So we return to the Wasteland, the future’s living apocalypse, or hell. For the third outing of the series launching into the latest generation of consoles, making the leap from consoles and changing developers, I must say great job. You’re a vault dweller and you wake up one day to find your Dad has committed the almighty sin of opening the vault doors and running outside for which the Overseer wants to kick your ass, so you get hauling. In short, the storyline is to find your Dad, I won’t go any deeper than that for spoiler reasons and you don’t need to follow the story to enjoy this game.
Once you are outside the vault you will find a truly open ended game. You can wander the Capital Wasteland and explore out on your own, or stick with the story. Any way you decide to play it you will be entertained for hours. There are dozens of side quests to be done for those who wish to find them. Exploration is key to the game as the player is placed in a huge sandbox to play in, make the most of it. I’ve taken to doing a chunk of the storyline, then a few side quests, then more story line and I’m still missing tons of content. There is enough in here to keep me very busy for a long time. There is no simple way to play the game, it is up to each player to determine their own experience. You can level entire towns, steal, rob, kill, or you can be a nice guy and help out everyone you come across, or somewhere in between. Regardless, expect the citizens of the Capital Wasteland to respond accordingly.
Today Bethesda Softworks has announced that Fallout 3 has shipped about 4.7 million units worldwide across all gaming platforms, except the Nintendo Wii of course, totalling about 300 million dollars since it’s release on October 28th. The game is said to be performing well in most regions and in the UK it is outperforming the first week sales of Bethesda’s last major hit, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
Now that Bethesda has all of this extra money in their pockets you can expect them to be hard at work on more sequels to both of their hit titles. Don’t be the only one left out of this post apocalyptic wonder, go purchase Fallout 3 and feel like you belong.
According to Bethesda PR VP Pete Hines, a Trophy patch for the PS3 version of Fallout 3 is in the works. Pete let this tidbit out in an interview with Eurogamer:
It’s going to happen, just not sure when. We’ll let folks know when we have something more definitive.
I own the PS3 version of the game, so it’s nice to see developers adding this in, even though it’s late. I’m hoping a patch comes sooner rather than later to fix the issue of slight freezing whenever you get an XMB pop-up.
To all the fanboys out there, the PS3 version is not hardcore broken. On my 50″ 1080p HDTV, the two versions look almost identical. In some cases the Xbox 360 has better textures and, in others, the PS3 has better textures. It’s a great game on both systems, so stop acting dumb.
I just embarked on the journey of Fallout 3 and I have to say that the game is so large and so open ended that I find myself lost at times. Fallout 3 makes no attempt to hold your hand and instead throws you into an apocalyptic nuclear fallout equipped with a BB gun and a dream. The opening starts you as a child in the Vault where your civilization has hidden from the nuclear fallout, but quickly some events will transpire and you will be set loose into the world to fend for yourself. There are choices that need to be made very early on that will help shape your style of play and your moral character.
As you set foot outside of the Vault, you see a large world that has been decimated and you embark on a quest to locate your father. Good luck fending off rabid dogs, giant bugs and the occasional wasteland raiders. It is no secret that Fallout 3 has been dubbed “Oblivion with guns”, but after playing Oblivion, Fallout 3 makes that game look linear. Fallout also makes no attempt to teach you how to succeed, as it is entirely up to you to master how to use weapons, where to locate food and how to survive. I learned the hard way that if you get hit in the head, you will get dizzy and the screen will black out on you. Everything you carry has a weight associated with it, so carrying two tons of empty coffee mugs may not be helpful for your questing as you will be slowed down by the extra weight.
Today is the day. Maybe you are even reading this from the car as you prepare your equipment to enter the dreaded line in anticipation for Fallout 3. If you reside in any of the northern states I would recommend to bring more than a blanket.
Bethesda Softworks and Best Buy have teamed up to bring you a midnight release of Fallout 3 in select cities. Lines will start forming around 3 P.M. local time today. Bethesda’s hometown Best Buy in Rockville, Maryland will be the flagship location with special festivities along with developer signings of your copy of Fallout 3. If you are no where near this location there are plenty of other metropolitan areas to travel to. This is one of the biggest games of the season so if you have any chance at making the midnight launch you should definitely go for it. A list of the select cities will be after the jump.
Fallout 3 was shown on G4 and thank god it was, I had my doubts because of the lack of gameplay footage, but after seeing this I need this game and so do you. 100 hours of shooting enemies using VATS is awesome. VATS is an awesome system where you can specify what body part on an enemy you want to target, which really gives the game an RPG feel. I love the fact that you build stats and skills by interacting with the environment as well as your moral decisions, which will shape your experience as well.
This is a long clip, but it is worth watching every minute, if you get impatient skip to the 8th minute where Todd Howard shows of building his own rocket launcher out of a leaf blower and shoots an enemy with Teddy Bears, yes Teddy Bears!! Bethesda, this game looks incredible, thank you and I apologize for ever doubting you guys.
You want to spend some extra money on Fallout later this year? Bethesda is making a pretty bad ass Collector’s Edition for the game. Here’s what’s inside:
Vault Boy Bobblehead: Enjoy your very own Vault Boy with this collector’s item direct from Vault-Tec.
The Art of Fallout 3: This hardcover book features nearly 100 pages of never-before seen concept art and commentary from Bethesda Game Studios artists.
The Making of Fallout 3: Get an exclusive, inside look at Bethesda Game Studios and the team behind the game with this special DVD.
Vault-Tec Lunch Box: The entire package comes in a fully customized metal lunchbox.
The bobblehead is pretty cool and so is the lunch box. I’m not sure how excited I am for this CE, though. We’ll see as we get closer to release.
Bethesda dropped off a package of new screenshots in our mailbox today for Fallout 3. Damn do they look pretty. Can’t wait to get some hands on time with the game. It’ll be hitting an Xbox 360, PS3, and PC near you this fall.
More pics after the jump. You know you want to see them.
A recent Bethesda podcast confirmed some new details on their upcoming RPG. The game will have over 200 different endings and will be twice as big as previously thought. Wow. Thats a big deal. Talk about replayability. I’m sure the endings won’t be drastically different, but thats still impressive. There are plenty of other details listed and they can be found here; a recap of their recent podcast.
We're like Spaceballs... we're making Loot Ninja everything. Coming soon we'll have hats, shirts, hoodies, possibly banana hammocks if one Editor has his way...
Check out the shirt prototypes here and the hats here
