By
now, all Fallout fans have heard what a great presentation Bethesda put
on at this year's E3. It was standing room only in the demo I attended
(which was the last one given at E3), and quite a few people were
turned back at the door. The 45-50 minute walkthrough started at the
beginning of the game and moved the character through the Vault and
into the devastated ruins of Washington DC. Within the Vault, the
player gets to choose the character's SPECIAL primary statistics and
traits before leaving "home". Using both the characters reactions to
situations within the Vault and the GOAT aptitude test, the player's
tag skills will be determined. Bethesda hopes that this will add to the
realism of the game. The player can, however, change the tag skills
before leaving the Vault.
In any event, the character made his way out of the Vault, following
his father after Dad found a way out/escaped. The philosophy of the
Vault's Overseer seems to be that if you were born in the Vault then
you should damn well die in the Vault and be a happy, productive
citizen while you're at it. After leaving Vault 101, the character
arrived at Megaton, a town built around an unexploded A-Bomb. There he
met a few NPCs and received a quest that led him into DC proper. The
character made his way through a Metro subway tunnel occupied by Super
Mutants and a Protectron robot (very nicely done and in keeping with
the 1950's image of the future). The character arrived in DC only to
find the Brotherhood of Steel battling it out with invading Super
Mutants. The Brotherhood did well until a 20 foot (6 meter) tall Super
Mutant showed up. The character conveniently found a catapult-launched
nuclear grenade which incinerated the giant Super Mutant. Throughout
the demo, the audience was shown how the VATS pause-in-real-time combat
system worked. The gamer can choose not to use the VATS system, but
Fallout 3 will be harder to play that way. Bethesda is still modifying
the combat system so time will tell.
The demo certainly captured the imagination of the audience, and was
received with a round of applause at its conclusion. All-in-all it was
a riveting, action packed and graphically beautiful-to-behold
performance which I would gladly watch again and again. The change to
first person is definitely much more visceral than the isometric
graphics of Fallout 1 and 2. Bethesda has also tried their hardest to
make the NPCs come to life, using pixel shaders, animation and lip
syncing, and they have succeeded.
Some fans who loved Fallout 1 and 2 will find a number of features
which will piss them off. The 20 foot tall Super Mutant was something
out of Lord of the Rings and fit poorly with the earlier Fallout
universe. It would have been more in keeping to have created an all-new
Super Monster rather than including a giant Super Mutant. After all,
the Super Mutants could have used the mutagenic virus on a Deathclaw or
some other wasteland creature. Maybe the reason for the giant was
explained in the storyline, but it was out of place from what I saw.
Regarding the VATS combat system, I couldn't tell how well it will
work. After killing a hundred giant ants, Super Mutants or whatever,
the slo mo cinematic playback may become tiresome. VATS does stop the
game from becoming a twitch fest, but turn-based combat could have
achieved the same result.
Fallout
3 will be a worthy addition to the Fallout universe. It won't please
those fans that want an isometric, turn-based game, but will please
those who love the Fallout atmosphere and are willing to play the game
from a new perspective. With its branching storylines and the ability
to create a character in all shades of gray, it should be fun for the
same sick and twisted individuals who enjoyed the original games.
For those gamers that like turn-based, isometric combat, please read
StrategyCore's Jagged Alliance 3 preview due within the week (sorry,
but I'm a slow writer).
Mike Nino, StrategyCore
StrategyCore (and a few other journalists) had a chance to sit down
with Emil Pagliarulo, Fallout 3's Lead Designer, and ask him a few
questions after the presentation.
"What it comes down to is that we're all Fallout fans. We love
the original games. (But) not every Fallout fan wants a turn-based
isometric game." Emil Pagliarulo, Lead Designer, Fallout 3
SC: How is the GOAT system going to work? Is it like a quiz?
EP: The GOAT is sort of like an oral exam that
helps you determine your tag skills. Your tag skills are your three
main skills. It sort of harkens back to the type of character
generation quiz we had in Morrowind. But if you don't like the tag
skills GOAT determined, when you leave the Vault you have a chance to
re-spec your character anyway.
SC: So what happens when your character levels? You choose the skills you want to boost?
EP: Yeah, when you level you get skill points,
and the number of skill points you get are based on your intelligence.
So you can put those toward your skills and the primary tag skills get
more points added when you level up.
SC: The same as the original game?
EP: Really similar to the original game.
SC: So you get to choose where you put your points?
EP: Yes you do. It’s not like Oblivion, skills don't increase with usage. It’s definitely an experience point based game.
SC: So the experience points aren't allocated in a GOAT-like manner?
EP: It kind of does. It's not a hard and fast
system, it doesn't lock you into a character type. It gives you a guide
that you can change if you like.
Other interviewer: The presentation mentioned that
unlike Oblivion the enemies are not going to scale to the character. Is
that going to make a more linear game play, since that will limit free
roaming, do-what-you-want-to gameplay.
