HawK-EyE
15/06/2007, 16h00
D'après une news de <a href="http://www.nukacola.com">Nukacola</a> :
<blockquote>
Même si le prochain numéro de Game Informer doit sortir le 18 juin, certains abonnés prétendent avoir déjà obtenu leurs propres exemplaires en avance. Ainsi, NMA reprend le post de l'un d'entre eux sur le forum de <b><a href="http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=163612">NeoGAF</a></b>. Mais même si ce qu'il dit parait crédible, personne ne peut confirmer ce qu'il raconte pour le moment. L'auteur n'a toujours pas balancé d'images scannées du magasine mais il semble être pris assez au sérieux sur les <b><a href="http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=711657&st=160&start=160">différents</a> <a href="http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=36854&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=40">forums</a></b>.
Voici ce qu'il raconte :
¤ Le jeu utilise une version améliorée du moteur d'Oblivion <i>(le Gamebryo, ce qui est très probable en effet)</i>.
¤ La vue à la troisième personne a été retravaillée car celle d'Oblivion puait vraiment trop de la bite.
¤ Le jeu commence avec votre naissance et la mort en couche de votre mère dans un hopital de l'abri. Votre père analyse votre ADN et c'est ainsi que vous êtes amené à choisir votre apparence. Votre père enlève son masque et révèle des traits similaires à ceux que vous venez de choisir <i>(espérons que la création de visage sera plus soignée que pour Oblivion et ses têtes de freaks).</i>
¤ Vous grandissez dans l'abri et votre premier livre s'intitule "<i>Vous êtes spécial</i>". Il vous permet de choisir l'attribution des points du système S.P.E.C.I.A.L.<i>(C'est à dire vos caractéristiques primaires)</i>. Vous obtenez aussi votre première arme et votre ordinateur personnel fixé à votre poignet <i>(le Pipboy ?)</i>.
¤ La création de votre personnage est entièrement basée sur le système classique : vous pouvez choisir 3 aptitudes spéciales dans les 14 proposées pour leur permettre d'augmenter plus vite.
¤ Le système de combat s'appelle le Vault-tec Assisted Targeting System (V.A.T.S.). D'après l'article, il permet de dégommer les ennemis en temps réel et à la première personne mais aussi de mettre le gunfight en pause et de sélectionner soigneusement votre cible. Le système utilise encore des points d'action mais vous pouvez continuer à combattre en temps réel lorsque vous n'en avez plus.
¤ Tout comme vous, les ennemis peuvent viser une partie de votre corps et ainsi vous blesser à des endroits particuliers. De plus, le jeu utilise un nouveau système de santé/radiation : il vous indique le taux de radioactivité d'un aliment et les effets qu'il produira sur votre corps si vous le consommez.
¤ Le jeu est toujours très gore. Un des screenshots montre la tête d'un type qui explose avec tous les détails qui vont avec. Les morts violentes et gores seront montrées au ralenti.
¤ On peut aborder le jeu de plusieurs manières : en tuant tout le monde, en se faufilant ou en discutant <i>(encore heureux)</i>.
¤ Le Karma est de retour.
¤ L'article parle de la gestion des NPC et de l'importance des quêtes pour progresser dans le jeu. Vous pourrez recruter des mercenaires mais on ne sait pas s’il y aura de vrais compagnons comme cette traînée de Miria. Ah, et il y aura un chien.
¤ Il n'y aura pas d'autoleveling comme dans Oblivion. Si vous rentrez dans une zone protégée par des ennemis de haut niveau, préparez vous à en chier.
¤ Le niveau maximum est fixé à 20.<i>(sic!)</i> Les points d'XP s'obtiennent surtout grâce aux quêtes.
¤ Le jeu comprendra entre 9 et 12 fins.
Voilà. N'oubliez pas que toutes ces informations sont peut être fausses alors ne vous emballez pas trop.
</blockquote>
Merci à <a href="http://www.nukacola.com/news/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=24&sid=25dde97745508cbf548acfadb6e7dfdc">Bewaltz</a> de Nukacola pour la rédaction et la traduction.
HawK-EyE
16/06/2007, 04h12
Je lit en ce moment et je vous donne au fur et à mesure les différents points interessants :
(PAGE 1 - PAGE 2) :
- Le jeu à l'air de démarrer "vraiment" a partir du moment ou votre père disparait subitement de l'Abri...
- Game Informer a pu voir une démo de 1 heure sur grand écran, c'était Todd Howard qui leur présentait la démo en jouant en même temps.
(PAGE 3 - PAGE 4) :
- Le jeu commence à votre naissance, où vous choisissez votre apparence :
sexe, corpulence, ethnie, structure faciale et physique.
