-Tin mới từ web của Fallout 3 : IGN nói bắt đầu kỷ nguyên trong năm 2007 về game RPG Fallout 3 Developers at Games Conference 2007 - Part 1 Friends and acquaintances from the development community share their plans for the huge German event next week August 16, 2007 - Home to more than half a million, the German city of Leipzig is steeped in history. The earliest traces of human settlement date back some 6,000 years. There are written references starting around 1015 AD, although it's know that a castle stood there a century prior. Among its sons and daughters, the most famous is Johann Sebastian Bach. Others former residents of international renown include fellow composers Felix Mendelssohn and Richard Wagner plus poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Founded 1409, Leipzig University is among Europe's oldest. In 1813, the Battle of Nations just to the south marked a turning point in Napoleon's campaigns of conquest, eventually leading to his defeat and exile to Elba. From the granting of its town charter around 1165, the community, located on the routes to Prague, Berlin and Frankfurt, has been a center of commerce. Games Convention may be seen as an extension of this heritage. This year's edition will take place from August 23 to 26, right after the associated three-day developers conference in the same location, the Leipzig Exhibition Center. As of a month ago, over 400 exhibitors had signed up to participate in the consumer portion, the business to business section, or both. Total attendance is expected to top 200,000. Of this impressive number, as many as 10,000 may be trade visitors. This means quite a few people working in or connect to the RPG and massively multiplayer categories will be there. As an interesting and fun type of show preview from an unusual point of view, we invited as many as possible to tell us what they'll be doing, both on and off duty. An initial bunch of responses arrived quickly. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jonric: What will you be doing on an official basis at Games Convention, including the developer conference, and what are you looking forward to doing - or hoping to do - during any free time you may have? Christian Muller Managing Director, Empire of Sports Infront Sports & Media As the Managing Director of Empire of Sports, I'm really excited and looking forward to showing our game to consumers. I'm going to spend almost all of my time on our stand, showing the game to people and getting their impressions and feedback. I hope I can see people's excitement and joy while playing, and hopefully winning at tennis, or checking out every corner of the virtual cities. I also hope to be able to play some games of my own against some of the visitors, just to see how much of a chance I have in the future. don't be surprised if you see me queuing up with everybody else for the latest swag or a glimpse of the latest demos. It's not many jobs where you can play games and legitimately call it job research. Nic van't Schip Head of Community Operations, Empire of Sports Infront Sports & Media What I will be doing at GC 2007? On an official basis, running around as I am largely responsible for the organization of the Empire of Sports booth this year, and this means that if anything goes wrong, it's my job to get it fixed. Of course, nothing at all will go wrong, and in all the spare time that will leave, I can be found mostly at the Bungie stand drooling over Halo 3. Games Convention is also an opportunity for me to meet former colleagues and long lost friends, and I look forward to having a drink with many of them... or many drinks with just one of them, for that matter. It's one of the few chances where we can meet, catch up and talk about what we are working on. But what I'm really looking forward to is seeing our game get played by the masses. Empire of Sports is a great game - I know it, the team knows it, and after Leipzig, everybody will know it! I can't wait. Alex Loffstadt Community Relations Manager, Empire of Sports Infront Sports & Media As a community manager, I have to straddle the divide between the front of the booth and the behind the scenes team. So, I'm expecting my time to be split between talking to players, demonstrating the game, listening to people's thoughts and suggestions, and taking care of gaming journalists and bloggers... talking about where Empire of Sports is now, but just as importantly, where we want to take it in the future. This will be in addition to working with the behind the scenes guys to look at images from the cams we have set up on the booth, edit information and movies for the newsletters we have planned, and help with the competitions we'll be running. Trust me; we've got some insane prizes for the convention. Not to mention the sheer amount of socializing and networking that's a requirement for an ambitious industry type. If I actually get some free time, I'm looking forward to indulging my inner geek. Like most of the people in the gaming industry, I got into the job first and foremost because I love games, so don't be surprised if you see me queuing up with everybody else for the latest swag or a glimpse of the latest demos. It's not many jobs where you can play games and legitimately call it job research. The other big buzz for me is knowing that'll I'll get to meet some of my gaming heroes, not least of which are Pontus & Madsen from Little-Gamers. Christian Salomon Head of Marketing & Sales, Empire of Sports Infront Sports & Media As the Head of Marketing & Sales, I am very much looking forward to presenting Empire of Sports to the public in Leipzig. Officially, my role at GC is, on the one hand, to present to game in detail to gaming journalists and general press, and on the other, to discuss possible business to business opportunities with potential premium partners like sports brands, media companies and sports rights holders. Due to the realistic setting of the Empire of Sports games, it is key to integrate real-life brands for a perfect simulation of the real-life sports world. On top of these activities, I am really looking forward to watching people play our game and even competing with them directly in a tennis match or ski race. Pete Hines VP of Public Relations and Marketing, Bethesda Softworks Fallout 3 I'll be going to Leipzig to show off the Fallout 3 demo to press folks in Europe that didn't get to come and see it at E3. Our setup is pretty much the same as there - small theater, couple demos a day, etc. I also see it as a great opportunity to connect with all those people I know electronically, but have never met in real life. A lot of my peers will be attending so it promises to be a fantastic experience with many Kodak moments. I hope to take some time to walk around during the show, but giving a really long demo four or five times a day for three days, with people asking lots of questions in between sessions, tends to get really tiring after a while. I went to Leipzig last year to show off Oblivion PS3 to some folks, and really didn't get to see much of anything, so I'm hoping for a bit more walking around time than before. Teut Weidemann Consultant Online Entertainment CDV Online At the developer conference, I am taking part in a talk about community management and hosting a panel about the future of MMOGs. At GC itself, I am looking forward to seeing all the online games, and of course, the next expansion of World of Warcraft. Naturally, I need to network, and meeting server hosts, outsourcing companies and looking at new games is part of my job. At GC, I hope that I will be surprised by some new games that will be announced. Having the whole industry at one place is always exciting, but after three days, my head spins from overfeeding it with information and images. Mario Kroll Director, Marketing and Public Relations, North America CDV Software Entertainment USA This will be my first Games Convention in Leipzig. Our parent company, fresh out of restructuring and with some new companies acquired earlier this year, will be focused on announcing a number of new senior management. They will also detail new services that we can offer developers, publishers and others, including MMO-focused hosting and service options, a new area for us. Additionally, we are hoping to close a deal on a major Xbox360 / PC / PS3 RPG title for North America that would be the first nextgen game published by our company. We will also be looking for other titles to publish, and have meetings with established and new business partners. Personally, I'm excited to see GC Leipzig for the first time. Having had to oversee attendance at nearly every other trade show the past three years for us, it's a relief not to be responsible for putting attendance at this one together myself. I plan to just soak things in as much as I can, do lots of networking, enjoy some of my home country's great food and drink, and maybe find a couple additional fun games simply to play. Bill Roper CEO and Co-Founder, Flagship Studios. Hellgate: London We will be allowing attendees to play a fully localized version of Hellgate: London and I will personally be doing Q&A sessions with consumers, meeting with fansites and showing the game to members of the press. In the past I have done keynote speeches for the Developer's Conference, but with the release of Hellgate: London just around the corner, I unfortunately did not have the time to do so this year. With my free time, I hope to see what I can of the show to check out what the European development community is working on. I also look forward to eating at the amazing restaurants in Leipzig and then taking a day or two to ride the train with my wife for the world's fastest vacation. Michael Schiestl Lead Programmer, Avencast: Rise of Mage CEO, ClockStone Software This year at Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany, I will have several meetings with publishing companies as well as other companies related to game development (music production, 3D engine). Most of my meetings will be held in the Business Center. While I am there I will also visit the show itself to see what else is going on in the industry. As I will not be attending GC for the full four days, I unfortunately will not have a lot of "free time" while I'm there. Samantha "Satine" Russell Senior Community Manager Codemasters Online Ich geht nach Leipzig! Well, I think that's how you say it... Let's cut to the chase - I'm a Leipzig virgin. In fact, I'm a game convention virgin. In my seven years in the industry, Leipzig 2007 will be my very first game show! And what a show to begin with! Having done my research, I'm looking forwards to sore feet and a hoarse throat. More so though, my butterflies are gathering and I'm starting to get really excited at the prospect of meeting a lot of the community guys that will be there and to showing off all the great new stuff Codemasters has coming up! I also see it as a great opportunity to connect with all those people I know electronically, but have never met in real life. A lot of my peers will be attending so it promises to be a fantastic experience with many Kodak moments. I hope to have lots of anecdotes to share at the end of it. See you there! Ralph Fulton Chief Game Designer Codemasters I'll be at Leipzig to talk with journalists about an exciting new racing title currently in development at Codemasters' internal studios. It uses an enhanced version of the Neon engine that powered DiRT to chart success earlier this summer, and although the game isn't due out until the middle of next year, we've been working towards a sneaky "first look" for the press at Game Conference. Hopefully, you'll read lots more about the game after the show. After the business day, I'm in charge of keeping an eye on Daniel and Christian. It would be better if my shift started at 10pm every evening! With loads of journalists to see, I'm resigned to spending most of the week holed up in meeting rooms, but if I manage to escape for an hour or so, then there's a long list of games I want to check out. I'm really keen to see Team Fortress 2, which looks fantastic, and I'll also be keeping an eye open for Crysis, Mercenaries 2, Drake's Fortune and Call of Duty 4... although I expect I'll actually spend whatever free time I have playing the new Pro Evo. Daniel Dumont Xbox 360 Project Lead, Sacred 2 - Fallen Angel Ascaron I will be presenting the newest Xbox 360 version of Sacred 2 - Fallen Angel to consumers and journalists. I hope to receive lots of feedback concerning gameplay, interface and graphics. In the evenings, I look forward to meeting, talking or just hanging around with friends and colleagues from the games industry. Christian Grunwald Producer, Sacred 2 - Fallen Angel Ascaron We've prepared an exclusive version of Sacred 2 - Fallen Angel for Games Convention, and we'll be showing off our multiplayer mode for the very first time. We are excited about receiving feedback from the floor, and we hope to entertain the visitors as well. I also hope that we will survive the stress of the day and the parties at night. We will see... Torsten Meier PR Manager, Ascaron Sacred 2 - Fallen Angel More than 100 journalists will visit our "Dell Sacred 2 Arena," and we are proud to see so much interest in the title. It was a huge challenge to coordinate all of our guests since we wanted to support the press as much as possible. I hope that everyone will be impressed with Sacred 2 and its new multiplayer mode. After the business day, I'm in charge of keeping an eye on Daniel and Christian. It would be better if my shift started at 10pm every evening! When we considering that the teeming crowds the companies exhibiting at Games Convention will have to deal with are expected to be the largest ever, it's safe to assume many people working the enormous event will be tired by 10pm. We're also certain at least some will engage in nocturnal activities anyway. Statements are still arriving from various industry members, so perhaps we'll about more about their plans during the days leading up to their duties and adventures in historic Leipzig. Website chính thức của Fallout 3 có link sau : http://fallout.bethsoft.com/ ___________________________ -Tin mới từ web của Fallout 3 : Fallout 3 xẽ cực kỳ mạnh hơn các hồi cũ do KOTAKU nói Fallout 3 Trying To Avoid Silliness There's serious adult content, and there's silly adult content. There's funny violence, and there's silly comic violence. It can often be a fine line between the two, in both cases, and it's one Bethesda are well aware of during development of Fallout 3. Lead designer Emil Pagliarulo: There are some people who say that making an 18-rated game, and especially making a Fallout one, should be about sleeping with the hooker, then waking up with the venereal disease. A lot of that stuff personally, to me, veers into being a 12-year old dungeon master. Some of it feels right and some of it feels wrong. We're appealing to an adult audience and it's a tough call. I mean, once you have groin shots you're approaching a level of silliness that, if you're not careful, can pervade the whole game. Hope it's not too serious. Those post-apocalyptic wastelands can be bleak. It's going to need something to lighten the mood. Website chính thức của Fallout 3 có link sau : http://fallout.bethsoft.com/
Err.. hình như đoạn này nói fallout 3 sẽ tránh đề cập đến những vấn đề tế nhị trong các bản đầu thì phải. Trình tiếng Anh em kém lắm +_+, có gì các anh nói để em còn sửa chữa
Trời ơi, hâm mộ fallout lâu rùi, đọc cái topic fallout 3 sắp ra khoái wá vào coi thử thấy toàn chữ nho, lộn chữ tây, hoa cả mắt. Bro nào giỏi sinh ngữ dịch cho anh em đọc với!
Các bàn Fallout cũ được đánh giá là Mature(18+) mà, chơi là thấy ngay , nhưng vấn đề là Fallout 3 có còn thế ko, nếu giảm xuống Teen(13+) thì mất hương vị của fallout còn gì +_+
-Tin mới từ web của Fallout 3 : Besh post thong tin truyền kỳ Fallout 3 lên web của mình ... Fallout 3 PLATFORMS: PC, Xbox 360™, PLAYSTATION®3 ESRB Rating: Rating Pending Description: Vault-Tec engineers have worked around the clock on an interactive reproduction of Wasteland life for you to enjoy from the comfort of your own vault. Included is an expansive world, unique combat, shockingly realistic visuals, tons of player choice, and an incredible cast of dynamic characters. Every minute is a fight for survival against the terrors of the outside world – radiation, Super Mutants, and hostile mutated creatures. From Vault-Tec, America’s First Choice in Post Nuclear Simulation. Story: Vault 101 – Jewel of the Wastes. For 200 years, Vault 101 has faithfully served the surviving residents of Washington DC and its environs, now known as the Capital Wasteland. Though the global atomic war of 2077 left the US all but destroyed, the residents of Vault 101 enjoy a life free from the constant stress of the outside world. Giant Insects, Raiders, Slavers, and yes, even Super Mutants are all no match for superior Vault-Tec engineering. Yet one fateful morning, you awake to find that your father has defied the Overseer and left the comfort and security afforded by Vault 101 for reasons unknown. Leaving the only home you’ve ever known, you emerge from the Vault into the harsh Wasteland sun to search for your father, and the truth. Key Features: Limitless Freedom! – Take in the sights and sounds of the vast Capital Wasteland! See the great monuments of the United States lying in post-apocalyptic ruin! You make the choices that define you and change the world. Just keep an eye on your Rad Meter! Experience S.P.E.C.I.A.L.! – Vault-Tec engineers bring you the latest in human ability simulation – the SPECIAL Character System! Utilizing new breakthroughs in points-based ability representation, SPECIAL affords unlimited customization of your character. Also included are dozens of unique skills and perks to choose from, each with a dazzling variety of effects! Fantastic New Views! – The wizards at Vault-Tec have done it again! No longer constrained to just one view, experience the world from 1st or 3rd person perspective. Customize your view with the touch of a button! The Power of Choice! – Feeling like a dastardly villain today, or a Good Samaritan? Pick a side or walk the line, as every situation can be dealt with in many different ways. Talk out your problems in a civilized fashion, or just flash your Plasma Rifle. Blast ‘Em Away With V.A.T.S.! – Even the odds in combat with the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System for your Pip-Boy Model 3000! V.A.T.S. allows you to pause time in combat, target specific body parts on your target, queue up attacks, and let Vault-Tec take out your aggression for you. Rain death and destruction in an all-new cinematic presentation. Mind-Blowing Artificial Intelligence! – At Vault-Tec, we realize that the key to reviving civilization after a global nuclear war is people. Our best minds pooled their efforts to produce an advanced version of Radiant AI, America’s First Choice in Human Interaction Simulation. Facial expressions, gestures, unique dialog, and lifelike behavior are brought together with stunning results by the latest in Vault-Tec technology. Eye-Popping Prettiness!* – Witness the harsh realities of nuclear fallout rendered like never before in modern super-deluxe HD graphics. From the barren Wasteland, to the danger-filled offices and metro tunnels of DC, to the hideous rotten flesh of a mutant’s face. *Protective Eyewear Encouraged. Website chính thức của Fallout 3 có link sau : http://fallout.bethsoft.com/
-Tin mới từ web của Fallout 3 : Hỏi và trả lời về Fallout 3 , những vấn đề chính ngày 19/8/2007 Release date: Bethesda has set the release date for Fall 2008. What is left to be done for the game between now and fall 2008? They’ve just finished pre-production, though what they showed us looked like a very complete demo of the game, and that now they will have a year of solid production then playtesting. They repeatedly stressed their abundant confidence in the fall 2008 release date. (ref) Will there be a demo or beta? Are there any plans for downloadable content yet? No demo or beta, and no plans for Downloadable content yet (ref) Platforms: Fallout 3 will be a single-player game for PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. It is being developed from the ground up for each platform. Will it be released on Macintosh? Lindsay Muller, Bethesda: It could happen if there is a large enough demand and if we are approached by a Mac games publisher such as Macsoft or Aspyr. Bethesda Softworks would not port it. So if you want to see Fallout 3 or any of our other games ported to Mac, contact either or both Mac publisher and request it. (ref) Consoles vs PC: Are all versions (PC/360/PS3) at the same stage of development? Yes. We were shown the demo run on a 360 because Todd claimed it, “shows better in the theater”. (ref) Will there be a separate UI for the console and PC versions? Golem, NeoGAF: Yes, they learned their lesson from Oblivion and are making sure that the PC GUI will be suitable for keyboard+mouse users (ref) Will the PC Version require Direct X 10? There was no direct answer that I heard, but Todd Howard expressed his distaste in games doing “bullshit” like requiring Vista. They noted that there will be the option for changeable font sizes on the PC to resolve some of the issues with menus that were encountered in Oblivion. (ref) Will porting the game to consoles hurt the PC version? Matt Miller, Game Informer: Hmm... Well, the game’s not really being ported anywhere. It’s being built from the ground up for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. What does this mean for Bethesda going forward? Pete Hines, Bethesda: We've got another very cool role playing license to work with, and we plan to continue to strengthen our position as one of the leading creators of cool role-playing games for multiple platforms. That's our desire, and we think that Fallout 3 points us in the right direction to do that. ESRB/Maturity Level: Fallout 2 was rated 15+ (not for immature audience) - will this trend continue with Fallout 3? Pete Hines: It's going to be a mature game, that's always been the plan. License: Pete Hines, Bethesda: We've licensed the rights to Fallout, which includes everything except the MMO project Interplay announced a few weeks ago. [Bethesda owns full rights to Fallout, Interplay has licensed the rights to develop a PC-only MMO (ref)] Can you tell us how long Bethesda has had its eye on Fallout? Pete Hines, Bethesda: A pretty long time. For the majority of five years we've said, internally, that if we could pick another game to develop internally, it's been that we could do a great Fallout game. It's something we've talked about internally for a very long time. What initially made you decide to make Fallout 3? Pete Hines, Bethesda: Um, just one of those things we'd always wanted to do, really. We just thought it was a great fit for what we do well. Did you go to Interplay, or did Interplay come to you? Todd Howard, Bethesda: We went to them first. How long did the negotiations last? Todd Howard, Bethesda: Not long. It seemed like a great fit from the beginning. Do you know what other companies were in the bidding? Many people thought the Fallout license would end up with its former developers at Obsidian or Troika. Todd Howard, Bethesda: I honestly don't know anything about that. MMORPG: Is Bethesda tempted by the MMORPG genre, and what are you thoughts on Interplay's decision to take Fallout into this market? Pete Hines, Bethesda: There are a lot of folks in that space already. Maybe at some point down the road we would consider it, but MMORPGs are very different than RPGs in a lot of ways, so it's not something you can undertake lightly or move into easily. As far as Interplay's plans for a MMORPG, I hope they make a great game. Will Interplay's retention of "all online gaming rights for the Fallout franchise" affect whether or not Fallout 3 has an online component? Todd Howard, Bethesda: No. They only keep rights for a persistent online massively multiplayer game. We could still have a multiplayer or online component to our titles. Are you also vying for rights to the Fallout MMORPG? If not, why not? Todd Howard, Bethesda: Interplay wanted to hold onto those rights, and it doesn't really fit with what we would do anyway, so we all agreed they should keep them. Van Buren Code/Docs: Will Bethesda's Fallout 3 retain any elements of the "Van Buren" game that was in development at Black Isle Studios? Reports are that it was nearly complete. Todd Howard, Bethesda: No, we're going to start fresh. Pete Hines, Bethesda [On the chance of releasing any material from Van Buren]: ...releasing someone else's unfinished product, or assets from it, is not something we intend to do. [30-04-2007] Development Team: Is Fallout 3 something that Bethesda is making its own? Pete Hines, Bethesda: Absolutely. It's being developed by us, by Bethesda Softworks. It isn't being developed externally. It's being managed by Todd Howard, who is also the executive producer of The Elder Scrolls. Known staff list: Angela Browder, associate producer in arts department (ref) Joel Burgess, lead level designer. (ref) Erik J. Caponi, designer. (ref) Ben Carnow, character artist. (ref) Gavin Carter, lead producer. (ref) Brian Chapin, designer. Ashley Cheng, production director. Mike Dulany, programmer. (ref) Jeff Gardiner, producer. (ref) Ricardo Gonzalez, interface programmer (ref) Matt Grandstaff, community manager. (ref) Pete Hines, vice president of public relations and marketing. Todd Howard, executive producer. Christopher Krietz, QA (url=http://bethblog.com/?p=135]ref[/url]) Mark Lampert, sound design. (ref) Jonah Lobe, character artist. (ref) Erin Losi, marketing Nathan McDyer, associate producer. (ref) Christiane Meister, character animator. (ref) Steve Meister, lead programmer. Lindsay Muller, marketing Alan Nanes, designer (ref) Gary Noonan, character animator. (ref) Emil Pagliarulo, lead designer. Istvan Pely, lead artist. Brian Robb, AI programmer. (ref) Dan Ross, quality assurance tester. (ref) Megan Sawyer, associate artist. (ref) Natalia Smirnova, interface artist. (ref) Grant Struthers, effects artist. Orin Tresnjak, graphics programmer. (ref) Jay Woodward, AI programmer. (ref) Fred Zeleny, quest designer. (ref) Read more from and about the development team at Meet the Devs. Gavin "Kathode" Carter, Bethesda: Hayt [Brian Chapin] is a designer who works under Emil [Pagliarulo]. As for me, the various production titles here can get confusing, so let me explain. Todd Howard is the Executive Producer. For all intents and purposes, he is the studio and project director, and has ultimate say over everything we do. We have a very open and collaborative atmosphere here, and Todd is always open to debate and revision, but at the end of the day, to borrow a phrase from Bush, he is the “decider” Ashley [Cheng] is our studio Production Director. His job is to coordinate all the production efforts of our internal development across all the various projects we’re working on. This includes everything from the big ticket games, to smaller stuff like Oblivion downloadable content, localization issues, and making sure other cross-project people (QA for instance) know and respond to our needs. He manages how we distribute people’s time across the projects, and also makes sure all projects conform to good standard methods of scheduling and tracking. I’m the Lead Producer on Fallout, meaning I’m the main production guy who is 100% focused solely on this project. I’m responsible for maintaining our overall schedule, setting up and communicating milestones, making sure everyone has the tools, equipment, and info they need to do their jobs, and hounding people to get stuff done on time. I’ve been on the project since the day we started working on it, and pretty much the day we went gold on Oblivion, I switched over to focusing completely on Fallout. I’m aided by an awesome team of four department producers who focus on either programmers, artists, or designers. Hope this helps clear it up! (ref) Have you spoken at all to the original creators of the franchise--who from what I know already had less complete involvement with Fallout 2 than with the first game--in any capacity? Pete Hines, Bethesda: We have, on an individual basis. Some of those folks have