Fallout 3 Third Party Interview

No Mutants Allowed has posted a short Q&A with Bartoneus, the Critical Hits editor that was lucky enough to attend Bethesda’s recent Fallout 3 press event.

Q: VATS. Ok, so I can pause to aim. Does that mean where I aim in RT doesn’t matter, i.e. if I click on the head I’d still hit the torso, in RT? Also, when in VATS, can any actions be taken, or is it just cuing actions to happen?

A: Correct that VATS is a pause to aim idea, but from what I saw and heard at the event the Realtime play is like any other realtime game with shooting, if you aim and actually hit the head the same effects would apply as a called shot. Again, I’m not certain, and anything about that is conjecture based on the gameplay that was shown. From what I can tell, VATS is purely a system for queuing actions and that is all, we did not get to see if your inventory can be accessed/used while paused or if that would use action points also.

I still don’t understand how real-time FPS-style combat and targeted turn-based combat can be switched between for the same combat scenarios. One or the other will almost certainly be crippled.