Fallout 3 at E3 - Gaming Nexus

[Brother None]

Another E3 Fallout 3 preview pops up:<blockquote>The game has you starting out being born and lets you experience key events in your life until adulthood. We were shown the main character leaving Vault 101 for the first time and entered the city of Megaton. The city is built around an undetonated nuclear bomb and it's here where you can have a few options for missions. You could help the mayor and defuse the bomb but the path we saw was an NPC asking you to detonate Megaton and wipe out the town from the face of the Earth. Even when you get the item to set the bomb to explode you have the choice of turning the guy in that hired you. Fallout 3 is about choices and Bethesda offers plenty to choose from.</blockquote>Link: Gaming Nexus Fallout 3 E3 preview.

Spotted on Gamebanshee.

 

[Pope Viper]

Real choice would be that you could be aborted.

Game over.

 

[Tannhauser]

I wonder how many times they have shown the Fallout 3 demo? Every single run-through has followed the exact same pattern apparently, so it is impossible to discern if there are any choices really available. They might have even left the choices completely unimplemented, and just gave the illusion of choice to the demo, since those alternate paths are never explored.

 

[lisac2k]

Fallout 3's a long time coming and it looks like fans of the first two will be happy at what Bethesda is doing for the third game.

Whoa, whoa! Hold on a moment, chariot-riding-boy! As far as I know there are at least three groups of Fallout fans, which one of them?

No, really. Look: the group of hardcore fans, those ready for compromises and the "new" clon... fans - there are three. Add a few variations in-between and you'll get more.

 

[Salkinius]

Don't you think that the reason they've shown exactly the same demo and played it exactly the same way each time, is because that's how they designed the demo.

I interpret it as the demo can't be played in any other way cause they hadn't come that far yet in production to make such a demo. So, anything shown in the demo isn't actually set in stone.

I hardly believe Megaton and the missions and choices there, will be so close to the start of the game. It's sounds like something which should be played out after atleast a couple of hours of gameplay.

 

[Tannhauser]

Sure, and they use the destruction of Megaton as an interesting, eye-catching ending. It is something tailored for press showings.

However, there is nothing preventing them from showing choices & consequences in action, instead of a purely linear sequence; it is only a matter of priorities. They could have easily shown a quest, reset it, and then show the quest done a different way. For something that has been the center-point of their press campaign and is perhaps the most highly regarded aspect of Fallout, it has been rather absent.

"Choices & Consequence" is completely meaningless without alternatives. Bethesda has decided to show no alternatives in their press showings so far.

 

[ivpiter]

To put it as succinctly as I know how: this lacks maturity.

It comes across as what a teenager would put together – emphasis on gore, car goes nuclear, emphasis on foul language, town goes nuclear, huge emphasis on graphics, nuclear catapults….
This megaton example really sums up some of the points that bother me:

Another E3 Fallout 3 preview pops up:<blockquote>... the city of Megaton. The city is built around an undetonated nuclear bomb...

So we have the enclave, the Brotherhood of Steel, Super Mutants and an undetonated nuke from 200 years ago and no-one seems interested in it… FFS it’s at maximum 4 miles away!

Fallout did a good job creating plausible scenarios and encounters (the hooker held hostage at the Inn, walking in just as an assassin goes after Killian) it gave a reason why NPC’s would interact the way they did (which was usually with a line of dialogue over their heads because they didn’t give two shits about your character). If FO 3 though…

…Even when you get the item to set the bomb to explode you have the choice of turning the guy in that hired you… </blockquote>Link: Gaming Nexus Fallout 3 E3 preview.

So this guy is what... the idiot of the year? He is willing to nuke a city but will hand over the detonator to you? Looking past the implausibility of a nuke sitting in the open just outside the US capitol for 200 years what is the motivation for this evil-doer to trust you?

And now for a short rant…

Fallout 3 is about choices and Bethesda offers plenty to choose from.

No, no it dosen’t… based on the evidence provided by these ‘industry insiders’ I can either nuke the city or not. I can’t play a stupid character, I can’t evacuate the towns people an alternate way.

Worst of all things won’t change much the next time I play though, it will be the exact same (voiced) dialogue with the same two choices if I’m playing a diplomat, a gigolo, a scientist, a thief or a simpleton. In Fallout (and more so in Fallout 2) different characters could often yield different paths / dialogue / options / easter eggs… so no, I see choice has having taken a massive step backwards and a back-seat to console simplification and emphasis on graphics over quality NPC interaction.

In short, nothing is left to the imagination, everything in the world will be rendered all the dialogue voiced (not confirmed… yet). The tough themes and much of the adult content from the originals has hit the cutting room floor making these choices nonexistent. A lack of maturity for a supposed mature game.

 

[Makagulfazel]

So this guy is what... the idiot of the year? He is willing to nuke a city but will hand over the detonator to you? Looking past the implausibility of a nuke sitting in the open just outside the US capitol for 200 years what is the motivation for this evil-doer to trust you?

