Fallout 3

Fallout 3
Developer(s)	Bethesda Game Studios
Publisher(s)	Bethesda Softworks ZeniMax Media
Designer(s)	Emil Pagliarulo (Lead Designer) Todd Howard (Exec. Producer)
Composer(s)	Inon Zur
Series	Fallout
Engine	Gamebryo engine
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Release	UK: October 31, Template:Vgy
Genre(s)	Action role-playing game
Mode(s)	Single-player

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Gameplay

Initial previews of Fallout 3 revealed that the game will feature both first-person and third-person perspectives, and that the player can change to either perspective during gameplay. Main character creation occurs as the player experiences the character's childhood. The character's mother dies in labour in the Vault 101 hospital, immediately after which the player decides their general appearance through a DNA analysis conducted by the father. Afterwards, the father removes his surgeon's mask to reveal a face similar to the one chosen by the player for the character. As a child in the Vault, the character receives a book titled "You're SPECIAL," whereupon the player can set the character's seven primary aptitudes. The character receives weapons training and a PIP-Boy 3000 later on during childhood, and the player's performance in various tests determines the rest of the attributes. Additionally, several quests inside the Vault will be able to influence the player character's relationship with his or her father. Skills and Perks are similar to those in previous games: the player chooses three Tag Skills out of a total of 14 to be the character's specialties. The maximum level the player can achieve is level 20. The Traits from the previous Fallout installments were combined with Perks in Fallout 3, and the player can choose a new Perk each time after gaining a level.

An example of VATS in action

The Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System, or VATS, will play an important part in the fighting phases of the game. While using VATS, real-time combat is paused creating a combat system that the Bethesda developers have described as a hybrid between turn-based and real-time combat. Various actions cost action points, limiting the actions of each combatant during a turn, and both the player and enemies can target specific body areas for attacks to inflict specific injuries. The game will feature a new health and radiation system as well. The player can measure an object's radioactivity and gauge the effect it will have on the character.

Another facet of gameplay is that firearms wear out over time: as a weapon degenerates, its rate of fire slows and it loses accuracy. However, worn out firearms can be combined to make more reliable and powerful weapons. Weapon schematics can also be found and used to create various devices such as the Rock-it Launcher, created by combining a leaf blower and a wood chipper, that can fire various items such as lunchboxes and stuffed animals, or the Clever Shrapnel Bomb, made out of a Vault-Tec lunchbox and bottlecaps. Along with equipping various weapons, the player can also utilize different armors and clothing that may have effects that can alter various skills. For example, a pair of mechanic's coveralls may boost the player's repair skill while it is worn. Armor and clothing come in two main parts for the head and body, allowing a player to wear different combinations of hats and armor. Also, a player's inventory has a specified weight limit, preventing a player from carrying too many items. Some items like weapon ammo have no weight, due to the developer not wishing to bog down inventory management.

The player will have a maximum party of three, consisting of himself/herself, Dogmeat, and a single NPC. In addition to having Dogmeat in your party you will be able to send him out on his own to search for items such as arms and ammo, radiation medicine, and stimpacks. Dogmeat can be killed during the game if the player misuses him or places him in a severely dangerous situation and he cannot be replaced. Only one NPC can travel with the player at any time, and in order to get another NPC to travel, the first one must be dismissed by the player.

A karma system will be an important feature in the gameplay. The player's actions, including conversation and combat choices, will affect the player's status in the game world; a player who makes good choices will be received more positively by NPCs, and a player that makes bad choices will have the opposite reaction. Crimes can also be committed by a player, and whichever faction or group that is harmed by a crime will be fully aware of the player's action. Other factions that were not affected by the crime will not be aware of it, and since a town is usually its own faction, news of a crime committed in one town will not spread to another. Factions can range in size and boundaries, however, and may not be restricted to a single area. The game world itself is similar in size to that of Oblivion, which has a 16 square mile game world.

Plot

Setting

File:Fallout3 special.jpg

The PIP-Boy 3000, displaying the player's skills statistics.

Fallout 3 takes place in a post-apocalyptic United States in the year 2277. The player character is a member of Vault 101, a fallout shelter serving Washington, D.C. The player character lives with his/her widower father (voiced by Liam Neeson) until, one day, the player wakes up finding that the father has left the vault and ventured into the wasteland for unknown reasons. The vault overseer becomes suspicious that the player had something to do with the father's disappearance, and the character decides to go out into the Capital Wasteland in search of him. Along the way, the player will encounter organizations seen in the previous games, including the Brotherhood of Steel, a group of technology-coveting survivors, and the Enclave, the elitist and genocidal remnant of the U.S. government. Another organization is the Talon Mercenaries, mostly former U.S Army veterans and ex-Raiders.