contacted us on varying levels, whether it's a "Hey, good luck" or a job inquiry or what have you. Not really formally though, no. Again, it's one of those things where I have a lot of respect for those guys. I was a huge Black Isle fan, and all those RPGs coming out of Interplay at the time. I loved Baldur's Gate, Fallout. It was fantastic. Way back when, when I wrote for the Adrenaline Vault, Interplay was one of my companies. I used to cover all their stuff and play everything they put out. I still have my shrinkwrapped copies of Baldur's Gate and Planescape. They did great stuff for which I will always have tremendous respect. But at the same time, if we're going to move forward, we're really going to have to move forward. We can't just say, "Well, let's ask these guys what they think." As Fallout fans and guys who make roleplaying games and have for over a decade, we have pretty good ideas about what we want to do and how to do it. (ref) Concept art studio Massive Black is working on Fallout 3 (ref), and independent artist Craig Mullins was hired to create concept art as well. (ref) Cast: Liam Neeson will play the father of the PC. (ref) Ron Perlman will narrate the game (ref) Other cast is unknown, but Bethesda has stated they will hire 30-40 voice actors (ref) Game: Kyle Orland, Joystiq: The game will have no multiplayer mode and no demo is currently planned. (ref) Explain more about the style of Dialogue / Storylines? Again they stressed the fixed ending, with multiple possibilities, and that your actions throughout the game would determine how the main plot resolved. Also that your choices of dialogue can open up more quests, more options for places to go and things to do in the game. Emil really seemed to stress a high level of detail written into the game as far as Dialogue and Quest interaction. (ref) How long is the main quest? How much gameplay time before the game ends? The main quest they estimated at about 20 hours of gameplay, with about 20 hours more of possible miscellaneous quests and side stories. They wanted to add as much replay value as possible, and provide a lot of different choices in misc. quests each time you go through the game. Based on your decisions, various doors will close and open to the player. (ref) Steve Butts, IGN: If you do get hurt (and you so will), you'll have to heal yourself by drinking the water you find in pools, fountains, flasks and various other receptacles throughout the world. The only trouble is that the water you find in the wasteland is radiated. Drink too much of it and your stats will start to degrade. Fortunately, you can see your currently radiation level on a small dial in the upper left of your Pip Boy. (ref) Does all Radiation in the game dissipate over time? There are a few events which cause extreme levels that will never go away, but most radiation from things like blown up cars (nuclear engines) and the mini-nuke weapon will dissipate given a little time. (ref) Will there be Mutant Powers? They’re not talking about this yet. (ref) There will be mini-games, in the June 2007 press event, Bethesda demonstrated a mini-game that had to be played in order to hack a control terminal. In the sample minigame, there was a list of passwords to choose from, after a choice was made, feedback was given on how many letters were shared between the picked option and the correct answer. (ref) SeanMike, GamersInfo: Basically, hacking entails getting the right password. You’ll look at a scrambled file with a number of words in it. Each time you try a word, it’ll tell you how many letters were right in the word. STREP might go to TRACK which might go to AWAIT, for instance. Get it right, and the ‘bot is yours - get it wrong, and you’ll get locked out. (ref) Will there be any returning characters from previous games? Not talking about this yet either. (ref) What does Bethsoft bring to the game? The idea of free-form game design, experience in developing that type of game. Todd expressed the idea in a game of, “never give the player a reason to stop”. They really wanted to use the best technology they could to create the game, and create it to a level of quality so that there is nothing which puts players off from it. (ref) Are they doing a lot of things to make Fallout mainstream? They’re “just doing what is cool”, they admitted that games today have a huge emphasis on graphics, but that they wanted to bring back some retro gaming features (ie - speech trees) (ref) Storyline: What is the main quest? The main quest centers around your dad mysteriously disappearing from the Vault one day, and your quest to find him and find out why he left and where he is/has gone. (ref) Emil Pagiarulo, Bethesda: it's a shock when you find out your dad is missing, and the Overseer [the chief of the Vault] is pissed off. He thinks you had something to do with it and he sends his thugs after you. The Vault is no longer safe for you. In addition to you wanting to find your dad, you're under pressure to get out... (ref) When and where is Fallout 3 set? Game Informer: In 2277, as you emerge from Vault 101 (...) Washington, D.C. and its environs offer a dramatic backdrop to the post-nuclear adventure of Fallout 3. Kyle Orland, Joystiq: The game will feature nine to 12 endings based on how you've played it. (ref) Explain the introduction sequences, playing at different ages? The game starts in the Vault when you are born, and jumps forward a few years at a time in short sequences. You see a “gene-projector” at birth which shows what you will look like when you are older, and this is the segueway into character creation. They joked that the first hour of Fallout 3 is in the Vault, and the first hour of Oblivion is making your nose look right. Other sequences will take you through tutorials, and introduce you to the world in which these characters are living up until the age of 19 when the main plot kicks in. Liam Neeson plays the part of your father, but the character is wearing a mask until you create your character and his appearance is then determined procedurally from an aged version of how your character looks. (ref) Steve Butts, IGN: ...we learned a bit more about the Tunnel Snakes, the gang of bullies who inhabit the Vault, and the object of their attention, the young girl with whom you've had a lifelong friendship. (ref) Will the storyline feature any current political commentary? Very little, if any, as it is all centered around the fictional world of Fallout. There is a lot of in-game propaganda about China, having invaded during WW3, and some super mutants were carrying Chinese built rifles. (ref) Will Fallout 3 be as open-ended as Oblivion? Matt Miller, Game Informer: In many ways, Fallout 3 is being designed to be more open-ended than Oblivion, offering choices to players that alter the course of the game world in dramatic ways. In Oblivion, for instance, you either do the Dark Brotherhood missions or not. But imagine if you had the choice to either become the leader of the Dark Brotherhood, or infiltrate it and bring it down from the inside. Alternately, pretend you had an unstable nuclear bomb, and you put it outside the Dark Brotherhood hideaway and blew it up. That’s the level of open-endedness they’re shooting for with Fallout 3. Can you play the game without doing any combat? Matt Miller, Game Informer: I never got a hard and fast answer on this point, though I did ask the development team about it. On a general level, they did say that they’re trying to build multiple solutions into almost any quest or situation you encounter, and that using stealth and diplomacy were very useable routes to overcome different obstacles. Whether you’ll be able to play through the whole game without committing any violence is a point they’re still hammering out, to my memory. Atmosphere: What about the radio on your Pip-boy? You can tune in to various of the world’s stations (such as Galactic News Radio) and either listen to it passively as you play the game and hear about events that are taking place, or even possibly pick up random signals in the wastelands that could lead to quests or give you a heads up on some raiders heading your way. Though the radio is mostly flavor stuff, they’ve licensed about 20 songs from the 40’s and there are DJ’s in game that talk about what’s going on in the game. (ref) Golem, NeoGAF: Other factions: one of the radio stations mentioned by in game dialogue is apparently run by The Enclave. (ref) Explain more about the focus on Fallout 1, and not Fallout 2? Specifics? Adult Content is definitely all over this game, but they wanted to get rid of some of the stuff from Fallout 2 that seemed to break the barrier (Monty Python references, etc). They feel that the second game is not serious enough, and that they are going for “feeling like an adult game, but not being cheesy about it”. Profanity has to be used correctly, it has to be used right and feel like it fits where it is. (ref) One of the things that crops up a lot in reviews and discussions of about Fallout is that a lot of the fans like the about Fallout humour. What does this mean to you? Pete Hines, Bethesda: Well, Todd Howard (Executive Producer at Bethesda) has talked a little about this. We're not big fans of jokes… developers that try to tell jokes, it tends not to work very well. You know, the humour in Fallout 3 is that you can get a weapon and blow a guy to a bloody mess, then when you pull up your interface, you see a little smiling cartoon character holding his thumb up. Like that's funny… funny not in terms of jokes or winks at the camera and such… (ref) What’s the humor like in Fallout 3? Matt Miller, Game Informer: Dark humor was a big part of Fallout 1 and 2, and that same dark humor is present here, on display through everything from quirky dialogue spoken by a malfunctioning robot to darkly comedic moments of death and violence. A few of you asked if the humorous situations had more in common with the first or second game, and I’m afraid I really haven’t seen enough of the game yet to compare it to the times I’ve played through Fallout 1 or 2. How is the art style? Does it maintain the feel of the original games? Matt Miller, Game Informer: I’ll answer this with an example. In the opening minutes of the demo, I saw, the character is in a lab inside Vault 101. On a table beside him I spied a stimpak. This tiny object in the world was the first of many times in the game that I felt tiny twinges of nostalgia for how they’ve carried over individual objects and ideas from the original in the artistic presentation of the game. The post-WWII, Cold War feel of the franchise is very much intact, but Bethesda definitely has its own unique take on the art style. One big part of this art style is a focus on making everything in the game world have a purpose–when designing a new gun, the art team spends a lot of time making sure that if there is some weird knob on the weapon that there is a reason for it to be there. They’re hoping to bring a certain level of authenticity to the game world in this way. Setting: Kyle Orland, Joystiq: The game takes place 30 years after the events Fallout 2. The events of the much-maligned Fallout: Brotherhood and Fallout: Tactics never happened in the universe of Fallout 3. (ref) Todd Howard, Bethesda: We do follow the continuity of Fallout 1 and 2, though obviously they're set in the West Coast and we're set in the East Coast. When we do games, we don't like people to feel that they need to play the previous ones. We like to have lots of nods, and have the lore make sense. So it's not a continuation of that story, but it does say that stuff all happens. (ref) Todd Howard, Bethesda: In Oblivion, we say, here's the good part of the game and here's the evil part. In Fallout we say, here's the situation. You deal with it in ways that feel natural to your character... Later on, we realised a lot of the quests we were making were morally grey, neither definably good nor evil. We asked, do they need to be clear? And decided, no, definitely not. (ref) Kyle Orland, Joystiq: The game's version of Washington D.C. will include iconic landmarks and the general topography of the real city, but will not be a street-by-street recreation. The downtown area represents about one quarter of the in-game map. (ref) How big is the game world compared to Oblivion’s? The game world is 25% inside of the city of Washington, DC and the other 75% is made up of the surrounding wastelands (suburbs of Maryland and Virginia). In the demo we saw the character enter the area of Chevy Chase, MD. The entire game world is on a different scale then Oblivion’s, there are a lot shorter sight lines and traveling will feel quite different apparently. (ref) Traveling: Kyle Orland, Joystiq: There will be no drivable vehicles in the game, but you can travel between locations through subway tunnels. (ref) Will there be fast travel? Yes there will be fast travel, but they aren’t talking about it yet. (ref) Will there be Random Encounters? “Maybe.” The way it was said meant ‘yes’. (ref) Locations: Known locations: Rivet City - a large central hub based in and around the remains of a crashed aircraft carrier (GameInformer) Paradise Falls - a ruined strip mall occupied by slavers (ref) Megaton - a town built around the crater of an undetonated nuclear bomb, which a part of the town worships (ref) Tenpenny Tower - a place that can only be entered by helping them blow up Megaton (ref) Springvale - not much known, except that this is it. Downtown DC - makes up nearly a fourth of the game world and you're going to find a lot of action here, around Capitol Hill (ref) The wastes around Downtown DC are the Capital Wasteland (ref). Player Character: Steve Butts, IGN: The G.O.A.T. [Generalized Occupational Aptitude Tests] is essentially an oral exam that lets the player express their preferences and expectations for the game and then translates those wishes into an appropriate set of skills -- sneaking, science, medicine, guns, speech, etc. This approach to skill selection nicely fits with the game's emphasis on maintaining your wetting something by submerging it in the game world rather than relying on a more artificial class selection system. (ref) What happens when your character levels? You gain points in your skills (not specified if they’re automatic or assigned?) and on even levels you gain perks. The maximum level in the game is 20, mainly because the game has a definitive ending which is triggered by the main plot. (ref) Is there a Karma / Reputation system? Yes, there is a sliding scale and a lot of focus was placed on the ability to be neutral on that scale rather then just good or bad. They have worked hard to create a genuine, valid gray area that you can complete a quest for someone one second and shoot a person’s face off if you don’t like them later on. Also it was discussed that doing certain actions / quests will limit your choices for opposing quests / NPC’s, unlike in Oblivion where you could simply complete all of the quests for all of the factions. This comes from the idea that the game has a definitive ending and should be replayed multiple times. (ref) Will there be character titles that you gain from certain actions / quests? Yes, there will be titles related to your level and your alignment on the sliding scale of Karma/Reputation. (ref) How is dialogue handled? Largely unknown. Ross Atherton, PC Gamer UK: A higher charisma score gives more chat options. (ref) Golem, NeoGAF: Branching dialogue tree, different choices/chances of success based on charisma and speaking skill. Poor INT will NOT affect your dialogue choices. (ref) NPCs: Kyle Orland, Joystiq: There are children in the game, but the team isn't sure yet if they will be killable as they were in the previous Fallout games. (ref) Bartoneus, Critical Hits: Todd replied to the child question, “do you want to be able to?” A long, and very funny/uncomfortable discussion spurned from this question but it really doesn’t seem like children will be killable in this game simply because of legal issues. (Seriously though…do you need to be able to do it?) (ref) Kyle Orland, Joystiq: You'll be able to hire mercenaries to aid you as in the first Fallout game. You won't have much direct control over them. (ref) Kyle Orland, Joystiq: There will be fewer non-player characters in Fallout 3 than in Oblivion, owing to the game's post-apocalyptic setting. Almost all the NPCs will be killable. (ref) How is the AI different from Oblivion? They have updated the AI a lot to make all of the characters inhabit the world more realistically, in Oblivion they quoted about 1,000-1,500 NPC’s while Fallout 3 will just have a few hundred. They focused on getting more interaction with NPC’s, and if someone was doing something they wanted to get it on screen so that it was clear to the player what the NPC was doing. The dialogue has also been created to be more believable on an NPC to NPC basis, which was very evident in the demo. (ref) Is the Brotherhood of Steel in? Yes, but it is unknown in what form, exactly. Are supermutants in? Yes. Other creatures? Chris Remo, Shacknews: Many of these [creatures] return from previous games--giant ants, brahmin, death squads, radscorpions, and more. (ref) Dogmeat will most likely be making a return (ref) Items: Ross Atherton, PC Gamer UK: Drawing heavily from the original, we'll be reunited with a host of old friends; from the super sledgehammer, simple pistol and rifles like AK47-alikes, plasma guns and the monstrous Fat man (...) You'll occasionally find or be able to buy schematics for new and unusual toys which can then be built using parts scavenged from the world. The best example of this is the Rock-It-Launcher: a jerry-built projectile lobber that can fire rocks - or any junk you may have clogging up your inventory. (ref) Mike Fahey, Kotaku: Create your own weapons by gathering resources from fallen foes. Weapons will deteriorate over time and with use, so maintaining your arms is a constant consideration. (ref) Chris Remo, Shacknews: Taking a Vault-Tec lunchbox and filling it with bottle caps and explosives creates an improvised, but deadly, shrapnel bomb. (ref) Steven Mills, WorthPlaying: It will also boast many new weapons, like the "Rock-It-Launcher," which is basically a toaster which can fire numerous items at your enemies. Fallout 3 also includes the ability to create your own items using a crafting system, as well as combine two weapons to make one stronger or more durable. Another cool new weapon is the "Lunch Box Explosive," which consists of a simple lunchbox from the pre-war days that is loaded up with explosives and can send your enemies soaring. Oh, and no, there are no drivable vehicles here — just explodable ones. (ref) Steve Butts, IGN: Your basic stats aren't going to change much during the game (except as a result of radiation poisoning), but you can collect bobble heads found throughout the game to bump them up a bit. (ref) Matt Miller, GameInformer: Picking it up, you recognize it for what it is - a Fatman. Arming this portable nuclear catapult, the tiny bomb slides into place with a ding that sounds disturbingly like a diner lunch bell. As the giant mutant turns its eyes on you, you pull the trigger, and the bomb hurtles over to the beast's feet. The creature crashes down in a cloud of nuclear fallout. Nick Brutal, Destructiod: Yes, there are a fair amount of guns in the game, including an awesome gun that can be used to **** up items in the environment and fire them at enemies. (ref) Golem, NeoGAF: On the Energy Weapons skill info pane, it affects these types of weapons: Alien, [Cryo], Laser, Plasma and one other I think I missed. [. . .] Weapons have decay. They are repaired using the repair skill which requires weapons of the same type to get parts from. Weapons decay has many effects such as Rate of Fire, Cone, Damage (ref) Engine: Is this just the Oblivion engine? It is a very spruced up version of the same engine, with shorter load times. (ref) Golem, NeoGAF: Towns and Buildings are zoned like in Oblivion (load times between each, etc). (ref) Graphics: Graphical standard can be assumed to be comparable to Oblivion's. See NMA's Fallout 3 gallery for screenshots. Kyle Orland, Joystiq: The game will feature a day/night cycle and changing weather. (ref) Viewpoint: Thierry Nguyen, GameSpy: The first thing we noticed after the footage of the trailer (which is part of Fallout 3's overall intro) is that Fallout 3 is indeed in first-person. Howard explains, "If you're going to play this character and feel like you're in the world, nothing beats first-person." Howard does recognize that players played Oblivion in third-person view, and Fallout 3 has an improved third-person camera. In fact, not only is it perfectly playable from third-person, but you can zoom out the camera to make it almost isometric, in a nod to the previous two games. (ref) Combat: Matt Miller, Game Informer: Fallout 3 plays in both real time and a paused tactical combat mode. It’s not really turn based, however. Instead, you can pause the real-time action in order to make aimed ranged or melee attacks on your opponents, smashing their legs to slow them down, or perhaps shooting an arm to hurt their weapon aim. Like in the original Fallout games, doing these aimed shots take action points, but since there are no turns, those AP recharge over time after unpausing the game. You can shoot in real time, but that will then slow your recharge rate. In practice, this means players have the option to play the game very much like an RPG, but with a good bit more action than traditional RPGs. Are there other details to the way this system works? Almost definitely, yes. Do we know all the answers to how V.A.T.S. works after seeing it in one demo? No. We’re waiting just like you to find out more. Steve Butts, IGN: Players who feel a bit challenged by the more intense real-time battles or players who simply want to take a bit more control over combat can make use of the impressive Vault-Tech Assisted Targeting System (VATS). The feature is essentially a more detailed version of the combat system in Knights of the Old Republic... Using a pool of action points determined by your Agility, you'll queue up fire actions to the targets you want to hit on your enemy. You can even switch enemies to queue up a series of shots against different members of a large group. Critical hits can result in cripplings, knocking the gun out of someone's hands or even causing a head to explode and send eyeballs rolling down the street. (ref) SeanMike, GamersInfo:...Bethesda doesn’t want this to be a shooter - they want it to be a role-playing game. They’re still ironing out the combat system, but your chances of doing something good - a critical hit, a hit to a body part - will be better using VATS. Also, even in “twitch” mode, your skill still affects your accuracy and damage with a weapon. Plus, when using VATS, you get cinematic! Instead of being completely focused in the first person’s must shoot it out with mutant, you get a brief dramatic movie of your actions as you fight it out! (ref) Chris Remo, Shacknews: Sadly, groin targeting has not returned for Fallout 3. The designers decided to keep the targetable areas to body parts that would have tangible effects when targeted--shooting a leg will cause the enemy to stumble, shooting out an arm might cause it to drop its gun. "You will no longer be able to punch a rat in the groin," Howard said. (ref) Golem, NeoGAF: They figure that a crit on the eye will gib the head anwyays so probably leaving that out. Groin shot is a maybe. (ref) What is there as far as Melee combat? They’re not talking about this yet, but they did say they are making ammo scarce in game and so melee will be playing a large part if you don’t manage your resources carefully. (ref) Do enemies scale to the player, and what is the leveling system based on? The leveling system for the player is based on Fallout 1. Not all enemies scale to the player, there are definitely areas of the game where if you venture alone or without protection of some kind you will easily die. The example used was that all Super Mutants are basically the same difficulty throughout the game, but that equipment like armor and weapons in different areas will make some tougher or some easier. You will not be encountering a mutant early on that takes one shot to kill and some later on that take 30 unless one is wearing 50 tons of armor. (ref) John Walker, Eurogamer: The first time you enter a zone, it will level itself appropriately. But, go back later and it will stay at the level it first generated... A 'species' of creature is fixed at a certain level, and will stay that way throughout. Get stronger, and it gets easier to defeat. It's simple, but it should let you feel the progression in a way many games prevent. (ref) Modding Options: Kyle Orland, Joystiq: Downloadable content and player-created mods are being considered, but nothing has been finalized. (ref) Fallout Fans: How do the developers feel about a lot of “Fan Anger”? Todd expressed that it is a “natural” thing, they attempt to treat it with respect and take it all seriously. He emphasized that because most of the development team are fans themselves they can easily understand a lot of what they hear/read from other fans. (ref) Fallout fans seem to be skeptical about whether Bethesda will be making a Fallout 3 that is true to the original series. Do you think Fallout 3 will satisfy the fanatics within the Fallout community? Pete Hines, Bethesda: I sure hope so. We won't be able to know for sure until the game comes out and people play it and decide whether they like it or not. Fallout is one of the most beloved franchises of all time. Are you worried about meeting gamers' high expectations? Todd Howard, Bethesda: I worry about meeting our own expectations. We take this stuff as seriously as anyone and are more critical of what we do than the fans. We're very careful in how we handle franchises. I think people can look at how we've treated the Elder Scrolls and know that we'll give the same care to Fallout. We pride ourselves in keeping franchises relevant and bringing something fresh to the market with each game. That being said, I'm sure there's a vocal minority that wants to kill us for even attempting to do it. But they wanted to kill Peter Jackson too, so you have to ignore that and just do something great that you'd love to play. Finally, is there anything you'd like to say to the legions of Fallout fans who aren't so sure about Bethesda taking the reins of the Fallout franchise? Pete Hines, Bethesda: We're very serious about bringing Fallout back to the forefront of RPGs in a major way. What's your opinion of the Fallout fanbase? The response we've gotten from everyone has been incredible. It seems like almost every gamer and press guy is a fan of the original, and are really looking forward to what we're going to do with it, and really looking forward to seeing Fallout return to a new era of gaming. I think the hardcore fans are incredibly misunderstood, and frankly, have been mistreated in the past. We've been reading the forums a lot and much of our thinking on Fallout 3 is just listening to experiences people had with the other games, like how those games made them feel, what they liked and disliked about every Fallout game. The reason we wanted to make a Fallout game in the first place, was just how much we loved the first game. But we weren't the ones online posting all the time about a game from 97. Think about that...8 years later and they still haven't gotten a decent Fallout RPG, and people keep shoving crap at them. I'd be pissed too. I'd be wary of the new guys from Bethesda too. Hopefully when they see our game they'll give it a shot. (ref) Bethesda's Pete Hines on the mixed emotions surrounding Fallout 3: "We've said this before and we'll say this again: not everybody is going to agree with the game we are making: it's a solid-gold lock," exclaims a tired and emotional Pete Hines when we ask him about the forthcoming Fallout 3. He's just spent a long day plugging the hugely anticipated Oblivion expansion Shivering Isles and the inevitable query about Bethesda's 'other' RPG has reared it's head. "Some people will like it, some people will hate it, and they don't even know what we're doing yet!" (...) Hines, however seems to think it inevitable