Official Fallout 3 trailer

Crunchgear was kind enough to post up the official E3 trailer for Bethesda Software's upcoming retro-futuristic, post-apocalyptic sequel, Fallout 3. The opening live-action, 50s-style educational film strip is just a bit too wink-wink for its own good (if Fallout 1 showed us anything, it is that there is great emotional punch to playing the tropes of the era straight), but the end portions show the open-world Mad Max game I've waited my whole life to play.

[#1 posted by LogrusZed , July 15, 2008 12:38 PM]

Anyone have that Viagra phone number you're supposed to call if you have an erection that won't go away? Because I think I'm going to need that.

[#2 posted by Merc , July 15, 2008 1:43 PM]

The floating robot in the kitchen was a bit of a disappointment. The fallout games had a sort of "steampunk" quality to them, but rather than souped up industrial revolution technology it was souped up 1950s tech -- it looked sorta clunky and crude. The floating robot and the modern looking heads up display are not keeping with that spirit.

On the other hand, I really love what they've done with the combination of realtime or turn-based combat.

[#3 posted by Anonymous , July 15, 2008 1:54 PM]

That floating robot looks (to me) like it is based almost exactly on the ingame sprites of a robot. So I dont know how #2 things it's a departure from the previous games.

[#4 posted by LogrusZed , July 15, 2008 2:08 PM]

Merc: You should go back and replay the Fallout games I/II. The nicer high-tech stuff exists in both games as other Vault cities which were not destroyed continued to evolve and develop new technology. Some of the Vault-tech was acquirable off of quests or corpses of enemies.

[#5 posted by Scuba SM , July 15, 2008 2:36 PM]

Hmm... This game is extremely close to my ideal of a "modern" (as opposed to fantasy, such as Oblivion) RPG. I just wish there weren't any turns. Looks like I'll need to upgrade my comp again.

[#6 posted by SeppTB , July 15, 2008 3:42 PM]

Scuba SM - turn-based play is optional as I understand it. You can fight entirely in real-time and treat it as an rpg/fps hybrid, or if you want you can pause mid combat and adjust your aim and select skills to use and then resume.

[#7 posted by Scuba SM , July 15, 2008 5:06 PM]

SEPPTB,

Sweeeet. Well, there goes all my free time.

[#8 posted by downbycoleslaw , July 15, 2008 8:19 PM]

Wow. A combination of RTS, FPS and turn-based strategy? What could possibly go wrong?

I'm glad they didn't just kick up the graphics and write a new story, that would have been... gosh...

[#9 posted by Thraxamer , July 15, 2008 8:24 PM]

Almost makes me wish those Commie bastards had dropped the bomb back when I lived in the bomb shelter beneath the VFW. *sigh* Those were the days.

The gameplay segment... yeah, that sold me.

[#10 posted by Shane , July 15, 2008 9:34 PM]

I had really hoped that some fine souls would make a Mad Max-based mod when HL2 came out... no such luck. This may have to do.

[#11 posted by holtt , July 15, 2008 10:33 PM]

I absolutely love the look of the user interface in this and the older versions of Fallout. Actually STALKER is somewhat similar. Check out the new trailer for the new sequel to STALKER at http://www.davinci-days.org/

What I really dig in both these game user interfaces is this old 50's/60's style displays, especially the analog meters in the STALKER UI. I've actually created some case mods that utilize big old clunky black analog meters to show disk activity. The key is to find DC miliamp meters that max out at about 25. THat is right on target with what you'll get out of the disk activity LED on a PC, and if you just snip the LED leads and put them on the meter, you get instant needle "flicks" when there's disk activity.

[#12 posted by the_boy , July 15, 2008 11:16 PM]

I'm going to ditto #1

The only Fallout game I ever really played was Fallout: Tactics (which isn't canon, as far as The Vault [http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page] is concerned), but it was an incredible world to play in. I love the retro-futurism of the series, and I've had friends audition for plays with the "War, War Never Changes" monologue.

Really, what I'm trying to say is that I'm a huge dork, and this is like crack for me.

[#13 posted by eustace , July 15, 2008 11:24 PM]

I can hardly wait.
Fallout 1 delivered a real WTF moment for me early in the game. I had entered my first town, and was leaving my first trader's store, where I had killed the trader (only to be sorely disappointed in the loot).
The game was top-down, isometric, God's-eye view. As I left the store, I noticed something funny about the town. Every person in it was moving towards me (and the stray dogs, too). One after another they wordlessly attacked me; once I ran out of ammo it didn't take long. The sensation of horror was very real.

[#14 posted by Marshall , July 16, 2008 12:33 AM]

Mr. Handy!

[#15 posted by Anonymous , July 16, 2008 3:47 AM]

oh really? something steampunkish on this website?

NO WAY.

[#16 posted by Anonymous , July 16, 2008 6:15 AM]

@ #2 http://fallout.rpgplanet.gamespy.com/fallout1/images/guardrobot3.jpg

[#17 posted by theraptscallion , July 16, 2008 8:35 AM]

I particularly loved the presence of my favorite cereal lifted straight from Calvin & Hobbes, Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs!

[#18 posted by bagoombah , July 16, 2008 10:44 AM]

I love that the phone number for Vault-Tec works and that there are only ninety two thousand minutes to wait for next available assistant.

I want my bomb shelter NOW!