Yeah... Some company's writers need to get fired.

In short, nothing is left to the imagination, everything in the world will be rendered all the dialogue voiced (not confirmed… yet). The tough themes and much of the adult content from the originals has hit the cutting room floor making these choices nonexistent. A lack of maturity for a supposed mature game.

It is pretty sad. Yet, every previewer says it's the same kind of maturity that's in the previous Fallouts, so it must be true!

 

[Vault 69er]

I've got it!
This Burke character or whatever he's called is an Enclave agent.
The Enclave planted that bomb there in the first place, and also planted nuclear bombs with pressure sensitive detonators in every car wreck in D.C. and left behind a nuclear catapult they found in the remains of the Smithsonian under the "World's Stupidest Ideas" exhibit.

Their evil plan is a follow up to the Vault Experiment, they want to take a normal Vault citizen and give him as many opportunities as possible to nuke his surroundings and then monitor the results!

 

[Maren]

Why the f*&^ would someone build/start a town with a live nuclear bomb in the ground? How is it that everyone did not either move or someone else besides the "main character" able to defuse the bomb?

 

[Tora]

I've got it!
This Burke character or whatever he's called is an Enclave agent.
The Enclave planted that bomb there in the first place, and also planted nuclear bombs with pressure sensitive detonators in every car wreck in D.C. and left behind a nuclear catapult they found in the remains of the Smithsonian under the "World's Stupidest Ideas" exhibit.

Their evil plan is a follow up to the Vault Experiment, they want to take a normal Vault citizen and give him as many opportunities as possible to nuke his surroundings and then monitor the results!

I'd laugh if what you just said ends up being used in the game as their justification

 

[Oblique Strategy]

Why the f*&^ would someone build/start a town with a live nuclear bomb in the ground? How is it that everyone did not either move or someone else besides the "main character" able to defuse the bomb?

I've watched footage of houses built with unexploded Vietnam War ordinance serving as part of a wall.

As for the worshipping angle - go watch the workprint version of Alien 3.

 

[Brother None]

As for the worshipping angle - go watch the workprint version of Alien 3.

Don't you mean Planet of the Apes 2? The worshiping bombs idea is pretty much directly ripped from there.

And they're not using unexploded ordinance for a wall. They built a town around an unexploded bomb which serves no purpose to the town itself whatsoever. Apparently, post-war people are stupid.

 

[Vault 69er]

Apparently, post-war people are stupid.

Stupider than the pre-war people who apparently drove around with a-bombs under the hood and thought robot ticket collectors armed with lasers were a good idea?

 

[Brother None]

Oh, I got a joke. A married couple walks into the Subway...

Man: You have our tickets, right?
Wife: Of course...oh dear...
Man: What?
Wife: Looks like I bought only one ticket!

A ticket bot walks up to them.

Ticket bot: tickets, please
Wife: oh no, what'll we do?
Man: please, let me run back and buy a ticket!
Ticket bot: this is not allowed. You have 20 seconds to produce a ticket.
Man: looks like this is it, honey
Wife: I love you
Man: I love you too

The ticket bot blasts the man to shreds with his laser cannons.

Ahaahahahah! Classic joke, amirite? That one never gets old.

 

[Oblique Strategy]

Don't you mean Planet of the Apes 2? The worshiping bombs idea is pretty much directly ripped from there.

I was referring to the "Hey, we have this dangerous, horrific thing that just wiped out a bunch of people...let's treat it as the Messiah" aspect of A3.

And they're not using unexploded ordinance for a wall. They built a town around an unexploded bomb which serves no purpose to the town itself whatsoever. Apparently, post-war people are stupid.

People will worship some crazy shit. I can easily imagine people going nuts over the symbolism of an unexploded device that destroyed their society.

 

[Brother None]

I was referring to the "Hey, we have this dangerous, horrific thing that just wiped out a bunch of people...let's treat it as the Messiah" aspect of A3.
(...)
People will worship some crazy shit. I can easily imagine people going nuts over the symbolism of an unexploded device that destroyed their society.

Planet of the Apes has exactly that.

Go nuts all you want. Build a huge town around an explosive device? Less likely. Hell, it's human tradition to keep places of worship outside of towns, by which it makes even less sense.

You think it's standard human behaviour after a nuclear war that when people see unexploded bombs they're inspired to build towns around it? A bit of a stretch, there.

 

[Vault 69er]

Even Tactics had more sense than this, theirs was an American warhead which never launched, worshiped by descendants of the silo staff and kept in a church.
Still daft mind you, but not on this level.

 

[Black]

People will worship some crazy shit. I can easily imagine people going nuts over the symbolism of an unexploded device that destroyed their society.

I agree but... Did bethesda say that the people of Megaton worship it? Or they just don't care?