Taking a videogame franchise from one hardware generation to the next is a hit or miss proposition. Bethesda has embraced a difficult challenge in developing the long-awaited Fallout 3. The developers are striving for the same feel, humor, and flavor of the classic Fallout role-playing games. They're making countless design changes to keep the game up to snuff regarding modern sensibilities, going from 2D to 3D, from an isometric point-and-click RPG to the first-person 3D Oblivion engine. But aesthetics aren't what define a Fallout game. It's not about visual fidelity and polygon counts -- Fallout is about humor, free-roaming exploration, and survival in a world laid low by the bomb.
At the German Games Convention, we were able to once again explore the shattered lands of Washington D.C in a hands-on demo of Fallout 3. Upon exiting the tenuous security of an underground Vault, we were confronted by visions of post-apocalypse America. The environment graphically depicts the ravaged seat of political power for a once-great nation, in its current state nothing more than a toppled symbol of America's former glory.
This is a world stuck in time, awkward remnants of 1950s suburban comfort, billboards still standing long after the decline of capitalism as we know it, and tattered symbols of middle-class idealism sticking out like sore thumbs in a world ruled by lawless raiders who have run the last vestiges of civilized society into hiding. This is a country whose nuclear paranoia was proven right, though that only helped save a lucky few. This is a grim and gritty vision of the future, one that will challenge you to simply survive.
Fallout 3 presents a thought-provoking dystopian what-if scenario, but it also offers up a full-fledged role-playing game. The SPECIAL system once again allows for customization of your Vault-dwelling character, so that you can play as a strong brute, a skillful marksman, an intelligent negotiator or scientist, and so on.
Customization is broken up into three parts. You have your core attributes: Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck. You also have a variety of Perks, which are unique traits that offer specialization options that will expand your character's abilities. Some perks will make you better at a group of skills, while others will offer additional dialogue options, and so on. Then there's the skill set, where you can assign points with each gained level, becoming better with different types of weaponry, stealth, lockpicking, hacking, speech, barter, and on and on.
There are many different ways to approach the game, and one of the hallmarks of the Fallout series has definitely remained intact: We can see players replaying the adventure numerous times; taking different character builds through to experience the world in new ways.
