I'm happy about the change to FPS as long as it keeps
the black humor the original had.
I really liked Fallout2 with the exception of the turn based
gameplay sometimes being lame. It was really funny though.
It's like playing in a 50's Armegeddon movie.
It reminds me of Bioshock in a few ways. Not the world really, but more the features of the game: The vending machines with ammo, the 50's era music, the hacking computers through a puzzle mini-game, and so forth. I am intrigued by the slow motion attack sequence, but hopefully it's not necessary to play the game well as it seems like more of a novelty feature rather than something you would want to use very often.
The most exciting part seems to be the content rating, with the promise of drugs, sexual themes, strong language and whatnot. The game itself looked a bit boring. In all fairness, I'm not much of a gamer; but I don't understand whom this game is meant for. Either you're in the mood for blowing things up, or solving some sort of puzzles, or you want to play some RPG... Perhaps I'm too moronically male, but I can really only focus on one activity at a time.
Finally they are moving away from the outdated turn based mind-numbness and towards a hybrid that worked for other similar games.
I don't think the game will lose anything compared to Fallout 2, there is evidence here of extensive writing and great depth. People who get hung up on the combat system should realize that it was never important for the game anyway.
I'm anticipating this game to be the game of the year when it's released.
i don't think i agree - moving as far from the original concept of fallout makes it an entirely different game - not just a sequel - now its basically a FPS with lvling and an inventory - just a tiny step up from STALKER which had the inventory and quests ...
if u view the previews of Diablo III u can see that an "outdated" concevt can be still very viable today if its done right - and that a game that worked way back when can still work today - bethesda just used a carbon copy a system from Oblivion and adapted it to the Fallout franchise (even the NPC voice actors are (at least from what i've heard in the videos) mostly the same) - the only real motive (as it's always and ofc it would be naive to expect it to be diffrent) is money - the game had to be more of an action game, dumbed down a little, with simpler controls to attract a larger audience - and ofc so it can be played on a gamepad ....
and by no means do i agree with your claim that the combat system wasn't important in Fallout as there was much combat in the game - so how can a vital part of the game not be important?
Let's just hope that the writing and the humour (at least) is on par with the earlier editions ...
I don't think you played System Shock, or you would know what can be done with "basically an FPS with leveling and inventory", even without the leveling... I guess we'll know more after playing a demo. :)
System Shock and System Shock 2 were, IMO, the best marriage of the RPG and FPS genres so far. It's amazing that a game manages to create that much atmosphere and make you feel so much part of the story without actually having multiple-choice dialogues, and with an almost linear plot.
I don't think it was as good as Ultima 7 or Underworld, in terms of creating a "living" interconnected world, but it definitely made you feel as if you were in a real place, and I would sooner call it an RPG than I would Oblivion.
Glory to the Many. I am a voice in their choir. ;)
BioShock is really a System Shock remake, but less realistic and more combat-oriented (prettier, but inferior in terms of gameplay and atmosphere).
Yea I was a bit dissapointed by Bioshock. I was really loking forward to something similar to System Shock 2 ( 1 is too old school for me). It was still a great game but it lacked that special feeling you got out of playing SS.
Bioshock was a great game, almost just as good as Crysis. But anyway, this game looks sweet - especially the slow motion combat, im gonna be gettin this game as soon as it comes out.