Development

Interplay Entertainment

Further information: Van Buren (Fallout 3)

Fallout 3 was initially under development by Black Isle Studios, a studio owned by Interplay Entertainment, under the working title Van Buren. Interplay Entertainment went bankrupt and closed down Black Isle Studios before the game could be completed, and the license to develop Fallout 3 was sold for a $1,175,000 minimum guaranteed advance against royalties to Bethesda Softworks, a studio primarily known as the developer of the The Elder Scrolls series. Bethesda's Fallout 3 however, was developed from scratch, using neither Van Buren code, nor any other materials created by Black Isle Studios. In May 2007, a playable technology demo of the cancelled project was released to the public.

Leonard Boyarsky, art director of the original Fallout, when asked about Interplay Entertainment's sale of the rights to Bethesda Softworks, said:

To be perfectly honest, I was extremely disappointed that we did not get the chance to make the next Fallout game. This has nothing to do with Bethesda, it's just that we've always felt that Fallout was ours and it was just a technicality that Interplay happened to own it. It sort of felt as if our child had been sold to the highest bidder, and we had to just sit by and watch. Since I have absolutely no idea what their plans are, I can't comment on whether I think they're going in the right direction with it or not.

System requirements

	Minimum	Recommended
Windows
Operating system	Windows XP or Windows Vista
CPU	Pentium 4 2.4 GHz or equivalent processor	Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory	1 GB / 2GB (Vista)	2 GB
Graphics hardware	DirectX 9.0c compliant card with 256 MB RAM (NVIDIA 6800 or better / ATI X850 or better)	DirectX 9.0c compliant card with 512 MB RAM (NVIDIA 8800 series, ATI 3800 series)

Bethesda Softworks

Bethesda Softworks stated it would be working on Fallout 3 in July 2004, but principal development did not begin until after The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and its related extras and plugins was completed. Bethesda Softworks has announced their intention to make Fallout 3 similar to the previous two games, focusing on non-linear gameplay, a good story, and black comedy. Bethesda has also stated the game will be rated M for mature, and will have the same sort of adult themes, violence, and depravity that are characteristic of the Fallout series. They have also decided to shy away from the self-referential gags of the game's predecessors that broke the illusion that the world of Fallout is real. Fallout 3 will use a version of the same Gamebryo engine as The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and is being developed by the team responsible for that game. Liam Neeson has been attached to the project as the voice of the player's father.

In February 2007, Bethesda stated that the game was "a fairly good ways away" from release, but that detailed information and previews would be available later in the year. Following a statement made by Pete Hines that the team wanted to make the game a "multiple platform title," the game was announced by Game Informer to be in development for Windows, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. A teaser site for the game appeared on May 2, 2007, featuring music from the game and concept art, along with a timer counting down to June 5, 2007. The concept art was commissioned before The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was released, and has been confirmed by the artist and developers that the images do not reveal anything from the actual game. When the countdown finished, the site hosted the first teaser trailer for the game, and unveiled a release date of "Fall 2008." Fallout 3 went gold on October 9, 2008.

During a March 21, 2008 Official Xbox Magazine podcast interview, Todd Howard revealed that the game had expanded to nearly the same scope as Oblivion. There were originally at least 12 versions of the final cutscene, but due to recent upgrades, this expanded to over 200 possible permutations, all of which are determined by the actions taken by the player.

Bethesda Softworks attended E3 2008 to highlight Fallout 3. The first live demo of the Xbox 360 version of the game was shown and demonstrated by Todd Howard, taking place in downtown Washington, D.C. The demo showcased various weapons such as the Fat Man nuclear catapult, the VATS system, the functions of the PIP-Boy 3000, as well as combat with several enemies. The demo concluded as the player neared the Brotherhood of Steel-controlled Pentagon and was attacked by an Enclave patrol. Todd Howard also confirmed that downloadable content would be prepared exclusively for Fallout 3 on the Xbox 360 and Windows; there is no downloadable content planned for the PlayStation 3 version of the game.

