The link for the German-speaking folk: First Look
For those who aren't proficient in the German language - A shortened translation:
The version he played was running with a resolution of 800x600 and although it didn't look great he had to admit that it looked good. He felt the post-apocalyptic atmosphere almost immediately, NPCs and other objects were part of the setting and not negatively outstanding and he liked the way the static background was connected to the dynamic levels. The landscape and the sky look natural - but the sky is static and thus doesn't move ( at least in that version of the game).
The animations are OK, although he didn't like the way "running" is animated. According to him it looks unnatural, like the character hops faintly. He didn't remain silent about it; he told it Julian or Carsten.
He was impressed by the way the perspective is handled. One can easily zoom in and out - thus being able to play the game Gothic-Like or from the isometric perspective.
The areas he was able to have a look at seemed to be "alive", full of details with many NPCs roaming around.
He was able to start a new game, create a new character and play the first seconds of the game. I don't want to spoil anything, that's why I leave out the part he tells about the happenings of the beginning ( to be honest, I even left that part out while reading.
). He liked the detailed skill-system which is very similar to the one in Fallout and Arcanum but critizises the lack of the possibility to widely destruct the environment and the lacking physical-system ( compared to games as Silent Storm or Soldiers which have these features). SSE justifies this with The Fall being a RPG, not a strategic-war-sim. But even without these features The Fall leaves enough room for tactics and strategy, Blitzlord admits.According to Blitzlord the controls are intuitive and easy to learn. The gamer can decide between the mouse, keyboard or both. Every partymember and/or vehicle can be directed by mouseclicks or the usual W-A-S-D-Keys plus many hotkeys.
He can't say anything about the sound or music. On one hand because he couldn't hear any due to the various surrounding decibel-sources at the fair and on the other hand because most of the sound-adjustment is still in a work-in-progress-stage.
The official release date is 22. October ( BUT: only for Germany. I don't know when the game will be released in other countries)
Arg, sorry for the bulky translation. Couldn't do better today...need more sleep
( I know, that's a lousy excuse...)
