watch this one. So I can’t compare directly.

Was there ever any combat done from the 3rd person perspective?

No.

Does this mean we have no control over which stats we choose and that GOAT does that for us or does it just advice but we can manualy set and choose stats and skills?

It sounded like it advises you, and you set it.

Was there any weather effects seen through the demo?

Did night ever fall?

No and no.

But anyway, I have a question. How does the AP actually work? Does it regenerate even if you are shooting (in non-VATS mode) so could use it on VATS later on? Or does AP degrades while shooting in realtime as well?

I didn’t see it degrade in realtime, but AP had a pumped-up regeneration rate in the demo. It was regenerating even while Pete was running and gunning, but I don’t know if that’s how it works in the real game.

It’s basically just a fatigue counter, when full you get a super-move, when taking actions it doesn’t regenerate.



Noteable voices from Oblivion, or unique sounding?

Couldn’t tell. I haven’t played enough Oblivion to instantly recognize voices.

I have another question: How did the interface look?

What interface? The combat one? The PipBoy one? Both were simplified into the console sense of the word, PipBoy looked good, the combat interface functional.

How was the battle between the BoS and mutants? Was there a lot of physical space in the battle? Oblivion had so little space for battles.

You mean room to move? Plenty.
The battle was pretty messy, hard to follow. Pretty intense, FPS vibe, to be honest, until Pete paused it a couple of time.

One thing that really got on my tits (in both Obliv and MW) was that every time you walked through an entrance, there was a loading sequence. From the screen shots it looks like there’s some walk in buildings - is that the case? or are there still lots of immersion killing ‘teleporter’ doors?

For the buildings in the supermutant/BoS area (the ones you see in the screenshot), no, Pete moved in and out with no loading screens.

The game did have to load Moriarty’s bar when the PC entered, seperately.
It might be ruined buildings = no loading, alive buildings = loading.
Don’t remember teleporting PCs, I agree that needs to go.

There wasn’t any new skills … but did You notice what was out?
The other thing that I noticed was, that in Your demo it took one shot to kill behemoth - and in one of the first previous they mentioned several… I guess they changed that…

We never said it took one shot. you’ll need to reread the preview again, more attentively. it always took at least 2 fatmans (and 2 exploding cars upon entry), coupled to the damage done by the BoS squad that is firing away at the beast.

Did you see a ‘puddle of goo’ death animation?
Anything akin to the flamethrower death animation?

Nope & nope.
But there were only a hunting rifle, Chinese assault rifles, laser rifles and the Fatman in the demo.
I didn’t like the “splatter bonus” death animations. Looked unpersonalized, indistinct and not special at all. They lacked character, like most of the things we saw.

But again, did You notice any lack of skill in PC character sheet, or are there every from first Fallout?

As mentioned previously by others, there are slightly less skills, but in a quick glance we were unable to spot the missing ones (or modified ones for that matter).

How does the Behemoth look like it’d handle mellee? Does it look like hitting it in the face repeatedly with a Power Fist is a viable strategy to killing it?

Not really. I mean “I don’t know,” all it attacked was a BoS soldier in SuA’s demo, and they seem to be immortal, but Pete Hines notes it dealt “tons” of damage and could take it too. I think you’re supposed to keep your distance from him, and considering you needa 3550 DPS weapon to kill him, it struck me that only that weapon offers a sane mode to kill him with.

With regards to my question in another thread about player’s movement whilst performing VATS scheduled attacks (BN said there was none, IIRC), could I ask what happens whilst the player performs his actions? Do the enemies just stand there and take hits whilst the player is in VATS mode, or do they get to move? Do they get to shoot at the player who is just standing still?

They move and shoot while your queued actions play out.
This makes it quite likely that you’ll be able to target the head, and the PC will keep shooting at the head while you move around with WASD. But I don’t know.



Did Pete explain that? Did a lot of people scratch their heads wondering what he meant? Since no one enters and no one leaves, the only possible jumpsuit he could have seen was the father’s, right? And I got the sense your long-lost dad didn’t leave “a long time” before your quest began.

I assumed he was talking about vault suits in general, not 101 suits. It’s conceivable there’d be more than one vault in D.C.
But no further explanation offered, no. I had a feeling that the reference might actually be to your specific vault (since i believe he also mentions it is nearby).

If you view it that way, it could easily be an intrigue. Afterall ‘no one ever leaves’ etc, that might be what you’re told, but your father left, didn’t he?
He might not be the first (FO1 style? the overseer’s ‘last hope’ jada jada jada, but turns out he sent out other dudes with the same mission), nor was he the last (you)…

Watching the demo, what was your “gut” feeling? Was there anything “fallouty”? Did you feel like you were in front of a Fallout game or a generic FPS? Or an Oblivion spin-off?
Did you want the game to have gone gold already so to being able to buy it, or were you indifferent?
Sorry if already being asked, didn’t check all well… ;P

It has been asked before or it has been written in the preview…

Fallout feeling/atmosphere is very hit & miss, though the vault itself seemed rather well done.
Dialogues missed ‘the fallout feeling’ though. none of the NPCs we spoke to (including Liam Neeson’s character) seem to radiate the personality found in the originals. every talkinghead used to have very distinct tics or characteristics that were hard to miss. here is was pretty vanilla (for now).
Yes, I’d buy it, though mostly to 1) be able to review/judge it myself & 2) mod the ‘crap’ out of it.

And what did you see of the insides of the buildings? How much it was used? Can it be used?
Suaside commented that instead of staying inside the building “brotherhood” soldiers ran out to fight…

VATS shows you that walls and debris can be used as cover, so yes, you can use it as cover. however, none of the NPCs seemed to care (RADIANT AI!), except the one scripted specifically to demonstrate its use in VATS.

Is it possible to go into every building and climb up to the upper floors and shoot from there? how much of this have you seen?

Every building? I doubt all buildings will grant you access to higher levels, but yes, a few buildings did have access to other floors and the roof. Bethesda placed one mutant on the first floor of the school, as you can see in the released screenshots.