EP: A couple of responses to that. Because it’s
an experience point based game and you get the majority of the
experience points from questing, it’s a lot easier for us to guess
where the player is going to be and what level he will be at. We know
that if you’re doing a main quest path you will be at least this level
so we can tailor those areas. Now if you’re outside the main quest
path, it’s really a matter of giving the player the right kind of
feedback. If you're a level 2 and you go far out into the wasteland and
you find a group of five super mutants decked out in full body armor
with rocket launchers and laser rifles, I think the player is smart
enough to turn around and come back later.
Other interviewer: Do you run into instances where NPCs are fighting?
SC: Or random encounters?
EP: We love to do that and we have good tools to
do it. We didn't do this in Oblivion, but for the first time we
actually have a designer completely dedicated to free-form encounters
out in the wasteland. You'll definitely encounter people fighting rad
scorpions and other creatures out in the wasteland. It's definitely a
single character game, but there are companions that you take. Your
companions are based on your karma, so there's a sunset of companions
that are good guys, evil guys or neutral. But you need to find those
guys, take them with you, and watch the interaction between those
characters.
Other interviewer: How many voice actors will there be?
EP: There are many different voice types, we're
talking 30-40 different voices. Because the world is smaller and we
have fewer NPCs, it’s allowing us to customize and detail the voice
acting.
SC: Are there going to be a lot of new weapons? The
FatMan (essentially a nuclear hand grenade launcher) in the
presentation is new, but what other new weapons will there be?
EP: There are a lot of weapons. I was surprised
looking at our weapon list and seeing how many we had. There are the
Fallout weapon skills: big guns, small guns, energy weapons, melee,
unarmed which are all fully exploited, so we have weapons for them all.
We also have a series of custom made weapons that you can construct if
you find a schematic and the right junk in the wasteland. So yes, there
are quite a few weapons.
SC: Can you add scopes or silencers to weapons?
EP: No, you can't. We don't allow you to modify
existing guns to customize them. For example, you can't take a pistol
you've been using and add a scope to it. It's more like finding an old
motorcycle gas can and an old sword blade and creating an entirely new
weapon.
Other interviewer: What about traveling in the game? Is everything done on a walking basis?
EP: You are walking everywhere. There are no
vehicles. Maybe there will be some kind of fast travel system based on
the map but we are still working that out.
SC: Regarding the Metro Subway, it doesn't look like it is functioning. Are they just tunnels?
EP: They are not functioning. The trains are ruined.
Other interviewer: What is the square mileage of the game?
EP: We haven't calculated the square mileage. A
lot of games do that now but it’s always sort of a fudged number. In
Oblivion, it’s a really big area, but the borders kind of stretch and
curve. The game play map in Fallout 3 is much more of a solid square,
so a lot more of the map is actually accessible game play space. It’s
smaller than Oblivion but still huge. The approach is smaller, more
manageable and more detailed. It’s DC and its environs. That is where
the game is set.
Other interviewer: Could you actually play the game without using the VATS system?
EP: You could. If you were to do that I would
compare it to Deus Ex 1, which would have a similar feel. You certainly
could. It would be harder. It’s harder to play the game that way
tactically. In VATS, we are sort of still playing with that. For
example, if you are trying to shoot the antennae off a giant ant, it’s
really hard to target that in real time. So we might jack the
percentage up a little bit to make it a viable option. But you could
certainly play the entire game without using VATS. But we've found in
the office playing the game that the third person playback (which only
happens in VATS) is a lot of fun to watch. When Todd and I first
started prototyping VATS, we played other real time games like Call of
Duty and Halo. We'd sit there and say "if I were playing this game and
could freeze this moment and go into some kind of targeting system, how
would that feel?" Sometimes you want to take a breath and think
tactically and not feel rushed. We struggled a long time with the first
versions of VATS whether the game should be paused or should we do some
slo mo thing. We decided to pause the game and let the player think, be
more tactical and not pressure them.
SC: No shots to the eyes?
EP: No, and I'll tell you why. We talked about
that, we prototyped it, and when you play the game and see it in such
high def, when you shoot someone in the eyes you expect the head to
blow up anyway. Shooting someone in the head has the same effect. If
you get a critical on them they get dazed and stuff.
SC: It doesn't look like you could finish the game without killing a lot of people.
EP: Not entirely true. It depends on the quest.
You saw all the speech options and dialog in the demo. As far as dialog
options go, that's just the tip of the iceberg. The amount of
interaction through dialog is three times what we had in Oblivion.
There's a really strong stealth component. There are a lot of paths
through the quests and some are non-violent. That said, you can't
wander off into the wasteland and expect to live.
SC: Can a character dodge?
EP: That is part of the real time engine. You can definitely move to take cover behind stuff and duck down.
Other interviewer: Will the PipBoy evolve with your character? As your character gains skills, will it add abilities?
SC: Can you add anything to it?
EP: No, it’s a pretty consistent piece of equipment throughout the game. The PipBoy itself really doesn't change.
Other interviewer: How many radio stations are there?
EP: I'm not saying. (laughter and moans) Several,
though. The cool thing about the radio stations, obviously there's the
music and the DJ, but you can use it tactically by picking up the
frequency of the enemy out in the wasteland and listen in on their
transmissions. You can get quests that way. We use it a lot.
SC: Is the Enclave in the game? The presentation mentioned their radio station.
