PS3 Fanboy hands-on: Fallout 3

by Jem Alexander { Jul 21st 2008 at 7:00AM }

Fallout 3 is Oblivion set in the post-apocalyptic future. If you don't mind that fact, then you'll probably love this game. From the minute you set eyes on the title, the similarities are obvious. This is still clearly Fallout, though. The world feels lovingly recreated from the original games, but expanded with some Bethesda flair.

One of the biggest downsides of Oblivion (and the entire Elder Scrolls series) has been fixed in Fallout 3. While the game can be played as a first- or third-person shooter, with point and shoot gameplay, this is inadvisable thanks to accuracy and control problems. Instead, a Fallout style targeting system allows you pause the game mid-battle and decide how you'll spend your "action points."

Gallery: Fallout 3

The camera will zoom towards your targeted enemy, showing the different areas of the body that can be selected. Each of these has a corresponding percentage, which indicates the chance you have of hitting it. Each body part also costs a different number of action points, allowing you to string together attacks before the game continues on. A few hits on the torso will be easier to achieve, but the enemy will take longer to kill and will have time to fight back. Alternatively, a hit on the hand will be far less probable, but will make them drop their weapon.

This will all be familiar to Fallout fans, but seeing this combat system integrated so well into a next-gen 3D game has us very excited. We came away from the game thinking that Bethesda was the perfect choice for the game. They know how to make incredible, living worlds on a huge scale and clearly know and understand the Fallout franchise inside out.

As you play Fallout 3 you'll constantly be reminded of Oblivion, but you'll also be experiencing something unique and new. For fans of the series, this will be set in a universe you know and love. We're very interested in seeing more of this title -- particularly the narrative and character development. The thirty minutes of hands-on we had went by far too quickly.

Tags: bethesda, e308, fallout-3, hands-on, joystiqfeatures

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

koehler83 @ Jul 21st 2008 7:11AM

Hands on which version?

haramanai @ Jul 21st 2008 7:21AM

I wish to know this too.

Jem @ Jul 21st 2008 7:32AM

360 version. There were no PS3 kiosks running the game at the show, unfortunately.

haramanai @ Jul 21st 2008 7:43AM

So we are not going to know how bad the frame rate is... cause Oblivion had problems. At least do you know if they porting the game along with development or they are going to port it when the 360 version is done?

ryan @ Jul 21st 2008 9:49AM

not even sure if there is a PS3 version yet judging the screen shots. "RT" and "LT"...T as in Trigger.

Eggy @ Jul 21st 2008 10:53AM

Oblivion had problems? I think the overall opinion was that the PS version ran alittle better than the xbox 360. Shorter loading times and less framedrops.

reson8er @ Jul 21st 2008 11:21AM

Oblivion absolutely ran better on the PS3 than the 360, I had the 360 version and when the GOTY version for PS3 came out I picked that up. The main difference in the 2 versions, was the PS3 had longer draw distances and "crisper" graphics. Also loading was less jarring, where on the 360, the game would constantly pause whenever a new section was loaded. On the PS3 these were a lot less noticeable.

GridloQ @ Jul 21st 2008 7:32AM

I just hope that the land is worth exploring, unlike Oblivion where it's just miles and miles of the same three trees, four bushes and two rocks.

samuraidino @ Jul 21st 2008 7:36AM

"Fallout 3 is Oblivion set in the post-apocalyptic future"

Do not want.

What I wanted was Fallout3 in First person,not an oblivion spin off.I seem to be one of the few people out there who can look past oblivions shiny graphics and draw distances to see it for the mess that it really is.

I hope to god im wrong,and bethesda havent completely raped one of my favourite franchises,but the more I se and hear about it the more faith i lose in them.

Dean24 @ Jul 21st 2008 8:01AM

your losing the plot mate, This is going to be one of the biggest games since oblivion and prob be ps3 game of the year then oblivion would be 2nd place and so forth gta4 doesnt have anything compared to what this game is going to be like, So much dif and more unhuman gameplay, iTs going to be like licking ice cream of some really hot chick!

