No Mutants Allowed

[Brother None]

Bethesda has put 5 new demo videos on their video gallery. Youtube:

Gameplay Demo Video 1 - Escape


Gameplay Demo Video 2 - Megaton


Gameplay Demo Video 3 - The Wasteland


Gameplay Demo Video 4 - Super-Duper Mart


Gameplay Demo Video 5 - Tenpenny Tower


Thanks Gstaff.

EDIT: videos now also mirrored (amongst other places) on GameTrailers and Gamersyde. Thanks Dr. Oblivious.

[Brother None]

Let me cut off everyone and say it: yes, getting Todd Howard to narrate these videos was a bad idea, and yes, "no one ever enters, no one ever leaves" is getting to be really annoying, especially when he says it right when leaving.

I'd like to request you lot try to comment on Todd Howard's narrative work as little as possible, tho'. Comment on actual content only, please. Thank you.

EDIT: I also don't know what resolution their HD videos are, but if they're worthy (that is, at least 800*, but maybe 640* is ok as well), well then if someone could be bothered to extract stills for us and mail 'em to me that'd be much appreciated. 'bout 8 per vid.

radnan?

[Pope Viper]

I absolutely hate the "dialogue".

FO1/2 used cursing minimally and only in appropriate situations.

I think it the first 5 minutes, I heard about 5-6 curse words.

Sad.
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A New Place To Visit. (Click on the picture.)

[H.A.D.E.S.]

Burke is Lucien Lachance (or whatever his name was) from Oblivion?

[rcorporon]

As for swearing, it doesn't bother me that much. If you're going to get an "M" for a game rating, you might as well go all the way.

In most GTA games (especially San Andreas and IV) there is a lot of swearing, and it never really occurred to me that Rockstar should have toned it down.
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[Brother None]

Anyway, let's get on with the critiques and positives

The Vault still looks cool, though I still don't understand their need for changing the door opening cinematic. I can see where SuA gets his "steampunk" angle from.

Fallout is a world "where nuclear energy permeated everyday life" is basically a correct thing to say from our Toddster, but to then demonstrate by a car exploding is just asinine. That's right, Todd, people drove exploding cars.

"Have yourself a nice visit, partner"? I don't remember the Protectron saying that. Still, <3 Protectron, but his "welcome to Megaton, welcome to Megaton" line was cooler.

I've seen bits of the Megaton dialogue before, and yeah, it's not impressive. It's not bad either. The swearing is a bit much, the animations are still painfully unconvincing (stand still and stare at the camera, please), but at least the face-models are better.

Woot bird's eye view! Note how it has to pan in for buildings, tho': not gameplay-functioning.

And boy, Burke's voice-works is pretty bad, isn't it?

Messing with the bomb is now "explosives" instead of science? That doesn't actually make a lot of sense, it's not exactly traditional explosives we're talking about here.

And there we go. Crab people and mushroom eating. Not impressed. Though - intentionally or not - the crab people kinda walk like people awkwardly moving in a costume. That's fitting.

The radscorpion looks great.

The sneaking looks a bit simple: it's either hidden or spotted? No bars moving up and down? No light meter? No proximity meter?

The new powerfist is nice. Got that Big Huge feel to it.

I don't get the lockpicking minigame

<3 Protectron. Protectron is a RobCo product? Seems really everything is RobCo in Fallout 3's retconned setting.

What's that railway rifle? Basically a high-pressure nail shooter? 'k.

Boy the ghoul's voice acting is atrocious. And the guy on the other side just keeps on talking when he blows up. RAI!

That whole business with Tenpenny and the tower and the rich people living in it once again gives off a BioShock vibe. Certainly not a Fallout vibe. Can't think of any analogy with the originals.

Kaboom. The nuclear explosion is the pretty.

[horse]

i have to say i kinda like it. might have to do with my recently developed stalker fanaticism. and i very much suspect only the first few quests are actually polished, the rest will be more like what developers learned from momorpugers ><

i more and more see fo3 following the path stalker has set, minus the actuall "skill" involved. looks like vats keeps you from getting in difficult situations anywhere. in video #3... did he say "mudcrabs"? or "murlocs"? damn, loled.
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drinkers remorse: i'd rather have been drunk last night - than hang-over free right now. (maakies)

[Pope Viper]

I agree that the animations are pretty bad, it would have been cool if the had the character continuing to work (like a bartender still mixing drinks), or at least have them looking off to the sides at times.

Just seems very uninspired, especially give the "next gen" technology.
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A New Place To Visit. (Click on the picture.)

[MrBumble]

This is rather disappointing.
-The game litteraly feels like a twisted version of Oblivion.
-The dialogs seem ok or at least they are better than I expected.
- Indoor areas look rather bad and outdoor looks...not bad but really uninspired.
-Really look generic and, worst of all, unatmospheric !
-Combat does not look as bad as I thought or at least there is some fun to have with it.
-Thank God for Malcolm McDowell
-The music is...atrocious.
-Three Dog will soon get on my nerves
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[Pope Viper]

I think the music is via the "radio" station.

Did you catch the part in vid 5, around 1:00 talking about "zombies"?

Sigh.
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A New Place To Visit. (Click on the picture.)