What was like inside the galaxy news building where you meet dastardly Burke? Did the PC climb the stairs or was it a loading screen and suddenly you are on top?

Entering the building (using the doors outside) immediately teleported us to the roof. though i guess that was just for demo purposes and that you’ll be able to visit the building (since they supposedly broadcast radio from there).

Alright, thanks. can i get some meassures already? how big was the Behemoth and how big was the blast from the Fatman in metric system….pleeeeeaaasseeeee.

Sjeezes man… we didn’t have our measuring tools handy you know. to me the blast looked like 5 meter in diameter but very [censored] high (mushroom, duh).
But I could be off by a huge margin… kinda hard to guess if you primary object to compare it to is an out of proportion huge ass mutant, ye know…

What res was the demo? If it was high-res, did the display scale well to the res, or were the interface items “hueg”?

I’m guessing it was lower than the normal 720p resolution used by the Xbrick360. if it was 720p (or even 1080i) than they are having HUUUUUUGE anti-aliasing problems. Pete made a comment about VGA (which would be 640×480 in 16bit), but i doubt he meant that with it (since it was on widescreen anyway)…

The interface items were the same as on the screenshots released. (check the mutant with aimed bodyparts)

Was the subway, described as being like Oblivion’s caves, behind a “loading…” door?

As said before, he entered a grate and it loaded. so yes. or maybe more like oblivion sewers than caves.

Few points your review made me wonder about: if you’d listened to your radio in the same room as the cafe one, what would it have sounded like?

It just made the radio louder and closer to you. drowned out the other radio which was playing the same.

Would he have greeted you with that comment about the jumpsuit if you stripped naked and hidden the jumpsuit and pipboy behind a rock before approaching, as I would probably do if I was RPing: being viewed as a vault-dweller makes you too vulnerable. At least being a naked guy makes it obvious someone’s already rolled you and you’ve nothing else left to steal.

I wonder if the jumpsuit is even removable.

I wonder if the pipboy is removable: I doubt it, sadly.


I doubt that you can take off the suit at all.Wearing something over it is no problem ofc.

But no, obviously VATS doesnt show you the nice spots to take cover. however it was used to illustrate that hidden bodyparts of an enemy have a 0% chance to hit. The preview states, “This encouraged them to build their town around this bomb, using salvaged parts including a downed airline carrier.”




Is the carrier a transport plane or is it some kind of futuristic flying aircraft carrier? I was thinking about the carrier shown in the concept art and wondering if it could be related. Thanks.

Flying aircraft carrier? haha, no… none of the concept art pictures represent Megaton.
And the only evidence i saw of any plane parts being used in Megaton was the gate construction. the rest seems mostly like a shantytown, though the building at the foot of the crater might have used a part or two.
I suppose there will be more, but Pete didnt exactly look around much… focusing on his footsteps and on the bomb mostly.

Is the carrier a transport plane or is it some kind of futuristic flying aircraft carrier? I was thinking about the carrier shown in the concept art and wondering if it could be related. Thanks.

Megaton is built with some salvaged plane parts.

The settlement built inside the stranded remains of the aircraft carrier is called Rivet City. Wasn’t in the demo.

Not constructive I know but, unexploded bomb crater? Is that like a strait hook or an empty tube of smarties. note, not an empty smarties tube.

On that note, Desslock noted this:

It doesn’t. The town was created around the impact crater of an unexploded bomb (which is in the center of the town) - the town isn’t IN the crater.

Not sure how he knows that or if he’s just making assumptions, though. I just quoted Pete



WAS IT THE T-SHIRT OR THE PROTECTRON, ADMIT IT!

Probably the Protectron. If I could, I would stand under the Protectron’s balcony, serenading his awesominity

Heh. The graphics ain’t it. If it were graphics, I’d have gone for the nukular explosions, which are very pretty. The Protectron is just well designed.

Call it a man-crush. Shaun Alexander, Maurice Jones-Drew and the Protectron; my man-crushes.

PS: damn Zoidberg, tho’

Sua: undercover Brother always had a crush on the famous Robby the Robot…

As for Megaton, I doubt it is useful to speculate for now. Sure was a weird town though, sitting in a crater (or just a ditch according to Desslock) in which the bomb just happened to land smack center of.

As for the demo, yeah, we spent like 5 minutes looking at soil and feet. not to mention how nicely the character walks up stairs! that was a load off my mind seeing that the character actually used the stairs correctly (though it didnt work @ BN’s showing), certainly worth the time spent right there.

Did the Brotherhood really spoke (beside some raw language) and behave like some do-gooders ?

They (except the squad leader) spoke like American soldiers in Iraq. or the American marines in FMJ.

Were they working for Burke ? Or just went the same direction ?

Just going in the same direction, I think. I doubt they have anything to do with Burke.

Did you guys had a feeling that Bethesda misinterpreted The Brotherhood from Fallout 1 and 2 ?
I mean we had to convince them that They have to do something else about the mutants than rather hide in thier bunker in F1.

Of course they misinterpreted the BoS… for [censored]s sake, they said the BoS were the noble knights of the wasteland, clearing the mutants out of the city. how more wrong can you friggin’ be?

Not to mention their utterly moronic squad behavior (paladins are meant to be elite fighters), their macho cursing (yes, nicely disciplined they are…), them allowing you to pick up a far more advanced weapon than they are carrying from a fallen comrade (can you imagine the BoS handing over tech like that in FO1 without being a member? I think not) and the state of their equipment (sure it might be war, but if a perfectly fine powerarmor doesn’t pass muster due to the solder line on a friggin’ eyepiece… well, then these heaps of trash certainly don’t either).

[mortalkombatvn]

Atomic Ninjas talk Fallout 3
In late August I reported that No Mutants Allowed got inside the Fallout 3 demo presentations and got a few Q&A sessions with Pete Hines. They went to the Bethesda Games Fallout 3 forum and replied to questions about their viewing of the Fallout 3 demo. You can find part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here, part 5 is here, part 6 here.

