Fallout 3 Interviews

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Written by BuckGB on August 6th, 2008

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Crispy Gamer: In a way, the game seems like it's going to be a first- or third-person shooter but with deep RPG elements. Am I wrong?

Hines: It is a deep RPG with shooter elements. How to handle combat doesn't define the game. Just because you're holding a gun and shooting at things doesn't make it a shooter, although some people are going to see it that way, which is okay. If you decide to play the game because it looks like a fun shooter, we don't mind. Whatever reasons you have for giving it a try, we hope there is enough compelling gameplay to make you want to keep playing. You may not buy it because of the quests or dialogue, but if you play the game and end up really enjoying the game for those things, where's the harm in that?

Ultimately, what makes Fallout 3 somewhat unique is that the game is all about what your character can do, which is decided by you. What you want to be good at, what kinds of things you want to do. Those choices will affect your overall experience and how you decide to play the game, but there's nothing wrong with getting in a big fight with some Super Mutants and having a great time running around blowing things up. Many really good RPGs have quite a bit of combat to them, so we might as well make that as fun as it can be.
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Crispy Gamer: So have you figured out how many possible weapons there are in the game?

Hines: Over 50 at last count.
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Crispy Gamer: You guys have talked before about how people can play as good guys, bad guys, or some combination. How exactly does this work? Do you run into situations where you can pull the left trigger to help someone or pull the right trigger to hurt them, or is it less obvious than that?

Hines: It's handled on a situation-by-situation basis. How you choose to solve problems and quests, whether you help people or hurt them or take advantage of them. We make it so the player knows what kind of choices they're making and the consequences/results of those choices are appropriate and satisfying to them.

Crispy Gamer: Do these choices have any real consequences, though? Like if you play as a dick the whole time, will certain areas be closed off to you, but if you're nice, then you get to sleep with the blue alien lady?

Hines: To some extent that may happen, but it's mostly about what happens in each specific instance.
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Crispy Gamer: Finally, in a 2006 interview with TheEscapistMagazine.com, Leonard Boyarsky, who worked on the original Fallout games, said that Interplay's decision to sell the rights to Fallout "...felt as if our ex-wife had sold our children that she had legal custody of," though he did qualify this statement by admitting to be "possessive" of the franchise. How do you think he, and other people who worked on the original games, will feel about Fallout 3?

Hines: You'll have to ask them. I can certainly understand that the people who created Fallout would feel strongly about it. But we saw a franchise we loved sitting there not being used, not being worked on, and it was something we really wanted to work on, so we did. We hope the folks that worked on the first two will play Fallout 3 and like it and find a lot in there that stays true to what they created, just like we hope people who played and liked the first two games will like this one as well.

Crispy Gamer: So what do you think Fallout 3 does better than Oblivion?

Hines: Guns. Much better in Fallout 3.

Crispy Gamer: And what, if anything, do you think Oblivion does better than Fallout 3?

Hines: They're really very different games. We'll let folks like you guys debate the merits of those things. We're just trying to make the best game we can every time out.

"I don't have any doubts that on the whole, and I think this is a belief universally shared on the team that Fallout is a better game," said Hines. "But we're also not oblivious to the fact that we have a lot of extra baggage that we're carrying, being the guys picking up this franchise, that are re-imagining this series from 10 years ago, and there's something that comes along with that. We're very well aware of what we're up against."

He added: "I have no doubts in my mind that, at its core and for everything that it provides that Fallout is a better game than Oblivion was. For sure."

Is there any truth to the rumours of an MMO?

We licensed rights to Interplay to do a Fallout MMO, but I don't have any knowledge of where that is or what they're doing with it. I don't know anything about it.

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