Fallout 3 E3 Preview
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Reflections in the Wasteland
That evening I was talking with the team about what I had played and poring over my hurried notes. There were a few things that concerned me, and a great many things that knocked my socks off. Here are some of my notes in legible format and in no particular order:
* The animation system in Fallout 3 is obviously improved over Oblivion, but occasionally it seemed stilted and somewhat unnatural. Is there enough time to polish this rough edge?
* Brown is the new black. With the landscape being a desolate wasteland, how much brown, rusted brown, copper-tinted brown, and dusty brown can one person take? With only 30 minutes of gameplay, many areas already felt similar.
* A great deal of work has been put into the Gamebryo engine - the game looks beautiful and incredibly detailed, even beyond that of Oblivion. The weapons look authentic and antiqued, often held together by bandages, tape, or just beaten down like the landscape. Tires, trash, and various other debris dot the landscape. A light wind stirred the hot dust, giving a bit of life to the scene.
* You could spend a lifetime just scavenging in this game. I found items in cupboards, trash cans, on dead bodies, lying on the floor, in mailboxes, and everywhere in between.
* The control mechanics map perfectly to a controller. I didn't feel constrained in any way by the 360 interface.
* The drive to see more is very much present. Time flew by and all I wanted to do was skip the rest of E3 and play the rest of this game. The world is compelling, and I want to see how well the Fallout world is conveyed by this new team.
Conclusions?
It's really hard to make any level of buying decision based on a 30 minute gameplay run, much less draw any 'conclusions', but I do applaud Bethesda for giving us free reign to simply run around and do whatever we wanted, rather than forcing us in to a pre-made demo. Is Fallout 3 a FPS? Is it an RPG? Yes, to both, but figuring out what ratio goes with that statement is hard at this point. Bethesda has done an incredible amount of work on this title, and I think that most Fallout fans will be very pleased for several reasons. First, a healthy company now owns the IP which all but ensures its continued life. Second, the team has clearly worked their ass off trying to capture the feel of the original Fallout titles to translate into this 3D free-roaming world. Based on the 110 hours it took me to complete Oblivion, we've seen far less than 1% of the game. Judging now would be premature at best, but I have to admit that I like what I see so far. We'll all get to judge for ourselves when the game ships on Xbox 360, PS3, and PC this Fall.
