Fallout 3 Comments by Oli Welsh

"@ UncleLou

er, isn't Fallout 3 on your Most Wanted list?"


Even ignoring the fact that I rather obviously don't update my Most Wanted list on a daily basis, I fail to see the contradiction.

"Conversation and bartering are two aspects of the game that we regretfully don't get anywhere near experiencing at E3, but given Bethesda's record and Fallout's history, we'd expect them to have some serious depth and reward"

What?

Talk about missing the forest for the trees. This preview describes the models and animation, but doesn't touch on story, quests, or gameplay. You know, the things that make or break an RPG. Sure, if you didn't enjoy Oblivion, you'll probably have trouble enjoying this one as well. But as someone who's put nearly 200 hours into Oblivion and played the original two Fallout games to death, I'm still pumped for this one.

Ooh, text by Oli Welsh. The presence of Securom pretty much sealed the non-deal with me anyways, although it might be interesting to comb through the EULA and see how they're going to tell us we can't use our DVD-writers anymore or not install the game for more than two times. Or maybe some new-fangled goodness like phoning home periodically?

@ExplodingClown - I don't take exception to the "adolescent violence" (I'm hard pressed to think of a recent video game doesn't feature a bit of this); I take exception to a Bethesda representative carrying on as if it's the game's raison detre. Show me a gory a cutscene, fine, but I'll hope to have had an interesting time getting there.

I really can`t believe you lot are falling for this terrible article, what did he play? half an hour? Of course the landscape is bleak .. duh, its post apocolyptic. As for the animation, i`ve read lots of reviews and previews of this game, and many have said that the animations are miles better than oblivions.
This game is going to be a top seller, shame on you Euro-gamer for such a dreadful article...
If anyone wants to read a proper article, where the reviewer had about 5 hours of gametime, i suggest yo check out UK`s PC Zone magazine, September 2008 issue... that article is compulsive reading....

/sigh

Plater

Delay ne1?? lol To be honest tho it was never gonna live up to the old ones neways (without being made by the old devs) but at least they are still making the mmo (hopefully!). Looks like my money gonna be on fable 2 then!! And maybe dead space tht game intrigues me

I liked Fallout Tactics.

"Delay ne1?? lol To be honest tho it was never gonna live up to the old ones neways"

Just for the record, "any" is only 3 characters long. Otherwise, yah, there's always Fable2. :)

Sorry, but even whilst I have no hands on experience with this game, I find it to hard to believe it's as bad as EG have made it sound. Once again I find the reporting comes across as somewhat arrogant ( that is, the "tone" of the writing )I'll make my own decision about this game, as in recent memory EG reviews have only been truly accurate about one of the games they have reviewed and I have encounted, and that was Hour of Victory on Xbox 360, So, until the release of Fallout 3, I'll just send in my normal , juvenile comeback phrase..." EG writers and many of its readers appear to be EDGE readers...." ( Edge magazine is totally up it's own arse).....see what I did there? didya?...clever huh ?

Oblivion was wonderful by the way.

I really enjoyed oblivion... yes there were aspects of it that needed more work... but if F3 is better than oblivion then to me its a hit.

I better pre-order it actually, havent done it yet.

@ExplodingClown
No, the toilet drinking I mentioned is not a perk. It's a way of healing yourself. Imagine this: It's 200 years past global nuclear war. Ruins everywhere. Water is scarce and water pumps fell apart 150 years ago. And among those ruins, intact, working toilets, waiting for you to drink from them to heal yourself. I won't comment on the idea itself, since it's gross, but magic postapocalyptic toilets...are they new Health Potions? This is one of the details about fallout 3 that doesn't exactly add to immersion, at least in my book. Even fallout 1/2 didn't stretch the imagination of players that far.

@FortysixterUK
Bad is a relative term. What's bad for one is great for another. As I mentioned in my previous post here, if you played fallout 1/2 and liked them, don't look for more of the same in fallout 3, it's entirely different game, with different focus. That's not to say that people won't like it: I'm sure there's a lot of people who will enjoy watching their bullets turn zombies/ogres...oops, I meant mutants/other oblivion comebacks into exploding sacks of sausage stuffing, and all in slow motion.

All I'm saying is that fallout 3, contrary to its name and number, is not a sequal to fallout 1/2. It's a spin off, loosely based on fallout 1/2. Whether it will be good, medicore or bad, I don't know and would not want to guess.

