Phasma ex Machina

During my biweekly stroll through the new trailers present on gaming website Gametrailers, I noticed that Bethesda Softworks had released a play-through of two of the first quests an exploring Vault dweller encounters in Fallout 3. I decided to test my reservations about this new title and loaded the clips.

When hearing about the new upcoming Fallout title, I was both excited and sceptic. Although I could not wait to get my hands on a new instalment of one of my all-time favourites, I cannot deny a hint of disappointment when learning about its, perhaps inevitable, transition into first person. I never was a real fan of the FPS genre, but whenever the storyline was intriguing enough (Doom 3, Duke Nukem 3D or FEAR, for example) I could be persuaded to go a few hours with the back of a gun stuffed in my face. Once in a while, I was pleasantly suprised; games like System Shock 2, BioShock, Thief and Deus Ex managed to combine the run and gun-routine with a pleasant mix of tactics and role-play elements. Also, after being badgered to death with the media coverage about Bethesda's Oblivion, I grabbed a copy of this next-gen rpg, which proved to be hours of questing and fighting in first-person. I have not touched the main quest yet, and have put 30+ hours in the game. Still, could my favourite isometric, post-apocalyptic RPG survive the 'Oblivion' effect? Perhaps this demo could soothe my worries.

The trailer is split in five parts, each highlighting a specific game play. The first trailer shows your escape from Vault 101 and a typical Oblivion-esque confirmation of your character treats. During that part the character levels up and shows how skill points and perks are chosen. I have to say they nailed the Fallout-feel in this regard.

In the second trailer the vault dweller meets some residents of the town of Megaton. As far as the demo goes all dialogue is voice-acted, in contrast to the talking heads from the prequels. Not quite new these days, but still a nice improvement over the earlier games. We have to wait and see whether or not we hear the same five voices throughout the whole game because of this. Also this trailer shows the influence of a skill on the game progress and how this can be influenced positively using drugs (but remember kids, doing drugs is still bad ).

In the third demo, the player encounters some enemies. The battle is primarily waged in real-time, just like all those other FPS games. The twist, however, is that in a special mode, time stops and you can queue attacks on specific enemies and body-parts. This part looks very much like the old Fallout way of targeting specific members and appears to go together with some number crunching.

The fourth demo did not really bring much new info, save one: apparently, given the skill is high enough, the vault dweller can construct his own weapons. The demo demonstrates a bottle-cap mine (yes, for the initiated, the bottle-caps have returned as the currency for this brave new world) and a railway gun (allowing heads to be spiked against walls). Quite interesting and an element, when implemented properly, I can really enjoy (yes: Cold War, no: Alone in the Dark 5).

The fifth and last clip shows the conclusion of the quest from Megaton. And, ladies and gentlemen, it is still possible to reverse-pickpocket live grenades and bombs from people. It even appears to yield an achievement . The endgame of the quest is portrayed nicely and even influenced your karma, also present in the game.

All in all, I am quite enthusiastic about the clips and inclined to think the game is in the right hands. However, this is only a small excerpt of the whole game and I remember the clips from Alone in the Dark 5 being just as awesome. And we all know how that played out to be. I guess we will have to wait until October 31st to see if Bethesda can really pull it off to make a smash hit first-person RPG twice in a row.