that no matter how happy Bethesda are with their offering, there are bound to be murmurs of discontent from the more radiation-soaked parts of the Internet. "People will have to take it for what it is. If they like it, great, if they don't like it... Well some folks just aren't going to give it a chance out of the box. And you know what? That's your choice. If you don't want to give it a shot, there's nothing we can do about that..." (ref) Miscellaneous: Fallout 3 is a game that fans of the series have been waiting for for some time. Are you as nervous about, as you are excited by, the prospect of delivering the game? Pete Hines: Not nervous at all. We're excited by the prospect, Fallout is a great property. You've said in a recent interview that you've actually spoken internally for a number of years about how Bethesda could create a great Fallout game. Now that you have the license, will some of those discussions be brought to fruition, and can you give us any details on what precisely has been discussed previously? Pete Hines, Bethesda: Really I was referring to the fact that in talking about starting another internal development team, we had talked about wanting to do another RPG that was similar but different, and wouldn't it be great if we could do the next Fallout. Why buy the Fallout license? Pete Hines, Bethesda: I think it was more about our internal discussions about what kind of game we thought we could do, and do really well. There are any number of available RPG licenses out there, as well as the opportunity to implement any number of our own original ideas, but at the end of the day we really wanted the chance to make Fallout 3, so that's what we're going to do. Pete Hines, Bethesda: Fallout is something we've talked about internally for a long time. I'm pretty sure we made the initial approach. I don't remember when. I believe it was something we talked about with our president, Vlatko, at one point, who probably made the initial contact. Again, it's something that has been brought up internally, every now and then, for a long time. We're big fans of the Fallout franchise and think it's a good fit for our skills and what we do well. Simply put, we think we can make a great Fallout 3 that lots and lots of people will want to buy. Website chính thức của Fallout 3 có link sau : http://fallout.bethsoft.com/ ___________________________ -Tin mới từ web của Fallout 3 : Công bố danh sách những nơi đã truy cập để lấy tin tức của Fallout 3 tinh từ hôm nay Previews 1up ActionTrip (E3 2007) Armchair Empire (E3 2007) BBPS (E3 2007) Bit-Tech (E3 2007) Critical Hits Destructoid Electric Playground (E3 2007) Escapist magazine (E3 2007) Eurogamer Evil Avatar FileFront (E3 2007) Firing Squad (E3 2007) GAF GameDaily Game Helper Game Informer Games Radar Game Revolution Gamernode (E3 2007) GamersInfo (E3 2007) Gameshark (E3 2007) Gamespot Gamespy Gamespy (E3 2007) GameZone (E3 2007) Gaming Nexus Gaming Trend (E3 2007) GayGamer (E3 2007) GGL GIN Grrlgamer (E3 2007) GWN (E3 2007) IGN IGN (E3 2007) Infuze (E3 2007) Joystiq Joystiq (E3 2007) Kotaku Kotaku (E3 2007) MyTELUS (E3 2007) NextGen PC Gamer UK PCZone PC Powerplay Australia PlayFeed (E3 2007) RPGamer (E3 2007) RPGFan (E3 2007) RPGVault Shacknews Silicon Era (E3 2007) Team Xbox Team Xbox (E3 2007) Twitch Gamer (E3 2007) Voodoo Extreme Worthplaying Yahoo Interviews Critical Hits - Todd Howard, Emil Pagliarulo, and Pete Hines Duck and Cover - Todd Howard Eurogamer - Emil Pagiarulo and Gavin Carter G4TV - Todd Howard Gamehelper - Todd Howard Game Informer - Todd Howard and Istvan Pely Game Tactics - Emil Pagiarulo GameTrailers - Gavin Carter IGN - Todd Howard IGN - Emil Pagiarulo (E3 2007) Jörg Spielt - Pete Hines Major Nelson podcast - Pete Hines NeoGAF - Pete Hines, Todd Howard, Emil Pagliarulo RPGamer - Emil Pagiarulo SPOnG - Pete Hines StrategyCore - Emil Pagiarulo Xbox Evolved - Emil Pagiarulo Deutsch 4players Buffed Gamestar Gamestar (E3 2007) Golem Krawall (E3 2007) PC Games Español 3D Jeugos François Clubic (E3 2007) Gaming Trend (E3 2007) (translation) Jeuxvideo (E3 2007) Nederlands Inside Gamer Power Unlimited Polski CD-Action Gry Online (E3 2007) Русский Игромания Лучшие Компьютерные Игры PC Gamer RU Website chính thức của Fallout 3 có link sau : http://fallout.bethsoft.com/ ___________________________ -Tin mới từ web của Fallout 3 : Tin từ Box của Fallout 3 : Đã lấy được văn bản đánh máy việc có sự xuất hiện của Fallout MMOG ( thể loại Online ) sau Fallout 3 -----BEGIN PRIVACY-ENHANCED MESSAGE----- Proc-Type: 2001,MIC-CLEAR Originator-Name: webmaster@www.sec.gov Originator-Key-Asymmetric: MFgwCgYEVQgBAQICAf8DSgAwRwJAW2sNKK9AVtBzYZmr6aGjlWyK3XmZv3dTINen TWSM7vrzLADbmYQaionwg5sDW3P6oaM5D3tdezXMm7z1T+B+twIDAQAB MIC-Info: RSA-MD5,RSA, DsKbOgmik/Kz/EgndH+ParyHbFeOFrNeu+Ut9uPns4XaJagngseJjVf5bVo5rULL VRkJFCOdu7mitbUgA89ZhQ== <SEC-DOCUMENT>0001170918-07-000324.txt : 20070412 <SEC-HEADER>0001170918-07-000324.hdr.sgml : 20070412 <ACCEPTANCE-DATETIME>20070412135135 ACCESSION NUMBER: 0001170918-07-000324 CONFORMED SUBMISSION TYPE: 8-K PUBLIC DOCUMENT COUNT: 2 CONFORMED PERIOD OF REPORT: 20070409 ITEM INFORMATION: Entry into a Material Definitive Agreement ITEM INFORMATION: Financial Statements and Exhibits FILED AS OF DATE: 20070412 DATE AS OF CHANGE: 20070412 FILER: COMPANY DATA: COMPANY CONFORMED NAME: INTERPLAY ENTERTAINMENT CORP CENTRAL INDEX KEY: 0001057232 STANDARD INDUSTRIAL CLASSIFICATION: SERVICES-PREPACKAGED SOFTWARE [7372] IRS NUMBER: 330102707 STATE OF INCORPORATION: DE FISCAL YEAR END: 1231 FILING VALUES: FORM TYPE: 8-K SEC ACT: 1934 Act SEC FILE NUMBER: 000-24363 FILM NUMBER: 07763218 BUSINESS ADDRESS: STREET 1: 1682 LANGLEY AVE CITY: IRVINE STATE: CA ZIP: 92614 BUSINESS PHONE: 3104321958 MAIL ADDRESS: STREET 1: 1682 LANGLEY AVE CITY: IRVINE STATE: CA ZIP: 92614 </SEC-HEADER> <DOCUMENT> <TYPE>8-K <SEQUENCE>1 <FILENAME>fm8k-040907.txt <TEXT> UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION WASHINGTON, DC 20549 FORM 8-K CURRENT REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(D) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 Date of report (Date of earliest event reported): APRIL 9, 2007 ------------------------ INTERPLAY ENTERTAINMENT CORPORATION - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Exact Name of Registrant as Specified in Its Charter) DELAWARE - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (State or Other Jurisdiction of Incorporation) 0-24363 33-0102707 - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Commission File Number) (IRS Employer Identification No.) 100 NORTH CRESCENT DRIVE, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA 90210 - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Address of Principal Executive Offices) (Zip Code) (310) 432 1958 - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Registrant's Telephone Number, Including Area Code) N/A - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Former Name or Former Address, if Changed Since Last Report) Check the appropriate box below if the Form 8-K filing is intended to simultaneously satisfy the filing obligation of the registrant under any of the following provisions (SEE General Instruction A.2. below): |_| Written communications pursuant to Rule 425 under the Securities Act (17 CFR 230.425) |_| Soliciting material pursuant to Rule 14a-12 under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14a-12) |_| Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 14d-2(b) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14d-2(b)) |_| Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 13e-4(c) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.13e-4(c)) <PAGE> ITEM 1.01. ENTRY INTO A MATERIAL DEFINITIVE AGREEMENT As of April 4, 2007, the Company entered into, an Asset Purchase Agreement (the "APA") and a Trademark License Agreement (the "License Back") with Bethesda Softworks LLC, a video game developer and publisher ("Bethesda"), regarding "FALLOUT", an intellectual property which was owned by the Company (the "IP"). Although such agreements were signed on April 4, 2007 they were agreed not to be binding until closing which occurred on April 9, 2007. Under the APA, the Company sold all of its rights to the IP to Bethesda for a total amount of $5,750,000.00 payable to the Company, subject to various conditions, in three cash installments. The first installment of $2,000,000.00 was paid following closing when $200,000.00 was paid to the Company and $1,800,000.00 was deposited into an escrow account to satisfy various liabilities. The Company expects to have fulfilled its obligations under the APA and to receive full payment during the third quarter of 2007. The Company had previously, on June 29, 2004, entered into, an exclusive licensing agreement with Bethesda, regarding the IP which was superseded by the APA. Under the License Back the Company obtained an exclusive license, under certain conditions, to use the IP for the purpose of developing an Interplay branded Fallout Massively Multiplayer Online Game ("MMOG"). ITEM 9.01 FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AND EXHIBITS (d) Exhibits. 10.49 Trademark License Agreement by and between Bethesda Softworks LLC and the Company dated as of April 4, 2007 2 <PAGE> SIGNATURES Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned hereunto duly authorized. INTERPLAY ENTERTAINMENT CORPORATION Dated: April 12, 2007 By: /S/HERVE CAEN ------------------------------------- Herve Caen Chief Executive Officer and Interim Chief Financial Officer 3 </TEXT> </DOCUMENT> <DOCUMENT> <TYPE>EX-10 <SEQUENCE>2 <FILENAME>ex10-49.txt <DESCRIPTION>EX-10.49 <TEXT> EXHIBIT 10.49 TRADEMARK LICENSE AGREEMENT THIS TRADEMARK LICENSE AGREEMENT (this "AGREEMENT") is made and entered into as of April 4, 2007 (the "EFFECTIVE DATE") by and between (i) BETHESDA SOFTWORKS LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, wholly owned by ZeniMax Media Inc., a Delaware corporation, having its principal place of business located at 1370 Piccard Drive, Suite 120, Rockville, MD 20850 ("BETHESDA") and (ii) INTERPLAY ENTERTAINMENT CORP., a Delaware corporation having its principal place of business located at 100 North Crescent Drive, Suite 324, Beverly Hills, CA 90210 ("INTERPLAY"). Bethesda and Interplay are collectively referred to herein as the "PARTIES" or individually as a "PARTY". RECITALS A. Bethesda acquired all right, title and interest in the FALLOUT trademarks specified in Schedule l hereto (collectively the "LICENSED MARKS") from Interplay under an Asset Purchase Agreement between Bethesda and Interplay, dated as of April 4, 2007 ("APA"). B. Interplay wishes to use the Licensed Marks solely in connection with the development and implementation of a Massively Multiplayer Online Game (as defined below). C. Bethesda, as the owner of the Licensed Marks, is willing to grant Interplay a license strictly limited in duration and scope to use the Licensed Marks in compliance with the terms and conditions of this Agreement. NOW THEREFORE, in consideration of the foregoing and the promises and mutual covenants of the parties, and for other good and valuable consideration, the receipt and sufficiency of which are hereby acknowledged, the parties, intending to be legally bound, agree as follows: 1.0 DEFINITION. The term "MMOG" means a Massively Multiplayer Online Game that is a type of computer video game for large communal use that (i) is only played and accessed via the Internet and is not playable off-line in any manner whatsoever, (ii) is only functional as an MMOG and does not work as a single player game or as a game with 100 or fewer players, (iii) enables at least 1,000 players to interact simultaneously in the game world online and remains live 24 hours a day/7 days a week, (iv) requires all players to pay a monthly subscription service fee or some similar ongoing method for billing players for participation in the game world online for the express purpose of obtaining and continuing on-line access to the game's core experience (except during any applicable user trial period), (v) contains content that is maintained only on dedicated servers by the offeror of the MMOG; and (vi) is not played on online game services of console manufacturers (such as Xbox Live from Microsoft). 2.0 LICENSE. 2.1 GRANT OF LICENSE. Subject to the terms and conditions set forth in this Agreement, Bethesda grants to Interplay an exclusive, non-transferable license and right to use Page 1 of 11 <PAGE> the Licensed Marks on and in connection with Interplay's FALLOUT-branded MMOG (the "FALLOUT MMOG" or "LICENSED PRODUCT") and for no other purpose. The conditional license herein does not grant Interplay any right to sublicense any of the licensed rights without Bethesda's prior written approval. 2.2 TERRITORY. Worldwide. Interplay agrees to comply with all applicable laws and regulations pertaining to the use and designation of trademarks in the territory, and to refrain from any action that may or would adversely affect the right of Bethesda to the FALLOUT trademarks. 2.3 MMOG DEVELOPMENT. To retain its license rights under this Agreement, Interplay agrees that (i) full-scale development of its FALLOUT MMOG will commence within twenty-four (24) months of the Effective Date of this Agreement (such commencement date defined herein as the "MMOG DEVELOPMENT COMMENCEMENT DATE") and (ii) by the MMOG Development Commencement Date, Interplay will have secured financing for the FALLOUT MMOG in an amount no less than US$30,000,000.00 ("MINIMUM Financing"). In the event that within this 24-month period Interplay has failed to commence full-scale development of its FALLOUT MMOG or has failed to secure the Minimum Financing, Interplay will immediately lose and permanently forfeit its license rights under this Agreement and the license rights automatically shall end, be void and otherwise terminate on the anniversary date of the second year after the Effective Date and this Agreement shall no longer remain in effect. 2.4 MMOG COMMERCIAL LAUNCH. In the event that within the first 24 months after the Effective Date Interplay has commenced full-scale development of its FALLOUT MMOG and has secured the Minimum Financing, to retain its license rights under this Agreement Interplay must, in addition, Commercially Launch (as defined below) the FALLOUT MMOG within four (4) years of the MMOG Development Commencement Date. In the event that within the first 24 months after the Effective Date Interplay has commenced full-scale development of its FALLOUT MMOG and has secured the Minimum Financing but has failed to Commercially Launch the FALLOUT MMOG within the first 4 years after the MMOG Development Commencement Date, Interplay will immediately lose and permanently forfeit its license rights under this Agreement and the license rights automatically shall end, be void and otherwise terminate on the anniversary date of the fourth year after the MMOG Development Commencement Date and this Agreement shall no longer remain in effect; PROVIDED, HOWEVER, that if at the expiration of such 4-year period, Interplay has failed to Commercially Launch the FALLOUT MMOG but is actively engaged in development efforts of such MMOG and certifies to Bethesda in writing its good faith belief that it will Commercially Launch the FALLOUT MMOG within 12 months after the conclusion of such 4-year period, then the period for Commercial Launch shall be extended by one (1) year. If Interplay has failed to Commercially Launch the FALLOUT MMOG by the expiration of such extended period, Interplay shall immediately lose and permanently forfeit its license rights under this Agreement and the license rights automatically shall end, be void and otherwise terminate on the anniversary date of the fifth year after the MMOG Development Commencement Date and this Agreement shall no longer be in effect. Bethesda agrees to negotiate in good faith whether or not to grant any further extension beyond five years after the MMOG Development Commencement Date. "COMMERCIALLY LAUNCH" means that Interplay has offered its FALLOUT MMOG for sale to the public in major markets in North America and Europe and that such FALLOUT MMOG has and continues to maintain a minimum of 10,000 paying subscribers. Page 2 of 11 <PAGE> 2.5 CONTINUING COMMERCIAL AVAILABILITY. If at any time after the Commercial Launch of its FALLOUT MMOG, Interplay fails to operate and keep its FALLOUT MMOG commercially available for any consecutive three (3) month period, Interplay will immediately lose and permanently forfeit its license rights under this Agreement and the license rights automatically shall end, be void and otherwise terminate upon the expiration of such three month period and this Agreement shall no longer remain in effect. 2.6 RESERVATION OF RIGHTS. Any and all rights not explicitly granted to Interplay hereunder are reserved by Bethesda. 3.0 OWNERSHIP. 3.1 SOLE OWNER. Interplay acknowledges and agrees that, as between the parties, Bethesda is the sole and exclusive owner of the Licensed Marks. Bethesda may, in its sole discretion, maintain or discontinue the maintenance of any applications and registrations for the Marks or seek registration for any Licensed Mark at any time. 3.2 NO ASSIGNMENT. Nothing contained in this Agreement shall be construed as an assignment to Interplay of any right, title, or interest in or to the Licensed Marks. Interplay recognizes and acknowledges that the Licensed Marks and all rights therein and goodwill pertaining thereto solely and exclusively belong to Bethesda and that all uses of the Licensed Marks by Interplay shall inure to the benefit of Bethesda. Interplay shall not directly or indirectly attack or impair the title of Bethesda to the Licensed Marks, the validity of this Agreement, or any of Bethesda's registrations or applications relating to any Licensed Mark in any jurisdiction. Interplay agrees it shall not file any state, federal, or foreign applications to register any of the Licensed Marks, in whole or in part, or any name or mark confusingly similar thereto in any jurisdiction. 3.3 FURTHER ASSISTANCE. Interplay shall, upon request of Bethesda, execute any documents that may be deemed necessary or desirable by Bethesda to use the Licensed Marks in conformity with any nation's laws, including whatever documents that may be necessary to record Interplay as a user or licensee of the Licensed Marks anywhere in the world. 3.4 INTERPLAY-DERIVED MMOG ELEMENTS. In the event this Agreement terminates prior to the Commercial Launch of the FALLOUT MMOG, Bethesda agrees that nothing in this Agreement limits or is intended to limit the rights of Interplay to use in a non-FALLOUT MMOG, INTER ALIA, any or all locations, graphic representations, creatures, monsters, names, likenesses, behaviors, religions, deities, environments, legends, fairy tales, stories, universes, character classes or character professions that are in the public domain, are owned by any entity other than Bethesda and/or its affiliates and/or licensors or otherwise are not subject to copyright or trademark protection. For purposes of a non-FALLOUT MMOG, Interplay shall own all rights in any computer software code (object or source code), game play software routines, game or graphics engines, as well as any designs, likenesses, sound and visual representations or other intellectual property rights that are created after the Effective Date by or on behalf of Interplay and which do not include, refer or relate to the Licensed Marks (the "INTERPLAY-DERIVED MMOG ELEMENTS"), provided, however, that the Interplay-Derived MMOG Elements do not use, incorporate, trade on or otherwise exploit any Fallout-related Page 3 of 11 <PAGE> intellectual property created by Interplay or by Bethesda or by their respective parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, successors or assigns, including without limitation any Fallout artwork, locations, graphic representations, story lines, creatures, monsters, names, likenesses, behaviors, environments (e.g., vaults), universes, settings, legends, characters, character classes, character professions, packaging, advertisements, text and translations, and any and all Fallout proprietary characters, trademarks, copyrights and artwork listed in Exhibit C-2 to the APA, it being understood and agreed by the parties that all such property is and shall remain exclusively owned by Bethesda. Interplay shall be free to continue to exploit the Interplay-Derived MMOG Elements or not, at will and in its sole discretion as provided herein. Subject to the foregoing, each party reserves and expressly does not waive any rights that either may have to take action against the other for copyright infringement, trademark infringement, dilution, unfair competition, false advertising and/or any related claims in connection with the other's exercise of the rights available herein. 4.0 USE OF LICENSED MARKS. Provided Interplay fulfills the conditions set forth in Sections 2.3, 2.4 and 2.5 of this Agreement, Interplay is granted the right to use the Licensed Marks but only in connection with Interplay's FALLOUT MMOG. Interplay agrees not to use the Licensed Marks in conjunction with or connection to any other products or marketing materials. 5.0 QUALITY CONTROL. 5.1 GENERAL. 5.1.1 Interplay acknowledges the importance to Bethesda of its reputation and goodwill and to the public of maintaining high, uniform standards of quality in the Licensed Product provided under the Licensed Marks as well as related marketing and advertising materials used in connection with the Licensed Marks. 5.1.2 Interplay warrants that the Licensed Product shall meet or exceed such quality standards as may be set by Bethesda from time to time. Without limiting the foregoing, the Licensed Product shall be the same quality as, or exceed in quality, the quality of the Licensed Product in connection with which Bethesda has used the Licensed Marks after the Effective Date. 5.1.3 Interplay agrees that it shall manufacture, sell, provide, distribute, advertise, and promote the Licensed Product in accordance with all applicable federal, state, national, territorial and local laws, regulations, standards and industry codes. Interplay agrees to make or obtain, at its expense, all necessary governmental approvals, filings, and/or registrations with respect to Interplay's rights to manufacture, sell, distribute, provide, advertise, and promote the Licensed Product. 5.2 FORM OF USE. Interplay shall affix or otherwise display the Licensed Marks in conformance with Bethesda's standards and guidelines, as such may be further developed or amended from time to time, including any manuals that are established or approved by Bethesda, and any other specifications as may be prescribed by Bethesda to promote and foster the goodwill represented by the Licensed Marks. Interplay shall use the Licensed Marks with appropriate legends as prescribed by Bethesda and shall not use any other trademark or Page 4 of 11 <PAGE> service mark (other than Interplay's INTERPLAY marks) in combination with any of the Licensed Marks without prior written approval of Bethesda. 5.3 INSPECTION AND SAMPLES. 5.3.1 Interplay agrees to cooperate with Bethesda in facilitating Bethesda's control and maintenance of the nature and quality of the Licensed Product. Bethesda shall have the right to inspect, during normal business hours and upon two (2) days prior notice, Interplay's places of business and the Licensed Product. 5.3.2 Interplay shall not offer or provide any products or services whose nature or quality does not comply with the quality standards of Bethesda. 5.3.3 Interplay shall adhere to the standards and guidelines referenced in Section 5.2 with respect to all signage, packaging, advertising and promotional materials bearing the Licensed Marks. Interplay shall submit to Bethesda for its prior written approval, specimens or facsimiles of all signage, packaging, advertising and promotional materials bearing the Licensed Marks. 5.4 CONTENT. Interplay agrees that the Licensed Product shall not contain any material offensive to Bethesda, including, without limitation, nudity and offensive language or behavior. In any event, Interplay agrees that prior to release of the Licensed Product such final version of the Licensed Product shall be approved by Bethesda in writing, which approval shall not be unreasonably withheld. 5.5 CONFUSINGLY SIMILAR MARKS. Interplay agrees not to adopt or use any other trademark, word, symbol, letter, design or mark that is confusingly similar to the Licensed Mark. Interplay may use the Licensed Mark with other marks or names sufficiently separated from the Licensed Mark and sufficiently distinctive to avoid the consumer impression that such other marks or their owners are associated with Bethesda. 6.0 SERVICES TO BETHESDA. Interplay shall, at its own cost and expense, provide certain assistance to Bethesda in its efforts to develop, register, police and enforce Bethesda's rights in and to the Licensed Marks, and any New Properties, and the rights granted to Interplay hereunder, as described in this Section 6. 6.1 REGISTRATION. Interplay shall provide cooperation and assistance to Bethesda in its efforts to register the Licensed Marks in the United States and other territories. For example, and without limitation, Interplay shall provide to Bethesda specimens and dates of first use upon request by Bethesda. 6.2 ENFORCEMENT. Interplay shall regularly monitor the marketplace to detect potentially infringing or non-conforming uses of the Licensed Marks. Interplay shall promptly notify Bethesda of any apparent infringement of or challenge to Interplay's use of any of the Licensed Marks, or claim by any person of any rights in any of the Licensed Marks. Bethesda shall have discretion to take such action as it deems appropriate and the right to exclusively control any litigation, Patent and Trademark Office proceeding or other proceeding arising out of any such infringement, challenge or claim. Interplay agrees to execute any and all instruments Page 5 of 11 <PAGE> and documents and to do such acts and things as, in the opinion of Bethesda's counsel, may be reasonably necessary or advisable to protect and maintain the interests of Bethesda in the Licensed Marks. Bethesda shall incur no liability to Interplay by reason of Bethesda's failure or refusal to prosecute, or by Bethesda's refusal to permit Interplay to prosecute, any alleged infringement by third parties, nor by reason of any settlement to which Bethesda may agree. 6.3 POWER OF ATTORNEY. In the event Interplay fails or refuses to execute any document or other writing required under Section 3.3, 3.4 or 6 to fully effect the rights of Bethesda in the Licensed Marks and/or the New Properties, Interplay hereby irrevocably appoints Bethesda as its special attorney-in-fact, coupled with an interest, for the limited purpose and to the extent necessary to execute, record and file any such document or writing. 7.0 PAYMENT OF ROYALTIES. Interplay agrees to pay Bethesda a Royalty of twelve percent (12%) of the Net Cash Receipts derived from the sale and distribution of the FALLOUT MMOG, including sales of subscription fees or access fees to the FALLOUT MMOG or any other revenues generated by the FALLOUT MMOG, in the Territory during each calendar quarter following the commercial launch of the FALLOUT MMOG. The term "Net Cash Receipts" shall mean the monies actually collected by Interplay from the sale and distribution of the FALLOUT MMOG or use of the FALLOUT MMOG in the Territory ("TOTAL CASH RECEIPTS") less: (i) Exploitation costs, including but not limited to all costs of goods (materials, manufacture and assembly of any final packaged goods), testing and quality assurance, platform manufacture royalties, internet service fees, and sales expenses; (ii) Marketing expenditures, including paid ads, promotions, and co-ops; (iii) Any taxes (such as value added taxes), duties and the like on the sale of the FALLOUT MMOG or access to the FALLOUT MMOG in any form or manner (excluding taxes on Interplay's net income); (iv) Allowances for trade discounts, price protections and credits, rebates or returns with respect to the sale the FALLOUT MMOG; (v) Sales commissions, similar fees, compensation and directly related costs paid to third party sales representatives or rack servicers; (vi) Insurance, packing, custom duties, shipping and procurement charges; (vii) Promotional amounts, such as credits, cash discounts, freight discounts, rebates or promotional allowances to customers; and (viii) Amount for returns, such as credits, refunds or allowances. 