" i suggest yo check out UK`s PC Zone magazine, September 2008 issue... that article is compulsive reading.... "

PC Zone... compulsive reading... sorry but that does not compute, lad. And it's the same CVG article, why even buy the mag for that? :)

Why all the fuss about a negative preview btw? It's not like we couldn't have seen these kind of issues coming in Fallout 3, even the footage that was already shown is pointing out these problems Oli mentioned. Is it right to only hype/be overly optimistic about a game pre-release, whether it's based on half hour, five hour (if that's 'enough' for a big RPG then I'll eat my shoes) or near-complete playtests? I think the problem here is that everyone wants this game to succeed and do all the right things, any other option seems banned out of many people's minds because oh-no, a big game might be disappointing, we don't even want to consider that option because it would be the end of the world and we probably won't have any other good games coming out this Fall...

I'd say that looking past any possible irritations in a previewversion is a lot more arrogant (towards the readers) than bringing them up in a preserved but to-the-point manner. Although EG certainly hasn't always gone for the latter option for every preview, that's for sure.

Obviously we shouldn't make up our minds on the game based on one 30-minute preview from one person, that'd be madness. But I didn't realise any of us were actually doing this. Even cancelling a preorder isn't an overreaction - it's the smart thing to do, at least until we know this is all a horrible mistake and the game is actually brilliant.

Personally, I give some weight to Oli's comments based purely on the fact that he's the first person to acknowledge the elephant in the room by mentioning the terrible animation. That none of the other previews have done even this doesn't make me think Oli's an arrogant contrarian dick, it makes me think the other previews are predisposed to gushing.

As for not seeing the forest for the trees - sorry, but animation isn't a tiny niggling detail, it's something we're looking at the entire time we play. If they want to keep a camera on the ground and show us everything through our character's eyes, the graphics have to stand up to this. It's true that graphics aren't important in an RPG, but graphics are important in a Bethesda RPG. They've made that pretty cl[at this point frostcircus realises he's new here and Pisses Off]

judge it as an rpg.

Ryukem ...."PC Zone... compulsive reading... sorry but that does not compute, lad. And it's the same CVG article, why even buy the mag for that? "

FYI i didn`t buy the mag for `that`, i always read the mag, i`m just pointing out that pc zone had a much better article based on 5 hours gameplay over half an hour.

and, i`m not a `lad` , i`m 45 years old.. probably old enough to be your dad. // fail

Plater

Was somewhat looking forward to this. Well times a ticking Bethesta find the bug spray and get to it.
Should be able to afford one of those clocks that count down. A little over 2 months to get it sorted. And.....GO!

Morrowind and Oblivion sucked. When I heard Bethesda was doing F3 a little piece of me died inside. I never had any hope for this game since then.

I'd love to be wrong though.

Agreed with the posts about the very odd misogynist claim. Otherwise, the preview made for very interesting reading. Will watch this one closely.

This game looked ghastly. I'm glad Eurogamer had the stones to come out and say it.

sounds like a bitter fallout fanboy to me. It looks ridiculously good. Full of atmosphere. Another silly downplayed preview very much in the vein of Halo and Gears of War. Both games which I very much enjoyed, Eurogamer is too cool for school.

Atrocious character modeling (no surprise there), bland art palette and awful animations. I was kind of hoping Bethesda had learned form Oblivion. I guess not. I'm now sure the voice-over will be Ron Perlman and "that other guy who plays everyone else"

@Silvervein: Ah, didn't know about the toilets. Mind you, I do remember that when you examined them in F1 you would usually get the description "Whoever last used this did not flush!", which leads me to believe that the authenticity of post-atomic lavvies may not have been uppermost in Black Isle's minds either. Seems a bit 'Jackass', but still funnier than 98% of the 'jokes' in Hellgate:London.

@darc: fair point, though flying guts are pretty much guaranteed to get an audience's attention, and attention spans are pretty short these days. Far as Fable 2 goes as an alternative, got to say I'm sick to the point of puking of sub-Tolkien fantasy in RPGs so it's not even on the radar. Mass Effect wasn't exactly deep but not once while playing it did I hear the word "elf".