Almost as good as Crysis??? Good God, the Crysis was the most dissapointing game of the year by far - average graphics that only looked good in high resolution and high settings - which were of course unplayable even on heavily overclocked systems. And the gameplay was an ultrafrustrating mess of save-load-save-load because of insanely powerful enemies (and large numbers of such). Never mind the choppers! Only the alien levels were any good as far as enjoyment is concerned (you know, aliens actually COULD be killed unlike supposedly inferiorly armed North Korean soldiers). Bioshock was miles better but still considerably behind System Shock or Deus Ex (story in Bioshock? WHAT story? The one told by unintelligible tapes (that is IF you manage to listen to more than a few sentences during firefight which usually happens as soon as you pick one up))? If Crysis is the best PC can offer then PC gaming is indeed dead (which it in many ways IS, despite desperate articles on Anandtech to the contrary). Except for RTS, massive online games and P&C adventures, just about everything else is better on consoles (including single player FPS).
i just had to comment on this line --- "average graphics that only looked good in high resolution and high settings" - every game has average or subpar graphics when they are dumbed down to work on obsolete machines - the game is made to be played at it's highest settings - go to a museum and water down half of the colors and u'll get crap - nonsense ... i heard so much crap about crysis - that it needed a 5000$ PC and whatnot and it came from legitimate reviewers and it just got me thinking that i shouldn't trust a single review more than anything else
System Shock and Deus Ex were great games - but they were different from Fallout - is that bad? - should all games look and play the same? - Crysis had great graphics and a lousy story (really lousy) - it's so bad that i can't even justify the sequel....
so basically ur saying that u want a "System Shock" or "Deus Ex" in a Fallout setting - well i want a Fallout in a Fallout setting ....
It is amazing how games can be interpreted differently across the spectrum of people. I loved Crysis all the way up to the alien part. I've been playing PC games for the past 24 years and it ranks up in the top of my list of favorites (again, up to the alien parts which I could have done without). A lot of the arguments I see here seem to infer that most would like for FO3 to remain closer to its original in terms of gameplay. Whether good or bad will constantly be up for debate, but there is one thing that is definite. Games will continue to evolve both in play and story. If anyone doesn't realize that then they just aren't paying attention. Heck, if they didn't we'd all still be playing pong on a Coleco Telstar system. Or am I dating myself... :)
To me Fallout 3 looks like what Deus Ex 2 should have been. Then again we are also getting a Deus Ex 3 in the near future...lets hope that looks as good as Fallout 3 looks.
I was about to mention that game - System Shock was revolutionary and far ahead of it's time. Now that concept is finally possible to execute with realistic immersive graphics. I definitely it as the primary insparation (STALKER was supposed to be a derivative, but only in promised features, so it's a bad comparison). System Shock had incredible depth compared to modern FPS shooters, and was a completely different genre, even if it used the First Person perspective. It wasn't a mindless shooter.
Fallout 3 is expanding on the different possible interactions even more - besides the different combat tactics you can employ there is evidence of weapon/trap assembly and use, and a veriety of interactions with the environment and the plot lines.
I disagree that Diablo III can serve as a model on how to make isometric view successful - Diablo was always a mindless dungeon crawler, a glorified NetHack clone. Diablo III will be successful not due to the veriety of interactions - those will be limited to your class and actually not that many in number. You'll have fun out of combining the different moves together, against dynamic enemies - but at it's core its action - and more fitting to the fantasy setting then any futuristic Sci-Fi.
I mean, as soon as you add aiming to an Isometric game it starts to suffer - you either do auto aim like Starcraft, but then you don't have the RTS elements to keep it interesting.
Fallout Tactics showed how limited the combat system is - I never finished the game because of how bored I got, and in later levels being forced to do a veriety of AI hacks to survive, not actual tactics - the game didn't support any "tactics" really - was frustrating. The box trick was the mildest of all.
I am getting tired of people being excessively negative after watching such an excellent preview - just because the game takes a different approach to some aspect from the original "holy grail".
If Fallout 3 actually delivers sufficient depth and story / side quest content, and non-repetitive exploration - the game can become the best in the series. Perhaps that is something you fear?
takes a different approach to SOME aspect - its a very different approach - for instance - its an RPG and the aiming is done by rolls - so - will u, at the early stages of the game and with very low stats and poor weapons miss a lot of shots even if u are dead on with the crosshair? - cause if u hit every shot than its not an RPG in view of the stats. What's the point off perception then? - and so on --- i don't mind the FPS aspect as much as that.