Nate @ Jul 21st 2008 8:04AM

Yeah, I got tired of Oblivion pretty quickly. However, this sounds like a completely different combat system (which is good). And if they can improve on Oblivions graphics (especially the faces - good god, every woman in that game was butt ugly!), and maintain a decent story, then I think it'll be good.

Samuraidino @ Jul 21st 2008 8:44AM

What they need to do is not just take oblivion and reskin it,but make an actual Fallout 3 game.

The aspects you mentioned about Oblivion sucked (combat and faces...such ugly ugly faces).But the main problom with oblivion was the fact that the entire game failed as an RPG.

Every quest (with the exception of the dark brotherhood and maybe the thieves guild) was the same old crap repeated over and over again.Talk to someone,go somewhere hack someone to death.And thats it for the entire game.

It had some of the laziest level design Iv seen since Halos library level,as each dungeon,shop and room is basically copy and pasted over and over again.

The voice acting...ugh dont get me started.You have captain Picard and Sean bean voicing two characters (very well I will add),but it seems bethesda ran out of budget after getting these two and had to hire five people to voice the other 500 NPCs.

Level scaling,whats the point of leveling up when everything levels up with you?

Dialogue,or lack there of.You dont have conversations with people,you just treat them like an encyclopedia.ANd not to mention the absolutely retarded perssusasion wheel.

The original Fallouts are some of my favourite games,and they were renowned for doing all those things that oblivions is incapable of doing,right.So having bethesda,a company who seem incapable of doing these things,take the reigns of the franchise is a worrying thing to any fallout fanboy.

Id go on but i fear my reply may be eclipsing the comment section a bit too much.

Oh andDean24,the originals were like licking Icecream off that hot chick,her twin sister and their gymnast friends all at once.After youv had that you dont settle for less.

mikelhend @ Jul 21st 2008 8:59AM

@ Samuraidino -- I also wonder about the auto-scaling level. It made some sense, in that if you didn't want to take a linear path through the story, you could, and wouldn't get your butt kicked. But as you pointed out, it made all the combat a bit tediously even -- one battle wasn't really harder or easier than any other battle.

To the defense of that auto-difficulty-leveling technique: I've played through a dozen or more RPGs where I wanted to finish, but my character was nigh invincible, making the last half of the game's combat horridly boring. They would play-balance the game's main plotline assuming about 50% completion of side-quests. I obsess, and do ALL the sidequests, and end up being super-human. (I'm looking at you, Mass Effect, most recently...)

paul @ Jul 21st 2008 10:13AM

HATS OMG WAY BETTER THAN OBLIVION im gonna make chuck norris

evilfoxhound @ Jul 21st 2008 8:09AM

Why is everything green?

Hellfire @ Jul 21st 2008 8:10AM

Nice hands on, but it's 'Elder Scrolls' not 'Eldar Scrolls'

Jem @ Jul 21st 2008 8:13AM

Whoops! Thanks for that. Fixed.

Richard @ Jul 21st 2008 8:41AM

The 'Point and Shoot' style of gameplay in Oblivion wasn't ever a problem! it's what made the game so much more imersive and playable. I for one will try to play the game without using the targetting system (i will try it out of corse)

Frosty22 @ Jul 21st 2008 9:05AM

Just because it uses the Oblivion engine does not mean it is Oblivion set in the Post-Apocalyptic future. What a dumb thing to say. There are so many differences between these two games it's not even funny. I'm annoyed right now by your choice of words.

ryan @ Jul 21st 2008 10:05AM

he did play the game y'know...

GridloQ @ Jul 21st 2008 9:12AM

I just hope that the land is worth exploring, unlike Oblivion where it's just miles and miles of the same three trees, four bushes and two rocks.

Dan Rabot @ Jul 21st 2008 9:21AM

I have been waiting for this game since the 90's!

Fallout 1 & 2 will always be in my list of top games.