Or you can scroll down and read everything here! Thanks to everyone that posted the questions, and kudos to Brother None and Suaside, the intrepid Atomic Ninjas!

—————————————————X—————————————————-



To my knowledge [BN], you do not have to have had visual contact with an enemy for them to go on the view board (what a sentence)
Basically, you can auto-target anything which is tagged by your perception to be within your “sensory range,” which probably includes hearing and seeing. I don’t think Pete spotted the supermutant before auto targeting him.

Is there a enemy locater such as it was in Far Cry displayed in the main HUD all the time which will show hostiles and friendlies as dots in red or green color?

Yes, but with the note that I don’t remember seeing it when NPCs were *far off*. It seems to be a compensation for the lack of first-person peripheral vision more than anything. Though I *think* it functioned in the vault when the NPCs were behind the wall, but I’m not sure on that.
There’s a good chance that both this red/green dot stuff and the VATS auto-targeting is influenced by the same calculation made by perception, but I don’t know

Thinking about that kind of thing, how does VATS work out movement for the player?

To my memory, the PC never moved while V.A.T.S. actions were playing out. Whether or not this is possible I don’t know, but it seems to me like it’d be manual, not the computer figuring it out

There is something I am really worried about you didn’t talk about the environments like they were amazing?
Environmental graphics were great. The use of parallax mapping really shows and some of the ruins look fantastic. Like I said, the “style” is kind of up and down, but the quality is consistently good.

Did they remind you of any movies. Where they really detailed.

Ugh, good question, but no, unless…The Silent City, perhaps. Not so much the classic Fallout influences, like Brazil and City of Lost Children, didn’t notice much of that.

Did it really look at all convincing?

Not sure what you mean there. If you mean, did it look realistic, did it convince me of being a real world…kinda halfway in between. Probably will with better graphics



Is exploring going to be fun?

Couldn’t tell, the demo is railroaded (because you can’t really show a freeroaming demo)

What are the top ten things you liked and disliked personally?
TEN?!

Uh, roughly listed

Like:
1. The look of nuclear explosions
2. the Protectron robot
3. The local cult sign
4. The scenic overlook sign
5. The look of the vault
6. The look of the PipBoy
7. The rough impression of dialogue mechanics (not knowing yet how it’ll work on choice and consequences inside dialogue, though)
8. Bits of Megaton
9. The view of the city from Tenpenny Towers
10. The “nice hat, Calamity Jane” line

Dislike
1. The amount of nuclear explosions
2. The Brotherhood of Steel
3. The Supermutants
4. Mr Handy
5. The DPS concept
6. The overseer’s “goons”
7. The apparent lack of consequences of drugs
8. The look of dialogue
9. The pace of combat
10. The dead people outside of the vault door

I’m 85% sure the 38 character limit is history. Thank Frith for that.

I liked the sound and look of speech mechanics. I’ll have to see more, tho’, a lot was left unclear. Too little speech in the demo.

I’m still not swayed by the whole THE SUPERMUTANTS ARE ORCS thing, as the old ones were basically shrek meets a hardware store.

It’s a tough one. I guess I’m too allergic for generic looks, and this was just too generic for me.

I do not completely understand this bit. I loved the floating texts in Fallout, will this be similar or different (or completely different, nonexistent)?
I also can’t remember the greeting text in Oblivion, so if someone can explain in detail or give examples.

Well, floating texts in Fallout’s had more of a filler or single reply purpose. It didn’t happen (often) that you would walk up to someone and he’d go “come here, I’d like to talk to you,” this happens here. While you’re walking up to the sheriff, he starts talking about Vault 101 and your jumpsuit. You can then chose to initiate dialogue, he doesn’t. I remember Oblivion doing the same.

Since we still have no official screenshots of ladies in Fallout 3, what was your impression of her looks?

She was covered in plated armor with most of her head covered too. So “no impression.” Her face was just a face, not noticeably female from my memory, but better-looking than Oblivion

And the random floating texts (from bums and such) are replaced by speech or are they present?

No floating text. They’re talking, RAI-Oblivion style. Examples include the people in Megaton carrying on a conversation I couldn’t quite catch, the guy praying to the unexploded nuke and the man and woman in Moriarty’s bar

So not even in the demo did they show any women, properly *sigh* <!--[if gte vml 1]&gt; &lt;![endif]-->

Well, I *think* one of the NPCs chatting in Megatron was a woman, and one of the NPCs in Moriarty’s bar definitely was, but I didn’t get a close look at either, I was scribbling.

I’m especially curious about AI and how ‘far’ they got in programming it yet after the description of some of the gameplay.

Depends on what AI. A lot of events looked scripted to me. Combat AI was sloppy according to SuAside (I wasn’t paying attention to that)

If I read it right the Nukepult did damage but ’seemingly’ no area damage?

The BoS also took no notice of standing in/near the blast radius of an exploding car. I think something was wrong with their damage reaction, period. Maybe they were just immortal for sake of the demo.

And you saw shooting with projectile weapons and with laser - anything else? And did the effects differ? (When hitting a target)

Hunting rifle, Chinese assault rifle, laser gun, Fatman. That’s all you see the PC use, NPCs also bite (ants) and swing with super sledges and a fire hydrant.
I did not see the effects or death animations differ (the Behemoth appeared to have a separate, special death animation). Laser didn’t have a different effect from bullets that I could see.
I do remember seeing one supermutant reach for his right shoulder with his left hand after being hit there in slow motion.

So is the Behemoth a USA (Ultra Super Mutant) or is it something different? (from what I have seen from the Behemoth, i find them “better” looking then the SM, or at least having more character and more buffed like the original ones)

The Behemoth is unexplained beyond being “the super mutant endboss”

He uses a fire hydrant for a weapon and keeps a shopping cart on his back to stuff corpses in, so I guess he might be a less intelligent, brutal type. But it’s left unexplained.
He did indeed look quite cool, and pretty “different”. (SuAside disagrees and thinks he looked bad, but I liked him, somewhat, I just hated the way he was introduced).

