Preparing for Fallout

Tray M. - Finally. After years of speculation, tears and nerd rage, Fallout 3 is a few steps closer to being a reality.

The first screenshots have been released by Bethesda Softworks of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion fame as well as a teaser trailer that you can find on their website. While nothing too juicy about the game has been revealed, what we’ve gotten so far definitely proves that Bethesda has been working on the game since July of 2004 like they’ve said. For those of us that have been waiting since Fallout 2 was released almost 10 years ago, we’ll take what we can get at this point.

For the unfamiliar, Fallout is the highly acclaimed PC RPG series originally released by now defunct publisher Interplay Entertainment in 1997. In 1998 a sequel was released - Fallout 2. Since then it has been almost 10 years since we’ve seen any visual proof of a sequel being in the works. But now we finally have proof and the hype machine is starting to roll, even though the game isn’t scheduled for release until sometime in the Fall of 2008. Fans all across the vast interwebs have been debating about whether or not Bethesda will be able to retain the feel of the classic series after taking it over.

There a few elements that were vital to the original games’ success, in my opinion. First off was the fantastic sense of atmosphere created by placing your character in a post apocalyptic world that is struggling to cope after nuclear devastation. Hopefully Bethesda can retain the unique and paradoxical feeling of being presented with the shadow of a world at once familiar and normal, yet twisted and ravaged by radiation, mutants and all sorts of other unknowns. Adding more to the atmosphere was how the art direction of the original series made use of a charming tongue-in-cheek take on the paranoid nuclear propaganda of the 1950’s.

Like any HammeredBros favorite, there’s the oodles of over-the-top violence that was unique to a RPG at the time. Being able to target an enemy’s groin with your minigun and watching the bloody mess ensue after you let ‘er rip was all kinds of satisfying for the time. This is just the tip of the iceberg and when you add all the macabre humor to the mix it made for quite the experience. Bethesda is going to incorporate real time first-person shooter gameplay with the turn based combat used in the original games in an attempt to bring the franchise into the next generation. It’ll be interesting to see how well it gets pulled off.

More than anything though, for me at least, it was the writing and dialogue of the classic games that won me over. Considering how little voice acting there was in the game, Fallout was full of hilarious and witty dialogue that provided a great sense of satire and dark humor in an otherwise serious setting. I’m a little worried that the dialogue won’t be nearly as sharp in Fallout 3, especially after playing through the underwhelming chatter in Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. But we’ll see. Bethesda has said time and time and again that they are committed to sustaining the original tone and style of the franchise and this will have to be one of the top priorities if they’re going to succeed.

Here’s a few more things that made the previous games awesome to me:

• Hitting people in the eyes with a sledge hammer
• Playing as a female character who engages in prostitution to support her drug habits
• Getting married and selling your wife into slavery
• Playing as a character with low intelligence and only being able to communicate to NPCs in grunts and bodily functions
• Having minor disagreements end up in you destroying entire towns Rambo style
• Planting explosives on thieving bastard children

Hopefully Bethesda can stay on the ball and deliver on the basics of what made this storied franchise worth modernizing in the first place. I’d say they’re doing a great job so far with what they’ve shown us. The art direction, atmosphere and gameplay seem to be on track so far, but we’ll still have to wait until Fall of 2008 to see if they are able to deliver a classic worthy of the original games.

Now where did I put that power armor?