Oblivion really dissapointed me, the horrible faces, that stupid levelling as mentioned already. It does make the difficulty easier to manage but it makes levelling up something that happens rather than something to aim for.

I'm fairly confident that Fallout 3 will be worlds ahead of Oblivion but I sure hope that they've improved it in the right places.

Fane @ Jul 22nd 2008 6:30PM

"makes levelling up something that happens rather than something to aim for" You mean it focuses the game on role-playing rather than stat-grinding (at least in theory)? Why would we want that? BTW I agree that the system in Oblivion is broken as is.

GRT @ Jul 21st 2008 9:59AM

So the big decision is:

1) Get the inferior lazy-devs PS3 version with no extra DLC and spend my time playing cursing the devs for doing a half-assed port
2) Get the 360 version, play half-way through, have the 360 crash and send it back to MS yet again
3) Get the PC version and spend 2 weeks fiddling with drivers, get it working, then have a windows update install itself and break everything all over again.

Hmm, such tough choices..

paul @ Jul 21st 2008 10:14AM

No 1 atleast then your playin

The_Punisher @ Jul 21st 2008 10:59AM

I'm thinking of going wih PS3. PC drivers = fail, 360 = only exclsuives, i don't like buying gaes on 360 if i don't hve o. i'll just have to suffer w/o DLC, oh well. hope it's a theme pack xD

PC-Max @ Jul 21st 2008 10:51AM

Okay. This is just a suggestion and I have been seeing this on other Game pages on the web.

As much as most gamers like to see reviews of games to help them judge whether to pick it up or not... don't review a game on a specific console page and then tell people later that it was not played on the that console but another. Does not help. This review should have gone on the xboxfanboy page. Unless it has. :)

I am not ranting, just suggesting to wait until you get your hands on the console relevant to this page. I think gamers can wait.

Take care.

Jem @ Jul 21st 2008 10:55AM

I understand where you're coming from, but nothing I mention in this article is console-specific. These are gameplay mechanics which will be in both versions of the game. I make no mention of graphics or framerate, because there's a chance these will differ on the PS3 version.

This isn't a review, it's a hands-on. I'm letting you guys know what I experienced when I played the game because you may or may not be interested. Don't decide whether to buy the game or not based on this article -- I still haven't decided myself.

Peace,
Jem

Devin @ Jul 21st 2008 11:08AM

Will this game support Mouse + Keyboard?

Dean24 @ Jul 21st 2008 12:00PM

That is a good one. Does it support mouse and keyboard!
Anyway i enjoyed oblivion but got bored quite alot of the time, iv never completed it but i get side tracked on another side quest then half way thought it i find another sidequest and it just keeps going on and on,
but this game is more my style "yes i did play 1+2 fallout," yes they where good but games nowadays rely on gfx also which is going to be a big hit into our faces anyhow,

What i mean is this is like a whole new system a whole new style of gameplay, non out their have these features, its gonna be either ur gonna love it or hate it!

Warlord Hector @ Jul 21st 2008 12:03PM

Samuraidino is completely right. TES series are very far away from Fallout series even after so many years. Fallout is a game where you absolutely can do much more then Oblivion or on the others. There is more then one or two story lines, you have much choises, and better of that it's possible to finish the game without ever bloodshed, can you do this on TES???

As first I heard about the franchise from Bethseda about Fallout3 (or van Buren at this time) I'll know that the game would be a crap like TES series, its realy a shame... Such a good game blown of so carelessly...

Fallout has to be in a izometric perspektive view, and had to be more and over more dialouge choices, solutions etc.

I'll play the game since their reliese, and played them more over 100 times in total. most of them very different from each other, which other game can give this taste...

PC-Max @ Jul 21st 2008 12:06PM

I understand Jem. I guess with me its I am now skeptical about every game that is played at shows on an Xbox with now PS3 in sight. In PS3 game history... well, it usually means a bad version for us. Not all, but many so far.

Here's hoping for those interested in Fallout!

Cheers!