The Behemoth looks more like an experiment gone horrible wrong. Like they injected someone with massive amounts of BuffOut and then dumped him into FEV vats.

You made your way from the Vault to one town, to/through the subways and into the ‘city’ itself.
All done on foot or was there some kind of transportation in the subway?
I mean did it give you a sense of scale of the world?

All is on foot. I believe another interview already stated the subways don’t work, and from the look of it I’m not surprised, most tracks have rubble on them and all remaining trains are wrecked, not to mention the metro tunnels are mutant territory. I think the entire game is on foot.
Nope, no sense of scale. The point from the Vault exit through Sprinvale through Megaton was pretty dense, and that might be like that in the final version, but from there the build kind of “cheats” and teleports the PC from location to location rather than walking the entire distance. At least that’s the impression I got, you seem a lot farther from Megaton (at least a mile or 5) than the PC walked in the tunnels.

HOW DID THE INTRO LOOK, BROTHER NONE?

I’m glad you asked (and Gizmo, too).
Really good, actually. Someone at Bethesda must’ve paid attention to La Jetee, and the whole idea of “implied motion in still images.”

It’s a lot like the Fallout intro in that sense. After the teaser we all know, during Perlman’s talk (which sounds better than it reads, though he pauses too much, which detracts from it as a whole), you see brown-tinted black and white images. First pure stills (skeletons, tombstones), then the actual nuclear war, with vague implications of movement and actual movement (of mushroom clouds in the distance).
It worked very well, though it didn’t have the impact of the originals (probably because I was too prepared for it). The timing is good, it’s just slightly stretched out. Like I said, too much pausing.

Is there any of those lovely grainy camera shots or pipboy cartoons like in the first Fallout’s? I always loved that style.

You mean Vault Boy. Careful there or you will feel my NERD RAGE
But no, no Vault Boy, at least not in the style of “instructional video” of Fallout 2.
They seem to have replaced the idea of grainy camera shots with weathered postcards. It’s a different visual style, but they transfer similar ideas and it works about equally well.

And the last question for the night from me, did you see what any other stats besides agility do? They seem to have changed up what the stats are responsible for quite a bit from what we’ve seen of the agility screenshot.

Yeah, Endurance, as written in the preview:

Endurance influences HPs, resistances and the big guns and unarmed skills.

Note that since agility influences small guns, endurance big guns and unarmed, strength can be assumed to influence melee (and maybe also big guns and unarmed?) and I have no idea what influence energy weapons.
Yeah, they made a lot of changes. I’ll need more details to see what kind of changes, but so far it seems to make a modicum of sense. This is a good way of making endurance more useful and nerfing the overpowered agility.

PS: oh yeah, and perception. Note perception doesn’t “let you see through walls,” perception just determines how many NPCs are tagged as “within visual range” when in VATS mode. Oddly enough, yes, with high perception “within visual range” does include people behind walls. Makes some sense if you count hearing under perception too (and smell, for mutants)

I’d imagine they’ll give Perception more skills, since with the real time system it’s losing Sequence.

Perception heavily influences VATS and I think influences to-hit percentages (which operate in RT too) already, so it’s not losing much.

I only saw the skill screen for a split second. I *think* I saw all the gun skills, unarmed, melee, speech, barter, science and repair, but I’m very unsure.

Stupidly unimportant question, but when sneak was activated was there a change in animation, reduced speed?
Obviously change in animation would not be noticeable if the camera was in FPP.

Camera was FPP, so I don’t know. I think the PC slowed down a bit, don’t remember how much.
Pete had an easy time of it sneaking past the supermutants. Might’ve been a buffed up sneak skill, too

The whole cannibal thing was bad enough. This reminds me, I think I forgot one thing. Time to check my notes…

Oh yeah, two other stats that showed up besides “corpses eaten:”
“dismemberments“
“unique weapons created” (or “crafted,” my handwriting got a bit scribbly there)

Stupid I forgot to note that down. Oh well, consider it a Bethesda forums exclusive.

The Agility one was in the PipBoy screenshot.

Nonetheless, endurance? Totally unintended. Just like corpses eaten or dismemberments.



Does this mean that entities that are not part of a scripted event have NO perception of the event?

Pretty much. So heavily limited RAI in the demo.

Was there any mention of Burke being a real estate developer, or was it just a bad joke of one of the other previewers?

None that I remember.

Anyway, Brother None, during the demo did you notice any instances of bartering? Also, what did the inventory look like? More like Fallout or more like Oblivion?

No instances of bartering.

I’m not sure I saw the inventory. I saw one screen in which Pete Hines flipped between different weapons (two Chinese assault rifles and a hunting rifle), which was a PipBoy interface screen; just lines of text for the weapon, and as you choose them you’ll see Vault Boy equipped with them on the right hand side* plus the stats (not a lot of ‘em, definitely simplified).

The interface he used to use stimpaks looked similar. Not pictures of the items, like in the Fallout interface, but just descriptions and use. This might have just been a quick interface, tho’.

* what’s Vault Boy doing in a RobCo product? I don’t know.

On the Mr Burke dialogue, would certainly hope that what was reported from the demo: “I represent certain interests”, “Megaton is a blight, want to help me destroy it?” is not the extent of his entreaty (certainly likely to be more, doubt that reveal all in the demo).

That’s not the extent of his entreaty in the demo either; he goes on for about 12+ lines of dialogue.



How realistic would your character be to accept such a weak proposition? I’m sure the monetary gain could not be that large, assuming the quest is early in the game (certainly could be invalid), that would break the economy somewhat.

He doesn’t appeal to anything but your sense of greed and gaining browny points with the group he represents (which he does not identify)

Just noticed that you can ask for 500 caps extra, seems caps are in as currency, guess everyone already knew this, but I must have missed it previously.