[TwinkieGorilla]

hmm. i don't have a boner, but it's not horrible either. i only watched about half of the megaton vid...and i do like the ability to pan and rotate the camera as such. the voice dialogue isn't bad, but the choices to respond are ridiculously uninspired. *sigh* at least it ain't wiki-style. and i can't believe i'm even saying that.

i do like the atmosphere. i have to admit it. the talking in the background. the dusty bar. the broken radio, etc.

of course playing the game i may find myself in that "eject/throw disc at wall" mode....i am more intrigued than i previously have been. my blackened heart turns....uh...a little less black.

[Pope Viper]

Do you guys think there will be any darker, more ambient music?

I wasn't real impressed with what I heard.
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A New Place To Visit. (Click on the picture.)

[Seymour the spore plant]

Jesus Christ, what is up with some of that music in there? The "Escape" video just blasted out trumpets in the middle of the wasteland at around 2:10, seems like they can't wrap their minds around anything other than the epic-wannabe aesthetic.

[JESUS]

When he leveled up at the first movie, was that a achievement?

I liked the music score after leaving the vault, i always liked Oblivion music score also. I just hope they keep the tone down when you explore the wasteland, you know more dark depressing music.

I'm really bugged about the robots though, too much robots everywhere, butler robot, greeting robot, ticket robot, enemy robot, enclave flying thing robot, etc...

[Pope Viper]

[Brother None]

[Ureshi]

[PCXL-Fan]

Its Fallblivion in every sense of the word.

[horse]

the athmosphere is not too deep, BUT the voice acting helps a lot. until, as it was in oblivion, you find out that every goddamn peasant has the same voice. funnily, when you walk out of 101 and to that door, i expected a popup saying "entrance to ashnubapur" or something

so, its totally NOT fallout. it stands against reason to compare it to the games of the old franchise. so, gameplaywise, it makes more sense to compare it to other pa shooters, thats when stalker comes to mind.

1. environment: what is seen in fo3, *could* be a pa city. what i really miss are derelict industrial environments. they add greatly to the athmosphere - i find myself visiting certain places in stalker very often, just because the athmosphere is brilliant there.

2. graphics: even in hd, it is all kinda blurry in fo3. indoors, the structures seem to be a bit on the blocky side. id like to see blown-up structures, which was very well done in stalker. even the underground levels had that feeling of loneliness and despair reflected in the level design and the structures... everything was dewrelict, rusty, bent. fo3 seems to be more of a littered place - a state which could be reverted by an army of janitors, if you will. all in all, the fo3 graphics are not state of the art, but ok.

3. gameplay. judging from those videos, we have a shooter here. which is not bad in itself - but, if it is a shooter, combat has to be one of a shooter. in this context, vats is like the "i-win" button i so sorely missed in my arena matches. oh wait, i played warlock... but i digress. stalker being more of a shooter than any other genre had gripping combat and of course some downsides (for my taste, combat was too easy, and respawns too little, both of which could be edited to my liking, so now my version of stalker is more like some kind of postapocalyptic operation flashpoint than anything else). rt combat in fo3 looked ok, except that howard would get his ass handed back in any fps . scoped weapons are the indictator for me that i might be able to play this game in my favorite way... the NINJA way! so, basically it looks ok, minus the vats. ai i cant judge, might be a little unfair, since i use pimped ai on stalker. strangely, the npc dont seem to look for cover or try to flank you, but the pieces are too short to really say something substantial. so, i keep on spamming.

4. "roleplay". roleplayers are nerds! so we do not want too much of "roleplay" in fo3, now dont we?
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drinkers remorse: i'd rather have been drunk last night - than hang-over free right now. (maakies)

[Starwars]

I actually think the Escape video is the only one that actually makes me want to play the game. While it's definetely not Fallouts kinda scary and hostile ambience, I thought they had a great mood going on there. Kinda more sad in some ways which I think could work.

But...

I thought having a radio could be a fun thing to have, even in a Fallout game. But it just seems to turn the game into a farce. Especially when they showed how goofy the player character looks I'm just wondering what the hell happened...?

The combat looks like absolute shit. The realtime combat looks bloody awful, unresponsive and downright annoying. VATS looks more ridiculous than satisfying (though it looked awesome when they blew the Radscorpion away). And yeah, Radscorpion looked great there.

I think the writing in itself is generally okay, but not more judging from these clips. The swearing does sound really forced though. The voiceacting is the real kicker though, it's not very convincing here. And I've never liked the guy doing Burke here, or perhaps I just get unwanted flashbacks from Oblivion. I think he was the one who did Sheogorath in Shivering Isles as well, which is a terrible performance (and terrible writing as well).

Seeing the game zoomed out makes me wish we could play the game like that with TB combat, it could look really nice.

Explosion at the end is pretty, but somehow I was expecting something more (damn you BN and your endless hyping of this game! ).

I dunno. Like I said, the first video was good I think, and I could really see myself exploring the wasteland and having a good time even though I don't feel it's very Fallout-ish. The rest doesn't give me much hope. Especially the combat which I think looks extremely bad.
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Check out my home recordings: http://www.youtube.com/user/Starwars83/videos?flow=grid&view=0