8.0 REPORTS AND AUDIT. 8.1 QUARTERLY REPORTS. Interplay agrees to provide Bethesda with a written royalty report forty-five (45) days following the end of each calendar quarter (the "QUARTERLY REPORT") following the commercial launch of the FALLOUT MMOG, which report shall include the following information: (i) Total Cash Receipts for the FALLOUT MMOG - launch to date; (ii) Less Deductions for the FALLOUT MMOG under section 7.0 above; (iii) Net Cash Receipts; (iv) Total launch-to-date Royalties earned; (v) Less any prior period Royalty payments made; Page 6 of 11 <PAGE> (vi) Royalties for the Quarter (item (iv) minus item (v)). (vii) Less ten percent (10%) of the Royalties for the Quarter as a reserve, adjusted quarterly, for returns and cancellations; (viii) Net Royalties due for the Quarter. Simultaneous with its delivery of a Quarterly Report, Interplay shall pay the Royalties due for the calendar quarter. In the event that Interplay does not make payment, Interplay shall pay Bethesda one percent (1%) per month up to a maximum of five percent (5%) of the Royalties due. Interplay shall not be required to submit Quarterly Reports regarding the FALLOUT MMOG receipts if there have been no sales or distribution of the FALLOUT MMOG for more than two (2) calendar quarters. 8.2 AUDIT RIGHTS. Interplay agrees that an independent accountant selected and appointed by Bethesda may, no more than twice per year at Bethesda's cost and upon fifteen (15) business days' prior written notice to Interplay, inspect, examine and otherwise audit ("AUDIT") the books and records of Interplay (and any applicable subsidiary or affiliate) for the purpose of determining the accuracy of Interplay's Quarterly Reports. Interplay shall cooperate fully with any such Audit and promptly make available to persons conducting the Audit all records and documents relating to sales, fees and any other revenues of, or generated by, the MMOG, which Bethesda advises it needs to complete the Audit in a thorough and comprehensive manner. Should the Audit establish that Interplay's payments made to Bethesda under this Agreement should have been five percent (5%) or more in amount, then in addition to promptly paying the additional Royalties, plus interest computed at one and a half percent (1.5%) per month Interplay shall pay the cost of the Audit. 9.0 TERMINATION. 9.1 Bethesda shall have the right to terminate this Agreement at any time, upon written notice to Interplay, if Interplay fails to make any payment due hereunder, maintain the quality of the Licensed Product in accordance with the provisions hereof, follow Bethesda's instructions regarding the appropriate display and use of the Licensed Marks, or perform or comply with any term, condition, or standard set forth in this Agreement, and if such failure is not cured within thirty (30) days after Bethesda provides written notice of such failure to Interplay. 9.2 Bethesda may terminate this Agreement at its option, effective immediately upon written notice to Interplay, in the event (x) of the reorganization, consolidation or merger of Interplay or of another entity into Interplay, (y) of the transfer of all or substantially all of the assets of Interplay to another entity, or (z) Interplay becomes subject to any proceedings under any bankruptcy or insolvency law, whether domestic or foreign. 9.3 EFFECT OF TERMINATION. 9.3.1 Upon the expiration or termination of this Agreement, except as otherwise provided herein, any monies, including royalty payments, due and payable hereunder to Bethesda as of the date of expiration or termination shall be paid in full. Page 7 of 11 <PAGE> 9.3.2 Within thirty (30) days after termination of this Agreement, Interplay shall provide Bethesda with a complete schedule of all materials bearing the Licensed Marks then on hand or in inventory (including inventory of its subcontractors or agents) including, but not limited to, the Licensed Product, packaging, and advertising and promotional materials. Upon request and at Bethesda's sole discretion, Interplay promptly shall deliver to Bethesda or dispose of at the direction of Bethesda, without charge, all existing inventory of Licensed Product bearing the Licensed Marks within its possession or control, all related materials bearing the Licensed Marks, and instruments used for the purposes of affixing or displaying the Licensed Marks, including, but not limited to, artwork, transparencies, negatives, dies, molds and screens, for disposition by Bethesda, along with copies of all inventory records relating thereto. 9.3.3 Except as otherwise permitted under this Section 9, upon the expiration or termination of this Agreement, Interplay shall cease to use the Licensed Marks in any manner and shall not thereafter use the Licensed Marks, or any other trade name or trademark comprised in whole or in part of any Licensed Mark or that is similar to any Licensed Mark. 9.3.4 Upon the expiration or termination of this Agreement, Interplay shall, within ninety (90) days of the date of termination or expiration of this Agreement wind down the operation of the FALLOUT MMOG and terminate any and all User Agreements. 9.3.5 Interplay hereby acknowledges the irreparable harm that Bethesda will incur from any unauthorized use of the Licensed Marks. Interplay expressly agrees that, notwithstanding any termination or expiration of this Agreement, Bethesda, in addition to all other remedies, shall be entitled to seek temporary, preliminary and permanent injunctive relief to prohibit the unlawful or unauthorized use of the Licensed Marks. 9.3.6 Upon the expiration or termination of this Agreement or upon the losing, forfeiting, ceasing, voiding, or otherwise terminating of this Agreement or any part of this Agreement and notwithstanding anything to the contrary herein or in any other agreement between the parties, the provisions of Section 3.4 of this Agreement shall survive and remain in full force and effect. 10.0 INDEMNIFICATION. Interplay agrees to indemnify Bethesda and its affiliates, parent and their respective directors, officers, agents and employees and to hold each of them harmless in all respects, including attorneys' fees, from and against any claims, demands, suits or causes of action and resulting settlements, awards or judgments arising out of any act or alleged activity of Interplay in connection with this Agreement including any defects or alleged defects in the Licensed Product. This indemnity shall survive the termination of this Agreement. 11.0 SUCCESSORS AND ASSIGNS. Interplay may not assign its rights or delegate its duties under this Agreement without the prior written consent of Bethesda. Bethesda has the unrestricted right to assign its rights or delegate its duties under this Agreement to any person or entity. This Agreement will be binding on, inure to the benefit of and be enforceable against the parties and their respective permitted successors and assigns. Page 8 of 11 <PAGE> 12.0 NOTICES. All notices and other communications required or permitted to be given under this Agreement shall be in writing and delivered by overnight courier to the addresses set forth below or to such other addresses specified by the parties: To Bethesda: Vlatko Andonov President Bethesda Softworks LLC 1370 Piccard Drive, Suite 120 Rockville, MD 20850 Tel: 301 926 8300; Fax: 301 926 8010 with a copy to: J. Griffin Lesher Executive Vice President-Legal ZeniMax Media Inc. 1370 Piccard Drive, Suite 120 Rockville, MD 20850 Tel: 301 963 2000; Fax: 301 990 7025 To Interplay: Herve Caen Chief Executive Officer Interplay Entertainment Corp. 100 North Crescent Drive, Suite 324 Beverly Hills, CA 90210 Tel: 310 432 1955; Fax: 310 432 1959 13.0 GOVERNING LAWS. This Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Delaware without reference to its choice of law rules. Each of Bethesda and Interplay agrees that the sole and exclusive jurisdiction and venue of any action or litigation arising from or relating to this Agreement shall be the courts located in the State of Maryland. 14.0 ALL AMENDMENTS IN WRITING. No supplement, modification, or amendment of this Agreement shall be binding, unless executed in writing by a duly authorized representative of each party to this Agreement. 15.0 NO WAIVER. A failure of any party to exercise any right provided for herein shall not be deemed to be a waiver of any right hereunder. 16.0 ENTIRE AGREEMENT. The parties have read this Agreement and agree to be bound by its terms, and further agree that it constitutes the complete and entire agreement of the parties and supersedes all and merges all previous communications, oral or written, and all other communications among them relating to the subject matter hereof. No representations or statements of any kind made by any party that are not expressly stated herein shall be binding on such party. Any modifications or amendments to this Agreement shall be binding upon the parties only if they are made in writing and properly executed on behalf of the respective parties. Page 9 of 11 <PAGE> 17.0 SEVERABILITY. In the event that any provision of this Agreement is held invalid by a court with jurisdiction over the parties, such provision shall be deemed to be restated to be enforceable, in a manner which reflects, as nearly as possible, the original intentions of the parties in accordance with applicable law. The remainder of this Agreement shall remain in full force and effect. 18.0 EXECUTION AND EFFECTIVE DATE. This Agreement may be signed using one or more counterparts, each of which when signed shall be deemed to be an original and all of which when taken together shall constitute one and the same instrument. This Agreement shall be enforceable upon the exchange of facsimile signatures and shall be effective on the date of the last signature, which shall also be the Effective Date first written above. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, intending to be legally bound, the parties have caused this Agreement to be executed by their authorized representatives. Bethesda Softworks LLC Interplay Entertainment Corp. By: /s/ Vlatko Andonov By: /s/ Herve Caen --------------------------- -------------------------- Name: Vlatko Andonov Name: Herve Caen Title: President Title: Chief Executive Officer Date: Date: ------------------------- ------------------------ Page 10 of 11 <PAGE> SCHEDULE 1 LISTING OF LICENSED TRADEMARKS FALLOUT Page 11 of 11 </TEXT> </DOCUMENT> </SEC-DOCUMENT> -----END PRIVACY-ENHANCED MESSAGE----- Chú ý : Việc tuần trước thông tin post lên chưa đủ bằng chứng xác thực truyện này nên đã được các fan của Fallout 3 đi kiểm chứng ... tất cả các bài viết post trên đây phải hoàn toàn khớp với nội dung của khổ chủ và phải có văn bản chứng minh hẳn hoi . Bàng không xẽ được coi là tin vịt ! Website chính thức của Fallout 3 có link sau : http://fallout.bethsoft.com/
chán bác HP quá, post bài như vậy thì ai đọc được, bác quote lại chỗ nào đáng chú ý thì tốt hơn ps: cái hình thằng mutant càng nhìn càng giống mấy thằng đột biến trong Doom chả thấy mùi Fallout đâu cả, chán nhỉ !
-Tin mới từ web của Fallout 3 : Fallout 3 đứa con ngoài cuộc của Besthada Speaking to CVG about--you guessed it--Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Bethesda's Pete Hines gave a brief statement on the status of Fallout 3, the post-apocalyptic PC game that was as humorous as it was involved. Hines noted that he is really excited by what he has seen so far, and that his team is "approaching Fallout 3 as if we developed the first and second games--we're developing it just like we developed Oblivion." Hines is hoping that Bethesda's final product that will "move the series forward...while staying true to its roots." The story of Fallout 3 is as long and involved as the plot of the original Fallout. The game, code-named Van Buren, went into production sometime after the 1998 release of Fallout 2. Developers Black Isle Studios, however, was closed down by Interplay in 2003, who later went bankrupt and sold the rights to Bethesda. Bethesda has been working on Fallout 3 since 2004. Does that qualify Fallout 3 as vaporware material? Hopefully we will know more about the title before too long. Hines has in the past stated that he plans to release Fallout 3 as a multi platform title. Website chính thức của Fallout 3 có link sau : http://fallout.bethsoft.com/
Chưa chơi Oblivion, nhưng qua chơi Morrowind thì chỉ có thể nói là cách làm của Bethesda khiến cho cái game lúc đầu hay, nhưng càng về sau càng thấy lạc lõng vì mức độ tự do cao nhứng ko có cách hướng người chơi vào mạch chính. Fallout 1 và 2 tuy là tự do nhưng ko khiến cho người chơi cảm thấy nản. Thật ra, lúc đầu đã tưởng tượng Fallout 3 sẽ kiểu như GTA San Andreas, thêm mấy cái perk và mấy mẩu đối thoại Chắc mình điên rồi...
Mịe , giờ chơi Fallout 3 thay vì dẫn Marcus , Sulik với Vic đi chơi gái thì dẫn vào hàng truyện tranh , 15+ thì lấy đâu ra Gigolo với Pornstar , càng theo dõi càng nản , ko Turn base , đồ họa nhìn thì đẹp đấy nhưng chẳng có tí gì gọi là Fallout cả ...chán , có khi còn chuyển sang Everyone cho cả các cháu mẫu giáo chơi nữa
-Tin mới từ web của Fallout 3 : "1UP " Cinematic Spot của Fallout 3 ... có ý kiến gì về cách chơi như xem phim ?!! Previews: Fallout 3 10 questions with the vault overseer. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Joe Rybicki 08/24/2007 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you've spent any time with The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, you know Emil Pagliarulo's work. He's the guy responsible for the Dark Brotherhood faction, often considered to be the best storyline in the game. Now Pagliarulo has moved up to the head chair, taking on the role of Lead Designer on Fallout 3, Bethesda's resurrection of the late-'90s PC classic. With Games Convention 2007 in full swing, we had the opportunity to grill him about the game, the franchise, and the fan response. Here's what he had to say: 1UP: In your debut presentation, you mentioned the ability to build your own weapons. Can you explain in a bit more detail how this works? Emil Pagliarulo: Sure thing. In Fallout 3, the player will come across schematics for different custom-made weapons. These might be found in different places in the world, or obtained as quest rewards. Each set of schematics lets you build a certain, pre-determined weapon, as long as you've got all the components, and most of the components are junk objects you'll find in the world. So, one weapon might require the brake assembly from an old motorcycle, and that's where you'll find it, near a destroyed motorcycle. Or maybe you need some surgical tubing, located in an abandoned hospital. Once you have the schematics and all the components, you can create the weapon, and your Repair skill dictates its condition. SCREENS: Click the image above to check out all Fallout 3 screens. 1UP: The "Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System" allows for very methodical combat. But you've mentioned that you don't need to use VATS at all. How viable an option is run-n-gun? EP: You can play the entire game in first- or third-person without ever going into VATS. We never actually force you into VATS for combat. So if you just want to point your weapon and pull the trigger, go for it. That said, the game is very much an RPG and not a straight FPS, so your effectiveness with any weapon is dictated by your skills, as well as the condition of the weapon. If you find a crappy laser pistol and you've completely ignored the Energy Weapons skill, don't expect to pull a Han Solo anytime soon, in or out of VATS. Personally, I use the run-n-gun method to take care of the weaker opponents, like Radroaches, and VATS for just about everything else; mostly because I've become addicted to the gory cinematic playback stuff. 1UP: You've mentioned that the game will have multiple endings, perhaps as many as a dozen. Without giving away any spoilers, can you explain the sorts of things that will affect which ending the player reaches? For example, will conversations affect the outcome of the game, or is it primarily larger-scale, world-shaking actions? EP: We went back and forth with the impact of dialogue on the character, and ultimately decided we didn't want to penalize or reward the player for carrying on a conversation. What you say and how you say it will certainly affect how NPCs react to you, and whether or not they'll give you quests, but not the ending of the game. [That] really depends on some of the big decisions you make during the course of the game, as well as your karma. And your karma changes based on your actions. So [if] you destroy Megaton [a city built around a supposedly inert atomic bomb], your karma plummets, so that will certainly affect the ending. But there are other moments too, key moments during the game, that greatly determine which ending you get. SCREENS: Click the image above to check out all Fallout 3 screens. 1UP: The Fallout community is very -- very -- vocal and defensive of the franchise. Why do you think the previous games have generated such a tenacious fanbase, especially in light of the disappointments of Fallout Tactics and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel? EP: Yeah, I mean, it's no secret that there's a hardcore Fallout fanbase that can be very vocal, very defensive, and very wary of any changes to the original game. But why is that the case? Who are these people, and what is it about Fallout that awakens such passion? In my experience, a lot of these ardent fans are old-school PC gamers who don't like many -- or any -- console games. So an amazing game like Fallout will sit on a hard drive for a long, long time. A fan will play it, then play it again, and then keep on playing it until their PC dies. That fosters a really unique, almost intimate relationship with a game. So it's no surprise they react they way they do when a company like Bethesda obtains the license, and then makes some significant changes. They're like "GINO" -- Galactica In Name Only -- those hardcore Battlestar Galactica fans who idolize the old show and despise the new one because it's so different. Some people get really attached to something and reject change. I understand their feelings and sympathize...but I'm not one of those people. 1UP: The idea of an Enclave-run radio station seems to have raised a few hackles among fans of the original game. Can you explain how this fits in with the Fallout canon? EP: I can...but I won't. That's one of the things we're just really not ready to talk about yet. Sorry! 1UP: You're paying homage to the original games, but making a game all your own. How do you balance these conflicting goals? EP: There came a point where I simply had to forget about paying homage to the original games and focus my attention on making our game. We've always got Fallout and Fallout 2 in the back of our minds. At this point, those games are just part of our collective consciousness. But right now, we have a vision, and we're sticking to it, and all of our attention is focused on making the best game we know how. We've accepted that we're making a Fallout sequel, and we're just moving ahead with making it. 1UP: You've said that there are essentially no downsides to reusing the Oblivion engine. Is there any way in which the success of Oblivion makes working on Fallout more challenging? EP: Well, not really! You know, it's great to have made a really popular, really successful game: It lets you make the next really popular, really successful game. At least, that's always the hope, isn't it? SCREENS: Click the image above to check out all Fallout 3 screens. It's also the reality of working in this business. So for me, anyway, success is never a burden. It means you've got an established fanbase who can't wait to see what you're going to do next. Expectation is high, so there's some pressure there, but it's the right kind of pressure. It drives you to succeed. 1UP: You're presumably working on the next Elder Scrolls alongside Fallout 3. Which is more of a challenge? That is to say, which is tougher: creating a sequel in someone else's universe, or developing a new game in your own franchise that's exciting and new? EP: Ha! Nothing could be further from my mind right now than another Elder Scrolls game. I am firmly entrenched in a world of robots, rust and laser guns. But the same question is still pretty applicable to working on Oblivion versus Fallout 3. For me personally, though, they're one in the same -- I'm injecting my own creative input into a series created by someone else. Same goes for the time I spent on the Thief series. I've had the incredible good fortune to be able to influence some of the best game franchises ever. In Oblivion, for example, the fiction of the Dark Brotherhood is pretty different from what had been presented before. I wanted to look at the guild from a different angle. In Fallout, my mindset is pretty much the same. How can I make this interesting? How can I make this fun? So really, the process for me is the same -- take what someone else has done, put my own spin on it, make it fun, and try really hard not to screw up. 1UP: Tell us a bit about your experience at E3. Did the reception surprise you? SCREENS: Click the image above to check out all Fallout 3 screens. EP: I hadn't been to E3 since the Atlanta days, and had never really been a fan of the circus-like atmosphere anyway. So this year's show in Santa Monica -- completely relaxed and, for us, all centralized in one location -- it was just awesome. The reaction to the game was just...it was amazing. You know, it's the type of thing where you're standing outside the demonstration theater, listening for the crowd's reaction. You're hoping they laugh at the right parts, cheer at the right parts. And they did, and it was the best feeling in the world. For us, E3 was a validation that we've made the right choices, and taken the game in the right direction. 1UP: You're developing a game, set in Washington, D.C., that includes guns and graphic violence, and it's releasing in an election year. Any concerns Fallout 3 will become the focus of political scrutiny? EP: Not unless our intrepid politicos are afraid of China or a sentient supercomputer nuking the world, or our nation's capital becoming overrun by hideous Super Mutants. Honestly, I think Fallout 3 falls so squarely in the realm of imaginative science fiction that you'd have to be an idiot to scrutinize the game's content as anything more than pure escapist, adult fantasy. I think it's different when a game's themes hit close to home -- when it's gangstas killing cops, or kids picking on each other at school, or soldiers at war in a political hotbed. Personally, I love all of that stuff in my games -- but those themes make it easy to identify certain games as being "realistic," and therefore easy to pick on. It's all about context. Everything in Fallout 3, from the ultra-violence to the use of buildings like the Washington Monument, is so far from ordinary that I can't see them as being issues. Then again, the D.C. brain trust isn't exactly known for getting videogames as an art form.... Website chính thức của Fallout 3 có link sau : http://fallout.bethsoft.com/ ___________________________ -Tin mới từ web của Fallout 3 : Megan Sawyer nói về Fallout 3 Today’s Inside the Vault is with Megan Sawyer. She spends much of her time on creating the “living” spaces of the world - cities, towns, and landscapes. If our team were to have super powers, one of them would be the ability to create large, beautiful environments for exploration. Megan helps make that happen. For those who might recognize Megan, she had a feature in the documentary included with the Collector’s Edition of Oblivion. What’s your job at Bethesda? I’m an environment artist. I work on everything from houses tolandscape textures. In Oblivion, I made the houses of Cheydinhal, sculpted the landscape around the whole city, created the bridges and cattails, and made the Dark Brotherhood entry door. I also created the landscape textures and overall feel of the Blackwood swamp region. Currently on Fallout I’ve worked on a few buildings, an area for the main quest, a lot of clutter, and am now working on landscape. At night I fight crime! What other games have you worked on? <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><!--[endif]--> TES IV:Oblivion, as well as the Knights of the Nine downloadable content pack and The Shivering Isles expansion. I’m fairly new to game dev, as I’ve only been working in it for about 4 years. Before that I was an artist up in NYC, and before that I was a college student. What is the best part about being an artist? The worst part? <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><!--[endif]--> I should probably say the best part is that I’m a working artist and wound up getting a job related to my college major, but instead I’m going to be a big nerd and say that the best part is seeing your stuff in magazines. Nothing beats pointing out a house you made to your best friend while in EB Games. The worst part is probably that art is very subjective, so I wind up reworking a lot of things that I thought were finished. Given that’s the worst thing I can think of, I feel pretty lucky. How did you get into the industry? Do you have any tips for breaking in? I got in through a combination of very hard work, and complete dumb luck. I majored in 3D/Time based art at Carnegie Mellon and had an excellent education. In August 2001 I moved to NYC, intending on working for MTV and living my fabulous city life. Then a month later everything changed. I toughed it out for two years, until finally moving back to Maryland and wound up working retail for a bit. One day I got a random email from a Bethsoft employee who liked my website and invited me to apply. Since there weren’t any art openings at the time, I applied to QA and got my first industry job. From there I worked 18 hour days - 8 hours on QA, followed by 4 hours at my retail job, and then 6 hours on my portfolio until I was awesome enough to be accepted into the art team. Here are some things I think are handy in terms of “breaking in”: Swallow your pride. One thing I’ve seen get in the way of a lot of industry hopefuls is a misplaced sense of entitlement/huge ego. <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><!--[endif]--> It’s 2% luck, 98% hard work. Make sure when you do get a lucky break, that you’re prepared for it. Have your portfolio constantly updated and ready to show potential employers. What is it like working there? <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><!--[endif]--> Awesome times a million. Seriously though, it’s really cool. My coworkers are all very approachable and friendly. They’re always doing fun things together like organizing game nights or going to see movies together. I have unlimited club soda thanks to our soda fountain, free hot chocolate in the winter, and best of all, random healthy snacks like apples and bananas. Having worked places where the healthiest thing came from a vending machine, I appreciate that greatly. I also love my cubicle. It’s near the soundbooth so I’m always hearing gunshots or loud explosions, or Fallout music, or all three. I’m the type that’s driven crazy when it’s quiet and find construction noises soothing, so it suits me very well. See? Awesome times a million. Ever play the Fallout games? <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><!--[endif]--> Oddly, I never played them before we got the Fallout 3 license. I did acquire the games as soon as we got the license, and man, I love all the stuff they came with. That little booklet and everything is awesome. I’m such a sucker for games that come with cool stuff. I’ve never finished either one though — not for lack of interest, I’m just very very bad at finishing games and very rarely do so. I’ve watched all of the speed runs, read everything I can on Fallout, studied screenshots, and watched every YouTube Fallout game play video I can. What is your favorite type of game to play? <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><!--[endif]--> I like adventure games, and survival horror. The games I’ve played the most are King’s Quest 3 and 4, Quest for Glory 1 & 2. and the Silent Hill series. What is your favorite game from the past year? Rayman: Raving Rabbids. BAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!! Also, Pokemon Diamond, and Animal Crossing. I just got my second birthday cake in Animal Crossing last month. That’s either awesome or really scary, I’m still trying to decide which. What games are you looking forward to? Rock Band is definitely on my list. I love singing despite my complete inability to be any good at it. Spore sounds like it will be awesome, and I’m really looking forward to Fable 2, having thoroughly enjoyed the first one. I don’t really play first person shooters, so the typical list of “Halo3, etc.” doesn’t have me jumping up and down (no offense to the Halo 3 devs, as I’m sure others will enjoy it!). I’m also excited about Autumn Moon’s A Vampyre Story. I’m also looking forward to eventually seeing Soul Calibur 4, and Silent Hill 5. What are you hobbies and interests? <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><!--[endif]--> My favorite hobby is going to concerts and club nights. I like older goth and industrial music, so it tends to be difficult to find concerts to attend but in the last few years I’ve manged to catch Dead Can Dance, Bauhaus (twice), Sisters of Mercy, Morrissey (twice) and a few other awesome bands. I’m really hoping KMFDM tours with their new album — I’m lame and missed them on the Hau Ruck tour. When there aren’t any good concerts, I will occasionally venture out to a goth club. My less social activities include reading, being spooky, collecting Harley Quinn & Poison Ivy memorabilia, looking for turtles in my backyard, and watching random stuff from my DVD collection, including the Stargate SG-1 series, The Crow, and Nightmare Before Christmas for the 487th time. Posted by gstaff on Thursday, August 23rd, 2007 at 11:13 am. Website chính thức của Fallout 3 có link sau : http://fallout.bethsoft.com/ ___________________________ -Tin mới từ web của Fallout 3 : Gamestar.de phỏng vấn Pete Hines về Fallout 3 Christian Schmidt sprach auf der Games Convention mit Bethesdas Pressesprecher Pete Hines über das Rollenspiel Fallout 3. Auszüge aus dem Interview konnten Sie bereits gestern in den GameStar-News lesen. Jetzt präsentieren wir Ihnen das vollständige Gespräch als neunminütiges Video im englischen Original. Wie alle anderen Videos, die wir Ihnen direkt von der Leipziger Messe liefern, ist auch dieses wieder kostenfrei. Gamestar.de:Can the Oblivion engine, which you are using, is it actually useful for turn-based combat, could it do it? Pete Hines: I have no idea, 'cause we...I mean, it's just not something we ever seriously considered. You know, the Elder Scrolls isn't turn-based combat...and Fallout we just never really felt like that was a viable option. So at the end of the day we just felt like, if you're gonna do it in first-person, if you want it to be as immersive as possible, what kind of combat can we do that stays true to what Fallout presented in terms of tactical choice and being able to make decisions in combat and, you know, having that be really cool and memorable, but still do it in this immersive first- and third-person sort of over-the-shoulder perspective and that's ultimately what we went with. Website chính thức của Fallout 3 có link sau : http://fallout.bethsoft.com/