- Les détails d'apparence seront gigantesques et beaucoup plus réalistes que dans Oblivion
- Votre père enlève ensuite son masque pour révéler son visage quasi identique au votre, pas exactement le même mais suffisament pour savoir que vous êtes de la même famille.
- A partir de ce moment vous vivez votre enfance dans l'abri, renforçant l'idée d'une prison.
- L'abri dans lequel vous vivez est l'abri 101
- Aucun détail des objets ne sera laissé au hasard, d'après l'équipe artistique, tous les objets auront une utilité particulière même fictive, le décor n'aura pas l'air d'être rempli artificiellement d'objets sans interets...
- Pendant les dialogues on retrouve l'aspect visuel d'Oblivion avec zoom sur la tête du personnage qui parle et le texte en bas.
- Les armes seront dégradables et s'useront a chaque utilisation, vous pourrez néamoins utilisez vos anciennes armes inutilisables pour améliorer celles que vous trouverez plus tard. (peu de détails à ce propos)
- Lorsque vous êtes encore bébé, votre père vous offre le livre "You are SPECIAL" qui vous permet de choisir vos caractéristiques primaires.
- Vous vous familiariserez ensuite avec l'interface de mouvement, en apprenant à marcher.
- A l'age de 10 ans, votre père vous offre un BB gun et votre PipBoy 3000 monté sur votre poignet qui servira d'interface de menu durant le jeu.
- A l'age de 16 ans, vous faites votre G.O.A.T (Generalized Occupational Aptitude Test), test durant lequel vos réponses détermineront vos aptitudes spéciales et vos dons de départ.
- Enfin, à l'age de 19 ans, votre père s'enfuit et vous le poursuivez dans le monde extérieur. Juste avant de sortir de l'Abri, vous avez la possibilité de modifier une dernière fois le personnage que vous avez construit pendant votre enfance.
- Le système reprends entièrement les caractéristiques du SPECIAL avec les Aptitudes de base qui ajoutent Bonus et Malus ainsi que 14 compétences secondaires dans lesquelles 3 seront des compétences spéciales qui augmenteront plus vite que les autres. A chaque level vous obtenez un Don supplémentaire qui vous donnera des bonus dans certaines situations particulières.
- Le PiPBoy3000 est une interface complète comprenant 3 pages : les statistiques de votre personnage, votre inventaire (incluant la possibilité de réparer, récuperer des parties de vos ancien fusils inutilisables...), et une page de données contenant cartes, quètes photos etc...
- Le Pipboy sert aussi de radio et vous pouvez écouter certaines fréquences dans le wasteland, les radios émises vous donneront de nouvelles quètes ou simplement la possibilité d'écouter des tubes des années 40 et 50 dont Bethesda a acheté la licence... :D
- La vue à la 3ème personne a été grandement améliorée afin de permettre au joueur de jouer tout le jeu avec. Les journalistes de Game Informer disent qu'elle n'est pas sans rappeler un certain Resident Evil 4...
(PAGE 5 - PAGE 6) :
- Il n'y a pas de level scaling comme dans Oblivion, vous pouvez facilement entrer dans un endroit et rencontrer des Super Mutant qui vous exploseront la tronche sans aucune mise en garde !
- Le moteur d'Oblivion a été amélioré et les graphismes seront vraiment différents de ceux que nous connaissons, Game Informer ajoute que c'est un genre tout nouveau par rapport aux travaux précédents de Bethsoft.
- Une fois dehors, la difficulté sera d'aobrd de survivre dans le monde hostile. L'eau sera nécéssaire mais aussi dangereuse car une des première sources de radiations que vous connaitrez.
- La plupart des armes et munitions seront très rares et vous devrez parfois chercher des stratégies complexes pour éviter une bestiole mutante ou bien utiliser toutes vos munitions et la tuer sauvagement. :D
- Le système VATS est fait pour éviter de trop récompenser les bons tireurs, "ce n'est pas un FPS, c'est un RPG" a déclaré Todd Howard.
- Le VATS vous permet de mettre en pause et de prendre votre temps pour viser la cible. Une fois que vous avez visé, un ennemi, un zoom apparait pour vous permettre de choisir la localisation de votre tir avec le pourcentage de chance de réussite.
- Le pourcentage de réussite est basé sur la distance, la defénse de l'ennemi, s'il est à couvert, votre capacité a utiliser votre arme actuelle, et quelques autres facteurs.
- Chaque mouvement que vous effectuez en combat utilise des points d'action. Ils se régénèrent automatiquement en temps réel à une vitesse dépendante de votre agilité.
