After seeing Fallout 3 a few weeks back at a special Bethesda event, we got a second chance to check the game out during this week's E3, and everything we've seen so far looks amazing. If you're not familiar with the "Fallout" series, here's a simple refresher. Humanity has finally succumbed to its basest instincts and set the world on fire with nuclear weaponry. Years after the warheads and bombs have done their worst, a post-apocalyptic society slowly forms. It's an ugly, brutal, unforgiving world, but life does go on. The world before the war is a futuristic yet nostalgic one combining nuclear-powered cars with designs from the 1940s and 1950s. Simply put, few franchises are as unique and enthralling as Fallout and once we heard that the makers of Oblivion were tackling the license we knew we were in for something special.


As we reported in our first preview Fallout 3 starts you off in Vault 101, one of many large, self-sustaining nuclear fallout shelters dotted across America. What's unique about Vault 101 is that the massive door that protects its inhabitants from death by radiation has yet to open. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this is about to change. You play as a vault dweller who was born in the vault and has never seen the outside world. The game actually begins with your birth and chronicles your life underground from infancy to your 19th birthday. Obviously you won't play through all 19 years, but you will see bits and pieces of your childhood which will have an impact on what kind of person you'll be when you get older.


During our demo we got to see the main character leave the vault, explore the nearby wastelands, visit a town called "Megaton" and meet up with some members of the Brotherhood of Steel. The game is using a modified Oblivion engine, and while Oblivion looks good, Fallout 3 looks fantastic. The level of detail is boosted up a notch or two and the result is all on the screen. We're told that the tweaks made to the engine allow the developers to make the world far more detailed than Oblivion ever was. Rusted-out cars, ruined mailboxes and crooked power lines all work together to create a very believable nuclear wasteland. Even the vault itself looked fantastic. Bethesda has gone to great lengths to take actual items from the first two games, such as air vents and chairs, and do its best to recreate them in 3D.