Yip, caps as currency. Was known, tho’




Stupidly unimportant question, but when sneak was activated was there a change in animation, reduced speed?
Obviously change in animation would not be noticeable if the camera was in FPP.

I do believe he went into a crouch (or duck a bit) & slowed down a bit. there was as we mentioned a sneakbar in the middle of the screen.

Was there any mention of Burke being a real estate developer, or was it just a bad joke of one of the other previewers?
Well, it’s only an early demo, maybe it will be fixed in the final game.

No mention of it, but he does kinda look like one (which is what I assume was the previewer’s point)

On the Mr Burke dialogue, would certainly hope that what was reported from the demo: “I represent certain interests”, “Megaton is a blight, want to help me destroy it?” is not the extent of his entreaty (certainly likely to be more, doubt they’d reveal all in the demo). How realistic would your character be to accept such a weak proposition? I’m sure the monetary gain could not be that large, assuming the quest is early in the game (certainly could be invalid), that would break the economy somewhat.

Blowing up a town with a nuke for a pittance does look farfetched…
But I usually play a good guy anyway. Kinda my nature.

Just noticed that you can ask for 500 caps extra, seems caps are in as currency, guess everyone already knew this, but I must have missed it previously.

Already noted many times before.
You can also use the caps as shrapnel on an explosive you can craft (why not use tin cans, sheet metal, lead balls or simple bits of metal instead of currency baffles me…).


Did you see any NPC’s eating or drinking and if so was it a repetitive animation or was it better spaced and more realistic? I did not like the eating and drinking animation much in Oblivion and am just wondering if this has been improved upon. Of course I prefer it present to not present at all, but am in hopes it is done a bit better.

No drinking or eating that I could spot.

It’s late and I’m tired so maybe you mentioned it in the article but if so, I’ve missed it. Did you see the “Slow-Mo” camera action that has been talked about and if so, did it work well? Sounds a bit cheesy to me.

Slow-mo bullet cam on each killshot in VATS as far as I could tell.
Yes, it does get tiresome after a while.
What’s Vault Boy doing in a RobCo product? I don’t know.

Client modified firmware.

Does happen if you buy big batches of stuff.

One thing I don’t understand…
“when you’re talking about supermutants, dialogue really isn’t a viable option”
uh? why? do they speak a different language?

They don’t, because you understand them perfectly when they’re discussing what to do with the ticketbot. “lets rip his arms off!”. Very macho, before being cut to shreds by the ticketbot’s fast firing laser arm.

So they’re capable of conversation, but apparently don’t have the inclination (for now) to engage in dialog with a ‘humie’ (unlike in some very notable cases in FO1 and FO2) .



One thing I don’t see in all this… Did you ask or see what is the difference between aiming in VATS and real Time? Does VATS give you higher percentages to hit? Or any other kind of edge over the RT in terms of precision or damage done. Do you actually have a greater chance of scoring a critical from VATS then from RT or is it basically the same thing since precision and chances to hit are stat reliant?

It is touched in the preview, though it isn’t directly said that both chances are equal.
But anyway, real time and VATS both use dierolls for chances to hit. Doesn’t matter if you poke the mutant’s eye out with your laser rifle and pull the trigger. If your energy weapon skill is 10%, you won’t have much a chance to hit the bloke.
As for advantages of VATS: well, the called shots without actually having to aim in real time, being able to reload in VATS and likely to use a stim in VATS? (though that last one wasn’t shown).
Kharn, you mentioned that your audience wasn’t as receptive as Suicide’s. Do you guys remember any media outlets you shared air with in your respective conferences? Did you ‘mingle’ with your peers?

Reporters in my group were Gamespy, GameInformer and GRY online. I couldn’t read the other people’s badges.
I believe that it was the Gamespy dude who boasted that “he had already seen it 3 or 4 times” (could’ve been one of the Gameinformer dudes though).
Prior to the presentation, I wasn’t really inclined to make contact with the other press (I was mulling over my Q&A questions in my head anyway)
After the 45 minute demonstration, Pete said he would do the Q&A outside, (since the conference room was packed and we could see each other face to face). Most of the press simply walked off with their Fallout 3 t-shirts and didn’t attend the Q&A at all. The 2 guys from GRY Online did ask 2 questions (one of which insightful btw, though I can’t remember the exact question). After that it was my turn (and I asked away!). After that I made room for a tv/video interview.
I was hoping to mingle a bit during and after the Q&A (perhaps make them understand that the fallout fanbase and NMA specifically arent ‘rabid fanboys’), but my peers pretty much vanished into thin air.

I know many people here hate the “if you aim, you can still miss” thing, but if it is handled correctly, like an animation where the creature shrugs it off like their amour absorbed it or make it so the shot visually misses, then it is okay in my book. If it actually visually hits him, like in Morrowind, my opinion is that Bethesda could have done a better job and should have.
Brother None, did you notice if this system is more like what I want, or what Morrowind was?

Sua:His shots with the laser rifle were visual misses, even though he aimed more or less correctly.
Did make it look a lil’ ridiculous though, since he was plastering a wall but not the mutant next to it (he shot like 10 times at least).

One question. Did lasers fire bolts or beams?

Sua: By beam you mean it shots a constant ray?
Nah, in that case it’s a bolt. Best thing I could compare it with are the red laserbolts a StarWars X-wing shoots (though in a mansized format obviously).

BN: Bolts, like the originals.



Do you remember what it sounded like? Did it have Fallout sound effects (the quick hiss of something being fired)? And did the enemy fry and fall to the floor in a pile of ashes?

The sound effect was quiet, but Fallout-like, I think. It didn’t seem to have any special effect on the enemy, they reacted as if hit by bullets, but Bethesda might still be working on that.

This means that once PC targets a body part and goes into RT he will continue to target that exact body part with each new shot?
Without the need of targeting again?