- Une fois que vous avez terminé vos actions dans le VATS, vous pouvez continuer à tirer en temps réel mais cela va ralentir considérablement votre recharge en points d'action. Tout cela pour encourager le tir tactique plutot que le jeu bourrin style "je-tire-partout-dans-tous-les-sens".
- Pour chaque localisation touchée, votre ennemi sera affecté d'une facon radicalement différente. Tirez dans le bras d'un super mutant et vous l'empecherez de faire tournoyer sa supermassue. Tirez dans une antenne d'une fourmi géante et elle deviendra folle et attaquera ses congénaires.
- Le jeu vous permettra de recruter des compagnons mais apparement ce n'est pas vraiment un jeu d'équipe, c'est plutot orienté solo. Bethesda a confirmé en hésitant qu'il y aurait un chien, mais ne semble pas très loquace sur le sujet ni sur les compagnons en général.
- Les animation "gores" et les coup critiques seront vues au ralenties. Voilà de quoi ravir les abonnés de l'aptitude "bloody mess" :D
(PAGE 7 - PAGE 8) :
- Bethesda précise que ce jeu n'est pas fait pour les enfants (on s'en serait douté :))
- L'IA d'Oblivion a été améliorée pour utiliser les armes à distance, les ennemis se mettront à couvert, vous prendre à revers dans des maneuvres subtiles et réagissent de facon réaliste en fonction de l'environnement.
- Les boissons et la nourriture vous permettront de gagner des points de vie tout comme les stimpaks
- Parfois, la seule source de regain sera de l'eau dans une cuvette de chiottes au fin fond d'une station de métro oubliée...
- Le niveau de radiation augmentera progressivement tant que vous n'utilisez pas de médicaments appropriés.
- Vos ennemis aussi vous toucheront avec précision, en fonction de l'endroit touché, vous aurez du mal à vous déplacer, à utiliser vos armes avec précision etc...
- Les nouvelles armes et les ennemis créés par Bethesda font preuve d'une grande finesse (voir Behemot et catapulte nucléaire :D )
(PAGE 9 - PAGE 10) :
- Il y aura plusieurs solutions pour résoudre un problème, votre karma en sera d'autant augmenté ou diminué.
- La liberté d'action sera présente comme dans la plupart des RPG de Bethesda, mais contrairement à Oblivion vous ne pourrez pas réaliser toutes les actions en une seule aventure. De nombreuses missions seront débloqués au fur et à mesure en fonction de vos choix et donc certaines vous seront inacessibles car incompatibles avec vos choix précédents.
- Howard explique : "C'est plus d'après la facon dont vous gérez une situation que l'ordre dans lequel vous faites les missions qui importe"
- Néanmoins , il ne sera pas facile de détecter au départ quels choix vous feront évoluer en "bien" ou en "mal", Emil Pagliarulo indique que "dans la plupart des quètes nous nous efforçons d'éviter le chemin 'gentil' et le chemin 'méchant', car une bonne part de l'univers de Fallout est une ombre plutot grisâtre". Un mal dans une certaine communauté peut servir les dessins d'un personnage plus influant ailleurs et vice et versa...
- Le jeu prends donc lieu en 2277 soit 200 ans après le début de la Grande Guerre de 2077 à Washington.
- De nombreux éléments nous feront prendre conscience de l'ampleur du désastre et des modifications apportés par l'apocalypse, comme un voyage au Jefferson mémorial, ou la vision des différents monuments de Washington.
- Une cité centrale a été construite dans un porte avion, elle est appelée Rivet City. Alors que beaucoup de petits campements tels que Megaton (une des premieres villes que vous découvrez) sont les derniers bastions de vie.
- Les égouts et les anciennes voies de métro sont les passages interconnectant la majorité des endroits dans le jeu.
- Le paysage et l'ambiance post-apocalyptique indique qu'il n'y aura que peu d'individus avec lesquels interagir.
- "Nous sommes dans la centaine au lieu d'etre dans le millier" indique Todd Howard à propos de la quantité de NPC
- Le système Radiant AI de Oblivion qui donnait aux NPC des tâches à accomplir la journée, la nuit, aux heures de repas etc... a été amélioré et chaque personnage interagira avec de nombreux éléments dans le monde de Fallout.
- Les gens qui se connaissent ne vont pas juste se parler de façon banale avec une discussion générique, ils s'apelleront par leur nom et parleront de sujets spécifiques qui intéressent les 2 personnages.
- Les enfants seront bel et bien présents dans Fallout 3 mais peu de choses sont révélés sur leur vie et leur mort pour le moment...
- Pour la plupart des personnage, il faut s'attendre à un jeu de voix bien supérieur à celui de Oblivion, afin d'éviter de penser "Je ne viens pas d'entendre ce gars dans la dernière ville ou je suis passé ?" L'équipe des voix est dirigée par Liam Neeson qui fera la voix du père, mais bien entendu de ce coté là, la version française risque d'être un peu limite...
