Be Excellent To Each Other

Fallout 3 is important enough to leave the wife in 8 different carefully sealed rubbish bags in the shed, to be honest.

All the previews I've read about Fallout 3 have made it out to be rubbish.

On an unrelated matter, MA, my new car is very fuel efficient. I think we should spend our bank holiday Monday calculating how efficient. We need a nice long trip to benchmark against, say, approximately 314 miles.

New car? Tell me more! (in the Bits and Bobs thread so as to avoid hijacking this one further)

after an action rpg that was called mass effefct, I hold no hope for fallout 3, I hope to be proved wrong, I didnt liek oblivion either so it really is a combination of hates.

But it does sound rubbish from everything I've read about it. I really wanted to like it but it sounds like a buggy mess.

I hope it proves me wrong.

While Mass Effect and Oblivion would never stand on their own action elements, they were both engaging, entertaining games. Unfortunately, you have to accept that when you're making a huge RPG you can't make every action bit a ludicrously detailed scripted valhalla like Call of Duty 4.

Detailed and scripted isn't necessary at all - in fact doing without that makes for more longevity.

If the combat's not shit to begin with, that is. It has to be naturally fun, like Doom or Rainbow Six or Mount & Blade.

I think Fallout 3 could be great. It really just depends on how much they've learned from Oblivion. And whether the focus on stupid gore effects is just something they did to pander to the dribbling audiences at the conventions, or whether it's what the whole game is like.

The stupid gore effects are doubtless a result of the old favourite "bloody mess" perk, a fallout staple since the start. Or at least I hope so.

I'm holding out a lot of hope for this one. I love the original fallouts with a passion, but I'm not precious about them. I don't see any reason why this can't at least be a solid, entertaining sequel.

Thing is, no preview has yet given any real insight into what Fallout 3 is actually like. We've had nothing but the same half dozen or so scenes - inside the vault, fighting ghouls in the subway, shooting Supermutants outside the Capitol, shooting raiders in the ruins, walking down a desolate road, and exploring near the school and supermarket. Even the video on Youtube of the game in action is nothing more than a piece of a level filled with lots of enemies so they can show off the combat system and weapons.

So, in a way, it is pandering, because how do you cater to the impatient imbeciles who tragically make up a majority of games without showing violence and shooting?

Or to put it another way, how much time did you spend in Oblivion/Eternal Sonata/Arse Effect actually fighting? And I ask, in comparison to the amount you spent exploring, talking or otherwise? I hope I'm wrong, but it's a fucking tragedy that the mainstream games media (who didn't give two shits about the first two games, really) are now jumping on the hype wagon and recycling the aforementioned half dozen scenes and some press releases over and over and over because for some fucking reason all we can talk about is the fighting, and not what actually matters: THE WORLD AND THE STORY.

The violence thing is a throwback to the original, which was marketed partially with frame-by-frame animation spreads showing how detailed each death from various types of weapons were. And hey, if you enjoyed them, you could switch on Bloody Mess so they'd always happen. The game was just silly, OTT fun: lots of humour, pop culture references, gratuitous violence... because it needed to be as otherwise you'd have Burntime again, a game so relentlessly grim that you'd soon become one of those nuclear survivors who envies the dead.

Alas, the hype is becoming a rampaging beast but is giving out a very skewed idea of what I think the game is going to be like. Shame.

Aww man...time to fire up Fallout 2 again.

Yeah, I know it's meant to be the Bloody Mess thing, but it looks daft, and not very well done. It also appears that it gives you a combat advantage, judging by some of the pip boy screens. I just wonder how the game will play without it, and can see it being a choice between "gunshot to the head makes man's legs fall off and spurt blood" or "absolutely no damage is done to character models at all, and they appear to suffer not a jot from massive trauma and injuries until their last hit point slips away". Obviously I'm not saying that's how it will be, but if the WAHEY KILLING GORE WOO trailers and so on aren't a mask for what the game's really like, it's not a good sign.

But! I am still fairly optimistic about it, surprisingly. The fact that we've seen basically nothing could mean that it's just been hushed up very well. I hope it's that.

Why not? We barely saw a thing of GTA IV until it came out, and much of it was clips from cutscenes as opposed to actual gameplay. It was only when reviewers got to play the actual game that the true astonishing scope of the game became apparent.