--- "I am getting tired of people being excessively negative after watching such an excellent preview - just because the game takes a different approach to some aspect from the original "holy grail". "
----- the point is to bring the game up to par with the times not to redo the whole thing so it has little to do with the original...
and btw u expect "non-repetitive exploration" from Bethesda when they are so obviously building this on Oblivion in any way possible - the game could have been called Elder Scrolls: Repetitive exploration.... :)
If i feared smth about games in any way - i'd be the first to commit myself for observation :)
Look, I'm a HUGE fan of the Fallout games, but the combat is only a small part of it. In fact, there's plenty that I don't like about the combat - like the fact that it can take a long time for some battles, and it's quite easy to cheat the system with "strategy" that would never work in the real world. (Hide behind barrier, pop out and shoot target, walk behind barrier.) Fallout Tactics addressed some of the issues with the original, outdated combat, and people like you probably hated it for not being exactly like the original two games, only with a different story.
After over ten years, you can't go back to the same old way of doing things. Fallout was always about the story and the game world - affecting the locations with your decisions to act or not act. The combat was just a means to an end. Call me a fanboy or whatever, but I am looking forward to this game more than anything released in... about a decade.
BTW, your comparisons to STALKER and Oblivion also don't do your argument any favors in my book, seeing that both of those were excellent games. I'd say they've done far more than just porting FO3 into the Oblivion engine, but you know what? They could have done exactly that and I'd *still* be happy!
Looks like they did to Fallout what they did to Elder Scrolls: took one of the few RPG series still in existence and turned it into yet another console-oriented shooter. I think I'll pass.
Eh, it won't bother me if the combat is okay. The combat in Morrowind and the Oblivion sucked (it was an FPS engine with Melee weapons tacked on, but whoop).
Combat was the only thing about Oblivion that didn't suck. It wasn't great, but at least there were a lot of different monsters and a lot of weapons. The AI and scripting were atrocious, the story was boring and full of plot holes, and the voice acting was dreadful. Nice landscapes, sure, but this was supposed to be a game not a screensaver.
I wasn't a huge fan of Fallout's turn-based system, but the story was pretty good, you did have multiple choices, and your decisions usually had an influence on more than the current mini-quest (which is really what defines a true RPG). Fallout 3 looks like Oblivion with guns. Even the voices are the same. Maybe it'll be a good FPS, but that's all it'll be.
I guess this way we don't need to worry about EA taking over Bethesda and turning them into a "sausage factory" churning out FPS games with flashy graphics and brainless gameplay - they did it to themselves.
I don't know that I'd complain much if they get rid of the slow turn-based combat of the earlier Fallout games. In the end, it's more about the story and environment, and you DON'T have to select the "Bloody Mess" perk in Fallout. It irks me that they seem to have 100% hit rates and Bloody Mess, plus god mode in all of the FO3 movies to date... but the final game won't have that, so who really cares?
What a week... first Palin as VEEP, now this. Good grief... what were they thinking of? Do they really believe folks will transfer former allegiances to these incongruous new offerings?
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tokih - Monday, September 29, 2008 - link
Looking nice. Maybe I'll finally get interested in the Fallout world :)Wellsoul2 - Monday, September 8, 2008 - link
I'm happy about the change to FPS as long as it keepsthe black humor the original had.
I really liked Fallout2 with the exception of the turn based
gameplay sometimes being lame. It was really funny though.
It's like playing in a 50's Armegeddon movie.