Yes. He didn’t queue any actions with me, that’s to say, I don’t think he put in “target leg, then target head,” but I believe from other descriptions that you can.
Pete Hines was *really* familiar with the controls at this point, so it all happened pretty fast. It’s possible that there’s either an option for “keep targeting head” or that it does this automatically, but in both the ant and the supermutant fight he paused once and the PC kept executing the same command until it had success.

I’m always against heavy focus on graphics, but I have to say that from Hines explanation (and a bit of reading up since I was unfamiliar with the technology), the parallax occlusion mapping helps *a lot* on designed a wrecked, ruined world, and it works extremely well on a number of ruins.
The “realistic bullet holes in ground!” thing I can take or leave. But it works well for environmentals, too

Why, oh why is behemoth a colector of corpses which he apparently enjoys carying around on his back?

The Behemoth kind of strikes me as a irrational monster type. A kind of bad version of Frankenstein (Frankenstein’s monster was actually a highly rational though evil being, read the book), a horrible result of an experiment.
Little wrong with the Behemoth itself. Its introduction is stupid and unfitting and its description as an endboss just physically hurts.

The only fallout part of all of this is the vault. Once they go out everything basically falls apart.

Looses much of its consistency. Not really ‘falling apart’.

Hey guys, I got a question regarding the dialogue. When you start to talk to someone and the dialogue options come up, how was that handled, visually? I mean, on the original games, there came up a little HUD thing, you know?

Same as Oblivion.

Well…at least you can still shoot people in the eyes..or there is a chance that when you shoot someone in the head, it may blind them.

You can’t target eyes. Headcrits can blind.

All that said, Brother None, you say that one of the ants got stuck in a tree. What did this tree look like, and how often were trees seen as part of the landscape?

Didn’t see much trees. They all looked dead.

Were the NPC voices very different from one another? Was the voice acting believable?

BN: Very different? No. But different. But I’ve only heard key NPCs talk.
Voice acting was somewhat bland. I hate to rag on Liam since I kinda like him as an actor, but voice acting just isn’t his thing, and it shows here.
Sua: We didn’t have many dialogs, but from random sounds it seemed just fine. Of course hard to tell from such a short and scripted demonstration…
Those that did have longer dialogs, they didnt seem very ’special’. In FO1, each person had his own character and it was easy to see and hear in the talking heads. From fatass Gizmo’s slobbering, to Aradesh’s “Yes Yes Yes”, to Sulik’s “what can we and I do you for?”, etc. the npcs didn’t have such extremely distinctive characteristics.
And Liam Neeson came over as rather bland. Especially for the price they probably paid him…

How did the interface look and did you like it?

Interface is ok, though I’m not sure if the whole compass thing is a good idea…
I liked the pipboy interface (though too ‘console-y’) it looked nice. The scanlines etc were well done.


One of the questions I do have for you, Brother None, is: Do the crazy death animations *only* occur in VATS? Or can you blow somebody’s head off and watch brains splatter even while in realtime combat?

VATS shows slowmotion death stuff, but in real time I think the same stuff happens, but just in real time, obviously.
Also, in terms of atmosphere, did you feel that Fallout 3 is going to try to have, for lack of a better term, “scary” moments in it?

Sua: Scary? Not in the least as far as we’ve seen.

BN: Creepy, perhaps. Scary, no.



As far as Megaton goes, does it really look like a nuclear explosion really went off in this crater? As in, does the whole idea of a crater town make absolutely no sense as it’s presented? How big is the crater? Also, is the bomb a missile or an actual bomb that would be dropped from a plane? A missile crashing into the ground with enough speed might be able to make a sizable crater, but a bomb just wouldn’t (though it probably could do some significant damage). Is the bomb at the center of the crater?

The bomb looks like Fat Man with other fins on the tail http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_man
As for the ‘crater’, it is big enough to build a small junktown on its slopes.

Did the NPC faces look too much alike? Facegen working? Or did you see too few to tell?

Sua: Didn’t see a lot of them up close, but it looked varied overall. And nowhere near the Oblivion uglyness fiasco.

BN: Saw too little. But summary would be “better than Oblivion, not as good as Mass Effect.”

Did the NPC’s have any type of repetitive movements that you noticed? Like hand moving the same exact way over and over?

No, but we didnt spend a lot of time around NPCs. Nearly none of the time was spent observing NPCs.

Was there ever a point when you got a chill during the showing. You know like the hairs standing up on your arms? Or are you two not so emotional about games.

Sua: Ron Perlman’s intro. While slower (I think) and slightly less emotionally chilling than the original, I did get goosebumps watching it. Though it might also have been a good deal of pumped up anticipation.

BN: Possibly the intro, and the ending looked cool enough, but didn’t give me chills because I was scribbling furiously.
I’m not very emotional about games, tho’, unless they really drag me in by the hairs.

Just as an addendum to this, did you notice any different body types in the demo? Different heights/builds?

Humans? In size, just average male / female sizes, i think. but i’m sure they’ll implement heights to a greater extend.
Being a fatass, that I don’t know if they’ll put in.

Will AP become useless if you never use the V.A.T.S. system?

BN: It does not appear to have any function outside of VATS.

Sua: From what we saw, probably, yes.

I hope npc reactions are improved allot more in the final game. Like when you pick up the laser rifle from the soldier the BoS soldiers should force you to give it to them and give you one of their Chinese assault rifles instead.

Considering their excessively possessive nature in FO1/2 when it came to technology… well. Pretty unlikely they’d even let you near the laser rifle.
The lack of helmets is also unsettling I would rather have BoS soldiers wearing patched up helmets and marking their armor to show rank or identification. If the only reason they don’t wear helmets is so you can identify them. Then just have them remove their helmets to talk to the PC when no combat is going on.

Not to mention (grandfather) Maxson was killed, hit in the head during a raid because he wasn’t wearing his helmet. I’m pretty sure the BoS learnt their lesson after that…

But of course, a helmet doesn’t let you show much facial expression during dialog. I could understand the leader being helmetless for that purpose, but nearly the entire squad? Un-bloody-likely.