I think it will be a case that you don't get the ridiculous deaths until your target dies. This was pretty much the case in the old games - unless you did a lot of damage or scored a critical hit, people who died would just fall over and a pool of blood would spread out (to show they're dead, as opposed to unconscious). I suppose it's just the way things go with RPGs... generally, if you do a powerful swing with a sword or fire a burst from your automatic shotgun at someone, they lose a large chunk of their body and fall over to gurgle their last. They don't get 'hit for 26 damage' and carry on.

I was about to say 'maybe the damaged body parts thing will carry over!', in that in the original games you could cripple limbs or eyes or (I think) the head, which would seriously affect their movement speed or aiming until a doctor treated them.

It will be brilliant. Shut up.

The man speaks truth.

Expecting the worst makes for a more pleasant experience if you're wrong. Expecting brilliance almost always leads to disappointment, even if the game's good. You silly.

SHUT UP SHUT UP YOU'RE WRONG

You're just jealous that the pessimists ironically have more fun than you.

At the moment, I think we can only guess... because so far, all we have is all these shots of the explodey head combat.

I really can't wait. We wants it, precious. We wants it.

I've also stumbled across the demonstration of the previous incarnation of Fallout 3 - it's downloading at the mo - will be interested to see what it looks like.

Answer - looks good* for the first five minutes, then crashes.

Still, the actual Fallout 3 will be brilliant - Gillen promised us, precious. In his Eurogamer preview. HE PROMISED THE PRECIOUS.


*for something 4 years ago.

Hey guys, there's no need to Fallout over it ahahahahahahaha

He also promised Gayness Ex 2: Electric Boogaloo would be good. As opposed to a complete fucking travesty of a joke of a disgrace.

Bah, shush you.

A thought occurs - does anyone else here have Fallout Tactics? If so, I have a copy of this and I propose Bezzie Fallout action! The multiplayer option is the aces, from the look of it. I've only played single player, which is pretty good, but have gazed longingly at the multiplayer button on the menu. This, surely, is the best way to whet one's Fallout appetite whilst awaiting the COMING OF FALLOUT 3.

I used to have it. It's pretty fun until you start getting faceraped by deathclaws.

Indeed. But that wouldn't be a problem in multiplayer. Well, except one's characters can be deathclaws (as well as dogs, robots and mutants), of course, so I could, I guess, facerape you with a deathclaw if you want.

Right, Craster's already declined this glorious opportunity. Anyone else interested?

If you sign up for the Games on Demand beta programme you can pick up FO:T for $5.99 which is a splendid bargain (1&2 are also on there for the same price, as is Hostole Waters).

http://www.gog.com

I am making a point of not watching ANY further Fallout 3-related previews or movies or anything, as I find they have a bad habit of spoiling or at least planting seeds of doubt.

I AM LEGEND SPOILERZ BELOW

For example, the I Am Legend trailer in which Will Smith is turning his head away from the Infected which is snarling just inches from his face. This doesn't happen until the end. So I've seen the end, in effect, and therefore go through the entire film thinking 'I haven't seen the bit where they're about to bite his face off' until I reach the final bit and then realizing 'well, they must succeed in getting into the lab, or else that scene didn't exist.'

What happens when you watch a trailer that has footage not in the film? Do you explode as the credits start to roll? Or are you in the cinema, perched on the edge of your seat, jiggling one leg up and down from SHEER TENSION muttering "it has to be there, it must be after the credits, yes, that's it, must be secret post-credits clip, I know it!!!!111eleven".

YOU SEE MY POINT NONETHELESS, THOUGH, RIGHT?

Yes, and this is why I don't watch film trailers of anything I have any interest in ever watching. Not only are they mostly spoiler-ridden wankfests, but they often paint a totally inaccurate picture of the film. Jarhead is a great example - some dickwit decided to push it as an action packed war flick, showing quick cuts of gunfire and explosions and people running and such, when it's really a (pretty good) story about a bunch of soldiers in the desert going slowly mad because nothing is happening.

No one. No one on Gamespy playing FO:T. Good lord.

Anyone....?

Meanwhile, Saving Private Ryan was presented as a tender film about one unit's struggle against adversity amid the background of a world gone mad, in France. Orchestral score, lots of weathered soldiers looking wistfully past the camera, landscapes, etc.

And it turned out to be two relentless hours of men getting their limbs blown off.

Fallout MMO all but confirmed, original developers are involved.

*moistens*

Well done them for retaining rights for the online version, then, as my first thought before reading the article was "they won't be able to call it fallout".

This is brilliant.