Modular - Saturday, September 6, 2008 - link
It reminds me of Bioshock in a few ways. Not the world really, but more the features of the game: The vending machines with ammo, the 50's era music, the hacking computers through a puzzle mini-game, and so forth. I am intrigued by the slow motion attack sequence, but hopefully it's not necessary to play the game well as it seems like more of a novelty feature rather than something you would want to use very often.wvh - Monday, September 1, 2008 - link
The most exciting part seems to be the content rating, with the promise of drugs, sexual themes, strong language and whatnot. The game itself looked a bit boring. In all fairness, I'm not much of a gamer; but I don't understand whom this game is meant for. Either you're in the mood for blowing things up, or solving some sort of puzzles, or you want to play some RPG... Perhaps I'm too moronically male, but I can really only focus on one activity at a time.
Amart - Tuesday, September 2, 2008 - link
Actually that kind of a hybrid is what I found most interesting about Fallout - lots of different things to do, and a good dose of freedom.Ever play System Shock or Oblivion Lost (STALKER)?
Amart - Monday, September 1, 2008 - link
Finally they are moving away from the outdated turn based mind-numbness and towards a hybrid that worked for other similar games.I don't think the game will lose anything compared to Fallout 2, there is evidence here of extensive writing and great depth. People who get hung up on the combat system should realize that it was never important for the game anyway.
I'm anticipating this game to be the game of the year when it's released.
Symelian - Monday, September 1, 2008 - link
i don't think i agree - moving as far from the original concept of fallout makes it an entirely different game - not just a sequel - now its basically a FPS with lvling and an inventory - just a tiny step up from STALKER which had the inventory and quests ...if u view the previews of Diablo III u can see that an "outdated" concevt can be still very viable today if its done right - and that a game that worked way back when can still work today - bethesda just used a carbon copy a system from Oblivion and adapted it to the Fallout franchise (even the NPC voice actors are (at least from what i've heard in the videos) mostly the same) - the only real motive (as it's always and ofc it would be naive to expect it to be diffrent) is money - the game had to be more of an action game, dumbed down a little, with simpler controls to attract a larger audience - and ofc so it can be played on a gamepad ....
and by no means do i agree with your claim that the combat system wasn't important in Fallout as there was much combat in the game - so how can a vital part of the game not be important?
Let's just hope that the writing and the humour (at least) is on par with the earlier editions ...
Modo44 - Monday, September 1, 2008 - link
I don't think you played System Shock, or you would know what can be done with "basically an FPS with leveling and inventory", even without the leveling... I guess we'll know more after playing a demo. :)Justin Case - Monday, September 1, 2008 - link
System Shock and System Shock 2 were, IMO, the best marriage of the RPG and FPS genres so far. It's amazing that a game manages to create that much atmosphere and make you feel so much part of the story without actually having multiple-choice dialogues, and with an almost linear plot.I don't think it was as good as Ultima 7 or Underworld, in terms of creating a "living" interconnected world, but it definitely made you feel as if you were in a real place, and I would sooner call it an RPG than I would Oblivion.
Glory to the Many. I am a voice in their choir. ;)
BioShock is really a System Shock remake, but less realistic and more combat-oriented (prettier, but inferior in terms of gameplay and atmosphere).
