Fallout 3 Preview

[GameBanshee News]

Eurogamer decided to roll along in the wave of previews, with a fairly expansive and detailed Fallout 3 preview.

While they showed a lot more afterward, the sensation's most apparent in the opening sequence. The game's central plot - though it allows you to ignore it completely and go and do your own thing - is your Liam Neeson-voiced dad disappearing, and you being sent out into the wastes to try and find him. While having that particular voice be your dad buys significant sympathy, you can easily see this failing to engender enough motivation if you start the game and are given a plain order to Go Get Pops. I don't know Pops! Why should I care?
(...)
It's at your birthday party, and you've just received your Pip Boy wrist terminal and promised your first work detail, but between the amusement of robots ruining birthday cakes, you get your initial conversations. The first one is standard enough (though it introduces the concept of lying), but the next one we're shown is with a bullying peer by the name of Butch, where you appear to have at least six cake-related options available; everything from a diplomatic, sharing-it-fifty-fifty option, to the openly perverse provocation of spitting in it and then giving it him. Bethesda's Pete Hines, demoing, stresses that these options will all play out differently down the line. The point is to show that we're a long way from the "Yes, I'll help you"/"Yes, I'll help you for three pounds fifty and a cheeseburger"/"I WILL KILL YOU AND TAKE YOUR STUFF" conversation options with which most modern RPGs satisfy themselves. Hines and co. have talked about the game being a much more dense conversational game than Oblivion, and this is them showing how they're walking the walk as well as talking the post-apocalyptic talk. About talk.

[Brother None]

On of the better previews. Always reliable, Kieron Gillen.

He also commented on his Turn-based slip of the tongue on Rock Paper Shotgun:
In passing, if any of the NMA guys are reading, the bit where I talk about how I’d like to see this turn-based thing go further, was me badly phrasing that the “Give orders/see results cinematically” is a bit like how turn-based games work. Clearly the pause-time attacks of VAS aren’t a true turn-based game, but it shows that a turn-based like interaction lead to cute results, at least on first impression. Since that’s relatively strong and the normal-combat is relatively weak, I’d have been interested in seeing them pursue it a bit more.

I should have been a lot more explicit with what I said.

[Tricky]

I'm holding out for Zero Punctuation.

[Brother None]

Zero Punctuation is satire, though.

We'd be better of with actual journalists being critical. Satire has its functions, but it's not supposed to be the only source of criticism in town. In fact, the fact that it is, is kinda sad.

[Tricky]

Like Ben Croshaw I trip heavily over the tiniest of design flaws. The man has the gift of gab to present them in all their miserable glory over a five minute time span, enough to confirm my suspicions about them and avoid them altogether. Satire, yes, but satire usually has a point. Social, political, doesn't matter. It's not sarcasm. And it's not even all satire either, he will tell when he's impressed with something. As rare as that may be.

Maybe I've just experienced too many mispurchases. Honestly, I don't need anyone to tell me most games are trash. But if I get a laugh out of it too, bonus. Zero Punctuation will do fine for me.

[DesR85]

Originally Posted by Tricky

Maybe I've just experienced too many mispurchases. Honestly, I don't need anyone to tell me most games are trash. But if I get a laugh out of it too, bonus. Zero Punctuation will do fine for me.

At the same time, I don't need some idiot reviewer to tell me how great a game is when it is just average or really bad, especially when that game is over-hyped. Next time I come across a game with that nature, I'm going to avoid it flat out.

[Tricky]

And.. you're quoting me there why? Because you agree or because you don't?

[DesR85]

I don't because I prefer to get opinions from sources that I know (friend recommendation, etc.) rather than those of a reviewer in certain cases .

P.S. By the way, isn't Zero Punctuation more for those who already played a game? Because I remember watching his video reviews before and there are a lot of spoilers in them.

[Tricky]

All the more reason to avoid those titles.