Fallout 3 Hands-on
- Posted July 17th, 2008 at 03:27 EDT by
- 8,180 views
- 22 Comments
Fallout shelters are great, aren’t they? They’re always packed to the brim with awesome canned foods and powdered milk. What more could you possibly hope for? Not much, except for an awesome videogame to occupy your time. I had the chance today to test the latest installment to the Fallout franchise, Fallout 3. Developed by Bethesda, Fallout 3 utilizes a vast world much like that of Elder Scrolls with the exception of a nuclear holocaust instead of lush forests. I’ll get this out of the way right now - I am unable to discuss load screens, quest directives, achievements (irrelevant for us), and perks. I am allowed to talk to you guys about pretty much everything else, unfortunately that ends up being very minimal considering I only had 24 minutes to fool around with the game.
One of the things you’ll probably notice right away once the game is loaded is that the attention to small details and texture work is absolutely phenomenal. I was immediately blown away by how realistic concrete looked, with cracks snaking through the roughly textured surface. I had to travel a short ways before entering into the full blown world that Fallout 3 offers, but once I was standing atop a hill, the view was breathtaking and actually had me in disbelief. For those of you who felt Oblivion gave gamers a vast world to explore, Bethesda has taken it an entire step forward with Fallout 3.
Unlike in Oblivion, Fallout provides its onlookers with an amazing draw distance that stretches as far out into the horizon as possible. I couldn’t actually grasp how far out it went. I've never seen anything like it. Moving around and checking out the area, I was also deeply overwhelmed with how great buildings were rendered. A nuclear attack had truly just taken place. From the very small dust particles (particle effects in general are incredibly well done) to the atmosphere around you, Fallout 3 capitalizes on creating a realistic landscape that accurately displays the vast emptiness and lack of life within the world.
While some people may be taken aback by the overall scale of this title, true fans of gaming will be able to appreciate everything it has to offer in terms of the exact look and feel of the title. None of this would even matter though if the game itself was broken and had poor gameplay, correct? In lieu of that statement, let me give you a run-down of some of the well-implemented gameplay elements and features .
First off, I’d like to point out that using your L1 button will enable you to choose between the standard First-Person Shooter view or the Third-Person Shooter option. This is a nice touch and allows fans of each genre to truly decide which view is best suited for them. Once you have that planned, you’ll want to check out your pip-boy item to see what kind of options you have at your disposal. From the pip-boy, you’ll be able to check out how many people you’ve killed, locks you’ve picked, and a ton of other stats that are kept within your player menu.
The stat skills work a lot like they did in Oblivion without the entire “sword/bow” weapon system. Fallout provides you stats for melee, large guns, lock-picking, handguns and other variety of skill sets that will help you customize your character to your playing style. You’ll also be able to check out your special stats as well. These include such things as endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility and more. These are the basic pip-boy menu options that you can check out to see how your character is progressing thus far.
Continuing on the menu interfaces, I’d like to discuss what happens once you level up. Upon leveling up, a screen will appear alerting you of your achievement and directing you to allocate a certain amount of points into certain areas. While all of this may be standard, it brings you one step further afterwards and allows you the chance to pick another “style” of play to use. An example of this is “Lady Killer,” which gives you 10% more damage when you’re killing women. Don’t get the wrong idea, Bethesda isn’t trying to put the bludgeoning of women ... (continued on next page)
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Comments
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French |
French- 4:21am BST - July 17th, 2008
- 2
I'm jealous. I have been super excited about this game, and I don't doubt it will be a heavy contender for Game of the Year. I've watched the E3 trailer a couple times... its absolutely jaw-dropping!! Unfortunately, like last holiday season, my wallet is going to be hurting in a few months... Fallout 3, LBP, Saint's Row 2, Mercenaries 2, Just Cause 2, The Force Unleashed, SOCOM, Resistance 2, Bioshock and Motorstorm are all pre-ordered... I'm just gonna have to live off of beans and rice for the next few months!!!
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SonyJunkie |
Bender6191- 4:53am BST - July 17th, 2008
- 4
I will be getting this. And as i was reading I noticed that you said to push the L1 button to change from first person and third person, but then later you say to use the L1 button for the VATS system. I dont understand how that will work. But besides that. its sounding really good.
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Emo-Mercenary |
Clarky-132- 5:16am BST - July 17th, 2008
- 5
Thanks Dave! Great hands-on. Lokking really forward to this game, I want it now so badly! Is there any idea on a release date? EDIT: Ohh.. October. I was hopeing for a Summer release =-[
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Guamdude 671 |
bblas- 5:17am BST - July 17th, 2008
- 6
I want this game so bad I've been literally reading every article and watching any video I can of this game. I'm definetley going to be getting this game. But I'm not sure if it will be GOTY. I'll guess we'll just wait and see.
PSN:bblas Feel Free To Add
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real_dan_man |
RealDanMan- 5:34am BST - July 17th, 2008
- 7
I seriousy cant wait for this game, I've payed the heck (woudn't let me post hel*) out of Oblivion and I could'nt think of any other developer I'd want to create this game. I think it may just be my game of the year...
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kerrymike1980 |
Kerrance- 9:00am BST - July 17th, 2008
- 9
Does anyone know if you can turn the blood, gore and profanity off?
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Bigsmoke94
- 9:47am BST - July 17th, 2008
- 11
"Does anyone know if you can turn the blood, gore and profanity off?"
umm.....no?...
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GOD_OF_CHAOS_KRATOS
- 10:31am BST - July 17th, 2008
- 12
i think you can turn down the death animations by turning off a certain perk your character has.
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BlueRevolvuR |
BlueRevolvuR- 11:06am BST - July 17th, 2008
- 13
so many great games!! lukily i hav $500 in gamestop giftcards. :)
EDIT: My cousins aren't into gaming so they give their cards to me. i dont kno why they get them though
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Babiloo |
XavierHarkonnen- 1:47pm BST - July 17th, 2008
- 15
this game sounds sweet but i still hope mgs4 gets GotY :P.
on the other hand though its slightly disconcerting that you can't talk about achievements and load times. Mostly because I'd rather not get shafted out of trophies when the 360 version will apparently have achievements. And also the one thing that kind of took me out of oblivion was the load times, hopefully they can have a couple gig install to fix those.
other than that the game looks great and i can't wait for its release... when is that anyways?
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sn-plazaskater |
XavierHarkonnen- 2:47pm BST - July 17th, 2008
- 16
if this game is better than oblivion than i will be pretty happy because that game was great
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TestosteRohne |
TestosteRohne- 4:58pm BST - July 18th, 2008
- 18
And while you're at it Denboy long live HD-DVD.......uber prat.
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