I’m more concerned about the disparity in rad counts between the too-ubiquitous mushroom clouds and the “tap” water… sure, one is ingested and that explains the rad count to an extent but… come on?

Probably just a demo thing, tho’

Relaxing? Or maybe tired of all the (endless) fighting? Like in war-weary and disenchanted by the whole mess? You know, like in the anti-war movies.

No, it’s definitely just bad/unfinished AI scripting, just like the soldier shouldering his gun the moment the bomb hits. They need to do some work there.
Which I think is the value here:

Remember how all those previewers were ecstatic about the improved RAI? Well, guess what, you don’t actually *see* improved RAI anywhere in the demo, all those previewers have to go on is the promise that RAI will be better. All the RAI I saw in the demo was *exactly* like it was in Oblivion (with the possible exception of combat AI)

Does this mean that mutants are only out to kill you or what?

Basically, Pete Hines was talking about dialogue as a valid option and then just threw out “obviously, that doesn’t go for supermutants.” Might’ve been a joke, might’ve been inaccurate, it didn’t sound very definitive to me. But supermutants are “the enemy”, that much is clear. Whether or not you can talk to them and how much backstory they have I don’t know.


Was there anything odd about the Vault that may signify what kind of experiment it could be? Was there any mention of traits???????????

It had a worn, dark look, like SuA said, and its tyrannical government-style rulership by the Overseer reminds a bit of the tight-fist ruling of Vault 13, so it might be intended to stay closed indefinitely. Though that would be weird seeing as that was already 13’s experiment.

No.

Weren’t ALL the mutants using heavy or melee weapons in both F1 and F2 precisely because they could not use small arms?

Yes, but with the note that this was partially because the Fallout devs simply didn’t have the time to waste on making supermutant animations with small guns, but they would’ve if it didn’t make sense that mutants can’t use small guns.

Wasn’t FEV supposed to trigger an uncontrollable growth of muscle mass? I think that was one of the reasons the original design showed them deformed and Hulk like. And the mutants we’ve seen so far in the few screenshots don’t look any smaller.

Smaller, no. Less deformed, yes. They’re just 7-8′ human beings, it’s possible their hands are small enough to use assault rifles. It didn’t look “wrong” in the demo, it looked like the size of the gun in relation to the mutant was fine.

As an added question: Were the mutants shooting weapons Rambo style ? Just staying in the middle of the road, spray and pray, or was there any attempt to seek cover/flank ?
Couldn’t tell. The combat AI wasn’t stunningly impressive, and there was a lot of stand shoot, spray and pray. From everyone, not just supermutants.

In the earlier Fallouts, only the military had most of the access to robots and the only real AI was rare. But how now in Washington DC there is a Protectron and the “Stupid Git” robot in the demo? Was any of this explained? or is my (usually bad) memory of Fallout off?

No, not explained. Nor could I really tell from the demo if the robot density will be higher, but I don’t think it’d be a huge problem if it were. Sure, Fallout didn’t have many, but the one big city in Fallout had been hit pretty bad by the war and rioting, it might simply be different on the other coast. The pre-war world had plenty of robots, so it could make sense for a lot to survive. I don’t think the “stupid git” remark by the robot makes any sense because the only machines in the fallout universe that had any “personality” were A.I. like ZAX which was a huge computer.It makes even less sense when you consider it’s a posh, thick, kinda fake British accent.
It’s really, really bad. I pray they remove it.




So the slow-mo in VATS would get pretty tiresome after a while. Do you think it would make more sense to keep VATS without the slowmo?

Sure, it’s a RTwP system with aiming, the mechanics are what’s important, the slo mo is just for cool points and doesn’t actually relate to the mechanics

I’m interested if Brother None or SuAside can recall exactly or as close to exactly what Mr Burke says to the player. Other previews have mentioned things from building a residential suburb on the sight to building a shopping mall on the site to just wanting to blow it up because it is a “blight”. Can one of you guys remember the exact reason why?
He does go on for quite a while, but I don’t think he mentions his own, personal motives. It’s quite possible there’re dialogue lines in which he’ll name more reasons to convince the player, but Pete chose to accept the quest immediately (for the pace of the demo, I guess).

He mentions that it’s a blight, I don’t remember him elucidating that further, and the real estate remarks are just jokes.

From what Ausir has told me BethSoft does use the wiki quite a bit.

Yip. And it shows, I have yet to see them get any lore wrong, even though we still have to wait for the explanation for the supermutants and BoS.

If we were all optimists around here, we’d all say that the reason they didn’t explain it is that it was too long and complicated to explain in 30 minutes…

The reason they give for not explaining is it that they want people to see it in the game. That sounds fairly reasonable to me, though they could be handling it better.

I kinda of a have a pre-exception mode to this because I think no matter how well you explain it you’re always inspiring the feeling of “why move it cross-continent just to rehash the same factions/monsters.” I’m fine with supermutants, especially if they were bred locally, though not with their look. The BoS, different from the originals in look, behavior, goals and location, I honestly just don’t get it.

Ever since the first reviews of the preview demo came out I was struck by how many of the reviewers talked about the glare when the PC first emerges from the vault and sees the sun “for the first time in his life” or lines to that effect. Someone commenting on it was one thing, but I became curious and cynical when I read the exact same response in a second and more reviews.

The glare/blur is impossible to miss and has a cool effect, so it doesn’t surprise me a lot would talk about it. “For the first time in his life” might just be a sign of having played the original Fallout, where that is heavily emphasized.

[mortalkombatvn]

Inside the Vault: Matt Grandstaff





We have a special Inside the Vault today, featuring our community manager, Matt Grandstaff. We thought it would be fun to do a special Q&A with Matt since he is our main point of contact with our fan community. Todd Howard contributed a few of the questions.

What’s your job at Bethesda?

