Fallout 3 Preview and Q&A

The guys over at No Mutants Allowed went undercover at the Leipzig Games Convention in order to get the details necessary to publish a three-page Fallout 3 preview and a Q&A with Bethesda’s Pete Hines. They apparently even had to register as being editors from GamerNode and MadShrimps.be in order to make an appointment to see the demo. An excerpt from the preview:

Moving down the tunnels, it isn’t long until you see a supermutant climbing over the wreckage in the distance. After taking a few potshots at each other, the PC with his hunting rifle and the mutant with a Chinese assault rifle, Pete Hines pauses the game (with Fallout 1’s “combat slider” sound) to zoom in on the mutant and explain that this is a supermutant, “the main bad guy in the game.” He points out that you can target the torso, arms, weapon, legs and head, each area having a different effect. Each area also has a percentage to hit which he notes is the same if you try aiming for an area in real time. The effects are also unique, headshots can blind, shooting someone in the leg can slow him down, etc.

Furthermore, Pete Hines notes that each area shows an individual health bar, which shows the relative health of the area. The PipBoy 3000 also contains a health screen for the PC with a health bar for each of his limbs, which shows the same effects are true for him, Hines explaining that if the PC gets shot in the leg, he will limp along until healed.

Additionally, while aiming for areas the green AP indicator in the lower right corner shows how many APs the PC will lose trying to make that shot, while the red health bar in the bottom center blinks to show how much HPs the NPC will lose if the PC successfully makes the shot (presumably for a normal shot, not a critical).

And a taste from the Q&A:

Q: How do you explain the omnipresence of nuclear explosions -both from nuclear powered cars, from the Fatman and from Megaton- in the game, while in the original games nuclear power (especially explosions) was treated with much consideration and respect, thereby making it a rare occurrence whenever it was used. The same goes for radiation itself. In the originals, it was extremely lethal if you didn’t take the right precautions, but in the demonstration we see plenty of times where radiation is more seen like a trivial matter. Standing next to an exploded nuclear car barely gives off any radiation.

A: In the demonstration there are a lot of nuclear explosions, like the Fatman, that seem very present, but this won’t be so in the actual game. I can assure you that ammunition for the Fatman will be very scarce indeed and that it won’t be treated lightly. As for the strength of radiation, much of it is simply game balance. While we want the game to be raw and cold, we also want the game to be fun. We’re, of course, still balancing the radiation strength and impact.

Conspiracy? You decide.