Fallout 3 release date announced

[MDA]

"Bethesda Softworks®, a ZeniMax Media company, announced today that its highly anticipated title, Fallout® 3, will be available on store shelves and online in North America on October 28, 2008 and in Europe on October 31, 2008."

I believe those dates are *soon*.

Official site

[MDA]

see also Prepare for the Future for funny viral marketing stuff

[MDA]

a lot of it is funny-huh? instead of funny ha-ha

[Venom]

I like this "announce release dates right before the game comes out thing".

[Shining1]

I like this 'annouce release dates when the fucking game is finished' thing.

It solves a lot of drama and helps keep the day 1 patch under a whole gig.

[Greg W]

Originally posted by Venom
I like this "announce release dates right before the game comes out thing".

Isn't that what normally happens when they announce it has gone gold?

[Shining1]

No, normally someone in marketing completely unconnected with the project decides that it'll be ready in 5 months and sets a store date.

[Greg W]

Ah. Shows that I haven't kept up with the gaming community for quite a few years...

[MOBIUS]

And when everything goes wrong, they'll call it Fallout 4...

[MDA]

Fallout Nukem: Forever

[Debaser]

And when it becomes obvious it's just Fallout 2 with different (and badly designed) levels, and a new front end (badly designed) they'll rush release All NEW Fallout:Forever, but by then nobody will care.

[Shining1]

I think the 3D REALMS Duke Nukem crew did the whole 'when it's ready' ethos an incredible amount of harm. It's taken 10 years of everyone getting constantly owned by Blizzard, Valve, and Bioware for the rest to catch on to the idea that at least *sometimes* its good to hold off a few months.

Hell, Blizzard actually KILLS bad games, instead of giving them a half ass finish and releasing them to an unsuspecting public. Can you imagine if EA did that?

[MDA]

it might put an end to them

[MDA]

I can't decide if the targeting system (VATS) is overpowered, or if its the only way to keep from running out of ammo in 2 minutes. Combat is fun, but not particularly difficult (using VATS), with the exception of some mercenary ambushes which have yet to be anything but epic run and gun battles. Tenacious bastards. Sometimes the camera angle chosen for the VATS shots plain sucks, but other times you end up with a perfect cinematic view of a perfectly aimed shot tearing the weapon out of your enemies hands. The first time I did this I was so busy watching the guy run away, I didn't notice he was running for his weapon. He actually picked it up and shot me one last time before I reacted. The AI is quirky like that - sometimes brilliant, sometimes stuck in a chair.

I've spotted some centaurs from a great distance. Creepy. I sneaked off before they spotted me.

Very good game on most fronts. The combat is at times irritating (and too frequent).

The character levelling and perks have been ok so far. There are some really clever traps (I loved stumbling across a tripwire in the dark and catching about five baseballs in the face from a rigged pitching machine). Plenty of interesting side-quests, I've done little on the main quest. Some of the humor falls flat on its face, and in other parts its great.

There's also a weapon crafting system that, while useful in that it provides weapons and utilizes skills, doesn't do much for me. Maybe I haven't found the right stuff to craft yet.

I do keep getting hung up on one thing. Its two hundred years after the war. There's some brown grassy clumps, but I haven't seen a tree? I could grow a pretty goddamned huge tree in forty years, two hundred ought to be enough for a forest. No stumps either, so if the locals are cutting it for firewood, they're digging them up and filling in the holes. Also, from a gameplay perspective, I understand the desire to have food, weapons, and ammo a part of the game. There are just some glaringly obvious problems with two hundred year old food, weapons, and ammunition. Maybe I'll find out later that certain of the more technologically-recovered factions in the wastes have been producing things like this, but if that's the case - I'm finding it in places no one has set foot in in two hundred years, and that's not working for me either. Its a nitpick, but its one that keeps breaking my immersion.

[Beta1]

Loving it at the moment, except the crawling around in metro lines bits.

Just had an epic fight - got pinned down behind some tyres on a ruined dockside by two supermutants with gatling guns on the other side of the river. Took some time to snipe my way out of there.

Have spent the last 5 minutes hiding from a group of BoS outcasts.

[MDA]

I saw a group of 3 of those outcasts walking along the road. I ran out ahead on the road out of sight of them and laid a few mines.

The mines only maimed one, which I finished off right away. The other two had me cornered on a tall broken span of highway when some raiders distracted one. That was enough for me to get out with two laser rifles, a laser gatling, and 3 heavily damaged suits of armor that I combined into one almost perfect suit. Turns out you need "power armor training" to actually wear it.

[King_Ghidra]

Originally posted by Beta1
got pinned down behind some tyres on a ruined dockside by two supermutants with gatling guns

this phrase alone is so beautiful it makes me want to buy the game

[Greg W]

[MDA]

I've yet to see Frances or his ball gag. Too bad, I guess he never moved east.

[Bob]

To bad they didn't announce it this way:

out this fall: Fallout

[MDA]

sure enough there are dead blackened trees scattered around - I was just not seeing them

no live ones yet

[Beta1]

not found the pet dog yet - but did have sydney helping out in the declaration of independence quest.

Also loving my new laser rifle. Headshot = crispy fried mutant

[MDA]

Harold lives on the East Coast now!

I found Vault 106 too. I think it was a movie reference.

[Beta1]

Bloody hell this gane is big - I just finished the main quest (don't do this until you have done everything else as it ends the game)

Just before I hit Lvl20, took the explorer perk and realised I hadn't found 80% of the locations in the game!

