Fallout 3 Previews
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kipping ahead farther, we picked up in a bombed out office building. Equipped with a submachine gun (but, sadly, no Dogmeat!), we ventured forth, activating the handy light on the PipBoy 3000 (the game's menu system, attached to your wrist). It's here that we encountered our first ghouls. Basically they look like zombies, but can act incredibly intelligent or incredibly deranged, depending on how much radiation they've soaked up. Generally, though, a few blasts with an SMG is enough to take them down.And there's Crispy Gamer who, much against their usual working method, names a kind of doubt of sorts.
Their boss, however, is a glowing ghoul who, upon encountering him, caused us to get a brief glimpse at what his life was like before the attacks, as he looked normal and worked diligently in a laboratory. Now, though, he's all about yelling and trying to kill us. Activating VATS, the game's turn-based combat system, we were able to take a few aimed shots at his head with a laser rifle, but, lacking a decent Energy Weapon stat, did little damage. So we did what anyone would do in this situation...we tossed a crapload of grenades at him until he exploded in a pile of limbs, oozing green, glowing radiation. Huzzah!
All told, we came away from our demo session with high hopes for Fallout 3. If we had to name a concern, it's simply that the unique combat system might not completely pan out. It could strike a great balance between RPG conventions and traditional action, or it could end up being a case of, "You got your shooter in my RPG, dammit!" We think it looks like a cool system, but we'll reserve judgment until we get real hands-on time with the game, something we're hoping we get to do sooner rather than later. We can't yet say with any certainty whether or not Fallout 3 will truly end up being the modern Fallout game for which fans have been desperately pining, but we can say that what we saw gave us a great deal of confidence and optimism. We'll endeavor to bring you more on Fallout 3 in the coming months.
