Hooligans of the Night

Aye,

Here's a scan of the OXM "Review" which is 10/10. The review is... terribly juvenile however.

http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/8521/imgkj5.jpg

Swedish PC Gamer reviewed it at 81%:

http://fallout3.wordpress.com/2008/10/07...om-sweden/

Interesting... both good and bad.

I'm looking forward to some more respectable reviews though.

I think it'll come down to whether you liked Oblivion or not.

I still have no idea if it plays like a shooter, or if it's mostly a menu clicking affair with limited movement giving you the feeling that you (sort of) have freedom.

From the gameplay vids that I've seen, it plays like oblivion with guns.
From what I've heard, while you COULD play it like an FPS, it's not really a good idea until you learn the system. It's not as smooth as you'd expect an FPS to be, but since it's more or less an RPG with shooter elements, it still works. The V.A.T.S thing that they've been pushing is from earlier titles, you spend an amount of action points in order to use it. . .I'm guessing the points recharge over time.

Gameplay vids have been up for awhile now,
you can view them on Youtube or XB-Live Marketplace.


Ok,
just read the sweedish review.
As I am just finishing up Fallout 2, I'm sure I will have my dissapointments.
But from what is being described, it seems like they took some of their hints from Deus Ex 2, which I still managed to enjoy.

I'm twiddling my thumbs and playing old games until this comes out. Why the hell do all the games I want this fall have to come out in a three week span? And on top of that, after I buy Fallout 3, will I even care about any of the others anymore? I know Sony lost a LBP sale when they delayed it to the same day as this, and I wonder what other games are going to become expendable one this game has taken over my life. Resistance 2? Animal Crossing 2? Far Cry 2? Suddenly, none of those look too hot anymore.

See, I find myself in the opposite boat. LBP being delayed makes Fallout 3 less of a priority now. Which is sad, because I know this game will be just as awesome.

And for another boat, I lost my interest in Fallout 3 once I started playing Far Cry 2 (which for now I'll just say is really damn good). Besides, I still haven't played much of Oblivion. Even if I bought Fallout 3 now, I'd probably only play it by the time it drops to $20.

The biggest problems I had with Oblivion were that the rewards sucked, that the choices you could make weren't really compelling and the combat system was terrible.

For example I became the head of the Mages Guild fairly early on in Oblivion. I was the archmage, supposedly the greatest wizard in the realm, the boss of them all but I had very little magical energy, always had to spam enemies with spells that seemed to never do any sort of damage nor did they appear any different from the spells I had used early on in the game and I had to constantly spam potions to refill my pitiful amount of magical energy. I was the archmage but I didn't feel like some badass wizard. You go through these prolonged faction quests but essentially get fuck all in the way of rewards. Most faction quests were like that, except for the Dark Brotherhood.

Everything I've seen and read about Fallout 3 leads me to believe it's basically a Mad Max mod for Oblivion with an interesting twist on the oh-so-shitty Oblivion combat system. Don't know if I want that.

The fact that monsters in Fallout 3 don't level up with you is a huge bonus, you could fuck yourself in Oblivion if you didn't choose specific attributes every time you leveled up. Monsters always had health and damage increase and that would match to whatever your highest stat was. Basically if you focused on making anything but a melee tank you were kind of screwed. Dropping the difficulty right on down sort of helped but it also made the game kind of boring. The whole preset level thing is a nice touch.

Mad Max mod! I love it.

The fundamental difference between Fallout 3 and Oblivion is just that - enemies are NOT scaled to the player's level. On the surface, it doesn't seem all that all-encompassing, but it is. I shall explain.

In regard to not being incredibly badass in Oblivion, the problem is that the quest tree isn't really a tree at all. All five quest lines can be undertaken at any time, anywhere. You could do one of each in a cycle, or you could comlete each quest line individually and move on to the next. That means that the game's foundation RELIES on the level scaling system which proved to be pretty bunk, in the end. Everything around you is approachable and beatable, and you can literally go about accomplishing quests in any order you want.