[Lazarus and the Gimp]

My Fallout 3 playing experience-

Oh, I'm dead. Oh, I'm dead. Oh, I'm dead. Oh, I'm dead. Oh, I'm dead. Oh, I'm dead. Oh, I'm dead. Oh, I'm dead. Oh, I'm dead. Oh, I'm dead. Oh, I'm dead. Oh, I'm dead. Oh, I'm dead. Oh, I'm dead. Oh, I'm dead. Oh, I'm dead. Oh, I'm dead. Oh, I'm dead. Oh, I'm dead. Oh, I'm dead.

Not getting the hang of this yet. Everything seems to need at least 5 headshots to kill.

[protein]

my experience so far:

talking, talking, talking, talking, oh i'm dead, switch off and play grand theft auto.

[Bob]

True. I hate games with excessive loquacity. And I''m not at all interested in CVs of NPCs

[Fistandantilus]

Interestingly I do, and love the game

[MDA]

Try sneaking up on a cow without a weapon equipped and "activating" the cow. Genius!

The early part of the game is hard. I would tag repair and a weapon skill and work on raising those quickly if you're having trouble in combat. Don't take any points away from your agility or intelligence either.

I shot a deathclaw twice last night from a high cliff he couldn't reach me on easily and he freaking vaulted into orbit, still alive, and never came down. Really strange. I did grab a screenshot at the last moment. I was half expecting him to come back down on my head, Incredible Hulk style, since I still seemed to be in combat for awhile.

Still haven't found Dogmeat.

[MDA]

Try sneaking up on a cow/brahmin without a weapon equipped and "activating" the cow. Genius!

The early part of the game is hard. I would tag repair and a weapon skill and work on raising those quickly if you're having trouble in combat. Don't take any points away from your agility or intelligence either.

I shot a deathclaw twice last night from a high cliff he couldn't reach me on easily and he freaking vaulted into orbit, still alive, and never came down. Really strange. I did grab a screenshot at the last moment. I was half expecting him to come back down on my head, Incredible Hulk style, since I still seemed to be in combat for awhile.

Still haven't found Dogmeat.

[MDA]

um, interesting, it double posted instead of editing

[Bob]

"Genius!"

[Lazarus and the Gimp]

Where the hell can you find an "un-owned" bed? I'm limping around near death constantly.

[lightblue]

Once you disarm the bomb in Megaton (only need 25 explosives), you get a house to use for sleeping and storage.

[Lazarus and the Gimp]

In the meantime, I'm just going to have to run away from absolutely everything.

[Fistandantilus]

There must be something wrong, are you playing a 1 endurance char?

Where have you been yet? I found plenty of abandoned houses (or hotels but they aren't exactly cheap..) in my travels.

[MDA]

there's a bed in the pharmacy at the super mart east of Megaton, it was the first one I found

the super mart is occupied, though, you'll have to evict the current residents

[Lazarus and the Gimp]

It's OK. I disarmed the bomb, having finally found Megaton.

The combat system is a bit shit, isn't it? 10mm pistols fire off with all the force of a peashooter, and there's never any sense of actual violence. If you're used to Call of Duty 4, it's one hell of a let-down.

[lightblue]

Not using the VATS system? Decapitations galore that way.

[Fistandantilus]

And I thought there was too much gore..

[MDA]

Giant radscorpions take way too much killing. I can't seem to find a magic weapon for those. Maybe I need to try a flamethrower, but I have a low heavy weapon skill.

I've completed the good guy ending so far. The WoW expansion comes in the mail tomorrow, that'll probably put a kink in Fallout for awhile.

[Lazarus and the Gimp]

Originally posted by lightblue
Not using the VATS system? Decapitations galore that way.

Yes, I am- and it's really silly. Aim for the head, and the following happens.

1- Hit. Blemish appears on raider's forehead. Raider cares not, and continues attacking with gay abandon.

2- Hit. Raider's head comes flying clean off and lands 20 feet away. Incidentally, this was achieved with a small-calibre handgun.

Seriously- compare it to COD4 and it's rubbish.

[MDA]

I don't play many FPS games compared to other stuff, but I think I understand what you mean. I don't think the game was intended to play like a mainstream shooter, though. It certainly doesn't measure up to one.

The combat for me was just a means to an end. I did far more exploring than was necessary to finish the game. There are a handful of outdoor areas I will go back to explore, and some metro stations in DC proper that I probably won't bother with since they're mostly just ghoul filled pathways to more interesting locations (lame). Once I got a laser weapon I stopped even paying attention in VATS. The "bullet cam" mode kicks in and tries to track the laser, which appears to move instantly to the target. The result in VATS is a close up of me firing the weapon, then an uncomfortable frame skipping motion followed by whatever laser impact animation it decides on. Watching it too much hurt my head.

The high explosives animations I liked. Exploring the wasteland is the bit I had fun with. I found a radio tower broadcasting a distress message and spent a little time tracking down the actual source the other day, I won't spoil it, but I liked it. Little touches like that, the surprise with the fire ant quest, and the gag locations (Dave clones!) all felt very Fallout-y.

I think they need to put a limit on stimpacks you can take in a short time period, or make them heal over a 5 or 10 second time period to make the combat a litle more dangerous. You can usually just stand there and fire away point blank at a single enemy while popping stimpacks to keep yourself alive once you have combat or powered armor. That would probably ruin the game for people that don't want to wear the heavier armors, I guess.

[Beta1]

Was that the rangers distress signal? Thats a good mission.

I'm still trying to figureout the point of the big radio towers though - I turn them on, I hear some very feint morse or voice and thats it.

[MDA]

there's usually an underground transmission point within a few hundred meters of the towers, doesn't seem to be much to them

[MDA]

Fallout: New Vegas is out tomorrow in the US, not sure about elsewhere.

I don't know much about it except they're returning to the New California Republic/Western US setting.

I could also guess that it will be the second buggiest game Laz has ever played, if Bethesda stays true to form.

[Tau Ceti]

New thread, perhaps?

It comes out Friday in Europe. I have risked a pre-order.