Fallout 3 hands-on preview tidbits

[Brother None]

The BethBlog is bringing word of the first pieces of hands-on coverage of Fallout 3. Specifically, from PSM3 #103:<blockquote>“You’ll also come across the Enclave; the remains of the US government who have access to incredible technology and broadcast patriotic marching band music. Their President is voiced by Malcolm “A Clockwork Orange” McDowell. He’s a major villain.”</blockquote>And the July issue of Instock Magazine, which is not hands-on but just the regular demo showing.<blockquote>TPCG: Can you tell us what the injuries shown in the Pip-Boy Status screenshot will have on your character?

Todd Howard: Having one or both of your legs crippled slows you down, and having your head crippled gives you blurry vision, but the blur is not constant, it’s like having a concussion that comes and goes.</blockquote>Link: Around the web: Hands-on edition on BethBlog.

 

[RobOverall]

Malcolm McDowell reprising the role he played in "Tank Girl". Fair enough.

Crippled thing sounds alright.

Still waiting for a video.

 

[Brother None]

Malcolm McDowell is cool. And - at least - an experienced and pretty good voice actor. Remember him in Metalocalypse?

Still, what can one say about the Enclave still being alive. Ausir, they were pretty clear about the Oil Rig & Navarro being the only bases of operation of the Enclave, right?

I s'pose Navarro could have survived in Bethesda's Fallout 2 canon ending, and those Enclave soldiers would have a good motivation to leave, but I don't think there were a lot of them there, and as with the small BoS contingent travelling across a hazardous continent to settle amongst the supermutants just doesn't sound too likely.

Weird stuff.

At least they have a radio. Let's hope R. Lee Ermey voices that.

 

[RobOverall]

Tank Girl: Post-Apoc, lack of water, mutant kangaroos

Malcolm McDowell: Kesslee (Head of the governing body W&P) and lead bad guy.

There's cred for you.

Other than the fact that he's a fine actor who I enjoy watching.

 

[Jubal Quintus]

Seriously? The President is a major villain, AGAIN? Maybe we'll quest for a water chip, kill a mutant Master, fight a mutated Secret Service agent (maybe..two?!), and visit a ghoul town with Nerco in the name again too. Hell, while we're at it can we have a town made of junk? Maybe we could called it Junkheap or Scraptown?

Maybe an impressionable young girl we meet and subsequently rescue from raiders in this game will grow up to form the New Capital Republic in the next one. God I hope.

 

[radnan]

wow when bethsoft buys something they go all the way with abuseing it ...

i was allready rolling my eyes in dissapointment when i found out dogmeat was back, i kinda expect them to repeat some of the previous themes but under new names - a vault city, a necropolis, a trade hub, an isolated community, a gambling mecca oh and how about Marcus & Sulik

 

[Brother None]

I'm mostly left wondering why they moved cross-continent. The supermutants are back, the BoS is back, the Enclave is back, (probably) multiple NPCs are back.

The hell, guys?

 

[Per]

The Earth's magnetic field is turning and migration patterns are thrown out of whack.

 

[Bofast]

Another poor idea rip-off from the original games?

 

[Ausir]

Malcolm McDowell is cool. And - at least - an experienced and pretty good voice actor. Remember him in Metalocalypse?

Yeah, McDowell news is pretty cool.

Still, what can one say about the Enclave still being alive. Ausir, they were pretty clear about the Oil Rig & Navarro being the only bases of operation of the Enclave, right?

AHS-9 says:

{151}{}{The Enclave are a remnant of the past - a neurodyne that has yet to be aligned. They have hidden bases all over the shards of old California, and their strongest stronghold is off to the west, over the waters.}

Of course, he might be wrong or exaggerating.

Captain Meyers says:

{128}{}{IFF: Identify Friend or Foe. It means that this ship is identified as a friend, so other Poseidon things - like, say, an oil rig - won't fire at you when you come into range. Oh, and a FOB is some sort of Enclave technology that let's you enter a door electronically. You'd probably find one of them at one of their bases or some such place.}

Which implies that there is more than one base. And he is an Enclave deserter.

On the other hand...

President:

{273}{prs54}{You could try, I suppose, but soon the staff of the Enclave and Navarro will be inoculated.}

No mention of anything except Navarro and Oil Rig.