devoncoke - Monday, September 1, 2008 - link
Yea I was a bit dissapointed by Bioshock. I was really loking forward to something similar to System Shock 2 ( 1 is too old school for me). It was still a great game but it lacked that special feeling you got out of playing SS.Hxx - Monday, September 1, 2008 - link
Bioshock was a great game, almost just as good as Crysis. But anyway, this game looks sweet - especially the slow motion combat, im gonna be gettin this game as soon as it comes out.andrew007 - Tuesday, September 2, 2008 - link
Almost as good as Crysis??? Good God, the Crysis was the most dissapointing game of the year by far - average graphics that only looked good in high resolution and high settings - which were of course unplayable even on heavily overclocked systems. And the gameplay was an ultrafrustrating mess of save-load-save-load because of insanely powerful enemies (and large numbers of such). Never mind the choppers! Only the alien levels were any good as far as enjoyment is concerned (you know, aliens actually COULD be killed unlike supposedly inferiorly armed North Korean soldiers). Bioshock was miles better but still considerably behind System Shock or Deus Ex (story in Bioshock? WHAT story? The one told by unintelligible tapes (that is IF you manage to listen to more than a few sentences during firefight which usually happens as soon as you pick one up))? If Crysis is the best PC can offer then PC gaming is indeed dead (which it in many ways IS, despite desperate articles on Anandtech to the contrary). Except for RTS, massive online games and P&C adventures, just about everything else is better on consoles (including single player FPS).Symelian - Friday, September 5, 2008 - link
i just had to comment on this line --- "average graphics that only looked good in high resolution and high settings" - every game has average or subpar graphics when they are dumbed down to work on obsolete machines - the game is made to be played at it's highest settings - go to a museum and water down half of the colors and u'll get crap - nonsense ... i heard so much crap about crysis - that it needed a 5000$ PC and whatnot and it came from legitimate reviewers and it just got me thinking that i shouldn't trust a single review more than anything elseSystem Shock and Deus Ex were great games - but they were different from Fallout - is that bad? - should all games look and play the same? - Crysis had great graphics and a lousy story (really lousy) - it's so bad that i can't even justify the sequel....
so basically ur saying that u want a "System Shock" or "Deus Ex" in a Fallout setting - well i want a Fallout in a Fallout setting ....
Maiyr - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - link
It is amazing how games can be interpreted differently across the spectrum of people. I loved Crysis all the way up to the alien part. I've been playing PC games for the past 24 years and it ranks up in the top of my list of favorites (again, up to the alien parts which I could have done without). A lot of the arguments I see here seem to infer that most would like for FO3 to remain closer to its original in terms of gameplay. Whether good or bad will constantly be up for debate, but there is one thing that is definite. Games will continue to evolve both in play and story. If anyone doesn't realize that then they just aren't paying attention. Heck, if they didn't we'd all still be playing pong on a Coleco Telstar system. Or am I dating myself... :)HOOfan 1 - Tuesday, September 2, 2008 - link
To me Fallout 3 looks like what Deus Ex 2 should have been. Then again we are also getting a Deus Ex 3 in the near future...lets hope that looks as good as Fallout 3 looks.Amart - Monday, September 1, 2008 - link
I was about to mention that game - System Shock was revolutionary and far ahead of it's time. Now that concept is finally possible to execute with realistic immersive graphics. I definitely it as the primary insparation (STALKER was supposed to be a derivative, but only in promised features, so it's a bad comparison). System Shock had incredible depth compared to modern FPS shooters, and was a completely different genre, even if it used the First Person perspective. It wasn't a mindless shooter.Fallout 3 is expanding on the different possible interactions even more - besides the different combat tactics you can employ there is evidence of weapon/trap assembly and use, and a veriety of interactions with the environment and the plot lines.
I disagree that Diablo III can serve as a model on how to make isometric view successful - Diablo was always a mindless dungeon crawler, a glorified NetHack clone. Diablo III will be successful not due to the veriety of interactions - those will be limited to your class and actually not that many in number. You'll have fun out of combining the different moves together, against dynamic enemies - but at it's core its action - and more fitting to the fantasy setting then any futuristic Sci-Fi.
I mean, as soon as you add aiming to an Isometric game it starts to suffer - you either do auto aim like Starcraft, but then you don't have the RTS elements to keep it interesting.
Fallout Tactics showed how limited the combat system is - I never finished the game because of how bored I got, and in later levels being forced to do a veriety of AI hacks to survive, not actual tactics - the game didn't support any "tactics" really - was frustrating. The box trick was the mildest of all.
I am getting tired of people being excessively negative after watching such an excellent preview - just because the game takes a different approach to some aspect from the original "holy grail".
If Fallout 3 actually delivers sufficient depth and story / side quest content, and non-repetitive exploration - the game can become the best in the series. Perhaps that is something you fear?
