Brief preview of Fallout 3 on the Xbox 360 (First 10 Levels)
The christmas rush is here again. Developers around the globe are working round the clock to have
games on store shelves for the holidays.And as always with this time of year we’re spoiled for choice
with dozens of games battling for our cash.One such game is the new offering for Bethesda, makers of ESIV: Oblivion and now Fallout 3.
First off i’d like to clarify, i have never played the original Fallout games. But judging from screenshots that really doesn’t matter as this new title seems to be nothing like its predecessor’s.
Of course we have a similar setting but apart from that gameplay, view and pretty much everything else has been changed for this new outing.
Outline/Gameplay
The game kicks off in typical RPG fashion as you design your character and lay the ground work to mold him into a certain class. I have to say i was really impressed with how Bethesda freshened this experiance up. When you start the game you literally start at your character’s beginings. After ploping out of your mother you are greeted by your father (Liam Neeson). And through him you make choices on sex and apperance. You then get to experiance a gaming first as you take your first baby steps around and discover your skills using a pop-up book. There’s more progression iinside the vault as you move up through childhood, teen years and finally become an adult.
Its then that the game really kicks off as you leave the safety of the vault and enter Capital Wasteland. Once outside you really get the Oblivion feel about the game. Lots of open world to explore and NPC’s to meet. You really have to take alook around your surroundings to find what to do. The story isn’t sppon fed to you. Its all around you, on the radio, in books and notes or just picked up by earwigging on NPC conversations.
Now on to the fun part, the combat. This is where Fallout really sets itself apart from Oblivion. Combat is handled in two ways. As a basic FPS, relieing on your own skills to take down opponents. Alternatively you can use V.A.T.S, this feature basically lets you target specific parts of your enemy with the hit percentage based of distance and your skill with the equipped weapon. Its comes in really handy when the surrounded as you can target multiple opponents to attack. It also works as a kind of overview/command tool, giving you the chance to think about your strategy before attacking.
There is a downside to V.A.T.S though, it relies on AP (Action Points). This means you are limtied to a certain number of shots. The amount per shot depends on the weapon equipped. Once you expend your AP you need to wait from them to replenish. I think this was a smart idea by Bethesda, if you had infinite AP the game would be more like an RPG from FP than an FPS/RPG.
GFX
Graphically Fallout looks gritty and dull, but in a good way. Th art design matches the setting very well and although it wouldn’t rival Crysis it suits the game. Of course the version tested was on the 360 so add some AA on the PC and it will look even better.
What really stood out so far is the graphic ways to kill your enemies. There’s lots of bloody murder with arms, legs, torso’s and heads flying especially when using V.A.T.S. There’s also the Bloody Mess skill which basically devastates your opponent to bits, this has been one of my favourites so far.
As with any RPG there’s not much to say about the GFX apart from they lend themselves well to emersing you into the gameworld.
Conclusion
So far i’m really enjoying the game. Although it is very reminescent of Oblivion it brings enough to the table to keep me involved. I think the best way to describe it is as a lovechild of Oblivion and Stalker. After 8hrs i’ve barely cracked the surface of the main story and i feel there’s a hell of alot more to experiance. Expect a full review soon.