Dr Curling:

{175}{}{Oh, just establishing an outpost wouldn't take long. We've all ready done that at Navarro. But it has taken a long time to work out the proper method for the eradication procedure.}

So if there are any other bases, they are much smaller than Navarro and thus aren't mentioned as often. Also, probably some people managed to evacuate safely from Oil Rig before it was destroyed in vertibirds.

I s'pose Navarro could have survived in Bethesda's Fallout 2 canon ending, and those Enclave soldiers would have a good motivation to leave, but I don't think there were a lot of them there, and as with the small BoS contingent travelling across a hazardous continent to settle amongst the supermutants just doesn't sound too likely.

Weird stuff.

At least they have a radio. Let's hope R. Lee Ermey voices that.

Well, because of them being a continuation of the US government, they actually have more of a motivation to go to Washington, DC than BoS, since it probably has some symbolic value. Maybe even the FO3 Enclave was just an expedition sent to explore the capital before the Oil Rig was destroyed?

Also, one of the FO2 endings:

1:Shaken by the assassination of Vice-President Carlson, right-wing elements seize control of the Congress and set the New California Republic on the path to military rule.
2:Eventually the survivors of the Enclave find a new home in the ranks of the NCR.

While this depends on your actions in the NCR, and since the Enclave, according to FO3, did not join the NCR, it is not canon, it means that there were Enclave survivors.

By the way, this reminds me that the Enclave article in the wiki needs an overhaul similar to the one I gave the BoS article some time ago.

I wish I could tell you more. I will on the very release day, though.

 

[Xenophile]

I'm mostly left wondering why they moved cross-continent. The supermutants are back, the BoS is back, the Enclave is back, (probably) multiple NPCs are back.

The hell, guys?

Actually.. I always wondered why they would move to an oilrig in ocean off the coast... where china's warships probably were..

that and it was a hell of a way from washington. I mean I know they did it so they could fit it in the story with all the other west coast locations, but it really didn't make much sense to me. That and an oil rig is vulnerable (at war time at least, I know it is less vulnerable from raiders etc.)

I know it's not the history of the second game, but it would have made much more sense if the enclave was in maryland or somewhere... I don't know proximate to washington.

 

[PlanHex]

Westward, ho!

My thoughts exactly. Any remnant of a pre-war government would've been more likely to move to the Caribbeans and go pirate while they're at it, than move to an oil rig at the westcoast.


But that's not what we've got to work with here.


Enclave bases are OK thoughout the eastcoast by me, but a new president doesn't make sense unless there's some 'new guys went to the westcoast and formed a new government' explanation.
Even then, the retcon is hardly satisfatory, bordering on horrible.

 

[Ausir]

Why doesn't a new president make sense? If the Enclave remnants know that the Oil Rig is destroyed and President Richardson is dead, why wouldn't they elect a new president?

 

[Logan]

Didnt they said that the muties(orcs) were the enemies?
So we got the president of the US controlling the Mutants AND the enclave? wich is weird since the mutants were (supposed to be) part of the Master's army.
I think the governement got their hands on a F.E.V. sample and are trying to use it to their bidding or something.

OR

Maybe I misunderstood something

 

[PlanHex]

Why doesn't a new president make sense? If the Enclave remnants know that the Enclave is destroyed and President Richardson is dead, why wouldn't they elect a new president?

Point taken.

Sorry, I keep thinking about Fallout 3 as 'just after Fallout 2' instead of '30 years later'.


edit:
Also:

Malcolm McDowell

Awesome.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

This is... man words just fall me short, but I find this one of... how should I say this; this is pure and simply wrong.

I am not going to resort to all kinds of angry fan boy rants of how stupid and evil Todd, Emil and Bethesda, but right now I would love to be in the same room with these people and yell it in their ears that they are the most poor excuses for designers ever.
They have managed to set standards to a new low that I had not imagined previously before, and that is not a good thing.


The Enclave is dead, and I don't want to hear all kinds of stories from apologists of how the Enclave could have survived and started over again just like the Super Mutants did.

The point of the earlier games was that you had to defeat these guys to a point that they no longer posed a threat to the world, and you supposedly did.
The Super Mutants mostly joined society peacefully and the remnants of the Enclave tried to eke out a poor existence amongst the remnants of pre war facilities.