I'm crossing this off my list, was willing to give Bethesda a try despite grave doubts after Oblivion. Sounds like they've going to fail at it, and won't even reach the mediocre heights of "sci-fi Oblivion".

I'm crossing this off my list, was willing to give Bethesda a try despite grave doubts after Oblivion. Sounds like they've going to fail at it, and won't even reach the mediocre heights of "sci-fi Oblivion".

Its pretty funny that some people are saying "Not playing this now" or "Cancelling my pre-order"... just because one guy from EG said some things about it that weren't overtly positive. Why don't you just wait until it comes out and reserve judgement until then :)

Latest News : EG Reviewer says jump off cliff.... a pile of EG Readers are found at the bottom of the cliff!

You could always download a cracked PC version and see if you like it. Plus at the price they're charging for the normal version (almost 70 euros in sweden) I don't think people are going to bite that easily. GTA 4 cost 55 euros when it came out, and GTA has only gone up in quality and scope since its first incarnation, while Fallout has a lot to prove after this 10 year long hiatus.

As for the preview, what's wrong with calling a spade a spade? I saw the MS video, I saw how those raiders run, and how one spun around on one leg cause he couldn't run through this old shell of a car. I also saw how stiff one of them looked when he got up close and started hitting the player with a wrench. First thought that came to mind was Oblivion. I don't hate Oblivion, but imo Fallout has a whole different pacing. It's not run and gun, ammo is scarce. You take your time, you think about your options. I don't want to be a party pooper, but I think while they might have most of the fallout elements in there it could very well be the lack of that primordial "Fallout feel", that gels everything together, that will be the downfall of this game.

Woah.

K... Keanu?

Oh come on guys...

I bet that when the proper review comes around it'll get a decent score like 8/10 and EG will say something on the lines of 'animations are a bit rubbish but the sheer scope and depth bla bla storytelling bla suck us right in oh yeah'

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/07/...


Just watched the above footage and I'm sorry, but EG is talking out of it's arse on this one. That looks brilliant. And the dev showing the game actually says 'for the pruposes of this demo I'm going to play it as a combat game' before outlining alternative options.

Clearly with the demo they are just trying to win over the console crowd with some whizz-bang. Still, it looks fantastic, IMO.

I decided to see what videos there were on IGN, and just watched them. I can say that I was impressed and am certainly looking forward to this game.

"http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/07/...

Just watched the above footage and I'm sorry, but EG is talking out of it's arse on this one. That looks brilliant."

I see absolutely nothing brilliant there. It looks like a technically sub-par action game. Now I am not saying it won't be a good game, but that trailer doesn't do much for me.

As I'm trying to tell people who are interested in fallout in general, and fallout 3 in particular.
If you like shooter akin to max payne (where you loved the shooting and bullet time thingy), but wanted some light roleplaying elements (gaining experience and levelling up, some minor skills related to conversation), fallout 3 might be the game you will enjoy.

But never, ever, treat fallout 3 as a roleplaying game of the kind fallout 1/2, or planescape: torment, or even knights of the old republic were. At its heart, fallout 3 is an action game, with bells and whistles designed to appeal to people who like action and inordinate amount of gore. If I were to draw comparisons, fallout 3 might be something like oblivion or mass effect. You do talk there, there is some story, but that's about all you can say about. Those things take a back seat to action, action and once again, action.

PS.
Open question is, of course, how good action game is it going to be. If I were to chose, I'd probably go for stalker: clear sky. Smilar setting and proven gameplay (which I enjoyed). Fallout 3 is descendant of oblivion and morrowind, and those games were not exactly heavy on ranged combat, which requires different thing from both game dynamic and enemy AI than games where combat is almost always resolved using old and tried 'run to baddie, bash it with your stick' way.

"Lady Killer gives you extra damage against female enemies, and "unique dialogue options" when talking to female NPCs. Sorry, Bethesda, that's not satirical, it's just crass and misogynistic."

Quick, call the PC brigade so that we can have brain showers about how to prevent such horrors. I am also deeply offended at the lack of gay zombies mentioned in the demo, and find the term 'jazz hands' hurtful towards African Americans.

This addresses my concerns precisely after watching the E3 demonstration. The game looks rushed, derivative of better games and childish in its humour. Good job Oli with a fair assessment of an overhyped game.

bengray66 said:
As a firm member of the Fallout Fan Boy camp (I'm a massive fan, Fallout is still one of my fav games to play through) I will keep to my overly optimistic mood...