Voilà ! Ouf ! J'espère que je n'ai pas trop traduit à l'arrache car il est très très tard et je vais enfin pouvoir aller me coucher avec pleins de petits détails interessants en tête. De quoi faire travailler l'imagination de tous les fans de Fallout et des univers post-apo.
N'hésitez pas à poster vos questions/commentaires ici.
HawK-EyE
19/06/2007, 02h51
Transcript en anglais de l'article : (à garder dans un coin ca peut toujours servir.)
Fallout 3
Playstation 3/XBox 360/PC
Style: Action RPG
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
Release: Fall 2008
You were born in the Vault. And you'll die in the Vault. It's what you've always believed. For 200 years your people have survived down here, in this test tube of a home - bleached clean steel walls, sterilized floors, and dozens of fellow survivors crammed into this self-sufficient hole in the ground. Xenophobia is a lifestyle. The world above is gone, annihilated centuries ago in one brief radiation-filled flash, leaving you here to live out your sad existence behind a massive metal gate. At least that's what you believed until just hours ago, when it became clear that your father - the only family you have in the world - disappeared from the Vault without warning or explanation. So now you stand before that imposing portal, the great bolts that hold it in place sliding free from their mooring, ready to pursue him into the wastes. With a shudder, the breach slides open before you. Having never seen the glare of sun, the world beyond appears first in a haze and slides slowly into focus as you step out onto real soil for the first time. A shattered land lies spread out before you, the ancient husks of crumpled cars broiling beneath the midday sun, ruined and forgotten buildings dotting the ground out to the horizon. But as dead as the world appears, life has survived - normal humans struggling as much against irradiated food and drink as the mutated monstrosities that roam the wasteland. Even 200 years after that civilization ending holocaust, you and all the others who were left behind live under the perpetual threat of Fallout.
Into the Wasteland
Hunger for a new Fallout game began years ago, and deepened when the team that brought gamers the original masterpiece disbanded. One of the great PC gaming franchises was left in limbo, without anyone there to bring it to a new generation of players. When Bethesda bought the rights to the franchise in 2004, many were overjoyed that their favorite RPG developer would be reviving the series. Some Fallout fans immediately decried the move, sure from the start that Bethesda would change too much about their beloved series. Meanwhile, the folks at Bethesda quietly began to craft early concept art, research the original games, and brainstorm story and gameplay ideas. Now, after years of work, with the full force of their studio focused on their project, the team that brought us The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is ready to reveal their vision of the Fallout universe. "The spirit of Fallout - we've missed it. We've wanted to see it in games again," executive producer Todd Howard tells us. "It's humbling and exciting all at once to be the group that makes that game."
We got the chance to visit Howard and the rest of his team at their studio in Maryland. Ushered into a giant movie theater with enough seats for dozens of people, Howard sat in a booth high to our left as he played through a demo of the game while we watched on the massive screen. The nearly hour-long walkthrough (detailed in the narrative segments on these pages) revealed technology in stellar shape for a title that is over a year away from release. With almost no technical hiccups, the demo revealed how characters are crafted, the flow of combat, the structure of morality and questing, and wide stretches of the land upon which the game is set. As longtime players and fans of both Fallout and the Elder Scrolls franchise, that one hour as we sat in rapt attention made one thing abundantly clear: This is the best of both of those franchises, without any compromises, and with enough amazing new details to excite even the most jaded or skeptical RPG enthusiast. "Differences between how we approach this and how we approach The Elder Scrolls are pretty huge," Howard assures us. "It's its own game. We don't assume anything we did in Elder Scrolls fits."
"In Fallout 2, you start the game at birth," lead designer Emil Pagliarulo details. "In the original Fallout game, your character had been born in a Vault. We wanted the player to experience that process." As your mother dies during childbirth, you masked father lifts you up to where the other vault dwellers can analyze you with a DNA scanner - one that will reveal how you will look as you grow older. Here you are given the chance to choose your gender, body type, ethnicity, facial structure, and physique. All the classic elements of character creation with a huge amount of detail are present, but with more realistic facial options than were available in Oblivion. Once satisfied, your father will remove his mask, and his ethnicity and facial features will reflect your own - not a perfect match, but a clear familial link that reveals your parentage. From there, the early hours of the game will check in throughout the long years of childhood in the vault, reinforcing the prison-like environs of your home.