-Tin mới từ web của Fallout 3 : Emil Pagiarulo nói chút về Fallout 3 Wow, I didn't realize the comments I made in that 1Up interview -- you know, about dialogue -- would cause such a stir! Mostly because I didn't realize I had chosen my words so poorly. Ugh. I was specifically answering the question about whether or not dialogue affects the endgame. It doesn't -- not directly. The endgame itself doesn't change based upon things you may or may not have said in dialogue. The endgame is affected by your actions. So that's what I meant by, "We went back and forth with the impact of dialogue on the character, and ultimately decided we didn't want to penalize or reward the player for carrying on a conversation." And yeah, that was a pretty bad choice of words, because it seems like the things you say in dialogue don't matter -- and nothing could be further from the truth. Believe me or not, but here's the reality of dialogue in Fallout 3: it does matter. It matters more than dialogue in one of our games has ever mattered. I feel really comfortable saying that, because one of my responsibilities is editing and directing all the dialogue that gets written, and one of my personal crusades is pushing the NPC interactions to be more meaningful. We approached that level in Oblivion -- now I really feel like we've truly reached it. So yes, you do get to roleplay through dialogue: sometimes, how you say something is just as important (and enjoyable) as what you say. Yes, you can ask different NPCs different things, in different ways. Yes, a lot of times your skills and attributes (besides just Speech) will open up new dialogue options. And yes, what you say in dialogue will matter. Act like a wiseguy, and an NPC may attack you, or refuse to deal with you. Treat an NPC with respect, and maybe he'll be more willing to talk to you. Of course, in the true spirit of Fallout -- in which the NPCs themselves have personalities -- it really depends on who you're dealing with. NPCs, like people, have their own quirks and preferences. Take a bold approach with the right NPC, and she may like you even more. Play the weakling with the wrong guy, and you may just tick him off. So, indirectly, dialogue affects the ending of the game in the sense that it can open or close quest paths, which in turn can lead the player to perform good or bad actions, which in turn determines the player's karma rating... which does factor into the endgame. I hope that clears things up a bit. Overall, our goal with dialogue is to craft unique, meaningful interactions with the NPCs. We want the player to feel like he or she is having a conversation with a person -- not clicking on an information kiosk. Our designers have fully embraced that philosophy, and the game's dialogue reflects that. I really do think you'll be happily surprised when you play the game. Website chính thức của Fallout 3 có link sau : http://fallout.bethsoft.com/
-Tin mới từ web của Fallout 3 : Các fan của Fallout 3 rên rỉ về đánh giá cái phiên bản Demo This preview is based on the demo shown at the Game Conference in Leipzig, Germany, by Pete Hines. It is the same demo shown at the earlier press showing and E3. Pete Hines noted that the demo build is 2 months old by now. NMA's main previews provides a walkthrough of the entire demo, then some opinions on several topics, then a final judgement. A dozen-question Q&A conducted by NMA's staff on the spot is also available. NMA's staff covering this consists of Brother None (referred to as "I" in the preview) and SuAside, both of whom applied for the demo showing in name of another media company: Brother None thanks to GamerNode, SuAside thanks to MadShrimps.be. Silencer, who applied in the name of NMA, was turned down with no reason given (though it is worth noting he applied last, a day after Brother None's appointment was finalized). SuAside saw the demo Friday at 12:00, Brother None at 14:00, so details vary and it will be noted in the walkthrough when they do significantly. At no point in the demo or Q&A did NMA's staff identify themselves as from NMA. Fallout 3 preview Written by Brother None and SuAside The demo was shown in a small room with about 20 reporters in it. Two Xboxes were used. The game was started up and immediately stopped, Pete Hines going "well, that was our demo, then." After that joke, Pete Hines warns they have a bit of a bad set-up there, with a VGA connector which makes the graphics look worse than normal and he reminded us no recording would be allowed. After that, we got to the real demo... Walkthrough - The Vault and Springvale Fallout 3 Setting: retro-50s post-apocalyptic Genre: RPG/Action RPG Release: Fall 2008 Platforms: PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The Fallout 3 demo opens with the same teaser we've all seen released by Bethesda. Rather than ending with Ron Perlman going "War, war never changes," it continues, into a speech (which has several long pauses): War. War never changes. Since the dawn of human kind, when our ancestors first discovered the killing power of rock and bone, blood has been spilled in the name of everything, from God to justice to simple psychotic rage. In the year 2077, after millennia of armed conflict, the destructive nature of man could sustain itself no longer. The world was plunged into an abyss of nuclear fire and radiation. But it was not, as some had predicted, the end of the world. Instead, the apocalypse was simply the prologue to another bloody chapter of human history. For man had succeeded in destroying the world...but war, war never changes. In the early days, thousands were spared the horrors of the holocaust by taking refuge in enormous underground shelters, known as vaults. But when they emerged they had only the hell of the wasted to greet them. All, except those in Vault 101. For on the fateful day, when fire rained from the sky, the giant steel door of Vault 101 slid closed... and never reopened. It was here you were born. It is here you will die because, in Vault 101, no one ever enters and no one ever leaves. During this intro, brown-tinted black and white still shots are shown. Initially of corpses and tombstones, but as Ron Perlman continues to describe the war, you see what looks like a typical 50s suburbia area, with a mushroom cloud expanding in the background. SuAside notes heavy imagery implying the death of children is seen here. The intro ends with a slightly unfamiliar looking closing Vault door, apparently of Vault 101. The poxyclips From there, the demo jumps into a first person view of a room inside a Vault. Pete Hines notes this isn't the actual beginning of the game, the PC already being full-grown (19) where he'd normally start with his birth. The fact that the vault is an accurate replica of everything we've seen in the original games jumps out at you here, and more of it is seen and pointed out by Pete Hines later: examples include the chair (formerly "4 pixels high"), the vent which goes rattle rattle, tape computers (with moving tapes), the wall-screen with a red-light interface, the shape of the walls and windows. According to SuAside, the vault does look noticeably darker than Fallout's Vault 13. Pete Hines explains that you can go into 3rd person mode (he only demonstrated 3rd person over the shoulder, noting it plays better than it did in Oblivion). Bethesda preferred 1st person as it immerses the player more into the world, but recognised that a lot of people, "especially Europeans," played Oblivion in 3rd person mode. He demonstrates the PipBoy model 3000, which jumps up into view much like you just moved it up to view it (rather than just appearing instantly like in the originals). The PipBoy is shown to contain the player's stats (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, Luck) and skills (big guns, small guns, science, barter, speech and others, didn't see any new ones), inventory, radiation meters, radio receiver and probably more I did not notice. Pete Hines notes "we spent a stupid amount of time working on this," noting they used more shaders on it than on the whole of Oblivion. Other vault dwellers are also seen wearing PipBoys. As seen on a loading screen: agility influences the small guns and sneak skills, and the number of action points In the main screen, the lower-left-hand corner shows the PC's hit points and a compass which appears to show the location of friendly nearby NPCs in green and of hostile nearby NPCs in red. The lower-right-hand corner shows the player's AP and ammo, more on that later, during combat. The PC walks into the next room, his father's office, where dad is just conversing with another vault dweller. Pete Hines explains the character generation process here: birth, assisted by dad as the resident doctor, in which you pick your basic look based on a computer simulation model of "what will this baby look like when he's older" which also influences your dad's appearance. At 4, you get a "You're special!" book and you can modify your main stats. At 10, during your birthday party, your dad gives you a B.B. gun for practising shooting. So "your dad's always there as you clash through these different periods of your childhood," as Bethesda wanted to have the player play through the idea from the originals of growing up in the vault. Hey everyone, it's dad! Once the vault dweller notes "no problem, I'll have my report ready soon" and leaves, the PC can initiate dialogue with his dad, who notes it is time for him to take his G.O.A.T. (Generalized Occupational Aptitude Test). Several dialogue options are shown here, Pete Hines notes he'll opt to lie and try to get out of it. However, his "I feel sick" excuse is quickly seen through, as dad notes one of the first thing he learned at medical training was to see through kids trying to get out of taking tests by pretending to be sick. The lie didn't show a chance of success percentage as later dialogue options would (see conversation with Mr Burke on page 2), so it's possible this lie always fails. Dad launches into a talk explaining the need of the G.O.A.T. and that everyone has to take it at 16, "I had to, you have to, and so does everyone." When the PC asks more about the G.O.A.T. dad answers "The G.O.A.T.? Well, I can't tell you much more than you already know," but explains it's meant to figure out what sort of a job you're best suited for in the vault, noting "you know what the Overseer says: we are born in the vault, we die in the vault" to back up the necessity of the test. A message of "new quest: complete G.O.A.T. test" was seen fading in and out of the upper left corner, as the Oblivion pop up-style quest messages are apparently gone. It is worth noting here that the amount of on-screen NPC text never exceeded about 2.5 to 3 lines. The PC's 2-5 lines were fully written, unvoiced and never really long, but they did seem to exceed Oblivion's 38 character limit. Visually, the dialogue plays out a lot like Oblivion, the NPC saying his 3 lines before his face kind of jumps into the next position/expression and he says 3 more lines, which makes dad's long speech look a bit odd. Pete Hines assured the dialogue follows the branching model mechanically. A look inside the vault "Obviously, that is the voice of Liam Neeson," Hines notes, which kind of caught me off guard, because while I knew that was Liam Neeson, I wouldn't have been able to tell it was from the somewhat bland and indistinct voice of dad. He also notes Ron Perlman being back as the narrator. "We're using full havok physics again" as is demonstrated by the PC picking up the Vault Boy bobblehead from his dad's office, swinging it about a bit and then dropping it, tipping it over. All the while dad is just looking with a blank expression at his son tossing about his bobblehead. Hines explains that the bobbleheads are easter eggs that boost your characteristics and that there's a Vault Boy bobblehead for every stat and every skill in the game. The first part (which should take one hour) of the game is "part character creation, part role-playing" as you can do a number of quests. "You can be a good guy, you can be a bad guy, or you can be a neutral party in the grey area in between." The PC walks up to a bunch of recognisable greasers, who wear Grease-style brown leather jackets over their vault suits and have recognisable 50s haircuts. This gang, The Tunnel Snakes, are picking on a girl. Hines explains you can choose to help her or take their side, but he chooses neither, just walking away. This did not seem to have any effect on his XP or quest log. One interesting point here is that a large number of vault guards patrol the hallways, and during SuAside's demo one passed by the girl being harassed and completely ignored the situation. Good guards. And while mentioning leather jackets, it is worth mentioning that the style of vault suits has been changed from skin-tight to baggy, while the vault guards wear something that looks like riot uniforms. As seen on a loading screen: energy weapons include the alien blaster, cryolator and mesmetron. Hines explains G.O.A.T. is a combination written and oral exam, the game asks you questions about how you might act in certain situations and based on the responses it determines the job you're best suited for and advises you which 3 skills to tag based on that. Hines skips the G.O.A.T. test and moves into the maintenance area, noting you would normally need to solve a quest to have this area unlocked. He passes Mr Handy, who looks roughly like the original, though the main body is a sphere with less casing than the one from Fallout 1/2. Mr Handy compliments you: "If I may be so bold, the blue in the vault suit contrasts brilliantly with your eyes!" before calling you a stupid git the moment your back is turned, all in a thick posh British accent. Hines announces the PC's father, who was always there for him, has suddenly disappeared. This "is pretty jarring to me, because it's my dad." It's also jarring to the residents of the vault, because in 200 years nobody has entered or left the vault. So you must leave the vault on the dual motive of figuring out why your father left and because the Overseer heavily suspects your involvement, sending "his goons after me." PipBoy 3000 The PC uses a terminal. Normally it would require finishing a quest to get the non-random password. I assume that you can't type in the password even if you know it, as console controls have no typing, meaning you'll always have to figure it out even if the player knows it (because the PC doesn't). Entering the password starts a door animation which is very different from the originals. A large, steampunkish robot arm with a pole/key extension is inserted into the upper-left corner of the door, and rolls it out to the right. As the PC leaves, the guards cry out "he's opening the door!" and call for someone to warn the overseer, draw their batons, but don't really do anything otherwise (not even moving). It is to be noted that it is possible to review and change some things about your character when you leave the vault, a kind of "finalization" procedure. Outside, the PC turns on his PipBoy flashlight, which has a kind of greenish light. Near the vault door are a few skeletal remains holding up signs saying "Let us in motherfuckers!" and the like, Hines joking that these are people they wouldn't let in. The vault door can be seen closing as Hines turns around near the end of the tunnel, before opening the shed door which closes the tunnel off from the outside world. Initially the light "blinds" the PC, making the entire world look blurry until your eyes adjust in about 5-10 seconds. The PC walks unto a ridge marked "scenic overlook" by a sign (perhaps for the demo), where he stands to look at the desolate, rocky, desert surroundings, with some ruins of buildings and of a bridge. Hines notes this is the wasteland surrounding DC, and that you can walk to whatever you see. The wasteland itself looks fairly empty, but ruined remains form clear landmarks in the distance. The sky was grey and dreary, which is how it remained all throughout the demo. Hines walks up to a pool of water and explains they're working hard at upgrading the Oblivion engine, including real water refraction and reflection. The PC continues down the road and passes a car that is called the single-seater "Fusion Flea Supreme," which Todd Howard passes after noting its existence. At this point, I could see a notice of gained experience points fading in and out on the left side of the screen. Hines explains this is XP gained by the PC as "this is an experience point-based game," experience leading up to levels and levels-ups providing points to invest in skills. He also talks about choices and making sacrifices to survive, both for the PC and the people in Fallout's world. Vault Secure Passing a "Vault Secure" billboard, the PC continues down the dirt road, entering a collection of empty ruined wooden shacks which is identified as "now entering: Springvale." The PC picks up some drugs and a hunting rifle from a nearby post box, which Hines notes are just there for demo purposes. Still in Springvale, a giant ant with kind of horned-looking skin (about halfway between the size of Fallout 2's ants and Fallout's radscorpions) runs up from a distance, attacking the PC, who shoots at him from close range with the hunting rifle. Pete Hines notes that the amount of skill the PC has with the gun determines whether or not you hit, how accurate you are. After the fight, the PC walks past a ruined playground, Hines noting "this is a playground where the children used to play." He walks up to a fire hydrants, explaining that drinking water heals HPs, but also radiates the PC (drinking water to survive does not seem to be obligatory). Taking a drink from the fire hydrant radiates heavily at +150 rads per second, shown in red letters in the upper-left corner. Hines pops up the PipBoy, showing the little radiation counter in the corner has gone up, and that there's a more detailed counter inside the PipBoy too, which reveals that the max rad count appears to be roughly 6 times the rad count the PC has then. Springvale. You can see the Red Rocket fuelling station on the left side. Around the corner of the fire hydrant, the PC spots what Pete Hines describes as a "red rocket fuelling station" and a 50s looking car, with an ant crawling about nearby. Taking aim, Hines explains you can start a chain reaction by shooting at the no-longer-working-but-still-fuelled engine. Doing so, the engine can be seen visibly catching fire after two shots, before the chain reaction happens in about 5-8 seconds, which shows an intense nuclear explosion with a small blast radius (about a meter or two), which results in a beautifully crafted mushroom cloud. These car explosions are noted by Hines to be "an effective tool in combat." Walking up to it, a warning is shown of +1 radiation per second, and Hines explains the radiation will disperse after a while. Hines points out a new addition to their engine called "parallax occlusion mapping," a realistic per-pixel texture destruction model, which he shows by shooting into the concrete road, creating realistic bullet holes. He also notes it helps the artists create the look of ruined buildings and environment. The next ant gets the V.A.T.S. (Vault-Tech Assisted Targeting System) treatment. As he approaches, Pete Hines pauses the game and it automatically zooms in on the ant, showing a VR grid of what you can hit. While choosing a target, in my demo, the PC accidentally switched the target to another object in his perception range, namely a nuclear car to his right side. Switching back (which happens really fast), he targeted the antenna and unpaused the game. The ant kept storming at him as the PC automatically shot at the antenna in real time, finally killing it in a bloody mess. In SuAside's demo, Hines demonstrated that shooting the ant in the leg slows him down. Note: no children could be seen in the demo. Bethesda has promised children will be in, but the chances of them being killable is nihil (ref) Unfortunately for the demo's pace, in my version (though not in SuAside's) one ant had a bit of a collision detection problem and got stuck to a tree. Hines tracked him down using V.A.T.S.' auto-targeting to locate him and put him out of his tree-hugging mercy. Then "one of the first places you'll come to as you leave the Vault looking for your father" is Megaton. According to SuAside indicated by a blinker on the compass as the quest notice to find out about your father in Megaton fades in and out. On to the town... Walkthrough part 2 - Megaton and more "Megaton was built in the crater of an unexploded nuclear bomb" raises the question of how an unexploded bomb would leave a crater. Ignoring that, people took this unexploded bomb as a sign from God that He intended them to survive. This encouraged them to build their town around this bomb, using salvaged parts including a downed airline carrier. As the PC approaches Megaton, I could clearly see what appeared to be vultures or other scavenging or hunting birds circling above the city. The PC is greeted by deputy Weld, a Protectron robot which looks, in shape, similar to Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet. He speaks to you in a typical Lost In Space robot voice: "Welcome to Megaton. The bomb is perfectly safe, we promise. Please hold for threat level assessment. Threat level minimal. Open the gates. Open the gates. Welcome to Megaton." The gate opens slowly by some unseen mechanic, while Pete Hines explains that load times still need optimising but are already better than Oblivion, plus the game has load screens full of information (from which this preview copied some tidbits) and pretty nice art. Inside Megaton, you immediately meet the sheriff: "I'll be damned, you're from that vault, Vault 101. *chuckles* I ain't seen one of those jumpsuits in a long time." Sheriff Lucas Simms He introduces himself as Lucas Simms, the town sheriff and mayor when the need arises. It should be noted at this point that both blocks of text quoted above are spoken outside of the dialogue screen, like the greeting texts in Oblivion and unlike Fallout, where floating texts never had such introductory length. The PC, opening dialogue with Lucas, quickly chose to insult him, going "Nice hat, Calamity Jane." The sheriff is annoyed, but states he's willing to let it slip if the PC shows he understands that "this is my town. So much as breathe wrong and I will ******* end you." Faced with the options to just go "yeah, whatever" or to state that there's a new sheriff in town, the PC picks the former, ending this dialogue. This conversation also saw another return of something Oblivion-esque. I noted before the dialogues are built from 3-line blocks in which expressions show the same jumpy attitude as in Oblivion. Lucas shows the next step, namely that emotions are again conveyed pretty much only by the face, and that the facial expression and voice tone has the tendency to skip through different emotions during a single speech. To back up this impression, in long speeches like those of the sheriff and of dad, one gets the distinct impression the writing is a bit inconsistent, which is kind of off-putting. This did not look significantly improved from Oblivion, though at least the sheriff had only one voice. The faces themselves look better and less ridiculous than in Oblivion, but don't expect to get blown out of the water by them, especially by their lack of expressiveness. Going further down the crater, it's clear that Megaton is heavily inspired by Junktown, showing the same kind of haphazard construction. No cars were used for this town, which can only be considered natural since cars explode all the time. As seen on a loading screen: endurance influences HPs, resistances and the big guns and unarmed skills. Nearing the bottom, the PC passes a graphically very well-made (though slightly underfed) Brahmin standing in a corner. SuAside notes that it seemed to have things sticking out it's back that didn't look like hair, though neither of us got a close look. Turning the corner, the PC nears the front porch of an undesignated building, where some people are having a conversation. While I wasn't able to catch what they were talking about, Pete Hines explained that the new improved Radiant AI will mean that people carry on more realistic, personal conversations, referring to each other by name and having full 24-hour schedules. Behind the talking couple was a Chinese letters neon sign, glowing bright in purple and other colours. At the bottom of the crater is the bomb, lying in a pool of water in which a single person is standing praying to the bomb. The PC walks around it and looks up to a sign that says Local Cult, pointing up the ramp. Pete Hines notes that "this is my favourite sign in the game." The PC walks up a ramp, revealing that Megaton is really built in layers over the huge (?) crater walls (possibly just a pre-existing hole, not so much caused by the impact of the bomb). Taking the opportunity to go to 3rd person mode again (this and the start being the only two times he showed 3rd person mode in my demo), Pete Hines explains they're also using Havok physics to improve the interaction of the PC with the environment. Stopping at the top of the ramp at the bottom of some steps, he notes the PC will walk up the steps more realistically. And indeed he does, perfectly so in SuAside's demo, kind of missing the actual steps in Brother None's. SuAside also noted that while sounds were generally pretty quiet (outside of combat) in the demo, the footsteps, especially on metal here, are very annoying and intrusive. He enters Moriarty's Bar, which has to load separately from the main area (the loading time was very short). Inside the bar a man and a woman are arguing about a 50s-style radio seen on top of the bar. The woman tells the man he shouldn't mess with it, because it's only Galaxy News they're receiving badly, while the Enclave Radio is coming in fine. Hines takes the opportunity to show the radio also works for the PipBoy, which displays those two radio stations as receivable. Hines tunes into one for a Bob Crosby ("Bing Crosby's less successful brother") song called "Happy Times," which was heard through the bar's radio but is now coming in more clearly. Hines explains they licensed a number of 40s and 50s song for this purpose. Also of note is that the radio has other purposes, such as being used as a two-way radio for communication or for receiving distress signals. Additionally, the radio will occasionally broadcast news of the PC's exploits if they're relevant enough, and you can meet the DJs. Note: no negative effects of drug usage were visible anywhere within the game, neither an addiction or negative effect from Mentats, nor the traditional later HP loss for super stims. Walking to the back of the bar the PC starts a conversation with a man sitting on a chair in an impeccably clean 3-piece suit and glasses. Introducing himself as Mr Burke, the man notes the PC could be very useful for him, being a stranger in town. Noting "I represent certain...interests," calling Megaton a blight and asking the PC if he's interested in helping him get rid of it. Here Hines notes that the speech skill comes into play during dialogues, and indeed two dialogue options show a percentage of success. An option to ask for 500 caps extra pay (29%), or to tell him the town is under your protection and he should get out. Stating that if he fails Mr Burke will like him less, Hines opts to ask for extra pay, and gets it. According to SuAside, Mr Burke looks like a poor man's Gizmo with a lot less personality. SuAside explains this feeling is supported by the similarity between Junktown and Megaton and Mr Burke's lines (calling you a "man from out of town," making you "good for job"). I didn't see it so much, except in that Gizmo indeed had more personality than Mr Burke, from this one dialogue. Burke provides the PC with a fusion pulse detonator and he moves down to the bomb again, while Pete Hines explains that quests can be solved in a lot of ways, not just one or two paths, naming the following options here: being nice to the sheriff can land the quest of disarming the bomb, you can betray Mr Burke to the sheriff, you can arm or disarm the bomb without getting a quest. Once at the bomb, he tries to use it and a big warning flashes that his skills are insufficient to even interact with it, and has to take some Mentats that he found in the mailbox earlier to boost his intelligence and thus his technical skills (no negative effects from using these drugs are seen). Clicking the bomb reveals a number of options, including disarming and attaching the detonator, Hines opting for the latter. After this the PC moves out and down into the subway tunnels, Hines explaining that "metro tunnels are, for lack of a better word, our dungeon-types for Fallout 3." Rummaging through an Eat-A-Tronic 5000, the PC finds some Salisbury steak (which "will survive any conflict, even nuclear") and a load of stimpaks and superstims. Headshots make short work of supermutants Moving down the tunnels, it isn't long until you see a supermutant climbing over the wreckage in the distance. After taking a few potshots at each other, the PC with his hunting rifle and the mutant with a Chinese assault rifle, Pete Hines pauses the game (with Fallout 1's "combat slider" sound) to zoom in on the mutant and explain that this is a supermutant, "the main bad guy in the game." He points out that you can target the torso, arms, weapon, legs and head, each area having a different effect. Each area also has a percentage to hit which he notes is the same if you try aiming for an area in real time. The effects are also unique, headshots can blind, shooting someone in the leg can slow him down, etc. Furthermore, Pete Hines notes that each area shows an individual health bar, which shows the relative health of the area. The PipBoy 3000 also contains a health screen for the PC with a health bar for each of his limbs, which shows the same effects are true for him, Hines explaining that if the PC gets shot in the leg, he will limp along until healed. Additionally, while aiming for areas the green AP indicator in the lower right corner shows how many APs the PC will lose trying to make that shot, while the red health bar in the bottom center blinks to show how much HPs the NPC will lose if the PC successfully makes the shot (presumably for a normal shot, not a critical). Aiming for the head and unpausing, the PC took a single shot at the mutant and missed, shooting again while the mutant was shooting back. The second shot (the first aimed shot in SuAside's demo) was a critical hit which made the head explode (this has been described to elicit some surprise in earlier previews, but can now be assumed to happen every single time). As parts of the mutant's head rolled everywhere, Pete Hines repeated the "Is that his eye?" remark that we've also seen before. In fact, people who have read multiple previews probably won't miss the repetitive factor here, so let me answer your question: yes, lots of remarks and jokes were repeated both runs through. Whether or not you can pause to aim depends on the number of action points you have left. This demo did not really display how that would limit paused action, because the AP regeneration in RT was pumped up beyond normal levels, to the point of being nearly instant. V.A.T.S. in action The supermutant is holding a super sledge, not (as speculated) a car differential Moving to the next part, the PC encounters two supermutants. One, who we already know from released screenshots, is described by Pete Hines as being armed with a super sledge, the second one is not visible at that point. The PC pauses the game to aim and shoot at the super sledge-wielding mutant's leg, and moves away so Pete Hines can demonstrate the mutant is slowed down. He finishes him off with another shot (in SuAside's demo, the mutant's entire leg was blown off with a .22 calibre hunting rifle). Hines explains how this is a good tactic against enemies with mêlée weapons, while the other mutant, armed with a Chinese assault rifle, might be best dealt with by aiming at the rifle itself or shooting it in the head, perhaps blinding it. The second mutant seemed to have wandered off a bit in my demo, though both attacked at the same time in SuAside's demo. Pete Hines shows that when pausing the game the system will automatically zoom in on the NPC if the PC's perception is high enough, even if the NPC is hidden by a wall or another object (in this case he's behind a pillar, though in SuAside's demo his assault rifle had some collision detection problems and was sticking through the pillar). The hit-percentages will be 0% as you can't shoot through stone, but you'll know where he is. Running around the corner, the PC aims at the mutant's head and quickly dispatches him. If this all seems to go pretty easy, it's because all of the PC's abilities (HPs, APs, to-hit-chance) are pumped up for the demo, according to Pete Hines. Additionally, the PC did have to take stimpaks and superstims fairly regularly. In the normal game, they're trying to replicate that feeling of Fallout where you'd only have two bullets left, aim and just pray to please let this shot kill this guy so I can survive this fight. "We're trying to reward the role player, not the twitch player." You can play the game using solely VATS (though that might involve quite a bit of realtime hide and seek), VATS/RT or solely RT. One thing left that's worth noting is that it appears that VATS auto-reloads for you, but that was not very clear. Picking up some Chinese assault rifles (from a trash can), Pete Hines explains how weapon stats also influence combat, flipping through weapons in his inventory, which reveals the Vault Boy icon is shown with whatever weapon the player equips. The main stat here is DPS, Damage Per Second, which seems to be about 20-40 for the rifles. It was higher for the Chinese assault rifle than for the hunting rifle. It is worth noting that the Chinese assault rifle appeared to use 5.56mm ammo. SuAside notes this might be 5.56x45mm NATO, which would be kind of weird since that's a Western type of ammo, not Chinese. The hunting rifle uses .22 calibre bullets, unspecified whether it's LR or WMR. The other most important stat for weapons is their condition. To demonstrate this, the PC equips a Chinese assault rifle and fires a magazine into a nearby broken train. Then he opens up the inventory and uses parts from one rifle to fix the other. This action basically consists of going to your inventory, picking the option to scavenge/repair, which will also show what results you can expect from your repairs, and then clicking one button, the computer doing the rest. The PC repairs the bad assault rifle using parts from the relatively good assault rifle, which is kind of odd but does increase the rifle's DPS to 41. Firing into the train again, it is clear that the repaired Chinese assault rifle has a higher rate of fire and a lower spread than the battered version. Pete Hines explains that this means the player will have to take care of his weapons and ammo if he wants to preserve good weapons. Approaching the turnstiles further on, the PC spots two supermutants. Hines decides to avoid them and sneaks into a corridor on the side. The sneak bar that pops up here, SuAside notes, is a single bar for everything, so no splitting up between light and sound (like Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines). This simplifies sneaking to a level quite below, say, Thief and makes it hard to determine what exactly made you fail to sneak (noise? Light conditions? Heavy armor?). Entering the toilet there, Hines announces he can take another sip of water as he is hurt, but not hurt enough to warrant use of a stimpak. Despite the fact that the toilet is obviously filthy and might be full of germs or at least somewhat unhealthy, Hines notes "water from the toilet actually has the least amount of radiation per health," as it is underground, as opposed to the fire hydrant. Moving into the nearby room, a Protectron is seen in its storage bay, with a nearby RobCo computer (all in-game computers appear to be RobCo). Pete Hines decides to try and hack into the computer to activate the Protectron, and a number of computer interface screens (hacking into the computer's BIOS) later he enters a mini-game. In this mini-game you have a number of words, you have to guess which word is the password, and with each wrong pick the game will tell you how many letters were right. Whether or not you can access the terminal to begin with and he number of tries you get depends on your science skill. If you fail, the terminal locks down and can not be entered again. Except in this demo, which has a conveniently placed security card nearby for Hines to use once the terminal is locked down. He reactivates the robot. The Protectron powers up and moves towards the main hall in a well-done 50s-clunky walking animation, while he audibly detects lack of contact with the network, identifying the threat level as "omega, lethal force authorised." The following struck me as an obviously scripted event, though I could be wrong. The robot exits the room and bumps into the mutants, asking them for their tickets, apparently because they're approaching the turnstiles. They stand at about 5 feet distance of the robot, point and laugh going "foolish robot" and "let's tear off its arms" with kind of gruff, gravelly voices. The robot's right hand double as a laser, and he uses it to shoot down both offending mutants. Imagine this as him having three mechanical fingers on the end of his arm, and the "palm" of this hand is where he shoots from. The PC then moves right past the robot without any reaction from the Protectron. While it is vaguely implied that robots can provide a "cheat" mode for science characters to get past difficult fights in this manner, no other robots were seen and Pete Hines did not explain further. A BoS soldier The PC goes out of the metro. He runs into a Brotherhood of Steel/supermutant battle, Pete Hines explaining the the supermutants have spread through the metro tunnels, but are locked in combat with the Brotherhood of Steel, "the noble knights of the wasteland" who are trying to drive out the supermutants. The part of the world the PC just entered is about 1/4th of the map, and it's "a very dangerous place to come." If you go here in your lower levels, still fairly weak, you can expect to die if you don't have any help, as Oblivion's style of level scaling is out. Looking around at the bountiful destruction, Pete Hines notes "destruction is our new trees." The PC approaches a little Fallout shelter, which "takes exact change only." He opens it, and as a bunch of supermutants approach, the PC shoots at a car to start a chain reaction, then backs into the Fallout shelter. However, the door is left open, so that the PC is radiated as he normally would be. Oddly enough, at the start of this battle the PC is automatically given the quest to help out the BoS against the supermutants, before he talks to (or even sees) any BoS member. The supermutants were destroyed by the exploding car and the cross-fire. The PC walks past a number of BoS soldiers, none of whom react to him at all, though they're talking or shouting amongst themselves. The BoS Paladins appear to have the behaviour of US army soldier clichés, swearing a lot and going "all right, now that's what I'm talking about!" and "that's how we do it Alliance style, you ******* freaks!" Very macho, very Rambo. Hines moves to one helmet-less BoS paladin (it should be noted here a surprising number of BoS paladins do not wear helmets, which seems somewhat impractical), a woman by the name of Sentinel Lyons, apparently the head of "Lyons' Pride Platoon." She wonders what the hell the PC is doing there, and then invites him to tag along if he so wishes. Moving into a building (Early Dawn Elementary school), one of he soldiers notices the PC and asks another soldier if this is a new recruit. The other soldier laughs it off and says he's not. Nearby, a BoS soldier can be seen half-dead on a stretcher and Pete Hines, noting that "he won't need this anymore," takes his laser rifle and ammo, which elicits no response from nearby paladins, most of whom appeared to be armed with Chinese assault rifles. The PC tags along as the BoS, including two paladins identified as Vargas and Reddie, runs into battle with the supermutants. Moving through a messy battle, occasionally pausing combat to aim, a few things should be noted here: at one point a car explodes right between two BoS soldiers, who do not react at all nor do they appear hurt. Later in the battle, the PC's lack of skill with energy weapons is emphasised as he fires four shots at a supermutant from close range, missing each time. Walking around, Pete Hines pauses in front of a poster, which shows the classic Bert the Turtle advising to duck and cover in case of a nuclear attack. Finally, during this fight and the earlier ones, I must note that the ragdoll physics used for the slow motion death animations sometimes provide some really awkward deaths. Action is violent, messy, and slightly FPSish This fight goes on for some time, moving into an open space with a Galaxy News globe in the centre. SuAside notes at this point that it would be more tactical from them to open fire from within the building, but instead run into open space to shoot at the supermutants, occasionally at point blank range. The space opens up to a large tower, which houses Galaxy News radio station and, as Pete Hines notes, is Tenpenny Towers. After all the supermutants are dead the PC walks up a few steps towards the Tower, when an ominous tune starts. Turning around, two vehicles exploding nuclearly can be seen in the distance, and in walks a gigantic supermutant that Pete Hines identifies as the Behemoth. Armed with a fire hydrant as a club, a car door as a shield (which is odd as a car door wouldn't stop bullets) and carrying a shopping cart on his back to keep corpses in, Hines explains that this is the "boss creature for the supermutants," who can deal and take tons of damage. The BoS paladins all open fire on him. The PC joins in for a while with his laser rifle, then finds a corpse and picks up a weapon off of it. It should be noted here the game appeared to pause automatically when the PC opens his inventory to equip that weapon, the Fatman "portable mini nuclear bomb catapult." As the Behemoth approached, the PC shot at him once. Circling around the central fountain while the BoS paladins were still shooting at him, the PC approaches him from behind, taking aim at the Behemoth's leg from about 30 yards out. The camera follows the bomb in slow motion, revealing it to look like a foot-long mini-version of the classic 40s and 50s nuclear bomb. The hit was successful, as the Behemoth died in the nuclear explosion. In SuAside's version two things are of note here: the Behemoth did engage in combat with a BoS paladin, beating him up with the fire hydrant. At the end of the fight, a BoS soldier in the visual explosive radius of the Fatman (though apparently taking no damage from it) simply shoulders his assault rifle the moment the bomb hits and before the Behemoth actually falls down. It should be noted that at no point during this fight did a radiation warning show up. Pete Hines notes ammo for the Fatman will be extremely rare, but it's a fun weapon, which he again demonstrates by firing off in the distance, producing another mushroom cloud. The Fatman's DPS is 3550, which stands in shrill contrast to the Chinese assault rifle's 41. For some reason one the BoS paladins decided to sit down on a bench and stare blankly ahead the moment the fight was over. Climbing to the top to meet Mr Burke, Pete Hines notes "I would love to know how he got here before me," and I agree that between Mr Burke somehow having an impeccable three-piece suit 200 years after the war and apparently not needing to fear the mutants, this is one strange individual. He points out you're facing Megaton as he turns to a portable suitcase-remote detonator. Flipping the switch, you can see an enormous nuclear explosion in the distance, followed by a shockwave which hits the PC and Mr Burke. For some reason, no radiation is measured, and Pete Hines apparently forgot Bert's advice here: when blowing up a city with a nuclear bomb while inside its blast radius...Duck and cover! Note that SuAside saw the demo together with a group including GameInformer and Gamespy reporters, who laughed at all the right moments and applauded at the end. Brother None was in a more unfriendly audience, only one of whom occasionally guffawed at the jokes, and no applause given. It has to be noted that considering how much of the demo does not reflect on the game, as Pete Hines explained during the demo and Q&A, it is kind of hard to draw wide-ranging conclusions on the game based on a pretty unrepresentative demo. Thus, to clear up our impressions, we're discussing selected individual topics more expansively here. The Brotherhood of Steel Had they not been identified as the Brotherhood of Steel (multiple times), I would not for the life of me have guessed who they were. They are described as "noble knights of the wasteland" setting out to beat the supermutants while swearing and behaving like average US soldier clichés. The power armor, while resembling the power armor of the originals when standing still, loses such semblance when moving. Basically, the armor appears to consist of a body suit with plates of metal attached to it, thus giving it the outward appearance of plate armor, rather than the look of a one-piece integrally protective powered armor that the originals had. Only the helmet really looks a lot like the originals, and a lot of BoS members weren't wearing them. Additionally, SuAside notes a few things: the laser rifles have a slightly steampunkish look (regardless of that weird tube at the bottom making it slightly resemble a flamethrower lighting feed). It's also kind of odd that you can acquire a PA in Fallout 1 just because the eyepiece has a solder line on it and thus it didn't pass muster, while here all the power armors look patched up and badly finished from the very beginning (though I feel this might be explained by them being at war). Disciplined demeanour is also way off the originals, as SuAside never pictured a BoS squad as running around helmetless while constantly flinging insults and macho taunts. Not to mention the fact that they just allow the PC to pick up a laser weapon from a dying soldier whereas most of their troops are equipped with significantly less effective assault rifles. Bethesda is not providing the reason they're there, wanting players to find out for themselves ingame where a reason will be provided. But considering that this organisation has different behaviour, goals and even looks, I'm more curious why they even identify them as the Brotherhood of Steel, since nothing links them to the original organisation. Supermutants What was already obvious from original screenshots is affirmed here. Supermutants do not look remotely like the originals. + = Essentially, the face looks a lot like that of mutants and monsters we know from other games, particularly a comparison with Return to Castle Wolfenstein's mutants is hard to avoid. The body is large and muscular, but also has normal human proportions, thus making it look like you're facing a 7' green Arnold Schwarzenegger, or as SuAside puts it "orc meets RtCW supersoldier." This is painfully different from the very unique, Hulk-ish look of the original supermutants. Apart from their equipment, the supermutants all seemed to look alike (except the Behemoth), though I did not get a close look. While a backstory is assured, Pete Hines also notes conversations with supermutants aren't an option, and they are presented in the demo simply as evil, swarming enemies. Whether or not they'll have an in-depth backstory or background organisation like the Unity is unknown. And what's up with the shiny super sledge so full of bloom? V.A.T.S. Labelled anything from innovative to the worst idea of all time, I don't really see either one as being very valid. "Unoriginal" is the name I'd use. If I had to describe V.A.T.S. at gun point, I'd call it a system of RT combat with limited pausing through fatigue (Action Points) and super-attacks (aimed shot), which to most people will sound pretty much like what BioWare started doing in the mid-90s with the Infinity Engine. Of course, I haven't played it yet, so this analysis is slightly presumptuous. However, having seen it play out, I can say the only new things it seems to add are the slow-motion cinematic viewing of the effects of your hit (which strikes me as something that will get annoying quick and does not actually affect the real gameplay in any way) and importing Fallout's aiming system into BioWare's RTwP. Neither really deserves the tag "innovative" nor does it really seem to necessitate giving it a new name "V.A.T.S." rather than just calling it RTwP. This misnomer appears to be a big source of all the confusion surrounding this fairly simple system. But all that's not definitive, and depends on more info and impressions. Graphics Taking it a notch up from Oblivion: better facial animations and looks, better havok physics, parallax occlusion mapping, real water refraction. This makes it sound like they spent half their time on improving graphics, but while the game looks quite a bit better than Oblivion, a lot of the changes aren't that huge. They don't exactly make big, obvious steps and, even with further upgrading, the game might well be behind other games (like Rage or Mass Effect) at release, though probably still on the forefront of cRPGs graphically. Rivet City The game, despite being fairly dark for the most part, falls to the temptations of bloom on the most ridiculous moments. I noted a huge flash of bloom from sand at one point, from the super sledge and, probably silliest, from the PC's face during the V.A.T.S. cinematic combat mode. SuAside tentatively adds antialiasing was a nightmare in Megaton, and that wires looked like 8bit stairs. Apart from those pitfalls, on a graphical level the game is very advanced, considering it still has a good 1.5 years to go, and is sure to impress despite stiff competition. There are more points of criticism, but it's hard to be definitive when the demo was viewed through VGA output on a really big screen. Maturity A large worry is the maturity of this game. Pleasant memories of promises of ignoring Fallout BoS and preferring Fallout 1 to Fallout 2 faded while watching the demo. Pete Hines assures us the high density of slapstick humor, is just for demo purposes. In which case I have to shudder at how bad this demo is for showing off the game, but on the other hand there are reasons to doubt Pete Hines' words. No doubt the joke-density is lower in the game, but it's still inescapable. A British pythonesque Mr Handy, constant swearing on levels the original games never knew, a complete obsession with violence and shiny effects. Trying to compensate this by pointing to the things they did get right, such as the slightly amusing ticket bot encounter (which works better in the demo than it does on paper), the "nice hat, Calamity Jane" line or the "local cult" and "scenic overlook" signs, makes for a bit of an uneven match, as the amount of immature humour beats out the good humour easily. The gore provides much the same problem. There is a lot of it, but it's also pretty indistinct. Rather than being markedly different, like the "blow a chunk of body off" of the originals, it just looks like they took the normal level of ragdoll and bloodspatter effects and raised it to 11. This means it looks like unnecessary splatter bonus Carmageddon violence, which I have a hard time to identify as anything but juvenile. It's not that the franchise doesn't have its humour or violence, it's just that these weren't pivotal selling or drawing points in anything other than how unique they were. From this demo, it seems these two points are treated differently than in the original and actually two of the biggest selling points Fallout 3 has, a worrying prospect we can only hope turns out false. Atmosphere/Style Pete Hines in GC, Leipzig This is like a roller coaster ride through most of the demo. I got a nagging feeling halfway through it that once you leave the Vault, Bethesda didn't really know what they wanted any more. The Vault itself shows a lot of consistency of vision, being heavily dedicated to accurately transferring the original look of the vaults and not really adding much that feels inconsistent, except the Mr Handy bot and (arguably) the riot police/vault guards. SuAside states that he feels the vault is noticeably darker and has a few un-Fallouty steampunk elements, like the opening of the door. SuAside also identified this halfway style in the PipBoy 3000's housing, which seems like it's halfway between modern and old tech, making it perhaps more at home in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. than in Fallout 3. But once you're out of the vault, the