Controversy

On July 4, 2008, Fallout 3 was refused classification by the OFLC in Australia, thus making it illegal to distribute or purchase the game in the country. In order for the game to be reclassified, the offending content in the Australian version of the game would have had to be removed by Bethesda Softworks and the game resubmitted to the OFLC. According to the OFLC board report, the game was refused classification due to the "realistic visual representations of drugs and their delivery method (bringing) the 'science-fiction' drugs in line with 'real-world' drugs." A revised version of the game was resubmitted to the OFLC and reclassified as MA 15+ on August 7, 2008, or not suitable for people under the age of 15; this new rating ensured that the game could retail legally in Australia. According to the OFLC board report, the drug content was not removed entirely from the revised version of the game, but the animation showing the actual usage of the drugs was removed; the minority view on the decision stated that the drug content was still enough to warrant a refused classification rating, despite the admission that the portrayal of the drugs was appropriate within the context of the game. In a later interview with Edge, Bethesda Softworks revealed that there would be only one version of Fallout 3 released worldwide, and that this version would have all real world drug references removed. It was later clarified that the only change made would be that morphine, a real world drug that would appear in the game, would be renamed to the more generic "Med-X."

Marketing

Trailers

On June 5, 2007, Bethesda released the Fallout 3 teaser trailer. The press kit released with the trailer indicated that Ron Perlman will be on-board with the project, and cited a release date of Fall 2008. The trailer features the Ink Spots song "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire," which the previous Fallout developer Black Isle Studios originally intended to license for use in the first Fallout game. The trailer, which was completely done with in-engine assets, closed with Ron Perlman saying his trademark line as the narrator of the first two Fallout games: "War. War never changes." The trailer shows a devastated Washington, D.C, evidenced by the partially damaged Washington Monument in the background as well as the crumbling buildings surrounding a rubble-choked city thoroughfare.

A second trailer was first shown during a GameTrailers TV E3 special on July 12, 2008. The trailer zooms out from a ruined house in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, providing a wider view of the capital's skyline including the Capitol Building and Washington Monument in the distance. On July 14, 2008, an extended version of this trailer was made available, which besides the original content, includes a Vault-Tec advertisement and actual gameplay. Both versions of the trailer feature the song "Dear Hearts and Gentle People" as recorded by Bob Crosby and the Bobcats.

Film festival

On July 11, 2008, as a part of promoting Fallout 3, Bethesda Softworks partnered with American Cinematheque and Geek Monthly magazine to sponsor "A Post-Apocalyptic Film Festival Presented by Fallout 3." The festival took place on August 22-23 at Santa Monica's Aero Theater. Six post-apocalyptic movies made over the past 40 years were shown which depict life and events that could occur after a world-changing disaster, including Wizards, Damnation Alley, A Boy and His Dog, The Last Man on Earth, The Omega Man, and Twelve Monkeys.

Versions

Template:Fallout 3 Versions Fallout 3 will be released in four separate versions, only two of which will be made available worldwide. The Standard Edition will include only the game disc and manual with no extras.

The Collector's Edition will include the game disc, manual, a bonus "making of" DVD, a concept artbook, and a Vault Boy Bobblehead, all of which will be contained in a Vault-Tec lunchbox. In Australia, the Collector's Edition is exclusive to EB Games.

The Limited Edition will include the game disc and manual, as well as a Brotherhood of Steel Power Armor figurine; no other items will be included. This edition is available only in the U.K. through the retailer GAME.

The Survival Edition will include everything from the Collector's Edition, as well as a model of the PIP-Boy 3000 from the game which will function as a digital clock. The Survival Edition is available exclusively from Amazon.com to U.S. customers only.

Leaks

One month before Fallout 3's release, the Xbox 360 version of the game was leaked to various file-sharing websites. The leaked version is speculated to be a copy of a review version of the game rather than the retail version. Bethesda Softworks is aware of the situation but has not made any public announcement concerning the leak.

Reception

Reception

Review scores

Publication	Score
Official Xbox Magazine (US)	10/10
PC Gamer (UK)	90%
PC PowerPlay	9/10

Awards

Fallout 3 won several awards following its showcasing at E3 2007. IGN gave it the Game of E3 2007 award, and GameSpot gave it the Best Role-Playing Game of E3 2007 award. Following the game's demonstration at E3 2008, IGN also gave it Best Overall RPG, Best Overall Console Game, and Overall Game of the Show for E3 2008. Game Critics Awards gave the game Best Role-Playing Game and Best of Show for E3 2008.

External links

• Fallout 3 Official Website
• Fallout 3 on The Vault, the Fallout wiki, an external wiki