While still a baby, your father will give you a small infant-style cardboard book. As you flip through its pages, which is cleverly titled "You're Special!", you'll choose the baseline stats for each of your seven primary aptitudes. A brief stop as a toddler teaches you to walk, familiarizing you with movement controls. At age 10, you are gifted with a BB gun and your Pip-Boy 3000, a wrist mounted computer that will serve as your menu system throughout the game. At 16 you'll take your G.O.A.T. (Generalized Occupational Aptitude Test), where your answers to various questions will help determine an initial layout of skills and traits. Finally, at age 19, your father escapes and you pursue him into the world beyond. Sometime before the Vault's door opens, you're offered one last chance to alter the character you've crafted throughout childhood.
Whatever your choices, every aspect of character creation is based firmly in the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system that was utilized in the original Fallout games. Of your 14 skills, you can tag three of them to grow at a faster rate as you level up. Every other level, you choose a perk, a special talent that may give you small bonuses in certain situations. Traits give you pluses and minuses that may change your style of play. It's impossible to create a maxed-out superhero - each facet of character creation is set up to force careful choices about the path you want your character to take through life. From the beginning, Fallout 3 can be played in either a first-person camera view, or panned back to an over-the-shoulder third person angle not unlike the one offered in Resident Evil 4. In contrast to Oblivion's floaty and disconnected third-person option, the approach in Fallout 3 has been more focused. "We found with our previous stuff that if we have a third-person mode at all, then people like to play in it," Howard tells us. "So we spent a lot more time on that mode so you can play the whole game that way if you want." From either camera angle, players will be able to observe the amazing attention to detail on everything from wrinkles in characters' clothing to rough textures on the ruined stonework of old structures. This is an evolved version of the engine that ran the graphics of Oblivion, but everything from the animation of monsters to the dramatic lighting of different environments has been designed from the ground up for the ruined landscapes of the Fallout universe.
Once outside of the Vault, the focus of the game becomes finding a way to survive in the barren wilderness of the outside world. Water is a precious commodity, even though it is also one of the primary sources of radiation you'll encounter; every sip must be judged against how many rads it's likely to introduce into your body. Food, weaponry, and ammo are in short supply, so there's a constant need to ration and improvise new ways to confront obstacles. Hungry and malformed beats wander the world, and you'll have to find a way to either avoid them or take them down for good.
To do so, most players will find themselves taking advantage of the innovative combat system that Bethesda has developed for the game. The Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System (V.A.T.S.) is what assures that this first-person game so chock full of guns doesn't become an FPS. "We don't want to be rewarding twitch play," Howard says. "It's not an action game. It's a role-playing game." While you'll certainly be able to tackle enemies in real time first-person shooting, V.A.T.S. lets players pause time and select a target at their leisure. Once targeted, a zoomed-in view of that enemy will show all the places you could aim to hit the creature, and the percentage chance you'll succeed. This percentage is based on distance, enemy defense, his cover, as well as your ability with the weapon at hand, among other factors. Just like in the original Fallout, you'll have a set number of action points, largely based on your agility score. Every combat move you make will deplete this supply, at which point those AP will begin to regenerate in real time at a rate that also corresponds with your agility. Once you complete all your actions in V.A.T.S. you can continue to attack in real time, but this will dramatically slow the recharge of your action points, thereby encouraging tactical targeting over constant twitch shooting. As for those specific targets, which area you aim for will have a profound effect on your foe. Hit the arm of a super mutant, and he may not swing that massive cudgel at you with quite the same force as before. Shoot off the antenna of a mutated giant ant, and he'll go crazy and attack his brethren.
Also in keeping with the tradition of Fallout, violence can and will be disturbingly brutal. If your final shot is about to result in a dramatic near miss, the sickening crunch of an exploding head, or any other dramatic moment, the scene will play out in slow motion, with the camera zooming in and circling around the bullet as it whizzes through the air only to tear into a mutant's leg as it explodes in a haze of blood. In addition to an array of ranged weapons, you'll also have access to melee weapons like the super sledge (a sledge-hammer) and the ripper (a weaponized chainsaw). These tools of war will function under the same V.A.T.S. system, allowing for gory close range slow-motion kills that shred those enemies foolish enough to get close. Embracing the bloody source material, Bethesda is very open in its declaration that Fallout 3 will most definitely not be fit for children. Meanwhile, your foes are certainly not content to sit still and eat your bullets. "We've revamped the entire AI system from Oblivion to give us better gameplay with guns," lead producer Gavin Carter tells us. "We've altered the whole pathfinding system so the NPCs are much more knowledgeable about their surroundings. They can take cover, catch you in flanking maneuvers, and mainly react more realistically with their environments."