inspiration seems to drop off as direct points of reference to a consistent and original vision are missing. That might sound worse than it is, but a comparison to Bioshock jumps to mind. Bioshock was original, visionary, consistent and executed well. Fallout 3 has that within the Vault, but it goes up and down once you're outside. It shows flashes of brilliance in transporting Fallout's world into 3D at some spots, like some of the skyscraper ruins and bits of Megaton. In Springvale it looks to want to try and accomplish something but fell short. Architecture follows the same rollercoaster mechanics, sometimes spot on, sometimes very nondescript. For an awkwardly huge chunk, from the metros to the supermutants to the BoS, the game looks like a very vanilla, generic post-apocalyptic game with some 50s signs slapped on it in an easter egg format, as if they were an afterthought. That makes for some head-splitting inconsistencies, especially when you run through a lot of area fast, as in the demo. The music falls right into this halfway-there category. Including actual 50s songs is a fun idea and will probably work fine, but the main soundtrack itself, while being very soft, was easily identified as "not like the originals." It reminded me most of Inon Zur's Fallout Tactics soundtrack, halfway between Fallout's ambient music and Zur's own tendency towards the bombastic. Something that did little to assure me was the demo's tendency to try and wow the viewer. This can be written of as just for demo purposes to impress the press, but that kind of makes me scratch my head and go "who in their right mind would really be impressed by this." The nuclear explosions are extraordinarily well animated and rather beautiful, but I really would like to know who can watch a total of 6-10 of these explosions in a 45 minute span and not go "that's too much, that's just silly." This fanfare of flashy graphics in silly events doesn't really reflect well on the game. Are those just kinks in the cable or an indication of lack of vision? Only time will tell. ...And Oblivion "Oblivion with Guns" has been the name of the game since it was announced (well, "Morrowind with Guns," originally), and has been repeated by console site previewers right up to Gamespot's somewhat ironic "[m]any are looking forward to Fallout 3 being 'Oblivion with Mutants.'" (ref) It's on the same engine, by the same makers, using a number of mechanics similar to the Oblivion game. But Fallout 3 is even less similar to Oblivion than Oblivion was to Morrowind. Todd Howard has stated a will to reinvent each new game, and that's the case here. (ref) So rather than Oblivion with Guns, what we have here is a conglomerate of influences from a whole bunch of games. Oblivion in a lot of mechanics and perhaps in some deeper gameplay mechanics I have yet to see. Fallout in superficial style and look, occasionally. Some BioWare mechanics on combat. Add a sprinkling of Deus Ex for elements of combat, dialogue and choices. This is a big mess that can only be shortened to "Oblivion with Guns" unfairly. Of course, this raises the question of how challenging it is to not only reinvent your own design style from your last game, but to also take the franchise you're working on and pushing it into another genre than it was in originally, all the while combining elements from several games into one. Of course, this is an enormous challenge (and not necessarily a good idea) that I have no reason to believe Bethesda has the talent to pull off, and this demo did nothing to change that opinion. Final judgement Brother None: The unbearable lightness of seeing Brother None contemplates his guilt after having sold out for a T-Shirt It is kind of hard to make a final judgement based on a demo, when every time you ask for specific it turns out the demo isn't representative of the game. Since I covered most facts above, I'll now go more with the feeling I got from it. Fallout 3 looks like a well-produced, very pretty, very fun game that'll provide quite a few people with a lot of hours of enjoyment. However, I don't think it's anything more than a very pretty and fun game. This game is missing a key ingredient: guts, daring, innovation. I'm not even referring to the kind of guts Tim Cain noted when he explained turn-based combat was doing something different in a time of real-time and pause-based combat (ref), though I guess they miss those kind of guts too. I'm talking about the very basic ingredients of an independent vision. The only times this game really shines is when it is copying from the originals directly. The moments of inspiration outside of that are rare, limited to a few jokes and the Protectron's excellent design. But what does that mean? Pretty much that we're looking at a pretty bland, uninspired game here, and that people expecting the next big break-through in RPGs or gaming in general to come from here should probably look the other way. And who knows how it'll hold up against competing RPG or RPG-like games in late 2008? Only time will tell. But suffice it to say that despite flashes of brilliances, I'm not overly impressed by this game, and hate to see a franchise tag that once stood for being so different now applied to something that is so humdrum and potentially dull. Oh, and as a Fallout fan...if it weren't too early in a simple chronological sense (it still being more than a year until release), I'd write this game off as a potential successor and just file it under spin-off, patiently awaiting to see how badly it damages to setting. But I'll leave comments on this topic to my colleague, SuAside. SuAside: Impressions of the unimpressed If I try to be perfectly objective about the subject, there is no doubt in my mind that this game will be a success on the mainstream market. It has everything it needs for such success: nice graphics (which I'm sure will improve in the coming year), a setting that easily sets it apart (one of Fallout's great strengths), acceptable gameplay though without real novelties (unlike Bethesda likes to claim), Bethesda's broad fanbase (of mostly Oblivion fanboys) and excellent contacts with the mainstream gaming press (aka the hype machine). But even when looking at it from a totally objective point of view, I cannot see how this 45 minute demonstration won Bethesda so many E3 awards. It looks like an average fun mainstream actionRPG game which really doesn't offer anything special with the exception of the Fallout setting. Which is fine on its own, but surely that isn't enough to deserve so many awards? As what today is considered an "Internet Curmudgeon with a Heart of Radioactive Gold", a "fan whose ideas are retarded by 8 years" or even a "Glittering Gem of Hatred", I can't help but see my (and NMA's) expectations about the game being confirmed. It looks as if someone peripherally interested in the Fallout games took a few core elements that they liked and made a game out of it without really respecting the old game, deeply researching what made the old games tick or even trying to please the old but still very alive fanbase. It is as if they took some Fallout flavour and sprinkled it over what "they do best". I wouldn't go as far as saying it is Oblivion with Guns, but it certainly isn't what we'd like call a true Fallout sequel. It is rather ironic that Bethesda didn't want to name the game differently. I think the old fanbase might have reacted considerably differently if Bethesda had chosen to name it something else, like "Fallout: The East Coast (part 1)", and had promoted it as a kind of freeroaming actionRPG game inside Bethesda's take on the Fallout universe. This might actually have worked, and I do believe it would have received far more support from the community. However, if you insist on making a sequel to a game series that is welknown for its opinionated fanbase, you'd better make sure you deeply research what made the series work in the first place, before simply removing core elements of both the gameplay and the setting. Is there still hope of a Fallout 3 true to the series and original development mindset? I sincerely doubt it. However, regardless of the mess made by Bethesda by making this game aimed at the oblivious mainstream, maybe some good can come of this... Both the Oblivion and Fallout communities house very skilled modders and perhaps if those two meet on equal ground there might be hope for a few moments of Fallout bliss. Could these communities create a hors-serie freeroaming 'Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines'-like game in a universe true to the Fallout lore? Time will tell... In short, it will likely be an interesting game for the average gamer who has little to no knowledge of the Fallout games, but for the run-of-the-mill Fallout fan I doubt the experience will be anywhere close to the originals or even worthwhile at all for some. What is certain, is that -while this game might be fun for a short while, as it looks now- it will not create the cult-like following that has set apart Fallout for so long. Website chính thức của Fallout 3 có link sau : http://fallout.bethsoft.com/ ___________________________ -Tin mới từ web của Fallout 3 : Hỏi và đáp về Fallout 3 ở ngoài sảnh sau khi công bố NMA: How do you explain the omnipresence of nuclear explosions -both from nuclear powered cars, from the Fatman and from Megaton- in the game, while in the original games nuclear power (especially explosions) was treated with much consideration and respect, thereby making it a rare occurrence whenever it was used. The same goes for radiation itself. In the originals, it was extremely lethal if you didn't take the right precautions, but in the demonstration we see plenty of times where radiation is more seen like a trivial matter. Standing next to an exploded nuclear car barely gives off any radiation. Pete Hines interviewed by Brother None Pete Hines: In the demonstration there are a lot of nuclear explosions, like the Fatman, that seem very present, but this won't be so in the actual game. I can assure you that ammunition for the Fatman will be very scarce indeed and that it won't be treated lightly. As for the strength of radiation, much of it is simply game balance. While we want the game to be raw and cold, we also want the game to be fun. We're, of course, still balancing the radiation strength and impact. NMA: What is the explanation for the posh english speaking Mr Handy calling you names behind your back? It seems to me that -like the Mr Handy example- a lot of the humour shown in the demonstration leans to slapstick humour rather than the dark humour of the old Fallouts. Pete Hines: Well, you simply don't know why the robot acts as he does. It could be many things. It is possible that someone might have reprogrammed him this way. And the fact that a lot of the humour might seem different from the original is mostly because the demonstration is a heavily fastforwarded playthrough. In such an environment it might seem that the bulk of the humour used leans to slapstick, but in fact that isn't true. NMA: We've seen in the demonstration that Speech influences your dialogue options, but what other statistics will influence it as well? Pete Hines: Well, you'll see that Science for instance can allow you to give a scientific explanation and to use that knowledge in dialogue. This will be very technical and not reliant on your Speech skill. The same is true for Repair and so on. So you'll be able to use those as well. NMA: When engaged in real time combat, are the attacks affected by your character's skills? Pete Hines: Yes, all combat is governed by die rolls. So if you fire in real time and aim perfectly, you might still fail a roll and miss your target. NMA: Will AC/dodge/etc affect your chance to hit? In the originals, chance to hit was often misunderstood because it was lowered for a powerarmored enemy, while the target was big and bulky as ever. It basically meant that you had less chance to hit WITH damage. Pete Hines: Armor will not give you more chance to dodge or more chance for the shot to miss entirely. It simply comes into account in damage reduction. As you saw in the demonstration, armored mutants were as easily hit as non-armored mutants, but the damage done was not the same. NMA: In 2004, Tim Cain stated in a PC Zone interview that Fallout's combat was meant to show "how popular and fun turn-based combat could be, when everyone else was going with real-time or pause-based combat.", so why did Bethesda go against that? Wouldn't it also have been a lot easier to not naming the game Fallout 3 and simply naming it "Fallout: Something", thereby starting your own series with your own views without leaving yourself open to much fan criticism? Pete Hines: We're making the sequel as we think it would be best in the modern age and how it would work best today. This means taking full advantage of all modern technology and first person to facilitate immersion. There is no reason today not to do so. We also didn't want to make our 'own' series because we want to make a true sequel to the first two Fallouts. NMA: Apparently not everyone is pleased with Bethesda's interpretation of Fallout. NMA, RPGcodex and DaC are a few of the oldest Fallout communities around and none of them seem to accept Bethesda's view on things, or are at least very skeptical about the game. Why is it that the communication with those communities is difficult at best? Pete Hines: We are in contact with those communities and they receive the same treatment as all the other communities. We frequently read them and we understand exactly what it is they want. The problem is however that they've had years to think about what they wanted and create a view of what Fallout 3 should be that could never be possible today. They're still stuck 8 years back in their views of Fallout 3. It simply wouldn't work. Brother None NMA: There was no mêlée combat from the PC in the demo. Pete Hines: There was no PC mêlée combat in the demo because it wasn't implemented in this build yet. There will be mêlée in the final game. NMA: What kind of mêlée can we expect, something like Oblivion? Pete Hines interviewed by Brother None Pete Hines: It'll be quite different than Oblivion. A lot of the focus on combat here is for ranged combat, because you really have to take guns into account, and it's different from just swinging a sword. A lot of time is spent on balancing ranged combat and AI tactics. NMA: Is there more to supermutants than meets the eyes or are they just the evil enemy? Pete Hines: There's definitely a backstory. Actually, people have been discussing this a lot, "what are supermutants doing on the East Coast," while the reason is a pretty good and simple one. We're kind of surprised nobody has figured it out yet. NMA: Will you be able to finish the game without killing anyone? Pete Hines: We don't know yet. We're trying to make it so that you have options to use stealth or dialogue. The lead designer of Fallout 3 is Emil Pagiarulo, who worked on the Dark Brotherhood questline in Oblivion and on the Thief games. He has a lot of experience with using stealth to solve problems. But obviously, when you're talking about supermutants, dialogue really isn't a viable option. So I can't really say whether or not you can finish the game without killing anyone, but implementing alternative paths is very important for us. NMA: Is the game fully voiced? If so, won't that limit the amount of dialogue? Pete Hines: Yes, the game is fully voiced. But it won't really limit the amount of dialogue, because unlike Oblivion, we only have a couple of hundred of NPCs here, and you can really put in as much dialogue as you want when you have so few NPCs without hitting any limits. NMA: I noticed APs were regenerating a bit quick in the demo, that's because... Pete Hines: That's just for purposes of the demo. The same as with the high HPs and to-hit percentages of the PC, we just cheated a bit to make the demo run along more smoothly. Website chính thức của Fallout 3 có link sau : http://fallout.bethsoft.com/ ___________________________ -Tin mới từ web của Fallout 3 : Leipzig GC ‘07 đánh giá và giới thiệu về Fallout 3 There are few companies left these days that truly understand what a particular breed of gamers wants. Development studios, eager to win over the hearts and minds of a vast contingent of gamers, spread themselves thin and try to do too much, diluting what could otherwise be a terrific game. Massively multiplayer online game players are particularly sensitive to the fact that often development teams try to do too much rather than focusing on what they can perfect. Horizons and Dark and Light are two very potent examples of this sort of dilemma, and both of those games have felt the impact of a watered-down gameplay experience in one form or another. When a game succeeds in staying true to its core components, however, and perfects those areas before moving on to extraneous material, that’s when MMOG gamers really perk up. While it may not be an MMOG, Fallout 3 from Bethesda Softworks has the potential to be an absolutely amazing addition to any RPG fans library of titles. During the Leipzig Games Convention, I had the opportunity to sit in on a demonstration delivered by Pete Hines, Bethesda Softworks’ vice president of public relations and marketing, where he focused exclusively on Fallout 3 and showed us 45 minutes of actually gameplay. I came in with a few reservations about where the game could be headed, and I came out with the biggest grin on my face. The best way to describe Fallout 3 can be summed up in this way: Fallout 3 is Oblivion on steroids. With nukes. The beginning of our Fallout 3 showing kicked off with a cinematic cut-scene where the player’s point-of-view is slowly pulled away from a still functioning (yet obviously highly degraded) analog radio. Blaring over the vehicles speakers is a rendition of a 1940s-50s era song, complete with the appropriate record hiss and atmosphere generation. The camera continues to pull back, revealing a harsh wasteland of collapsed buildings and crumpled asphalt. The scene needs no words to be truly moving, the sound of the music playing through the crushed cars and shattered concrete is enough to push the dark, gritty feeling on anyone. As if the visuals weren’t enough, a somber voice sounds through your speakers, telling you about the devastation that humans waged upon themselves with their nuclear weapons and highly secure vaults. Your character starts the game in one of those vaults, Vault 101 to be exact. In the other Fallout games, the Vault that the character has lived in either has issues with certain aspects of their basic living, or has some outside treacherous enemy. In Fallout 3, the enemy actually comes from within to drive the character outward. Before this, however, you’ll need to get to know the main avatar – you – and what is needed to engage the minds of the players of Fallout 3. Although I wasn’t able to see the content he described, Hines detailed the initial character creation as “being able to see your own birth.” As babies, players will be able to see their characters through a gene projector, through which their choices of light or darkness will alter their gradual projection. The game will continue to show your growing characters through his or her formative years, asking about choices that your character has made. You’ll also have to pick their initial SPECIALs and skills through a form of medical manipulation. Eventually, the whole progression ends in the current reality. As a member of this giant, secure vault, your character wakes up to find out that you need to go talk with your father figure (who is voiced by Liam Neeson). In your initial travels throughout Vault 101, it’s fairly obvious that Bethesda is working hard to produce a world that feels at least as “alive” as their other recently famous RPG, Oblivion. Truth be told, Bethesda is using an upgrading version of the Radiant AI component used in Oblivion to breathe life into these characters. With all the voiceover work that the team is doing, they’re trying to incorporate the use of names when various NPCs are randomly talking to each other in towns. As the character, you’ll hear them converse with each other as you play, hopefully calling each other by name. Although there are plenty of specific quests available in Vault 101 – anything from the moral dilemma of how to treat your friends to the needs of old service robots – eventually you’ll be instructed by your father to take your Generalized Occupational Aptitude Test (G.O.A.T). After this is done, your character will be fairly complete on the creation side of things, and all that’s left is to advance your character throughout the game. In a step away from Oblivion and Morrowind, Bethesda decided to make Fallout 3 an XP based game. Both those games, which were in the Elder Scrolls series of titles, featured advancement based upon use of skills rather than how many times a creature was killed or a quest was completed. With Fallout 3, Bethesda wanted the game to remain fairly close to the standard system used in the other Fallout games, but they also determined that having a level based system was an opportune way for Fallout to differentiate from the Elder Scrolls games, but it also was more appropriate for the sort of game that they wanted to build. XP in Fallout 3 is built up via quests, kills, exploration, and a number of other factors. After you’ve received enough experience to level up you’ll be given points to spend on skills and other areas of your character that you’d like to improve. Checking the status of your character has once again been delegated to the illustrious Pip-Boy; this time the Pip-Boy Model 3000 that was given to you by your father. Bethesda took extra special care to make this particular Pip-Boy look outstanding, and Hines joked that “there are more shaders on the Pip-Boy than there are in Oblivion.” It wasn’t just the graphics on the Pip-Boy that the developers wanted to perfect; all of the graphics in Fallout 3 look phenomenal. From facial features to explosions and blast waves, the graphics in Fallout 3 make Oblivion look like paltry chump change. Later in the demonstration when your character had finished the necessary quests to leave the vault, you look upon the outside world for the first time. However, instead of simply allowing you to see, the developers adjusted the graphics momentarily to give your character that bleary eyed effect. He hadn’t seen sunlight before, and thus it took his eyes a few moments to adjust. On top of the up-close graphics, you’ll be able to see for a great distance in any direction. Bethesda wanted players to be able to see their destinations especially since you can walk anywhere you can lay your eyes on. Fallout 3 is also boasting the HAVOC Engine and you’ll be able to pick up whatever object you see lying around. One particular example the Bethesda VP wanted us to see was the Pip-Boy bobblehead doll. According to the VP, there will be a bobblehead styled to represent every single SPECIAL and skill in the game, and they’ll give you bonuses when you find them. And you’ll need every single one of those bonuses when you play through the game. Instead of taking a similar tact to the one they used in Oblivion, Bethesda instead decided to make NPCs have fixed statistics rather than the scalable ones. If you enter an area that’s too high for your level, its either sneak through it or find some sort of help to make your way through the area. However, one particular set of abilities can help you progress through the game, and that is the VATS system. VATS are points that you can use to enter a sort of “bullet-time / turn-based combat” mode where you can aim at particular points on your enemies and use your weapons to debilitate or kill them. For two of the monsters that the character fought in the demo (the Giant Ant and the Super Mutant), the VATS system was quite useful. It tells you the percentage you’ll have to hit certain areas of these monsters to take them down. However, the most exciting part of the Fallout 3 demo was the interaction the Bethesda crew had been working on from the story point of view. For the one element that we saw, characters will be able to perform horrific acts within just a few areas of the starting vault. In the demo, the avatar was given an option to either help a town that he’d come across, Megaton, or blow the entire town to high-heaven. You see, Megaton was built around an un-detonated nuke, and one individual wanted the town wiped off the earth. We obviously saw the later of the two options, and the results were absolutely heart-wrenching as a mushroom cloud floating into the sky above Megaton. Finally, I couldn’t help but fall in love with the game as I saw the world of Fallout unfurl itself before me. I’ve never played any of the previous iterations of the game, but I intend to now and I look forward to what it has in store for me. I’ve jotted down a few of my other miscellaneous observations at the end of this article, but all in all, I can’t wait for Fall 2008. Miscellaneous Observations: A possible product placement tie-in? – (Coke-looking bottle in creaking empty bus) Lots of items to interact with. Combat damage based on weapon and skill base. Very mature combat, setting, and language Can render damage to objects on a per pixel level Speech skill can be used to give characters better deals Several different methods of travel Can’t solo many of the monsters in the game Website chính thức của Fallout 3 có link sau : http://fallout.bethsoft.com/