Eh, so you're such a big Fallout fan you're looking forward for a game with completely different gameplay, designed mainly with people who didn't play the predecessors in mind, made by people whose concept of game morals is "do the good thing or do the bad thing" and who consider two possible outcomes to a quest revolutionary? Who described their quest design as "We usually have a violent solution, and something else you can do"?
No to mention that we've yet to see any substantial example of their writing quality.

Oh, and I almost forgot their wonderful understanding of Fallout humour, i.e. violence, cursing and sexual references.
Also, to clear this up for the hopleless: It's the focus on a few crude elements that may have been present in Fallout that make it bad. Sure, there were toilets in Fallout, and they had a description like most objects. Noone suggested you drink out of them and considered it brilliant comedy, however. Also, there is a subtle difference between the death animations in Fallout and splatter. Some might miss it.*

Yeah, as a Fallout Fan Boy, you sure have every reason to be optimistic.


*That's a double entendre.

Oh please... this is getting stupid. Just cause the guy likes the previous Fallout Games and your saying this is not remotely like them, your saying there is no way he can like it or be optimistic that he will like it... thats just rubbish.

'Tis a shame as I was really looking forward to this one, but found the E3 stuff underwhelming and this preview makes it sound even worse.

It's rare to see a preview this negative as a game website's goal is to create hype and hope in their previews so people will stick around to see how it all pans out. Even if they know a game is cack, they'll still say plenty of nice things so people won't lose interest altogether. But to see a preview this negative about a game this big must mean there's something seriously messed up about this game.

Well as Ive said previously - I will reserve my judgement until the game is reviewed.

But tell me this... what would you think of the preview if the game ends up with 8/10....?

Thank you, EuroGamer, for reminding me why I come to this site instead of GameSpot, IGN or other "large gaming sites".

I had my hopes up for Fallout 3, but all the hype and my own anticipations taken into consideration, I'm very pleased that EG writes an honest review in this case, rathern than just going for a neutral or positive preview. I find it a sad tendency in general nowadays, when gaming sites always feel obliged to write positive or neutral reviews. IGN, as an example, are always very detailed, but in my experience, they tend to avoid providing an honest opinion.

Thank you EuroGamer, once again - let's hope Bethesda sees it the same way, and takes the opportunity to fix what can be done better, before release.

I remember playing the demo of the first Fallout and getting high expectations from it. It felt good, and it only took half hour to feel that way. So i guess it would be possible to successfully show Fallout 3 in 30 minutes (and that was probably what happened...).

Even if i wanted to see the world, i wouldn't even be able to leave the city. This time i'll just stay in the vault and let someone else go to the wasteland. The water chip is fine and we have a G.E.C.K. if it's nedded.

I really don't intend to bash, afterall, Eurogamer is my most appreciated gaming-centric web-magazine.

However, from the first paragraphs of striking at Bethesda marketing techniques (as if that has anything to do with the game), down to the last paragraph, I cannot seem to shake the feeling that the preview just feels completely biased, as if Oli simply WANTED to dislike this game from the get-go and was merely looking for excuses to do so, heavily nitpicking at every single nonsense along the way. Perhaps it was done from a professional standpoint by simply intending to be different than the rest of the dumb hype-machine choir on the internet, perhaps due to a personal feeling towards Bethesda 'ravaging the franchise', but either way, and even though I agree with a few of your qualms, this preview seems like a very superficial and lackluster take on a simple 30 min. hands-on at an expo.

i will still be buying this first day no matter what. im the only critic i trust.

@Kreydon

"Also, there is a subtle difference between the death animations in Fallout and splatter. Some might miss it.*
*That's a double entendre."

Er, pardon my asking... how is that a double entendre? Wouldn't make it into a Carry On film on first appraisal. Regarding splatter it could be argued that it's only gratuituous when it becomes the entire purpose of the game, a la Soldier of Fortune 1 & 2, rather than a feature that the game could get by without; and only offensive when it joins pointless nudity, unconvincing swearing (I'm looking at you, Kane & Lynch), drink/drug references and general adolescent crassness as justification for a 'Mature' label, rather than anything genuinely mature like difficult issues, complex storylines or moral ambivalence. For myself, after a rough day at work I'm all for some really cathartic bloodletting.