EP: I don't know what you’re talking about. (laughter) We're not talking about that.
SC: Thank you.
EP Quite welcome (laughter)
SC: Will there be aliens in the game?
EP (makes a face) No. (laughter)
SC: Alien weaponry?
EP: (pause, another face) These are things I'm not supposed to talk about.
SC: Do you get a dog?
EP: Mmaayybbee Yes.
SC: Are there any new mutant animals?
EP: New mutant animals. Let's see. We're still going through our creature list. I don't want to say what they are, but yes.
Other interviewer: What kind of creatures are in the game?
EP: All of the Fallout classics are back. There's
a full line of robots: you saw the Protectron in the presentation (a
Robby-the-Robot-type robot that was in the Metro Subway), Mr. Handy,
Robobrain and Sentrybot. Right before E3 the rad scorpion just went in
fully animated. There's also the classic deathclaw. There are lots of
creatures are in the game.
SC: So is the DC Brotherhood of Steel the same Brotherhood of Steel that was on the West Coast? Is it nationwide?
EP: You’re the only person that asked me that
question. I'm surprised that no one else has. Let me just say that its
come up a lot that "How did the Super Mutants and the Brotherhood of
Steel get on the East Coast?". We answer those questions in the game
and there's a reason why they're there. They are somehow connected to
the other Brotherhood of Steel but we cover those bases within the
game. (Note: it appears that the Brotherhood of Steel in Fallout 3 is
not the West Coast one but an offshoot that was mentioned in Fallout:
Tactics. In that game, a blimp expedition from the West Coast was sent
over the Rockies to follow the retreating Super Mutants. The lead blimp
crashes near Chicago and the survivors set up their own version of the
Brotherhood of Steel. It may be that BOS that is battling the Super
Mutants in DC, or maybe another one created by the blimps that did not
crash in Chicago but continued eastward. Just an educated guess...)
SC: Why Vault 101? Seems like it would be Vault 1 if it was in Washington DC?
EP: We looked at the Fallout fiction and how many
Vaults there were. We decided that we should go with higher number
Vaults since the lower number ones were on the West Coast.
SC: Will we see any NPCs from the previous games?
EP: Maybe. We're not talking about that.
SC: From the demo, it looks like the currency is bottle caps?
EP: That is correct.
SC: Do you have a favorite technological marvel?
EP: I do, but I can't tell you what it is.
Other interviewer: Can you give us a generalized development timeline over the next year?
EP: Sure. You look at our 45-50 minute long demo
and it looks like there's a lot there. But on the design side we want
to have these important character interactions. We want players to feel
like they are real people. In order to do that it simply takes a lot of
time. In Oblivion there is what we call essential characters,
characters that you cannot kill. A lot of games have them. For Fallout
3, our goal was not to do that. If a NPC gives the player a quest and
the player blows his head off, how does that affect the quest? We have
to deal with that, and it takes a lot of time to do that. Multiple
pathways to fulfill a quest take a lot of time to develop. In Oblivion,
the player makes his decisions on a higher level: if I want to be evil
I join the Dark Brotherhood, whereas Fallout quests have multiple
pathways to complete the quest.
Other interviewer: Is there a centralized storyline or is it completely free branching?
EP: There is definitely a storyline. We use the
character's dad as a device: Dad leaves the Vault, you follow him. But
why did he leave? What was he up to? And all that ties into the
players’ relationship with the Capitol wasteland and are those people
worth saving.
Other interviewer: Are there going to be DX10 capabilities? Would we see any difference?
EP: I can't imagine that we wouldn't but we
haven't yet. We're sort of taking a wait and see attitude and see what
on-line games do.
Other interviewer: Are you planning to develop expansion packs?
EP: We've talked about it and we just don't know
yet. We're so focused on making the game. Ironically, if I say "yes",
and the game comes out without the new features, we'll be accused of
ripping the players off by not releasing the full game. The truth is,
we really don't think about expansion until after the game is out.
Other interviewer: So are you looking for a simultaneous release for all three platforms?
EP: Yup, all platforms the same day.
Other interviewer: How much are your actions and
how you address each quest going to affect both the game play and the
story? How does being good or evil affect the game?
EP: When we first started we had that very
convention, the good or evil thing. But we realized that a lot of
Fallout is about these shades of gray. So we're fully supporting a
neutral path as well, which has been interesting for us. I can be the
good guy or this evil guy, but what if I don't want to do that? What if
I want to be this sort of mercenary guy in the middle? And that plays
into the quests, too.
The interview ended with the eager interviewers getting kicked out of
the conference room so Emil could do a video interview. I would like to
thank Emil Pagliarulo for his time and gracious patience and No Mutants Allowed for their extensive list of Fallout 3 questions!
Mike Nino, StrategyCore
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Latest Comments
hmm duno yet might be
Posted by BlackAlmaz 26 Jul 2007 - 11:15am
Posted by Azrael Strife 25 Jul 2007 - 5:33pm
Posted by Slaughter 25 Jul 2007 - 3:48pm
Posted by BlackAlmaz 24 Jul 2007 - 11:18pm
Posted by mike9o 24 Jul 2007 - 9:55pm