Fallout 3 PAX Previews

Four new Fallout 3 previews come from PAX as more people try out Bethesda’s RPG sequel. RPGamer.

Lastly, I set out to explore the region but ended up getting stuck on a wall. The helpful staff came over and suggested I recall away (the player can recall to any point of interest they’ve discovered), so I zipped back to the vault and then teleported to the nearby school, which hung the game. Guess I really am good at breaking things…but it is still in development after all, and just think: I found two bugs for them to fix for the final product!

Blend Games.

Some games are hyped up for the sake sales, other games receive the hype because the gamers just can’t get enough of it. Fallout 3 is the kind of game that falls into the second category; where the history of the series speaks for this upcoming game’s current popularity. And just like previous games in the series, the story centers around a player-created character, with the interactive world unfolding around the custom avatar. Players will modify seven aptitudes and choose up to three special skill traits out of a total of 14 selectable traits. Most traits are often helpful in a number ways, while other traits prove to be comically morbid or grotesquely entertaining with the results they produce. For instance, a long-standing skill trait in the Fallout series has been ‘˜bloody mess’. This skill trait enables the common occurrence of player enemies to die in gory, unsightly ways.

Random Battle.

The bottom line is that I was absolutely thrilled with what I saw. I walked away from the demo wanting to take it home with me right then and there. My expectations for the game were already high, but now they’re through the roof. If the long-term content matches the level of coolness I saw in that brief time span, I’m going to be playing this for a long, long time. Frankly, I only had two disappointments about the game:

1. There doesn’t appear to be a way to play the game with a primarily non-combat character. The random combat encounters in the game world seem a little bit more frequent in the classic games, and combat plays a larger role. I could be wrong here, but it doesn’t look very feasible.
2. The modding tools for Fallout 3 will not be ready on release. I’m actually inclined to buy the Xbox 360 version of the game because it will look great on my TV, but I think that the modding community would do some awesome things with Oblivion-style tools. I really hope they put those out there eventually. it would make the PC version much more attractive.

Gamester.

The best part is that you can also target weapons. For example I shot the gun out of one raider’s hand, which prompted her to run away, grab a tire iron and come charging back.which was like bringing a tire iron to a gunfight but it’s the thought that counts. My favorite moment was when I shot the grenade on a raider’s belt. It was a low percentage target but was totally worth it – there weren’t any pieces of him left that were big enough to loot.