In Fallout 3, it's just the opposite. Opponents ARE NOT scaled with the player, as they were with Oblivion. What's interesting about this is that if you wander off the beaten path and find an area you want to explore, or have reason to think there's something good to find in there - you might get your ass handed to you by higher level NPCs. You'll have to REALLY watch where you tread, but you'll make a note to come back later when you're badass. That adds a really interesting dimension to the whole world where you'll be testing the water and surveying if you can survive, and you'll feel more powerful as time goes on.

I really never cared about magic in Oblivion as I'm more of a Greek - Homeric sort of combatsman. Stabby-style. Fighting with magic was basically a broken playstyle, I think they had intended for the player to be a spellsword kind of character. But I agree with what you're saying.

I also think that the reward system was so incoheretly staggered that for the most part, you're doing quests just to do quests. The real way to reward players is to give them access to something - an area, a weapon, an ability, a new approach to play the game or something. Don't give me "300 gold" when I have 12,000 in the bank. Sort of like GTA 4, the only reason you'd want to advance is to advance the game forward.

I hope they have specifically addressed that, but it sounds like you have more options as to HOW you want to accomplish a quest solely on account of what you're trying to get out of the quest. (which is traditional Fallout style). It's also good to note that the guy who was responsbile for the Dark Brotherhood is some kind of lead producer of Fallout 3.

I was a bit worried about Fallout 3 until Ed's post, but now my biggest fear, that there would be enemies that level-up with you, is put to rest. That really did ruin the game in a lot of ways, at no point did I level up and feel any more powerful than I was before.

I liked Oblivion for a while but eventually levelled up to the point where the local wild life would kick my ass. Apparently being able to summon a giant frost monster is useless unless you can back it up with a good sword-fucking. I also found most of the quests fairly dull, especially after doing the Dark Brotherhood line early on.

Well,
Impressions from Fallout fan community seem far better at describing what the game is like.

http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=44869

They find it better than Oblivion, which should be a good sign.
But somehow I doubt that Bethesda will be able to get it's claws into me the same way the Black Isle did with all those quests that would dangle something tasty in front of you.

You have to be very conscious of how you level up in Oblivion. It's a lingering annoyance, but you want +4 or +5 modifiers each time you level, which means that you need to increase particular (not any) skills 12 times BEFORE leveling each time. That... that also means you shouldn't be using your major skills, because they accelerate your leveling...

It was kind of a clusterfucked system but I really enjoyed the things they did do correctly. I felt the things they did do incredibly well went unheralded. Actually that's not true, it did get a lot of props among the semi-RPG crowd and quite a few GOTY awards as well.

That NMA article is reassuring. Those guys are a tough crowd, and they seem to like it. I guess, saying it's not Oblivion with guns, but it's not Fallout is a fair assessment to folks with a deep-seated fixation on a certain game.

I mean, there's nothing worse than trying to deliver a sequel to people that want nothing other than a rehash of a game they used to play in high school. But this case, it's a "Franchise abortion" where a developer acquired the rights. There'll be some tough critics.

Could you REALLY have a game of this scale with an isometric view?

What's the worst they could do? I don't understand people. Fallout was KILLED indefinitely until Bethesda dug it back up. Wouldn't you rather have a new game to try than none at all? If anyone's worried about tainted videogame legacies, they seriously need a life. And it's not like Bethesda is some crackhouse developer that turns Hollywood summer blockbusters into shitty, 4th rate shovelware.

Tongue-in-cheek jab at their Pirates of the Caribbean games?

Also...

It's a departure from Oblivion since that game was about a civilization that was at the peak of its power. The world was a fairly well established place. Fallout takes place in a realm where people are just trying to scratch some kind of existence.

And again, I'm generally enthralled about alternate histories - especially when that Black Swan is thrown into the mix during the divergence phase. In Fallout's case, the Black Swan is being stuck in the World of Tomorrow. Half-Life 2 - incredible because it told the story unfolded simultaneously with a backstory - and ONLY solely your conclusions drawn by observations of the world. I feel like Fallout 3 will sort of the same, since there is a lot to learn about the East Coast.

Aye, but to be fair - produced, not developed by Bethesda. Getting in on garbage like that fuels their resources for games they create. Praise be to the all mighty dollar (I guess Euro?).