-Tin mới từ web của Fallout 3 : ActionTrip phỏng vấn Gavin Carter về Fallout 3 August 31, 2007. After witnessing the debut showing of Fallout 3 at this year's E3, it quickly became clear that Bethesda's upcoming post-apocalyptic themed RPG is finally beginning to take shape. I've always wanted to settle down in a place like this. I'm seeing mushrooms everywhere. More than one month has passed and we thought it would be a good idea to catch up with Gavin Carter, Lead Producer at Bethesda. Gavin was kind enough to answer a few questions for us. We've broached several interesting topics, including the game's combat system, character customization, quests, NPCs and how the highly-anticipated project is going overall. ActionTrip: We are very excited about Fallout 3, especially after seeing your demonstration at this year's E3. How far along are you in the development process, and roughly how many people do you have working on the game? Gavin Carter: Development is going well, and we're nicely into the meat of what we call the "production phase." That's where we've nailed down the majority of our content creation pipeline, and our artists and designers are now quickly turning out content to fill out the world. We've got around 70 people working on the game full-time at the moment, and that's not counting numerous QA personnel who are playing the game and giving us feedback every day. AT: As we understand, the team is also keeping itself busy with balancing combat in the game. If you can, please tell us about the advantages of V.A.T.S. Do you think hardcore RPG fans will enjoy the cinematic aspect of it? GC: A big advantage is that during VATS mode, time is paused and you're given a wealth of information about your situation. Every targetable enemy and object is highlighted and you can pan around and get a sense for where things are coming from. For each individual target, you can see their overall health, and the condition and the likelihood of landing a shot for each body part. This is the part that I feel separates VATS from standard "real-time with pause" systems in that it gives you information to base a tactical choice on. You may find that you have a high chance to hit a mutant's torso, but then you notice that landing one more risky shot to the arm will cripple him, severely reducing his ability to aim. Recently I've been replaying Oblivion and find myself hammering the VATS button unconsciously whenever I get jumped by an enemy. The other advantage to VATS is, of course, that it's just pure unadulterated fun. Landing a shot to a mutant's head, watching it fly apart in slow-motion, having an eyeball go spinning past the camera - there's just some kind of visceral satisfaction that the experience brings. AT: We're interested in knowing more about character customization. Is the character creation system similar to Oblivion? GC: Visually speaking, character customization is very similar to Oblivion, with the ability to push and pull and prod your character's face into any shape you desire. You pick your character's race, and then have a host of options for skin tint, hair color and face shape. We also want to provide a number of pre-made faces that have been lovingly massaged by our artists here, so people have more palatable options to use as starting points. As far as customizing your character's stats goes, it's very different from Oblivion. You distribute points to your SPECIAL attributes, as well as pick a few skills to boost. Traits and perks then allow for further customization with interesting effects. AT: Is it possible to know, at this point, how many quests we will see in the final version of Fallout 3? GC: Giving you a specific number wouldn't paint an accurate picture. Each quest has multiple paths to completion, and how you choose to complete one quest can affect what quests are available later on. In addition, we have a new category of quests that we term "freeform encounters." As you travel, you'll come across these encounters all over. They're not as big as a full quest, but they will present choices, opportunities for reward, interesting sights and sounds, and more. It should be quite some time before you run out of things to do in Fallout 3, and there will always be more to hit when you play through it again. AT: Since we're talking about quests, can you speak a bit on the structure of quests? Give us a few examples of what the player needs to do during some of his endeavors. GC: The main example that we're talking about now is the Megaton bomb quest that we featured in our demos. A town in Megaton has sprung up around a nuclear bomb that never went off. A man from a competing settlement has a way to detonate the bomb remotely, and offers to reward you handsomely for helping him. Agreeing means erasing the town and all its inhabitants off the map, and cutting off services and quest paths. But it opens up another location with its own set of qualities that you wouldn't have been able to access. Other quests run the gamut of possibilities that a war-ravaged wasteland offers up. For each quest, we try and provide opportunities for as wide a range of playstyles as we're able (Stealth Boy, Combat Boy, Science Boy, etc). AT: NPC interaction is obviously important. What is your stance towards NPC behavior? Can we expect NPCs to assist players in their quests, other than just giving out information? C'mon, the show's about to start! From now on, go easy on the sauce, will ya! GC: Increasing the believability of NPCs is something we aim for with every game we develop at Bethesda. So for Fallout 3, we're taking a lot of pains to keep characters interesting and dynamic even in mundane circumstances. We've added a behavior type that we call a "sandbox package" that allows NPCs to randomly interact with things in their environment. So instead of having to specify exactly what a person does every hour of the day, we can now set them to sandbox and they'll look for activities on their own. NPCs will assist you in quests, either by giving out information, giving you required items, or joining up with you and helping you out directly. There are a small number of mercenary characters who you can convince to join up, each with their own backstory and individual proficiencies. AT: Just how open-ended is the game in terms of moral behavior of the main character? GC: Providing the player with a range of moral options has been a top priority for us since we started. Players should have a variety of ways to role-play their character as evil, good or some shade of gray in between. We look at every quest in the game this way and try wherever possible to support as many different moral outcomes and playstyles as possible. AT: Can you give our readers some idea of what kind of soundtrack you're working on? GC: The soundtrack really varies a lot in style depending on what situation you're in. For exploring, the music is more of an ambient and slightly discordant nature similar to the music of Fallout 1 and 2. In battles, the music is more up-tempo and brings in more percussion and some orchestral elements. We also have music for places like dungeons (think old caves and abandoned vaults), and a special set of music for some of the more important locations in the game. We pushed our composer to experiment with a lot of different styles and instruments to keep the music interesting throughout the game. AT: You've mentioned recently you guys are content with all the feedback that came in after the game's E3 presentation. Are there any plans on a new public trailer or more in-game footage, to give the general public a better idea of what to expect from Fallout 3? GC: We have lots and lots of plans. Prepare for the future! AT: Oh hell yes, for when Google's version of Skynet comes online, they actually make fake boobs feel real, and The Federal Reserve issues funds in World of Warcraft III gold. We're ready, baby! AT: As we understand, the team is also keeping itself busy with balancing combat in the game. If you can, please tell us about the advantages of V.A.T.S. Do you think hardcore RPG fans will enjoy the cinematic aspect of it? GC: A big advantage is that during VATS mode, time is paused and you’re given a wealth of information about your situation. Every targetable enemy and object is highlighted and you can pan around and get a sense for where things are coming from. For each individual target, you can see their overall health, and the condition and the likelihood of landing a shot for each body part. This is the part that I feel separates VATS from standard “real-time with pause” systems in that it gives you information to base a tactical choice on. You may find that you have a high chance to hit a mutant’s torso, but then you notice that landing one more risky shot to the arm will cripple him, severely reducing his ability to aim. Recently I’ve been replaying Oblivion and find myself hammering the VATS button unconsciously whenever I get jumped by an enemy. The other advantage to VATS is, of course, that it’s just pure unadulterated fun. Landing a shot to a mutant’s head, watching it fly apart in slow-motion, having an eyeball go spinning past the camera - there’s just some kind of visceral satisfaction that the experience brings. (...) AT: Can you give our readers some idea of what kind of soundtrack you’re working on? GC: The soundtrack really varies a lot in style depending on what situation you’re in. For exploring, the music is more of an ambient and slightly discordant nature similar to the music of Fallout 1 and 2. In battles, the music is more up-tempo and brings in more percussion and some orchestral elements. We also have music for places like dungeons (think old caves and abandoned vaults), and a special set of music for some of the more important locations in the game. We pushed our composer to experiment with a lot of different styles and instruments to keep the music interesting throughout the game. Website chính thức của Fallout 3 có link sau : http://fallout.bethsoft.com/ ___________________________ -Tin mới từ web của Fallout 3 : RPGCodex đánh giá về Fallout 3 The wonderful world of Fallout 3 Preview by Vault Dweller, posted on Thu 30 August 2007, 18:40:37 More info on Fallout 3 - More info on Bethesda Softworks The wonderful world of Fallout 3 There are many articles dedicated to Fallout 3, discussing topics like "Where is all the role-playing at?" and "Why is it called a Fallout game again?". My answer is - who cares. If you are a passionate gamer like me, you can't wait to play this game and want to know about it as much as possible. Well, let me tell, friend, you came to the right place. Let me walk you through our Fallout 3 exhibition: Life in Vault 101, where your journey begins The vault is an amazing place. It has everything you need: a paranoid Overseer running the operations, his "thugs", whoever they are; genetic scientists (a testament to the vault's education system), and even a "greaser gang". The idea of a gang fits perfectly well into the vault concept and goes to show how good Bethesda is at designing things. CVG: "200 years of isolation have bred a sense of claustrophobia and paranoia, with an almost dictatorial leader who has an intense mistrust of the outside world." Pete: "The overseer who is in charge of the Vault is obviously very upset that somebody has broken the cardinal rule, “Nobody enters, nobody leaves”..." Ron: "In Vault 101, no one ever enters, and no one ever leaves. It is here you were born, and it is here you will die." Emil: "The Overseer is pissed off. He thinks you had something to do with it and he sends his thugs after you. The Vault is no longer safe for you." Pete: "The overseer’s thugs are out to get you..." IGN: "...the Tunnel Snakes, the gang of bullies who inhabit the Vault, and the object of their attention, the young girl with whom you've had a lifelong friendship." IGN: "Those very bullies who showed up at your tenth birthday eventually develop into a gang of obnoxious greasers who delight in terrorizing young girls..." Gaming Trend: "...a local ‘greaser’ gang called the “Tunnel Snakes” giving a friend of yours grief because her father is the overseer." NMA: "...a large number of vault guards patrol the hallways, and during the demo one passed by the girl being harassed and completely ignored the situation." NMA: "As the PC leaves, the guards cry out "he's opening the door!" and call for someone to warn the overseer, draw their batons, but don't really do anything otherwise." How radiant. Meet the Parents You're no longer alone in the harsh, post-apocalyptic world. You have a father and not just any father. He's a scholar and a gentleman - voiced by Liam Neeson!!! - and you just can't live without him. Your love for your father is so strong that when he leaves you and the vault one day, you blindly follow him into the wasteland. Twitch Guru: "The main character's father, a genetic scientist, mysteriously departs... " Worthplaying: "......your father, one of the most important people in Vault 101..." Emil: "So take the relationship with "my" father. He's my moral compass..." Bethesda: "Neeson will play the role of the player's father and will appear prominently throughout the game. ...and provides the dramatic tone for the entire game" Gavin: Your dad is like this warm, inviting guy. He's Liam Neeson! Who wouldn't want Liam Neeson as their dad, right? Emil: "Fallout 3 is really strongly character driven, and we really concentrate on the relationship between the player character and his/her father, voiced by Liam Neeson." Pete: "What was so important? Why did he leave me behind? What did he need to go and do? Where is he?” These are the questions you ask yourself and these are your reasons for leaving the Vault and venturing out into this post-nuclear wasteland." Gavin: "What happened to him? That's one of the central themes of the game. We wanted the relationship as a central point of the plot, so we don't want you to be able to say, piss off your dad and ruin the plot." Pete: "Whereas in this game Liam Neeson is the impetus for the majority of the main quest – it’s about finding your father, finding out what he is up to, finding out if you can help him." It's about time game developers start promoting strong family values and sending messages to people. Someting like "violence is ******* hilarious", but maybe a little less edgy. Dialogue bonsai trees Dialogues play a very important role in any RPG and Fallout 3 in particular. Without dialogues you can only stare at your enemies angrily as you empty your magazine in their direction. With dialogues, you can throw awesome lines like "Nice hat, Calamity Jane!" at them. And then empty your magazine in their direction. Todd: "...and conversations with NPCs use a similar [to Oblivion] style of dialogue tree..." NeoGAF: "Branching dialogue tree, different choices/chances of success based on charisma and speaking skill. Poor INT will NOT affect your dialogue choices." Emil: "We went back and forth with the impact of dialogue on the character, and ultimately decided we didn't want to penalize or reward the player for carrying on a conversation." Pete: "But obviously, when you're talking about supermutants, dialogue really isn't a viable option." NMA: "An option to ask for 500 caps extra pay (29%), or to tell him the town is under your protection and he should get out. Stating that if he fails Mr Burke will like him less, Hines opts to ask for extra pay, and gets it." Pete: "Well, you'll see that Science for instance can allow you to give a scientific explanation and to use that knowledge in dialogue. This will be very technical and not reliant on your Speech skill. The same is true for Repair and so on. So you'll be able to use those as well." Gaming Trend: "Todd was quite tired of playing the nice guy and remarked to the sheriff “Nice hat Calamity Jane”. Our sheriff turned surly rather quickly and warned “This is my town – you so much as breathe wrong and I’m gonna ******* end you.”" Shack News: "That's fine, that's fine, just as long as we understand each other," responds Simms. "These are my people. This is my town. You so much as breathe wrong, I'm gonna fuckin' end you." Gaming Trend: "It was here that we met up with the Brotherhood of Steel. One yelled “That’s how we do it in Alliance Pride, you fuckin’ freaks!” as he gunned down mutants across the street from him." Radical and extreme, but needs some collar grabbing action. Fallout 3 and The Nuclear World of Tomorrow Fallout 3 takes place in the future. The timeline is somewhere between now and the Great Garbage Avalanche of 2505. The world has changed. Everything is nuclear: cars, catapults, and even can openers. Any malfunction and KABOOM! Instant mushroom cloud in your kitchen. That's a guaranteed recipe for a radiation poisoning and some headache. Thank God for Advil. Games Are Fun: "Another element in battle is radiation. By blowing up objects in the environment (resulting in some really awesome-looking mushroom clouds), you'll release radiation into the surrounding area and damage all living things, enemies and friends alike." Critical Hits: "...most radiation from things like blown up cars (nuclear engines) and the mini-nuke weapon will dissipate given a little time." IGN: "...you might also consider making use of the derelict cars that line the streets. Some of the still have a bit of juice in their nuclear-powered engines. Hit them just right and BOOM! Instant mushroom cloud." Game Industry: "At one point we set one of the exploding nuclear cars on fire and then hopped into a portable nuclear shelter (which costs a quarter to use and looks like a phone booth) to avoid the blast." Gaming Trend: "Pulling the Fat Man from our shoulder pack, we launched several explosives roughly the size of footballs at the feet of the behemoth, making light work of the creature – it only took 5 nukes. NMA: "At the end of the fight, a BoS soldier in the visual explosive radius of the Fatman (though apparently taking no damage from it) simply shoulders his assault rifle the moment the bomb hits..." Game Informer: "...Mister Burke. He'd like to get rid of Megaton - something about "a blight on the burgeoning urban landscape." He's got a fusion pulse charge that could arm the live and ticking [nuclear] bomb at the center of town." I'm sure the new residents of this prime real estate area wouldn't mind some radiation. The glow in the dark thing might even add some charm and increase the resale value. Guns to make the world a better place Guns. Guns never change... Well, they kinda did, to be honest. It's a know fact that technological limitations prevented the original Fallout designers from including nuclear catapults, gravity guns, and silent, buy deadly Barbie-Head launchers. Now we can finally enjoy a Fallout game as it was meant to be. Emil: "There are the Fallout weapon skills: big guns, small guns, energy weapons, melee, unarmed which are all fully exploited, so we have weapons for them all." NMA: "The main stat here is DPS, Damage Per Second, which seems to be about 20-40 for the rifles. It was higher for the Chinese assault rifle than for the hunting rifle. ... The Fatman's DPS is 3550, which stands in shrill contrast to the Chinese assault rifle's 41." Emil: "We also have a series of custom made weapons that you can construct if you find a schematic and the right junk in the wasteland. Emil: "Each set of schematics lets you build a certain, pre-determined weapon, as long as you've got all the components, and most of the components are junk objects you'll find in the world." NeoGAF: "On the Energy Weapons skill info pane, it affects these types of weapons: Alien, [Cryo], Laser, Plasma and one other I think I missed." NMA: "As seen on a loading screen: energy weapons include the alien blaster, cryolator and mesmetron." GameInformer: "...a Fatman. Arming this portable nuclear catapult..." GameHelper: "As an example Todd shows off the ‘Rock-It’ launcher – one of the weapons you can build yourself which shoots rocks and other items found throughout the game. Not sure what to do with it? Try firing off some records or scissors at an incoming mutant!" WorthPlaying: "Another cool new weapon is the "Lunch Box Explosive," which consists of a simple lunchbox from the pre-war days that is loaded up with explosives and can send your enemies soaring." Joystiq: "The demo showed off a few highly imaginative weapons, from the ****-o-Tron, which lets you chuck useless items at enemies, to the Fatman personal miniature nuclear bomb catapult." IGN: "All those pointless rocks and Barbie heads you find on the ground can be loaded into a makeshift Rock-It Launcher and put to good use." You must research your enemies weaknesses. If you can't kill a mutant with 5 nukes, try throwing a Barbie head at him. It's so crazy it just might work. Do It Yourself: Upgrade and Repair! Here you can learn all you need to know about maintaining and improving your equipment. We can't teach a country bumpkin like you how to attach a scope to your rifle, but we can show you how to make a shiny daedric mace using nothing but an old chair leg, a bowling ball, and some silver paint. Emil: "We don't allow you to modify existing guns to customize them. For example, you can't take a pistol you've been using and add a scope to it. It's more like finding an old motorcycle gas can and an old sword blade and creating an entirely new weapon." Game Revolution: "If you already have a weapon of the same type, you can bust out some engineering skills, break it down into parts, and use them to beef up the strength, precision, and firing rate of your own weapon." Shack News: "...Howard demonstrated the noticeable difference between a Chinese assault rifle that had been poorly maintained, and one that had been recently repaired, with the latter firing much more quickly and with a much tighter spread." Game Helper: "Don’t worry – you’ll be able to tell when it’s time to repair your weapons – visually. They won’t shoot so well and your targeting will be crap so – not a bad skill to have Tex." I wonder what you can make out of an old gas can and an old sword blade? Holy Avenger? Meet the neighbours The wasteland is a busy place. You've got all kinda people and creatures trying to mind their own damn business. Of course, more often than not their business is figuring out a way to put you out of business. Permanently. Emil: "Your biggest foes in the game are these super-mutants that are invading the world and are in a constant battle to push humans out." NMA: "Pete Hines pauses the game to zoom in on the mutant and explain that this is a supermutant, "the main bad guy in the game." NMA: "Pete Hines also notes conversations with supermutants aren't an option, and they are presented in the demo simply as evil, swarming enemies." NMA: "...in walks a gigantic supermutant that Pete Hines identifies as the Behemoth. Armed with a fire hydrant as a club, a car door as a shield and carrying a shopping cart on his back to keep corpses in, Hines explains that this is the "boss creature for the supermutants," who can deal and take tons of damage." NMA: "Pete Hines explaining the the supermutants have spread through the metro tunnels, but are locked in combat with the Brotherhood of Steel, "the noble knights of the wasteland" who are trying to drive out the supermutants. Emil: "[The Brotherhood of Steel is a] “neo-knightly organization that is waging war in DC”" RPG Gamer: Here we were assisted by the the knightly Brotherhood of Steel, a militaristic order whose goals are to drive back the mutants and reclaim this territory for the humans. Emil: "New mutant animals. ... There's a full line of robots: you saw the Protectron in the presentation, Mr. Handy, Robobrain and Sentrybot. Right before E3 the rad scorpion just went in fully animated. There's also the classic deathclaw. There are lots of creatures are in the game." NMA: "Still in Springvale, a giant ant with kind of horned-looking skin (about halfway between the size of Fallout 2's ants and Fallout's radscorpions) runs up from a distance..." IGN: "...isolated transmissions in the wasteland. Some might lead you a new quest, others might alert you to the presence of a nearby Slaver patrol." Gaming Trend: "A local station called Enclave Station played one of the 20+ licensed tracks from the 40s..." CVG: "The way your PIPBoy can play holodiscs just as it could before, and pick up radio stations to boot - a DJ on one of which can give you missions, then talk about you between songs. Talk about me between songs? That's the Fallout spirit right there. Decisions, decisions... Life in the wasteland is filled with life-altering, fate-of-the-nations-affecting decisions. My buddy Gavin who actually played the game says so, and he sure knows what he's talking about. Gavin: "Right at the top was, "choice and consequence in every quest line", as much as we possibly can. Every aspect of the game should have choice and consequence. Even choices like picking your character's stats." Gamer Node: "One instance of a quest-like encounter occurs when Todd runs into a group known as the Tunnel Snakes (a greaser gang, as he described them) tormenting your female friend. "You can help her," Todd says, "or you can join in, call her fat, make her all sad..." Desslock: To elaborate more on the “Megaton bomb quest” — when you arrive at that town, you can greet and be friendly with the sheriff. When you get the quest to potentially blow up the bomb, you can instead inform the sheriff that these dudes are trying to blow up the town. Or you can decide to blow up the town, but actually be unable to because you lack the mechanical skills to activate the bomb. Or you could just decide to blow the sheriff away when you meet him, in which case you’ll likely be attacked by his buddies when walking through the town. Or you could, after blowing him away, decide to put on his sheriff’s uniform, in which case some NPCs may attack you for killing the sheriff, but others may actually defer to you as the new sheriff. In short - meaningful options and real choices, and interesting characters to interact with - in that respect, I think Bethesda is appropriately emulating some of Fallout’s best and most distinctive features. Gavin: "You play [the Megaton quest] through the "bad" way and blow up the town, you erase everything in Megaton: all the quests that you might have gotten in there are now gone. But it opens up a new area, Ten Penny Tower, that you wouldn't have opened up if you didn't blow up the town. And that place has new quests, it has new items that you wouldn't have gotten." NMA: "Pete Hines explains that quests can be solved in a lot of ways, not just one or two paths, naming the following options here: being nice to the sheriff can land the quest of disarming the bomb, you can betray Mr Burke to the sheriff, you can arm or disarm the bomb without getting a quest. Once at the bomb, he tries to use it and a big warning flashes that his skills are insufficient to even interact with it, and has to take some Mentats that he found in the mailbox earlier to boost his intelligence and thus his technical skills (no negative effects from using these drugs are seen). Clicking the bomb reveals a number of options, including disarming and attaching the detonator..." Fargoth's Gold or the Real Deal? You decide! Mortal Combat When dialogue fails - and I have a feeling it will fail a lot, you'll have no choice but to nuke someone's brains out. At least that's what, I heard, they do in Alliance Pride. Emil:"When Todd and I first started prototyping VATS, we played other real time games like Call of Duty and Halo." Pete: "We don’t want something that rewards the ‘quick-twitch’ FPS player. We’re not trying to reward players who are good at Call of Duty or Halo or whatever." Emil: "..we have V.A.T.S., the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System. Using this system, you can pause the action and make important tactical decisions." Pete: "V.A.T.S. was really born out of a desire to make the game work best as a first-person game..." Emil: "Interestingly, what we've found playtesting the system is that V.A.T.S. sort of has this dual role: it's the skill-based targeting mode, but because of the third-person playback stuff, it's also very much a "my character is a complete badass" mode. Using your character's skills to get take out an opponent's arm is awesome; but then seeing your character unload on the guy, watching his arm explode in third-person... oh man." IGN: ..the impressive Vault-Tech Assisted Targeting System (VATS). The feature is essentially a more detailed version of the combat system in Knights of the Old Republic. ... Using a pool of action points determined by your Agility, you'll queue up fire actions to the targets you want to hit on your enemy. Imaginative and innovative! Two thumbs up. You are SPECIAL! One of the biggest concerns of the Fallout fanbase was the fate of the beloved SPECIAL system. One really couldn't imagine a Fallout game with 6 or 8 stats. It MUST be 7. Lucky for us, Bethesda developers are true Fallout fans and they assured us that the SPECIAL is in! IGN: "The S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system makes a triumphant return from the original series offering up some 14 different skills to choose from." IGN: "...you'll need to hack into one of their control terminals. Once you find one, you'll have to play a short mini-game to gain access to it." Emil: "...you can create the weapon, and your Repair skill dictates its condition." Gaming Trend: "Utilizing the science skill check we worked through what looked like the classic game of Mastermind. The word that we were looking for is within the screen, but we only get so many chances to hack it and the computer gives us feedback by telling us how many letters of the word are in the right place." IGN: Your basic stats aren't going to change much during the game (except as a result of radiation poisoning), but you can collect bobble heads found throughout the game to bump the stats up a bit. TenTon Hammer: "According to the VP, there will be a bobblehead styled to represent every single SPECIAL and skill in the game, and they’ll give you bonuses when you find them." Pete: "You also get titles, so like Scourge of the Wasteland if you're this really evil bastard and blew up Megaton..." Gaming Trend: "Everything appears tracked, just like previous titles, including corpses eaten, locks picked, Mysterious Stranger visits, and much more." We'll continue updating the article, adding new facts as they became available, until the game is released, so drop by every now and then to see what's new and exciting. There are 29 comments on this article Website chính thức của Fallout 3 có link sau : http://fallout.bethsoft.com/
papen hỏi thật nha, hai phong trước khi post bài có đọc qua chưa hay chỉ đọc mỗi tiêu đề, ngày tháng rồi post lên? 1. post như vậy chả khác nào là spam 2. post vậy chắc gì có người muốn đọc, nội chữ và chữ nhìn là đủ mệt rồi nếu mà hai phong muốn post thì tốt nhất là đọc qua rồi làm 1 cái summary rồi post lên chứ đừng chỉ copy và paste như thế. có 1 trang 13 mà dài như con rắn + chữ và chữ nhìn mệt lắm :(