I would agree with your querying bengray66's assertion of his fanboy status, as I suspect 'enthusiast' would be a better label. After all, isn't fanboyism about minutiae, nitpicking, rigorous obsession with what constitutes 'canon' and howling, accusatory denunciations of any deviation from it? Social incompetence and poor personal hygiene optional.

The baser elements do linger in the mind from F1 & F2 (porn fluffer in Reno, anyone?) but so do the spectacular/striking moments. For me that's Harold's childhood memories of the start of the War, the Master's good intentions gone awry, the departure of the Poseidon Tanker for the Enclave rig... I could go on and on, but the point is I never saw any of those prior to playing through the game. Proof of the pudding, etc etc.

As far as the 'violence or alternative solution' decision trees, isn't that how more or less every RPG works? I'd like to see Fallout 3 emulate 'The Witcher', which provided some very unexpected and morally difficult ramifications to some seemingly obvious choices, but generally it's aggressive vs. non-aggressive, though sometimes you'll get to switch sides or pull the Fistful of Dollars option to play parties off against each other. I'm straining to recall any RPG which didn't in some way, shape or form stick to this pattern. Stealth characters often get to complete tasks in sneaky ways but otherwise isn't it usually talk or fight?

I wholly agree that these things live or die on the quality of the writing: but then that's how BioWare manage to constantly get away with constantly providing three dialogue options which cause you to come across as either Pol Pot, Mother Theresa or an indifferent courier signing for a parcel - the stories are good and the characterisation rich and consistent.

@Megalodon: I don't set much stock by Oli Welsh, if truth be told. During his recent Diablo III piece he wholly swallowed Blizzard's line that NO-ONE else had been doing isometric click-and-kill (what we oldies used to call 'arcade adventures'), thus completely overlooking the perfectly excellent Titan Quest, which improved considerably on Blizzards carpal-tunnel-a-thon and featured much, like the ragdoll corpses, that Blizzard were touting as ZOMG NEW! Considering the sad closure of Iron Lore, that omission was either ignorance, sloppy oversight or sycophantic assent. Neither is a recommendation in a professional journalist. Wish Charlie Brooker was still reviewing for PC Zone....

Well... I've jumped on the hype wagon myself. I hope that it will turn out to be similar to the old games and while I expect a lot of kids to jump on because they think it's Halo with nukes, I am looking very much forward to it for it's other bits... The RPG parts and the game world.

After some thought I decided to include a link to a youtube video showing game that fallout 3 *is* a sequal to.
It even contains weapons showcased during fallout 3 E3 presentation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVAyhlgYSc4

It is humorous in a way, and illustrates difference between core elements of fallout 1/2 and 3.

PS. Thank you for pointing that out, makeamazing. Hopefully it will work now.

You need to remove the html break characters at the end of the link, otherwise it wont work

Given the drought of anything to look forward to, I had high hopes for this title, but this preview has dashed them.

Even so, I just wanna applaud Oli Welsh for having the guts to write what he truly felt about the game - and Eurogamer for having the guts to publish it.

This site is easily the most honest out there. Apart from the fiasco of Bramwell Assassin's Creed review (high score yet terrible write-up), this is one of the only sites I know that'll stick its neck out on AAA releases.

Guns *yawn*

Can't they drop this and get the follow-up to Oblivion started already FFS??

Oli Welsh's preview of Fallout 3 reminds me of a preview written over 10 years ago about a little game called, Daggerfall. Everyone, including myself, were so hyped up about this game. (I even pre-ordered a special edition for $100.) We had been waiting for almost four years for Daggerfall to come out and all the other other previews praised Daggerfall except for this one.

The horrible preview pointed out Daggerfall's glaring shortcomings like cookie cutter towns, crashes and lack of a coherent story. The masses didn't believe it and slam blasted this previewer with tons of hate mail and forum comments. Well, he was right. I ended up playing Daggerfall for about a week before giving up on it and sending it to my friend. (I played Oblivion, though, almost every day for 2 years!)

I am going to buy Fallout 3 the day it comes out but I do hope beyond hope that Mr. Welsh is wrong and that only 30 minutes of playing the demo doesn't show what the actual game is capable of.

Feral MarshBlood
Nashville, TN