Symelian - Friday, September 5, 2008 - link
takes a different approach to SOME aspect - its a very different approach - for instance - its an RPG and the aiming is done by rolls - so - will u, at the early stages of the game and with very low stats and poor weapons miss a lot of shots even if u are dead on with the crosshair? - cause if u hit every shot than its not an RPG in view of the stats. What's the point off perception then? - and so on --- i don't mind the FPS aspect as much as that.--- "I am getting tired of people being excessively negative after watching such an excellent preview - just because the game takes a different approach to some aspect from the original "holy grail". "
----- the point is to bring the game up to par with the times not to redo the whole thing so it has little to do with the original...
and btw u expect "non-repetitive exploration" from Bethesda when they are so obviously building this on Oblivion in any way possible - the game could have been called Elder Scrolls: Repetitive exploration.... :)
If i feared smth about games in any way - i'd be the first to commit myself for observation :)
JarredWalton - Monday, September 1, 2008 - link
Look, I'm a HUGE fan of the Fallout games, but the combat is only a small part of it. In fact, there's plenty that I don't like about the combat - like the fact that it can take a long time for some battles, and it's quite easy to cheat the system with "strategy" that would never work in the real world. (Hide behind barrier, pop out and shoot target, walk behind barrier.) Fallout Tactics addressed some of the issues with the original, outdated combat, and people like you probably hated it for not being exactly like the original two games, only with a different story.After over ten years, you can't go back to the same old way of doing things. Fallout was always about the story and the game world - affecting the locations with your decisions to act or not act. The combat was just a means to an end. Call me a fanboy or whatever, but I am looking forward to this game more than anything released in... about a decade.
BTW, your comparisons to STALKER and Oblivion also don't do your argument any favors in my book, seeing that both of those were excellent games. I'd say they've done far more than just porting FO3 into the Oblivion engine, but you know what? They could have done exactly that and I'd *still* be happy!
Frallan - Monday, September 1, 2008 - link
Well Ill pick it up in the $10 box after the failure and keep on playing the old fallout i think.Not a good thing to do to transform it to a FPS.
/F
Justin Case - Monday, September 1, 2008 - link
Looks like they did to Fallout what they did to Elder Scrolls: took one of the few RPG series still in existence and turned it into yet another console-oriented shooter. I think I'll pass.Tindytim - Monday, September 1, 2008 - link
Eh, it won't bother me if the combat is okay. The combat in Morrowind and the Oblivion sucked (it was an FPS engine with Melee weapons tacked on, but whoop).Justin Case - Monday, September 1, 2008 - link
Combat was the only thing about Oblivion that didn't suck. It wasn't great, but at least there were a lot of different monsters and a lot of weapons. The AI and scripting were atrocious, the story was boring and full of plot holes, and the voice acting was dreadful. Nice landscapes, sure, but this was supposed to be a game not a screensaver.I wasn't a huge fan of Fallout's turn-based system, but the story was pretty good, you did have multiple choices, and your decisions usually had an influence on more than the current mini-quest (which is really what defines a true RPG). Fallout 3 looks like Oblivion with guns. Even the voices are the same. Maybe it'll be a good FPS, but that's all it'll be.
I guess this way we don't need to worry about EA taking over Bethesda and turning them into a "sausage factory" churning out FPS games with flashy graphics and brainless gameplay - they did it to themselves.
JarredWalton - Monday, September 1, 2008 - link
I don't know that I'd complain much if they get rid of the slow turn-based combat of the earlier Fallout games. In the end, it's more about the story and environment, and you DON'T have to select the "Bloody Mess" perk in Fallout. It irks me that they seem to have 100% hit rates and Bloody Mess, plus god mode in all of the FO3 movies to date... but the final game won't have that, so who really cares?Basilisk - Monday, September 1, 2008 - link
What a week... first Palin as VEEP, now this. Good grief... what were they thinking of? Do they really believe folks will transfer former allegiances to these incongruous new offerings?