With such clever adversaries, your foes aren't the only ones who'll be forced to deal with injury and pain. An intricate health system details the many problems your character will have to confront on his journey. Like most role-playing games, you will have a set amount of hit points that go down as you take damage. Food or soda will help improve your hit points slightly, and stimpacks (a sort of injection) can be a big help. As mentioned before, water can also give a boost. Sometimes the only way to completely fill up on health is to drink from some fixed water source repeatedly, like a toilet bowl in a forgotten subway station. However, when you go to drink, you'll be able to see both its health benefits and radiation level. Without medicating to reduce radiation, it will continue to rise until it begins to handicap stats and eventually kill you.
Beyond juggling health and radiation you'll also need to watch out for personal injury to different body parts. You're not the only one making targeted shots; your enemies will be aiming for particular weak points on your body as well. That means you may end up with a broken leg or a shattered arm. One might drastically slow you down, while the other will almost certainly make your once true marksmanship waver and fail. Conceivably, enough water and stimpacks could get your health back up to normal, but no amount of liquid is going to fix a broken bone. For these injuries, either beef up on your surgery skill or expect to make some long and painful treks back to the nearest town doctor.
While the simplest path to an objective is often through violence, Bethesda is committed to offering options that will fit anyone's play style, whether that means sneaking past dangerous foes or talking your way through to a solution. As with the original Fallout, a karma system is in place that will vacillate back and forth based on your actions. Ethical dilemmas are a big part of the Fallout universe, and sometimes one evil act may server a greater common good. Your place on the karmic scale will shift in response to your decisions, and different titles will be applied as you gain levels based on your current karma. In fact, many of the 360 version's Achievements will be about acquiring these different titles as you progress - getting all the Achievements is almost impossible in just one playthrough, particularly due to the nature of quests in Fallout 3.
Like Oblivion, Fallout 3 offers tremendous freedom in what actions and missions you want to take on. However, unlike Oblivion, a single character can't be all things to all people. Where your battle mage in Oblivion might have simultaneously been the heroic Champion of Cyrodil and the sadistic leader of the Dark Brotherhood, the quests you'll encounter in Fallout 3 will offer complicated choices that take you down one path or another. If you make one choice, it may close off an entire branch of missions from ever becoming available. However, because of that one decision, an entirely new series of missions will emerge that the other option would never have revealed. Subsequent playthroughs of Fallout 3 with different choices may very well completely change the path of the story. One avenue might have you taking up the insidious role of a slaver, while more righteous choices will have a town greeting you as a hero even upon your initial arrival since they've heard of your beneficent deeds. "Even within the quests we're trying to be careful to not just have the good path and the evil path, because a big part of Fallout is shades of gray," Pagliarulo informs us. With a less concrete questing path, you'll often find yourself swept up into tasks rather than being offered a formalized missions from some distressed townsperson - but you'll always have choices about how to proceed, or whether you want to participate in the event at all. "It's more about how you handle these different situations, and less which ones did you do and in what order," Howard explains.
The environmental backdrop through which you'll be making all of these choices is a detailed reinvention of the universe exhibited in the old games. "In our process of envisioning what Fallout 3 should look like, we started by going back to the first Fallout. There's a lot of great raw material to look at there," explains Istvan Pely, lead artist on the project. "Now we have so much more to work with. You're there, and you're seeing everything in a greater amount of detail. So we're going to town on that. Every single detail - just fleshing it out to a level of realism and quality that will overwhelm people in terms of making them feel like they're really there."
The location of the game world is in some ways a familiar setting for studio members at the Maryland-based studio. Washington, D.C. and its environs offer a dramatic backdrop to the post-nuclear adventure of Fallout 3. in the alternate history of the Fallout universe, many things were different in the years after World War II - a terrifying series of events lead to the the war in 2077 that wiped out most of civilization. In 2277, as you emerge from Vault 101, the world has had a hard time recovering, and few places are able to communicate the fall from decadence like a trip through the crumpled remnants of the Jefferson memorial, or spying the chipped and battered rock that remains of the Washington monument. A large central hub called Rivet City is based in and around the remains of a crashed aircraft carrier, while outlying settlements like the town of Megaton serve as other remote bastions of life. The sprawling remains of the underground Metro line and sewer ways interconnect much of the game world. The map as a whole is only slightly smaller in size than the land area you were able to explore in Oblivion. While the land mass is still huge, and seemingly endless quests abound, the harsh conditions in this post-apocalyptic land mean there are actually fewer individual characters to interact with.