And lets think outside the box for a moment; why should the Super Mutants and the Enclave pose the threat to the world once more?
Can't people think of original antagonists anymore, Van Buren (yeah yeah, Van Buren this, Van Buren that) brought up a group of dissastisfied NCR soldiers led by a (Pre War) scientist who wanted to reset the world from square one, there must be plenty of good ideas for a 'evil' group out there.


Bethesda's designers show again and again that they have no creativity, all they can do is follow upon the examples set by others.
This may be good for people who just started with games but for those who have been in it for quite some time it is just a slap in the face.

 

[Ausir]

The Enclave is dead, and I don't want to hear all kinds of stories from apologists of how the Enclave could have survived and started over again just like the Super Mutants did.

The point of the earlier games was that you had to defeat these guys to a point that they no longer posed a threat to the world, and you supposedly did.
The Super Mutants mostly joined society peacefully and the remnants of the Enclave tried to eke out a poor existence amongst the remnants of pre war facilities.

Actually, according to the Fallout 1 ending, most of the super mutant army fled East. The faction that joined the human society was a minority, consisting of mostly the more intelligent mutants. And at least one of the Fallout 2 endings, as well as Van Buren, assumed that there were Enclave survivors. According to some of the Van Buren leaks, the Enclave remnants even destroyed Shady Sands.

Of course, I'm not saying that it's good to make the Enclave and the super mutants major villains again.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Okay Ausir you corrected me on the Super Mutants, but my question remains, why make the Super Mutants the threat again.

As for the Enclave, I acknowledge that there are survivors but only scraps of them, a few outposts perhaps and the teams in the wasteland that were there when the Poseidon oil rig was blown sky high.
But they shouldn't be a threat anymore, they lost all of their resources and manufacturing facilities.

 

[Ausir]

They still probably have more knowledge about pre-war military bases and their contents than anyone else.

 

[ZiggyMeister]

I'm mostly left wondering why they moved cross-continent. The supermutants are back, the BoS is back, the Enclave is back, (probably) multiple NPCs are back.

The hell, guys?

Actually.. I always wondered why they would move to an oilrig in ocean off the coast... where china's warships probably were..

that and it was a hell of a way from washington. I mean I know they did it so they could fit it in the story with all the other west coast locations, but it really didn't make much sense to me. That and an oil rig is vulnerable (at war time at least, I know it is less vulnerable from raiders etc.)

I know it's not the history of the second game, but it would have made much more sense if the enclave was in maryland or somewhere... I don't know proximate to washington.

I think your kind of missing the point here!
Fallout and Fallout 2 settled the basis of most of the Fallout Universe, so the creative minds behind them could have done almost anything they wished to, even relocating the central USA government or what remains of it, like the Enclave is.

Compare with the recent example of Jericho... They created the series from scratch, so they used their ideas and created an "Jericho Universe".

Interplay and Black Isle did that with Fallout and Fallout 2.
So if Bethesda wanted to stay true to the Fallout Universe, and mainly to Fallout and Fallout 2, as they claim they want, they should comply with a few basic rules/guidelines and don't contradict established main story and timeline, to much...

So if this is true:

“You’ll also come across the Enclave; the remains of the US government who have access to incredible technology and broadcast patriotic marching band music. Their President is voiced by Malcolm “A Clockwork Orange” McDowell. He’s a major villain.”

They are, again, breaking the canon with the predefined Fallout Universe.
And I can even ask: What the hell have I done on Fallout and Fallout 2, if the Enclave still exists as the Enclave and has "access to incredible technology"???


As for the Oil Rig being vulnerable to China's warships during war time.
Sorry, but or I'm wrong or you are. But isn't Fallout supposed to be a Pos-Apocalyptic game?
If it is, that I think it is, the war is long gone...

Because, according to the Fallout intro: "In 2077, the storm of world war had come again. In two brief hours, most of the planet was reduced to cinders." also, according to the Fallout wikia: "The Great War (not to be confused with World War I) or World War III, started (and ended) in 2077 on October 23rd."
And: "2161 December 5, 07:21: Fallout 1 Begins: Vault Dweller is kicked out of Vault 13 to find a replacement water chip." Also: "2241 July 27: Chosen One leaves Arroyo in search of the GECK."

So I guess that if, in 2077 The Great War lasted two brief hours, that China's warships wouldn't cause to much trouble to an Oil Rig controlled by the Enclave after 2241!