Fallout 3 Preview Overload, Part One
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Fallout 3 is set approximately 30 years after the events in Fallout 2, though knowledge of the first two games is not required. The world of Fallout isn't based on our own. Instead, it's the world of 2050 as envisioned by those in the 1950s and then blown up in a nuclear war with China. Your character's ancestors sought shelter in Vault 101, one of the many high-tech bomb shelters built by the Vault-Tec Corporation, which has the grinning Vault Boy mascot that doubles as the mascot for the game. Over the course of the next 200 years, the huge blast door to Vault 101 never opened. And it is into this underground city that your character is literally born. That's because character creation is cleverly tied into various childhood scenes, such as your birth, your 10th birthday party when you are given your Pip Boy (a computer that you wear on your wrist), and your 16th year, when you have to take the vault aptitude test to find out where your talents lie. When you determine the look for your character (you can play as either gender), you determine the look for your in-game father, voiced by Liam Neeson himself. He's the main scientist of Vault 101, and his mysterious disappearance will lead you to escape to the outside world in search of him.
The second is at Voodoo Extreme:
Obviously, life in the Wasteland is slightly different than living in a homogenously sealed fallout shelter. Your noble quest of seeking out your father quickly turns into a battle just to survive. Most of the drinking water you come across is riddled with radiation, and any 200-year old Twinkies or canned goods most likely aren't very kosher to eat. That's not to say you can't sample the local delicacies, but you'll need to keep an eye on your radiation intake to balance your need to eat with the ability to function. Staying supplied isn't your only problem though.
The third is at Game Revolution:
During any encounter you can toggle to this Vault-tec Assisted Targeting System with the push of a button, which will freeze time and let you switch between multiple enemies and their body parts, helping you plan out your attack. Any piece of anatomy, such as a mutant's arms, legs, torso, head, or weapon can be targeted, each displaying a hit percentage dependent upon the enemy's distance, position, and stats. If you target his leg and get a critical hit, it'll blow off in gory Fallout glory, and the mutant will fall to the ground, painfully crawling in pursuit if it's still alive. If you didn't blow his weapon out of his hand, you can pick it up and use it yourself. Or if you already have a weapon of the same type, you can bust out some engineering skills, break it down into parts, and use them to beef up the strength, precision, and firing rate of your own weapon. As weapons get worn with use, this is smart option if you're skilled at it.
The fourth is at 1Up:
Less ambiguous is the combat system: You'll collect some really serious firepower over the course of the game (even build your own, though Bethesda declined to go into detail about that), including the "Fat Man," a mini-nuke chucker that generates serious mushroom clouds when it strikes. But battle isn't handled like in a hack-n-slash (or run-n-gun) RPG; instead, the game calculates hit percentages and damage based on your "SPECIAL" statistics -- strength, perception, endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility, and luck -- a system drawn directly from the prior games. Tap a button and you'll zoom in on your enemy, with a detailed view of different hit zones, their relative health, and your chance of hitting them. And even if you fire wildly at enemies, the game will calculate your chance of striking the enemy in any particular area on the fly. It's an interestingly visceral way to present numbers-based combat, and should preserve a true RPG feel while providing a fast-paced thrill.
And the fifth is at GameDaily:
As they progress through this gorgeous world, players make numerous decisions, some of which significantly impact the game. The first town they come across, Megaton, sits atop a giant bomb that fell and never detonated. Its inhabitants, who believe it's dead, worship the device, believing some higher power spared their lives. Unbeknownst to them, the bomb lives, and just needs a little prodding to heat up. While in a bar, gamers run into a man named Mr. Burke, a shady guy that not only divulges this information, but also makes a deadly proposition, the chance to activate the bomb and blow Megaton to hell.