"With Fallout, the number of NPCs is reduced. We're in the hundreds instead of the thousands," explains Howard. Consequently, the development team has been able to breathe more life into individuals as they move through their daily lives. "For us it's about making better characters - making NPCs that you're invested in," Pagliarulo adds. "The Radiant AI system of Oblivion takes its next steps forward in the game, as NPCs attempt to interact in meaningful ways with the game world. Characters who know each other won't just engage in generic small talk - they may address each other by name, and talk about things that matter to them as individuals. "Lucas Simms, the sheriff of Megaton, he has a son. If you see him walk up to his son and have a conversation, you would hear that the stuff that he says is particularly tailored to his son," Pagliarulo tells us. With the mention of Simms' son, the question of the presence of children in a game this violent must be addressed. In answer, Bethesda confidently assures us that kids will be found throughout Fallout 3 - but how they live and (more controversially) die within the game world is yet to be revealed. For both children and adults, you can expect far more voice talent this time around, with fewer characters that make you think: "Didn't I just hear this guy in the last town I was in?" That broader cast is being led by the inimitable Liam Neeson, who stars as the lost father at the root of your quest into the post-apocalyptic surface world.
Feature sets and questing structures aside, there's much more to Fallout than iterating off a great rule set from an old computer game. At its core, the Fallout universe appealed to mature gamers for its juxtaposition of the realities of war and death against a dark humor that delights in the ironies of a once perfect civilization ravaged by their own destructive tendencies. It's a complex world without simple answers. Heroism and villainy seem to carry more weight in a land so near extinction. Simply put, Bethesda gets it. From the emulation of the '40s propaganda posters to the impossible moral decisions placed before players, Fallout 3 is a role-playing game in the truest interpretation of the genre. It's about choices and consequences, characters and story, survival and sacrifice. And, after what seems now an excruciatingly short time seeing the game in action, it's about a long, long wait until the autumn of 2008.
The Pip-Boy 3000 (Page 4)
"We joke that this thing has more pixel shaders running on it than Oblivion did. We really wanted it to feel like this old beat up, retro device that you have strapped to your wrist," explains Todd Howard. The Pip-Boy 3000 is as close to a menu system that Fallout 3 has to offer. Three red buttons on the wrist-mounted device are your tabs between the major screens. The first is your character's stat page, where you can check skills, health, and other personal details. The second button pulls up an inventory of items, and also includes the option to repair damaged items or scavenge old ones for parts. The third button is a data screen - here you'll find maps, quest logs, photos, and the like. Beyond that, the Pip-Boy also serves as a sort of radio. Detecting radio signals being broadcast across the wasteland, you'll be able to tune in any of the surviving radio stations. Some broadcasts will occasionally reveal new quests. Other times, the radio stations serve as a way to listen to the 20-some 1949s and '50s tunes that Bethesda has licensed.
The Behemoth (Page 9)
Here you can see the layers of work that go into producing a single enemy in Fallout 3.
High resolution model used to define basic structures
Modeling of subsurface veins and blemishes, painted on in 3D
A texture pass for muscles and bone structure
A similar image with veins removed to aid in texture layering
Final image
Narrative Segments
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In the wastes beyond Vault 101, a dusty wind blows as the sun beats down on your pale skin. In the ruins of the forgotten town below, you chance upon a stashed rifle and some drugs in a battered mailbox. Not far away, near a broken children's swingset, you find a still-functional water faucet. Taking a sip, you're alarmed as your personal radiation meter begins to climb. A sound turns you around. Two impossibly large ants crawl towards you. Thinking quickly, you target one of the broken down cars near where the mutated insects are passing. A few shows find its engine, one of those old nuclear generators, and the ants and car alike disappear into a small mushroom cloud. Your radiation detector beings its ominous tick.
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The sign above the gate reads: "Megaton." The robot outside doesn't judge you a threat, and instead barks an advertisement for the local watering hold as the doors grate open. Inside stands the town sheriff, a stuffy fellow named Lucas Simms. Never a fan of authority, you dismiss his commands to stay out of trouble in his town and descend to the strange sight below. A massive undetonated bomb sits in the crater at the center of town, apparently the settlement's namesake. Some insane religious zealot kneels at its base, espousing the bomb as a miraculous sign from God. You push past him and head to the bar.
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Inside Moriarty's Bar, static-laced, ancient pre-war music blares from a transistor radio. Beyond the local riffraff, in the corner you spy an imperturbable businessman, the kind of man that looks like he might know something about your father. As it turns out, he doesn't. But Mister Burke, as he calls himself, does have a job that might net you a little money to survive on out here. He'd like to get rid of Megaton - something about "a blight on the burgeoning urban landscape." He's got a fusion pulse charge that could arm the live and ticking bomb at the center of town. It's not as if this town as done anything for you yet. Sure, your father might disapprove. But he's not here right now. You take the charge and head back outside. The radio croons: "I'm in love with a wonderful guy!"
