Eight Reasons Why Fallout 3 Will Blow Us Away

The folks at Xbox Focus have put together an expletive-laden list of reasons why Bethesda’s Fallout 3 will “blow us away.” Apparently having multiple health bars instead of one is “innovative”:

5. New and Innovative Health System.
Sometime in the middle of last generation, some bimbo said “health bars suck!”, and suddenly, they were never seen in a video game again. What was once a staple amongst all releases has become outdated as fast as Michael Jackson jokes, with the entire industry switching to the “magically replenish” system for a more realistic feel (yeah. riiiiiiiight).

I have many problems with the new system, but after years of hating it, it has eventually grown on me (hey, if you were forced to eat dog shit for four years straight, eventually, you would start to tolerate it). Still, now that we’re entering a time where new, more interesting health-related ideas have come into fruition, it’s about time we open up the jar of hate and replace it for good.

Fallout 3 is going to offer the best answer to the problematic system of today. One thing that has always pissed me off about the current health system is that it can’t really differentiate the severity of the locations in which you’re affected. For example, if you’re shot in the foot, you recover just as fast as if you were shot in the neck. Last time I checked, breathing heavily for ten seconds isn’t the cure to a gun wound.

Fallout 3 has introduced a newer, more realistic system: rather than having one, almighty health bar for the entire body, there are different, specially designed bars for your head, torso and legs. While the words “health bars” may be synonymous with “1998” these days, the mixture that Fallout 3 is expecting to put into use can be something more realistic than anything you will ever see in, Call of Duty 4, Crysis or Bioshock (I don’t care what excuses Bioshock used to guise it’s recovery system, it was still the worst part about the game.)

Here’s a blast from the past: health containers will be coming back to Fallout 3 in all shapes and size. Love them or hate them, it just makes plain sense: if you’re bleeding, get a fucking first-aid kit! Don’t sit on your ass and wait for the magical fairy to come around and sprinkle you with her pixie dust.