Full FeedBethesda “anxious” about Fallout 3 reviews
In the face of months, if not years, worth of anticipation from fans for Fallout 3, developer Bethesda Softworks is understandably “anxious” about the first wave of reviews for the game. Will the game live up to the hype fans have created for it, or will it fall flat?
A Bethesda PR spokesperson told Edge that the company is never really sure how reviewers will respond to its games, ensuring that developers are always anxious during the launch period. He goes on to say that the first few reviews had been reassuring, including the 10 out of 10 score issued by the Official Xbox Magazine in the U.S.
The Xbox 360 version of Fallout 3 currently has a 93 out of 100 “Universal Acclaim” rating on Metacritic and a 90% overall rating on Game Rankings. And yet, while the spokesperson notes that Bethesda is thankful that critics are enjoying the game, he says the game’s developers really want to gauge the general consumer response as well.
The spokesperson then goes on to tell a harrowing tale of dedicated fans boldly waiting in line for the game at a retail store in Minnesota on a particularly freezing cold night. He explains that it’s these people that Bethesda really hopes can enjoy the game because they’re so clearly excited about its potential.
Perhaps you can help Bethesda out. If you have already picked up your copy of the game, why not let us know what you think of it so far in the comments section below? Residents of Europe and Australia can join in after the game launches tomorrow (October 30, 2008) and those in the UK can do the same as of Halloween (October 31, 2008).
Read [Edge]
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Played it for about two days. The people that say “Fallout 3 is being ruined by Bethesda” need to play the game first for more than an hour.
This game really has some innovative features. Granted, it has the Oblivion feel, but the original Fallout in a way had a bit of a TES feel to it. The environment is amazing, and the VATS system is well done. I probably would’ve found it to be interesting if some higher end mobs could use the VATS themselves (not there yet)
This game has a nice degree of difficulty to it as well. And I like the choice between the Mass Effect/Deadspace 3rd person, to first person, all the way out to a farther view.
The only thing I would’ve liked that I haven’t seen so far is weather. But I’m not far enough to see that.
Finally, since I am a musician/composer, I have to say the music to this game wasn’t really thought out well at all. I’m pretty disappointed with a lot of the music tracks. They are weak in production and kind of kill the surreal post-apoc atmosphere. Mark Morgan did it best. To clarfy, some of the music was too “pretty” in the outside areas. The inside areas were pretty well done. The battle music probably could’ve been well thought out. The overall theme of the game was good (title screen) but I haven’t heard much of that. It still just doesn’t fit though. F3 music should’ve been very ambient, and almost ethnic at times with very light ambient tones. Piano there, ethnic flute there, and maybe a darker tone with strings. But the music I’m hearing is just too light. And some of it seems to have been slapped on the staves really quick.
So yeah, another game which I would’ve loved to have been hired to do.
Sigh…in time I suppose.
on October 29, 2008 at 11:28 PM - LINKI’ve beaten the game twice… once with a very good character and once with a very evil character. While there are some fun new things like the repair skill, the skill system overall is so much like Oblivion that it is almost painful. The skills max out at 100 (just like Oblivion and Morrowind) and not 300 like in the previous two Fallout titles as well as the players level being capped at 20. While this encourages the player to start a new character to experience the game in a very different manner, it discourages the accomplishment and does not deliver a true “open-ended” feel the game claims to uphold. Also, the game ends after you complete the main quest… so if you still want to explore… I hope you saved before entering the final quest sequence.
Combat-wise there really is not much point in investing in anything but the sneak, small guns, and repair skills. If you played Morrowind or Oblivion, investing in small guns and energy weapons is about as different as investing in either blades or blunts/axes—while in the previous two Fallout titles, energy weapons were much more powerful late game, vastly different from the other weapon types, and well worth the investment. Also, if you aren’t very skilled in repair or at least bartering, expect to never have enough caps to spend on anything other than just that—repairing your own equipment.
The main story/quest is interesting and engaging and the game itself encourages exploration. As much as I wish I loved Fallout 3 as I loved the previous two Fallout games… I truly feel it fell short by essentially boiling down to a modern Post-Apocalyptic Oblivion with guns.
Perhaps the most annoying thing is the constant recycled artwork and wreckage—especially the same model of broken down cars and empty nuka cola bottles/tin cans makes it seem like those are the only items populating the world at times. PLEASE give my dual SLI cards something new render!
Although, I can say that I’m VERY happy the enemies don’t scale to your level as they did in Oblivion—at least not to the same blatantly noticable extent—which makes the game seem a little more challenging and rewarding and not a series of consistently equal (and boring) challanges throughout.
Also, PLEASE release the TES toolset so the community can mod this to how we expected it to be!
on November 10, 2008 at 09:02 PM - LINK