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With the charge set, you descend into the ruined Metro subway lines below ground. Dust motes float slowly through shafts of light from the surface above. You march off in the direction of your pre-determined meeting place with Mister Burke, far away from Megaton. Rounding a corner, you're greeted with a hail of gunfire. A massive beat of a mutant stands beyond, armed with a rusted Chinese assault rifle, dwarfed by its too-large hands. In the fight that follows, you take some hits, but nothing a stimpack won't fix. In the corridor beyond, two more mutants pace, grunting back and forth to each other. Unwilling to risk another open battle, you sneak to a nearby passage and the security terminal housed within. Hacking the computer is simple enough, and a security bot emerges from its cocooned pod - unused these last two centuries. Rolling out onto the main platform, its tin can voice intones: "Tickets, please." As the mutants outside laugh and threaten to tear its puny metal arms off, the bot decides they must not have tickets, and opens fire with its laser cannon.
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Emerging from the Metro into the ruins of the old capital city of a dead nation, it only takes moments to realize you're in over your head. A swarm of mutants crawl across the old marble stonework, and your scavenged rifle just isn't going to cut it. Squeezing off a few shots, you know you're in deep trouble, when suddenly across the street more shots begin to ring out. Their powered armor gleaming, a squad of knight-like soldiers begins to drop your would-be killers. Approaching your unwitting saviors, one of them peeks out from her metal shell to declaim your stupidity for coming here, and offers for you to come along as she and her fellow Brotherhood of Steel members clear out more mutants. They're heading your way, so why not?
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After a running firefight through roofless buildings punctuated by blasts of laser fire and intermittent explosions, you finally find yourself near your destination, the Galaxy News Radio Building. Before you can enter, you're thrown back as a huge building crumbles nearby. From its wreckage saunters a behemoth of a mutant - a giant by any definition. As the soldiers you're with desperately unload, you see a fallen body nearby with a strange device in its hands. Picking it up, you recognize it for what it is - a Fatman. Arming this portable nuclear catapult, the tiny bomb slides into place with a ding that sounds disturbingly like a diner lunch bell. As the giant mutant turns its eyes on you, you pull the trigger, and the bomb hurtles over to the beast's feet. The creature crashes down in a cloud of nuclear fallout. Slipping away from the surviving soldiers, you enter the nearby tower and climb to the top. Up above, you emerge onto a wide balcony. "It's about time," Mister Burke says, and hands you the detonator. In the distance, you can see the town. There's no turning back after this. The money's not really that good, now that you think about it. You press the button anyway...
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War. War Never Changes.
Captions
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*The art team on the game talks a lot about the importance of having "no arbitrary detail." Every gun, console, switch, and rivet should have a purpose, even a fictional one. When it does, the game world simply feels more genuine.
*Your father's facial features will be different based on the design of your character - he'll even appear to age throughout your childhood.
*As you travel, weapons will degrade with use, or may be damaged directly by attacks. As you find new armaments, you can use the scrap from your old beat-up arsenal to add to the new
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*"There's destruction everywhere. Destruction requires a great deal of randomness," lead producer Gavin Carter relays. "So one of the things we're playing with is how we apply decals to the world - not only when you shoot things, but we can actually apply very large decals to any kind of arbitrary geometry."
*Most of your experience points in the game come from complete quests - grinding for experience just isn't that useful. Whether you use guns, stealth, or diplomacy to complete those missions is a choice left to you
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*Unlike Oblivion, Fallout 3 does not scale your encounters to fit your current level. Wander into a dangerous zone alone, and you shouldn't be surprised when that Super Mutant beats your head in
*Extensive visual effects like this use of depth of field puts Fallout 3 in a whole new graphical category from Bethesda's previous work
*You'll be able to hire followers who might help you out in a fight, but it's definitely not a party-based game. And for fans that are curious, Bethesda hesitantly confirms there will be a dog in the game, but they're reticent to speak on the subject for now.
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*The V.A.T.S. combat system keeps the game firmly grounded in the tactical decision-making of good RPGs
*Fallout has always been unabashedly graphic in its depiction of violence, and this installment appears not to shy away from the tradition.
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*Like in the original Fallout, the opening cinematic of Fallout 3 (of which this is a screen shot) will include music from the classic '40s and '50s band, The Ink Spots. The ironic song choice: "I Don't Want To Set the World on Fire"
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*Fallout 3 has a more defined narrative structure than many previous Bethesda games. You'll play your character as he or she progresses from level one to a cap of 20, and after dozens of hours of play you will reach a definitive end to the story. That end, however, may be any one of many - nine to twelve unique endings are planned, based on your actions throughout the game
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*The Fatman is a handheld nuclear catapult. We'll say that again in case you missed it. In Fallout 3, you'll have access to a handheld nuclear catapult
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