Fallout 3 E3 Previews

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Written by BuckGB on July 15th, 2008

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As we continued along our path, cutting over hills and through pools of water, we came to a crumbling church. Here we found out it's not fun to be picked on by those stronger than you. The church was full of super mutants and centaurs who laughed off the tiny wounds our weak pistol doled out. One grotesque being wore a protective shell, so the only way to deal damage was to shoot it in a tiny eye hole, a low percentage shot. After shooting one club-wielding freak in the left leg ten times, we finally crippled him. He was no longer able to perform a lunging strike, but he still endlessly limped after us. When he got too close, he landed an off-balance blow directly on our arm. It caused the right arm, the one carrying the gun, to be crippled. You can continue to fight in this state, holding a wobbling gun and hoping for the best, or you can go into your Pip Boy screen and heal specific mangled parts. Even with a healed arm, the onslaught was too much and we found out the hard way that veering off the beaten path in Fallout 3 can lead to quick, painful deaths.

The death and the mutants are probably expected parts of Fallout 3, but one element that surprised us was the fully-functional third person view. We were able to position the camera in an optimal angle and distance behind us, and then it closely followed our every move. Fighting was just as easy and satisfying in this view and moving around the terrain felt just as natural as in first person mode.

But the best, and also the most reassuring, part of playing Fallout 3 is the combat. From this first taste, it seems genuinely capable of marrying the tactical nature of the originals with the trigger-heavy controls of a shooter. At any time you can call on the Vault-tec Assisted Targeting System (or V.A.T.S.) and stop time to take a planned action. When you do, action points can be spent on a number of different things, from basic called shots to firing more complex guns to using a skill to heal yourself. Your action points recharge once you use them up, but you are not completely helpless. You can always fire your weapons, just like you would in a shooter. The trade-off is that while firing, your action points come back much more slowly.

In practice, this keeps the game's pace moving along well, and it let us take on enemies that might have been tough to beat in a straightforward shootout. We could use up all our action points on precision shots to cripple an enemy as it came into range and then seamlessly slip right into shooter-mode to finish it off. This strikes a really nice balance. On the one hand, we get a sense that how we maneuver at the start of a fight -- and the perks we choose to improve our character -- really matter by letting us get an early jump on the critters. At the same time, because we knew we could just fall back on shooting, getting into a fight never feels like an interruption to the game, and using V.A.T.S. becomes like a sort of enhanced slo-mo.

We approached the front door and entered, at which point the game went through a loading sequence. Once inside, we found dark hallways littered with debris from decayed walls and shattered furniture. From somewhere within the complex a raider yelled something threatening, then fired at us. Coming around a corner we spotted the threat, and, from a first-person perspective, blasted a few bullets at them in real-time. The raider was pretty far away and taking cover behind a broken door, so we decided to move forward and take advantage of the game's V.A.T.S. targeting system.

Since we were playing on an Xbox 360, we hit the right bumper to bring up targeting, which overlays percentages across each of the enemy's body parts. You then select which ones you want to damage: cripple an appendage, crit for bonus damage, or simply blow up their head. The camera shifts from your first- or third-person perspective to a more dynamic view of the targeted shots you take, showing hits, misses or special effects. Howard says the team has worked to ensure this section of battle isn't distracting or boring.

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