Fallout 3 E3 Previews

Yet another selection of Fallout 3 previews have been published to the web, all of which are based on Bethesda’s demonstration at this year’s E3. The first is at Gameworld Network:

In the interest of time, our demonstrators skipped past what would normally be about an hour or two worth of character building and opened the gate that led to the outside world. Why would our character leave the comfort and safety offered by Vault 101? It turns out that his father had mysteriously fled the Vault for unknown reasons. Eager to learn the reason why his father left both him and the only home he’s ever known, our character steps out into the vast wasteland that is the surface world of Fallout 3.

The second is at Kotaku:

While I loved the aesthetic and feel of the game, it was the VAT, or VaultTech Assisted Targeting, that really did it for me. You can play through the game’s combat as if it was a shooter or you can take a more tactical and probably practical approach and use the VAT. VAT freezes time and lets you expend action points to aim at specific points, from a body part to a weapon. The VAT shows your percent chance of hitting a target and can even show much much damage a weapon can take. Land a shot or two to a leg and your opponent starts limping, land a shot to an arm and they may drop their weapon. The neatest thing is, it does all this and still makes you feel as if you’re playing a shooter. There’s no moment where you really feel like you’ve dropped out of the intensity of the moment.

The third is at GameShark:

A variety of weapons will make their way into your hands during the course of the adventure ranging from a hunting rifle to Chinese assault rifle to advance laser rifle and even a miniature nuclear bomb blaster. Called Fat Man, the projector literally fires off miniaturized nuclear bombs that absolutely obliterate anything in its blast radius. You will have to take care of your arsenal though, as poorly kept weapons can affect performance or damage doled out to enemies. In addition to basic repairs, you’ll also be able to modify weapons using materials found along your journey.

And the fourth is at 1Up:

Bethesda seems to have done something kinda miraculous in terms of recapturing the original games’ look and feel while simultaneously transforming it into a modern, 1st-person world. It reminds me, kind of, of the way Blizzard transformed the 2D, tabletop strategy look of the early WarCraft games into the 3D, you’re-soaking-in-it World of WarCraft. Bethesda has taken Interplay’s late 90s isometric RPG and swooped the camera down to the ground (though you can still angle it upwards)to put us right in that burned-out post-apocalyptic universe–and, at least as far as the demo goes, it’s freakin’ revelatory. I had no idea going into it how Bethesda was going to pull off the SPECIAL system, the PiPBoy “PDA” device, and, most importantly, the turn-based combat that was at the heart of the original games, but dang if Bethesda isn’t making a smart, thoughtful, and faithful go of it.