PlayStation Universe has interviewed Bethesda's PR man Pete Hines. Not only that, they're also psychic:<blockquote>From the creators who brought you The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion comes one of the best post-apocalyptic role-playing games ever - Fallout 3.</blockquote>Apropos. On to the questions.<blockquote>PSU: The art direction in Fallout 3 definitely succeeds in capturing the visual spirit of its predecessors. How did Bethesda initially capture these visuals and place them into a next-gen 3D world? Were there any compromises made in terms of what to add or how expansive the world could be? In addition, was there anything Bethesda thinks it did differently than any previous titles in terms of the current world's visual layout?
Obviously we spent a lot of time looking at the games themselves, but also the concept art for those games. We have a lot of the original materials from the first two games so we can look at not only how they looked in the original games, but also what the developers were going for when they came up with the idea. We spent a ton of time churning out a lot of concept art and going through multiple iterations to get the look and feel of things right. That includes all of the iconic elements from the series – the PipBoy, Vault Suit, and so on – to little things like the chairs and computers that appeared in the Vault in the first game.
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PSU: How does the melee system in Fallout 3 exactly work? How will the VATS system focus its efforts with the melee system?
The goal is to balance the game so that you never have to fire a gun if that’s not the kind of character you are role-playing. So you can use different types of melee weapons in close range and use VATS to target body parts just like you can with a gun. How “exactly” it works is one of many things we are working on at the moment and it continues to get changed and refined until we feel like we have it “just right.”
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PSU: What platform is lead for development? Are you finding one easier than the other?
We usually use the Xbox 360 as our lead platform because it has some very good tools for providing feedback we need in managing things like memory allocation, load times, framerate, etc. But we develop each platform simultaneously and ultimately the game has to run and be tweaked to run on each platform as well as possible.</blockquote>Link: Post Nuclear Living in Fallout 3 on PSU.
Spotted on Fallout 3: A Post Nuclear Blog.
EDIT: the article has been revised by its editors. Follow the link to read the up-to-date quotes.
Obviously we spent a lot of time looking at the games themselves, but also the concept art for those games. We have a lot of the original materials from the first two games so we can look at not only how they looked in the original games, but also what the developers were going for when they came up with the idea. We spent a ton of time churning out a lot of concept art and going through multiple iterations to get the look and feel of things right. That includes all of the iconic elements from the series – the PipBoy, Vault Suit, and so on – to little things like the chairs and computers that appeared in the Vault in the first game.
(...)
PSU: How does the melee system in Fallout 3 exactly work? How will the VATS system focus its efforts with the melee system?
The goal is to balance the game so that you never have to fire a gun if that’s not the kind of character you are role-playing. So you can use different types of melee weapons in close range and use VATS to target body parts just like you can with a gun. How “exactly” it works is one of many things we are working on at the moment and it continues to get changed and refined until we feel like we have it “just right.”
(...)
PSU: What platform is lead for development? Are you finding one easier than the other?
We usually use the Xbox 360 as our lead platform because it has some very good tools for providing feedback we need in managing things like memory allocation, load times, framerate, etc. But we develop each platform simultaneously and ultimately the game has to run and be tweaked to run on each platform as well as possible.</blockquote>Link: Post Nuclear Living in Fallout 3 on PSU.
Spotted on Fallout 3: A Post Nuclear Blog.
EDIT: the article has been revised by its editors. Follow the link to read the up-to-date quotes.
That's right. Anyway, it could be worse. What if...