I’m the Community Manager here at Bethesda, so I spend a lot of time in the forums and then sharing information with the developers. No I can’t go downstairs and make the changes myself, but I can pass on what people are talking about. I also co-manage the Bethesda Blog. Gotta say, I have tons of respect for the bloggers of the world. It’s not easy trying to come up with new content all the time, especially since we’re trying to stay focused on Bethesda news. Maybe I should start posting about Britney Spears or iPods…that would help my dilemma. As a part of the marketing department, there’s plenty of other stuff I work on, but I don’t think you’d find it particularly interesting.

In the future, like maybe when Fallout is closer to shipping, I look forward to doing new stuff with the community: community events, podcasts, who knows?

How did you get into the industry?

When I was in school at the University of Michigan, my brother was a sports writer for the school paper. At some point, I started hanging out with a lot of the guys he worked with, and eventually, it dawned on me that I could probably step in and start writing game reviews for the paper. Turned out to be a pretty sweet gig, scoring review copies of games had everyone there pretty jealous.

Coming out of school, I wanted to work for a gaming site/publication, but that’s easier said than done. For awhile, I dabbled doing some freelance stuff, but it was generally just going through and reviewing games in their back catalog. In one stretch I think I reviewed one company’s 5-6 installments of one company’s NBA game. There wasn’t too much difference between each review…but I kept churning them out because I was being paid by the article. With one site, they ended up telling me that I needed to slow down, and they couldn’t pay me for all these reviews.

Around that time, I was struggling to find a full-time job out of college. I ended up spending a lot of time watching The Price is Right, playing games, and applying for any job I could. While substitute teaching at my old high school, I finally found out I landed an internship in DC that led to a job in marketing for the National Park Foundation. I stayed there for about two years until a friend of mine helped me land a gig at a marketing agency that did work for films, TV shows, and even games. While I was there, I became the de facto “game guy” at the office, so I’d always get pulled into meetings relating to new projects with clients in the gaming industry. Earlier this year, I happened to see the description for the community manager position at Bethesda, and I decided that it was worth looking into.

Turned out to be a great move, as I was already being contacted about starting on the same day I interviewed. Maybe they really like me, or maybe they just knew the Fallout message boards would be opening very soon.

How did you feel at the Michigan Notre Dame game in 1998? (Todd Howard was also at this game and loved every minute).


I think Todd could have picked a better Michigan-Notre Dame to talk smack about (Rick Mirer’s debut or maybe 2002 or 2004) . For college football fans out there, you might recall that Michigan won the National Championship the season before, and even at age 18, I knew from cheering for other teams that all good things come to an end. It was a tough loss, but it didn’t feel nearly as bad as seeing them lose the next week to Syracuse (the first home game during my tenure at Michigan).

I will come clean on this though…when I was under the age of 10, I had outside forces trying to make me an Irish fan. I wore sweatshirts, t-shirts, etc…but that didn’t last long.

List the total amount of property damage you have done following Michigan football losses.

Probably not too bad, though I almost broke a PS3 controller when Michigan looked like they were going to self-destruct over the weekend.

Guitar Hero controller = $60
A few cell phones = $300

Acting like a mad man in the name of Bo Schembechler = Priceless

How does it feel being the bullet shield from Counterstrike?

Not sure what you mean by that? Oh, the forums?? Naw, they’re not so bad. I try not to take any criticisms or angry tirades I see in the forums personally. With the information superhighway, everyone gets to throw out their 2 cents on whatever they want to discuss…that’s why going online is great, and that’s why there are forums. Frankly, I think it would be pretty boring if everyone was uber-polite and talked about what they loved in the world. Of course, there are times when I deal with things that are downright nasty or disturbing, but I’m pretty used to that at this point.

What would you say is your personal favorite game of all time?

That’s a tough one to pick, because you have to account for nostalgia, how the game holds up, if the “recency effect” if affecting your praise for a game. Of course, pretty much anything on my list is going to be on a console (I swear my hands feel like they’re going to burn when I have to use WASD controls). And no, I’m not a PC game hater, I’d just had more exposure to console games when I was younger and now I’d rather play games on a big TV with surround sound.

Okay, so here’s a few of my favorites that come to mind: Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!, Contra III, A Link to the Past (best of the Zelda’s), F-Zero, Super Mario World (Best of the Mario’s), Metroid Prime (best of the Metroid’s), Metal Gear Solid, Ninja Gaiden (NES and Xbox), the Halo games, SSX, Bioshock, Resident Evil 4, Portal, Lumines, and Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved.

If I was told I could only play one game for the rest of my life, it would probably be Geometry Wars. The game is just so frantic, and I’m always determined to beat my high score (a little more than 3 million).

What games are you looking forward to?

Ever since I was old enough to have a job where I could start paying for my games, I’ve kept a checklist of the next games I need to buy…I feel a little obsessive compulsive about it. Anyhow, let’s look at the list: Call of Duty 4 (guess I can cross that off since I got it last night), Super Mario Galaxy, Geometry Wars Galaxies and Mass Effect are the big ones left for this year. Next year, I’m most pumped about Metal Gear Solid 4, LittleBigPlanet, and of course, Fallout 3.

Any other hobbies and interests? What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

When I’m not playing games, I watch a ton of sports…there’s always someone I gotta cheer for (right now it’s the Lions, the Wolverines and the Pistons). I also like running, but in the last year or so, I’ve had some nagging foot and back issues that have gotten in the way of that. If I had more time (or even a car), I’d like to do more traveling — both around the country and beyond.

Pitch your dream game.

I want a game based on the movie Commando. It’s probably the most brilliant film ever made. Maybe a spin-off about Bennett’s early days working alongside John Matrix. In the game, you’d play as Bennett and have the ability to customize your chain mail. Not sure it would pass ESRB regulations, because Bennett enjoys killing a little too much.

I sent an email to Todd once explaining that we need to get Vernon Wells to do voice work for Fallout 3. For the Fallout fans, people would be pumped we got someone who was in Road Warrior. In the forums, we don’t typically allow for petitions, but I’ll make an exception for this.

Posted by acheng on Wednesday, November 7th, 2007 at 2:31 pm.